Month: April 2022

That Rihanna reign just won’t let up. The Bajan singer has made her debut on Forbes‘ 36th Annual World’s Billionaires List. Joining her peers and frequent collaborators Jay-Z and Kanye West, the Fenty Beauty founder comes in at No. 1,729 on the list. In addition to this accolade, Rihanna is also the world’s richest female musician, with a $1.7 billion net worth.

Her “Umbrella” collaborator Jay-Z comes in a No. 2,076. With his Roc Nation conglomerate, along with the sales of TIDAL to Square and Armand de Brignac champagne to LVMH last year, Jay is worth $1.4 billion.

Kanye West, who has produced and collaborated with both Jay and Rihanna, places at No. 1,513 on the list, with a hefty net worth of $2 billion. Ye has climbed up over 200 spots on the coveted list since last year, thanks to his partnerships with Adidas and Gap.

Ye recently dropped out of performing at Coachella, but given his rising net worth, he may not even need to take the stage. Perhaps the same is true for Rihanna and putting out new music, though fans have been starving for a follow-up to her 2016 album, Anti.

Jay-Z is often known to boast about his wealth in his songs, most recently on his Pusha T collab “Neck And Wrist,” on which he proclaims, “I put your mansion on my wall / Are you sh*ttin’ me?”

In case you didn’t know already, trap rap godfather T.I. has recently made a pivot to standup comedy. While some of his initial material has received mixed reactions online, he’s kept at it, refining his material and accumulating the most important part of any good standup career: Experience. However, he may want to also develop a thicker skin, judging from a video that recently surfaced on social media.

During a recent open mic night in his hometown, Atlanta, T.I. reportedly went from heckling the host to having an outright confrontation with her on stage when she retaliated by poking at a sore spot for the rapper turned comedian. In 2021, T.I. and his wife Tiny were accused of multiple instances of sexual assault by a group of women who claim that the couple drugged them on several instances in both California and Georgia. As he heckled the host, comic Lauren Knight, Knight apparently clapped back with a reference to the allegations, prompting T.I.’s outburst on stage.

Later, on Instagram, both parties detailed their respective sides of the story. Knight said, “I’m talking about marriage and sh*t [and] he keeps cutting me off, telling me to ‘shut the fuck,’ calling me all kinds of bitches—heckling me. So, I’m like, ‘Alright, c’mon. Stop playing with me. It’s crazy, like you keep going and I can’t say nothing to you.’” She said after T.I. jokingly told her to remove her wig, she struck back. “I said, ‘Alright, I’ll take my wig off when you speak on the allegations. Nobody was tight, except for him. Nobody called him a rapist. I responded to him telling me — in a room full of people — to rip my wig off, and made a joke just like he did. So if you got a problem with it, not mine.”

Meanwhile, T.I. addressed the incident in a separate live stream in which he defended himself, claiming that he did not call Knight any names. However, she responded with a video of her own that seemed to refute his statements.

T.I. previously refuted the allegations against him and his wife, challenging the accusers to come forward publicly.

The first two weeks of April feature the end of two huge things on the basketball calendar every year: the NCAA Tournament and the NBA’s regular season. Right after the college basketball season reaches its conclusion, the NBA ramps up its race for a championship, something that has an extra layer of intrigue now that the play-in tournament exists.

A major domino fell in the race for the play-in on Tuesday night, as the Los Angeles Lakers were officially eliminated from postseason contention thanks to a 121-110 loss to the Phoenix Suns. It knocked L.A. to 31-48 on the year, putting them three games back of the San Antonio Spurs for the 10-seed in the Western Conference.

In the immediate aftermath of the loss, one of the best things about the NCAA Tournament made its way to the NBA, as someone took the song “One Shining Moment,” put it over a whole bunch of clips of this Lakers season, and tweeted it out.

It’s a stunning fall from grace for the team that entered this season with the second-best odds to win a championship — interestingly enough, the only team with better odds were the Brooklyn Nets, which are also headed to the play-in tournament.

Jack Black rules. You already know this, but it’s worth mentioning again. He’s a dynamic singer and comedic actor, who also happens to give the occasional Oscar-worthy performance. I’m still angry he wasn’t even nominated for Bernie, one of three movies he’s made with director Richard Linklater, along with Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood and School of Rock. The 2003 love letter (written by Enlightened and The White Lotus creator Mike White) to the power of AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac, and Kiss isn’t Black’s biggest movie — Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is, at least by box office success — but it’s maybe his most beloved. It’s also the “highlight” of his career.

“My best memories are just that group of kids, and how funny and great they were. It’s definitely the highlight of my career, I can say that honestly,” Black told ET Online. He also discussed working with Linklater again on Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood, which is available on Netflix now.

“I thought a lot about School of Rock while we were making this movie, because that’s a Richard Linklater joint as well, and that’s when we first met,” Black said. “He brought that same kind of realism and humor and genius to both projects. Even though they’re very different movies, there’s that Richard Linklater DNA.”

I still stand by this being the highlight of Black’s career:

But School of Rock is a good pick, too.

(Via ET Online)

Kim Kardashian is blissfully happy in her relationship with Pete Davidson, and she doesn’t care who knows it. In fact, like most things in the reality TV star’s life, she wants everyone to know just how great she is doing. So she’s telling the world in the most Kardashianesque (yes, it unfortunately deserves to be an adjective now) way possible: By sitting down for a one-on-one with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts to talk all about her post-Kanye love life… in a primetime special.

Many of Kim’s family members want to get in on the action, too—because god forbid they miss out on an opportunity to talk to a camera. And the 41-year-old’s declarations of relationship euphoria have even been turned into a score-backed, Hollywood-style trailer (unfortunately, Hans Zimmer doesn’t seem to have been available for the gig).

As the thrice-married, self-described “relationship kind of girl” tells Roberts in a preview of the interview that plays like a B World War II romance-drama: “Obviously I wanna take my time, but I’m very happy and very content and it’s such a good feeling just to be at peace.”

Kardashian filed for divorce from Kanye West in February 2021, whom she married in 2014. The couple shares four children, who Ye has insisted will “NEVER MEET” Davidson—though, according to BuzzFeed, it seems like that ship has sailed.

Just in case you’re not convinced when Kim tells you that she is “very happy and very content” being with the SNL star, her mom Kris Jenner says that “Pete’s great,” while sister Khloe confirms “he just makes her laugh. And she laughs all the time.”

Yep, sure does sound like ever-lasting love!

Roberts’s hour-long special titled, what else, The Kardashians, airs on ABC tonight at 8 p.m.

(Via Good Morning America)

Well, that was quick. Just days after Kanye West pulled out of headlining Coachella — allegedly to get his head on straight after months of juvenile social media antics — the festival has announced his replacement: A double act consisting of EDM supergroup Swedish House Mafia and ’80s pop revivalist The Weeknd.

Funnily enough, The Weeknd actually beat the actual festival in posting the new lineup on Twitter by about five minutes. That said, the fest’s official account quickly corroborated the new information by posting the flyer shortly after.

In the wake of Kanye’s withdrawal from the festival, there was plenty of speculation about who could take his place, with some sources positing everyone from Doja Cat to Justin Bieber. With Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd, Coachella has found a pair of artists who collectively have the clout to fill the void left by West’s departure.

The Weeknd — who recently became the artist with the second-most diamond certifications in history — may use the headlining set as a dry run for his upcoming After Hours Til Dawn Tour with Doja Cat. The Canadian singer had pushed back the tour after finding that arenas were too constraining to do everything he wanted to do with the show, which will now take over stadiums in 18 cities, including his native Toronto.

Killing Eve is currently churning through its final season, and in my review, I politely requested a Konstantin spinoff, and it sure looks like I’m not getting one. Yet!

There’s still hope on the horizon, though, but the first order of business, it seems, is for BBC America and AMC Networks to bring the early story of a spy chief to life. That’d be Carolyn Martens, the high-ranking MI6 officer (and head of Russia’s desk) who may not have initially seemed like a spinoff-grade character, but they’ve been spicing her up, for sure, including a Season 3 arc that revealed her previous romance with Konstantin. Oh, and Carolyn also went HAM in the Season 3 finale while whipping out a gun and killing that weasel, Paul, after making Konstantin grovel for mercy.

Yup, it sure seems like they’ve been setting up Carolyn for more intrigue, given how she’s hell-bent upon vengeance for Kenny’s death in the present timeline. And that could build curiosity for seeing her origin story, especially since the show’s already included one for Villanelle. Deadline has confirmed (following The Sun newspaper’s first mention) the in-development goods, and it’ll probably be a prequel “likely looking into her time as young spook in the former Soviet Union.”

Bring in the young Dasha, too. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about spinoffs, either. Previously AMC Networks has signaled that this would be the drill as the show builds some sort of Eve-verse. Heck, why not. Season 4 looks like it’s building for the future, and now, things look set to build for the past as well.

(Via Deadline)

With only a month to go until Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness sling rings into theaters, the latest teaser for the Benedict Cumberbatch starring sequel is going surprisingly big on the film’s WandaVision connections. Granted, previous trailers have shown Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff embracing her new identity as the Scarlet Witch, but in true Marvel style, there’s been little in the way of details on how exactly the Disney+ series will fully connect to the film. Well, the new teaser just dropped a pretty big clue.

In the spot, which also kicks off ticket sales for Multiverse of Madness, Wanda is seen reuniting with her twin sons, Billy and Tommy, who were revealed in the WandaVision finale to be illusions created by Wanda. However, in a post-credits scene for the show, Wanda hears their voices while studying the secrets of the Darkhold. As the teaser shows, Wanda does reunite with her sons, but only to watch them vanish in front of her eyes. She describes seeing her sons again as a recurring “nightmare,” but given the immense power of her chaos magic, and the presence of the multiverse, there’s a high probability the boys’ appearance is much more than just a bad dream.

Wanda’s obsession with seeing her children again also bolsters theories that the Scarlet Witch could very well be the film’s main villain or, at the very least, a wild card who causes the multiverse to unravel even further following the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens in theaters on May 6.

In recent months, Olivia Rodrigo has been preparing for her first-ever tour, which kicked off in Portland, Oregon last night (April 5). While her Sour songs are enough to excite a crowd, Rodrigo worked a fantastic cover into her setlist, as Setlist.fm notes a few songs into the show, she performed Avril Lavigne’s classic single “Complicated.” Fan-shot videos from the performance show both Rodrigo and her audience getting super into the rendition:

The cover makes a ton of sense, given that the tune is the sort of music Sour was inspired by and that with only one album under her belt, Rodrigo doesn’t currently have a ton of original songs to perform live. So, including some covers in her setlist is a good move to flesh it out. In fact, “Complicated” wasn’t the only cover of the night, as she later performed Veruca Salt’s “Seether.”

In February, Lavigne spoke about Rodrigo, saying, “I met her a [few months] ago and it’s like she’s kind of going through what I went through. I wrote my first album when I was 16 and experienced crushes and like dating or whatever for the first time and how intense that feels and then writing songs and putting that into music. […] It’s so great because you’re putting all that into your art and it’s so real and people relate to that, and she’s great. It was so lovely meeting her and she’s doing amazing stuff.”

Watch Rodrigo cover “Complicated” above and find the full setlist for the April 5 concert here.

Mindhunter doesn’t currently appear on Netflix’s all-time top 10 most popular televison shows list, but don’t underestimate the crime thriller’s devoted fanbase. They are foaming at the mouth for more episodes. Executive producer David Fincher isn’t optimistic for a third season because it was an “expensive show,” and “on some level, you have to be realistic about dollars have to equal eyeballs,” but director Asif Kapadia begged viewers to “let @netflix know that there is a real interest & demand for Season 3 of @MINDHUNTER… if you make enough noise, It might actually happen…”

As for star Jonathan Groff, he would return for a third season, but only if Fincher is involved. “The minute he says he wants to do another one, I’ll be there in a second. But I trust his vision and his instincts, and so I leave it always in his hands, as ever,” the Hamilton and The Matrix Resurrections actor told the Hollywood Reporter last year.

Groff appeared on Tuesday’s episode of The Tonight Show, where he was asked by host Jimmy Fallon to say which project is more likely: Mindhunter season three or Frozen 3? (Groff voices Kristoff in Frozen and Frozen 2.) “I feel like, even though those projects seem very different, Frozen and Mindhunter, I feel like a third Frozen and a third season of Mindhunter are equally possible,” he answered.

What does that mean? I don’t know! If only we had agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench to solve the case.