World enews: Celebrity gossip account DeuxMoi lands HBO Max adaptation ahead of book release

Anon, please. DeuxMoi, the most popular celebrity gossip page on social media, is getting its own television adaptation, just weeks after the Instagram account announced its debut novel.

According to Deadline, HBO Max has given a script-to-series order to Anon Pls, which will be based on DeuxMoi’s debut novel of the same name.

The book, which hits shelves this November, follows Cricket Lopez, a nobody assistant to a celebrity stylist who decides one drunken night to rebrand her fashion Instagram page into a celebrity gossip blog. When the account grows overnight, Lopez must tackle the challenges of anonymous fame, field juicy gossip, and juggle a love interest who slides into her DMs. The book description reads, “But as the account grows and becomes more and more famous, she has to wonder: is it — the fame, the insider access, the escape from real life — really worth losing everything she has?”

What do we know about the anonymous DeuxMoi?

The self-described “curators of pop culture” has more than 1.5m followers on Instagram. The account is not just followed by regular Joe’s looking to see if their submission was posted to DeuxMoi’s “Sunday Sightings” series. Celebrities such as Dua Lipa, Gigi Hadid, and a collection of C-list Bravo stars also follow the page, in case they need to shut down some unfounded gossip about themselves.

The DeuxMoi Instagram account took off in 2020 as people were isolated indoors with nothing better to do than scroll through their social media feeds. The account survives off of “blind items”, in which salacious details are revealed about celebrities, but their identities are not.

Hundreds of submissions are sent to DeuxMoi daily, each one beginning with the salutation, “Anon please”. Then, the eponymous DeuxMoi selects a few screenshots to share to their Instagram story.

The gossip account has become the go-to for breaking celebrity news, only to be confirmed days later by PR representatives or major news outlets. From Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes’ breakup to Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde dating, DeuxMoi has been there first.

While the identity of its elusive founder remains anonymous, DeuxMoi has done several anonymous interviews for publications including The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and most recently Marie Claire and Interview magazine. According to Vanity Fair, DeuxMoi is in fact run by a woman seemingly in her 20s or 30s, and she formerly had a career in fashion. The account creator has even revealed her voice on DeuxMoi’s weekly podcast, Deux U.

It’s safe to say DeuxMoi is the real-life version of Gossip Girl.

The upcoming book, Anon Pls, written by DeuxMoi with New York Times bestselling author Jessica Goodman, will be published 8 November by William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins. Warner Bros Television and Berlanti Productions secured the rights to the book.