Category: News

Lisa Marie Presley died suddenly on Thursday, January 12. The 54-year-old daughter of Priscilla Presley and the late Elvis Presley had reportedly been hospitalized earlier that day for “full cardiac arrest” (as noted by the Associated Press).

Nicolas Cage, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Michael Jackson’s estate were among those to publicly mourn Presley, who had been married to Cage from 2002-04 and Jackson from 1994-96. Austin Butler joined them with his own statement, as relayed by Billboard.

“My heart is completely shattered for Riley, Finley, Harper and Priscilla at the tragic and unexpected loss of Lisa Marie,” Butler said. “I am eternally grateful for the time I was lucky enough to be near her bright light and will forever cherish the quiet moments we shared. Her warmth, her love and her authenticity will always be remembered.”

Lisa Marie Presley is survived by her three children — Riley Keough, 33, and 14-year-old twins Finley and Harper Lockwood — and Priscilla Presley. Her 27-year-old son, Benjamin Keough, died by suicide in July 2020.

Lisa Marie and Priscilla had atttended the 2023 Golden Globes on Tuesday, January 10, to support Butler and Elvis, the Baz Luhrmann-directed biopic Butler starred in as the titular icon (and still talks like). Butler took home the trophy for Best Actor In A Motion Picture, Drama — his first career Golden Globe.

Butler thanked “the Presley family” during his acceptance speech “for opening your hearts, your memories, your home to me.” He concluded, “Lisa Marie [and Priscilla], I love you forever.”

Butler has largely been praised for his portrayal of Elvis Presley, including by Lisa Marie.

“I do want to take a moment to let you know that I’ve seen Baz Luhrmann’s movie Elvis twice now. Let me tell you that it is nothing short of spectacular. Absolutely exquisite. Austin Butler channeled and embodied my father’s heart & soul beautifully,” she tweeted in May 2022. Lisa Marie added in a following tweet, “In my humble opinion, his performance is unprecedented and FINALLY done accurately and respectfully. (If he doesn’t get an Oscar for this, I will eat my own foot, haha.)”

The nomination field for the 2023 Oscars will be unveiled on January 24.

Cate Blanchett already has two Oscars to her name, and with Tár there’s a good chance she’ll get a third. (That is, if Michelle Yeoh doesn’t finally get one.) Not everyone is a fan; a female conductor who likely inspired Blanchett’s character — though not the story — has come out against it. But the responses have been largely rapturous and it’s even earned the beloved actress a new title: lesbian icon, with which she’s cool.

In the film, Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a groundbreaking conductor and composer who’s an EGOT and the first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. She’s also a lesbian, married to the Philharmonic’s concertmaster (Nina Hoss). Though Tár, born Linda Tarr, is accused of some shady business later in the film, the character has become a gold mine for social media memes and jokes. It’s also made Blanchett what you could call a “lesbian icon.”

When asked about that, in an interview with Attitude alongside Hoss (as caught by IndieWire), she replied happily. “Yeah, baby!” she exclaimed. That said, there was a catch to her response. “Don’t know what it means but it’s nice. Yeah, cool, I’ll take it.”

As she continues to Hoover up awards, Blanchett has been making the press rounds, sometimes making news with her amiably eccentric responses. Last week she seemed flabbergasted that fellow Aussie Margot Robbie — or anyone, really — could love awesome heavy metal music.

You can watch more from Blanchett and Hoss’ Attitude interview below.

(Via IndieWire)

Drake and a handful of other celebs joined Tristan Thompson over the weekend for his mother’s funeral in Toronto. The former NBA star’s late mother, whose name was Andrea, died suddenly over a week ago after suffering a heart attack earlier this month, on January 6. Along with the Canadian hitmaker, Khloe Kardashian and her mother, Kris, and sister Kim, were also in attendance for the funeral service, TMZ reports.

Thomspon’s mother was rushed to the hospital after going into cardiac arrest on January 5. Doctors tried reviving her, but she unfortunately passed away. The basketball player immediately made his way back home to Toronto with Khloe alongside him. The former couple shares two children, True and a new baby boy.

In addition to the star-studded attendees, Thompson’s family and friends also joined him as he celebrated his mother’s life.

In other Drake news, the “Rich Flex” rapper recently teamed up with Dancehall artist Popcaan for a new track titled “We Caa Done.”

This new track would mark the fourth collaboration between the two — In 2020, Drake was featured on Popcaan’s project, FIXTAPE, on the songs “All I Need” and “Twist & Turn.” Popcaan is also credited with Drake’s 2016 smash hit “Controlla” from his album Views.

The Los Angeles Chargers looked like they were headed for a blowout win over the Jaguars on Saturday night in Jacksonville after picking off Trevor Lawrence four times in the first half, taking a 27-0 lead.

Given there had only been two larger comebacks in NFL Playoffs history, it seemed like a safe bet the Chargers would go on to the Divisional Round. One bettor felt so confident in that fact that they thought it was a great time to extract a free $11,200 from DraftKings, placing a $1.4 million live bet on the Chargers ML (-12500).

From that point, the Chargers would only score three points and the Jaguars would steadily chip away at the L.A. lead, ultimately taking their first lead as the clock it triple zeros on a Riley Patterson field goal. It was as improbable a comeback as we’ve ever seen in the NFL, but considering the franchise history of the Chargers, it also felt incredibly on brand. What made it all the more incredible was that there wasn’t anything really catastrophic that the Chargers did — no pick-sixes, turnovers, or consistent busted coverages. Instead, they were just all around ineffective and made a few costly errors — one bust on a 40-yard TD, Joey Bosa’s penalty to set up a key 2-point conversion — that allowed the Jaguars to work their way back into the game.

This bettor learned the extremely hard way that there is no such thing as free money from a sportsbook, and lost out on seven-figures in the process, earning a place in the awful bets Hall of Fame.

In early December, Gangsta Boo teamed up with GloRilla and Latto for “FTCU.” Around the same time, Boo put her stamp on UPROXX Sessions. Just one month later, on New Year’s Day, Boo was tragically found dead in her native Memphis. The former Three 6 Mafia member and pioneering rapper was 43 years old. An official cause of death has not yet been determined.

On Saturday, January 14, Boo was laid to rest at Brown Missionary Baptist Church in Southaven, Mississippi — roughly 15 minutes south of Memphis — according to The Commercial Appeal and Action News 5. GloRilla was in attendance.

A clip posted to Instagram (and subsequently re-shared on GloRilla’s Instagram Story) shows the burgeoning Memphis rapper telling reporters, “She’s still alive. You know what I’m saying? Big Memphis. We gonna keep representing her.” In a separate clip, GloRilla adds, “Long live Lola. Big Memphis. Let’s go!”

As news of Boo’s (born Lola Mitchell) sudden passing began circulating, the hip-hop community mourned her death on social media. On January 1, Latto tweeted, “Nah this not true man” followed by “NOOOOO” alongside seven heartbreak emojis. The following day, Latto more directly acknowledged her death with a tweet, noting, “The one hit different. I’m just glad I got to feel your embrace & give u ur flowers before u left us. BIG BOO 4L.”

See some of the online tributes to Gangsta Boo below.

It’s been nearly two years since Donald Trump last set foot in the White House. He didn’t leave on good terms: Instead of leaving peacefully, as most presidents do on the way out, he helped incite a failed insurrection, for which he may or may not finally be punished. But old habits die hard. While president, it was wrong for him to refer to the resort in which he now lives as the “Southern White House.” Wouldn’t you know he’s still doing it.

Trump was enjoying one of his relaxing Sunday mornings, which is to say he was railing on his rinky-dink Twitter clone with lots of random all caps words. What was he mad at? His successor stupidly keeping classified government documents, albeit not nearly as many as Trump did. Trump tried to walk a fine line and kept falling over. He said Biden wrong but he did not, because as president he could declassify anything he wanted with his mind. (He couldn’t.)

It was boilerplate Trump rage, but there was one thing that jumped out. While claiming Mar-a-Lago, which became a repository for hundreds of documents, was a “walled fortress,” he called his new home “the Southern White House.”

Trump came under fire for calling his resort home that while he was president. After all, he was still profiting off of it while he was commander-in-chief, which is strictly verboten — or it’s supposed to be, but Trump has spent his life getting away with everything. That he’s still calling it that is a reminder that he still won’t publicly acknowledge he lost re-election over two years ago. Surely Kari Lake, one of the many Trump wannabes he willed into the world, will still be referring to herself as the governor of Arkansas in two years, despite not winning even once.

He may have just unexpectedly rebranded as a NASCAR driver, but Frankie Muniz has another dream he’s pursuing: a Malcolm in the Middle reunion. Reunions are all the rage and the early aughts landmark has been a conspicuous absence among the trend. Last fall he swore one was not only in the offing, but that it was being written by one of its stars: Bryan Cranston, the show’s wacky dad, who of course went on to some big things. That might not be true, but what is true is that the erstwhile Walter White is down to clown.

E! Online spoke to Cranston about the possibility of returning to the role that arguably made him famous. (For some, his starmaking role was his turn as Seinfeld’s Dr. Tim Whatley, who converted to Judaism partly for the jokes and at one point made his dental office “adults only.”) Cranston didn’t directly address Muniz’s claims and he seemed to suggest he wasn’t the one doing the writing. Instead he offered a more vague thumbs up re: his involvement.

“There was some talk about the possibility of doing like a reunion movie of Malcolm in the Middle,” Cranston said. “We had such a great family on that and I certainly would be open to that if there was a good idea that came up like, ‘Oh, that would be fantastic to explore what happened to this family 20 years later.’ I can’t believe it’s already that, but that would be fun to do.”

Cranston hasn’t done a ton of comedy since pivoting to heavy drama, so it’s good to hear he’s still game to yuk it up. He recently revealed that Breaking Bad came to a close with someone breaking into his car and stealing the scripts for the final two episodes.

(Via E! Online)

Last week, a strange, Mad Libs-y story appeared: TheWrap reported that Michael Bay had been charged with killing a pigeon. The alleged incident took place on the set of 6 Underground, his Netflix action movie from 2019 starring Ryan Reynolds. Now the action director is pushing back hard against the report, which his legal team calls “false, reckless, and defamatory.”

In a letter to TheWrap that was obtained by Variety, an attorney to the director of two Bad Boys films and five Transformers entries is demanding a retraction of the story, or at least the part about him being “charged.” A production insider told the publication that a homing pigeon had been killed by a dolly during a take. Pigeons are a protected species in Italy, one of the film’s locations, and since he was the director Bay was held responsible.

Bay’s lawyer, Matthew Rosengart, says he has not been “charged” with the crime and that a court case is still ongoing. “Those statements are simply wrong; they are also harmful,” Rosengart wrote. Bay has fought back against the allegations, even providing video evidence that purportedly debunks those claims.

What’s more, Bay is, as per Rosengart, an animal rights activist who even has as a dream project a film about saving African elephants. He’s thus none too pleased that his name is now associated with killing a pigeon. Bay even refused to settle the case because he didn’t want to have admitted to killing an animal.

Last year, Bay — whose bombastic blockbusters were once considered the scourge of cinema, at least with critics — scored the best reviews of his career with the nifty thriller Ambulance, even if he thought some of the CGI in it looks like “s*it.”

(Via Variety)

The Jacksonville Jaguars are moving on in the NFL playoffs after a remarkable comeback win over the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday night. Despite going down by 27 points in the first half and Trevor Lawrence throwing four interceptions, Jacksonville scored a touchdown right before halftime, rallied in the second half, and will play football next week after a Riley Patterson field goal went through the uprights as time expired to give the Jags their only lead of the evening.

In the aftermath of the win, the fine folks behind Jacksonville’s Twitter account decided to get off a whole lot of jokes at L.A.’s expense. They started things off with a tweet that made fun of the hype video the Chargers posted in the lead up to the postseason.

Then, they moved on to an extremely relatable thing for myself and everyone else with an iPhone before referencing one of the greatest tweets in NFL history: soo hungry need to find my wife and head to pf changs.

Speaking of being soo hungry and heading to a chain restaurant, Lawrence, who ended up throwing four touchdowns on the night and leading the team’s second half charge, reminded everyone that he is from Georgia by celebrating the win with a trip to Waffle House.

The Jags will, barring an upset in the other AFC playoff games on Sunday, likely head to Kansas City next week for a showdown with the top-seeded Chiefs.

Justin Bieber has mostly been away from the stage since postponing his Justice World Tour in early September. The Kid Laroi is wading into a new era, announcing his debut album, The First Time, last week and preparing to drop its first single this week. “Stay,” their collaborative No. 1 single, came out in July 2021. Forgive them for moving on.

Bieber and Laroi revisited their (already) tried-and-true hit at the launch party for Michael D. Ratner’s OBB Studios in Los Angeles last night, January 14. They performed a stripped-back version, and while they sounded great, Bieber endearingly forgot some of the words.

“It’s been difficult for me to trust / And I’m afraid that I’ma f*ck it up,” Bieber sang. “Ain’t no way that I can leave you stranded / ‘Cause I don’t remember the words and that’s crazy.” After supportive applause and laughter from the intimate crowd, Bieber quickly recovered to perfectly deliver the rest of his verse: “You know that I know that I can’t live without you / So, baby, stay.”

On January 10, “Stay” added to its record-breaking staying power by becoming nine-times-platinum certified, per the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA). “Stay” finished third among Spotify’s most-streamed songs of 2022 list and sixth across all streaming platforms last year.

Bieber’s recent YouTube documentaries — Seasons, Next Chapter, and Our World — were directed by Ratner and co-produced through his OBB umbrella. Justin Bieber: Our World is nominated for Best Music Film at the upcoming 2023 Grammys. Ratner and OBB are also behind Hailey Bieber’s YouTube series, Who’s In My Bathroom?