TABLOID INTRO
TMZ
MYSTERY PRINCE SPOTTED WITH ROMAN HELTON AT EXCLUSIVE AFTERPARTY
Saudi royal Prince Khalid Al-Rashid was photographed with actress Roman Helton last night looking VERY cozy. Who is this guy and how long have they been a thing? Our sources say the chemistry was REAL.
DAILY MAIL
ROMAN HELTON'S NEW FLAME: SAUDI PRINCE KHALID AL-RASHID
The wildchild actress has a new beau—and he's literally royalty. Prince Khalid, 31, educated in the US, extremely wealthy. But insiders warn: "Roman doesn't do serious relationships. This will end badly." So what's different about this one?
PAGE SIX
Is Roman Helton finally ready to settle down? The actress was spotted entering Prince Khalid's penthouse at 11 PM and didn't leave until morning. 👀 And get this—they barely said a word to each other all night. Very tense. Very charged.
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NARRATIVE
The Meridian Gala is exactly what Khalid despises: beautiful people performing for other beautiful people, each transaction coded in flattery and positioning. The charity work is real—he supports three foundations and has written checks that could fund a lot of their works. But the performance? The theater of it all? He'd rather be literally anywhere else.
He's in the corner, which is where men like him belong, observing, not performing. His business partner dragged him here to network, to be seen, to let people know that Prince Khalid Al-Rashid supports their cause. So he wears the suit and makes the appearance.
And he watches. Almost creepy.
There's a woman in the center of the ballroom, and she's committing what he can only describe as a calculated reduction of herself.
She's 5'7", without the heels maybe, beautiful in a way that commands attention, wearing a black dress that's just barely appropriate. She's positioned herself in a cluster of men—filmmakers, producers, someone who definitely owns a studio. And she's moving through them like a predator who's learned that the prey wants to be caught.
Her hand touches one man's arm. Lingers. She leans against his chest and laughs at something he's said, and the laugh is theatrical, designed to be heard three tables over. She's reading the room, calculating the attention, measuring the return on investment of her sexuality.
She shifts to another man. This one is older, more powerful, definitely someone important. She places a hand on his chest; high, careful, professional, but her eyes are playful. Suggestive. She's saying something that makes him laugh, and Khalid watches this man's pupils dilate.
And the conclusion he comes to is, she's selling herself.
Not in a tragic way. In a strategic way. And Khalid finds it disgusting.
Not the sexuality. Not the flirtation. But the reduction. This woman, who is clearly intelligent, clearly capable, has decided that the highest and best use of herself is as a sexual object for men with power. She's turned herself into a transaction.
He's still watching her twenty minutes later when she moves to a fourth man. This one she touches differently. More intimate. She runs her nails up his arm, leans against him, whispers something in his ear that makes him look like he might combust. She's definitely gone past flirtation into something more deliberate.
She's touching him like she wants to take him somewhere private.
And that's when Khalid does something he's never done before. He closes the distance between them. His 6'3'' height to his advantage, he leans down so his mouth is near her ear, close enough that his words are just for her but loud enough that she can't pretend he's not there.
"Does this do it," he says quietly, "or do you go beyond?"
The implication is clear: 'Are you trading your body for roles? Is this how you get ahead? Is this as far as you go or are you willing to go further?'
She turns slowly, and now he can see her face fully. She's prettier up close, but more importantly, she's sharper. Her eyes are intelligent, and they're angry.
"I'm sorry," she says, her voice smooth as silk with an edge underneath, "have we met? Because I don't recall giving you permission to insert yourself into my conversation."
"We haven't. But I've been watching you reduce yourself for the past twenty minutes, so I figured I'd weigh in."
She steps back slightly, and he can see her reassessing him. Noting his suit, his bearing, his certainty. Trying to figure out what his play is.
"You've been watching me," she says. "For twenty minutes. And your conclusion is that I'm reducing myself?"
"Aren't you?"
She sets down her champagne with the precision of someone who's about to say something she's been thinking for a long time.
"Let me explain something to you," she says, and her voice is sharp now, no performance in it, just pure intelligence and anger. "I have to get what I want, and you're calling it reduction. But that's not reduction. That's strategy."
"Strategy for what?"
"For getting what I want in a room full of men who have more power than I do. You see a woman using her sexuality. I see a woman using the only leverage she has to level an uneven playing field." She steps closer, and now she's the one using the height difference, tilting her head to maintain eye contact. "And you know what's really rich? You're keeping score. You're the only one in this ballroom who's actually judging anyone. These men—" she gestures at the cluster she was just working "—they're having fun. They know the game. We're all adults. But you? You're standing over there like the moral arbiter of the evening, deciding who's pure and who's corrupt."
He's quiet for a moment because she's right, and he knows it.
"So you know what game you're playing," he says finally.
"Of course I know. I designed it."
"And you're okay with reducing yourself to that?"
"I'm not reducing myself. I'm using myself strategically. There's a difference." She pauses. "The fact that you can't see the difference is actually kind of sad. It means you think there's only one version of me, the transactional sexual object you're seeing right now. It means you can't conceive of a woman who's intelligent enough to know exactly what she's doing and do it anyway."
She turns to leave. Actually turns away from him, which he wasn't expecting.
But he's not done watching her yet.
He tries to ignore her for the rest of the night. Tries to focus on the charity work and the networking and the reason he came. But every time he looks up, she's there, still performing, still working the room, still using the tools she has to get what she wants.
When it comes time to leave, she's nowhere to be found.
He assumes she left with one of the men she was working. Assumes the game ended in the way these games typically end. Assumes she's exactly what she appeared to be: a woman who sells her time and attention to the highest bidder.
He's almost to the door when she appears in his path.
"You," she says, and she's not performing now. She's sharp and bitter and completely real. "You have the audacity to judge me for playing the game that you people created?"
He stops. Waits.
"I was in that room doing exactly what works," she continues. "And you…sitting in the corner like you're too good for all of this. You judged me. And you know what the worst part is?"
"Tell me," he says, and he's genuinely curious now.
"You didn't notice any of the other men doing the exact same thing. You didn't notice them touching, flirting, performing. You only noticed me. Because one cannot play the game without someone keeping score. And you, you were the only one keeping score."
She steps closer, and now she's the one looming slightly. She's 5'7" to his 6'3", so she has to tilt her head to maintain eye contact, but the way she's looking at him. like she's seeing him completely, like she's already dissecting every judgment he made, makes him feel small.
"You exist to be an audience," she says. " So just enjoy the show."
Then she turns and walks away.
And Khalid stands in the foyer of the Meridian Gala, realizing three things:
First, he completely misjudged her. She's not a victim of her own strategy. She's the architect of it.
Second, she's intelligent in a way that most people aren't. She saw him immediately. Understood what he was doing. Called him out perfectly.
Third, and this is the dangerous one. He's not going to be able to stop thinking about her.
He doesn't even know her name yet.
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Micheal finds him still standing in the foyer.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," the man says.
"Do you know who that woman was?" Khalid asks. "The actress? Dark hair. Black dress. Absolutely shredding a man I'm pretty sure owns half of Paramount?"
His partner laughs. "Roman Helton. Wildchild actress. Hot property right now. She's in everything. Also, allegedly a nightmare to work with. Why?"
"Just curious," Khalid says, but his mind is already running in a dozen directions.
Roman Helton. Not a ghost. Something worse. Something that will occupy his thoughts for months.
He drives home, and the first thing he does is pull up her filmography. He watches clips of her performances. She's as talented as she is beautiful, which is a problem. He finds her Instagram, which is deliberately vague and theatrical. He reads the articles about her, all of which paint her as a wildchild, a risk-taker, someone who's built a brand on being unpredictable.
What they don't capture is the intelligence. The calculation. The fact that she understands exactly who she is and what she's doing with that information.
By 3 AM, Khalid has read every interview, every review, every piece of available information about Roman Helton.
By 4 AM, he's realized that he's probably going to see her again. And he's not sure if that's a good thing or a terrible thing.
By 5 AM, he's decided that he doesn't care which it is. He's going to see her again. He has to.
The only question is how.
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TABLOID OUTRO
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (Blind Item)
Which mysterious royal was spotted having an intense private conversation with an A-list actress at tonight's Meridian Gala? Sources say the two looked "deeply engaged" in conversation, and it didn't seem friendly. What was that about? One insider says there was "real tension" and "real chemistry" simultaneously. Make of that what you will.
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PAGE SIX
DRAMA AT THE MERIDIAN GALA: A PRINCE AND AN ACTRESS HAVE WORDS
Prince Khalid Al-Rashid and someone who looked very much like Roman Helton were seen having what appeared to be a heated exchange near the exit. Her hand was on her neck (nervous tell?). His jaw was clenched. What's the tea?? 👀
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TMZ
Video: Roman Helton and a tall, dark-haired man (later identified as Prince Khalid Al-Rashid) talking intensely. Her body language is confrontational. His is... completely captivated?
Caption: "WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHY IS ROMAN SO WORKED UP?? Also why does he look like he's about to follow her home??"