Lifestyle
These Rooms Give Young Indian Lovers Rare Privacy. Cue the Complaints.
Privacy can be hard to come by in India. Life is a communal swirl of relatives, neighbors and friends. Cities are crowded, and prying eyes are everywhere.
Enter Oyo, a popular hotel-booking platform. The company, backed by big names in venture capital, built a hip reputation as a gateway to “love hotels” for unmarried couples. Inside its budget rooms, young lovers who might otherwise be left to steal furtive kisses in the nooks and crannies of public parks or shopping malls could exert their passions behind closed doors.
Now, Oyo is stepping back from its image as a refuge for hookups. This month, it revised its policy guidelines to give some partner hotels the discretion to deny rooms to young couples unless they provide proof of marriage.
So far, the change applies only to Meerut, a midsize city northeast of New Delhi. The company said the new policy was a response to complaints by civil society groups and was formulated “in line with local social sensibilities.”
Oyo’s move spurred memes and a backlash on social media, especially among 20-somethings. To many, it drove home the tension between traditional values and modern ideals that defines life for millions of young Indians.
Premarital sex is still largely taboo in this deeply conservative country, where marriages are traditionally arranged by families. It is widely viewed as a malign import from the less-inhibited West, and as an affront to Indian culture that is either to be policed or left unacknowledged.
The stigma around sex before marriage is about “family honor,” said Chirodip Majumdar, an associate professor at Rabindra Mahavidyalaya, a college in the eastern state of West Bengal. Nonetheless, more young people are doing it anyway, studies show.
Attitudes about premarital sex vary along class lines, Mr. Majumdar said, with higher-income people viewing it more favorably. “They have more scope of social interactions, more knowledge about birth control mechanisms, more exposure to Western culture,” he said.
Many young Indians, too, have embraced liberal attitudes toward dating and sex that transcend caste, class and religion, which still often dictate arranged marriages.
Dating apps like Tinder are popular, as are hookups. A 2022 study published in the journal Sexuality & Culture found that 55 percent of young adults in four cities in India “engaged in hooking up, indicating that the norm regarding sexual behavior might be shifting.”
Neha, a 34-year-old counselor based in Bengaluru, said she and her husband rented Oyo rooms twice a week when they were dating. Neha, who asked that her last name not be used, recalled the judgmental glances that hotel owners, including those that did not use the Oyo platform, often directed her way.
At some hotels, the proprietors questioned their marital status before turning them away.
But Oyo became such a core part of their romance that when the couple got married in 2017, their animated video wedding invitation contained a reference to the hotel platform.
“Everyone knew we were using Oyo,” Neha said, adding, “So we put that in our wedding invite.”
The lack of private spaces in India to engage in intimacy created a market for companies like Oyo.
It is not uncommon to see young lovers exchange stealthy kisses in nearly empty movie theaters or under the archways of abandoned monuments in the blazing heat of a Delhi summer. Bathroom stalls and fitting rooms are all fair game. Cybercafes can be a make-out zone.
In the acclaimed 2024 movie “All We Imagine as Light,” which explores the intersecting lives of three women in Mumbai, one of the characters finds a deserted patch of forest to have sex with her boyfriend.
Manforce, which bills itself as India’s best-selling condom brand, last year featured a series of humorous ads with couples getting it on in private corners of public spaces — a car, a park, a cinema.
Oyo was founded in 2013 and is backed by investment firms, including SoftBank. It expanded to the United States in 2019, and last year it bought the Motel 6 chain.
In India, it offers rooms for as little as 500 rupees, or less than $6, a night, no questions asked. The platform became popular with small-hotel owners, who by signing up with Oyo are required to abide by its standards and use its branding.
On Google, one of the first search questions for Oyo is “Can I stay in Oyo with my girlfriend?” Although Oyo also serves solo business travelers and other customers, the company leaned into its image, offering room searches under filters like “relationship mode.”
Now, however, it is pursuing more families.
In an ad released last year, a young couple sits at the dinner table with the woman’s family. Their marital status is unclear. After she tells her father that they have booked a weekend trip with Oyo, he looks at them, horrified.
When the couple says it is more fun with family, the father expresses confusion: “What are you talking about?” The next frame shows the entire family checking into a sparkling Oyo hotel. The father then says, “This is what you’re talking about!”
Pragati K.B. contributed reporting.
Lifestyle
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Loewe Salone del Mobile collection
From left to right: Simone Fattal, Rosemarie Trockel, Madoda Fani
(LOEWE)
Luxury fashion house Loewe invited 25 artists, designers and architects from across the globe to defy convention for its 2025 collection of teapots, available exclusively at Palazzo Citterio in Milan. Choose from artistic innovations such as Shozo Michikawa’s angular ceramic sculpture, David Chipperfield’s copper-handled design and Madoda Fani’s unglazed, rich red hue. Browse 👉🏽 here.
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On Saturday Night Live’s cold open, James Austin Johnson played President Donald Trump and Emil Wakim played Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a sketch about Trump’s Middle East trip.
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Will Heath/NBC
After watching a storied comedy brand finish one of its most creatively successful seasons in recent memory, I couldn’t help but think of a pressing question:
What’s next for Saturday Night Live?
No matter how well things go on a given episode or in a given season, it isn’t long before that question re-emerges — especially given how eager some in the entertainment press have always been to pen the show’s eulogy. In a way, it’s the biggest drawback for a show that boasts the potential of reinventing itself every week.
Ironically, Saturday’s episode didn’t give many hints about the ultimate answer, despite capping SNL’s highly-hyped 50th anniversary season.
Even though Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost’s wife Scarlett Johansson hosted this year’s season finale – boosting rumors that he and onscreen partner Michael Che might announce their departure then – they didn’t, and everything unfolded in a typical fashion featuring a star who has become a regular, game contributor. (Though Jost did hand his wife a bouquet of red roses during the final goodbye segment.)
The numbers, provided by NBC, tell a story of success: they say SNL will finish its season as the top broadcast entertainment program among viewers aged 18 to 49. (That’s a relatively youthful and ad-friendly group for TV watchers.) The network also says this season has averaged 8.2 million viewers each week across all platforms.
So, as much as some critics may still want to shade the show, SNL remains one of the most powerful brands in comedy. But following up the hype of its 50th anniversary next season may be its biggest remaining challenge.
Here’s where I think SNL stands – and questions that remain – as it wraps up one of its most successful seasons in recent memory.
What happens to Weekend Update if Jost and Che both depart after this season?
The biggest parlor game among SNL fans at the end of a season is playing “who’s leaving the cast this year?” Johansson even joked in her musical monologue that castmember Sarah Sherman was leaving, to Sherman’s mock astonishment. And the biggest rumor before Saturday’s broadcast was that Weekend Update hosts and veteran writers Jost and Che might be out the door after cementing their status as the longest-running anchors of SNL’s newscast parody.
Colin Jost and Michael Che during Weekend Update in December.
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In recent years, Update has emerged as the most reliable segment in an often-uneven show, as Che and Jost honed their oddball chemistry as an uncaring provocateur paired with a snarky guy willing to parody his own privilege. Assuming they might still leave, let me breeze past obvious successor suggestions — like castmember and frequent Update contributor Michael Longfellow — to provide a suggestion from left field: Josh Johnson, the prolific standup comic and Daily Show correspondent. It’s true that Johnson, who has built a growing fanbase with a long string of immensely popular YouTube videos, already seems to be developing a career on his own terms. But taking the reins of a comedy institution like Update could boost his work to a new level while pointing the way toward SNL’s future.
SNL made news this year beyond its comedy.
Who knew an SNL bit could spark real-life gossip about one of TV’s biggest hits? After Sherman parodied The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood in the sketch dubbed “The White Potus,” Wood called the portrayal “mean and unfunny” on social media and loads of coverage followed. (It didn’t help that Wood’s Lotus co-star Walton Goggins initially complimented the sketch on SNL’s Instagram page, fueling rumors of a rift between the two.)
Sarah Sherman during “The White Potus” sketch on April 12, 2025.
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And, in a separate controversy, a bit Ego Nwodim led playing a hacky standup comic during an Update segment prompted the audience to shout out a curse word in unison, unplanned. Nwodim says she eventually talked to executive producer Lorne Michaels to see if the show was going to be fined — and in a bit during Saturday’s Update playing that character again, she was a little more careful about what cues she gave the audience. But that earlier bit also produced one of the most talked-about moments of the season. Proof that SNL can still make news even when the subject isn’t its landmark anniversary.
Speculation about when or whether Lorne Michaels will leave the show now seems beside the point.
At age 80, Michaels seems like the Highlander of network television – an enduring force, forever the show’s wise and steady hand, guiding events from behind-the-scenes. However he has divided authority among his lieutenants, things seem to be working – the show produced a string of consistently good episodes in 2025, particularly in programs featuring guests hosts Jack Black and Jon Hamm. Those successes, combined with the reputation-boosting triumph of the 50th anniversary celebrations, should be enough to quiet the “when is Lorne retiring?” rumors for at least another season. (As I have said before, when the inevitable retirement does happen, if the show doesn’t end, I think Seth Meyers would be an awesome successor, or perhaps Jost.)
Despite a Kamala Harris cameo, SNL hasn’t quite figured out a consistently groundbreaking way to lampoon modern politics. But that’s okay.
It feels like a lifetime ago when then-Vice President Harris sat across from Maya Rudolph in a sketch airing just before November’s presidential election. That was also the episode that gave us a cavalcade of celebrity guest stars playing political figures, including Dana Carvey as then-President Joe Biden, Andy Samberg as Harris’ hubby Doug Emhoff and Jim Gaffigan as Harris’ running mate Tim Walz.
Maya Rudolph and then-Vice President Kamala Harris during the cold open on November 2, 2024.
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But too few of those big comedic swings seemed to hit their mark this season. Amid the shock of keeping up with the second Trump administration, SNL only intermittently captured the chaos of the times. Even the political sketches centered on James Austin Johnson’s impeccable impression of the president sometimes could feel like a transcript of the real-life POTUS’ scattershot musings — especially in Saturday’s “cold open” sketch, which satirized President Trump’s Middle East trip a day after the real-life POTUS flew back from it. (“The White Potus” sketch, its Wood impression notwithstanding, was a brilliant step up.) The lesson here: perhaps it’s time to stop expecting SNL to nail the political moment every week and give them space to find new angles.
In a world where comedy brands are increasingly built on podcasts and social media videos, SNL still matters.
As late night TV erodes in other timeslots and younger viewers desert traditional television platforms, SNL faced a season where it had to argue for its relevance while also paying tribute to an astonishing comedy legacy. (The nitpicker in me is compelled to note that SNL’s 50th anniversary technically isn’t until later this year; the show debuted on Oct. 11, 1975.) But the massive celebration surrounding its 50th anniversary season, which started last September, elevated SNL by reminding audiences what a cultural institution it truly is.
Indeed, the show’s history was too big to fit into one special, with its three-and-a-half hour prime time extravaganza in February preceded by a commemorative concert, Questlove’s brilliant documentary on the show’s musical history and a four-part docuseries on Peacock. The giant-size celebration served as a potent reminder that, frustrating as SNL’s inconsistencies can be week-to-week, there is no other program like it on American television – a live showcase for the best TV comedy featuring top performers reacting to pop culture and politics very nearly in real time.
Small wonder there’s a six-episode version of SNL planned for British TV next year.
Justin & Hailey Bieber
Cheesing At NHL Playoff Game
Published
Justin and Hailey Bieber look like a happy couple again … and all it took was some front-row tickets to an important hockey game for his favorite team.
The Biebers are all smiles Sunday night at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, where they are watching Justin’s Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Florida Panthers in a win-or-go-home situation.
Justin and Bieber are cheesing from their seats right behind the Maple Leafs’ bench … and she’s got on a Maple Leafs jacket while he wears a bucket hat and sunglasses indoors.
The Biebs is having a Sunday fun day for the books … earlier in the day he posted a rare photo with his father, bragging he beat his old man in a game of golf.
As we reported … Justin and Hailey did their own separate things Friday in Los Angeles, but 48 hours later they are looking like two peas in a pod.
TMZ Studios
We have a new documentary — “TMZ Investigates: What Happened to Justin Bieber?”, steaming now on Hulu — where we look at Justin’s financial issues, mental health, marital struggles and more.
Justin looks super happy here … but we’ll see if the game result affects his mood … as of this post, Toronto and Florida are tied 0-0 after the first period.
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