Category: News

Miami rap duo City Girls has a new album out, but that isn’t stopping one of the group’s members from considering a name change to help her solo career out. JT recently admitted that her rap name is a little less than ideal from a search optimization standpoint after a fan on Twitter noted that efforts to get her name trending were futile since it’s just two letters. “I think I should change my rap name but to what?” she asked her followers.

Does this mean the rapper is officially changing her name?

Well, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for her to do so. In 2021, another rising rap star, Latto, changed her name after receiving some backlash over her prior nom de guerre. At the time, she explained why following through on those plans can be complicated with big implications for a career already in motion. “I want [my fans] to also understand that the name change at this level in your career is a big decision,” she said. “Freaking investors, labels, everything has been riding on this name, so it is a big decision.”

Also in 2021, Yung Baby Tate shortened her own name to just Baby Tate, which is admittedly a little catchier. Should JT decide to change her name, it’ll mean updating a lot of contracts and online info, but her fans’ responses suggest that at least a new one could still be recognizable; options suggested included “Jay Tea,” “The Girl JT” (based on her Twitter handle), or even just “Jatavia” — a strategy that has worked for her partner Yung Miami, whose talk show Caresha Please uses her real first name.

Last night, Diddy appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and he sure had some interesting stories to tell. He also didn’t hold back on clearing up rumors.

“Speaking of love, I saw a guy on the internet the other day,” Kimmel said. “He said he used to be your security guard, who said that when you were dating J. Lo, Will Smith and Jada tried to pick her up on a threesome, and you were gonna beat up Will Smith. Is that true?”

For a second, Diddy stares at Kimmel with a tense expression as the audience laughs. He then breaks into laughter.

“This show has gotten crazier since the last time,” Diddy jokes back about the Will Smith rumor.

“It’s all about love, though,” Kimmel asks again. “That’s not true?”

“You really heard that?” Diddy replied. “Nah.” Kimmel and Diddy then poke fun about how you can’t believe everything you see on the internet, to which the rapper and mogul responds, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jimmy, I thought we was friends.”

From there, the interview shifts subjects to Kimmel discussing another interview Diddy did, where he revealed that he tried toad venom. Kimmel also pointed out that Eric Andre said last week he did a similar thing that provided a psychedelic effect.

Check out Diddy discussing the Smith rumor above, starting at 7:12 into the video.

The SOS Tour has Grammy Award-winning musician SZA outside more often than usual, and for her, clothing is optional. From her SKIMS campaign, twerk clips shared on social media, and cinematic music videos, SZA proudly embraces her curves in every way. The songwriter’s self-confidence has come a long way since her bouts of bullying in her teen years.

On her chart-topping sophomore album SOS, SZA opened up about falling in love with her body and undergoing a cosmetic procedure (Brazilian butt lift, or “BBL”) to enhance her frame. But did SZA say she’s had face surgery in her career? Yesterday (October 30), during an interview with Hunter Harris for Wall Street Journal, the “Snooze” singer denied the growing online rumor.

“That sh*t is low-key offensive,” she said. “Not low-key, it’s high-key offensive. But what am I supposed to do? Post a debunking thread? That’s crazy. You would rather believe the TikTok thread. You would rather believe any Twitter thread; you could just Google yourself and figure it out. There were clear instances when I talked about my freckles.”

She continued, “I hear crazy sh*t about myself. I heard I had a facelift, I heard I had a nose job, I heard my teeth were fake. Now, do I need to go out and get a nose job because you all made me feel like I need one?”

Based on her response, it seems SZA wants to put the claims to bed for good.

Last week, Taylor Swift dropped her re-recorded album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), and fans immediately started playing it on repeat, so much so that Swift broke her own Spotify record for becoming the most-streamed artist in a single day.

Oh, and this version is suspected to have outsold Swift’s original from 2014. According to Hits Daily Double, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is set to have between 1.45 and 1.55 million units between sales and streams in its first week — which should instantly secure it a No. 1 spot on the next Billboard 200 chart.

The original 1989 only had 1.29 million. Right now, Swift’s current biggest week for an album was with Midnights in October 2022, which debuted with 1.59 million units, according to the publication. However, if her new re-recording aims any higher than the initial projection, she very well could beat her own record.

This would also mark Swift’s sixth record to gain over a million in the first week.

As for if any of the songs will make it on the Billboard Hot 100, right now, Swift’s 2019 Lover song, “Cruel Summer,” is spending its second week at the top. Next week, fans will be able to find out if any of the re-recorded songs or vault tracks make it to any spot in the Top 10.

It’s worth noting that Swift has yet to release a new music video tied to this re-recorded era either, which could very well give any song the boost it needs this week.

1989 (Taylor’s Version) is out now via Republic Records. Find more information here.

Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gillies take Halloween very seriously. Last year, the former Victorious co-stars dressed up as characters from the 2000 mockumentary Best In Show, including Grande as Jennifer Coolidge’s Sherri Ann Cabot and Gillies portraying Jane Lynch’s Christy Cummings. For Halloween 2023, they outdid themselves by transforming into Nomi Malone and Cristal Connors, the characters played by Elizabeth Berkley and Gina Gershon in director Paul Verhoeven’s cult camp favorite Showgirls.

“You are a whore, Darlin’!” Gillies wrote in a joint post on Instagram with Grande, quoting a line from the film. In another post, Grande channeled Berkley with the caption “different places !!!!!” The pair even recreated the deranged scene from Showgirls where Nomi and Cristal bond over dog food (“I used to love Doggy Chow, too!”) and having “great tits,” as transcribed below.

Nomi: “I get a headache from champagne.”
Cristal: “This isn’t champagne. This… is HOLY WATER. I named myself after this holy water. Chrissie Lou Connors used to have ginger brown hair and little bitty tits. It’s amazing what paint and a surgeon can do. You have great tits. They’re really beautiful.”
Nomi: “Thank you.”
Cristal: “I like nice tits. I always have, how about you?”
Nomi: “I like having nice tits.”

What a wonderful, insane movie.

Somewhere out there, allegedly, is footage of Donald Trump watching two sex workers pee on a bed that the Obamas slept in at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow, Russia. The pee tape, so to speak. You might have forgotten about it (you probably didn’t), but it’s clearly on the former president’s mind based on the number of times he said the phrase “golden showers” during a campaign event in Las Vegas over the weekend.

“How about going home to my wife with the shower, y’know? The ‘golden shower,’ they called it,” Trump said. “And I had to explain that to our great first lady. I had to explain, they said, ‘Sir, they said you were in Russia…’ I was there for so short a period. And they said this thing with the golden shower and I said, I didn’t care about the other stuff. The other stuff was nuclear. I didn’t worry about that, but the golden shower was a problem for me.”

On Monday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, host Jimmy Kimmel cracked, “Admitting that you have a problem is the first step. Good idea bringing that one back up. I had almost forgotten about it.”

You can watch Kimmel’s monologue above.

Recently, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian have had some beef with each other. There are apparently rumors that it has to do with Travis Barker, so now he’s addressed it.

In a Los Angeles Times interview published on October 29, the publication cites the Blink-182 drummer’s 2016 memoir, Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, And Drums, Drums, Drums. Fans have resurfaced excerpts from it, notably one that notes Barker and Kardashian first met in 2006, when Barker was seeing Paris Hilton. Kardashian was working as Hilton’s closet organizer, and Barker wrote that he “kept on secretly checking out Kim” and told a friend, “I don’t care if she’s the closet girl, she’s f*cking hot.”

Barker addressed that in the interview, saying, “It’s like, ‘Kourtney’s fans are worried about Travis. He’s a womanizer.’ Stop it. I obviously shared all that stuff because I wanted to move past it. It was therapeutic for me. […] That’s her sister. She knows we used to talk. Nothing bad was going on. You give people a little information and they think they’ve solved the mystery of ‘this is why they’re fighting.’ It’s just so ridiculous.”

Blink-182 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades now, but it has picked up in intensity in recent times. An attack at the 2023 Tribe Of Nova Festival earlier this month resulted in 260 deaths, for example. The loss of human lives on this scale can be a tough thing to stomach, and it has been for Selena Gomez, who just ended a social media hiatus to address it.

In an Instagram Story shared yesterday (October 30), Gomez wrote, “I’ve been taking a break from social media because my heart breaks to see all of the horror, hate, violence and terror that’s going on in the world. People being tortured and killed or any act of hate towards any one group is horrific. We need to protect ALL people, especially children and stop the violence for good. I’m sorry if my words will never be enough for everyone or a hashtag. I just can’t stand by innocent people getting hurt. That’s what makes me sick. I wish I could change the world. But a post won’t. Love, Selena.”

In a later Story, she shared a photo of her younger sister and added, “Having a sister, everyday has made me tragically sick. I would do anything for children and innocent lives.”

The Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Clippers finally figured out a trade for James Harden in the early hours of Tuesday morning. More than an hour after Monday night’s slate of NBA games came to an end, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN brought word that the two sides came to terms on a deal after months of negotiating.

One question loomed over everything: Who would the Sixers get back for Harden? Much of the standoff between the two teams revolved around the Clippers not wanting to bid against themselves, while Philly made clear it would not give Harden up at a major discount. Things dragged on so long that it was even reported that Los Angeles was going to pause its pursuit of Harden with the season starting, but after three games, the two teams figured something out.

According to Wojnarowski, the Clippers were able to hold onto prized wing Terance Mann in the deal, but had to part ways with multiple picks, a pick swap, and four players — Wojnarowski added that a pick from a still unidentified third team is on its way to the City of Brotherly Love. In exchange, Philly will package P.J. Tucker and Filip Petrusev with Harden.

The package was confirmed by Shams Charania of The Athletic.

The Sixers reportedly really liked Mann and wanted to get him back in a Harden trade, but instead, they’ll acquire a trio of veterans and an athletic youngster in Martin, all while moving off of the final two years of Tucker’s deal. As for the Clippers, they obviously landed a star-level player they wanted in Harden, and while their depth in the frontcourt took a hit, Tucker should be able to fill that void.

Now, all eyes will be on whether Philly is able to take the draft capital they got in this deal and turn it into the kind of big name that Daryl Morey covets, or if they will be happy to sit back, wait, and see what happens as we approach the trade deadline in February. And if there just isn’t anything out there, all four players they acquired are free agents after this year, which would arm them with more than enough money to go searching for a superstar in the free agent market next summer.

The James Harden era in Philadelphia has come to an end. Right before the official start of free agency in the NBA, it was reported that Harden would opt in to the final year of his contract and then work with the Philadelphia 76ers on finding a trade, specifically to the Los Angeles Clippers.

However, like Damian Lillard’s request in Portland, the Sixers chose to be patient and made clear they would let things drag on as long as needed to get the return they wanted for the former MVP. Harden, for his part, made clear he was also willing to get “uncomfortable” if needed, but despite questions about whether or not he would report, he eventually joined the team during their training camp in Colorado and was reportedly in the midst of ramping up to join the team as the regular season started to unfold.

But in a bit of good news for Harden, the deal finally got done in the early hours of Tuesday morning, with Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reporting that the former NBA MVP is, indeed, on his way to the Clippers.

Harden came to the Sixers at the 2022 trade deadline in a deal that saw a package centered around Ben Simmons make its way to the Brooklyn Nets. The move reunited Harden with Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, as they were two of the main driving forces behind the Houston Rockets’ success in recent years.

Unfortunately for Harden, Morey, and everyone else affiliated with the Sixers, Philadelphia was unable to break through the ceiling that has been on the team for some time: the Eastern Conference Semifinals. In 2022, the team lost in six games to the Miami Heat, and one year later, the Sixers couldn’t capitalize on a 3-2 series lead over the Boston Celtics. While he had several good games in the series against Boston, Harden was a frequent target for criticism in both series.

It is unclear what the long-term future for Harden holds, as he is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2023-24 season.