For years, when thinking of holiday movies on TV, Hallmark Channel has been the go-to — mostly because of the team behind it and the celebrities attached. However, GAC Media is giving the network a run for its money.
Former CEO of Crown Media Family Networks (Hallmark Channel’s parent company) Bill Abbott acquired GAC, originally Great American Country, in June 2021. Abbott stepped down from Crown Media in January 2020 following the company’s handling of a commercial featuring a same-sex couple. At the time, a Zola.com ad showed two women exchanging vows and kissing on their wedding day. After conservative groups slammed the ad as not being “family-friendly,” Hallmark pulled it — and caused an uproar. Eventually, Abbott changed his tune and placed the clip back on the network.
The backlash came after years of criticism about Hallmark Channel’s lack of diversity and LGBTQ+ story lines.
“I think that generalization isn’t fair, either, that we just have Christmas with white leads,” Abbott told The Hollywood Reporter in November 2020. “In terms of broadening out the demographic, it’s something we’re always thinking about, always considering and we’ll continue to make the movies where the best scripts are delivered to us and what we think have the most potential.”
The company was split into two brands — GAC Family and GAC Living, both of which launched in September 2021.
GAC Family’s first original series will be season 2 of When Hope Calls, which includes former Hallmark mainstay Lori Loughlin’s return to TV. Season 1 aired on Hallmark Channel in 2019.
In October 2021, GAC Family announced “12 Movies of Christmas,” the network’s holiday celebration, which will feature an original Christmas movie each Saturday night. Following Thanksgiving weekend — which included three nights in a row of original holiday movies — new Christmas programming will air each Saturday and Sunday night throughout December as part of Great American Christmas, GAC Family’s franchise.
The company rebranded to Great American Media — made up of Great American Family and Great American Living — in July 2022.
When the lineup was announced, many fans realized that some of Hallmark’s staple stars are included — and some are making the move permanently over to Great American Family. Scroll down for a full breakdown:
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Susan Lucci reflected on what it was like when she suffered from a heart attack in 2018 in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife at the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women Red Dress Collection Concert on Wednesday, February 1. The actress, 76, said that she wanted to include her “Empower Your Heart” jewelry line as a way of “saying thank you to the American Heart Association,” after her own experience with a heart attack.
The All My Children star revealed that she got tested after learning hearing an interview where a woman said that the symptoms that women experience during a heart attack are different from men’s. “I avoided a near-fatal heart attack,” Susan told HollywoodLife. “I also was very lucky to have people getting me to the hospital right away.”
Susan opened up about exactly what the symptoms she experienced were, and luckily the doctor was able to operate quickly. “At that hospital, a wonderful, wonderful cardiologist let me know that I had a 90% blockage in my main artery and a 75% blockage in the adjacent,” she said. “I had no idea except that I felt like an elephant pressing on my chest. And he put two stents in that night. And I was released the next day.”
Thankfully, the mother of two was able to recover, but the healthcare providers also told Susan that the heart attack she experienced was a “widowmaker,” and she may not have survived if she didn’t act as quickly as she had. “I was told by the nurses had I not come in, [they were] very sure that I wasn’t going to wake up if I had just gone home,” she revealed.
Susan teamed up with the jewelry brand Tiary for her “Empower Your Heart” line, which will donate 25% of each sale to the American Heart Association’s Life is Why campaign through December 31, 2023. Susan told HL that it was a “dream” to get to raise money for the American Heart Association.
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Bad Bunny is best known as a Puerto Rican rapper and singer.
He is romantically involved with Gabriela Berlingeri.
Bad Bunny is nominated for three 2023 Grammy Awards, which air on Feb. 5.
Bad Bunny has been one of the music industry’s rising stars for years now. As the Latin music superstar (whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) gets ready to go to the 2023 Grammy Awards, where he will perform and see if he won any of the three categories he’s nominated in, his longtime girlfriend Gabriela Berlingeri will surely be cheering him on! He is in the running for Album of the Year, Best Música Urbana Album, and Best Pop Solo Performance. The previous Grammy-winner has been dating Gabriela, 28, for the past five years and sometimes shows her off on his Instagram. Despite keeping much of their relationship private, Bad Bunny, 28, and his girlfriend seem so in love with each other.
Find out everything you need to know about Gabriela and Bad Bunny here!
How did Bad Bunny & Gabriela Berlingeri meet?
Bad Bunny clearly has a good sense of humor about his relationship. He quipped that the two “met while sinning,” in a May 2020 Rolling Stone interview. Despite his sultry response, he corrected himself and revealed that he and Gabriela’s first time meeting in 2017 was actually much more low-key. “It was after I sang at a Zion and Lennox concert, here in Puerto Rico. I met her at some restaurant, while I was eating with my parents and my brothers. We started talking and from there, we continued to see each other,” he told the magazine. In more recent years, she’s appeared in his social media, and the pair have even adopted a dog together, as the musician revealed in a TikTok.
What does Gabriela do for a living?
The “Me Porto Bonito” singer’s passion for fashion is well-known, and he definitely shares that love with Gabriela. She owns a jewelry line Diciembre Ventinueve (Translation: December 29), which she started in 2020. Her line is handmade in Puerto Rico, according to the company’s Instagram bio, and she offers a wide array of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and rings. Aside from her jewelry line, the entrepreneur has also dabbled a bit in modeling, per Bustle. She took the photos for her boyfriend’s Rolling Stone cover story.
She’s sung on a Bad Bunny track
When Bad Bunny dropped his surprise album Las Que No Ibran A Salir in May 2020, the closing track had a surprise guest vocalist. The song featured some contributions from the rapper’s girlfriend, credited simply as “Gabriela.” The pair dueted on “En Casita,” which was a song reflecting on their feelings in quarantine amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also appeared on the outro to his 2022 track “El Apagón,” per Genius.
Those are not the only time that they’ve worked together musically. When Bad Bunny was working on his collaboration with Jennifer Lopez “Te Gusté,” Gabriela was an important part of the process. “Gabriela recorded references for J. Lo’s vocals,” he told Rolling Stone.
What has Bad Bunny said about her?
Despite keeping their relationship very private for years, Bad Bunny has opened up a little more about her since they started collaborating. Before going public, he’d shared that he was “in love” in an Entertainment Tonight interview in March 2020. While speaking about their relationship, he revealed that his sense of humor is very important to their love in a Rolling Stone interview. “I like to make her laugh. I am always playing and always doing something crazy and fun,” he said.
When speaking about their 2022 collaboration, Bad Bunny revealed how important it was to have Gabriela sing it during a New York Times interview. “I wanted someone to sing it out of love, because it’s a sincere message,” he explained.
While the couple seems incredibly happy together, it’s not clear if they’ve discussed the possibility of tying the knot. Bad Bunny opened up about his insecurities about it in a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight. “I’m not that married,” he told the outlet. “Maybe it can be that. But I think that weddings and get[ting] married scare me. A lot.”
Who else has he dated?
Given how private Bad Bunny was about his relationship with Gabriela, it’s no surprise that he was also pretty private about his past love Carliz De La Cruz, but it seems like when Bad Bunny is in a relationship, he’s committed for a long time. He and Carliz also dated for five years, per People En Espanol.
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