Month: October 2022

John Oliver has a simple message for the media: Stop repeating everything cops tell you. The Last Week Tonight host went long on how often and pervasively the police lie, and he couldn’t help but shake his head at how easily those lies are repeated by the media simply because law enforcement is considered a trustworthy source by default. Oliver even pointed out an easy trick to spot when you should be extremely wary about the sourcing for a news story. Watch out for the words “police say.”

“It’s a phrase that you constantly hear from the mouths of news reporters,” Oliver said. “It’s right up there with ‘this just in,’ or ‘back to you,’ or ‘I apologize for the actions I did on Cinco de Mayo.’”

Jokes aside, Oliver got right down to it. Cops constantly lie for a variety of reasons, and the media should be treating everything they say with “immense skepticism” because often what the police are saying is “complete horsesh*t.” Via HuffPost:

“Police lie,” Oliver said bluntly. “And they lie a lot.”

He recapped some of the stories on “Last Week Tonight” over the years.

“They lie to get search warrants to conduct raids and to get confessions during interrogations,” he said. “And they even lie under oath, so often in fact here in New York it came to be known as ‘testilying.’”

To prove his point, Oliver brought up the recent panic over “rainbow fentanyl” being hidden in children’s Halloween candy. He showed a variety of TV reports repeating press releases from the police verbatim with the exception of one broadcast, which aired a brief disclaimer saying that the whole “fentanyl in candy” thing has never actually happened.

“I’m so glad you tacked that disclaimer on at the end there,” Oliver said. “I’m sure that three-second debunk is exactly what everyone is going to take away from that report, and definitely not the images of little Hulks sticking their hands into bowls of Skittles-shaped smack.”

(Via HuffPost)

In case it ever pops up as a Final Jeopardy! question: No, Stephen A. Smith has never gotten a rim job.

As Mediaite notes, the ESPN personality was forced to publicly state that “no woman has ever” eaten his ass after his non-response to a question about his bottom-based sexual experiences was interpreted as a confirmation. Last week, for some reason, Stephen A agreed to appear as a guest on Jake Paul’s sports show, BS with Jake Paul.

After getting into a rather heated argument with the twentysomething influencer-turned-boxer, Smith was confronted with what co-host Julia Fox described as “probably the most important question of the night — of the entire interview” and demanded a “no-bullshit” answer: “Do you, Stephen A, eat ass?”

His answer was an unequivocal “No! Never!” When Fox changed the query up and asked if he’d had his ass eaten, he simply said, “That’s private.” The hosts took that as a victorious “yes,” and celebrated accordingly. But Stephen A wasn’t rejoicing — especially after some random guy apparently razzed him for sexual proclivities… at Disney World of all places.

Stephen A was at the so-called Happiest Place on Earth in Orlando over the weekend to walk in a parade to help kick off HBCU Week. And was apparently heckled by someone about his ass-eating comments, despite there being kids everywhere. Stephen A not amused.

Smith took to Twitter on Sunday morning to put the rumors to rest once and for all, and declare “Lesson learned!” What he really didn’t appreciate was “some dude with his camera on yelling that at me in front of a bunch of CHILDREN at Disney World yesterday,” adding that, “We’ve lost our way.”

He’s only just now realizing that?

(Via Mediaite)

Cardi B is hardly one week removed from her “Tomorrow 2” remix with GloRilla debuting at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, and she’s now giving Ice Spice’s TikTok sensation “Munch (Feelin’ U)” the type of boost only she can.

Cardi took to Instagram on Sunday (October 9) to post a steamy video soundtracked by her own “Munch” verse. The Diamond-certified rapper strutted around in a form-fitting black dress, striking several confident poses. “He wants to see what it is like a gender reveal,” Cardi boasts in the verse, in part. “P*ssing on b*tches is really a skill / B*tches dead to me, damn it, dead to me still.”

This sent fans into a frenzy of hope an official remix was on the way. Cardi immediately cleared up any potential confusion. “I’m not putting that song out by the way,” she tweeted. “You know I don’t tease.” When a fan asked why not, Cardi responded, “I like it don’t love it … just having fun.”

Cardi has been supporting Ice Spice since “Munch” started making waves. Ice Spice attended Cardi and Offset’s “Fashion Night Out” in New York last month.

“Munch” has generated nearly 15 million Spotify streams since its August release, and its official music video posted by WorldStarHipHop has eclipsed 12.8 million views.

Watch Ice Spice’s original video below.

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

Last Friday, Lil Yachty dropped his new song “Poland” — which immediately grabbed the internet’s attention due to one specific line in the song’s short runtime: “I took the wock to Poland,” Yachty raps on the track, making a key point to expand his pronunciation of “wock” — a type of cough syrup.

Among those reacting on the internet was the social media account for Ryanair, an airline based in… Ireland. Not Poland, but close enough geographically. However, it seems they offer flights there after they posed the question, “Why do people flying to Poland keep asking about wock.”

Keeping in line with the bit, users tried to fill in Ryanair with a fake meaning about Poland and wock’s origins. “It’s Polish for leg room,” one replied. “*work… they’re jobless,” another wrote. Some tried to even translate it, “it’s short for łokieć, which means elbow, so obviously they’re asking they want the armrest for when they sit in the middle,” a user jokingly noted, keeping in line with the airline joke theme.

Since then, a range of memes have popped up about Yachty and taking the wock to Poland, primarily on Twitter. Listen to Lil Yachty’s “Poland,” then continue scrolling for additional internet reactions below.

John Carpenter is the horror master, but Henry Selick is the master of kid-friendly horror. The director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach (that rhino in the clouds terrified me as a kid), and Coraline returns with his first film in 13 years with Wendell and Wild. The stop-motion horror comedy stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, who also co-wrote the script with Selick, as a pair of demon brothers who trick a teenager (voiced by Lyric Ross) into bringing them into the land of the living.

“Everything changed and evolved once we got in business together,” Selick said about working with Peele at New York Comic Con. “[Peele] convinced me that the protagonist should be young Kat Elliot… He convinced me Kat needed to be a person of color.” He continued, “Jordan said when he was a kid, it upset him when he’d see animated films where there was no one onscreen who looks like him. That sort of unlocked a door.”

You can watch the trailer above. Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Director, Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline) and producer Jordan Peele (Nope, Us, Get Out) team up to bring us a phantasmic thrill ride in the new stop-animation feature, Wendell and Wild. The titular characters, a pair of demon brothers played by comedy icons Key & Peele trick troubled teen, Kat Elliott (Lyric Ross), into bringing them from the underworld into the land of the living and mayhem ensues.

Wendell and Wild comes to Netflix on October 28.

Much like Jack Dawson, Constance Wu figures life’s a gift and she doesn’t intend on wasting it. So if she gets the opportunity to make a Titanic (emphasis on the first three letters) joke on Celebrity Jeopardy, she’s going to do it.

Heading into Final Jeopardy during Sunday’s episode of the game show’s primetime spinoff, Ike Barinholtz was leading with $37,200, followed by the Fresh Off the Boat star at $23,000 and NBA Countdown analyst Jalen Rose with $1,000. The category: Newspaper Headlines. The clue: “A New York Times headline about this disaster included ‘866 rescued’ and ‘noted names missing.’” The correct answer was “What is the Titanic,” which Wu knew. But instead of writing “Titanic,” she pronounced it “Tit-anic,” earning a bleep from the censors — and after wagering it all, a final total of zero.

“Oh my god. I meant Titanic,” Wu countered. “Some people call the Titanic the Tit. This is a well-known fact.” Sean Connery would be proud of her. According to Yahoo! Entertainment, “even though Wu didn’t get the final answer correct, her charity will receive a $30,000 donation from the show. She was playing for the Lotus Therapy Fund under the Asian Mental Health Collective.” Meanwhile, Barinholtz advances to the next round, along with Marvel star Simu Liu and comedian Iliza Shlesinger.

(Via Yahoo! Entertainment)

Yesterday (October 9), Kanye West made waves when he tweeted, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

This came after Ye shared some similarly anti-Semitic thoughts on Instagram. Both Instagram and Twitter responded by suspending the rapper from their platforms. Now, Jack Antonoff, a Jewish person, has offered his own reaction, sharing a tweet late last night (October 9) that reads simply, “Kanye a little b*tch.”

Antonoff has shown he’s not afraid to get into some beef online. After Gorillaz’s Damon Albarn claimed earlier this year that Taylor Swift doesn’t write her own songs, Antonoff, a Swift collaborator, tweeted, “i’ve never met damon albarn and he’s never been to my studio but apparently he knows more than the rest of us about all those songs taylor writes and brings in. herb.”

In a later podcast interview, Antonoff said, “I don’t mind talking sh*t, this or that, but I don’t like it when artists take almost this Trumpian approach of just making things up. I don’t care if Damon Albarn or anyone likes or doesn’t like something. But to unequivocally make a statement that isn’t true, that you actually have no idea about, and not to get too deep on it, but isn’t that kind of everything that’s wrong with our world at the moment? Is just people talking about sh*t at they have no clue about?”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

On November 12, 2021, the moment Britney Spears had been anticipating and dreaming of for years came to fruition: Her years-long conservatorship was officially terminated. She was thrilled at the time and has expressed joy over her newly autonomous life many times since then. She did so over the weekend, too, in a new video in which she celebrates nearly a year post-conservatorship.

In the video, Spears talks to the camera and says, “Hi, so it’s been a really long time since I’ve spoken to you guys. It’s been just eight months since my conservatorship of 15 years has been over. And I’m in Mexico right now and it’s really hot and […] joy to you all.” The video then cuts to clips of Spears at what looks like some sort of street fair, hanging out with a small monkey whose owner named it Justin Bieber.

Spears also writes alongside her post, “It’s been almost a year since I became a free woman !!! F*ck yes !!! Wheee [smiling emojis] !!! Psss the monkey’s name is Justin Bieber [rose emojis] [crying-laughing emojis] !!!”

Based on the length of Spears’ hair in the video, it appears it was filmed before her recent clip teasing her new shorter haircut. Since she says it’s been “just eight months” since her conservatorship, it would appear the clip was recorded around this past July.

Spears didn’t like the reception that aforementioned hair-focused upload (which is no longer viewable) received, writing in a follow-up post, “I was shocked to see how many comments there were under my post l did yesterday. I looked and good god people are absolutely hateful !!! It saddens me to realize a person who watches something on Instagram that doesn’t even know me takes the time to even comment and say such hateful words !!! What a sad life !!! Yes I’m sensitive so it hurt my feelings.”

The 1975 called my bluff.

I don’t mean my bluff specifically. I refer to anyone who felt (as I did) that 2020’s Notes On A Conditional Form was the band “at their most bloated and self-important.” I certainly was not alone in thinking that the fourth album by The 1975 signified a nadir for the swaggering British pop-rock band. During an endless 10-month promotional rollout preceding the release, frontman Matty Healy repeatedly wrote checks his artistic and intellectual abilities could not possibly cash, boldly proclaiming that The 1975 was “the definitive band” of the 2010s and patting himself on the back for his alleged prescience in foreseeing a global pandemic via a handful of vague and mealy-mounted lyrical references on the new record. When Conditional Form finally dropped, it fell well short of justifying such bluster, unfolding instead as one of the worst sequenced and overly padded superstar albums in recent memory, a garish slog choked by tiresome spoken-word tracks and forgettable genre experiments that blotted out a smattering of nice pop tunes.

At the close of my review, I issued a challenge: “At this point, a more noble experiment for The 1975 would be to write an album where every song is good, or at least necessary. They haven’t done that yet.” Lest I be accused of Healy-esque self-delusion, this was not an uncommon request. A band that — at its best — specializes in addictive singles that lean shamelessly on provocation and retro ’80s signifiers, The 1975 over time have been miscast as an “important” band with something meaningful to say about online culture. In reality, Healy has almost nothing original to offer on the subject. (Social media connects us while simultaneously driving us apart — a garden-variety reply guy will tell you the same.) He’s a pop star, not a philosopher. The misguided insistence to the contrary has indulged his band’s penchant for making overlong and overstuffed albums that detract from their core strength as a fun and trashy radio band.

That might sound heretical to The 1975’s devoted fanbase. But it appears that Healy and his bandmates have come around to this way of thinking, based on their new album out this week, Being Funny In A Foreign Language. It is, dare I say, a relatively modest affair, composed of 11 songs guided mainly by the band’s poppiest instincts. (Put another way: The bulk of the album resembles “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You).”) I’ll go one step further and declare that every song, per request, is good and definitely necessary. There are no lectures from Greta Thunberg set against ambient soundscapes this time around. Every track breezes by and goes down more or less enjoyably. Being Funny In A Foreign Language sounds like the Pretty Woman soundtrack if it had been composed exclusively of Roxette and Go West songs, possibly the highest compliment I can pay to The 1975. It is an album that has won back at least one former fan/current detractor. Cue the “Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III” GIF. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

My unexpected enjoyment of Being Funny In A Foreign Language immediately prompted a series of questions in my mind: What about the people who have never strayed from this band? The ones who insist that making overlong and overstuffed albums is the point of The 1975? Does removing some of the self-importance also take away their sense of purpose? Is a “better” album by The 1975 actually less entertaining?

I suspect that my bi-polar feelings about The 1975 have leaned positive lately due in part to the rise of Harry Styles, the reigning Ken doll of British pop, whose relentless nice-guy act has made me re-evaluate the utility of a rakish troll like Healy. Unlike Styles, whose aggressive geniality grows more grating the higher his star soars, Healy isn’t shy about deliberately making himself look like a cad (or merely an airhead) in his songs. The first single from Being Funny, the Bon Iver-like pocket symphony “Part Of The Band,” immediately laid down the gauntlet for reactionaries, with Healy dropping a bevy of cringe-inducing groaners about “vaccinista tote bag chic baristas” and “communista keisters writing about their ejaculations” before inevitably launching into some trendy self-examination: “Am I ironically woke? The butt of my joke? Or am I just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke calling his ego imagination?”

Admittedly, I took the bait when that song dropped this summer. But when heard “Part Of The Band” in the context of Being Funny In Foreign Language, it made a lot more sense. On the album, Healy mostly ditches the messianic “spokesman of a generation” posturing that made Notes On A Conditional Form so insufferable. In the process, he’s made it easier to buy into the idea that he’s self-aware about The 1975’s most absurd excesses. Take the album’s first song, titled “The 1975” in the manner of all the band’s lead-off album tracks, in which he references QAnon and riffs on doom-scrolling and the internet’s negative impact on the body images of teenage girls. On paper, it could be interpreted as yet another example of Healy lunging in vain for topical profundity. But Healy’s musings are set to music that so obviously rips off LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” that it can only be taken as a sly, tongue-in-cheek joke.

Even funnier is the album’s last song, the quasi-Americana number “When We Are Together,” which I can’t help hearing as a parody of the innocuous folk-pop “good boyfriend” songs that make up Styles’ blockbuster 2022 LP, Harry’s House. “I like socks with sandals, she’s more into scented candles,” Healy sings, echoing the bland suburban rom-com fantasies that recur throughout Styles’ catalogue. Then comes the kicker: “It was poorly handled, the day we both got canceled because I’m a racist and you’re some kind of slag.”

For those still wary about wading back in with The 1975: Healy only says “canceled” twice on the record. For the most part, this a collection of pop tunes about love, as evidenced by songs like “Happiness,” “I’m In Love With You,” and “Looking For Somebody (To Love),” which stick to the band’s usual electro-pop wheelhouse. The decision to work with producer Jack Antonoff might have read initially as a transparent bid to retrench after a polarizing misfire — Healy himself has seemed defensive about it in interviews – but they prove to be a natural match. Antonoff, after all, is a derivative but undeniably skilled craftsman whose laser-focus on reproducing big-ticket, late-20th-century pop sounds suits The 1975 well, whether it’s the blue-eyed soul of “All I Need To Hear” or the blurry Britpop balladry of “About You.”

But what about the nagging question regarding this band’s sense of purpose? The paradox of Being Funny In A Foreign Language is that it’s both the most consistent 1975 album and the least significant. There are no misses here, but there are also no smash hits. For a band accustomed to taking big swings, a record of doubles and triples might seem underwhelming. Of course, The 1975 seem hardwired against ever delivering a completely satisfying album. For now, I’ll settle for them being a little less annoying.

Madonna, who famously kissed Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, appears to have come out as gay in a recent TikTok video.

In the five-second clip, a pink-haired Madonna wearing extra-large cream-colored sweatpants and a matching corset top, holds up a pair of pink underwear. On-screen text reads, “If I miss, I’m Gay!” as Madonna attempts to shoot her crumpled up underwear into a wastebasket. She misses by a long shot, before facing the lens and throwing her hand up in the air, as if to confirm what she wanted to say in cryptic fashion: She’s gay.

It would seem as though the Queen Of Pop has been dropping hints leading up to this apparent reveal. She recently said that she was “gagging to work with Britney [Spears] again,” an expression which evoked memories of that shocking on-stage kiss that the pair shared nearly 20 years ago. Madonna has even shared a notable kiss with another women as of late: She locked lips with Dominican rapper Tokischa in the video for a “Hung Up” remix that came out last month.

Madonna has been an icon for sexual expression all throughout the ’80s, ’90s, and still today. She has always supported freedom of love, no matter what a person’s gender is or isn’t. And if this video is indeed how she wants to tell the world about her sexual identity, then kudos to her.

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