Month: December 2020

This year has been a real one, and it ain’t over yet. As of this writing, there’s less than a week before 2020 gives way to a hopefully far, far superior 2021. But there’s still plenty of time for some more random, unpleasant surprises. Indeed, on Sunday people hanging out on Twitter saw some curious things trending. There was Hilaria Baldwin, who had been accused of pretending to be Spanish. And then there was something far, far worse: something called “Super Gonorrhea.” And it wasn’t some kind of joke: There’s a new, mutant strain of the venereal disease, and sure enough it was made possible by COVID-19.

As per The Sun, the World Health Organization reported that the overuse of antibiotics to treat the coronavirus — sometimes unnecessarily — has caused the sexually transmitted infection to find a new way to thrive. And thrive it has: Case numbers, which usually average 90 million globally per year, are up 17%. What’s more, “super gonorrhea” is well-named, with The Sun reporting that it “can lead to a five-fold increase of HIV transmission and eye infections that may lead to blindness.”

One reason the new strain is exploding is because most people aren’t going to the hospital unless they come down with COVID-19 symptoms. Instead they’re self-medicating, meaning, a WHO spokesperson told The Sun, that doctors aren’t catching this disease in time. And to make matters worse, “super gonorrhea” is extremely resistant to antibiotics.

So that’s fun! And when faced with cartoonishly, creatively bad news like this, people on Twitter responded with gallows humor. Because what else can one do? (Apart from try not to catch it.)

Then again, some people weren’t worried about catching a sexually transmitted infection in this socially distanced hellscape.

(Via The Sun)

Lionel Messi opted to stay with Barcelona this year after very publicly flirting with a move away from the Nou Camp. Ultimately, clubs like Manchester City and PSG were unable to secure his services, although this does not mean Messi’s future is with Barcelona, because he could still leave at the end of this campaign.

It is again speculated that clubs like City and PSG will jockey for his services should he decide to seek greener pastures. As for farther down the road, Messi gave a glimpse into what he might like to do in an interview with journalist Jordi Évole, and it involves a potential move to Major League Soccer.

Messi explained that a dream of his has always been to one day make the jump to the United States. The Argentinian icon said that it’s possible this never happens, but made clear that it’s something he would like to do some day.

It must be said that this would not be in Messi’s immediate future or anything — he turns 34 before next season and still is capable of doing breathtaking things on a nightly basis in Europe, so there’s no rush for him to make the jump. Still, while MLS has done a ton of work to shake the retirement league distinction, a late-30s Lionel Messi would still be a draw unlike any other in the world, and while it’s impossible to know how he’ll age, it is very possible he’d be able to produce plenty of magic in the U.S.

The Dallas Mavericks continued their stay in Los Angeles after losing to the Lakers on Christmas with a tilt against the Clippers, and they bounced back from that loss to the champs in historic fashion.

At the half, the Mavericks led by fifty points, taking a 77-27 advantage into the break, which set a record for the largest halftime lead in NBA history. Luka Doncic led the way for Dallas with 18 points, seven rebounds, and four assists, as he dominated the first half, showing a little bit of everything to help the Mavs jump on the Clippers early and never relent.

Josh Richardson also had a sensational first half with 15 points, three rebounds, and a pair of assists, as Dallas simply couldn’t miss in the first half, overwhelming the Clippers.

In total, 10 players got on the board for the Mavs in the first half, as they shot 58 percent from the field and 45 percent from three as a team, with the highlight of the half coming courtesy of Willie Cauley-Stein.

L.A. was without Kawhi Leonard after his scary collision with Serge Ibaka on Christmas, but the absence of Leonard wasn’t enough of an explanation for how ragged they looked in the first half. The Clippers shot 24.3 percent from the field and were an abysmal 1-for-19 from three-point range as they simply were not up for the challenge on Sunday afternoon.

For a Dallas team that had gotten off to an 0-2 start with losses to the Suns and Lakers, this first half was something of a cleansing, as they shook off frustrations from the first two games and absolutely unloaded on the Clippers, who will almost assuredly drop their first game of the season.

When Hilaria Baldwin makes public appearances, she sometimes, though not always, does so with a Spanish accent. She even has a Spanish first name! But last week the former yoga instructor and wife of former Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin came under fire for, as one person on Twitter put it, “her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.” Now Baldwin has responded, explaining that she’s in fact a white woman born in Boston. And her name is actually Hillary.

In a seven-minute video posted to Instagram, Baldwin tried to set a pretty confusing story straight. “I’ve seen chatter online questioning my identity and culture,” she wrote in the caption:

“This is something I take very seriously,and for those who are asking— I’ll reiterate my story, as I’ve done many times before. I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain. My parents and sibling live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the USA. We celebrate both cultures in our home—Alec and I are raising our children bilingual, just as I was raised. This is very important to me. I understand that my story is a little different, but it is mine, and I’m very proud of it.”

Of course, Baldwin’s story does need some explaining. As Page Six noted, her bio on her agency’s speaker site claims that she was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca, as did the opening to a 2016 interview with Hola! Then there are her media appearances, in which she rocks a clear Spanish accent and even appeared to forget the English word for “cucumber.”

But after she got into a rift with Amy Schumer over a postpartum photo she took of her slim figure, Baldwin suddenly ditched the Spanish accent, sounding thoroughly American. And now we know why. In the wake of the tweet that outed her true origins, internet sleuths reached out to former classmates, one of whom said, “I went to high school with her. Genuinely lovely person, I recall, but fully a white girl from Cambridge.” Another said, “I went to high school with her. She was perfectly nice and serious about ballroom dancing. Her name was indeed Hillary Hayward-Thomas and she did not have her current accent.”

That Baldwin spent much of her childhood in Spain appears to be true, and her passion for the culture extends to raising her and Alec’s children bilingual. In the video she talks about “consolidating” her two identities, saying, “In this country I would use the name Hillary. In Spain, I would use the name Hilaria. I identify more as Hilaria because that’s what my family calls me.”

She added, “Yes, I am a white girl … Europe has a lot of white people in there. My family is white. Ethnically, I am a mix of many many many things,” she said. “Culturally, I grew up with two cultures. So it’s really as simple as that.” Or maybe not that simple. In any case, some people found something, if you will, romantic about her marriage to Alec Baldwin.

(Via Page Six)

The Cleveland Browns entered Sunday at 10-4 on the season and controlled their own destiny in the AFC playoff race. Wins in their last two games of the season against the Jets and the Steelers would lock them into a playoff spot, and, at the least, they needed one win in the last two to feel solid about their chances in tiebreaker situations.

Naturally, this meant disaster was destined to strike in Cleveland because, well, that’s just how things work with the Browns. Cleveland entered Sunday’s tilt with the lowly Jets as 6.5-point favorites, with the number that small in large part due to the team being without pretty much their entire wide receiver room due to COVID-19 protocols. The passing game was expected to struggle, but it was the woeful effort of the running game and the defense that doomed the Browns in New Jersey on Sunday.

The Browns rushed for just 45 yards against the Jets in a game that they desperately needed to be able to control that portion of the game. The defense didn’t help a lot either, as they allowed 23 points to the Jets, including giving up a trick play TD in the first quarter.

However, the real disaster was the end of game execution from Baker Mayfield and the Browns offense, as Cleveland’s QB fumbled twice on the final two drives of the game when the Browns needed a TD to either take the lead or tie the game. The first was simply Mayfield holding it a touch too long and not feeling the backside pressure that got home and set New York up in field goal range while up 20-16.

The second was even worse, as the Browns had marched deep in Jets territory and faced a 4th and inches, calling a quarterback sneak that, somehow, Mayfield fumbled as he got hit trying to push forward.

Being inside the last two minutes of the game, the fumble could not be advanced by Kareem Hunt — only Mayfield could’ve scooped it and moved it forward — and the ball was moved back to the spot of the fumble which turned it over on downs and handed the Jets an unbelievable and improbable win.

It was really a disastrous result for both teams, as it locks the Jaguars into the No. 1 overall pick in the Draft (and gives them Trevor Lawrence) while the Jets fall to No. 2 with the win. For the Browns, it backs them up to 10-5 and likely needing a win over the rival Steelers next week to avoid what would be the abject disaster of starting a season 9-3 and still missing the playoffs in a year where there’s even an extra playoff spot.

Last week former child star-turned-far right personality Kirk Cameron came under fire for recklessly organizing Christmas carol gatherings in California, while the state was experiencing alarming spikes in COVID-19 cases. One of his critics was his Growing Pains sister Tracey Gold, who tweeted that she was “worried” about him. Now another sibling from the ’80s sitcom has come for him: Jeremy Miller, who played his young brother Ben Seaver.

“While I will always love my brother Kirk, I could not disagree more with his holding these maskless events at a time when safety and concern for others is an extreme priority,” Miller told Page Six. “I truly couldn’t be more disappointed in him.”

Previously, Gold took to Twitter to explain her own disappointment, writing, “As your more intelligent sister I want you to know that I disapprove. I’m worried about you brother AND your family. Wear a mask. Stay home. Sing later.”

Cameron organized at least two caroling outings during the month of December, asking people to defy lockdown rules so they could sing — one of the main things that spreads the virus that has plagued the world for the last year. Meanwhile, on Saturday L.A. county reported 706,448 new cases and a total of 9,438 deaths. Twenty percent of the 6,770 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 cases are in the ICU.

(Via EW)

Christmas Day saw the release of Playboi Carti’s long-awaited album Whole Lotta Red, though it did not arrive without some controversy. Iggy Azalea, who is the mother of their child Onyx, accused the rapper of cheating on her and canceling a flight to visit their son on the big day. But it appears the two have resolved their differences.

“I’ve spoken to my bd and as f*cked up as this sh*t’s been,” she revealed over Twitter. “It was for the best because now sh*ts aired out & gonna change for the better w my son.” She added, “That’s all I wanted.” She also defended her actions, writing, “I hate to see the bad part of me have to come out at times because I’m really just a baby angel.”

Azalea and Carti’s rift comes just a couple of months after the former shared the first pictures of their first child in October. However, she also revealed that the two were no longer together, though she confirmed that both of them would maintain their presence in their son’s life.

As For Carti, the rapper’s album Whole Lotta Red sees him working with Kanye West, Kid Cudi, and Future. He also used the track “Punk Monk” to imply that his label is trying to turn him into Lil Dicky, rapping, “They tried to turn me into a white boy, but I’m not Lil Dicky.”

It appears that Meek Mill wants his next business endeavor to be in the tech world, as he sent out a message on Twitter calling for help in developing a “music platform” that he, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, and 21 Savage hope to launch next year.

The Dream Chasers rapper expressed his desires for a new platform in a pair of tweets, writing in the first one, “Me lil baby Durkio tryna get somebody in Silicon Valley to build us our own music platform we can be majority owner in.” He added, “We will pay!! We need top Silicon Valley steppers please!”

In a second tweet, he added that 21 Savage expressed interest in joining the new venture saying, “21 gone link in too we need some app options we looking for the best platform builders!!!! Tryna get started 2021.”

The exact reason for Meek’s desire to launch a new music platform is unknown and so are the details of his plan. It appears the Philly rapper would like to launch a new digital service provider to rival the likes of Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, and others. In fact, Meek’s tweet comes just a few days after news broke that Tidal was reportedly in talks to be purchased by Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey.

Whether the two are connected is unknown, but if the new platform becomes a reality, it would not be the first time Meek had a hand in launching something. Nearly two years ago, he teamed up with Jay-Z, Michael Rubin, and others to create the REFORM Alliance, an organization aimed at correcting issues within the criminal justice system.

You can read Meek’s tweets above.

Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When your name is LeBron James Jr., you are going to face a level of scrutiny and spotlight few other teenagers do. Bronny James is as famous as any 16-year-old in the country and with that comes benefits but also plenty of negatives, as everything you do becomes fodder online.

Sometimes, that can cross a line as is the case with what took place on Sunday morning when Black Sports Online published a story that claimed Bronny was exchanging DMs with Larsa Pippen after he had liked one of her photos on Instagram. Bronny would respond on his Instagram Story in the morning, saying he had simply liked the photo of one of his friend’s moms on Instagram and that there was nothing more.

Bronny wasn’t the only one to respond to the story as his mother, Savannah James, who rarely calls things out publicly when it comes to what’s written or said about either LeBron or their children, made sure to note that in this instance things had crossed a line, saying “the bullsh*t needs to stop” when it comes to writing gossip about her kids.

Pippen likewise called out the post, as it seems in this instance, BSO went to a place that all parties involved felt the need to not just respond to but call out some reprehensible behavior.

Hopefully this can serve as a reminder that while social media is unrelenting with jokes and making up gossip, there is still a line that has to be maintained when it comes to things written about people, no matter how famous. That’s especially the case with a 16-year-old kid and mining his social media likes for content.

Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden in November, but his insistence of claiming baseless fraud and other wild accusations that can somehow undo that fact seems to be finally costing him some very close allies. The latest of which is Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera, who on Saturday night unloaded on Trump on Twitter.

Rivera has not held back from criticizing Trump in the past, at least since it became clear that Trump had lost to Joe Biden. He declared on the network he’s sick of the “lunatic fringe” that still believes Trump can somehow still remain president. And he’s called Trump’s rhetoric before and after the election about the safety of voting in America “reckless and irresponsible.” But on Saturday, it seemed Rivera had finally had it.

Rivera bemoaned that he’s had to defend Trump from “lefty creeps” over the years as he attempted to govern, but on Sunday he announced that he’s “behaved like an entitled frat boy” since losing the election in November.

He also saved some special ire for Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who has also paraded around baseless election accusations and promised Trump can overturn millions of votes and stay president.

Rivera probably won’t be enough to get through to Trump, who just may go on pretending to still be president even after Biden is sworn in. But it certainly is interesting to see former Trump supporters hit their breaking point with the president as he continues to rage against the dying light of his time in office.