Month: March 2022

Robin Lopez seems like a pretty nice guy, all things considered. The 33-year-old big man for the Orlando Magic has been a steady hand on the court for the duration of his NBA career and has endeared himself to fans for his big personality off of it. Despite that, Lopez has a well-documented problem with mascots, with the latest example of this coming on Wednesday night when the Magic traveled to Washington to take on the Wizards.

Lopez suited up for the Wizards last season and is very familiar with the team’s mascot, G-Wiz. With Lopez’s birthday a few days away — he was born on April 1 — G-Wiz decided to pull a fast one and say it got something for “my favorite Lopez bro.” A moment later, G-Wiz revealed another sign that said “can you give this to Brook?”

In response, Lopez took the gift he was handed and flattened the mascot before getting some love from RJ Hampton.

Lopez and G-Wiz have a long relationship, with the big man once saying that “G-Wiz has always kind of been on my top-five probably most-despised mascot list. So, I don’t know if I’ll be able to reach out the olive branch out to him or if he will even want to reach it out to me.” The good news for all parties involved is the Magic and Wizards do not play again this year, so there will be time for tensions between the two to simmer down.

Will Smith smacking Chris Rock at this Sunday’s Oscars ceremony remains the hot topic of conversation on social media as more celebrities and guests share their thoughts on the surprising (but not that surprising) incident. While some, like co-host Amy Schumer, continue to pretend that it was the most traumatizing event of their lives, others, such as Daniel Radcliffe, are “dramatically bored” by the overblown kerfuffle, which distracted from other meaningful conversations like celebrating Questlove and his collaborators’ Summer Of Soul win.

And while the actors are all seemingly aghast that a man from West Philadelphia would physically confront another man from Brooklyn (two places where such things are a fairly regular occurrence, to be honest), Will’s fellow rappers seem less distraught on the whole. While 50 Cent, Drake, Nicki Minaj, and others either expressed sympathy for Smith or made jokes about the slap, others like Lil Nas X trolled the hilarious overreactions by fans on Twitter who brought up weird and frankly unlikely hypotheticals to score woke points. Now, another member of that fraternity has weighed in.

Compton rapper The Game posted a long caption pointing out the hypocrisy of the Academy for launching a disciplinary investigation. “They didn’t even want to give it to him in the first place,” he posited. “He acted off impulse & imposed a slap down out of frustration & embarrassment on behalf of his wife. Most people with opinions on the situation don’t have a committed relationship let alone a marriage of over 20 years to weigh against his feelings in the matter. He’s human & comedy is not always an excuse to publicly humiliate people especially while sitting front & center. Although violence anywhere is & should always be depicted in a negative light, this was a lul ass slap in defense of a woman battling a very delicate health issue. I’ll close by saying, they don’t want us to be equal, never have & never will.”

Of course, it’s unsurprising that The Game would side with Will in this situation, considering he got in hot water for a similar situation at the Drew League a few years ago. But he also makes some strong points, especially in calling out how several prior winners, including Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanski, were allowed to keep awards even after being investigated by police — and in Weinstein’s case, convicted — of way worse things than delivering a love tap to a fellow member during a live broadcast.

In any case, I’m probably with Harry Potter on all of this. There are way more important things going on in the world; maybe we should focus on those.

Though the Oscars was a wild night for the likes of Will Smith and Chris Rock, whose “slapgate” incident seems to have sucked all the air out of the event, plenty of other celebs had their own drama going on at this year’s Academy Awards. Thankfully, though, no one else seems to have resorted to violence, and it may take weeks for the Academy’s formal review of the incident to play our.

In other news, Lady Gaga, for instance, had a packed night of helping support Liza Minnelli, and trying to avoid future Fox News contributor Caitlyn Jenner. In a stiff exchange between the two, that an eagle-eyed onlooker managed to film, Caitlyn mentioned to Gaga that she hasn’t seen her around Malibu recently. Gaga affirmed that she still spends time in the area, but she “switched baristas.”

“Are you spending time out in Malibu anymore?” Jenner asks, to which Gaga responds “Yes!” Jenner follows up: “Oh you’re still out there? I haven’t seen you at the Starbucks in a while. Gaga, a little stony faced: “Well, I’ve switched baristas.” Given the Fox News contributor angle, and Jenner’s conservative politics in general, despite her status as a trans woman, it’s easy to see why the incredibly liberal Gaga might be seeking to avoid her Malibu neighbor. Of course, Gaga fans had a field day with this one. Check out some reactions below.

Ten years ago I was working from home one day (which, at the time, wasn’t as common as it is now) and my phone started ringing. The number read “blocked,” which means, today, there’s no way I’m answering that call. But back then spammers hadn’t quite figured out the cell phone market, so it looked like more of a curiosity and I was intrigued. So I answered. “Hello,” I asked, with a more straying, exaggerated “o” sound at the end, signaling that I was confused about what was happening. I hear a gruff voice say, “I’m looking for Mike Ryan.” It’s at this point I think I’m in trouble. As far as I knew, I didn’t have an outstanding bills or anything, but now this very stern voice with a blocked phone number is looking for me. I admit to the voice on the other end that I, indeed, am the person he’s seeking. As long as I live I’ll never forget the tone of voice and delivery of the next words that were said. They were said with pride, knowing, I assume, the reaction these words have gotten him over the years, “This is Bruce Willis.” I was not expecting a call from Bruce Willis that day, or any day, really.

Okay, so, yes, for my job I do interview actors, so the idea that someone like Bruce Willis would call me at some point for a scheduled interview isn’t completely preposterous. Though the big factor here is I did not have a scheduled interview with Bruce Willis that day or ever. In shock, I asked, “Why are you calling me?” He responded he was under the impression we were going to talk about the new Rian Johnson movie, Looper. In another moment I will never forget, I said back to Willis, “No one told me we’d be doing this.” And then without missing a beat, like it was John McClane himself delivering the perfect line, Willis responds, “Welcome to Hollywood.”

Willis asked if I needed time to prepare. Which, yes, I did. But also, no, I didn’t. Making a quick decision, I thought the odds of Bruce Willis randomly calling me a second time that day were low, so I told him we could just do the interview now. And it’s not like I already didn’t have a wealth of knowledge about Willis’s career waiting to go, because, especially for people born during a specific window of time, Willis is the guy. From Moonlighting to Die Hard to even admirable failures like Hudson Hawk, I brought up any topic I’ve ever wanted to ask him about, all while kind of hiding behind the whole “hey I had no time to prepare” excuse, just in case Willis got to a point where he was like, “Why are we talking about Moonlighting?” For the record, he could not have been nicer.

(So, what had happened was, a few weeks before, Sony Pictures, who distributed Looper, asked if I wanted to talk to Bruce Willis. Of course, I was like, “Hell yes!” But then I never heard another word about it, assumed it wasn’t happening, and completely forgot about it. Apparently, Sony Pictures sent a list of people like me to Bruce Willis’s team to approve. What usually happens is, Willis’s team will then approve who they want, send it back to Sony, then Sony will contact me to set up a time to talk. Somehow Willis himself got this list. And instead of approving people, he just started cold calling. Which I, to this day, find so delightful. Imagining Bruce Willis a little annoyed that he has to deal with this in the first place, but, hey, that’s the job, so better start calling.)

Obviously, I’m retelling this story because of the news that Willis will be taking a step back from acting because of his diagnosis of aphasia. And, now, all those low-budget movies he was doing make a lot more sense. But it’s still a really sad story and it’s a pretty hard to read about. (And obviously, now, there are a lot of ethical questions about why he was put in these positions to begin with.

That all said, I have long hated the Razzies. (I wrote this piece about them in 2011 and linked to it every year until Movieline disappeared from the internet. But now someone found it again, so there it is.) The TL;DR version: even back then they were tiring and that over the first years of their existence a good case could be made they were fun. They would find truly bad movies like Mac & Me and point them out for what they are. Over the years, that changed. Now they either do stunts, like giving Mike Lindell a Razzie. Or they are just petty, like giving LeBron James a Razzie for the new Space Jam. What’s even the point of that?

And speaking of petty, the Razzies decided to do a whole “tribute” to Bruce Willis, just two weeks ago, that’s incredibly mean and, well, just downright shitty. Look, I’m going to assume they didn’t know about his condition (though rumors that something wasn’t right with him have been out there for a while), but, regardless, it’s crass. And now that we do know, their yukfest is still up. Can we be done with this group already? Yeah, they released a new tweet that gives a half-ass apology that basically equates to, “oops,” then passed the blame. Again, if they were seeking out truly awful movies and doing something interesting, their model could probably still work. (Honestly, there are probably 100s of truly bad movies released to streamers every year that we never hear about that would probably love the attention.) But, no, let’s drag Bruce Willis right when he’d going through one of the worst moments of his life. What a bad organization. Bruce Willis, after all he’s given us over the years, deserves better. And, frankly, so do we.

(UPDATE: The Razzies have rescinded their Worst Performance award for Willis.)

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

In The Eye, music’s best up-and-coming artists take to an intimate and minimal studio space to perform highlights from their discography, with only one microphone and one take. This time, in the studio is Sabrina Claudio, one of the most intriguing rising stars in R&B.

The Miami-based singer-songwriter got her start, as many do, on SoundCloud, uploading songs there, generating attention, and working her way up. The hustle eventually landed her a label deal with Atlantic and she’s made good on it so far by staying busier than most of her peers: Between albums, EPs, and mixtapes, Claudio has put out a whopping six releases since 2017, with three of those being albums. The future is looking bright, too: In addition to another album, Based On A Feeling, set to drop on May 6, she also earned the favor of The Weeknd, who granted her an opening slot on his upcoming After Hours tour.

Before all that, though, Claudio has taken to The Eye for a performance of her latest single, “Better Version.” As is often the case with The Eye performances, Claudio goes for a more stripped-down arrangement of the song here, which makes it feel more like a tranquil ballad than the original. The minimal instrumentation gives Claudio’s voice plenty of room to breathe, which, when you’re blessed with as much vocal talent and beauty as Claudio, is never a bad thing.

Claudio previously told Paper of the song, “This song stems from the perspective of someone who’s in a relationship with a person who is internally toxic, they choose to remain in this relationship because of those once in a blue moon glimpses of who their partner has the potential to be. It feels like this person is in a relationship with two completely different people and doesn’t want to leave either of them at the risk of losing them both.”

While a studio rendition like this shows off what Claudio is like as a performer, it’s not the same as getting on stage in front of a crowd. However, we know she thrives in that setting, too: Uproxx’s Caitlin White saw her live in 2019 and noted, “Silky, effortless voices like Claudio’s don’t come around that often, so when they do, seeing a performer like her live is the way to go.”

Watch Claudio perform “Better Version” for The Eye above.

Sabrina Claudio is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

While there are plenty of deadbeat dads in the world, Tyga isn’t one of them — and neither is Rob Kardashian — even if Blac Chyna wants the world to think so. Chyna is the mother of children with both men, and set out to imply that due to a lack of child support, she’s had to sell off some of her own belongings to make ends meet. “Yesterday I had to give up 3 of my cars …my reasons… morals, beliefs, being a single mother, no support I’m a MAMA,” she wrote on Twitter, adding: “Single no support child support.” Chyna shares a nine-year-old son King Cairo with Tya, and five-year-old daughter, Dream, with Rob.

The problem is, both men are the primary caretakers of their respective children, and clothe, house and feed the children very close to full-time. Both Tyga and Rob also responded to Chyna’s posts by sharing exactly how much they pay to send their kids to private schools — and the number is in the high $40K range annually for both kids (That means these pre-teens are getting an education that costs as much as my college tuition, but I digress…).

Tyga responded too: “I pay 40K a year for my son’s school & he lives w me Mon-Sat,” Tyga wrote in an Instagram comment responding to stories about Chyna’s tweets. “Why would I pay child support lol

Rob responded too: “I pay 37K a year for my daughter’s school. I handle every single medical expense. I pay for all her extracurricular activities. I have my daughter from Tuesday-Saturday. Why would I pay child support lol.”

Since both Tyga and Rob spoke out vehemently against Chyna’s accusations, you know the internet decided to get involved and plenty of people are sharing their own opinions on the subject. Is the internet, once more, roasting Blac Chyna? Well, yes. But especially in this case, some of the teasing feels pretty justified. Check out some thoughts on the matter below.

And, in closing, here’s Blac Chyna’s take on “slapgate” at the Oscars:

One year ago, shortly after news broke that the Justice Department had spent several months investigating Matt Gaetz for allegedly having sex with a minor, the Florida congressman sat down for a truly bizarre interview with Tucker Carlson (which is saying a lot).

While blowing off the charges against him as total bullsh*t, Gaetz dragged the Fox News host into his scandalous antics by reminding Carlson that he and the missus had once had dinner with Gaetz and a female friend of his, saying “You’ll remember her.” Carlson claimed to have no recollection of this person, and later described the entire exchange as “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted” (which is also saying a lot).

Following the interview, Gaetz was essentially exiled from Fox News, with one staffer telling The Daily Beast that “Gaetz is going to be excommunicado for a while” at the time. Well, “a while” appears to mean one year—to the date.

On Wednesday, to commemorate that eventful tête-à-tête, Carlson welcomed Gaetz back onto his show for what Raw Story deemed a “triumphant return.” Ironically, Gaetz’s segment followed one in which Carlson accused the Walt Disney Co. of “sexualizing” kids and acting like a “sex offender.” Which made the segue into Gaetz all the smoother…

Of course, Carlson—top-notch journalist that he is—made sure to address the elephant in the room with Gaetz, even if he did downplay it as something related to the congressman’s “personal life,” which he didn’t want to ask him about because “it’s not my business.” What he did ask, though, was whether Gaetz expected to officially be charged with any crimes. To which Gaetz responded:

“No. That would be a travesty. I’m innocent. I’ve maintained my innocence, I’ve been entirely consistent on this fact. And each and every day, the lies about me unravel and are debunked… And, admittedly, it’s pretty wild to come on your show and say that my family’s being shaken down for $25 million by some fraudsters—some with connections to the intelligence community and the Department of Justice. But, in fact, someone had pled guilty to just that. So I feel vindicated each and every day that the facts are revealed.”

If Gaetz thinks that’s the wildest thing ever said on Carlson’s show—by a guest or the host—he’s clearly not watching a lot of Fox News.

(Via Raw Story)

Over the past few weeks, Snoop Dogg, who recently bought back the Death Row Records brand and much of its catalog, has been working to complete the collection, which was missing certain pivotal records including Snoop’s own debut Doggystyle and Dr. Dre’s debut The Chronic. Both albums were removed from streaming as negotiations continued. After some confusion over the ownership of the latter, it now appears that as of this week, The Chronic will once again appear under the Death Row banner, according to an Instagram post Snoop shared.

While no real details were revealed, that didn’t stop fans and peers in the comments from expressing their excitement, with 50 Cent predicting “something good coming from this.” Snoop previously shared plans to have Death Row become the first “major in the metaverse,” with designs on re-releasing the label’s collection of seminal hip-hop hits as NFTs. In the meantime, it looks like he’s still working out publishing profit shares for the label’s Tupac releases.

Meanwhile, Snoop remains pretty busy outside of Death Row; in addition to lending his likeness to the Call Of Duty video game franchise, he’s appearing in an NFT comic book, working with fellow California legends E-40, Ice Cube, and Too Short as Mount Westmore, and even plotting a collaboration with Korean pop band BTS.

There was a point back in the golden age of 21st-century big-budget franchise movies when you couldn’t go anywhere without some sort of Transformers tie-in. There were video games! SNL skits! Even some pretty ugly Nike sneakers. So, when the studio asked director Michael Bay to make more movies, he had to say yes. Even though…they weren’t good.

In a new interview with Unilad UK, Bay admitted that he should have quit while he was ahead. Fellow director Steven Spielberg also warned him against doing too many. “Steven Spielberg said, ‘Just stop at three.’ And I said I’d stop,” Bay recalled. “The studio begged me to do a fourth, and then that made a billion, too. And then I said I’m gonna stop here. And they begged me again. I should have stopped. [But] they were fun to do.”

Fun for some, not for others (Megan Fox, to be specific) the movies did make a lot of money, which makes sense as the early 2000s were the glory days of CGI.

Bay ended up doing four Transformers titles, concluding with the critically-panned The Last Knight in 2017. Of course, Paramount wanted more, so they rebooted the series in 2018 with the release of Bumblebee starring Hailee Steinfeld.

The upcoming film Transformers: Rise Of The Beast will take place in the 90s and is expected to hit theaters next summer. It should be noted that Bay is not involved with that one. He does know when to quit, apparently. It just took him a few years to figure it out.

On Wednesday evening, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences released a statement that claimed Will Smith was asked to leave the Oscars after slapping Chris Rock on stage, but the King Richard actor refused to exit the venue. The statement contradicted previous reports that producers and Academy officials deliberated for too long over whether to escort Smith from the building, which allowed him enough time to take the stage and accept his award for Best Actor.

However, sources for Variety are already refuting the Academy’s claim that Smith was formally asked to leave the Oscars. Insiders at the event claim there was a considerable amount of confusion over what to do after the assault, but there was never a firm effort to remove Smith from the ceremony. For the record, a source “familiar with the Academy” disputes that claim and says an “on-site representative” told Smith to leave per a request from Academy president David Rubin. (Going cross-eyed yet?)

Obviously, Smith never left the building, and according to sources, that was because of Oscars producer Will Packer, who reportedly made the call to keep Smith at the ceremony. Although, that assertion is also being disputed. Via Variety:

In the roughly 30 minutes following Smith’s attack on Rock, before the award for best actor was presented, Packer walked out into the orchestra and conferred with Smith, according to two witnesses. Packer said that he and the production “officially” wanted Smith to stay for the remainder of the show, according to one of the witnesses. Another source close to Packer denied that the producer urged Smith to remain.

Packer did not respond to requests for comment. Spokespeople for Smith and AMPAS declined to comment.

In a nutshell, lots of finger-pointing going on! Although, it does confirm earlier reports that there was a significant clash between Academy members and the Oscars producers over keeping Smith in the building. That fight appears to be ongoing only, now, through the press.

(Via Variety)