Month: June 2022

Lizzo has never been one to back down from clapping back at a hater. It was just a couple of months ago that shot back at a person on Twitter who took issue with her being “allowed to get her BARE ASS on a plane” while “Olivia Cuplo former Ms Universe is forced to wear her boyfriends hoddie to fly Cabo.” In her response, Lizzo wrote, “Like what you see?” before directing them to the website of her Yitty Shapewear collection with Fabletics. This time around, Lizzo didn’t clap back at a specific person, but rather, her message was aimed at men who have used her name to insult women.

“Dudes be ugly w no b*tches talking bout ‘oK LiZzO’ as an insult in girls comments,” she wrote in a tweet. “I’m beautiful rich & get immaculate d*ck… ISSA COMPLIMENT. If u can’t make it past the cheeks, just say that.” It’s unknown which post(s) sparked Lizzo’s message, but we do know that the “immaculate d*ck part of her message is in reference to her new boo. The two were spotted together at Los Angeles restaurant Craig’s on Valentine’s Day and she confirmed that she was still romantically involved with them during an April conversation with Andy Cohen for his SiriusXM series Radio Andy.

You can read Lizzo’s tweet above.

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

Reboots, revivals, and reunions have been all the rage for ages now, but somehow that’s eluded Scrubs, the hospital comedy from Spin City — and future Ted Lasso — creator Bill Lawrence. The closest they’ve come to that is a panel at this weekend’s ATX TV Festival, which featured Lawrence and the main cast, Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and John C. McGinley among them. As it happens, that’s where they revealed that they’d love to join the reboot/revival/reunion train — when they have time.

As per Deadline, the panel found Lawrence gushing about seeing everyone back together again. “We’re all so grateful any of you still care, it gives us an excuse to hang out together,” he said. “We are happy to spend time with each other in any way.”

That brought up the idea of a proper reboot. The good news: They’re game. The less good news: It would have to be something small.

“Here’s the deal: I think we all want a reboot and want to work together again but it couldn’t be a full season. Maybe like a movie or something we could shoot in a few months,” Faison told the crowd. “With everything Bill is doing now, he’s never going to be free again. If he finds the time, we’ll do it.”

Still, Lawrence was adamant that it happen, in whatever form it takes. “We’re gonna do it because people still care about it and we enjoy spending time with each other,” he said.

Lawrence is very busy. Along with Ted Lasso, he’s also working with Vince Vaughn on a crime series called Bad Monkey, which will also be on Apple TV+. But when he has some time off from making a show about a nice guy starring a nice guy, maybe Lawrence can get everyone back in their old hospital outfits.

(Via Deadline)

There are some collaborations that you might have expected from Jack Harlow this year, one of them being work with Drake. That came to fruition with their “Churchill Downs” record which recently received the visual treatment. There are also some collaborations we did not expect to receive from Jack Harlow. Aside from songs with Pharrell and Justin Timberlake, the Louisville star recently linked up with KFC for a new partnership. Sure, both Jack and the food chain share roots in Kentucky, but it’s not exactly the first brand partnership that comes to mind with Jack.

Nonetheless, just days after Jack announced the impending arrival of his own combo meal at KFC, he brought his talents to one of the chain’s Atlanta locations on Saturday. It’s here that Jack worked the drive-thru window at the KFC in Smyrna, located in Atlanta’s Cobb County. The restaurant featured a huge mural of the rapper on the side of its building and an enormous chicken bucket featuring Harlow’s face.

Jack’s combo meal will debut at KFC restaurants nationwide for a limited time starting Monday, June 6. The Jack Harlow Meal includes KFC’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich, Secret Recipe Fries, Mac & Cheese, a side of ranch, and a lemonade and it will be served in special packaging.

You can view some fan-captured videos and pictures of Jack Harlow’s day at KFC above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Atlanta rap community, and the music world overall, are left to grieve at the loss of another one of its artists. On Sunday morning, reports arrived that rapper Trouble had passed away at the young age of 35. The reports allege that Trouble was shot and killed, but these reports have yet to be confirmed. One of the first people to share their condolences about Trouble’s death was fellow Atlanta rapper Young Scooter, who posted his reaction to the news on his Instagram Story. “DAM SKOOB,” Scooter wrote with a picture of Trouble. “REST UP MY BOY.”

Trouble had been making waves in the rap community since 2011, the year that he released his debut mixtape, December 17th. The project gained plenty of attention for the Atlanta native as it was placed at No. 23 on Complex’s The 25 Best Mixtapes of 2011 list. For the next six years, Trouble would continuously release mixtapes before inking a deal with Mike Will Made-It’s Ear Drummers Records and Interscope Records in 2017. During this time, Trouble also laced notable collaborations with the links of Young Thug (“Theif In The Night“), YFN Lucci (“Key To The Streets“), and more.

In 2018, he released his debut album Edgewood. Highlighted by “Bring It Back” with Drake, the project carried 16 songs with additional features from The Weeknd, Quavo, Fetty Wap, Boosie Badazz, and more. It was later extended with five songs highlighted by an appearance by Offset. Trouble’s most recent project arrived in 2020 with Thug Luv. That delivered 18 songs with help from 2 Chainz, Quavo, Jeezy, City Girls, and more.

You can view a screenshot of Young Scooter’s post above.

How it normally works with blockbusters is this: They have a huge opening weekend, grossing over $100 million. Then the second weekend, the rabid anticipation drops and so does the money it rakes in. But something funny has happened with Top Gun: Maverick: People keep going to see it in droves.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the long-delayed, very belated sequel to the top grosser of 1986 dropped a mere 32 percent in its second weekend. When it opened over Memorial Day weekend, it Hoovered up $126.7 million in the first three days alone, and another $33.8 million on the holiday itself — by far the biggest opening of star Tom Cruise’s career. This weekend, it grossed a whopping $86 million.

That means Maverick has broken another record: the lowest second weekend dip for a movie that opened to over $100 million, according to THR. For context, consider that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which opened bigger than Maverick, with $187.4 million, dropped to $61.7 million its second weekend.

The news is pretty much the opposite of what befell Morbius, the Jared Leto-starring comic book movie, which was given a slight re-release in theaters after becoming a jokey social media meme sensation. On its first day back in theaters, it grossed a mere $85,000. That same day, Top Gun: Maverick made $25,00,000, or almost 300 times what Morbius made. Poor Morbius.

(Via THR)

After going more than four years without a project, Lorde returned last summer with her third album Solar Power. The project was a departure from the sound that many expected from her, but with it being almost a half-decade since they received 2017’s Melodrama, it’s no surprise that Lorde decided to switch things up. However, as Lorde tells it, that change isn’t permanent. Saturday night, during the third and final night of her residency at London’s Roundhouse, Lorde thanked fans for their support over the last decade and also revealed that she’s been “thinking about bangers.”

“It’s so interesting to me how writing a big, bright pop song has been the thing that’s defined my life,” she said according to NME. “This thing I started trying to do when I was 14-years-old because I would turn on the radio and love that feeling, what it did to me. It became like an addiction, I just wanted to keep trying to construct the perfect thing that would hit you in the heart emotionally, over three-and-a-half minutes.” She continued:

“But I never thought a pop song would be the thing that changed my life. I was informed today that it’s the nine-year anniversary of ‘Royals’ coming out. I remember sitting in my parent’s kitchen, pressing upload on Soundcloud. I was in my school uniform.

And nine years ago, you started to change my life. And you told me I wasn’t crazy for being obsessed with pre-chorus melodies and hooks. That actually, it was a worthwhile endeavor for me

Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to share in those moments with you because, in my opinion, a banger is not created until the audience participates. You can write a good pop song but you are the ones that turn it into that thing that we all know to be a banger.”

Lorde went on to say that while big pop songs are “the guiding force in my life, the north star to which I move towards, it’s not always the season. You don’t always have the banger in you.” She continued, “We’ve had a really difficult, painful, lonely few years and artists take that, and they process it and they make something that’s maybe quieter, or more private,” which seemingly referenced her Solar Power album.

“But the banger will always be on the horizon,” she concluded. “I want to say thank you for being so welcoming and wonderful on this tour. I’m getting nearer to that zone again, where all I’m going to write is those sort of songs for us all to dance to, and to feel in our hearts. Thanks for changing my life.”

The United Kingdom is currently going full tilt boogie for the Platinum Jubilee, which rings in Elizabeth II’s 70th anniversary as Queen. There are days of celebration. There have been Daleks and Danger Mouse. Her Majesty even got tea and talked marmalade sandwiches with Paddington. What it’s missed, for the most part, is the Queen herself, who has appeared at the balcony of Buckingham Palace but skipped out on everything else. But those in charge found a creative — and pretty bizarre — way to get her involved.

During a street pageant in London, a hologram of the younger Elizabeth II could be seen in the Gold State Coach, a 260-year-old carriage commissioned by King George III in 1760 and finished two years later. It’s rarely used, for obvious reasons, but it has been used at the coronation of every monarch since — including Elizabeth II in 1953. The hologram was made of footage from that occasion, presenting people today with the illusion that they were waving at the twentysomething Queen.

And wave they did. Yes, the people of England waved at a hologram.

Of course, Queen Elizabeth II is 96 years old, so that may explain why she has been AWOL during much of the celebration honoring her seven-decade reign. In that time, she’s accomplished so much. She even helped Snoop Dogg. And, at least in 2017, she did rather a lot of drinking.

(Via Sky News)

Paul Schrader is many things: a legendary screenwriter, a beloved film director — and a DGAF crank on Facebook. The author of Taxi Driver, who’s had a resurgence of late with First Reformed and The Card Counter, loves to go on the social media service and speak his mind, not caring who he offends. His latest target: the TV adaptation of one of his greatest films, 1980’s American Gigolo.

Showtime is behind the reboot, which stars the mighty Jon Bernthal as Julian Kaye, a perpetually well-dressed male escort who gets embroiled in some shady goings-on. Richard Gere played Kaye in the original, and it turned him into a megastar and sex symbol. It could do the same for respected and always-welcome character actor Bernthal. But Schrader won’t even be watching it.

“After the Showtime trailer appeared online I’ve been asked if I am involved,” Schrader wrote in his post. “The answer is no.” When they told him about it, he told them exactly what was on his mind.

“I replied that I thought it was a terrible idea–times had changed, internet porn had redefined male sex work, viruses, etc. I couldn’t imagine Julian Kay working a Hen Party,” Schrader wrote. “I thought that was the end of it.”

Still, he did take the money, and he explained why. “They did not want my involvement. Here were my options: (1) take $50G and not be involved (2) take $0 and not be involved (3) threaten an expensive and futile lawsuit and not be involved,” wrote Schrader. “I took the $50G.”

Schrader also said he would not be watching it, saying there was no way he “could be objective about it and, even if I could, it’s too much agita.”

Bernthal has never worked with Schrader before, but he was incredible in The Wolf of Wall Street, by Schrader’s frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese. Schrader did direct one of the show’s other stars, Gretchen Mol, in 1999’s Forever Mine.

The American Gigolo show currently has no release date.

(Via Deadline)

For the last two weeks, Morbius was trending on Twitter. The Jared Leto-starring comic book movie, about a scientist who accidentally turns himself into a vampire, didn’t do so hot when it hit theaters in April. But all of a sudden it was the talk of the internet. It wasn’t exactly because people adored it. It just became a joke, and even its star got in on the action. Amidst the hullabaloo, Sony decided to give it a little re-release. But just because something’s a hit on social media doesn’t translate into a hit in movie theaters.

Sure enough, as per Forbes, the Morbius Mulligan did not go so well. On Friday, the day the film was re-dropped in theaters, it grossed a mere $85,000. For some perspective, on the same day Top Gun: Maverick, the movie everyone’s seeing, grossed $25,000,000. Morbius couldn’t even break the $100,000 mark.

Granted, the Morbius reissue may have never stood a chance. Most theaters were only playing it once, often in mid-evening time slots, during the 9 o’clock hour. Still, its $270 per screen average — the lowest in the top 20 — doesn’t suggest the throngs were hungry for more Morbius. Oh well. We’ll always have those Morbius memes.

(Via Forbes)

Grand slams are cool. Inside-the-park home runs are cool. Thanks to a minor league game on Saturday night, we got to see both of those things happen at the exact same time, as a line drive to right center ended up with the bases getting completely cleared and four runs scoring.

Nathan Lukes of the Buffalo Bisons, the triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded in the top of the fourth inning against the Rochester Red Wings. The lefty slapped a fastball high in the zone into right field, but because of where the outfielder was standing, he didn’t really have a great way to approach this one.

As such, he tried to make a driving catch and failed, which allowed the ball to roll all the way to the wall. It let everyone score, while Lukes was able to slide into home and hit one of the more impressive homers we’ll see this baseball season.

The fun part is that this is the second inside-the-park grand slam we’ve seen in two days. During the regional round of the College World Series on Friday, Louisiana Tech catcher Jorge Corona didn’t even need to slide after hitting a ball to center field that cleared the bases.

Baseball players cannot stop hitting inside-the-park grand slams, and I think it’s pretty good.