Year: 2022

Much like cryptocurrency, NFTs are a rising digital trend that can’t help seeming awfully dodgy, and just because Gwyneth Paltrow and Paris Hilton are into them. The same day that some artists discovered that non-fungible tokens were being made without their consent, word broke that a collector of the fad got scammed out of their collection of JPEGs depicting apes and mutants.

As per Vice, the collector, who goes by larrylawliet (though their handle is “@iloveponzi,” which is all but begging con artists to scam him), appears to have been tricked into granting hackers access to his crypto wallet. A cybersecurity researcher told Vice that, after looking at larrylawliet’s blockchain transactions, “it appears larrylawliet gave access to his NFTs to what they likely thought was a dAPP or distributed app, perhaps to help them trade the images. The problem is that it wasn’t actually a dApp, but an individual’s wallet, which proceeded to drain larrylawliet’s wallet of all their NFTs.”

After getting access to the cyrpto waller, the hacker(s) proceeded to steal seven NFTs: one from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, five from the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and one Doodle. The hackers then sold them for a total of $700,000. That, larrylawliet said, was far less than they were worth; they claimed they were worth something in the area of $2.7 million.

This has become an all-too-common scam in the cryptocurrency world, while NFT heists are on the rise. And it’s a reminder that the world of NFTs, especially when combined with cryptocurrency, is so questionable even Kanye West is steering clear.

(Via Vice)

Hailey Bieber might be leaning into her role as the wife of superstar Justin Bieber, but that hasn’t stopped her from doing plenty of things on her own, either. Most recently, she launched a mini show interviewing some of her famous friends in her own bathroom, complete with a dining table and prepared snacks of the visitor’s choice. Past guests on Who’s In My Bathroom have included fellow model Kendall Jenner, and rising pop star The Kid Laroi, and today’s guest was none other than Normani.

After Normani taught her proper technique for eating crab legs, Hailey called the rising pop star a once in a generation talent, and heard a little bit more about her experience moving to Houston after her family was displaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Eventually, the conversation naturally turned to Normani’s latest single, “Wild Side,” which features none other than Cardi B — who rather infamously starred in the video while she was pregnant. Normani admits she had higher expectations for the clip before learning Cardi’s movements would necessarily be limited. “Cardi, she was pregnant while we shot the music video,” Normani begins around the 5:30 mark. “I initially had the idea of us like hanging from the ceiling wrapped in chains, and like, I think really really big. I wanted there to be like, alligators swarming around us in the water, you know the scene we had together. And they’re like, ‘you know, she’s pregnant.’ And I’m like ohhhhh.”

So chains and alligators were off the menu for the moment! Obviously the “Wild Side” video still came out great though. Check out the full interview above.

Back at the start of 2019, J. Cole announced that “Family And Loyalty,” his collaboration with Gang Starr, would be the “last feature you’ll hear from me.” That claim turned out to be short-lived, as Cole, who typically isolates himself from other artists, is currently in the midst of another feature run. This Friday, YG, J. Cole, and Moneybagg Yo will team up for their new song “Scared Money,” which seems to be the latest single from YG’s upcoming album, following last spring’s “Sign Language.”

J. Cole’s decision comes after he did some self-reflecting around the release of his sixth album, The Off-Season. “Do you really want to look back and be like, ‘You didn’t work with nobody?” Cole said in a documentary that arrived shortly before the release. “You didn’t have no songs with nobody?’ You just cool with that?’ No, OK! So start saying yes to some features.” Thankfully, Cole did just that.

In the past few months, Cole has released songs with Wale (“Poke It Out“), Young Thug (“Stressed Out“), “Joyner Lucas (“Your Heart“), and Benny The Butcher (“Johnny P’s Caddy“). While “Scared Money” will be Cole and YG’s first song together, it will be Cole’s second with Moneybagg Yo, as they worked together back in 2018 on “Say Dat.”

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

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Wednesday night’s episode of The Masked Singer.

If you ever find yourself working directly for a disgraced leader who’s been accused of corruption and fascism and are worried about your future, fret not! You can always find a second life on some trash game show. Sean Spicer, who bullied and lied to journalists as Donald Trump’s first White House press secretary, improbably wound up on Dancing with the Stars. Sarah Palin, recently seen jeopardizing the health of New Yorkers by dining out after testing positive for COVID, was among the unmasked (in more ways than one) on The Masked Singer.

Speaking of, as per Deadline, on Wednesday’s episode of the singing-themed reality show, the big reveal was so shocking it reportedly prompted two of the judges to storm off in protest. Who could be that polarizing? Why, it’s Trump’s cash-strapped, legally doomed, accident-prone personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

When one of the masked singers was revealed to be one of the key players in Trump’s failed attempts to overturn democracy, judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke furiously fled the scene. The other two judges, Nicole Scherzinger and Jenny McCarthy, who was anti-vaxx before everyone else, remained and engaged in some banter with the guy responsible for such classics as “Four Seasons Total Landscaping” and “Mystery Black Goo Pouring Down Head.” Jeong and Thicke eventually returned.

In any case, it’s probably a bit too early to be normalizing alleged crooks who have yet to have been punished. But then, Rudy probably needs the dough.

(Via Deadline)

You may never know what it’s like to enrage a growing number of living legends, but then you’re probably not Joe Rogan. Over the last week, the former host of a show in which people ate bugs has been called out for his lack of medical expertise, particularly when it comes to all the COVID misinformation he’s spread on his absurdly popular podcast. It started with Neil Young, who had untold hours of music yanked from Spotify, home to Rogan’s show. Joni Mitchell followed suit, as did Young’s old bandmates, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash.

Sharon Stone isn’t on Spotify, nor is she a musician, but that doesn’t mean that the Oscar-nominated actress is not enraged that Rogan has a very large platform on which he spews dangerous nonsense concerning a once-in-a-century public health crisis. So instead of yanking music from a streamer, she settled for canceling her subscription. And telling him where to go.

“I just want to say COVID is not an opinion-based situation and Mr. Rogan thinking that his opinion or a disclaimer for the lives that he personally has affected and caused losses of, it’s not an opinion,” the star, whose humanitarian work includes helping people with HIV/AIDS, told TMZ. “Mr. Rogan is risking people’s lives with his idiocy and his professing that his thoughts about COVID are opinions, they aren’t opinions.”

Amidst mounting pressure in the wake of an escalating exodus from their coffers, Spotify announced they were putting disclaimers on podcast episodes concerning COVID. But that wasn’t enough for Stone.

“He should put a disclaimer that he’s an asshole and that his behavior is dangerous,” she said.

Though Rogan could have played hardball, he did release a kind of apology on Sunday, promising to do better to balance misinformation with actual information. (He then proceeded to share a debunked article.) While his mea culpa was good enough for Dwayne Johnson, clearly the iconic star of Basic Instinct thought otherwise.

(Via TMZ)

Jim Harbaugh is staying in Ann Arbor where he will continue to coach the Michigan Wolverines in 2022. After leading Michigan to a Big Ten championship, a berth in the College Football Playoff, and the program’s first win over Ohio State since 2011, reports indicated that Harbaugh was actively interested in a return to the NFL, interviewing with the Minnesota Vikings on National Signing Day.

While it had been reported for several weeks that Harbaugh was speaking to NFL teams about their job vacancies, Chris Balas of The Wolverine reported on Tuesday night that the expectation was Harbaugh would ink a deal with Minnesota. However, as Wednesday wore on, there was nothing indicating a deal was imminent, and in a rather stunning turn of events, Adam Schefter reported that Harbaugh was sticking with Michigan for the 2022 season and beyond, so long as the Wolverines want him.

Prior to becoming the head coach of his alma mater’s football program in Dec. 2014, Harbaugh spent four seasons as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. He accrued a 44-19-1 record in that time and made the postseason during his first three seasons with the franchise, including a Super Bowl berth during the 2012 campaign where the Niners lost to the Baltimore Ravens, 34-31.

The general tone around Harbaugh’s future seemed to be the expectation that he was headed back to the NFL, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t part with Michigan and the Vikings coaching search will continue to other candidates. Whether Harbaugh’s long-term commitment to Michigan is genuine or just getting caught up in the moment will be something we’ll have to wait and find out about because his name has been in NFL rumors ever since he arrived in Ann Arbor.

Nicki Minaj is gearing up to release her fifth album at some point this year. While her fas will have to wait for a title and a release date, they’ll be able to listen to the album’s first single, “Do We Have A Problem?” with Lil Baby, on February 4. It remains to be seen what other collaborations will appear on it, but one possibility is City Girls, now that the rap stars seem to have resolved their differences.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Nicki Minaj wrote, “Just had a great convo with @ThegirlJT & @YungMiami305. Let’s move on & make new memories y’all [unicorn emoji].” The hope is that the “new memories” will be new music between Nicki and City Girls, who have yet to ever collaborate. Nicki’s comments come shortly after she initially shut down the idea of working with the rap duo. “It’s let go,” she said during an interview on The Morning Hustle, “But why would I work with someone who doesn’t like me?”

On top of this, there’s also the chance that Nicki and City Girls’ first song together could appear on the latter’s upcoming fourth album. That project, which may feature the duo’s viral 2021 track, “Twerkulator,” would be the City Girls’ first full-length release since their 2020 effort, City On Lock.

Tom Brady announced his retirement on Tuesday, and he’s already in high demand among those who want to keep him around the game of football. According to a new report by Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports, a trio of giants in the world of broadcasting are kicking the tires on potentially bringing Brady into their booths on a weekly basis.

McCarthy reports that Amazon, ESPN, and Fox Sports have all inquired about having Brady be a part of their NFL coverage — Fox has an open spot in its No. 1 broadcast booth alongside Joe Buck with Troy Aikman moving to Amazon, while the Worldwide Leader has worked with Brady in the past on his Man in the Arena docuseries. And apparently, the bidding for Brady would lead to these networks forking over a considerable chunk of change, even more than the amount of cash that CBS forked over to keep Tony Romo from jumping to ESPN.

“Brady would be worth his weight in gold. The opening bid would be $20 million a year — and it could go as high as $25 million,” a source told McCarthy. “That would be for either games or the studio. There’s no way in hell Brady would make less than Romo.”

It is worth mentioning that there’s no indication that Brady wants to retire and immediately go into television. In fact, there’s no indication he ever wants to broadcast games, and this report merely indicates that there’s a ton of interest in bringing Brady on board. What’s worth mentioning, though, is that Brady said prior to his retirement that his wife, Gisele Bündchen, “deserves what she needs from me as a husband, and my kids deserve what they need from me as a dad.”

Johnny Knoxville is about to turn 51. He was born during the Nixon administration. He and the Jackass team already retired from their deadly Jackass duties once before, with Jackass 3-D, back in 2010. Obama was still in his first term then — that’s how long ago it was. And yet they all agreed to come back for another punishing entry in the perhaps improbably acclaimed franchise, which got some of them, Knoxville included, injured pretty much right away. And not only is he swearing this one’s their swan song, he’s making sure his son doesn’t follow in dad’s footsteps.

In a new interview with People, Knoxville discussed how one of his three kids, Rocko, who’s 12, is not going to keep the family business going, no matter how much he’d like to.

“My son, he’s got the same gene that my father had and I think that I have, so I definitely want to keep him out of it,” Knoxville said. “I made it very clear to him he won’t be going into the family business.”

Knoxville also sounded pretty sure he, at least, is done doing stunts that have broken just about every bone in his body and left him with something like a dozen-and-a-half concussions.

“My doctor said I can’t take another shot to the head, I’ve had so many concussions,” he said. “I put my family through enough, quite honestly. I don’t think I have anything else to prove.”

It’s true, Knoxville and team have gone above and beyond, destroying their bodies à la Jackie Chan, who has also broken every bone in his body just to entertain us.

Jackass Forever opens on Feb. 4. You can watch Knoxville break down every single injury for Vanity Fair below.

(Via People)

How often do you let your loved ones know you love them? How often do you verbalize it?

Some people have no problem telling people they love that they love them. Friends, family, romantic partners—everyone gets an “I love you!” on the regular. Others have a much harder time saying the words, even when they feel them. Perhaps they didn’t grow up hearing love being spoken out loud much or at all. Maybe they’ve been hurt by those who were supposed to love them, so the word feels complicated.

Plenty of us neglect to tell people how we feel out of fear, embarrassment, busyness or the assumption that our feelings are already understood. But expressing love to our loved ones is a beautiful thing. Who doesn’t appreciate being told that they are loved? Even if it’s uncomfortable to say or hear sometimes, giving and receiving love is a vital part of the human experience—one that we should never take for granted.

So what would happen if you were to incentivize people to tell someone they loved them? That’s exactly the experiment TikTok user @toachieveyou conducted, standing on a street corner with a sign that said, “Call someone and tell them you love them for $5.”

They credited the idea to Are You Kidding TV, and the deal was you had to call someone on speaker and tell them you love them in exchange for $5. That’s it. Super simple.

What happened was so much better.

The phone calls themselves were sweet. The first guy’s loved one seemed to be worried that something was wrong. Unfortunately, some people calling simply to say “I love you” could be a red flag that they aren’t doing well and are considering doing something drastic. The video creators said they’ve seen that kind of reaction a lot with these calls. But after being reassured that the guy was fine and truly just calling to say “I love you,” the man on the other end reciprocated and that was that.

But the guy returning the $5 was the sweetest part. And when the oh-so-very-tall guy called his mom and then did the same thing? That’s when the point really hit home.

The call itself was the reward.

It’s not necessarily that calling their person to say “I love you” was hard for these guys—they may have just thought it would be an easy way to make $5. But taking money for something that had such enormous intrinsic reward probably didn’t feel right in the end. Or perhaps the call itself felt so good they wanted to pass along that positive mojo to someone else. Either way, the reaction was so pure and wholesome.

It might seem obvious to people who express love easily, but for those who don’t, there are good reasons to try. According to Florida International University psychologist Lisa Arango, words of love are like oxygen in a relationship. “Telling somebody you love them feeds the relationship, keeps it alive,” she says.

There are lots of ways to say “I love you” without words, and showing our love through our actions is important too. But there truly is something wonderful about saying and hearing it.

As one commenter wrote, “Sometimes we just need a reminder that we don’t need materialistic things but just a simple I love you.”

“When you make that call and realize it meant more than $5 ever could, gotta love it,” wrote another.

Some people lamented that their parent or friend was no longer here to call, which only drives the point further home. Call your people and tell them you love them. Don’t hesitate or overthink or put it off. Don’t make it more complicated than it is. The more we normalize telling people we love that we love them, the more we strengthen our bonds with others and create a more connected world.