Month: June 2022

Britney Spears and Sam Asghari’s recent wedding was a night of many headlines, from her ex-husband trying to crash it to folks like Selena Gomez, Madonna, and Paris Hilton attending the ceremony. Hilton previously revealed she canceled a presidential DJ gig to be there for Spears and now she has spoken even more about the big day on last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Chelsea Handler (who has been filling in for Kimmel over the past few days) asked Hilton about the wedding and she said, “It was literally, like, one of the most iconic nights of my life, for real.”

Handler then noted she saw a photo of Hilton looking emotional during the ceremony and Hilton explained, “I was. Just seeing her walk down the aisle, this angel who has just had such a horrible time these past 13 years, to finally have her freedom and be able to do what she wants and have that happy fairy tale ending was just beautiful.”

She also offered more detail about having to cancel on Joe Biden’s Summit Of Americas gathering, saying of a conversation between her and the POTUS’ team, “I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to miss that.’ They’re like, ‘We’ll send a helicopter, then you can fly back and forth,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not going to be the one landing in and out of Britney’s wedding in a helicopter,’ like, come on. So I had to cancel on the president. Sorry [laughs].”

Check out Hilton’s interview above.

Public Enemy is one of the most important groups in hip hop history, with (at least) two masterpiece albums to its name, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch is also a hip hop group from the 1990s, and that’s where the similarities between them and Public Enemy end. One group had “Fight the Power.” The other had the Booty Inspector. They are not the same — but one Jeopardy! contestant still somehow confused Chuck D and Mark Wahlberg.

One of the categories during Wednesday’s episode of the game show was “Chuck D, Times 3.” As Yahoo! Entertainment explained, “Four of the five questions pertained to either Charles Darwin or Charles Dickens. But one clue centered around rapper Chuck D.” (What a weird category.) The clue read, “In the 1980s, Chuck D began fighting the power in this hip-hop group with Flavor Flav, a man who always knew what time it was.”

Contestant Halley Ryherd buzzed in and guessed, “Who is the Funky Bunch?” Uh, no.

Another contestant, Pete Chattrabhuti, got it right — although Halley got her revenge by winning the episode with $5,999. It takes a nation of millions of Jeopardy! contestants to be in disbelief about the Public Enemy / Funky Bunch mix-up.

At least Halley has a good sense of humor about it:

(Via Yahoo! Entertainment)

Take some time away, meet new furry friends, and experience a place different from your home. Trusted Housesitters is on a mission to help connect animal-lovers who love to travel with other animal-lovers who love to travel. It seems like a match made in heaven, doesn’t it? Well, if you’re looking to visit some place new and need a pet-sitter or want to visit some place new and pet-sit, then Trusted Housesitters is the site for you. Here’s how it works:

Let’s first say that you’re someone looking to travel someplace different and stay for FREE (which let’s be honest, who isn’t looking for this?). Visit the Trusted Housesitters site and create a profile. Upload tons of pictures, sitter qualifications and little insights into your personality. Then, start applying for sits! It’s that easy! People from around the world looking to leave their furry companions for a few days or weeks will browse your application and if they think you’re a fit they’ll reach out and set up a video call.

Next you travel, arrive at your new home, hang with furry friends and spend some time in a new place! Stays range from homes with a pool in Scottsdale, Arizona, to farmhouses in Austin, Texas and even cabins in Big Sky, Montana. It’s a great way to get in touch with local life and perhaps even find that pet-shaped hole in your heart.

But what if you’re a paw-rent who’s looking to get away for a few days? Well, the process is the same, but reversed. After you create your account you list your home along with your tentative travel dates. Sitters from around the world then apply to watch your fur-babies. After reviewing their accounts and qualifications, you set up a video call to make sure you’re a good fit. And the best part is you know your leaving your home and your fur-baby in good-hands while you’re away.

Each of the sitters is vetted through the site and undergoes background checks, ID verification and a call to ensure that they meet the guidelines set by the site. Owners and sitters are both reviewed at the end of each vacation so the community of Trusted Housesitters maintains transparency and quality standards. It’s a safe, modern, cool way to travel and takes the anxiety out of leaving your fur-babies behind.

So what are you waiting for? Your next vacation could be right around the corner! Sign up today and start looking.

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Cold feet? We’ve got you covered… except in these peep-toe styles. Fluffy, furry, and fashionable this Lattelier slipper collection has us swooning! And they’ve got something for *almost* everyone. Take a look at the cutest, coziest slippers for styles across different walks of life.

1. FOR THE SK8R – Don’t let the fuzz on these fluffy printed slippers fool you. Everything about this print screams rebel (and who says punks don’t deserve warm feet). The classic checkerboard print ads that bit of edge to even the most conservative of pajama sets, but we won’t judge if these slippers find their way out of the house and on to the streets. We did say they were for the rebel in the group, right?

2. FOR THE MINIMALIST – these cozy two band slippers have that simple, stunning Mallorca vibe that the rest of us only wish we could have. They make a subtle yet confident statement, and are the perfect set of slippers for summer. And if like us you think that these babies need to travel way further than your living room, know that they also come in black – hello dirt roads and dusty toes!

3. FOR THE GIRL NEXT DOOR – Lattelier’s classic full band slippers give that timeless, Elle Woods, just rolled out of bed with a perfect face of make up vibe. They’d make a great gift for a bridal party and they also come in creamy white so no need to worry about them interfering with your color palette.

4. FOR THE BOHO BEACH BABE – fluffy plush slippers that live up to their name. The effortless slip on style would look even better kicked up on a coffee table with an ocean view behind them. Ahh, we can practically hear the seagulls squawking now.

5. FOR THE SNOW BUNNY – or the one of us who actually gets cold feet! Ok, so you may have to wait until next winter to fully enjoy the snuggly effect of this round toe furry slipper, but with the open back they still could come in handy for those cooler spring nights – besides, we won’t tell if you won’t. And with a green like that, you’re going to want to make sure you have these on lock for autumn.

6. FOR THE BOSS – hand over the silk robe and we’ll take breakfast in bed. Lattelier’s two band furry slippers say, “I had my assistant book the suite” while still tipping big. The chic design perfectly combines comfort with style so that you’re always on your toes, even with your feet up.

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Miles Bridges was expected to receive a big pay day this week as he enters restricted free agency, but that new contract now is very likely on hold after word broke late Wednesday night via TMZ that Bridges had been arrested in Los Angeles on felony domestic violence charges.

Per TMZ’s report, Bridges turned himself in on Wednesday following the alleged incident on Tuesday night and was released after posting bail, which was set at $130,000. There are not any specifics regarding the incident right now, but TMZ did note that Bridges had left the scene before police arrived after being called on Tuesday night and the woman required medical attention after an argument turned physical.

Law enforcement sources tell us a woman claims she was in an argument with Bridges that turned physical. We’re told police were called to the scene, but Bridges was gone by the time cops arrived. We’re told the woman required medical attention.

There is no word on the status of the woman beyond the fact that she needed medical attention. Bridges nor any of his representatives have made any public statements on the matter, but one would expect this will put a halt on any contract negotiations he may have ongoing until further details are released and teams and the league can look into the matter.

Danny Brown recently appeared on Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer’s 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast, and during the conversation, which in total lasted for an hour and 15 minutes, the Detroit rapper made a shocking allegation. He accused Ninja, who is one-half of the South African hip-hop duo Die Antwoord, of sexually assaulting him after one of Brown’s past shows in Paris. Brown told Segura that Ninja messaged him about meeting up after the show, and instead, Brown offered to put his name on the guest list, but Ninja declined. “[He’s like,] ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll find you,’” Brown said. “That was weird, that was like one red flag.”

Brown says he eventually did meet up with Ninja and was soon “freaked out” by his behavior. “I was a single, experimenting man at the time, but he was too aggressive!” Brown said. “He sat on my lap and started trying to kiss me and sh*t and doing weird sh*t. I’m like, ‘Man, you tripping!’”

He continued, “Ninja tried to f*ck me. I was scared … … He always throw Yolandi on you. I think that’s how he’s been f*cking n****s. F*ck them, though! F*ck them. I could’ve canceled cuz. MeToo. I was sexually assaulted by Ninja. He know I ain’t lying!”

Brown added that Ninja refused to stop attempting to make a move on him. Additionally, Ninja told him that he would find out where his hotel was. “That’s what started making me pound drinks because I’m like, ‘I might have to stab this n**** tonight,’” Brown said. He added, “Because if this n**** knock on my hotel room door, bro, I’m the stabbing the sh*t — it’s gonna be a big deal. It’s gonna be a thing. That would’ve been a fight, but I’m in Paris. Who want to be in a Parisian jail? N****, do you know what jail is like for me in Paris? It’s gonna be crazy. So I’m shellshocked, like, ‘This n****’s really doing this?’”

You can watch the full episode of 2 Bears, 1 Cave in the video above.

In honor of Machine Gun Kelly’s Hulu documentary, Life Is Pink, as well as his sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, The Empire State Building lit up pink yesterday. According to the 1,451-foot-tall tower’s website, the building did so as “a symbol of strength, perseverance, and hope in partnership with Machine Gun Kelly and his new documentary, Life In Pink.”

In a video shared by The Empire State Building’s official Twitter account today, Kelly is seen dancing with one of the building’s tour guides to his hit single, “Emo Girl.”

Perhaps this video was taken before the concert and the afterparty thrown by Kelly and his fiance, Megan Fox. From there, footage on Kelly’s Instagram story of Kelly celebrating at Catch Steak after the show. During the celebration, the “Emo Girl” rapper/singer smashed a champagne glass over his head.

“I don’t give a f*ck, bro. I don’t give a sh*t,” he said seconds before breaking the glass.

But the fact that he had glass in his skin didn’t stop him from singing. In a subsequent clip, he is seen singing his hit single, “My Ex’s Best Friend.”

“F*ck it,” he captioned the video.

In a more just world, the opening of The Forgiven this weekend would be bigger news. The film comes from John Michael McDonagh (The Guard, War On Everyone, Calvary) — not to be confused with his younger brother, Martin, who did In Bruges but also Three Billboards — and stars an A-list cast that includes Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, Christopher Abbott, and Matt Smith. You’d have a hard time squeezing more awards and acclaim into its pedigree, but it’s not a Minion or a Thor, so you probably haven’t heard about it.

That’s a shame because The Forgiven is the rare adult drama that doesn’t feel like a museum piece. It lives and breathes, it teases and provokes, the kind of movie that seems designed to be discussed and fought over — in a world where adults might still do such things. John Michael McDonagh has always had an acid pen and a facility for quippy dialogue, but adapting here from Lawrence Osborne’s 2012 novel, it feels like McDonagh also has a solid narrative framework undergirding all that cleverness, and this is a filmmaker who perhaps could’ve benefited from more girding occasionally in movies past.

Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain play David and Jo Henninger, two rich assholes on their way to a Moroccan estate for a party thrown by two other rich assholes, Richard and Dally (Matt Smith and Caleb Landry Jones). David and Jo bicker their way through the storybook landscape, immune to its rugged beauty — she the hectoring wife, he the checked-out husband. At one point she calls him a “functioning alcoholic,” to which he responds “I’ve always wondered, shouldn’t the ‘functioning’ part cancel out the second part?”

It’s a comment I imagine McDonagh had in his notebook for some time. Their sniping seems to reach a fever pitch on a darkened desert road when David plows over a Moroccan teenager selling fossils by the side of the road.

Rich jerks mowing down impoverished locals in the roadway has been a handy inciting event in class fiction for some time now (not to mention reality), from Bonfire Of The Vanities to White Tiger, but if The Forgiven‘s skeleton feels familiar, the meat of it is unique unto itself. There’s the picturesque setting, this louche party in an outpost of privilege, the blasé Orientalism of all the guests, the resentful local household staff. If we were writing a highfalutin thesis, we could say The Forgiven is about “colonialism and the moral rot of the privileged classes,” but as with Succession, I suspect the draw is more the exotic settings, the absurd situations, the cleverly wicked characters, and the lack of moralizing. Who doesn’t enjoy venal characters behaving badly? I have to imagine The Forgiven is doing a lot of things Death On The Nile wanted to, without the corny genre trappings.

David, who is either the worst kind of rich old white guy or the most brutally honest kind, who alienates his peers by speaking plainly about the things they tend to cloister behind euphemisms and platitudes, eventually gets drawn into the family, legal, and cultural drama that naturally results from killing a boy in a foreign country — and a cultural minority boy in a foreign country at that. The Forgiven is a comedy of manners about a manslaughter.

Meanwhile, his wife Jo tries to enjoy the party, having a sort of holiday from her marriage as a way to rediscover her individuality while carrying on a flirtation with a finance guy dilettante played by Christopher Abbott. They have nice chemistry, and McDonagh excels at banter, always riding that line between clevered-up realism and A List Of Funny Things I Had In My Notebook That I Shoehorned Into A Script. Jessica Chastain is so much more fun when she’s not trapped in Aaron Sorkin competence porn mode. Much more fun to hear her coo “what’s the point of a prostitute who doesn’t do anal?”

These people are wicked partly because they’re emblematic of societal ills, sure, but mostly because they’re just bored. The Forgiven feels a little like Bret Easton Ellis meets Curb Your Enthusiasm. Credit to McDonagh for noticing the parallels.

The whole movie is a bit like that — while it certainly has a moral center, it’s refreshingly un-didactic, willing to let its characters be ethically complex without stapling them to a facile allegory. The dead boy is from a tribe of Berber nomads, who eke out a living pulling fossils from the desert and selling them to westerners. “We don’t know why you want them, all we know is you’re willing to pay money for them,” explains one of their emissaries, played by the once again solid Saïd Taghmaoui.

The potential allusions here are obvious, from fossil fuels to anyone making a precarious living from a diminishing resource. The skill of McDonagh (or maybe Osborne’s novel, which I haven’t read) is to invite the audience to make those allusions rather than forcing one read onto us. Discussing such things used to be the fun part of collectively experiencing art, before it became a sort of scavenger hunt for previously introduced characters.

The Forgiven is about — and this won’t shock you if you’ve seen Calvary — guilt. How much guilt we owe personally for the criminal society we didn’t ask to be born into but nonetheless benefited from, and which forms of penance are constructive and which are just masturbatory rationalization. Few actors are better at this dance, between genuine introspection and the angry rejection of it, than Ralph Fiennes. This dance itself is something of a McDonagh specialty (both brothers, really) and if there was a lifetime achievement Oscar for best acting in McDonagh brothers’ films, Fiennes’ work here and in In Bruges would make him a lock. Aside from being excellent at shouting the word “cunt,” he’s authentically aristocratic (his birth name is Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, for God’s sake) but also seems to genuinely enjoy necking the occasional pint of cheap lager (Wes Anderson has also exploited this characteristic, in less Anglocentric ways).

Both McDonagh and Osborne feel like they’re working through some things with this story, and Fiennes has the perfect face to express them; sometimes wordlessly, other times vulgarly. Mostly, The Forgiven is the kind of naughty, knotty crowd-pleaser that used to dominate the cultural conversation, but now seems like a tribute act. Too bad. I think lots of people enjoy this kind of entertainment, when given half a chance.

‘The Forgiven’ is available only in theaters July 1st. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

The hearings for the House select committee investigating the Jan 6 riot began big and kept getting interesting. But it was the surprise edition on Tuesday that took it next level. The committee heard from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s final White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who had…a few things to say. Even Fox News commentators were shocked. Some have already called into questions some of her claims, but Hutchinson herself is not backing down.

As per CNN’s Jake Tapper, a brief statement on her behalf, from her counsel Jody Hunt and William Jordan, was released to the press. “Ms. Hutchinson stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” it read.

Hutchinson was embedded deeply into the Trump circle during Jan. 6, and she had a lot to say that hadn’t revealed before. Among her claims were that Trump knew some of his supporters were armed, that he demanded to join the mob at the Capitol, that he got so mad at one point that he threw ketchup-heavy food against the wall, and much more.

Arguably the most shocking allegation — that he lunged at one of his Secret Service agents in the presidential limo, trying to choke him — has been called into question by the agents themselves. In the meantime, Hutchinson is sticking by what she said, and others have her side.

One of my worst running jokes (and there have been plenty of them) in recent memory involves referring to Hulu’s Only Murders In The Building stars as the new Three Amigos. This is a bad joke, yes, because Three Amigos is definitely one of those 1980s movies that’s problematic in a 2022 light. This happens all too often with the ’80s, but my point here is not the context of that movie. Convenient, I know! Here’s my drift, though: that movie starred three comedy legends: Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase. Obviously, only the former two now star in Only Murders, and there’s a new powerhouse in town, and she’s standing alongside them and holding her own.

I’m talking about Selena Gomez, and boy, it’s great to see her as an equal to two male leads who don’t show up to a Ritz-Carlton-based photo call (in this case, that’d be Adam Sandler and Kevin James for 2015’s Hotel Transylvania 2, as shown ^^ above ^^) wearing sloppy t-shirts, baggy pants, and sneakers — while she’s wearing a red carpet gown, as one does. That contrast pointed towards an incredibly awkward dynamic and a young actress pushing forth and doing what one must do to be taken seriously while the dudes could not be bothered to impress. And that’s not really even a knock against Sandler and James, but more about how young women have to adhere to the game, and fortunately, Selena appears to have conquered that hurdle.

Now, she’s shining alongside two male costars (Steve and Martin) who keep things classy when they’re not busy making people laugh onscreen. Although Selena’s not flat-out comedic in this show as Mabel, she’s actually incredibly funny in a disarmingly understated way. Mabel’s standoffish as heck and not a people pleaser (please, no one tell her to “smile”), and this young woman only found her way into living in an upscale building by way of her aunt. She’s full of more secrets than anyone would have expected while almost always holding cards close to her sleeve, and I’m hard-pressed to imagine any other actress pulling off this role with anything close to this effect. The way that Selena plays Mabel, I wanted to know more while also fearing her. She’d judge me harshly, no doubt. And dare I say that she’s the most indispensable character of this show as the story heads into its second season of a whodunnit fiasco.

The dream trio’s back for more after sticking the landing in the first season, which debuted in 2021, and we’ve already got the first chunk of the second round, less than a year later. Let’s not pretend that Only Murders is an isolated incident for Selena, though. She’s always been a badass, but some people are keen to watch Disney veterans slide off the rails. Selena, for the most part, did not go that route.

Don’t get me wrong, Selena had some rough times, back during the years when she dated Justin Bieber, who’s since gotten his act together, and we all make mistakes during youth. But if Selena had followed the typical blueprint of a young Disney star, there would have been palpable rebellion, but she, like Zendaya (who co-starred in Shake It Up!), was always capable of more than playing the smartass Alex Russo on The Wizards of Waverly Place. These days, Selena is carving out her own path, and that includes Only Murders but also her own HBO Max cooking show that launched during the pandemic. It’s called Selena + Chef, and in each episode, she’s teaming up with well-regarded chefs and some of the most recognizable foodie names out there like Padma Lakshmi and the Naked Chef himself, Jamie Oliver.

Selena + Chef is freaking delightful. Look here, where she calmly reacts to a kitchen fire (like she’s thinking, “Maybe I should blow on it, ever so slightly? That might help”) while her friends freak out. Cool as a cucumber, they say.

The show’s a surprisingly entertaining, never boring, nearly meditative experience to behold, and it’s all about what makes Selena Gomez a star in her own right. She gathers with her friends, doesn’t pretend to be a chef, and has a great attitude about learning from the experts during each episode. The show’s already cranked out three seasons (after launching near the beginning of the pandemic) and is working on a fourth run. And Only Murders is similarly unstoppable, given that the show turned around a second season in warp speed (less than a year after the show’s August 2021 debut). Again, I’m also looking at Zendaya, but along with Selena, it’s great to see these two former Disney kids cranking away so hard right now and doing projects that they love.

All of this success hasn’t even begun to touch upon how Selena’s confronted difficult developments in her personal life over the past decade. She suffers from lupus, an autoimmune disorder that ain’t no joke. She even had a kidney transplant (the donor was a friend) due to the effects that the disease has had on her body. And she pushed forth, despite odds being stacked against her both physically and because of the way that Hollywood works. She’s making it big time, though. And I hope to see her in a baggy t-shirt on the red carpet soon.

Quite simply, there’s never been a better time to celebrate Selena Gomez.

Hulu’s ‘Only Murders In The Building’ premiered Season 2 episodes on June 28.