[ladidahh]

My immediate guess after reading this was that this isn't a change at Google but a name issue. Jeff Star getting confused with Jeffree Star (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffree_Star). He's a lightening rod for controversy, and has been in the middle of a controversial public persona shift that probably has caused an uptick in all kinds of requests to google.

[junon]

Jeffree Star hasn't been relevant for a while, I'd imagine this isn't it, but something else entirely changing at Google, as the author claims.

[ladidahh]

he has recently been clawing at relevancy with anti-trans talking points, which is specifically why I think his name would be something google would want to stay away

[michaelbuckbee]

I had an odd experience that rhymes with this, where I was trying to figure out where I had seen the actress Julie Dreyfus (from Kill Bill), whose Google results are utterly crushed by Julia Dreyfus (of Seinfeld and Veep fame) despite having demonstrably different spellings to their names...maybe it was that simple.