If 2025 were a TV show, nobody would believe the script.
A pop star literally left Earth. A fashion icon hung up her sunglasses. Ocean’s Fourteen happened at the Louvre, but make it real, and the Coldplay kiss cam saga became the villain origin story of corporate America. Look, it was so unhinged that we made a vodcast about it all, and you can watch that above!
Here are the pop culture moments that had us gasping and sending frantic screenshots to the group chat in 2025.
Katy Perry officially left the planet
Katy Perry must have looked around at Earth in 2025 and thought, “I’m good, thanks.”
On April 14, she blasted off from West Texas on Blue Origin’s NS-31 mission, joining an all-female crew featuring Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn and Kerianne Flynn.
It was the first all-women spaceflight since 1963 — and the first time a pop star casually treated an 11-minute suborbital journey like a day trip.
Fans watched in stunned fascination as Katy floated in zero gravity with a daisy, documenting the whole adventure with full pop-star enthusiasm. Celebrity culture officially reached the edge of space, and honestly, it felt perfectly 2025.
Kris Jenner debuted her ‘new’ face
Kris Jenner broke the internet again, this time with a dramatically refreshed appearance following her second facelift.
First teased on The Kardashians season seven premiere and later revealed at events like Shark Glam and her star-studded birthday celebrations, Kris described the surgery as a simple “refresh” to feel her best.
The internet, however, went into forensic-analysis mode. Zoom-ins. Side-by-sides. Think-pieces on ageing, beauty standards and Kris’ uncanny ability to control a news cycle. Think-pieces on ageing, beauty standards and Kris’ genuinely supernatural ability to control a news cycle.
Her post-procedure glow dominated celebrity and beauty conversations for weeks, proving once again that nobody — and we mean nobody — commands the cultural conversation quite like a Kardashian-Jenner. The momager stays undefeated.
Sydney Sweeney’s jeans ad ruffles feathers
Sydney Sweeney sent the internet into a denim-fuelled meltdown when American Eagle dropped their “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign on July 23.
A caption meant to riff on “genes” turned into a cultural lightning rod that had everyone picking sides faster than you could say “algorithm”.
Critics accused the ad of everything from racial undertones to male-gaze pandering, while Sydney said she was simply excited about her love of jeans.
The discourse was extensive.
Meanwhile, sales skyrocketed, her custom denim sold out faster than concert tickets, and TikTok recreated the commercial approximately eight million times.
Say what you will, but the campaign achieved exactly what it set out to do: get literally everyone talking. Mission accomplished, we guess?
Anna Wintour stepped down from Vogue
After close to 40 years ruling fashion with her trademark bob and sunglasses, Anna Wintour officially stepped down as editor-in-chief of Vogue on June 26.
The announcement ended years of industry speculation and marked one of the biggest leadership changes in modern fashion history — like, we’re talking end-of-an-era, passing-of-the-torch, cultural-seismic-shift levels.
Wintour will continue in her global roles at Condé Nast, but her exit from Vogue signalled the end of an era.
Designers, celebrities and fashion insiders shared tributes while the internet immediately began debating who could possibly succeed her. Spoiler: nobody thinks anyone can fill those sunglasses. It was a cultural shift on a level we haven’t seen since the early 2000s, and honestly? We’re still processing it.
Blake Lively v Justin Baldoni became the legal drama of the year
What started as whispers about tension on the It Ends With Us set exploded into one of Hollywood’s messiest legal battles when Blake Lively filed a complaint in December 2024 accusing co-star and director Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment during filming.
The allegations quickly spiralled into duelling lawsuits, with Baldoni launching a $400 million defamation suit against Lively, Ryan Reynolds and The New York Times – which was later dismissed by a judge who found Lively’s sexual harassment accusations were “legally protected” as part of a legal proceeding.
But the real drama centred on allegations of an orchestrated online smear campaign against Lively, with her team claiming Baldoni’s PR team weaponised social media to paint her as a “bully” and “mean girl” in retaliation for speaking out.
The case dragged in everyone from Taylor Swift to various PR firms, with the trial date now pushed to May 2026 and both sides showing zero interest in backing down.
The Louvre Heist captivated the world
Every year delivers one true-crime story that hijacks the entire internet, and 2025’s belonged to the Louvre.
On October 19, thieves cosplaying as construction workers infiltrated the Galerie d’Apollon and yeeted eight French Crown Jewels worth €88 million in under eight minutes. Eight. Minutes. Barely enough time to pick a Netflix show.
The crew sliced through a balcony window, grabbed priceless treasures including a tiara dripping with 1,300 diamonds, then bounced on scooters along the Seine.
As security failures and CCTV blind spots came to light, the internet went full armchair detective. Art nerds, true-crime junkies and Reddit sleuths assembled like the Avengers, spawning theory threads longer than War and Peace.
It wasn’t just a heist — it was the prestige crime thriller of 2025.
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