Category: News

One good thing has come out of Elon Musk’s Twitter it seems: a surprise uniting interaction between a ’90s band and a famous supermodel. After Eve 6, frequent social media jokesters known for their song “Inside Out” replied to one of Musk’s many posts, a stranger tried to dunk on the band by calling them a “one hit wonder.”

“Not to split hairs but we are objectively a one hit wonder,” Eve 6 replied. It turns out they would still get the last laugh, not once, but twice.

Chrissy Teigen surprisingly chimed in, revealing that not only was she a fan, but the band isn’t a total one-hit wonder like they think. She’s gotten emotional over one of their other songs that isn’t the “heart in a blender” one.

“Wait. You are ACTUALLY eve 6 as in here’s to the night as in I cried in the mirror to you,” she replied.

“Yes hi chrissy teigen,” the band jokingly added back.

From there, Teigen sent a picture of her husband John Legend lying in bed, as he is convinced clearly to listen to “Here’s To The Night” on Spotify. “oh my god making john listen in bed,” she captioned.

She also replied to a fan, confirming he didn’t know the song, but did enjoy it. “He can’t remember but he says “it’s a well made record” ladies and gentlemen we got one,” Teigen said.

Continue scrolling for some of Eve 6 and Chrissy Teigen’s conversation, as well as some lighthearted fan reactions.

Tory Lanez has been found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot in 2020, according to multiple in-court sources, including Law Crime News’ Meghann Cuniff and Los Angeles Times’ Jonah Valdez.

The trial against Tory wrapped up today with both the prosecution and Tory’s defense giving their closing arguments. The jury was given leave to deliberate at 11:15 Thursday am and returned the verdict at 3:30 pm Friday. Evidence presented in the trial included gunshot residue on Lanez, witness testimony, and texts from Tory that suggested he had apologized for the incident. While Megan testified, Tory did not.

Tory was accused of charged with committing assault with a firearm causing great bodily injury; concealing a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence after the July 2020 incident, in which Megan was left with bullet fragments in both feet. He avoided a fourth witness tampering charge for allegedly offering to bribe Megan due to the judge denying the motion to introduce a late charge after the trial had begun.

A contentious build-up to the trial followed, with Tory maintaining his innocence and apparently waging a behind-the-scenes press campaign to make it seem as if Megan was “framing” him for the shooting, which he suggested was committed by her friend Kelsey Harris, who was with them at the time.

While Tory saw his fortunes fall in the immediate wake of the shooting, Megan said that the scrutiny she faced during the intervening two years made her wish she’d died instead of being injured.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Not every moment is our best and sometimes those not-so-great moments are caught on tape or, in Jacinda Ardern’s case, over a hot mic. Ardern is the prime minister of New Zealand and recently, during a parliamentary debate, she was feeling a bit frustrated with a colleague, ACT leader David Seymour. During the exchange, Ardern turned to her deputy and muttered “arrogant prick,” referencing Seymour, who was apparently on the prime minister’s last nerve.

The problem was, her mic was still on and picked up the hushed insult so others could hear. Probably not her proudest moment but, to be fair, they were discussing really heavy stuff like hate-speech and immigration. She didn’t let the comment hang in the air, according to RNZ. Seymour told reporters that the prime minister texted him shortly afterward to apologize.

Later, the two were photographed holding a framed copy of the parliamentary debate where the insult was hurled. Turns out they’ve used the moment to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation by allowing people to bid on the framed debate via Trade Me.

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Surprisingly, the framed photo has been viewed almost a half million times, with more than 280 bids, according to RNZ. Which makes you wonder if people have really strong feelings about Seymour being an “arrogant prick” or if they were just good Samaritans donating money solely based on the charity. I’m going to assume the world will never know, unless the winner of the auction would like to come forward and explain why they spent so much money on a transcript of the exchange.

After having a laugh about it, Jacinda Ardern and I are going to auction a signed copy of the Hansard (official record) of her calling me an “arrogant prick” to raise money for pricks everywhere, a great cause, the Prostate Cancer Foundation. https://t.co/6QJ0bV73Zc pic.twitter.com/5FzIzqUiQf

— David Seymour (@dbseymour) December 15, 2022

If you’re curious what the highest bid was, it was $62,899 (100,100 New Zealand dollars). Now, there’s something to get excited about, and if you ask Seymour, he’s happy about the outcome of the disagreement. Seymour told RNZ, “Taking the particular politicians out of it, it makes me so proud to be a kiwi. Political commentators have said to me they couldn’t imagine this in any other country, not even Australia, and I think that says something special about New Zealand’s culture and politics that we should always seek to hold on to.”

Overall, it seems that Seymour was a good sport about the entire situation. He accepted Ardern’s apology and said that he’s been called much worse. Others in the chambers were also on board with supporting the prime minister’s lapse in filter.

It’s great to see politicians coming together to not only move beyond an unfortunate moment but to turn it into an opportunity to raise money for a good cause. I’m sure there will be more lively debates that come out of parliament chambers but it seems like they’ve got a handle on how to make lemonade when needed.

You can watch the entire exchange below to hear the expensive insult:

The ethics of honesty are always interesting to explore. Most of us agree that being honest is morally good, but is it important to always tell the truth, no matter what? What if the truth will only hurt someone’s feelings? Is it always wrong to lie? What if a lie will save someone’s life? Is there a moral difference between stretching the truth and completely demolishing it? Does it depend on why people are doing it?

The reasons people lie are many and varied, of course. But new research gives us some insights into the most common motivations for lying, and surprisingly, the findings are actually pretty heartwarming.

A study published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science in October 2022 looked at the link between personality and lying motivation, as well as the most common reasons people lie. In the study, a group of 257 people were questioned about their lying frequency, lying motivations and personality traits (using the HEXACO Personality Inventory, which measures honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience).

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An analysis of the research by Arash Emamzadeh in Psychology Today detailed the findings, which revealed 11 motives for lying:

1. To avoid judgment or shame

2. To avoid punishment

3. Protected from retaliation

4. No “good reason” (basically compulsive lying)

5. To impress others

6. To get a reward

7. Carelessness and impulsiveness

8. To get pleasure out of deceiving people

9. To keep a personal info secret

10. Prosocial reasons that lead to happiness (e.g., telling kids Santa is real)

11. Altruistic reasons (to protect others from harm)

As Emamzadeh pointed out, the first nine motivations on the list are self-serving, while the last two are oriented toward benefiting other people. And while we might assume that most lying is done for selfish reasons, the study actually found the opposite. The top three reasons people reported lying were altruistic reasons, prosocial reasons and avoidance of being judged.

So the biggest reason people lie is to help others. Who knew?

Of course, personality plays a role in why and how often people lie. The study found that lying in general is common, but also found that certain HEXACO personality traits are correlated with more and less frequent lying, as well as different motivations for lying.

People high in the honesty-humility trait were less likely to lie and the majority of lying motivations didn’t apply to them. Not surprising.

The emotionality trait (sensitivity/anxiety) was associated with lying to avoid unpleasant or awkward feelings as well as altruism.

Individuals high in extraversion tended to lie more for self-centered reasons and were less likely to lie to keep personal information secret.

Highly agreeable people tended to lie less to avoid punishment or shame or to impress others and also weren’t prone to compulsive lying.

Those high in conscientiousness reported lying less frequently and lying less for self-serving reasons, while those low in this trait were more likely to compulsively lie and to enjoy deceiving people.

People most open to new experiences tended to lie for prosocial, others-serving reasons.

Most of the correlations between personality traits and lying are fairly unsurprising, but it is reassuring to know that some behavior and motivation can be predictable.

It’s also reassuring to know that most lies aren’t as selfish as we might assume they are. Philosophers have long debated the existence and merits of the noble or virtuous lie, and there are compelling arguments for and against lying for morally justifiable reasons. But at the very least, the fact that most lying is done to help others tells us that we are more prone to looking out for one another than we are to serving ourselves. And that’s a solid plus one for humanity.

Some people live where the air hurts their faces, and while some are perfectly happy living and playing in snowmen’s favorite weather, others are not. There’s nothing like being grumpy about weather you can’t control, but someone having to be out in it against their will escalates the irritation to a whole new level.

When sports reporter Mark Woodley was called in to cover the weather, he seemed justifiably annoyed that his assignment was to be outside to tell people of the impending blizzard in Iowa. Woodley made it pretty clear from the moment the cameras started rolling that he was indeed not a winter weather person and the result is hilarious.

The reporter could not contain his sarcasm and questioned why he needed to be outside in the cold to tell other people not to go outside in the cold. He’s not wrong. I’ve often wondered why we need to see a weather man hanging onto a light pole for dear life to tell the general public not to go outside in a hurricane. I guess the reporters are just as confused as we are.

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Woodley wasn’t amused by this inconvenient detail of his morning assignment and put together a compilation of all of his complaints that have now gone viral on Twitter. He even expressed his confusion when he found out there was actually news being reported at 3:30 a.m. As a sports reporter, there likely has never been a need for him to be awake, let alone report anything, before the sun came up.

In the caption of his now-viral Twitter status he wrote, “This is what you get when you ask the sports guy to come in to cover a blizzard in the morning show.” The compilation starts out strong with a snarky remark from Woodley when his co-worker, who was nice and toasty inside the studio, asked how he was feeling out there. The disgruntled sports reporter replied, “Again, the same way I felt about eight minutes ago when you asked me that same question, Ryan.”

Yikes! Here’s to hoping Woodley is home thawing out and can stick to covering sports, or at least get to stay inside the studio. But in all seriousness, his responses were not only funny but real.

Watch the entire compilation of his snarkiest moments below:

This is what you get when you ask the sports guy to come in to cover a blizzard in the morning show. pic.twitter.com/h0RL9tVQqg

— Mark Woodley (@MarkWoodleyTV) December 22, 2022

A lot of video games came out in 2022. If you are like me, then you probably did your best to play all of them. But it’s likely a few fell through the cracks or you started them only to have those games fall off for one reason or another.

With 2022 coming to a close, there is no better time than now to go pick up some of these games you missed out on and give them a shot, or to open up that old save file and start working your way back through it. This isn’t a definitive best of list or anything like that, just a handful of games that we think everyone should go back and give a second look.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch

Many people played Kirby and the Forgotten Land this year. We can understand why. Not only was it a new Kirby game, but it was Kirby’s first true adventure in the world of 3D. Fans had been asking for this ever since his 2.5D adventure on the Nintendo 64, and this was finally the moment it had been delivered. How were the results? Pretty spectacular! It felt exactly like a Kirby game should with the pink puff ball going on a linear adventure. There wasn’t too much of a challenge, but there was a ton of depth for the players who wanted to master it.

So, why is it on here? It’s because of how deep the adventure goes. Kirby and the Forgotten Land, like every other game in the franchise, isn’t too hard. Getting to the end and meeting the minimum requirements to reach the credits of the game is something that pretty much anyone can accomplish. However, if you want to really see what Kirby and the Forgotten Land has to offer then you need to go find every Waddle Dee, play every bonus level, and do your best to 100 percent the game. It is worth every hour you will put into it and might even push it up a few levels on your personal top 10 for the year.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus – Nintendo Switch

Did you even remember this game came out this year? Pokémon Legends: Arceus did something that a lot of long time Pokémon fans had basically assumed was never going to happen: It not only gave them, at the time, the closest thing they’d ever had to an open world Pokémon game, but its emphasis on exploration and catching Pokémon instead of the traditional gym challenge was a fresh new take on the series that was very much needed. It might be a spin-off, but it’s a spin-off that achieved so much that the main games wouldn’t even dare to attempt.

It also was a really dense game. Plenty of people did reach the credits on this, but others got their fill from the game’s first half. It was so easy to get lost for hours roaming the world, catching Pokémon, and getting into battles. Whatever plot the game had was forced to take a backseat in favor of just goofing off. If you are one of those people, then it might be time to go back into the world of Hisui and see what more you can find.

Tunic – PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC

We have written extensively about how great Tunic is. It’s one of the best games to come out in years and its focus on puzzle solving and discovery keeps the player on their toes in a way that is familiar to the games it is inspired by, but also unique enough to feel like its own original game. It also, unfortunately, came out during the two month period where Elden Ring owned the entirety of video games.

This is why we are once again putting out the message that everyone needs to play Tunic. It has a lot of elements inspired by other games, but all of them come together to form a truly one-of-a-kind experience. There is even something to come back to for players that finished the game but didn’t complete it. The game’s final puzzle is something of a culmination of everything that came in the game before. It doesn’t change the gameplay, but it adds a new element that, depending on how tuned into the puzzles the player is, can take anywhere from a few hours to several days to complete. If you missed out on Tunic the first time, or never completed it 100 percent, this is your opportunity to fix that.

Horizon Forbidden West – PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

The developers of the Horizon series of games are proud. They have made two phenomenal games that are beloved by fans and critics for being phenomenal open worlds with beautiful scenery. There is no shame felt by those developers at all, but you can’t help but feel a little bad for them that, twice now, their standout franchise has been overshadowed by equally impressive open-world experiences. Back when Horizon Zero Dawn came out, it was right when The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was dominating the conversation in video games. Unfortunately for them, Horizon Forbidden West suffered a similar fate by releasing only seven days before Elden Ring.

We don’t need to go into all the reasons why Elden Ring dominated the conversation, as we’ve done that plenty already, but we can say that while Horizon is an experience that many missed out on, there is still plenty of time to catch up on it. Whether it’s both games in the franchise or just Forbidden West, these are games that everyone with a PlayStation should look into. They’re gorgeous games, people love them, and the only negative thing you can say about them is equally great games came out at the exact same time.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – Nintendo Switch

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is incredible. While its story is self-contained, its universe gets a send-off that Monolith Soft spent three games carefully building into a conclusion that left longtime fans of the series weeping as the credits rolled. Its world is constantly delivering new places to explore, quests to complete, and skill trees to unlock. You can spend hours upon hours of this game simply filling out the map and getting lost. It is the best JRPG experience this year and one of the best you’ll experience in general. That in itself is also why it’s on this list: It’s a JRPG.

JPRGs are notorious for being filled to the brim with content. This is great for those that want to dive into a single world and spend weeks, if not months, playing a single game. Not everyone is like that, though. Some people grow tired of playing a single game for that long and eventually fall off. If you did that with Xenoblade it’s totally understandable, but there is no better time than now to go back and finish it. The plot goes to places that you really don’t see coming, and the world never gets boring to explore. Go back, finish Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and thank me later.

Movies still aren’t full back to pre-pandemic levels, but they’re getting there. It was a good year for the cinema, if not always at the box office. (Black Adam seems to have underperformed enough to score the DCEU a massive makeover.) Indeed, for his annual list of favorite new movies, Barack Obama named three more movies than he did in 2021. And of course two of the movies that got scores of people to leave their homes — the movie theater-saving blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick and the art house crossover hit Everyone Everywhere All at Once — are present and accounted for.

So what movies did Barry love the most? As usual there’s a lot of art house/independent/foreign fare and documentaries. He loved Tár. He loved Park Chan-wook’s twisty thriller Decision to Leave. He loved A Hero, from two-time Oscar-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. Same with Petite Maman, from France’s Céline Sciamma, whose A Portrait of a Lady on Fire ranked high on the latest prestigious Sight & Sound poll of greatest films ever made. He flipped for Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, the other semi-recent film from Drive My Car director Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

The 44th president adored the Iranian road movie Hit the Road, the Scottish vacation memory piece Aftersun, the abortion saga Happening, the Javier Bardem comedy-drama The Good Boss. He enjoyed Emily the Criminal, featuring Aubrey Plaza as a desperate woman going to the dark side. Same with the documentary Descendant, about those whose ancestors came to America on the last slave ship from Africa (and which his company produced).

Lest anyone accuse Obama of snobbery, he had some familiar names on there, too. Till, about the murder of Emmett Till, made the cut, as did the action movie The Woman King. He fell for Steven Spielberg’s mostly autobiographical The Fabelmans. And yes, he couldn’t resist the charms of Top Gun: Maverick either, as well as Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Some notable movies that didn’t make the cut: He either hasn’t or was underwhelmed by Avatar: The Way of Water. Ditto Armageddon Time, the Nan Goldin doc All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the donkey saga EO. And of course, where was Jackass Forever?

Still, good list. And since Top Gun 2 is on there, maybe even Fox News won’t throw an apoplectic fit that he may have exposed casual moviegoers to some off-the-beaten-path films.

The Shepherdsville, Kentucky, police dispatcher’s call to officers sounded serious. “We have a male standing outside,” the dispatcher said, according to WDRB. “He is naked. He has a robe covering part of his body. He is exposing himself, and he has a hose between his legs.”

However, when the police arrived at the home, they couldn’t keep a straight face because it was clear that someone had mistaken a Christmas display featuring Cousin Eddie of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” for an actual predator.

“Umm…it’s gonna be ‘Uncle Eddie,'” the responding officer told the dispatcher, after arriving on the scene and realizing that there wasn’t any crime being committed. He was off on the name by a generation but that’s fine. Eddie was an uncle to the Griswold children, Rusty and Audrey.

“Never a dull moment,” Shepherdsville Police Chief Rick McCubbin told WDRB.

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The display was a recreation of the scene in “Christmas Vacation” when Eddie, played by Randy Quaid, dumps the contents of his motorhome’s bathroom into Clark Griswold’s storm drain. The Cousin Eddie display featured a mannequin wearing a trooper hat and robe, with a cigar in his mouth and beer in his hand. Just like in the film, Cousin Eddie is holding a hose with toxic contents pouring out.

The display also recreates the infamous scene where a cat gets electrocuted in a Christmas tree lighting accident.

The display was created by Joni Keeney who felt the Cousin Eddie character was relatable to most people. “Everybody has a Cousin Eddie, in their family, everybody,” Keeney explained. “I just want people to have a good Christmas and get a laugh,” she said. “It’s been a hit with the neighborhood.”

Keeney even posed Eddie for a photo with a neighbor’s Rottweiler, who looked a bit like his dog Snots.

Keeney’s Christmas display is super clever because it highlights a character that everyone knows and loves although they’re probably happy that he’s not their relative.

One of the most epic “Christmas Vacation”-themed homes is in La Mirada, California, outside Los Angeles. More than 30,000 people a year stop by the Norton residence to see an elaborately decorated home that’s a near-perfect recreation of the Griswold house.

And yes, it has a wonderful depiction of Cousin Eddie dumping the contents of his shi**er into the storm drain.

See on Instagram

Just like the home in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, the display has been involved in legal activity. Last year, the City of La Mirada threatened the homeowners with fines for building an unpermitted fake second floor to more closely match the look of the Griswold home. However, after community backlash, the city backed down.

“They were worried about things happening at my house and pretty much we’ve got all that ironed out,” the homeowner, Jeff Norton, told CBS.

As the saying goes, during the Christmas season you can either be a Griswold or you can be a Grinch. Cheers to the folks who are being Griswolds and celebrating the Christmas spirit by making the holiday as fun as possible. Tsk tsk to the people out there who being Grinchy by trying to take down Christmas decorations or worse, calling the police on them for having a little fun.

In a season where individual scoring averages are inflated, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has stood out among the rest. Gilgeous-Alexander is currently averaging 31.2 points per game on a proficient 49.8 percent shooting from the field and an even more proficient 93 percent from the charity stripe. Prior to this season, only 13 players had averaged more than 30 points per game while shooting better than 50 percent from the field for an entire season. Only two guards have ever hit these statistical markers for an entire season: Michael Jordan and Steph Curry.

Gilgeous-Alexander has supercharged his scoring prowess by reducing his game to his strengths. The 3-point shot has never been weaponized at a higher rate for lead ball handlers, but Gilgeous-Alexander has relied less and less on launching from deep. He’s shooting only 33.3 percent on just three attempts from downtown per game, his fewest since joining the Thunder.

Instead, Gilgeous-Alexander has set his navigation dial for the paint. Typically, when a guard makes a 7-point leap in their scoring averages from one year to the next, you either see a jump in volume or efficiency from behind the arc. But the scoring charts below show that Gilgeous-Alexander is absolutely punishing teams inside the arc.

Forgoing the three-point line for the paint has gone quite well for the Oklahoma City Thunder’s fifth-year guard. Gilgeous-Alexander is currently fifth in points in the paint per game while every other player in the top 10 is an enormous human, or in Ja Morant’s case, can fly. To become a volume paint scorer, you typically need a special physical advantage or consistent assistance in the form of an entry pass or a lob for dunks.

Gilgeous-Alexander has neither. He generates his volume paint touches by being the NBA’s most prolific driver at 24.4 drives per game with the second closest player sitting at just 21.6 drives per game. His handle and movement on drives is almost translucent. He’s never moving at a high speed, but his change of pace and movement are arrhythmic and unpredictable. Guarding him is like trying to eat soup with a fork.

A half step in the wrong direction is all he needs to slither into the lane and utilize his array of push shots, floaters, and finger rolls around the rim. His length creates an almost Giannis-like illusion at the rim where you’re never quite sure how Gilgeous-Alexander turned a 10-foot floater into a layup. This is where his offbeat game also provides an advantage — shot blockers are never quite sure when Gilgeous-Alexander will go up with a shot around the rim and he excels at using his long arms to get the ball to the backboard before a shot blocker can get there.

If a defender somehow wins the carnival prize that is warding him off from the rim, he will simply shoot a floater from any and every angle off of either leg. Gilgeous-Alexander dabbles in the dark arts of the floater and has learned to use the non-restricted paint area better than anyone not named Luka Doncic. A contested shot in and around the paint does not exist for him. Defenders function as caution signs more than true obstacles when he’s getting a shot off.

Defenders are not equipped to contest a shot in the paint from Gilgeous-Alexander without fouling, which is why he’s fourth in NBA in free throw attempts at a smidge over 10 per game. His increased free throw frequency, in addition to shooting over 90 percent from the line, have essentially subsidized his three-point reduction. The increased two-point shots also allow him to find a rhythm during the game from the spots he loves to shoot from in clutch situations. Gilgeous-Alexander has already hit three go-ahead shots in the last two minutes of a game this season, including a ridiculous buzzer-beater to beat the Blazers. Teams funnel great shot creators into mid-range looks in those crunch-time situations, but for Gilgeous-Alexander, that’s his comfort zone and will allow him to hit even more clutch shots for the Thunder.

Going from a star to a superstar is the hardest leap to make in the NBA, but it appears that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has done just that. He’s shown up uninvited to the All-NBA First-Team table and demanded a seat. His progression requires a new level of urgency on the never-ending Oklahoma City team building project. The Thunder have a real path to contention somewhere down the line, and it’s all thanks to how Gilgeous-Alexander’s excellence inside has propelled him into stardom.

Donald Trump is currently running for president a third time, but you wouldn’t know it. Instead of laying out his game plan, he’s hawked much-mocked NFTs. Instead of swanning about the nation, holding endless rallies, he’s barely gone anywhere. A new report from New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi, which includes interviews with the big guy himself and many current and former associates, that the former most powerful man on the planet now lives a very “small” life that sounds scarily like one of his favorite movies, Sunset Boulevard.

As per the report, since announcing his presidency last month, Trump has “barely set foot outside the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago.” That’s not all: “For 28 days, in fact, he has not left the state of Florida at all.”

So what does Trump do all day? Not much, as was reported last week in a different, also unflattering article. “He just goes, plays golf, comes back, and f*cks off. He has retreated to the golf course and to Mar-a-Lago,” one advisor told Nuzzi. “His world has gotten much smaller. His world is so, so small.”

Trump doesn’t handle boredom well, and that — combined with the absence of Jared and Ivanka, who used to temper his worst instincts — is how you get his infamous Kanye-Fuentes dinner.

“He doesn’t have anything else to do,” an advisor said. “What else can he do? Why did he see Kanye? He wants to be relevant and wants the limelight. He’s thirsty.”

Details of his campaign are scarce and vague. It may not even have an official headquarters yet, though when it does it will probably be in Palm Beach, near Mar-a-Lago (of course). But so far, his campaign — and his life — seem small, not the least because few of the people who helped his first two campaign are on board this time, including his children.

“There’s nobody around him who wants him to do it,” said an adviser. “Forget Jared and Ivanka — Don Jr. doesn’t want him to do it! The only person who wants him to do it is Eric’s wife, Lara, because she’s so ambitious.”

It’s a long, ambitious profile, stacked with damning quotes from others (and from Trump himself). Perhaps the most chilling sections concern his love of the aforementioned Sunset Boulevard, about Norma Desmond (played by actual former “silent” era star Gloria Swanson), a former Hollywood screen star who’s holed up in her decaying mansion people only with a few sycophants who keep up the illusion that she’s still got it. Trump watches it “all the time.” It’s one of the only things he can watch, says press secretary Stephanie Grisham, without checking his phone or flipping channels. Nuzzi ends her profile by discussing its conclusion:

Do you remember how Sunset Boulevard ends? Norma Desmond shoots and kills the writer [played by William Holden], a fraudster who has fallen under the spell of her charisma, just as he summons the courage to walk away. Her sycophantic butler flips. There are no enablers left to protect her. A final fantasy, a fake movie set, is staged in the mansion’s entryway. The lights go on, and she is lured before the cameras, where the police are waiting to haul her away.

For Gloria Swanson, Sunset Boulevard provided something of a comeback. Norma Desmond wasn’t so lucky, and Trump might not be either.

(Via NY Mag)