The Lip-Reading Hotshot of Celebrity Gossip

Not long ago, a video surfaced online that caused a stir, at least among the sizable subset of humanity that is emotionally invested in the matter of Kendall Jenner’s coiffure. The clip, recorded on Sept. 23, captured an encounter between Jenner, the model and reality star, and two fellow celebrities, the singer Camilla Cabello and the actress Eva Longoria, during the annual catwalk show for the cosmetics giant L’Oreal. The three women were in Paris, in the ornate Palais Garnier, the city’s historic opera house, engaged in an animated conversation. What exactly were they discussing? What secrets were being imparted? What dirt was being dished? Was any mention made of Bad Bunny, Jenner’s rumored on-again, off-again beau? As the poet said: Inquiring minds want to know.

An answer came, a week later, from Jackie Gonzalez, a.k.a. Jackie G, a young woman from San Antonio who claims expertise in a specialized field of decryption. Over the past year, Gonzalez, who is deaf, has made a splash on social media with her “deaf girl lip reads” posts, which purport to reveal the words spoken by famous people in paparazzi and B-roll footage. The Jenner video was typical fare. It opened with Gonzalez — a small woman with large eyeglasses and a spunky demeanor — facing the camera, superimposed over Jenner and company in Paris. Jackie G portrays her work as a kind of public service, meeting the needs of an audience thirsty for, as she often puts it, “tea.” In this case, she explained, her inbox had been bursting with requests to decipher the Jenner-Cabello tête-à-tête.

“Here’s what I’m seeing,” she said. Then, lip-syncing Jenner’s words as subtitles flashed onscreen, she gave us a conversation about, well, hair — specifically, the dye job that had transformed Jenner from brunette to blonde. “It took us three days,” Jackie-as-Jenner said. “Blond’s so hard, as you probably know. Especially getting it to the right, like, tone.” As tea goes, this is rather weak chamomile. But revelations like these have made Jackie G a star. Her videos have racked up millions of views and earned the adoration of followers awed by her skills. “You are a sorceress and it’s amazing!” gushed one commenter on the Jenner post.

Social media is a fairground teeming with sideshow performers, influencers who compete for clicks with feeds showcasing esoteric talents and stunts. There are celebrity impressionists, parkour daredevils, sleight-of-hand magicians. Gonzalez, who entered the public eye as a contestant on the Netflix reality competition “Squid Game: The Challenge,” frames her act as a personal triumph. As a child, she learned to read lips out of necessity. Now disability lends her a superpower: She is like a human hot mic, capable of amplifying the inaudible. But her viral success tells another story, too, about the changing nature — the shifting vibe — of celebrity gossip in the internet era.

As you watch Gonzalez’s videos, dark questions steal up on you.

One lesson offered by Jackie G is irrefutable: You can’t go wrong hawking Taylor Swift content. In her first lip-reading video, posted in September 2023, she gave her interpretation of footage that had transfixed the Swiftie internet — a clip of Travis Kelce, on the sidelines during a Kansas City Chiefs game, mouthing mysterious words while supposedly gazing up at the luxury box where Swift was seated. In the year since, a steady stream of Swift lip-readings has populated Jackie G’s feeds. Other boldface names pop up frequently: Emma Stone, Emily Blunt, Ryans Gosling and Reynolds and, of course, various Kardashians and Jenners, including Kendall’s sister, Kylie, who appears in a much-shared clip, whispering and cuddling with Timothée Chalamet at the Golden Globes. Gonzalez also does lip-readings of athletes (Simone Biles is a favorite) and politicians, including Kamala Harris.