Month: June 2023

For one reason or another, it’s not uncommon to see Billie Eilish making headlines. Today, she’s on people’s minds and news feeds because of a new bikini photo, which shows off a previously unseen chest tattoo of hers. What is the ink of, though?

The photo was shared on Instagram by Annabel Zimmer (the daughter of iconic composer Hans Zimmer). In it, Eilish wears a Miaou bikini top, Versace sunglasses, a necklace, and earrings while smiling and looking off to the side. It’s not Eilish’s post, but she commented on it simply with a see-no-evil monkey emoji.

Due to the size of the tattoo on Eilish’s body and in the frame of the photo, it might be hard to identify what it is. Eilish has already done that for us, though. In 2021, though, Rolling Stone reported the ink reads “Eilish” in “an ornate, gothic font” and that she got it the day after the 2020 Grammys, so on January 27. Meanwhile, Eilish noted while pointing to her chest in a Vanity Fair interview from the same year, “I have three tattoos now. I have one here that says ‘Eilish.’ Yes, I love myself.”

Meanwhile, Eilish generated some attention earlier this year after lingerie photos invited comparisons to a Breaking Bad character.

Jerry West had a special relationship with Kobe Bryant, as he was the general manager of the Lakers when they traded for Kobe Bryant in the 1996 NBA Draft.

That relationship was apparently strong enough that Bryant once looked into following West to the Memphis Grizzlies in 2004, but the Hall of Famer talked Bryant out of considering the move despite being Memphis’ GM. West told that story on this week’s episode of Podcast P with Paul George, explaining that he told Kobe “No, you belong somewhere out here.”

“He became a free agent. Ok? And he called me and his agent then was Rob Pelinka. And so I met them in Orange County in a hotel room and he said he wanted to come to Memphis and play basketball. And I looked at him, I said, are you kidding me? And he said no, and I said, ‘Kobe, no, no. You know, it’s just you belong somewhere out here.’ And even though he would have never played there, I just want to reassure him that don’t feel like you have any obligation with me or the Grizzlies to play here and because he would have never played there, it wasn’t gonna happen.”

The stories of Bryant nearly joining the Chicago Bulls are well known, but apparently they weren’t the only destination he was considering leaving L.A. for.

It’s very funny when West goes “I guess that might’ve been tampering,” but instead of tampering to help his team at the time he was helping Bryant and the Lakers. Memphis was coming off of a 50-win season in 2003-04, before getting swept by the Spurs in the first round of the playoffs, and it would’ve paired Bryant with Pau Gasol four years before the Spanish star was traded to the Lakers and helped Bryant win two more championships in L.A.

Coachella was a rousing success in April, Frank Ocean’s unfortunate ankle injury and subsequent canceled Weekend 2 headlining set that reportedly cost the iconic annual festival millions of dollars notwithstanding.

Coachella 2023 made history with headliners Bad Bunny and Blackpink, and the Coachella powers that be are surely already brainstorming how to one-up itself in 2024. We won’t know who next year’s headliners for a while still, but today (June 12), we at least learned the dates to circle on the calendar.

“Wherever you are, the desert isn’t far,” Coachella tweeted. “Coachella returns April 12-14 and April 19-21. Register now to access the 2024 Advance Sale beginning Friday, June 16 at 11 am PT at coachella.com.”

The official website provides loads of ticketing information, including the chosen platform (AXS). “Festival passes are valid for the full weekend (and only the weekend) you purchased,” it reads, additionally noting a payment plan option of $99 down at the initial checkout this week while the remaining balance can be paid off over six equally divided payments through this December.

There are also hotel packages and Safari Campground available to reserve now here. The accompanying shuttle passes will go on sale beginning this Friday, June 16 at 10 a.m. PT, but registration for access is available now.

Nike bringing back one of its classic sneakers, the Nike Mac Attack — the signature model worn by tennis legend John McEnroe — and has tapped one of its key collaborators to make the re-release even more special. The 1984 sneaker is being redesigned for Travis Scott with his trademark reversed Swoosh.

Travis was seen performing in his updated Mac Attacks in May, and today, the NikeSportswear Instagram account began the official rollout with a genuinely stylish print ad layout featuring the rapper and the tennis star side-by-side in tailored suits and Travis on the court taking a two-handed forehand in a white Nike windbreaker and shorts combo (I, for one, would love to find out the results of that).

A detail of the ad Travis Scott fans might appreciate is his briefcase, which bears the scrawl “Utopia” — the name of Travis’ long-awaited comeback album, which he’s been teasing for the better part of the past two years. While anticipation for the album is sky-high among Scott’s diehards, it was set back by the tragedy at his Astroworld Festival in 2021, which generated nearly 5,000 injury claims in addition to ten deathsand prompted the rapper to spend much of last year lying low.

Travis was said to have recently played the album for his hometown Houston Astros, implying that it could be nearing release. With Nike helping to raise his profile to pre-Astroworld levels, it could mean that Utopia‘s release is imminent. Meanwhile, the Mac Attacks have an official release date of June 23 — although the remixed Travis Scott signature version has not been announced.

BTS have been omnipresent for the last decade, and their unparalleled presence is on unique display this week. The K-pop group is supposed to be on hiatus, but they’re making an exception to recognize their 10-year anniversary.

Tomorrow, June 13, will officially mark a decade since BTS’ debut, and a commemorative single “Take Two” arrived last Friday, June 9, as part of a larger celebration.

Billboard reported on May 24 that BTS 10th Anniversary FESTA is slated for this Saturday, June 17, in Seoul, South Korea, which will be “open to the public” at Yeouido, Seoul.

Seoul is ramping up anticipation (not that BTS needs any help with that) by turning the city purple throughout this week, as shared across Twitter.

“The purple mark of BTS and their ARMY will shine on Seoul’s City Hall, multiple Han River bridges, the 123-story Lotte World Tower, and the cultural hub Dongdaemun Design Plaza,” relayed Rolling Stone‘s Larisha Paul. “They’ll also infiltrate the postal service beginning on Tuesday [June 13] when authorities will start issuing stamps marking the anniversary. By Saturday [June 17], fireworks will explode over a Han River park following a live talk from BTS’ RM.”

In March, RM opened up to EFE about how he was experiencing BTS’ indefinite hiatus allowing for each member to serve South Korea’s mandatory military service.

“After 10 years as a member of BTS, I didn’t know who I was and I wanted to know,” RM told the outlet. “I started out as a teenage rapper, then BTS came along and it was all very intense. Now that the group is inactive, I’ve gone back to thinking about the beginnings and the real reasons why I joined BTS.”

This week will be a particularly reflective time for all BTS members, although Jungkook just wants to be able to sleep.

Reddit experienced a “major outage” on Monday as thousands of subreddits took part in a coordinated “blackout” to protest the platform’s new API pricing. Reddit’s new plan is reportedly similar to the new API price increase at Twitter, and the new policy at Reddit is what prompted Monday’s wide-scale protest.

The blackout plan was put into place last week, and as promised, the protest kicked off on the morning of June 12. While Reddit knew about the blackout plans (reportedly involving at least 7,000 subreddits), that still didn’t prevent the site from crashing.

“A significant number of subreddits shifting to private caused some expected stability issues, and we’ve been working on resolving the anticipated issue,” a Reddit spokesperson told The Verge after the publication reported.

As for the reason for the protest, subreddit moderators heavily rely on third-party apps to maintain and customize their communities. The API price increase will potentially eliminate a significant chunk of those apps. Via the r/Save3rdPartyApps subreddit, which kicked off the protest:

Even if you’re not a mobile user and don’t use any of those apps, this is a step toward killing other ways of customizing Reddit, such as Reddit Enhancement Suite or the use of the old.reddit.com desktop interface .

This isn’t only a problem on the user level: many subreddit moderators depend on tools only available outside the official app to keep their communities on-topic and spam-free.”

As of this writing, Reddit has moved from “major outage” to “operational,” but the subreddits still remain private in protest of the API pricing plan.

(Via The Verge)

For years, large, baggy clothes were a signature part of Billie Eilish’s distinct style (by design). In recent times, though, she has more frequently opted for revealing looks. Now, she’s gone really revealing in a new photo that shows off a previously unseen chest tattoo.

In the pic posted over the weekend, Eilish wears a Miaou bikini top, Versace sunglasses, a necklace, and earrings as she smiles and looks off to the side. The photo wasn’t actually shared on Eilish’s own Instagram, but in a slideshow post from Annabel Zimmer (if that last name sounds familiar, it’s because her dad is legendary composer Hans Zimmer). Eilish commented on the post with a see-no-evil monkey emoji.

The tattoo is hard to make out due to its relatively small size both on Eilish’s body and in the frame of the photo. In 2021, though, Rolling Stone noted the ink says “Eilish” “in an ornate, gothic font” and that she got it the day after the 2020 Grammys, which would have been January 27. In a Vanity Fair interview from the same year, Eilish noted while pointing to her chest, “I have three tattoos now. I have one here that says ‘Eilish.’ Yes, I love myself.”

On a related note, last month, Eilish addressed people’s opinions about her shifting fashion style, saying, “i spent the first 5 years of my career getting absolutely OBLITERATED by you fools for being boy ish and dressing how I did & constantly being told i’d be hotter if I acted like a woman, and now when i feel comfortable enough to wear anything remotely feminine or fitting, i CHANGED and am a sellout..”

The Miami Heat are facing elimination on Monday night in Denver, as they face the daunting task of trying to become just the second team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals.

On Monday morning, there was a bit of good news for the Heat in the form of an injury report update that saw Tyler Herro get elevated from OUT to QUESTIONABLE as he recovers from a broken hand suffered in the first round against the Milwaukee Bucks.

The hope is that Herro will be able to go through warmups with enough comfortability to give it a go on Monday night, as the Heat are desperate for some more offensive punch in a series where they’ve broken the 100 points mark just once (their Game 2 win). Herro would give them some much-needed on-ball creativity, but the trade-off for his offense is providing a more attackable perimeter defender for Jamal Murray and company.

How impactful Herro can be remains to be seen, as there’s considerable rust to shake off from a two-month layoff, but even the threat of another shooting threat on the floor would be a benefit for a Miami offense that’s been stuck in the mud for much of the Finals.

Poor Rachel Bilson. I mean, in one sense, The OC star is doing great. She’s a successful actress with a popular podcast and millions of fans. But she also didn’t orgasm “from, like, d*ck” until she was 38, and didn’t have her first orgasm with a partner until her 20s.

Bilson made the orgasm revelation (good band name) on the latest episode of her Broad Ideas podcast. “It took a very long time, it finally happened and then the floodgates opened. It was easier,” she said, according to Page Six. Bilson also claims that she’s never faked an orgasm. “Am I an asshole? I start to go into that people-pleasing thing. Like, am I just a d*ck because I never gave [my partners] that?” she said. “It goes against my whole nature of being a people pleaser and putting the dude first.”

“Mostly it was about me and my body and being comfortable and figuring out position and whatnot,” she explained. “It was so interesting because now I can with different partners. It’s learning your body.”

Bilson previously fondly recalled ex-boyfriend Bill Hader’s “big d*ck” on Broad Ideas, while on another podcast, Women on Top, she expressed her desire to be “f*cking manhandled” during sex.

Rachel Bilson is a good podcast guest (even if it costs her jobs).

(Via Page Six)

Jack Harlow has faced heat before over claims of cultural appropriation. As a white rapper from Louisville, Kentucky, how could he not?

And although Jack often goes out of his way to acknowledge his privilege and acknowledge the creators of hip-hop and the importance of Black people to his success, he’s still become the target of backlash after he was photographed wearing a bonnet at a Louisville City FC soccer match.

As the internet and social media have brought longstanding but often overlooked aspects of Black culture to mainstream attention, there has been plenty of friction generated between white folks (and others) showing appreciation for Black culture and just appropriating it.

This has extended to Black clothing and slang, accessories and hairstyles, and yes, even hair care products like du-rags and bonnets. Worn by many Black people as a way to protect our hair from damage, the latter have increasingly been seen as a fashion statement by folks on the younger end of the spectrum — for instance, Guapdad’s 10-foot du-rag train from the 2020 Grammys and Thundercat’s song about his “Dragon Ball Durag.”

Unfortunately, when some white artists have tried to join the trend, such as when Madonna tweeted about “durag activity” in a nod to Baby Keem and Travis Scott’s song of the same name, the results have been, shall we say, mixed.

So, seeing Jack Harlow in a bonnet outside — especially since Black folks doing so have been criticized as looking unkempt, despite the trend’s growing popularity — has some fans understandably confused, upset, and yes, amused. Still, this certainly explains why his signature curls have been looking so luxurious lately — which just goes to show how many of us can benefit from the cultural exchange, controversy aside. While there will probably always be those who believe that protective accessories should be kept indoors, there’s no doubt that getting in the habit of “wrapping your hair up” can have everybody’s head top flourishing.

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