Month: June 2024

Before the second half of Bridgerton season three premiered, a fan of the show told star Nicola Coughlan at a Q&A that she was “brave” for participating in nude scenes. “You know, it is hard because I think women with my body type — women with perfect breasts — we don’t get to see ourselves onscreen enough,” she replied to cheers from the crowd. “And I’m very proud as a member of the perfect breasts community. I hope you enjoy seeing them.”

Coughlan’s, ahem, “perfect breasts” are on display in Bridgerton season 3, episode 5, which features the show’s longest sex scene to date.

Set to a string cover of Ariana Grande’s “POV,” the scene between Penelope Featherington (Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) is nearly six minutes long. The pair got so into it, they destroyed some of the set while filming the racy encounter. “We did break a piece of furniture while doing one of those scenes,” Coughlan told EW. “I didn’t know what it was gonna be like, but it’s a little bit like a stunt in which they’re like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna do this, this, and this.’ But then they gave us freedom to like, we had a lot of say in how we did those scenes and what we wanted to do.” She added, “It was fun.”

Here’s the proof:

Fans of the show are sharing their thoughts on the sex scene.

“Nah that love scene between Penelope and Colin was just so gorgeous and sensual and beautiful probably the best yet,” one viewer wrote, while another added, “Colin gave Penelope a beautiful first time!!! The compliments, the reassurance, the way he made it personal…. the confidence he gave her. That sex scene was everything.” Here are more reactions.

You can stream Bridgerton on Netflix.

Drake’s terrible, no-good 2024 continues. The beleaguered rapper, who already saw his reputation take several hits from his ill-advised war of words with Kendrick Lamar, is now being sued for copyright infringement by clothing brand Members Only. According to Billboard, the point of contention is a T-shirt Drake sold during his It’s All a Blur Tour emblazoned with the established brand’s name. The T-shirt referred to the title of a song on Drake’s latest album, For All The Dogs, which, in turn, was most likely inspired by the brand itself.

And while Drake can easily title a song “Members Only,” putting those words on a piece of clothing — the Members Only brand’s domain — he exposed himself to legal action. As the lawsuit states, “The fact that ‘Members Only’ is a song on Drake’s album ‘For All the Dogs’ does not obviate the likelihood of confusion or give [him] a license to use our client’s ‘Members Only’ marks in such a confusing manner, particularly on or in connection with apparel items.”

The fact that Drake’s tour production company, Away From Home Touring Inc., sold shirts bearing the words “Members Only” could have confused fans into thinking the brand Members Only was involved, according to the suit (just typing that out made me a little dizzy). “Away From Home sold … goods bearing the mark ‘Members Only’ that are identical, overlapping, and/or highly similar to the goods that JR Apparel sells bearing its MEMBERS ONLY Marks,” it alleges. Which means that Drake only has one more headache to deal with, when he’s supposed to be off somewhere licking his wounds.

The Jonas Brothers, Uproxx’s June 2023 cover stars, postponed Mexico concert dates from May to August due to Nick Jonas coming down “with a nasty strain of influenza-A.” The Jonas Brothers’ Five Nights. One Night. The World Tour. will resume on August 21 in Mexico City, Mexico, which gives Nick, Kevin Jonas, and Joe Jonas extra time to take care of other things. Joe appears to have his head down on solo music, but Kevin had a much less fun task to tend to.

“So, today, I am getting a basal cell carcinoma removed from my head,” Kevin Jonas said in an Instagram video. “Yes, that is an actual little skin cancer guy that has started to grow, and now, I have to get surgery to remove it.”

The video cuts to the eldest Jonas Brother in the car, pulling back his hair to show a bandage near his hairline. “I’m all done,” he said. “Now, it’s time to heal. Heading home. Make sure to get those moles checked, people!”

According to Mayo Clinic, basal cell carcinoma is “a type of skin cancer” that “begins in the basal cells — a type of cell within the skin that produces new skin cells as old ones die off,” and it “most often on areas of the skin that are exposed to the sun, such as your head and neck.” Mayo Clinic additionally noted that basal cell carcinoma is “thought to be caused by long-term exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight.”

Traditionally, music interviews are between a journalist and an artist. The medium can sometimes break free of that format, though. Sometimes, artists interview each other. Then there’s the latest one from The Weeknd. In it, he interviews himself, except it’s himself at 10 years old, except it’s himself at 10 years old as portrayed via AI.

This was arranged by SSENSE, who used ChatGPT to create a “realistic” chatbot version of young Abel Tesfaye, with which present-day Tesfaye had an era-spanning conversation.

The chat starts with talk about TV shows. The Weeknd notes he’s been watching King Of The Hill and AI Tesfaye responds, “King of the Hill sounds like a big adventure! I imagine sitting on a hill being the king of everything I see!” It then asks real The Weeknd if they can make a cartoon of their own together someday.

From there, the two talk about God, imagination, their mother, and more. Depending on your views on AI, the whole thing is either sweet or perhaps a little bit unsettling and strange. At the very least, it’s an interesting exercise in creative use of technology, more of a creative writing endeavor than a journalistic interview.

Check it out here.

Most people would have a hard time finding something to criticize Rihanna about (well, except for how long it’s taking her to release a new album). Rihanna is fine with picking on herself, though, as she’s been known to bust out some self-deprecating humor about her forehead. Now she’s back at it again with the forehead talk as she makes her pick for who she’d like to portray her in a movie.

Earlier this week, on the red carpet of a Fenty Hair launch event on June 10, Rihanna was asked about who should star in a potential biopic about her. She responded, “Taylor Russell. You know why? Because she’s got, like, a nice forehead. She’s, like, fly. And I feel like I want to be her, so I want her to pretend to be me. I want people to see me in that light.”

The Canadian actress is known for starring in the Netflix series Lost In Space, as well as the movies Waves and Bones And All. She hasn’t publicly responded to the Rihanna shout-out yet, but she did supposedly have a significant connection to the music world recently: It was reported last month that she and Harry Styles broke up after nearly a year of supposedly dating.

Check out the Rihanna interview clip below.

Smiling Friends, Adult Swim‘s biggest sensation since Rick and Morty, has been unsurprisingly renewed for a third season. The news was made official at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, according to Variety.

The animated series is about a company that aims to bring joy to its customers and make them smile. In one episode, they’re tasked with helping a forgotten video game character from the late 1990s; in another, Pim (voiced by co-creator Michael Cusack) and Charlie (fellow creator Zach Hadel) are kidnapped by aliens, who then get kidnapped by even bigger aliens. It’s a fun premise. But the real reason Smiling Friends is so popular? Glep. Look how cute he is!

“People love over-analyzing media and going ‘Oh, it’s actually genius because…’ To us, Smiling Friends is literally just a callback of like ‘90s Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, SpongeBob. Looney Tunes, if you even want to go there,” Hadel said about the appeal of the show. “Not in terms of style, but in the sense that it’s pure, stupid, comedy. It’s not complex, it’s not gonna change your life. It’s not supposed to! It’s just supposed to be stupid, funny, and that’s it.”

You can stream Smiling Friends on Max and Adult Swim’s website.

(Via Variety)

Megan Thee Stallion is currently about midway through her Hot Girl Summer Tour that launched last month, and she appears to be feeling pretty good. She was in a celebratory mood on Instagram last night (June 13), when she shared a collection of recent stray thoughts.

Perhaps the most notable one is this: “Ima pop my sh*t for a second lol but people questioned if I was an arena artist anddd I mean [shrugging emoji] teehee.”

Notably, in May, Charlamagne Tha God claimed that Megan is “not an arena artist,” but he quickly retracted his assertion, later saying, “Clearly, we got our answers. She sold out 13 arena stops in over 240,000 tickets across North America and Europe. Yeah, so if you’re selling out arenas, you’re an arena artist.”

Elsewhere, Meg showed love for tour opener GloRilla (calling her “my sister 4L”) and made note that her beloved dog Foe Thee Frenchie is now a father. If you want to see the puppies, Meg just shared a video of them on Foe’s Instagram account:

Check out Meg’s full post below.

“Hotties as we get ready for my FIRST ALBUM UNDER HOTGIRL PRODUCTIONS dropping 6.28 I wanna tell yall some of my favorite things that have been happening on tour SO FAR [heart hands emoji]
1. I appreciate and love how hard my dancers (thee hot girls) go every show! I know our bodies are aching but they never complain and still pop out and have a blast lol ! Love yall
2. I love the bond that me and @glorillapimp have built in these past few weeks ! You are my sister 4L , you and cola never getting rid of me [teary-eyed emoji]
3. @frenchie4oe HAD KIDS YALL ! My son is a DADDY [crying emoji]
4. Hotties , yall keep me so motivated and happy you just don’t even know! I look out in the crowd and see yalls signs and I burst out laughing [crying laughing emoji] keep the signs coming [crying laughing emoji]
5. THEE FLOWERS [teary-eyed emoji] I LOVE THE FLOWERS! Thee hotties make me feel like I have the biggest family in the world and I’m grateful [blue heart emoji]
6. Ima pop my sh*t for a second lol but people questioned if I was an arena artist anddd I mean [shrugging emoji] teehee
7. I have more people to thank and more moments to make but I LOVE EVERYONE who has been making this tour amazing so far ! Thank you.”

Game 3 between the Mavericks and Celtics saw Dallas run out to a big early lead, but give it all back almost as quickly, before turning into a very entertaining first half dogfight. The first half was the first time all series both Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving were playing well offensively at the same time and Dallas suddenly had some life.

However, the third quarter brought all of that to a halt as the Celtics went on an incredible run to take a 15-point lead to the fourth quarter, where they’d go up by as many as 21, and the worst habits of the Mavs started to creep back in. Doncic, in particular, was dreadful on defense and became heavily engaged with the officials, seemingly to the detriment of his game and the Mavericks. That reached its zenith in the fourth quarter when, after clawing back to within three, Doncic picked up his fifth and sixth fouls in quick succession defending Jaylen Brown, fouling out with just over four minutes to play.

Without him, the Mavs couldn’t complete the comeback and fell behind 0-3, a deficit no team’s ever recovered from in the NBA Playoffs. After the game, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst joined Scott Van Pelt for SportsCenter and didn’t hold back on Doncic, calling out his terrible defensive effort and constant complaining about the refs in an instant classic sports media rant.

On it’s own, it was good, but it deserved the diss track treatment, so behold, Brian Windhorst x Kendrick Lamar’s “Meet The Grahams”.

If you’d prefer, there’s also a “Not Like Us” version.

Windy typically saves this kind of heat for the Hoop Collective pod, but this time he blessed us with an incredible rant on television, and Kendrick’s diss track instrumentals from Alchemist and Mustard offer a timely soundtrack for them.

For all intents and purposes, the NBA Finals are over. While the Boston Celtics have not officially lifted the Larry O’Brien trophy yet, they’re in as good of a position as they could possibly be after Game 3 on Wednesday night. After a 106-99 win over the Mavericks in Dallas, Boston now finds itself with a 3-0 series lead, which no team has ever blown in NBA history.

Game 3 looked like it had the potential for Dallas to get back into the series, as Kristaps Porzingis was out with an injury and both Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic were hitting shots. But as the second half went on, Doncic specifically struggled on the defensive end, as the Celtics went at him time and time again. To cap off his night, Doncic committed his sixth foul of the game with more than four minutes left in the fourth quarter as Dallas was trying to pull off a comeback.

This put a damper on a 27-point outing from Doncic, and after the game, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst went onto SportsCenter and tore into him for his performance.

Specifically, Windhorst focused on the way Doncic performed on the defensive end of the floor, which he called “unacceptable” and described as “a hole on the court.” He also went off on Doncic for his long-standing habit of riding the officials, which Windhorst believes is “costing his team.”

“Maybe over the summer, somebody will get to him, because nobody with the Mavericks or anybody else in his life has, and that’s where the Mavericks are at this point,” Windhorst said. “They’re never gonna get to this tunnel with the trophy if he doesn’t improve those aspects of his game.”

None of this comes as a surprise, but it sure was something to hear Windhorst go off like this on a player who, for all his brilliance, has been criticized for his defense and his approach to the officials for quite some time.

Young Thug’s father, Jeffrey Williams Sr., has repeatedly defended Gunna against allegations that he was a snitch related to the ongoing YSL Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) trial. Last December, Williams Sr. went so far as to tell Infamous Sylvia, “[Lil Baby] need to shut the f*ck up, ’cause he don’t know what’s going on.”

In case it were still in question, Williams Sr. really rides for Gunna, as evidenced by his front-row presence at Gunna’s The Bittersweet Tour finale at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday night, June 11.

A fan-taken video circulated by Complex on X (formerly Twitter) showed Williams Sr. dancing along to Gunna performing “Ski,” a Gunna and Young Thug song from 2021’s Slime Language 2. Complex also posted a photo (taken by Atlanta’s Royal Photography) of Gunna and Williams Sr. posing while doing the YSL nose-wipe.

In May 2022, Gunna and Young Thug were among 28 YSL members arrested and charged in a 56-count indictment. On December 14, 2022, Gunna was released from prison after he “entered a negotiated plea, known as an Alford plea, in which a defendant doesn’t admit he committed the crime but acknowledges that it is in his best interest to plead guilty,” as reported by WSB-TV at the time.

Afterward, Gunna was subject to criticism for “snitching” on Young Thug and other YSL defendants. Gunna denied the allegations with “I Was Just Thinking” last June.

Young Thug is currently facing nine charges and standing trial in Fulton County.