Month: September 2022

One of the January 6 rioters who assaulted Metropolitan DC police officer Michael Fanone broke down in tears during his sentencing hearing on Tuesday. The defendant, Kyle Young, was found guilty of holding down Fanone during the Capital insurrection while another rioter repeatedly used a Taser provided by Young on the officer. Fanone was present for the hearing, and said that he hoped Young “suffers in prison” for the brutal attack.

Prosecutors were recommending 86 months in prison for the assault on Fanone, which eventually caused Young to start crying in front of the judge. “I am so so sorry. And if I could take it back I would,” Young reportedly said.

While speaking to CNN after his court appearance, Fanone made it unequivocally clear that he’s not interested in whether Young rehabilitates himself. The former officer just wants accountability for the actions of the January 6 rioters who attacked officers. Via Mediaite:

“The time in and of itself really didn’t matter to me. What did matter to me was what Mr. Young did with that time, and, like all the individuals who have been charged with assaulting me, the only thing I’m interested in seeing them do is suffer,” Fanone told Brianna Keilar.

“I’m not looking for apologies. I’m not looking for them to turn their lives around. If they want to do that, they can do that, that’s fine, but I want them to suffer just like I have,” he added.

Interestingly, Young isn’t the only MAGA insurrectionist to break down after being faced with the consequences of attacking Fanone. Last year, Young’s accomplice, Danny Rodriguez, started crying while being interrogated following his arrest.

“What do you want me to tell you? That I tased him? Yes,” a teary-eyed Rodriguez told investigators. “Am I a (expletive) piece of (expletive)? Yes.”

(Via Mediaite)

One of the meaner nicknames in all of basketball is “Street Clothes.” This is what Charles Barkley calls Anthony Davis, due to Davis’ not especially great penchant for missing NBA games due to injuries. Since joining the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019, Davis has played in 138 of a potential 225 games, which does not include the various games where Davis will play, pick up a minor knock, and make his way into the locker room for a few minutes before returning to action.

It’s a new season, though, and hope springs eternal. This applies to Davis, too, who was asked about any potential personal goals he may have this season and decided to put his availability at the forefront.

“My personal goal is just, one, as much as I can, play all 82,” Davis said. “And then two, get back to the level of basketball that I know I’m capable of playing which is being elite and dominant.”

It is a nice goal for Davis to try and have, particularly because it is really hard to play in all 82 games over the course of an NBA season. Last year, only five guys — Deni Avdija, Dwight Powell, Kevon Looney, Mikal Bridges, and Saddiq Bey — achieved that mark, while Davis has never played in more than 75 in a season. On average, he plays in about 60 games a year. Add in the fact that load management is such an important thing for the top players in the league and we are going to take the under on whether or not Davis plays 82 games this year, even if this is a very admirable goal to set.

It’s pretty common for movie stars to have some on-set beef that eventually spills over to the press tour, say, for example, anyone who worked on Don’t Worry Darling, or anyone who almost worked on Don’t Worry Darling. But to call someone out while promoting your new movie when they can’t respond? That’s just cruel. And it’s exactly what Colin Farrell did to his lovely costar, Jenny.

To be fair, this was Jenny’s first movie, and she was probably nervous! Also, she is a donkey. “Ah, Jenny was tricky,” Farrell explained in a new interview with Empire. “It was her first film, but she acted like it was her 100th. She was kind of over it. Kind of jaded,” He added. Well, she’s not going to get anywhere acting like a nobody!

As it turns out, Jenny wasn’t pleased with Farrell either, probably because she didn’t like him in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. The donkey ended up kicking Farrell while shooting. “She didn’t like her nose being touched, I found out. She kicked me in the knee. But that was my fault. I got too close to her.”

On the other hand, Farrell had nothing but love for Minnie, his canine companion. “Minnie was great,” Farrell added. “Minnie proved that there’s no such thing as small parts, just small actors.” Meanwhile, he was bit by co-star Brendan Gleeson‘s dog, “I f*cking got bitten by your f*cking dog! I still have the scar. The donkey kicked me, the dog bit me.” The dog probably didn’t enjoy Farrell’s performance in Batman, so he took matters into his own hands (or…paws).

Minnie, Jenny, and Colin Farrell star in The Banshees Of Inisherin which opens October 21st.

(Via Empire)

The second and final of two Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concerts is happening on Tuesday, September 27 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. This follows the first tribute concert to the late Foo Fighters drummer which happened at London’s Wembley Stadium earlier this month. And much like the London show, Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters and the Hawkins family have gotten an incredible slate of friends, collaborators, and admirers of Hawkins and his incomparable physical style on the drums to perform at the concert.

Who Will Perform At The LA Taylor Hawkins Tribute Show?

Obviously Grohl and Foo Fighters will be at the helm of the entire evening. The original lineup announcement showed that stars like Miley Cyrus, Joan Jett, and Alanis Morisette (whom Hawkins toured with early on) will be included in the evening’s celebration of life. But more guests have been added since.

Here’s the full list of performers for the Taylor Hawkins Tribute concert in LA: Chris Chaney, Stewart Copeland, Miley Cyrus, Omar Hakim, Joshua Homme, Sebastian Bach, Travis Barker, Geezer Butler, Phil Collen, Joe Elliott, Josh Freese, Violet Grohl, Shane Hawkins, James Gang, Mark King, Lars Ulrich, Joan Jett, Alain Johannes, John Paul Jones, Greg Kurstin, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Brian May, Alanis Morissette, Krist Novoselic, P!NK, LeAnn Rimes, Mark Ronson, Gene Simmons, Nikki Sixx, Chad Smith, Luke Spiller, Roger Taylor, Rufus Taylor, Jon Theodore, Wolfgang Van Halen, Chevy Metal, Brad Wilk, Nancy Wilson, and Patrick Wilson.

And of course, there’s a strong possibility that there are surprise appearances that won’t be announced. The show will unfortunately not be streamed.

They say success is the best revenge, but for Joyce Wrice, it’s going to take a lot more than a hit single to avenge her past lovers and enemies. She much rather get it back in blood with cool sword tricks, cute outfits and surprisingly pressed hair for kicking butt all day.

Wrice is steadily riding the wave of releasing notably one of the best R&B projects last year, Overgrown. Even though she released “Iced Tea” with the help of production by Kaytranada back in March, her momentum hasn’t slowed down since.

Now, the fan favorite has a half-anime, half-motion picture set of visuals to accompany the groovy ditty. The visual is directed by Xavier Tera and creative-directed by Ashley Bone. It stars Wrice seamlessly blending aspects of her Japanese and Black cultures amid a dance number in the rain with a few other ladies. Dancing in the rain is a common R&B video theme that’s been missing in heartbreak videos of today. It’s great to see slip and slid efforts of Usher in “U Got It Bad” and Ray J’s “One Wish” acknowledged and cherished.

Dancing aside, anyone on Wrice’s revenge list should be very afraid. Peep the video above.

If you want to hear one of the dumbest ideas ever uttered for stopping school shootings, Ted Cruz is your guy. If you’d like a lesson in being Donald Trump’s favorite doormat, Ted’s got you covered there, too. And if you’re looking for advice on what to order the next time you’re at Señor Frogs in Cancun, Cruz can probably offer a few helpful suggestions. But when it comes to abortion, women, reproductive rights, or really anything having to do with a vagina, you’d do best to seek guidance from truly anyone other than the Texas senator.

Unfortunately, as Mediaite reports, that didn’t stop Doktor Cruz from randomly deciding to weigh in on Chrissy Teigen’s recent realization that what she had originally called a miscarriage in 2020 was actually a medical abortion. Earlier this month, Teigen — who has two children with John Legend, and is currently pregnant — got real while speaking at the “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” summit, when she explained:

Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack, John and my third child, I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions. It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention. Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion. An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance.

But Cruz, who is not a medical doctor and has no intimate intel knowledge of Teigen’s nether regions, has decided that he knows better than Teigen herself and claimed on his podcast that she was right the first time, and what she suffered was indeed a miscarriage.

“If there’s a medical procedure in that context, it’s not an abortion,” said Cruz, who may or may not understand that abortion is also a medical procedure.

“It is the law in all 50 states and it should be the law in all 50 states, that doctors can intervene to save the life of the mother, even if it means tragically losing the child,” Cruz said, then added that not even “the most robust pro-life advocates” would argue “that when the woman’s life is in danger, that you can’t take extraordinary medical steps to preserve the mother’s life.” Except they do. All the time.

At the moment, only a handful of states — including Arkansas, Indiana, and North Dakota — allow for legal abortions if the mother’s life is at risk. And a very limited number of states make exceptions in cases of rape or incest. But Texas, which attempted to ban abortion even before Roe v. Wade was overturned, has some of the strictest abortion laws, which Cruz voted for.

Though it’s Cruz who’s attempting to pick and choose what to call the procedure, he’s accusing Teigen of doing just that. “[S]he may want to characterize it as abortion in this political context,” Cruz said, “but she described it at the time as a miscarriage. And it certainly sounds like that was an accurate description.”

(Via Mediaite)

Ever since the first season of Stranger Things hit Netflix back in 2016, Caleb McLaughlin has been dealing with racism from fans of the hit supernatural series. It’s not an easy thing for any actor to deal with, let alone one who was barely a teen at the time. While making a recent appearance at the Heroes Comic Con in Belgium, McLaughlin opened up about the unfortunate interactions he had during the start of the show.

“My very first Comic-Con, some people didn’t stand in my line because I was Black,” McLaughlin told the crowd. “Even now some people don’t follow me or don’t support me because I’m Black. Sometimes overseas you feel the racism, you feel the bigotry. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about and for people to understand, but when I was younger it definitely affected me a lot.”

Fortunately, McLaughlin had supportive parents who helped the young actor navigate the harsh reality that some genre fans can be the absolute worst. Via Variety:

“My parents had to be like, ‘It’s a sad truth, but it’s because you’re the Black child on the show… Because I was born with this beautiful chocolate skin, I’m not loved,” he added. “But that’s why with my platform I want to spread positivity and love because I do not give hate back to people who give hate to me.”

As evidenced by the recent furor over Halle Bailey being cast as The Little Mermaid, the problem isn’t going away anytime soon. However, in a long overdue move, franchises like Star Wars have been pushing back against racist fans. When Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram started experiencing racist attacks, not only did Lucasfilm come to her aid, but so did Ewan McGregor, who called out online trolls and flat-out told them there’s no place for them in Star Wars fandom.

(Via Variety)

Sylvester Stallone’s actually starring in a TV series, which is already wild but more so when one considers that the show’s called Tulsa King. The show was largely filmed in Tulsa as well as Oklahoma City, and Sly got real about the hellishly hot summer that he endured this year. Still, he’s excited about having never worked harder (in his words), which is quite something from the guy who played John Rambo and Rocky Balboa. The Paramount+ series’ showrunner, Terence Winter, comes by the gig honestly, given that this is a mob story, and he hails from Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos-land.

Tulsa King sprang from he mind of Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, who had his star in mind when he wrote the lead role. And Stallone is certainly a big gangster boss in an atypical smallish world for a gangster. His character, Dwight “The General” Manfredi, kept his head down for 25 years in prison before emerging and being thanked for his troubles by being shipped to the land of the Tulsa Driller. Winter spoke to Entertainment Weekly about why this city became the setting for this show:

“It was originally set in Kansas City, which felt too big, too cosmopolitan. They already have an active mob presence in Kansas City. So I wanted somewhere that you’d never heard an Italian mafia family have anything to do with. And there probably could have been other states, but Oklahoma also just felt so American. I mean, obviously the musical comes to mind. It just feels like the heart of America. We said, ‘What is the most unlikely place you might put this character?’ And certainly Tulsa is; it might as well be Mars.”

“Tulsa: it might as well be Mars” might not be the slogan favored by city officials, but locals might take a shining to it. From there, Winter went into more detail about how Stallone’s now hanging around “rodeo riders” with scenes that happen “at actual ranches,” which is obviously amusing to see from a former action king like Stallone. Given that the vast majority of Tulsans don’t hang at ranches or ride at rodeos, this should be a treat for all while watching Stallone’s mob boss try to build an empire in a city with more churches than he’s probably ever seen in his life.

Tulsa King also stars Vincent Piazza, Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Max Casella, and Garrett Hedlund. You can watch it on Paramount+ beginning on November 13.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Jack Harlow’s star continues to rise. After performing at and co-hosting the MTV VMAs, the Louisville native is stepping into another new role: Late-night host. Harlow will co-host next Thursday night’s (October 6) episode of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon when his Come Home The Kids Miss You tour hits New York City. According to a press release, he’ll help Jimmy deliver the episode’s monologue, introduce musical guests Quavo & Takeoff, and interview the night’s guest Dwyane Wade.

Harlow kept flying high in 2022 as he released his sophomore album, Come Home The Kids Miss You, after racking up his first-ever career No. 1 alongside Lil Nas X for “Industry Baby.” Harlow’s follow-up single, “First Class,” repeated the feat, giving him his first-ever No. 1 as a lead artist, and achieved the impressive accomplishment of returning to No. 1 a few weeks later, making three weeks in total. He also secured his first lead acting role in the remake of White Men Can’t Jump and got his own meal at KFC.

Even the bumps in the road have turned into victories for Jack. After accidentally insulting scores of R&B fans with his surprise at Brandy and Ray J’s relation, he recruited the elder Norwood to perform her fiery freestyle over “First Class” with him at the BET Awards.

Catch Jack Harlow as co-host of The Tonight Show on 10/6.

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

Damon Albarn is a master collaborator. Heck, the first two singles off of the Gorillaz’s upcoming Cracker Island album feature Thundercat and Tame Impala. Albarn has corralled talent in the past from Snoop Dogg and Little Dragon to De La Soul, Lou Reed and Paul Simonon of The Clash. You get the idea. But Albarn’s thirst for high profile collaborations is seemingly insatiable and could Billie Eilish be next up? Albarn says it could be happening soon.

“Yeah, it will. Yeah,” Albarn told Apple Music 1’s Matt Wilkinson this morning. “I think we keep trying to do it. It’s just a case of schedules.” He heaped praise on Eilish, saying,”Oh, she’s wonderful… I love her.” And then pontificated on what a Damon Albarn and Billie Eilish track would sound like. “Who knows? Could be kind of babbling brook folk or dark satanic metal.”

Sounds good to us. For her part, Eilish brought out Albarn on stage during her Coachella performance earlier this year. The pair did a duet of Eilish’s “Getting Older,” before Albarn performed Gorillaz classic “Feel Good Inc.” The smitten Eilish told the crowd that, “This man changed my life in a lot of ways and changed my complete view of what music could be, and what art could be, and what creation could be.”

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