Category: News

In a new post from TMZ going viral online, they note that Taylor Swift might (finally) be playing the Super Bowl Halftime Show, at Super Bowl LVII in Arizona’s State Farm Stadium on February 12, 2023. However, in the actual article, they note that it is purely from fan speculation based on a bit of news: Last night, the NFL announced that Pepsi was being replaced with Apple Music as the official sponsor. When was the announcement made? You guessed it: At midnight.

There’s a bit more to the theory than that, but following TMZ’s announcement, Variety also shared the news and noted that “three sources close to the situation tell Variety that it’s happening.”

Swift is currently gearing up to release her tenth studio album Midnights in October, which fans had noted as the start of this theory. Yet, alongside her new album, she is still in the ongoing process of re-recording her music. If she did play the halftime show, she may have to put out re-recordings of 1989, Taylor Swift, Speak Now, and Reputation, before playing hits from those albums: In 2019, Swift claimed Scooter Braun was trying to prevent her from playing her old songs on TV.

Alternately, she could only play setlist selections from albums and songs she owns. This would include both Fearless and Red (Taylor’s Version), Folklore, Lover, Evermore, and now, Midnights. She has also teased some single re-recordings from 1989, with “Bad Blood (Taylor’s Version)” for use in DC League of Super-Pets and officially released “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version)” – so those would be up-for-grabs if the news winds up being true.

Continue scrolling for a few fan reactions and additional theories.

As a veteran of many Oktoberfests, I can tell you the German fall harvest beer festival is 100 percent worth traveling to. Over six million people descend upon the Bavarian capital of Munich to drink, eat, and be (very) merry. At the center of it all, though, is the beer. If you do end up in Munich in September, it’s to drink amazing Munich lager. And since Munich’s famed Oktoberfest has been canceled since 2019 (for obvious reasons we don’t need to get into here), we figured it was high time to celebrate the bacchanalia that’s going down right now in Southern Bavaria.

Below, I’ve compiled some of our favorite Instagram snaps so far (Oktoberfest 2022 runs from September 17th to 0ctober 3rd this year). We’re covering revelers, the food, the atmosphere, and, of course, the beer. So raise a full Maßkrug — that’s the one-liter glass mug used at Oktoberfest — if you can. It weighs 5.3 pounds full, so you might want to brace yourself. Grab a pretzel. And dive into these photos.

Hell, maybe you’ll get inspired enough to jump on a last-minute flight and join the festivities yourself … there’s still plenty of time!

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The press tour for Don’t Worry Darling is truly the gift that keeps on giving. Every time you think “could this movie possibly have any more drama,” another little tidbit drops from various anonymous sources and supposed first-hand accounts of what exactly happened while the movie was being made last year. Now, today, still, more allegations are coming to light, this time in the form of a screaming match between leading lady Florence Pugh and director Olivia Wilde.

First, the two allegedly disagreed over the casting of Shia LaBeouf, before he was definitely not fired, but recast after some drama. Then, filming began, and the drama train simply could not be stopped.

Vulture posted a brief explanation of what went down on set between the two according to an on-set source, and it seems like higher-ups at Warner Bros had to step in:

The breaking point came when Pugh, 26, and Wilde, 38, broke into a “screaming match,” this person recalls. According to our source, the acrimony between Wilde and Pugh allegedly reached all the way to the top of the studio totem pole, with the highest-ranking Warner Bros. executive at the time, Toby Emmerich, forced to play referee in a “long negotiation process” to ensure Pugh would participate in the film’s life cycle “in any way” and not jeopardize the potential box office.

While on-set tension is pretty common, this might not be the full story. Vulture’s Chris Lee then took to Twitter to go into more details regarding the fight, which started after Wilde would frequently leave for long amounts of time. In a now-deleted tweet, Lee said that the screaming argument started after Pugh began to pick up the slack Wilde was leaving behind:

Re the screaming argument: “Florence would give input on how she thought the next scene should be shot when Olivia wasn’t there. She was like, ‘I’m directing this movie more than you are!’ That was yelled at one point and people heard it. That spread all around very quickly.”

The turning point seemed to come when Wilde was photographed with Harry Styles while filming, seemingly confirming the two’s relationship while also upsetting the cast and crew, who were still sheltering in place while the production of the movie was underway. From more of the since-deleted tweets:

Last thing: the DWD crew was extremely pissed when Olivia was photographed with Harry at that wedding in Jan 2021 because she frequently gave them “lectures”: “‘Don’t be stupid. You’re fucking up our movie. Don’t go to parties. Don’t congregate.”

Acc to my source: “There were so many complaints from the crew saying, ‘How dare she tell us to shelter in place while we’re doing this movie? And yet she goes to a public wedding with a group of people? This is fucking crazy!” 1/2

“So many people complained. That’s the turning point. That’s when everyone started hating her.”

Meanwhile…Nick Kroll is just hanging out and enjoying his paycheck. All is well over here! After what feels like 17 years of promo, Don’t Worry Darling arrives in theaters this weekend.

(Via Vulture)

Earlier this year, Toronto act MorMor released “Far Apart,” his first song since 2020. Today he has announced his debut full-length Semblance to follow up the EPs he’s unveiled over the last few years. It will arrive this November and the new single “Chasing Ghosts” is out now, along with some new tour dates as well.

About “Chasing Ghosts,” he said, “I felt that this character was from a similar world to the one that we had built for ‘Don’t Cry’; therefore I decided to use this medium to tell the story. There’s a certain limitlessness when it comes to animation that I deeply appreciate. It is possible to create worlds that are not confined to the same kind of logic that exists outside of this medium.”

Listen to “Chasing Ghosts” above. Check out the Semblance artwork and tracklist below, as well as MorMor’s upcoming tour dates.

1. “Dawn”
2. “Seasons Change”
3. “Far Apart”
4. “Here It Goes Again”
5. “Days End”
6. “Crawl”
7. “Chasing Ghost”
8. “Don’t Cry”
9. “Lifeless”
10. “Better At Letting Go”
11. “Quiet Heart”

01/20 — Washington, D.C. @ Union Stage
01/21 — Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
01/22 — Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
01/24 — Montreal, QC @ Fairmount Theatre
01/26 — Toronto, ON @ AXIS Club
01/28 — Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
01/31 — Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
02/01 — Seattle, WA @ Neumos
02/03 — San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
02/04 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy

Semblance is out 11/4. Pre-order it here.

One Direction was the talk of the industry during their run as a boy band in the early 2010s. Songs like “Night Changes,” “What Makes You Beautiful,” and “Story Of My Life” will forever link Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, and Liam Payne, even as they prosper in their solo careers. An important, previously unknown detail is the role that Nicole Scherzinger played in the group coming together during their run on The X Factor UK.

The former lead vocalist for the Pussycat Dolls played the role of a judge during the show’s tenth season alongside the former American Idol judge Simon Cowell. Both have taken credit for 1D’s formation over the years, but footage leaked recently that shows Scherzinger deserves a lot more credit for the five men coming together.

In July, The X Factor UK shared an unreleased clip of Cowell, Scherzinger, and Louis Walsh looking at pictures of contestants. As they attempted to decide who should advance in the competition, Scherzinger said, “Let’s do an imaginary boy band […] instead of just saying ‘no.’” They eventually decided that Styles, Horan, Malik, Tomlinson, and Payne would be banded together en route to becoming the popular boy band known as One Direction.

Scherzinger spoke in a recent interview with Sherri Shepherd on Shepherd’s eponymous talk show where she expressed her gratitude for the footage coming out.

“Honestly, I never thought this footage would see the light of day. I thought Simon burned it [laughs]. And it’s really cool that it came out because what people are actually seeing is me actually putting them together […] and being like, ‘Look, I just came out of a girl group, I know how successful and powerful it can be to be a group, we gotta join forces.’ It’s amazing to think… we didn’t have anything at that time, so I’m super proud that I got to play a small part — or a big part […] They made history, right? To be a small part of history.”

Her gratitude comes after saying back in a 2014 interview, “I’m happy for their success. I can’t believe I put together the group and then I’m at Walmart buying One Direction bags for my nieces. Like, something is wrong with this picture! […] Where’s my cut? Seriously? I’m a giver, what can I say? I gave the world One Direction.”

Now, any doubts about Scherzinger’s impact on One Direction can be put to rest.

Check out the clip of One Direction’s formation above.

Who’d have thought DreamDoll was such an introvert? Ahead of her hometown performance at Rolling Loud New York this weekend, the Bronx rapper dropped her new mixtape Life In Plastic 3 today, making the title about as literal as it gets in the video for “Misunderstood,” the project’s intro track. In it, DD roams the lonely streets of early morning NYC practically naked inside a plastic bubble. As a visual metaphor, it’s muddled but it still works; she’s baring it all but keeping us listeners at a respectful distance, guarding her energy while exposing her struggles.

Musically, the song is very much in the same “slow build” vein as Meek Mill’s “Dreams And Nightmares Intro” or Cardi B’s “Get Up 10.” It starts off with a moody, downtempo piano-and-strings arrangement that crescendoes as the beat drops. DreamDoll’s flow picks up too, as she starts calculating the difference between the riches part of her story and the rags. She ends the song wondering whether she’s a “misfit or just misunderstood,” with an interpolation of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” closing off the beat.

The 30-year-old rapper has seen her profile start to rise over the past few years with turns in songs from the likes of CJ, Erica Banks, and Rick Ross, while her own “Ice Cream Dream” also appears on Life In Plastic 3, which is out now via District 18 Entertainment / Warner Records. Get it here.

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

Every day, across the globe, fans attend concerts for their favorite musicians. Particularly in regards to large-scale touring artists, when fans file into a stadium arena venue, they are likely only thinking about the countdown until the show begins — to see the lights, hear the setlist, and even possibly dance along with friends. After the show ends, the fans leave the venue. We get in our cars to head home, and considering if the show is on a weekday, prepare for work in the morning. Meanwhile, the musician(s) and their extensive touring crew is doing the same thing.

Most might not consider the logistics of everything that really goes into planning a tour. However, a recently uploaded video on YouTube by Wendover Productions breaks down the process for those who are interested.

Before the tour dates are even announced for fans to purchase tickets, a significant amount of planning happens prior. Agents tend to negotiate fees and revenue (the money brought in by the shows) with venues in the city that the artist or band wants to play. If the tour takes place in the summer, the video notes that “dates fill quickly” for that season, so the negotiations occur in the fall before.

After the dates and venues are confirmed, the tour manager then has the job of sending the artist’s schedule to various bus companies, in order to accommodate the crew, the equipment, and more, on the dates that are needed. “With the venues locked, stage managers, and production managers begin assembling advance sheets that outline every last technical detail about the venue, from bus and trailer parking, the office space and AV capabilities and hookups that the tour could possibly need to know beforehand,” the voiceover notes.

The tour manager is also in charge of finding and sending riders to hotels for each aspect of the touring party. At the beginning of the video, it is noted that tours are typically split into three groups: A Party (the artist/band and inner management circle), B Party (additional backup band, dancers, other performers), and the C Party (crew, techs, lighting, etc.). While the A Party will typically fly out of an airport to the next city, the rest will use tour buses and immediately head to the venue after a long drive. After plugging in the tour buses, the B and C parties stay at a hotel likely in close proximity to the venue to rest.

From there, they start setting up for the show. Most of the time at arenas, it will likely be a from-scratch assembly. They set up the stage and rig the lighting fixtures, with a large crew each contributing to their set jobs.

After the show is set up, is played, then ends, the turnaround time could be quick. Typically, tour dates in close proximity to other states have a 24-hour time crunch before the next show is set to take place. While the A & B parties head to the airport and respective buses, the C Party has to quickly dismantle the stage setup, while still being careful not to damage the equipment. It is loaded onto trailers for the next show.

The bus drivers are also carefully considered in the efficiency, as, according to the video, they sleep until the performer’s show is nearly finished. As they have a lengthy drive ahead, this sleep is required and essential.

Long story short, the larger an artist you’re going to see is, the more complex their tour operations are. Every member of the crew is essential in keeping the nightly (or every other night, depending) shows moving smoothly.

Watch the video above.

The Golden State Warriors will, mostly, be running it back next season with their latest championship winning squad.

Most importantly, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, and Kevon Looney all return as the core of the rotation that played en route to the title. The team did lose some important contributors in Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr., but will look to replace them with free agents JaMychal Green and Donte DiVincenzo, as well as elevated roles for their young players like Moses Moody, James Wiseman, and Jonathan Kuminga.

While that represents the group that will spend most of the time playing on the court, one final piece was announced on Friday that provides more of a culture/teaching element, as veteran Andre Iguodala made the announcement on his Point Forward podcast that he’ll play one final season in the Bay.

Iguodala only appeared in 31 games last regular season and seven playoff games, but his presence on the bench is akin to Udonis Haslem’s role in Miami in terms of providing leadership from a player perspective in the locker room. His guidance played a not insignificant role in Wiggins’ leap last year, particularly on the defensive end, and he still has a knack for making defensive plays himself when called upon for a few minutes in a big game.

Early in her career, Charlize Theron had a “belittling” experience when a male director tried to make her look more “f*ckable” on the set of a movie. The revelation came in a Harper’s Bazaar cover story where the Mad Max: Fury Road star was discussing the powerlessness that many women in Hollywood feel, especially in the pre-#MeToo era.

“Having absolutely no control over what you’re wearing is a big one that really f*cking annoyed me for years. Having some guy make you have a fitting almost in front of them—stuff like that, it’s really belittling,” Theron said. “When I started, there was no conversation around it. It was like, ‘This is what you’re wearing.’ And I remember one movie in particular, this male director who just kept bringing me in, fitting after fitting after fitting after… It was just so obvious that it was to do with my sexuality and how f*ckable they could make me in the movie. And when I started out, that was kind of the norm.”

Theron made her on-screen debut in an uncredited role in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, but she doesn’t name the director or the “one movie in particular.” Nearly 30 years later, though, things have improved, and Theron has made it her mission to “create environments that feel like the things that I wish I had 30 years ago when I started.”

Theron will appear soon in Fast X and The Old Guard 2.

(Via Harper’s Bazaar)

When word broke Wednesday night that Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka was facing a lengthy suspension for a violation of organizational rules, fans on Twitter speculated wildly about what he had done to earn that kind of punishment from the team just months removed from going to the NBA Finals.

Later that night it was reported that the issue in question was an inappropriate intimate relationship with a woman on the Celtics team staff, but we still were provided with a general lack of details and it only furthered people tweeting out theories of what happened and with whom. That part, where some fans went through the Celtics staff directory and tried to determine what woman was involved was a particularly disgusting subplot of this saga, and it was one that Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens wanted to call out specifically in the team’s press conference on Udoka’s season-long suspension on Friday.

Stevens referred to what the women have had to deal with in being “unfairly dragged” into the public spotlight as “rampant bullsh*t,” and said that it was now incumbent on the organization to support them fully and ensure they’re taken care of in whatever way is needed.

The way this story was reported only worked against the women involved, as the choice of phrasing and lack of firm details made for easy speculation and also a lot of confusion about the severity of the punishment while the details were fuzzy. The initial report from Adrian Wojnarowski simply cited team rules and nothing about a relationship with a staffer, while Shams Charania called it a “consensual” relationship in his first report, only to later report that the woman eventually told the team Udoka made “unwanted comments” towards her which in turn led to the investigation.

The running play-by-play among newsbreakers of the story was not helpful in this instance where people’s lives were being thrown into turmoil and the initial reading from many that this was overly punitive was the result of a lack of details (of which we still don’t have many) that could’ve been avoided in a media climate where getting something first was less important and, particularly in a sensitive situation like this one, getting more details and facts to provide a clearer picture held more emphasis. On top of that, the rush to immediately have a take on the situation, while knowing that there aren’t many facts out there, only exacerbates the issue.

Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck lamented the way the story was reported via leaks, while denying the Celtics were responsible for those, noting they stood to gain nothing by having the story get out before they could release their statement.

It is unfortunate that a story like this gets reported on in much the same manner as trade rumors, where a trail of crumbs is left on social media for fans to begin piecing together the story in real time rather than simply waiting to gather more complete details out of fear of losing a scoop or the right to say you were first on a story. In this instance, it was innocent women who were not involved in any way being dragged into this situation by name — and, potentially, the victim being aired out — who bear the negative recourse to this story and the reaction to it.