Month: June 2022

Tierra Whack most commonly travels in the hip-hop lane, but the experimental rapper and singer has proven she’s capable of a lot outside of her primary genre. That was most clearly evidenced by the series of genre-specific EPs she dropped last December: Rap?, Pop?, and R&B?. While “Dolly” appeared on Pop?, it would have felt more at home on an EP called Country? or Bluegrass? or Folk?, since that’s more where the tune leans stylistically.

Now, a prominent artist in that space has shown love for the tune, as Kevin Morby has offered a live cover of “Dolly” for SiriusXMU. It’s not much a stretch to see the song performed by Morby, who didn’t have to do much to adapt it into his style, resulting in a pleasant and natural-sounding rendition of the track.

Whack previously told Billboard of the song, “If I hear something cool, I’m like, ‘I wanna try that.’ I watched the Dolly Parton documentary on Netflix and I started listening to bluegrass and I’m like, ‘Yo, this is so cool,’ and then I made a song called ‘Dolly.’”

Meanwhile, Whack has something else to celebrate, as she recently got her first movie role via an appearance in Adam Sandler’s new basketball film Hustle.

Check out Morby’s cover of “Dolly” above and revisit Whack’s original version below.

In the past decade-plus, as streaming services and cord-cutting have become more prominent, sports fans have been pulled in a dozen different directions as they try to watch their favorite teams. Leagues have splintered television rights between various national TV networks, local broadcasters, and streaming services, forcing fans to decide what’s worth paying for and what isn’t to watch their favorite teams.

MLB has a new deal with Apple for exclusive Friday Night games on Apple TV+, and fans who purchase MLB TV subscriptions face tons of local blackout restrictions whenever they try to watch games. NFL fans must have DirecTV if they want to watch every game on the satellite exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket package, and Thursday Night Football is now exclusively headed to Amazon Prime starting this season. NBA games face similar blackout restrictions to baseball, with League Pass subscriptions and NBA TV broadcasts still blacking out viewers from games in their “local area” which, like MLB TV, can include teams that are four-plus hours away.

The fracturing of rights has led to fan frustrations over being priced out or even outright being unable to watch your favorite team, and leagues have insisted there’s nothing they can do because of the local TV contracts. That is until Tuesday, when Major League Soccer laid the blueprint for how to create a streaming service with a partner that has full rights to every game with no local blackout restrictions, no matter what market fans live in, with their new deal with Apple.

The 10-year, $2.5 billion price tag drew much of the attention initially, but fans quickly gravitated to the no blackout news, as it was a breath of fresh air to know that they could simply pay for a service and have access to every game. Fans have proven, over and over, they’re willing to pay to watch their favorite teams, but there are limits to what they’ll deal with in terms of blackouts and restrictions to do so. MLS showed that if you start with that, there’s a lot of money to be made (2.5 times their current national TV deal) in selling full broadcast rights, enough to surely make up any lost money from ridding local broadcasters of exclusive rights in their market.

For the NBA, which is the next league to have its national TV contract expiring after the 2024-25 season, the new MLS deal hopefully provides a backbone for a new and improved League Pass deal that gets rid of local blackouts. Adam Silver has said the RSN bundle is “broken” and is chasing fans away, but those local broadcasts are vital to each team’s revenue. However, if you were to put a League Pass offering up for bidding between ESPN (which could just tie it into their ESPN+ service) and Turner, surely the league could recoup most, if not all, of any lost money for teams that would need to renegotiate local contracts with the various RSNs to get rid of exclusive market rights.

It is an outdated system that only serves to drive fans away, and if teams were to get their cut of a broader League Pass rights deal, on top of what figures to already be a massive national TV contract with the league, then the league can, like MLS, work backwards to fill in the gaps from there. Fans will pay for League Pass, they’ve proven that, and if the product improved with more investment to make it not be incredibly frustrating to use and it had no blackout restrictions for local teams and the games from at least one of the national networks (I’d venture a guess ESPN would be more willing to pony up for it, but Apple or Amazon might also get in on the act), they’d surely pay even more for it.

That’s not to say that it’ll be easy and wouldn’t require a lot of lawyers looking at contracts and fighting with the RSNs, who would likely demand to renegotiate local deals for less money, but it’s now been proven that it can be done and that’s meaningful. Fans have long resigned themselves to a fate of jumping through various hoops and paying for a variety of services to watch games, but the MLS package provides at least some hope that consolidation could be coming. The NBA will be the first of the major sports leagues with the chance to figure out how to follow suit, and could make a lot of people happy by doing so.

Charlie Sheen, the 9/11 star who was arrested for domestic violence against his then-wife, who was investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department for allegedly threatening his ex-fiancee, who called Rihanna a “bitch,” and who former-adult film star Bree Olson accused of withholding his HIV-positive diagnosis from several sexual partners, is concerned that his daughter isn’t being “classy” by joining OnlyFans.

“She is 18 years old now and living with her mother,” the actor told Us Weekly about Sami, his child with ex-wife Denise Richards. “I do not condone this but since I’m unable to prevent it, I urged her to keep it classy, creative, and not sacrifice her integrity.” For her part, Richards said that Sami’s decision to sign up for the adult-friendly subscription website “wasn’t based on whose house she lives in. All I can do as a parent is guide her and trust her judgment, but she makes her own choices.”

In September 2021, Sami claimed that she was “trapped” in an “abusive home” while she was living with Richards and her husband, Aaron Phypers. Sheen, who was married to the Bold and the Beautiful alum from 2002 to 2006, confirmed one month later that Sami had moved in with him and was no longer in school.

[But] Richards’ dynamic with her eldest child appeared to be getting better as Sami celebrated her 18th birthday with a touching social media tribute. Sami, for her part, shared a message of love on Mother’s Day before spending time with her mother in person.

Sami Sheen is charging $19.99 per month for a subscription to her OnlyFans. Which is a much better deal than the $158 it would have cost you to see Sheen’s #Winning-era ”My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option” show. (2011 was a wild time.)

It’s been a grand total of [checking the calendar] just under three weeks since the release of Joseph Kosinski’s last film, Top Gun: Maverick. If you haven’t heard, it is very good and also has made a lot of money. Because of the pandemic delays, it makes sense Kosinski (also the director of Tron: Legacy and Only the Brave) would have another movie all ready to go and it makes a lot of sense Netflix would release it this week, right on the heels of his blockbuster Tom Cruise movie.

Spiderhead is a very different movie than Top Gun: Maverick. Set at a remote prison called Spiderhead, people convicted of crimes have volunteered for a prison with more freedom and a beautiful setting, but in exchange they are used as test subjects for drugs that manipulate emotions. Chris Hemsworth plays Steve – who can be both friendly and funny, but also sinister – who runs the place and also has a taste for smooth ’80s popular music. Miles Teller plays one of the test subjects, Jeff, who as the movie goes on, starts to question more and more Steve’s motivations.

By the time I interviewed Kosinski I had seen Top Gun: Maverick three times, so a few of my questions about that film wound up being a little more obscure. Like, “was that an Easter egg or not,” type questions. (Two out of the three I asked about were, in fact, on purpose. One was just me being too dorky.) But we did get into where was Iceman’s old partner Slider during a pivotal scene? And it turns out Rick Rossovich was on set that day for a mini-reunion of the first film. Also, Kosinski gives us a preview of some of the deleted scenes we might see on the Blu-ray. When I signed into Zoom the publicist asked if I was ready for Kosinski. Considering how much I love Top Gun: Maverick, yes, I was ready.

I was born ready.

Me too!

It’s good to talk to you again. I haven’t talked to you since Oblivion.

Oh my gosh. All right. Nine years ago.

The original title of Spiderhead was Escape from Spiderhead. That is also a good title.

It is. But I think if you read the short story, the “Escape” from Spiderhead is – and if you haven’t read it, I don’t want to spoil it – but his escape is in the final paragraph and it’s a pretty dark interpretation of what an escape could be.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure you just spoiled it.

Yes, sorry, I might have spoiled it for you. So the idea for our film is, if I were to see Escape From Spiderhead knowing nothing else, I would expect a giant action film that involves a lot of escaping.

I see.

From the opening scene on. And that is not this film. This film is obviously a bit more: there’s suspense, there’s comedy, it’s cerebral, it’s a lot of things, but it’s not an action film from the opening frames. So we felt like Spiderhead was a better title for our film.

I saw Spiderhead before I saw Top Gun: Maverick…

You saw them out of order.

Right, for me Top Gun: Maverick is your newer movie.

You’re supposed to watch them in order, but that’s okay. The question is… is it more interesting to watch Top Gun first, then see Spiderhead? Or the other way around? I don’t know.

I think it works either way because they’re so different.

Okay. Yeah. That’s it. For me, it was just a really interesting creatively, going to the opposite end of the spectrum, coming off Top Gun to make this film. And I had a blast making it.

By the way, this wasn’t planned, but in my line of vision I just realized I have this unintentional shrine to your movies in a corner of our home office with a Tron arcade game and a Top Gun: Maverick poster.

That’s a real Tron arcade machine with the four motherboards?

Oh no. There’s a company that makes reproductions. I looked into getting an actual Tron and they are very expensive.

Yeah, I don’t think you want to mess with it. It’s four motherboards, one for each module, and from what I understand, four times the cost to maintain it.

And this one has Tron and Discs of Tron.

Oh see, that’s the bonus.

I used to own an actual Donkey Kong game. If it broke, there’s really not a shop you can just wheel that on down to and get it fixed.

I’ve flirted with the idea of putting an arcade in. Actually, I don’t know if you noticed, but in Spiderhead I have a game…

Joust. I did notice.

Well, it’s a multicade actually. It’s a multicade box designed by the creative director for Daft Punk. He created this really high-end Daft Punk-y furniture line and I got the multicade from them and put it in Spiderhead. And Joust was the game we went with for Jeff.

What were the other options?

Oh, it had Street Fighter. It had 40 or 50 games on it. My editor, Stephen Mirrione, is a huge pinball arcade fan. And I think that’s the reason he agreed to do the movie was because of the Joust.

Because he got to play Joust every day?

Yeah. And he was adamant that we get all these sounds right. So everything you hear, if you’re a Joust aficionado…

I have a Joust t-shirt.

All right. Well then hopefully you were happy with the sounds.

I was very happy. Because once the big bird shows up and the noise it makes, it’s very tough, but you can still kill it. It’s just really hard to hit it.

And I think the sound you hear when Jeff dies [his Joust character, not the actual character] is when that hand comes out of the lava and grabs him. That was the moment we went forward with.

Chris Hemsworth is both funny and sinister in this movie.

They’re all great performances. They’re all great actors. But a performance that people would be maybe most surprised by is what Chris pulled off in this movie.

Well, people know he is funny. But I think the sinister part of it is what will be surprising.

It’s a very complex character: charming, dark, twisted, damaged, a little bit of everything. And his American accent apparently is kind of freaking people out because they’re not used to hearing him.

This is going to sound weird but I found it soothing.

He did such a great job. That took a lot of work. That’s him coming an hour or two early every day to get that accent just right. To be able to pull that off. But he worked really hard. It’s a lot of dialogue. Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese are fantastic dialogue writers. He had it all down. It was really fun to watch and fun to work with him.

This is another movie with good needle drops. Thomas Dolby.

The early ’80s yacht rock kind of genre, for me, was a fun one to dig into and a nice counterpoint for this type of film. And for me, it was a way to kind of try to mask the darkness of what’s really going on in the Spiderhead. By filling it with that kind of music you would hear in the dentist’s office or a doctor’s office playing in the background. It gave, I felt, like an interesting tone that we haven’t seen before.

So I have an idea for you for a movie. I don’t know if you’ve thought about this. I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this to you, maybe I’ll be the first. Here it is. Top Gun … three.

Hmm. Wow.

Right.

So, to make one more after two?

Yes.

Wow. Okay. Alright.

I feel bad I’m springing this idea on you that you haven’t thought about.

Well, let’s see, in 36 years, I’ll be 84. I mean, we’ll see if I still got it in me at that point to pull it off. But, yeah, I think it’s going to be a while before we see another Top Gun movie. They’re a challenge to pull off and we’d have to top what we did on this one.

I did notice watching it a third time that, at the bar, “Slow Ride” was 86 on the jukebox.

Yes. You’re the first person to bring that up. That Hangman types in “86.” Yeah. A subtle reference to the first movie. You deserve a prize for that.

I do deserve a prize.

Did you see the Top Gun Easter egg in Spiderhead?

No, because I hadn’t seen Top Gun yet so I wasn’t even looking for that.

Well, Rooster’s F-18 toy is hidden somewhere in the movie. So keep an eyeball out for that.

Here’s a really nerdy question and I bet the answer is no. After Tron: Leagcy you almost remade The Black Hole. And now you do Top Gun and you have a character named Bob. Is there any relation to B.O.B. the robot from The Black Hole?

I’m going to say no to that.

I was giving “yes” around a 5 percent chance.

Yeah.

But if it was right, you’d be impressed.

But there are Black Hole references in Tron: Legacy, as you know. I mean, I guess that’s what you’re referring to? They’re, hidden. Those toys are hidden in the opening scene of Tron: Legacy. V.I.N.CENT.

You know, The Black Hole is the weirdest thing. I just re-watched that like a week ago.

Wow. You made it all the way through?

Oh I strangely love it. It’s so weird. What’s also weird is our local drug store, they sell The Black Hole toys like right now.

What?

That nothing has been done with the property since then but still has a weird little footprint.

That’s crazy.

I interviewed Rick Rossovich for the release of a new Top Gun Blu-ray and he mentioned he was on set one day, but that’s all he would say. Was there a scene with Slider?

There was a mini Top Gun reunion on the set during Ice Man’s funeral. So yeah, Val was there. Rick was there. Tom [Skerriti] was there. Jerry [Bruckheimer] was there. So we did have a mini Top Gun OG reunion, off-camera, that day, which was really cool. Yeah.

What was that like for you?

Amazing. Oh I just love hearing those guys talk about making the first movie because it sounds like they had a blast. But also there was a little competition between them all, which is really fun to hear about. They can all laugh about now. But yeah, I mean it’s like anything, they didn’t know they were making an iconic film. They were just guys in their twenties, having fun in San Diego and making a movie and then it became this thing. So it was wonderful to see that friendship exists between all of them up until now.

So at the beginning of the movie, when we see the calendar, “Mach 9 today.” But it also says, “Dinner with Joe.” Is that you? Is that a reference to you?

Yes. “Dinner with Joe.” Yeah. You caught that too? Nothing gets past you.

I’ve seen it a few times.

Great. No, I love it.

When was the decision made to pretty much make the first five minutes exactly like the original movie?

Early on, because a lot of that footage was the first footage we shot for the film. So yeah, I wanted the opening of the film to tell the audience that this is a Top Gun movie and we love it as much as you do. Don’t worry. It’s a Top Gun movie, but it’s all the new toys. We remade the Simpson/Bruckheimer logo, all that stuff was just fun to build. The only thing we changed was we added, “and women.”

Will there be deleted scenes on the Blu-ray?

Maybe we have a couple of nice scenes that I would love to include, that were great scenes, that just didn’t make sense in our final cut.

What are they?

Well, there’s one you see in the trailer of Maverick. When he first gets to the Coronado, every Navy base has an airplane on a stick out front. Like a model, and he pulls up and looks up and it’s it’s his F-14 that he shot down three MiGs with in the first film.

Oh, wow.

So it’s him staring up at that plane. That was a nice little beat. And there was a nice scene in the infirmary with Cyclone and Phoenix and Bob. If it were in there, it would’ve taken a little bit of the tension away when Maverick comes in to tell Rooster they’re going to be okay. But it was a really nice scene for the three of them. So maybe we’ll get to include some of that on the Blu-ray.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

On Tuesday, Major League Soccer announced a massive new deal with Apple that will reportedly pay them $2.5 billion over the 10 year agreement to broadcast every match, without local blackout restrictions, on a new streaming service that Apple will run and have exclusive rights to — but MLS will pay to produce games for.

It’s a huge deal for MLS, which currently gets $90 million per year in its television deals with ESPN, Univision, and Fox — with the expectation that a linear TV deal with ESPN and Univision for select matches that would still end up on Apple’s streaming service is to come. While the $2.5 billion number is a massive jump for the league, it remains to be seen exactly what they bring in on net revenue after having to pay to produce the games, but it’s still a major upgrade both for league revenue and for fans who will have access to the entire league in one place.

Considering the fracturing of TV and streaming rights across sports to a variety of networks and services, the MLS deal is unique in bringing it all to one place and making it easy for fans to find games, even if they’ll have to pay to do it. Instead of trying to figure out what games are national broadcasts, local broadcasts, or streaming exclusives — like is the case with Major League Baseball now — MLS has gone all in on one network and Apple is banking on the ease of that, and the lack of local blackouts, driving subscriptions in a big way. Fans are often gun shy about paying for streaming packages of games because of blackouts, either from national TV games or from local TV restrictions, but MLS is working backwards from the normal TV agreement this time, selling full rights to Apple and then will offer TV companies the chance to broadcast games as well, rather than exclusively.

Apple TV+ will also get select games that are like national TV games, in that local broadcast networks won’t show them, which will further drive fans to the Apple product (either as Apple TV+ subscribers or subscribers to the new MLS network on Apple). But, MLS has worked out that season ticket holders for every team will get free subscriptions to the new service, ensuring that their most loyal supporters can watch games and are rewarded for their support.

Ahead of their upcoming self-titled third album, Muna stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform “Kind Of Girl.” Known for their queer indie-pop bangers, “Kind Of Girl” has a country-rock influence throughout, similar to the stylings of Shania Twain and LeAnn Rimes.

In the video, the members of Muna are dressed as cowboys, but on the Fallon stage, they wore their own versions of tuxes. Muna is joined by a backing band of guitars and violins for their performance, which gives the song an orchestral element.

“This song is the album’s country moment, and in some ways we feel it is the heart of the record,” said Gavin in a statement accompanying the song’s release. “This song explores the power of language and the words we use to describe who we are and who we want to be. Even though it is a happy, hopeful song, I shed the most tears of the record in the vocal booth recording this chorus. I think there’s something very vulnerable about plainly expressing my desire to be kinder to myself and comfortable receiving love (and my desire to garden even though I kill everything I plant).”

Check out the performance above.

Muna is out 6/24 via Saddest Factory. Pre-save it here.

There are many reasons a pet may have to be rehomed, so it’s a good idea not to judge when we hear of it happening. In fact, an incredible story from Oregon animal hunger charity The Pongo Fund is bringing home the fact that rehoming a beloved animal can sometimes truly be what’s best for everyone involved.

The Pongo Fund shared the tale of two cats—Penny and Lucy—and the two women who love them on its Facebook page. It’s not exactly a happy story, but it’s not a sad one either. It’s a story of life, love and loss, and of strangers connecting in mysterious ways.

And it’s genuinely bringing people to tears, so grab a tissue and read on.

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The Pongo Fund shared:

“She asked us to rehome her cats ASAP. Both of them 12 years old, she’d had them 10 years. Said she needed to travel and do some things she hadn’t been able to do for the past ten years, not being able to travel and take care of her cats at the same time. Hard as it was, it was time to let them go.

She didn’t want to go anywhere exotic. No summer in France or finding herself in Kathmandu. Not Belize or Cancun or even Vegas or Palm Desert. She just wanted to see her Mom again. Old friends and family too. Back to where she came from. That was her calling. And anything else she could do this next year or two.

Giving up her cats wasn’t part of the plan. Neither was cancer. And one year, maybe two; that’s what her oncologist told her. If there were things she wanted to do, this was the time.

She adopted Penny and Lucy from The Pongo Fund a decade ago when a wonderful woman had her world turned upside down. She lost her home, her marriage. Everything stopped all at once. She loved her cats so much that she asked us to find them a new Mom. And we did.

Now, the wonderful woman who welcomed those kitty friends ten years ago needed us to return the favor so someone else could welcome them.

This woman, she didn’t want to let them go. But it was for their own good, not hers. Same thing the first woman said. Imagine loving someone that much, that you need to let them go.

Penny and Lucy. Pure love, those two.

She told us if possible, she’d like to meet the person we chose for the adoption. She just wanted them to know that Penny and Lucy were the best ever. She wanted them to go with all of their toys and beds and food and treats. And she wanted the new person to know that sometimes Lucy got an upset tummy and how Mom would put her on her lap and lay her on her back and rub it while she sang to her.

Maybe she’ll never get an upset tummy again, but if she does, at least Lucy’s new family would know what to do. Her only request was that they stay together, these two sweet older girls who each had their own bed but most often ended up in the same one.

She wanted to make sure we didn’t think poorly of her for what she was doing. She just knew that at some point soon, they were going to have a new family whether she liked it or not. If she could do it now and meet those people, she would feel better about it.

We knew how hard this was for her, because she was the one who was there ten years ago when Penny and Lucy had nowhere else to go. She said yes back then, and now, she was asking someone else to say yes.

Finding a new home for two cats is not easy. For two senior cats, even harder. But we had one card to play, and we played it then.

We called a woman who used to live in the Portland area but moved away several years ago. She used to have two cats but needed to give them up when her life turned upside down. She bounced back in a new place a few states away. New job. New life.

But always following The Pongo Fund on Facebook and cheering us on with love and kind words.

We thought maybe she would welcome two senior cats.

Because ten years ago, she was the one who needed to let them go, Penny and Lucy.

Over the years she had told us, if there was ever a cat needing a safe place to go, to please let her know. Because she knew how it felt to have someone let you go. Someone let her go. She let her cats go. So that’s where we left it. To please keep her in mind, and she would be there.

None of us knew it would be for the same cats she was forced to let go ten years ago. The cats she loved so much that she gave them up for their own good. For what was best for them. Every now and then we gave her an update, to let her know how they were doing. She didn’t want too much information, that was too hard, she said. But just to know they were safe and happy and most of all, that they were loved.

Yes, we told her, they were loved. She loved knowing that.

We called her. Told her we had a cat in need of a home. Two of them, actually. A bonded pair. We shared a bit more information. She didn’t have a clue. All at once she stopped talking and started sobbing. That’s when she knew.

Sometimes life is like a rubber band. What goes around, comes around. For this woman who loved her cats so much that she let them go ten years ago.

And now, she was there to welcome them home.

A few days later she was in Portland. These two special women hugged over their shared love for the same two cats. For both of them, the loves of their lives. One of them is back home now, with the cats she never thought she’d see again. And the other one is telling her Mom she doesn’t have much time left.

Both of them, with love as their guide.

Sometimes life is like a rubber band.

And this is why we Pongo.”

Hope you heeded the tissue warning, because judging from the comments on the story, it was needed.

“I haven’t even been up for an hour and I’m sobbing like A BABY,” wrote one commenter.

“I don’t get very emotional but this made me cry,” wrote another. “I am so happy for both the cats and the women involved.”

“Bloody hell, made me cry!!” shared another. “So much love and huge hugs to these two wonderful women, and of course their sweet little babies xx.”

One person shared, “This is why every person who gives up a pet should be treated with dignity and grace.”

Indeed. We never know what people’s stories may be. Hopefully, this one will serve as a reminder that love can mean letting go, and that sometimes things work out far better than we expect, even when they don’t go as planned.

For someone who hates getting clowned on the internet so much, Meek Mill sure does give music fans a lot of ammunition. While fans probably should give him a break when it comes to his film analyses and sharing his recording contract misfortunes, he occasionally posts content that makes fans question his self-awareness. For instance, when he and Jay-Z teamed up to buy their business partner Robert Kraft a Bentley for his birthday, it only highlighted how out-of-touch he seems with fans who relate to his street-centric subject matter.

His latest front page faux pas is a workout video that demonstrates some pretty atrocious form and little understanding of gym equipment. He appears to be attempting an overhead press with one arm, but instead of using the appropriate dumbbell, which is designed for one-handed use, he’s pushing a barbell, which you should ONLY use with both hands. Naturally, as a result, the unbalanced long bar wobbles and shakes and Meek compensates by leaning back, putting himself at risk of serious injury.

Of course, once the video went viral, fans found plenty to mock about the awkward workout, with one remarking that “Meek Mill the first person I seen do every single thing wrong.” Another lamented the obvious ineffectiveness of Meek’s routine, predicting he was “gaining nothing from this but scoliosis.” Fortunately for Meek, he can probably avoid a repeat of the roast session by hiring a trainer — or keeping his gym-related social media activity to mirror selfies, like everybody else on the internet.

Rudy Giuliani is appalled that former Trump campaign advisors Jason Miller and Bill Stepien accused him of being drunk on election night. America’s former favorite mayor doesn’t drink alcohol. Why, he wouldn’t even know an alcohol if he saw one. The only beverage Rudy Giuliani relies on when he’s attempting to dismantle American democracy is *checks notes* diet Pepsi.

This leads us to Rudy Giuliani’s actual response to rumors he was toasted while advising Donald Trump to declare victory before all of the votes were counted in the 2020 Presidential Election. As the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6th insurrection continues, a new revelation about the environment inside the White House during election night revealed Giuliani was heavily intoxicated while encouraging the president to begin spreading baseless voter fraud conspiracies. In recorded depositions, both Miller and Stepien claimed it was too soon to declare victory while mail-in ballots were still being counted on election night with Miller admitting he thought Giuliani was “definitely” inebriated while in conversation with Trump. Despite giving their own experienced insight, Trump decided to listen to Giuliani and begin sowing doubt about the mail-in ballot-counting process.

Now, in response to the two men’s accounts of what happened that night, Giuliani is hitting back. On Twitter, obviously.

That’s right. Giuliani’s best defense against claims he was white-girl wasted on election night is his preference for diet Pepsi — which somehow makes his judgment even more questionable. Giuliani also ranted that he believes this attack on his character from Trump’s henchmen might be because he “yelled at them” while all of this was going down.

And if you’re questioning why Giuliani keeps misspelling Stepien’s name in these tweets, he’ll have you know the error is totally intentional. He’s absolutely not currently guzzling beer while he tries to find the right keys on his keyboard. He’s just high on aspartame, okay?!

Jason Momoa is back on the market again. After he and Lisa Bonet announced their separation at the beginning of the year, the Aquaman star was linked to Kate Beckinsale and also Bonet as rumors of a reconciliation made the rounds. However, Momoa shot both of those stories down. Turns out, he’d been quietly dating Eiza Gonzalez. Or at least he was because, apparently, that relationship is already over.

According to People, the two have reportedly called it quits just a month after news of their relationship broke. While there’s talk of the couple “hoping they might work it out,” the major issue is that “they’re just very different people.” How different? Well, here’s a very interesting quote from People‘s insider:

The latter source also said that González is a “very fun, down-for-anything type person and is pretty adventurous for the most part” — and she and Momoa “share that same spirit.”

“She’s more of a long-term-relationship person versus casual dater,” the insider added of the I Care a Lot actress. As for Momoa, he is “a really good guy, very generous and happy all the time; he’s all about love and spreading love.”

From the sound of things, Gonzalez was looking for more of a commitment while Momoa is focused on “spreading love.” Hoo boy. If true, that’s a revealing glimpse into Momoa’s mindset right now, and perhaps, what might’ve led to his separation from Bonet. Or it could just be an innocent quote about Momoa’s love for, well, love. Could go either way!

(Via People)