Month: December 2022

It’s been a busy year for Keke Palmer. This summer, she starred in the blockbuster thriller film, Nope, written and directed by Jordan Peele. Tonight (December 3), she hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time. During her opening monologue, she revealed even more exciting news.

“I’m especially glad to be here though, because there’s some rumors going around,” Palmer said. “People have been in my comments saying ‘Keke’s having a baby,’ ‘Keke’s pregnant,’ and I want to set the record straight. I am.”

She then unbuttoned her coat and revealed her pregnancy bump to a cheering audience.

“I’ve gotta say though, it is bad when people on the internet spread rumors about you, but it’s even worse when they’re correct,” Palmer said. “I was trying so hard to keep it on the down low, because I’ve got a lot of stuff going on. People kept coming up to me [saying] ‘Congratulations,’ I’m like ‘Shh! Can y’all stop, I’ve got a liquor sponsorship on the line. Let the check clear, then we can get to the damn baby shower.”

Palmer proceed to call her pregnancy the “biggest blessing” and expressed excitement about soon becoming a mother.

You can watch the monologue above.

The eyes of the football watching world were on the numerous college football conference championship games on Saturday. While those were going on, we got something truly incredible out of an unlikely source of footballing excellence: the Minnesota Class AAA title game between the Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Rebels and the New London-Spicer Wildcats.

DGF scored a touchdown with 24 seconds remaining in the game to put themselves up, 26-21. All they need to do was survive and they’d call themselves champions, and with four ticks left, things looked pretty good for them. New London-Spicer had the ball on the Rebels’ 48-yard line and needed a miracle, which they somehow got.

The Wildcats signal caller, Blake Schultz, threw up a prayer in the general direction of the end zone, which was brought in by Grant Paffrath. He was immediately wrapped up and tackled, but before he hit the ground, he had the presence of mind to look behind him, where one of his teammates had a head of steam. Brycen Christensen got the ball, sprinted towards the end zone, and despite a defensive back’s best effort, was able to score as time ran out.

While I am open to the possibility this ends up being wrong, I do not think we are going to have a better ending to a football game this year.

(h/t InForum)

It seems some new Kid Cudi music is underway.

This past week, the rapper took to Twitter to announce that he had recorded six new songs in the span of three days.

A few days later, he shared that he had recorded a total of 11 songs throughout the week.

“My goal was to do a whole new album worth of songs this week,” he said. “12 was my goal. Might get 14.”

Back in September upon the release of his 10th studio album, Entergalactic, Cudi revealed in an interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe that he didn’t have any desire to make any more albums.

“I have other things I wanna do,” he said. “I do not see me never making music. […] But as far as getting in the studio and working on an album and then going and touring it? I just don’t have it in me.”

Last month, he revealed that he still had one more album left in his contract, though fans shouldn’t expect it within the next year.

“Im doin 1 more album and then im done w my deal and not sure what ima do after that but yea, 1 more,” he said. “Wont be next year. Keep u posted.”

He followed up on the album, saying, “This is for all my fans that have been ridin w me for so long. This will be all new music. The songs ive teased ill prolly put out as singles here and there to hold u over.”

The Minnesota Timberwolves only got nine minutes of work out of Rudy Gobert during Saturday night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Early on in the game’s second quarter, Minnesota’s gigantic offseason acquisition saw his night come to a premature end due to an incident with Kenrich Williams.

Gobert went up to contest a runner by Williams, but he was unable to get all the way up to send the effort away and Williams picked up two points. In an extremely unusual sequence of events, Williams hit the deck as the ball was going in, which led to Gobert stumbling over him.

The two laid on the ground and Williams looked like he had something to say while he was getting up. This did not sit well with Gobert, who decided to trip Williams. Some pushing and shoving ensued before the officials got the chance to look at what went down, and ultimately, Gobert was assessed a Flagrant 2 and ejected from the game. Williams, meanwhile, got hit with a technical foul.

Prior to his ejection, Gobert scored six points and reeled in four rebounds on the night. The Timberwolves are already without the services of Karl-Anthony Towns, who is sidelined with a calf strain.

Britney Spears had her family on her mind on her birthday yesterday (December 2). Despite having been estranged from her sons. The “…Baby One More Time” hitmaker took to her Instagram page to honor the two of them in separate posts.

“To both of my boys … I love you … I would die for you !!! God speed my precious hearts !!! I would give anything just to touch your face !!! I send my love … Mamasita,” she said in each of the posts’ captions.

This may come as a surprise to fans, due to the fact that in September, Spears shared a now-deleted audio message expressing hurt after her kids had been icing her out.

“Since they’ve been gone, I’ve honestly felt like a huge part of me has died,” she said. “Like literally, I have no purpose anymore. They were my joy. They were my everything. I looked forward to seeing them. That was what I lived for. And then all of a sudden, they were gone. And I was like, ‘Did my heart just stop beating?’”

In other shocking news, Spears also expressed missing her younger sister, Jamie Lynn, whom she had previously accused of remaining complacent and cashing in on her conservatorship.

“It’s my b-day but you’re my heart so I’m thinking about you,” read the post’s caption. “Congratulations on being so brave, inspiring, and showing guts and glory in your show !!! You ain’t alone … if anybody knows what that feels like … I get it. My baby sister !!! I love you !!!”

Neither Jamie Lynn nor Spears’ sons have responded to her.

Rihanna and her intimates company Savage X Fenty have settled on a lawsuit that was filed this past August. Around that time, customers who had purchased lingerie or undergarments from Savage X Fenty claimed the company used deceptive marketing tactics and automatically enrolled them in a VIP subscription tier, against their knowledge. A suit was later filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court by Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and San Diego counties, and the city of Santa Monica.

Earlier this week, news broke that Rihanna and Savage X Fenty have settled the lawsuit for $1.2 million.

“Consumers have a right to know up front what they are paying for and how often,” Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Deng said in a release issued by Santa Clara County upon the news of the settlement. “Businesses have a duty to be transparent about their automatic renewal charges.”

According to the terms of the settlement, Savage X Fenty will pay $1 million in civil penalties, $50,000 in investigative costs, and $150,000 in restitution. The restitution will be paid to Savage X Fenty customers who did not opt to “Skip the Month” or purchase an item after their initial membership enrollment, those who canceled their membership and did not receive a refund for the VIP membership charge. Eligible customers will receive a third-party claim administrator.

Neither Rihanna nor Savage X Fenty have commented on the reported suit.

Today (December 3) singer Omar Apollo was honored with the TikTok Future Icon Award at Variety‘s annual Hitmakers brunch. While some of his songs may have gone viral by way of TikTok, Apollo went viral for another reason this week on a different platform.

This past week, a Twitter user accused Apollo of queerbaiting, a phenomenon describing a heterosexual artist or public figure taking on a queer aesthetic as a means to appeal to an LGBTQ+ audience. Apollo, who is openly queer, quickly responded, explicitly noting that he is, in fact queer, saying, “no i b sucking d*ck fr.”

At the brunch, he expressed no shame nor regrets in his tweet when asked about it by Variety‘s Mark Malkin on the red carpet.

“I said what I said,” said Apollo.

During the ceremony, Apollo was pictured with Selena Gomez, who Apollo first discovered when she played Alex Russo on Disney Channel’s Wizards Of Waverly Place.

Apollo also revealed in the interview that growing up, he had a crush on Waverly Place actor David Henrie, who played Alex’s brother, Justin, on the show.

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

Everyone loves Ted Lasso, which has made big names out of its delightful ensemble cast. One of them is Brett Goldstein. The show’s resident Roy Kent seems to really love getting awards and being famous, even if some people once thought he was CGI. Yet another perk of being a celebrity: Sometimes you get to talk to the Muppets. And indeed Goldstein has, in a predictable charmer of an interview about one of their most beloved films, The Muppet Christmas Carol, for its 30th anniversary.

The interview, done for Entertainment Weekly, finds Goldstein sitting down with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, and Robin, Kermit’s nephew who played Tiny Tim in the 1992 Yuletide classic. Goldstein, a self-professed Muppets obsessive, has a lot of questions. He goes through all the songs, the big scenes, etc., etc. He’s very detailed. But at one point he goes one step further and suggests they should do a movie together. And he even knows what it should be: an adaptation of another English classic, Pride and Prejudice. Piggy was into it.

“Ooh, yes! Pride and Prejudice, I’d love to do that,” she told him. “Brett, you’ve got pull in this town. Can you get Pride and Prejudice and Piggy green-lit?”

Goldstein suggests their combined powers can make yet another take on perhaps Jane Austen’s most filmed novel happen. He also thinks he should play Fitzwilliam Darcy, while Piggy thinks Elizabeth Bennet, meaning the two would have to fall in love, just as Charles Grodin had eyes for Piggy in The Great Muppet Caper.

We know what you’re thinking: Aren’t the Muppets busy starring in the third Knives Out? Well, not technically they aren’t, at least not yet. So until that franchise’s writer-director Rian Johnson decides whether or not Daniel Craig should investigate a murder perpetrated by puppets, they should have time to do their first Regency costume drama.

You can watch the full EW interview above and read the transcript right here.

The “I believe that we will chant” is something of a relic from the 2014 World Cup. Despite that, Charles Barkley came awfully close to chanting it during a recent episode of Inside the NBA while discussing the USMNT’s run in Qatar. After the Americans made it out of their group with a 1-0 win over Iran, Barkley invited all challengers to take on Gregg Berhalter’s squad.

This included a signature Barkley guarantee that the USMNT would be able to beat the Netherlands in their first knockout stage game. That didn’t happen — the Americans fell to the European giants, 3-1, thanks to a goal and two assists by Denzel Dumfries. It was a heartbreaking loss, but to the victor goes the spoils, and by “spoils,” I mean “opportunity to get a joke off at the expense of Charles Barkley.”

The NBA on TNT Twitter account made fun of Barkley for getting a guarantee wrong, which included tweeting out a picture with the scoreline over top of a picture of Chuck looking crestfallen. Dutch star Memphis Depay, who scored the team’s first goal on the day, saved that picture of Barkley and put it on Twitter with a simple message: “Lotta bark, no bite.”

Credit where it’s due, this is incredibly funny from Memphis. As for Barkley, he’ll have to sit back and wait until the 2026 World Cup to watch the men’s side play in the tournament again, where they are guaranteed to participate as the host nation. There is, of course, the chance to watch the USWNT at the World Cup next summer, and because they are the two-time defending champions, I assume Barkley is going to throw out a few guarantees for that one. Here’s hoping they work out a little better.

Even with a loss against LSU in the SEC championship game, it’s believed that Georgia is safe and through to the College Football Playoff, where the Bulldogs will hope to defend their crown as the national champions. Of course, they can simply beat the Tigers in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon, and thanks to an insane moment in the first quarter, they were able to take a 7-0 lead.

LSU lined up for a 32-yard field goal, but it ended up getting blocked. The ball slowly rolled to the Georgia 4-yard line, and the Bulldogs could have simply let the play die there and have their offense take over from their own 14.

Instead, Georgia defensive back Christopher Smith noticed that LSU’s special teams were not paying attention, so he decided to freelance. Smith picked it up and started taking off down the field, while a number of his teammates — well, at least the ones who saw what was going on and were not heading to the sideline — started to form a wall of blockers. You don’t even see a Tigers play come into frame until he’s on the 20, and by then, there’s not much anyone can do to stop him from scoring.

It’s quite the heads-up play by Smith. If there is a silver lining for LSU, it is that they were able to come back on the following possession and score a touchdown.