Celebrity Names Can Give a Puzzler the Perfect Inspo

Have you done this week's crosswords?

Manage newsletters The Daily Beast Crossword is where power, pop culture, and politics intersect—quite literally.   Designed to be more challenging throughout the week, you can test your knowledge with five puzzles each week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. Play This Week's Puzzles Get in the Game With Matt Gaffney Not gonna lie, felt pretty good pulling off the double-J at 17-Down in Thursday's puzzle. Answer there was HAJJ, clued as [Pilgrimage to Mecca], and those J crossings were both quality: Nicki MINAJ and full-name BONG JOON-HO.    It's one thing to hide HAJJ in a little 4x3 corner; that's like dunking in practice on an empty court. But crossing it with MINAJ and BONG JOON-HO front and center like that is more like dunking over LeBron in a playoff game. OK, I'll stop now.    Rare double letters like JJ are always an unexpected twist for solvers. SKYY vodka is similarly fun since the double-Y is unusual, and same with something like OH, HEY! Where the double-H could throw solvers off.    This puzzle also didn't settle for its two long theme entries: fashion at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival red carpet wasn't limited to 10-letter BELLA HADID and the aforementioned BONG JOON-HO. We also snuck references to SPIKE Lee, ANDIE MacDowell, and HELEN Mirren into the mix. And I'm glad I resisted using puns on "Cannes," which are definitely played out by now.   Did we miss anyone on the red carpet? You Cannes tweet them to us at #beastxword. Oh, sorry... Play This Week's Puzzles © Copyright 2021 The Daily Beast Company LLC  555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011  Privacy Policy If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, click here to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can safely unsubscribe.