Month: May 2023

Nearly two months ago, the leader of Wagner Group made it clear that Vladimir Putin is failing/refusing to provide adequate ammunition for the private army that’s been pulling off his few wins in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin even detailed how Putin was not taking his calls and had essentially left the mercenaries dangling in the wind. In retrospect, Putin’s evasion shouldn’t be too surprising, given that the Russian troops are running so low on their own supplies that they must use antiquated ammo that could “explode in your face.” Two months later, Putin’s treatment of the Wagner Group has grown to be too much for Prigozhin, who filmed a video to directly call out “the supreme commander-in-chief,” i.e. Putin.

The Daily Beast detailed the background leading up to the rant, which includes Wagner engaging in protracted conflict for Bakhmut. Prigozhin now insists that he will pull the Wagner Group out “because in the absence of ammunition they are being doomed to a senseless death.” Additionally, the video shows the bodies of several dead soldiers, and Prigozhin furiously ranted:

These were someone’s fucking fathers! And someone’s sons!” Prigozhin fumed in the footage. “And those bastards who don’t give us ammunition will fucking eat their guts in fucking hell!”

The video opens with Prigozhin pointing a flashlight on his apparently lifeless mercenaries and saying they were Wagner recruits who died on the day the footage was recorded. “Their blood is still fresh,” he said before instructing the cameraman to make sure he films all of the corpses.

The (graphic) footage can be viewed on Twitter as posted by Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko. The video also included Prigozhin’s professed desire to keep fighting for the Russia people, although it seems clear that he is near the end of his rope. He will “withdraw what’s left of Wagner” and “lick our wounds,” and go from there. Whether that means a full withdrawal, no one knows, but any war effort that fails to provide basic ammo and even medical supplies surely cannot last much longer.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Lizzo’s hectic schedule appears to be taking a toll on her health. In the past weeks alone, the “Special” singer has fiercely hit the road as part of her 2Special North American Tour, took the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival stage, attended and performed at the 2023 Met Gala. However, yesterday (May 4), the recording artist could not grace the Bell Centre stage in Montreal Canada, for her scheduled concert due to health concerns.

Initially, the news of Lizzo’s flu-like symptoms was shared on Twitter. However, her profile is now private. So, in a video shared on the musician’s official Instagram, she recorded a message for fans confirming that she would not take the stage. As the recording artist wrapped in bed with a face mask on, Lizzo provided an update on her condition with the video captioned, “Montreal, I’m so sorry, but I physically cannot do the show. I promise we will honor your tickets.”

“I had a sore throat last night and a headache and went to bed,” she continued. “I woke up this morning, and my body is weak, and I have chills, and my head hurts. Normally, if it’s just a cold, I’d shower, I’d eat, take some medicine, and it gets better. But this is getting worse.”

Lizzon went on to say, “I think it’s the flu, and I have to make the unfortunate decision to cancel today. I want to find a date to reschedule, but I just can’t perform tonight.”

The singer closed by saying, “This is the second time I’ve ever had to cancel due to health in my entire career, and I will make it up to you, Montreal. I’m so sorry.”

As Complex notes, the cancellation came just an hour before the show was set to start.

Fans flooded the video’s comment section with well wishes. One fan pointed out that she and others should practice mindfulness regarding their health, writing, “We’re still in a pandemic. Covid is brutal. I encourage people to continue to mask up in crowded areas and, especially for, immune-compromised, chronically ill, marginalized, disabled people. If you really don’t care about us – be selfish and do it for yourself. It’s disabling. I hope you get better soon, Lizzo – well wishes on recovery and nothing else.”

Lizzo’s next scheduled tour stop is slated for tomorrow (May 6) at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut. There hasn’t yet been any sort of announcement regarding possible changes to that show.

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

Megyn Kelly often has a lot to say. She recently took to complaining about Chrissy Teigen, who attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with her husband John Legend on Saturday, April 29.

“She has, by my count, three minions following her — that’s minions in her view — following her, holding the dress or the train of her non-existent dress,” Kelly said on the SiriusXM podcast The Megyn Kelly Show, which premiered on Monday, May 1. “I can see underwear, okay? I can see London, I see France, I see Chrissy’s underpants, which nobody shows underpants at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”

In a chat with a reporter for TMZ, Legend defends his wife. “Megyn, you know, she likes attention. She needs it after she got fired from Fox so she has to do what she’s gotta do to get attention.”

“She pissed all the conservatives off when she asked Trump a tough question so now she’s trying to figure out a way to win them back,” he continued. “That’s her attempt. She’s desperate.” He also added that “she can just shut up.” When asked about Teigen, he praised her, using descriptors like “down-to-earth” and “loving.”

It makes sense, considering Teigen once called Trump a “p*ssy-ass b*tch,” which Trump pressured Twitter to erase. She was also one of many users to publicly struggle with making blue check marks disappear during the whole verification fiasco, thanks to Elon Musk (she still has one to this day).

Alex Jones is fuming mad after being tricked by an AI Tucker Carlson voice. The whole thing went down earlier this week when Canadian prankster Chris James claimed that he duped the Infowars host thanks to an AI voice generator and Carlson’s real phone number.

“Okay so let’s say someone has Tucker Carlson’s cell number, and also Alex Jones’ cell phone number, and also an AI Tucker Carlson voice. They could IN THEORY call Alex Jones and pretend to be Tucker, and have a full conversation with him,” James tweeted on Wednesday. “Anyways I just did that.”

According to James, it worked way better than he imagined.

“I was honestly caught off guard by how much he bought that it was Tucker,” he added. “I ran out of clips.”

While James has yet to post the publish the call, Jones confirmed its existence by raging about the prank on the Thursday episode of Infowars and repeatedly calling for James arrest.

“Tucker Carlson’s lawyers are involved, and what you did, we believe is a crime, so even though you think you are safe up in Canada, you are going to get arrested for what you did yesterday. So keep laughing, you little arrogant person,” Jones fumed via The Daily Beast. “I’m going to file a criminal complaint… you don’t get to steal our phone numbers and then pose as us.”

After Jones fumed about him on his show, James updated his Twitter thread and claims he spoke to the Infowars host.

“I just talked to him on the phone and he told me that Tucker is getting his lawyers involved, and pleaded with me to come on his show live so I could explain myself,” James tweeted. “I politely declined, and then he called me some names. I have the recording of the call.”

As of this writing, James is still planning to publish both the prank call and his subsequent call with Jones on the Monday episode of his YouTube show.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Welcome to our Yellowjackets Sting Meter. We’ll measure the erratic, unexplainable behavior of the show’s main lineup, ranking them according to how dangerous, deadly, and certifiably insane they appear in each episode. Who’s just a whacky worker bee and who gets crowned Mad Queen of episode five’s “Qui”? Let’s find out.

Fans already know that Yellowjackets is the kind of show that comes with its own unofficial trigger warning. We’ve already witnessed acts of cannibalism, murder, suicide, and Elijah Wood eating a syrup-drenched, mustard-laced breakfast meat taco. Our stomachs can handle just about anything.

That said, and in all seriousness, episode five’s “Qui” comes with a different kind of trigger warning that deserves to be uttered aloud. We’ve seen loss and grief and hopelessness on this show before, but not like this — so heartbreaking and capriciously cruel that it makes you wonder how much more these characters can take before they simply break.

Of course, that’s assuming there were any sane ones left to begin with.

Queen Bee – Shauna Shipman

Shauna Shipman might just be the most interesting character on TV right now. As young Shauna, Sophie Nelisse plays a lost and grieving teen struggling to survive — not just the wilderness but the guilt of inadvertently causing her best friend’s death. In the present, Melanie Lynskey shows how that unresolved trauma bleeds into every facet of this woman’s life, from the walls she puts up with her own family members to the mask she effortlessly dons in a police interrogation room. Is she a murderer or a bored housewife? A terrible mother or a woman so broken from past posts that she can’t fathom letting someone get close to her like that again? We might never really know, which is what makes her downward spiral in the current timeline so delicious and fascinating to watch. But it’s Nelisse’s work in the past — that gruesome delivery, that nerve-wracking breast-feeding fantasy, and that devastating back-to-reality moment — that deserves the applause here. No wonder Shauna Shipman is so f*cked up, she’s suffered more than anyone else on this show by a mile.

Misty

It’s hard to decide which of the Mistys is more batsh*t in this episode, so we’ll list out their erratic, unhinged behavior here for you to decide. In the cabin, young Misty (Samantha Hanratty) is drawing a blank on how to provide doula services to a teenage girl bleeding out on a creaky mattress while her teammates join hands and chant nonsense in the background. She keeps getting flashbacks of Bee Gees songs and dead besties lying frozen at the bottom of a cliff. This is not how D-Day (delivery day) was supposed to go. In the present, Misty’s emptying her syringe-filled, jam jar jam-packed pockets to become a fledgling member of Lottie’s cult (sorry, intentional community). The two have a tense reunion before Misty begins interrupting sob-fest therapy sessions to brag about her Yellowjackets connections and hunt down a visibly-annoyed Natalie. Both Mistys seem happier ignoring their own pressing problems (Crystal’s death in the past, Walter’s missed calls in the present) in order to become the center of attention of their friend group once more. We’d be a bit snarkier about it if it didn’t lead to the end-of-episode Yellowjackets reunion we’ve all been waiting for.

Nat

Both Juliette Lewis and Sophie Thatcher play terrific punching bags but man, we wish this show would let up a bit when it comes to the undeserved trauma and self-loathing. In the past, Nat is desperately trying to help her friend, even going so far as to join in on Lottie’s mystic mantra if it staunches the bleeding and saves the baby. In the present, she’s having a really bad day at target practice and contemplating killing a goldfish to prove she’s poisonous to those around her. Some people might need an intentional community to sort through their issues but, hear us out, maybe Nat would do better with an all-inclusive resort stay and a bottle of anti-depressants to snack on?

Lottie

Lottie’s witchy mojo seems to be on the fritz in the past but it’s her current mental breakdown that feels more concerning this episode. Not only is she beginning to question whether she was ever actually insane or whether an evil entity has attached itself to her friends — tormenting them in the years since they escaped the wilderness with the goal of dragging them back to that forested hell once more — but she must also host an unannounced high school reunion with a bunch of girls who haven’t kept in touch because they thought she was locked up in a Swedish mental institution for the past decade. Talk about awkward.

Travis

All we’re saying is this: Travis was suspiciously quick to unhook that Longhorn skull and start leaking blood all over it.

Coach Ben

Oh, men aren’t useless? Explain this guy then.

Van

We’d never badmouth a lesbian who owns a video rental store named “While You Were Streaming,” but we do need to amend our earlier assumption that Vanessa Palmer was the most well-adjusted adult on this show. She’s popping pills and ignoring past-due notices and clinging to her electric dildos instead of forming any kind of real romantic connection with another human being. Her excellent taste in music aside, Van is not okay.

Taissa

Taissa Turner fans likely walked away from this episode thinking two things. First, Jasmin Savoy-Brown is truly a top-notch birthing coach. Second, just because a girl wrote that she loved you in blood one time doesn’t mean that, years later, you can offer her dating and real estate advice on the same day. Your sleepwalking alter ego just tried to murder your wife Taissa, and you’ve likely missed your swearing-in ceremony at this point. Get a job and stay away from her.

Callie

Callie continues to make a strong case for receiving the Most Improved Player award on this show but her performance at the police station in this episode marked the first time we truly saw the mother-daughter resemblance between Shauna and her wayward teen offspring. It was almost, dare we say, heartwarming.

Jeff

Music is Jeff Sadecki’s form of therapy. Also, we’re pretty sure he voted to defund the police. What an ally.

Showtime’s ‘Yellowjackets’ streams on Fridays, followed by TV airtime on Sunday nights.

Alec Baldwin doesn’t have as many kids as Nick Cannon, but the 30 Rock star’s brood is large enough that he can’t remember them all.

“A lot going on in this photo. As usual,” Baldwin wrote on Instagram, along with a photo of himself and his wife, Hilaria, covered in children. “It was Romeo’s birthday party. (actual birthday is May 17). Thanks to all my children’s friends/classmates who joined us. I have never seen kids devour more candy in my lifetime. They’re like locusts. Candy locusts.” In a follow-up post, he added, “Seven reasons to carry on during some tough times. I’m not gonna lie, without my family, I don’t know what my life would be.” The slide included seven photos of his seven kids — except Baldwin has eight kids.

Photos of Carmen, 9, Rafael, 7, Leonardo, 6, Romeo, 4, Eduardo, 2, Lucia, 2, and Ilaria, 7 months, were featured in the social media upload — but [his] 27-year-old daughter, Ireland Baldwin, was noticeably missing.

Baldwin corrected his honest (?) mistake (?) in a third post. “We forgot Billy Preston!” Baldwin wrote, seemingly a reference to something George Harrison said during The Concert for Bangladesh. “This one, the first one, is about to make me a grandfather. Oy.”

Now who’s thoughtless?

(Via Page Six)

Yellowstone has been subject to swirling rumors of a Kevin Costner exit for months. This week, a report from Entertainment Tonight claimed that the leading man would be fully finished with the series after Season 5. No representatives from Paramount Network or Costner’s camp immediately stepped up to confirm or deny this one, and there was no earthly way to know when filming would resume because Costner has just began shooting (and directing) Horizon. As well, this week saw multiple Yellowstone cast members indicate that they weren’t aware of updates or definitive plans.

A few days later, Paramount has announced that Taylor Sheridan’s flagship Yellowstone series will end after Season 5, Part 2. As for when these episodes will release? Via Hollywood Reporter, the “final episodes will air starting in November.” Shooting is projected to begin in August.

From there, the network announced a Dutton-focused Yellowstone sequel with scant details, but this could be the mystery project starring Matthew McConaughey. Additionally, there are almost too many current and upcoming Taylor Sheridan-created shows (both inside and outside of Yellowstone proper) to count at this point, so the cowboy soap-operas shall continue.

Rumors of turmoil on the Western juggernaut began to heat up in January after Yellowstone paused for a Season 5 mid-season break and then, well, continued the break. Rumors have emerged to suggest irreconcilable friction between creator Taylor Sheridan and Costner with the latter’s schedule apparently being a sticking point.

As well, Yellowstone fans were crushed after the April 1 Paleyfest event was advertised to include both Taylor and Costner, but at the last hour (literally), both fans and the press learned that neither would attend the panel, which some people went to great expense and time to attend.

This week, both Kelly Reilly (who plays Beth Dutton) and Lainey Wilson (who swills whiskey as Abby) fielded questions about drama in the production. As well, Costner’s wife, Christine, filed for divorce this week after nearly 19 years of marriage. In other words, there’s lots going on with Kevin Costner.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

SZA excited fans with the highly anticipated release of her new album SOS in December. “Kill Bill” has since become a No. 1 hit. However, she’s already begun talking about a deluxe version, after a Billboard piece in February noted, “Once she releases the deluxe edition of SOS — which will feature 10 additional tracks and is coming soon — SZA says she’ll be done trying to convince herself that she deserves her flowers.”

Of course, fans of the singer can be quite impatient. In fact, they can be so impatient that a fake tracklist for the SOS deluxe is circulating and she had to address it in an Instagram Story.

“This is fake,” she wrote. “And that other leak is from Ctrl 6 years ago.”

In that Billboard interview, she discussed her goals with doing a deluxe version of the record. “After I do the deluxe, I’m hoping to be able to accept that this chapter is done,” SZA said. “I’m looking forward to actually feeling proud of myself and not just smiling and nodding at accolades but really feeling it internally and knowing that I’m good enough.”

In January, she also had to shut down theories that the license plate in her music video symbolized a release date of some sort: “The deluxe is not coming out in august lol it’s just a license plate,” she wrote on Twitter.

Yellowstone, your dad’s favorite show that brings the drama both on and off the screen, is hitting the dusty trail.

Deadline reports that the Kevin Costner-starring Paramount Network series will wrap its run with the upcoming second half of season five, which is set to premiere in November.” Production on the final batch of episodes will reportedly begin in August. As for whether Costner will show up, well, that’s a whole thing.

Paramount also officially announced a sequel series, possibly starring Matthew McConaughey.

No talent has been announced for the new series but Matthew McConaughey had been in talks for the project. We hear the Oscar winner remains in negotiations to star. He is expected to be joined by a handful of original Yellowstone cast members. The sequel, the first offshoot in the Yellowstone universe to carry the mothership series’ moniker, will run on Paramount Network, the home of Yellowstone, and then on Paramount+.

“Yellowstone has been the cornerstone on which we have launched an entire universe of global hits – from 1883 to Tulsa King, and I am confident our Yellowstone sequel will be another big hit, thanks to the brilliant creative mind of Taylor Sheridan and our incredible casts who bring these shows to life,” said Chris McCarthy, president & CEO of Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios.

Cheer up, Yellowstone fans, there’s 75 spin-offs to come.

(Via Deadline)

The 2023 induction class for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was unveiled earlier this week, and making the cut are Willie Nelson, Missy Elliott, Kate Bush, Rage Against The Machine, Sheryl Crow, George Michael, The Spinners, Chaka Khan, Al Kooper, Bernie Taupin, Link Way, DJ Kool Herc, and Don Cornelius. If you ask David Letterman, though, The National should also be in the Rock Hall.

After the news was revealed, Letterman shared a video talking about it on his YouTube channel. He expressed his disappointment about Warren Zevon not getting the nod this year, saying he’s “disappointed” but “not angry.” He then got to talking about Matt Berninger and The National (“your saddest friend’s favorite band”), saying:

“They had this song called ‘Weird Goodbyes,’ which is not on the new album, but he’s singing about the weird goodbyes: ‘I don’t know why I don’t try harder.’ He is a man who is preoccupied, it’s been a sad parting of the ways [with] family. ‘I don’t know why I don’t try harder.’ That’s preoccupying Matt Berninger. ‘I don’t know why I don’t try harder.’ And now here comes the punch: ‘I feel like throwing towels into water.’ Woah, Jesus, what a mad man! Call the police! The guy’s gonna throw towels into water! But you know, I say that because I love the National and I wish I could be Matt Berninger because nobody’s cooler than Matt Berninger, and they ought to be in the Hall Of Fame.”

Check out the video above.