Daniel is a freelance writer and the reason Startefacts has a standing opinion on The Traitors.
He joined the site in 2023 after a few years of writing about local government, which turned out to be solid preparation for Real Housewives reunions: the same amount of shouting, but here you're allowed to say who was lying.
His beat is unscripted television in all its forms — Survivor, Big Brother, Love Is Blind, Below Deck, the entire Bravo ecosystem, and whichever true-crime docuseries Netflix has just put at number one. He has watched every season of Survivor, including the ones nobody defends, keeps a spreadsheet ranking the winners that he refuses to publish, and has a firm rule about finishing the episode before opening Reddit. He has broken that rule exactly twice and regretted it both times.
He also covers the game shows nobody files under reality TV until Wheel of Fortune changes a rule that hasn't moved since 1975, or Jeopardy announces a new host and half the country has feelings about it. He has been to one BravoCon. He came back with a tote bag, no voice, and a new respect for people who do that three days in a row.
When something is trending because "fans are furious," Daniel goes and counts the fans. When a show is "cancelled," he waits for the network to say so. When a reality star "breaks silence," he reads the whole caption, including the part after the ellipsis.
'She went rogue': 911 audio from Tampa airport shows how long it took to find Milania Giudice
The last place anyone saw her was next to a 21-foot pink flamingo. The police radio traffic made public on Friday fills in what the deleted Instagram clip left out, and her father has now answered the clip too.
Keke Wyatt was arrested on child cruelty charges in Georgia — and the news took five days to get out
Five days passed between the booking and the first headline, and the reporting still disagrees on the one detail that matters most: which of Georgia's three very different versions of this charge she is actually facing.
Ed Sheeran's Boston concerts were canceled hours before showtime at the stadium that banned Macklemore
A protest was on the calendar, the replacement openers had quit within hours of being hired, and the stage crew in Foxborough had already downed tools. Then, on the morning of the first show, the whole weekend was called off — by the one party in this fight nobody gets to argue with.
Jessica Lange's first answer about returning to AHS was 'Christ, no' — Ryan Murphy's winning argument took one word
She walked away after Freak Show and later answered the comeback question with a curse. Tonight Jessica Lange is back on FX, and Ryan Murphy's version of how he got her there fits in one word.
Chris Brown's $12.9 million dog attack verdict is about to shrink by $5 million, and the judge gave the housekeeper one alternative
He didn't call 911 because he worried the recording would leak, and a jury made him pay for how that night went. The bill is now being rewritten from the bench, and the choice about what happens next isn't his.
Who is Fulton Sheen? The bishop who beat Lucille Ball to an Emmy was just declared 'blessed' in front of 50,000 people
Before televangelists and prestige TV, a bishop with a cape and a chalkboard went up against Milton Berle on Tuesday nights and took a chunk of his audience. Then he took an Emmy, with a joke about his writers people still repeat.
Goalkeeper Maduka Okoye was in Milan with Cardi B while Nigeria trained without him: now the coach has 'decisions' to make
He went viral for one save, got crowned the internet's most attractive goalkeeper and landed next to Cardi B at a couture show. His national team coach, with a qualifier on Friday and a keeper short, is considerably less charmed.
Susan Sarandon and Hacks' Hannah Einbinder were detained outside Netanyahu's UN speech. Sarandon has done this before
One of them won her first Emmy a year ago and used the speech to make a point. The other has been arrested at protests since the Vietnam War era and says it is still costing her movie roles.
Heart of the Beast is at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics keep saying the real star isn't Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt spent months in the New Zealand cold, shot a survival movie with his Fury director, and got the best reviews of that director's career. The critics' thank-you notes, however, keep going to someone who eats boiled chicken.
Billie Lourd's kids are getting to know Carrie Fisher through Star Wars — in one scene, Leia is actually their mom
Billie Lourd went on daytime TV to plug a new season of AHS and came away with the most tender Star Wars story of the week. The kids know grandma mostly as a movie character — and one scene of that movie stars someone much closer to home.