Category: News

Russell Westbrook found himself in the Los Angeles Lakers‘ starting lineup on Tuesday night during the team’s season opener against the Golden State Warriors. This came on the heels of Westbrook coming off the bench in the team’s preseason finale, an option that has been mentioned as a possibility throughout the offseason.

The preseason experiment didn’t go great, as Westbrook came off the bench and played five minutes before tweaking his hamstring and leaving the game. Following the regular season opener, Westbrook got asked what happened with his hamstring and made clear that he thought his injury was related to not being among the team’s starters.

“Absolutely,” Westbrook said when asked if the change in routine contributed to his injury. “I’ve been doing the same thing for 14 years straight. Honestly, I didn’t even know what to do pregame — being honest, I was trying to figure out [how] to stay warm and loose. Obviously, the way I play the game, fast-paced, quick, stop and go, and when I subbed in, I felt something that was, you know, didn’t know what it was but I wasn’t gonna risk it in a preseason game.”

This is not the first time that Westbrook has said a change in his routine has led to him suffering an injury. Last season, Westbrook’s back tightened up, which he thought was related to sitting for long stretches.

Cardi B is back to court for a trial that started yesterday in California. The Bronx rapper is being sued for $5 million over the sexually explicit cover of her 2016 debut mixtape, Gangsta B*tch Music, Vol. 1. The copyright infringement case, filed by Kevin Michael Brophy Jr., alleges that Cardi used a photo of his back tattoo for the cover without permission or compensation. He originally filed a complaint in 2017, trying to get her to change the cover for five years.

While the man pictured on Cardi B’s mixtape cover isn’t Brophy Jr., his lawyer claims that as a husband and father, he has suffered emotional distress from the resemblance to his back tattoo. The lawyer also alleges that photo editing programs were used to overlay it onto the male model on Cardi’s cover. According to ABC News, Brophy Jr.’s tattoo has been featured in magazines as a significant design.

“The mixtape photo was never sold separately, never used in merchandise, and the mixtape was being released free of charge for much of its ‘life,’” Cardi B noted in the court documents, according to Yahoo! News, as she had been trying to get the judge to dismiss the case prior to going to a trial.

“It felt like my Michelangelo was stolen off a wall and literally ripped off, robbed, and put where ever these people wanted to put it,” Brophy Jr. testified in court yesterday. “This was a long journey to get this tattoo. It took a lot of commitment. To see it in this light was a complete slap in the face and a complete disrespect to me and my family.”

Read more about the first day of Cardi B’s trial from a legal-focused Twitter thread below.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Blink-182 is back. Well, they didn’t really leave, but the version of the band featuring Tom DeLonge is back, as he recently returned to the group. They solidified his renewed presence in the band with “Edging,” a comeback single. They dropped a video for the song last week and now they’re back with an alternate version of it.

The new video has some minor shifts, like a different clip of Travis Barker playing the song’s drum intro, for example. The most immediate change is cameos from Lil Tracy and video director Cole Bennett to start the video. The two wear rabbit costumes, minus the heads, as Tracy smokes and says to Bennett, “It’s time to get back to work, bro.” There’s an also extended outro featuring the rabbit characters doing a little dance.

Barker, who produced the song, previously said of it, “I wanted to imagine as a listener what I wanted to experience and at the same time as a band member what we wanted to make and say, and most importantly how it would sound production-wise in 2022.” Hoppus added, “I’m so happy to be back in the studio creating new music and looking forward to a giant world tour.”

Check out the new “Edging” video above.

This past summer, Liam Gallagher played some massive concerts at the UK’s Knebworth Park venue, 26 years after Oasis played memorable shows there. It was a big deal, so much so that the occasion is being documented in a new film, Knebworth 22. Starting November 17, the film will hit UK theaters for a limited time.

He said in a statement, “I’m still in shock that I got to play Knebworth 2 nights, 26 years after I played it with Oasis. I’m still trying to get my head around it. To have played to multiple generations at the same venue so many years apart was beyond Biblical. I’m so glad that we documented it. Knebworth for me was and always will be a celebration of the fans as well as the music. Enjoy the film and let’s do it again in another 26 years. LG x.”

There’s a problem, though: Liam says his brother and former Oasis bandmate Noel Gallagher is blocking Oasis songs from being used in the film.

Liam tweeted today, “No oasis songs as the angry squirt has blocked them he also blocked the oasis I sang for Taylor Hawkins tribute he’s a horrible little man.” He added in another tweet, “It’s the only but of power he’s got left he knows he’s coasting into the oblivious.” Meanwhile, somebody asked, “Is Noel Gallagher still a thing,” and Liam responded, “Yes a SAD LITTLE THING.”

Liam later concluded, “You can stop us using the songs but you can’t erase our memories shame on you Noel Gallagher.”

Just when you thought Don’t Worry Darling was all out of drama: ha. Last week, director Olivia Wilde, who reportedly got into a screaming match with star Florence Pugh on the set of scandal-plagued film, protested the media’s attention to the sex scenes. She also seemed to blame “misogyny” for Don’t Worry Darling landing with a thud at the box office — and then there’s the whole nanny thing.

Wilde and ex-husband Jason Sudeikis’ former-nanny told the Daily Mail that the Ted Lasso star was infuriated by Wilde “preparing a salad” with her “special dressing” for Harry Styles, who she would later end up dating. “The night she left with her salad, Jason had chased after her, videotaping her in the house,” the nanny said. “So then, Jason went outside and lay under her car so she wouldn’t leave. She got in her car to back up, he lay under her car so she wouldn’t leave. She went back into the house and he went in, it was back and forth. He said he was doing it on purpose to make her late going to see Harry.” Sudeikis allegedly told the nanny, “She made this salad and she made her special dressing and she’s leaving with her salad to have dinner with [Harry].”

Wilde and Sudeikis vehemently deny the “scurrilous” claims, calling them an “18-month-long campaign of harassing us, as well as loved ones, close friends, and colleagues, [that] has reached its unfortunate apex.” But Wilde also took to Instagram to share the infamous salad dressing recipe, which comes from Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, the 1983 autobiographical novel based on her marriage to and divorce from Carl Bernstein.

It sounds better than an egg yolk omelette, at least.

(Via Variety)

Last night (October 18), Lil Nas X had a concert at Inglewood’s YouTube Theater. Before the show, though, he took to Twitter to drum up some excitement for the show with some promo, offering fans the opportunity of a lifetime: “for everyone coming to my show tonight in los angeles i will be c*mming on 3 lucky fans for my c*m on a fan contest,” he tweeted.

Of course, the rapper was joking, backed up by the fact that there were no reports of any bodily functions of that sort at the show.

He continued to have fun with the bit, though, like when he shared a clip of Francine from Arthur saying, “Squirting contest! Let’s see who can squirt the farthest.” Nas captioned the post, “me at my concert tonight.”

The rapper also shared a screenshot of two tweets from a fan. The first was a quote-tweet of Nas’ original tweet with the fan writing, “That’s f*cking disgusting… ….” They quickly followed up, “anyone got any extra tickets to the Lil Nas X concert in Los Angeles tonight?”

Nas has more fun on Twitter than just about any musician, like earlier this month when he responded to a report of him asking fans to stop using drugs at his shows: “aht aht- i said stop doing poppers. cuz ya asshole don’t need to be open while i sing my depression album cuts. if yall wanna do weed, molly, shrooms, paint, gasoline ect. knock yourselves tf out.”

The Los Angeles Lakers went into the 2022-23 NBA season with Russell Westbrook on the roster. Despite it seeming like a certainty that he would be moved and some rumors flying around about conversations with other teams about a potential deal, Westbrook was part of the team’s starting five for their opening night game against the Golden State Warriors.

Westbrook had a pretty good first half against the defending champs — 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting, six rebounds, three assists, one steal — but after 24 minutes of watching him play with the team this year, TNT’s Charles Barkley is already calling for the Lakers to press the eject button. As Barkley argued, watching Westbrook, who he admires and respects, on this Lakers team is difficult, as they “have taken all his joy out of life and basketball.”

Barkley said that the team “stinks” and that Anthony Davis and LeBron James are “just getting numbers” before turning his attention back to Westbrook.

“He doesn’t look … this guy used to be so exuberant, played with great energy and great emotion,” Barkley said. “I think the wear and tear mentally, last year, starting this year, playing with Patrick Beverley, and the thing is, he’s gonna get the blame no matter what.”

While Shaquille O’Neal wants to see 15-20 games of this, Barkley wants both Westbrook and the Lakers to get “a fresh start.”

“They are taking his entire joy out of basketball,” Barkley said. “And it pisses me off.”

The Boston Celtics became the first team to pick up a 2022-23 regular season win, putting up 126 points in an impressive home win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday. For most of the night, the story was Boston’s offense, with the Celtics shooting 56 percent from the floor and getting 70 combined points from Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. However, there was a dust-up early in the third quarter that turned heads, and it involved Marcus Smart and Joel Embiid.

Within the first minute of the second half, Smart and Embiid were tangled up, with Embiid knocking Smart to the floor and a lengthy stoppage and lots of chatter ensuing.

The incident came and went without too many overall fireworks, with only Smart picking up a technical foul and nothing for Embiid. That didn’t sit well with Smart, who indicated the thought that he showed maturity in not reacting more to the incident and essentially accused Embiid of trying to break his arm during a post-game interview.

Embiid’s play was potentially dangerous, particularly with the way Smart’s arm was tweaked. Fortunately, there was no damage done long-term, but it is clear that Smart was not thrilled, and this could be even more fuel to the fire of an ongoing rivalry between potential Eastern Conference contenders.

We’re only days away from the highly anticipated release of Taylor Swift‘s new album Midnights, which she announced the night of the MTV VMAs and for which she has since unveiled the tracklist.

Preparation for the release has been extravagant, which is obvious from the merch alone. Her website includes a vinyl clock, a vinyl collector’s case, a Jade Green Edition vinyl, a Moonstone Blue Edition vinyl, a Mahogany Edition vinyl, a Blood Moon Edition vinyl, a Jade Green Edition CD, a Moonstone Blue Edition CD, a Mahogany Edition CD, a Blood Moon Edition CD, a bejeweled bracelet, a backpack, a brown album cover hoodie, brown sweatpants, a duffle bag, a colorblock crewneck, a Green Ringer T-shirt, a blue hoodie, an album cover tank, an album cover longsleeve, an album cover ringer T-shirt, an album cover T-shirt, and a water bottle. Scroll through all of these items here.

About the record, Swift has said, “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching — hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve … We’ll meet ourselves.”

There’s been a lot of books about the Trump presidency, and to that towering pile you can add an audiobook. Bob Woodward, one of the reporters who blew open the Watergate scandal, is releasing The Trump Tapes, which features eight hours of interviews he conducted with the former presidency from 2016 through this year. Excerpts have already been made available, and wouldn’t you know they reveal him just casually showing the legendary journalist some letters he would later take with him to Mar-a-Lago, despite admitting, on tape, that they’re highly classified.

In one exchange, from December of 2019, Trump can be heard handing letters written to him by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, intimating that he shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.

“Nobody else has them,” he brags. He then tells Woodward to “treat them with respect,” adding, “And don’t say I gave them to you, okay?”

A month later, Woodward asked Trump if he can see the letter he wrote to Kim, but Trump tells him, “Oh, those are so top secret.”

There are 27 letters between Trump and Kim, which were among those that he took with him to the resort in which he now lives. Since the FBI raided his home, leaving with boxes and boxes of documents, Trump has thrown one defense after another against the wall, including saying they weren’t sensitive. This is audio admission that he knew the opposite.

But then, maybe as the criminal investigation into his improper handling of government documents continues — ditto his many other worries — he can always go back to the claim that he could declassify them with his mind.

(Via The Washington Post)