TRUE STORY: based on the New York Times’ use of her, it’s safe to say that charlize theron is basically now the brand ambassador for “ghosting.”

fyi, per the NYT, ghosting is:

Ghost, a word more commonly associated with Casper, the boy who saw dead people and a 1990 movie starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, has also come to be used as a verb that refers to ending a romantic relationship by cutting off all contact and ignoring the former partner’s attempts to reach out.

it is also, per the NYT in a follow-up piece dedicated to reader responses, “a tactic most recently said to be used by Charlize Theron.”

who hast “said” this, one might wonder… based on the NYT’s inclusion in the original post of a link to a jezebel post, one might assume this news of theron’s ghosting originated on jezebel.

OH BUT WAIT.

the jezebel post literally begins with this phrase: “According to the rumor mill.” and if we, you know, actually look at the post, it’s immediately clear that jezebel isn’t reporting that theron ghosted penn. jezebel is reporting that us weekly reported theron ghosted penn.

and so, the link the NYT’s uses to source this connection between theron and ghosting isn’t the actual source but a source quoting that source… this:

for years now, i’ve been saying that most people are reading us weekly whether they realize it or not. my argument just got a little more convincing, non?