Month: March 2023

Latto can’t help but be a constant topic across social media. Instead of fighting it, the “Lottery” rapper is learning to change the tide of the online chatter to fit her needs. Whether she’s putting her cooking skills on full display each and every Sunday evening for her Soul Food Sundays segment on TikTok or just taking a moment to chat with fans, the entertainer manages to fit in some time to browse online in between her recording sessions for her forthcoming projects.

Now, the musician is using her latest guest feature on Chicago rapper Mello Buckzz’s song “Mouskatool” to subtly clap back haters. Back in January, Latto went head-to-head with an online troll that accused her of wearing the same cheetah print panties. After recording a video of her intimates drawer, revealing her dozens of both washed and unopened leopard print undies, Latto took it a step further by listing the underwear she was photographed in on eBay. Before the listing was removed for violating the site’s used garment policy, it garnered over $100k in bids.

However, bringing the moment full circle, during the video shot for “Mouskatool,” proudly sports another cheetah print thong as her designer denim jeans sit halfway off of her voluptuous derriere. Although Latto doesn’t mention the panties directly, she holds nothing back as she twerks for the film crew, putting the article of clothing on full display.

Watch the clips below.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra are preparing to release the double album V. Singles “Layla,” “I Killed Captain Cook,” “Nadja,” “That Life,” and “Weekend Run” have all been shared so far and portray an exciting record, and today they’ve unveiled the newest one, “Meshuggah.”

“Meshuggah” is an idiosyncratic glimpse of the record, with a buzzy atmosphere and distorted vocals from bandleader Ruban Nielson: “I know what people say / And I know much sweeter days / And I know I’m out of my mind / Darlin’ reach out to me.” Sonically and lyrically, it feels spiritual: “Your enemies are fierce and foul / Energy is peace and power / Darling only know / You give meshuggah,” he sings.

In a statement about the LP, Nielson said, “In Hawaii, everything shifted off of me and my music. Suddenly, I was spending more time figuring out what others need and what my role is within my family. I also learned that things I thought were true of myself are bigger than I thought. My way of making mischief – that’s not just me — that’s my whole Polynesian side. I thought I was walking away from music to focus on family, but the two ended up connecting.”

Listen to “Meshuggah” above.

V is out 3/17 via Jagjaguwar. Pre-order it here.

This year’s Oscars were a feel-good, slap-free affair, short on controversy or shocks. Even a lot of the wins were straight-up heartwarming. Not all was peaceful. Some didn’t care for host Jimmy Kimmel’s odd Robert Blake joke. The In Memoriam segment featured a ton of glaring omissions. One of the strangest things happened before the red show, on the red carpet, when a reporter tried — and failed — to get Hugh Grant to care about being interviewed. Now she’s responding.

The erstwhile Paddington baddie was very clearly not in the mood for light banter when engaged by model-turned-red carpet interviewer Ashley Graham. She asked him some very basic awards show questions. He was powerfully disinterested. When asked what he likes about attending the Oscars, he stammered for several seconds, then made some vaguely sarcastic to Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Was he rooting for anyone to win? Nope. Who was he wearing? “I can’t remember my tailor,” he replied. What about being in Glass Onion? He pointed out that he was in it for about three seconds.

Throughout the encounter, Graham was a trooper, consistently pleasant with him, and she gave him four tries before politely sending him on his way. When asked about the run-in by TMZ the following day, she had a succinct response. “You know what, my mama told me to kill people with kindness,” she replied. “So there you go.”

Lesson being: If Hugh Grant clearly doesn’t want to talk to you, just take the high road, smile, and try to let him ditch you as soon as it’s polite to do so.

(Via TMZ and The Daily Beast)

When someone wins a Powerball lottery jackpot, they aren’t the only ones who get a cash prize. The store that sells the winning ticket also receives a cash bonus for selling the winning ticket. The amount of the reward varies depending on the state and the total amount of the lottery, but it can end up being a significant chunk of change.

On February 6, a Fred Meyer store in Auburn, Washington, sold the winning ticket for the $754.6 million Powerball jackpot—the fifth largest Powerball amount ever seen. As a bonus for selling the ticket, the Fred Meyer store received a check for $50,000.

But instead of pocketing the cash, the Kroger-owned store turned around and gave it to the Auburn Food Bank.

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The donation was made in honor of the company’s Zero Hunger | Zero Waste program, which includes a goal to donate 3 billion meals to local communities by 2025. According to the City of Auburn, that $50,000 will provide approximately 66,000 meals in the area.

Naturally, the food bank was grateful to the Fred Meyer store for the unexpected gift.

“Hunger and food insecurity are critical issues across the state and partnerships like this one with Fred Meyer and QFC aim to shrink the numbers of people facing food insecurity,” Debbie Christian, executive director of the Auburn Food Bank, told KING5 News.

Despite passing along the entirety of the lottery reward, employees of the Fred Meyer store will still benefit from the sale of the winning ticket, thanks to their generous company headquarters.

“It’s always good to give back and today everyone wins,” Fred Meyer President Todd Kammeyer said in a statement. “In addition to this donation, Fred Meyer is giving $10,000 to the store for our associates to celebrate.”

As for the winner of the $754.6 million jackpot? Well, she has a fun story, too.

Becky Bell is a supply chain analyst for The Boeing Company, which just delivered its last 747 jumbo jet at the end of January. Bell has worked for the aircraft giant for 36 years and was planning to retire in June. When she saw that the Powerball estimate was $747 million while on a trip to the store with her daughter on February 5, she took it as a sign.

“That’s when it hit me…I had to buy one more ticket,” said Bell, according to a Washington Lottery press release.

That second ticket she bought was the sole winner of the jackpot, which ended up being over $7 million more than the estimated $747 million. But at first, she didn’t know. When she scanned her ticket and it said it was a winner, all she knew was that she had won at least $600, “which was pretty exciting,” she said. She’d never won more than $20 in her life.

Then she checked the numbers and realized she had all of them—the whole jackpot. She had to call her daughters, sisters and mom to double, triple and quadruple-check that she had the right numbers.

“The funny thing was my mom misheard me when I told her how much I won,” said Bell, who said she would help take care of her family members. “She said ‘Seven million…that’s great, honey. Everyone can have a million.’ Then I had to say, ‘No, mom, seven HUNDRED million dollars. Pretty soon, everyone was crying.”

After choosing to receive her winnings in one lump sum instead of gradual payments over 29 years, Bell will take home almost $309.5 million. She has moved her retirement date up to the end of March, staying on long enough to finish training her replacement at Boeing.

So much winning all around.

Joshua Bassett‘s breakup with pop powerhouse Olivia Rodrigo was not an easy one. Last year, he opened up about how being linked to her massive 2021 hit “Drivers License” led to his hospitalization for septic shock. “I was sleeping 16 to 20 hours a day,” he explained. “I couldn’t even stand up for longer than 30 seconds.”

Suffice to say that Bassett has dealt with a lot of intrusive fans attacking him online. Unfortunately, it looks like things aren’t getting much better. Pop Crave on Twitter shared a clip of a heckler at his show yelling, “F*ck Olivia!” Even if this was intended to be in support of Bassett, it’s blatantly rude, especially considering Bassett was in the middle of a slow, emotional song. He reacted by shaking his head and rolling his eyes, not even pausing in his singing.

In a 2021 interview, Bassett discussed the difficulty of being in the middle of drama between Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter. “[Everyone] is asking me about Sabrina [Carpenter] and Olivia. Why don’t we focus on these women for who they are?” he said. “Let’s focus on the art that they’re making and how great they are instead of their relationship to a boy.”

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

Avril Lavigne is all for public displays of affection, as shown in her recent paparazzi-captured makeout session with her current boyfriend and rapper Tyga. Hell, the rock singer is also here for the dismantling of the patriarchy and social norms. But one very interesting individual took things a little too far tonight during the 2023 Juno Awards.

The annual music ceremony presented by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences was supposed to be all about celebrating the country’s top musical acts. As Lavigne, who’s a Canadian native, took the stage during the ceremony, her speech was interrupted by what appeared to be a crazed fan. Initially, the musician didn’t take action. However, after realizing the topless woman was a protestor, she screamed at the activist to “get the f*ck off” of the stage before security swiftly escorted her off.

Watch the full cringey exchange below.

Now, more information has been released about the gatecrasher. The topless woman was streaking for a cause, to protest Ontario’s development of the previously protected Greenbelt land as the phrases ‘Save the Greenbelt’ and ‘Land Back’ was seen written on their body.

No further information is available regarding the protestor at this time.

Last year, “Weird Al” Yankovic wowed audiences with his biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which starred the one and only Daniel Radcliffe. In light of the excitement, Yankovic was at the center of a crude Family Guy Joke where he had a dirty song called “Eat It,” a spoof of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”

Another classic cartoon couldn’t help but bring in Yankovic, though in a much more wholesome manner. In an episode of The Simpsons called “Hostile Kirk Place” that premiered last night (March 12), Yankovic is going hard on the accordion in the iconic living room as the family gathers around him and dances. When he finishes, they applaud him. “So,” he says, “can I stay for dinner?” Homer crosses his arms and simply answers: “No.”

Yankovich shared the clip on Twitter, writing in the caption, “I’ve been a huge fan of @TheSimpsons since 1989, but in my completely unbiased opinion, I have to say this is the best couch gag they’ve ever done.” Ah yes, completely unbiased!

Yankovic is no stranger to The Simpsons. This was not even his first time appearing in the show; he was also in an episode on an earlier season called “Three Gays of the Condo,” as well as “That ’90s Show.”

Mike Pence has spent the last two years-plus mostly keeping shtum about Jan. 6. He won’t even testify about it, nor has he spoken ill of the guy who almost got him killed. That ended over the weekend. At a dinner event, Pence said Donald Trump’s reckless words “endangered my family,” and called him “wrong” in thinking vice presidents can halt election certifications. It didn’t take long for the thin-skinned Trump to return fire.

On board a flight to a campaign stop in Iowa, the former (and future?) president told reporters who was really to blame the violent assault on the Capitol: his former number two.

“Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn’t have had a problem with Jan. 6, so in many ways you can blame him for Jan. 6,” Trump said. “Had he sent them back to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, the states, I believe, number one, you have had a different outcome. But I also believe you wouldn’t have had ‘Jan. 6’ as we call it.”

Again, Pence couldn’t send back the votes, as Trump has surely been informed repeatedly, to no avail. But as his wont, Trump, in his bumbling, Clouseau-esque way, all but admitted that the Jan. 6 riot — which Tucker Carlson has been clumsily trying to whitewash — was wrong.

That’s what MSNBC anchor Joy Reid and Lincoln Project member Tara Setmayer thought after his comments went public. Reid said he was “[b]asically admitting that that was the purpose of the mob,” adding, “So Trump is basically saying, yeah, that mob was there to kill you if he didn’t give me the election, and the proof is they came to get you. And if I’m a Department of Justice lawyer, I’m writing that down.”

“Doesn’t Trump always do that? He always admits to the crime,” Setmayer replied. “And he turns it around and blames everybody else. It’s always about projection.”

(Via Raw Story)

The potential buyers’ pool of those interested in holding a major stake in BET has grown by one. Although the cable network has begun to roll out new original programming, including Mary J. Blige’s talk show The Wine Down, the rumors that its majority stake shares are up for grabs continue to flood social media.

First, Variety reported that media moguls Tyler Perry, who already owns a minority stake in the company, along with Byron Allen, were entering the talks as the Paramount Global Explores (who currently holds the majority sake) was open to selling. Now, Diddy (real name Sean Combs) is entering the chat. According to Hollywood Reporter, the serial entrepreneur has expressed interest in the bid, which will expand his media empire.

Diddy has owned the media outlet Revolt TV for nearly a decade now. Although he was at one point the face of reality television programming at MTV, the entertainer has been an avid supporter of the network. In fact, last year, at the network’s annual award ceremony, Diddy was given a lifetime achievement award.

Regardless of who wins the bid, THR spoke with a source familiar with Paramount’s spokespeople, and they are expected to maintain a business relationship with any potential buyer.

Manchester Orchestra just unleashed The Valley Of Vision, an album with an accompanying VR short film. To make things even more exciting, they’ve announced a co-headlining run with iconic emo band Jimmy Eat World on The Amplified Echoes Tour, kicking off this summer.

Along with opener Middle Kids, the bands will be hitting the road in July beginning in Missoula, MT and ending in Philadelphia, PA during August. They’ll stop by New York City’s SummerStage In Central Park as well as The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

Check out the full dates below.

07/11 — Missoula, MT @ Big Sky Brewing Company Amphitheater
07/14 — Spokane, WA @ The Podium
07/15 — Seattle, WA @ WAMU Theater
07/16 — Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater
07/18 — San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
07/19 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre
07/21 — San Diego, CA @ Gallagher Square at Petco Park
07/22 — Las Vegas, NV @ The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan
07/23 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Complex Outdoors
07/25 — Morrison, CO @– Red Rocks Amphitheater
07/27 — St. Louis, MO @ Saint Louis Music Park
07/28 — Nashville, TN @ Ascend Amphitheater
07/29 — Asheville, NC @ Rabbit Rabbit
07/30 — Charlotte, NC @ Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre
08/07 — Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall
08/08 — Austin, TX @ Moody Amphitheater
08/09 — Dallas, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
08/11 — Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion
08/13 — Minneapolis, MN @ The Armory
08/15 — Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave/Eagles Club
08/16 — Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed
08/18 — Indianapolis, IN @ TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park
08/19 — Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live! Outdoors
08/20 — Sterling Heights, MI @ Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill
08/21 — Toronto, ON @ RBC Echo Beach
08/23 — New York, NY @ SummerStage In Central Park
08/24 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
08/25 — Buffalo, NY @ Outer Harbor Buffalo
08/26 — Philadelphia, PA @ Skyline Stage at the Mann

Find ticket information here.