Category: News

We have nary a single, a music video, or a teaser clip for Taylor Swift‘s upcoming 10th studio album, Midnights, however, anticipation for new music is high. Ahead of its release, Swift has shared different colored versions of the album’s compact discs, vinyls, and cassette tapes.

Today, Target has announced yet another version Midnights, which will only be available through the retailer.

The Target edition of the CD will contain three bonus tracks, two of which appear to be remixes of the standard album’s secret tracklist. Target will also a special lavender pressing of Midnights on both vinyl and compact disc.

The CD will also come with a collectible lyric booklet with exclusive photos and a unique print on the disc. The booklet will also be included in the vinyl packaging, as well as a gatefold photo, and an album sleeve with two more photos. The album will be pressed on a marble of pastel lavender purple and white. The vinyl edition will not include the bonus tracks.

This past weekend, Swift appeared at Toronto International Film Festival, where she screened her short film, the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” on 35mm film. She however, did not go into detail about the musical or visual elements of Midnights.

Midnights is out 10/21 via Republic. Pre-order it here.

Jack Harlow hasn’t been shy about sharing wild stories from his youth, from odd cartoon crushes to how his jealousy of fellow Kentuckian Bryson Tiller turned an admiring text into the working relationship that helped launch him to superstardom. Sometimes, though, he’s prone to oversharing, as he did during a recent stop on his Come Home The Kids Miss You Tour in Nashville.

In a video from the show, Harlow explains why he tells people he lost his virginity twice. It’s the sort of story that a former awkward nerd would be very proud to tell, and by all his own accounts, that’s kind of where Jack lands. The story rides the line between endearing and uncomfortable as he recounts how, after “I lost my virginity when I was 16,” he landed this dime piece who was five or six years older than me” after high school.

“It was like, welcome to the big leagues, like it was huge,” he said. “I remember I used to take this girl to my indoor soccer games and she would pick me up and take me home to my homeboys. She was sitting there watching the game and they’d be like, ‘Yo, who is that?’ I’d be like, ‘Oh her? Yeah, we have sex, you know’—like I was feeling myself and it’s true, we did.”

You can watch the video below.

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

Tucker Carlson has a way with words. And by that, we mean he has a habit of saying a lot of them — but not really listening to what he’s saying or standing by whatever his convictions might be from one week to the next. Take, for example, January 6, 2021.

Since the attack on the Capitol, Tucker has claimed that the insurrectionists were merely acting like everyday sightseers, expressed rage that Donald Trump didn’t pay to bail any of the rioters out of jail, created a whole documentary around the idea that it was a false flag operation, and stated that the violent terrorist attack “was definitely not a violent terrorist attack.” On Monday, the Fox News host took his support for the January 6th rioters one ludicrous step further by calling the insurrection an “election justice protest.”

Carlson — who made no mention of the fact last night that his buddy Vladimir Putin is most definitely losing the war he waged against Ukraine, just days after he insisted that Putin was winning — was attempting to make a case for Couy Griffin of all people, who is/was a city commissioner in New Mexico, founder of Cowboys for Trump, and a January 6th insurrectionist who was recently disqualified from holding office because storming the Capitol is a violation of the 14th Amendment for public officials. Though Carlson didn’t seem interested in talking about the Constitution.

The way Carlson sees it, the judge who removed Griffin from office is the one in the wrong, and is “overturning the will of the voters” with no good reason. “Why?,” Carlson demanded to know! “Because he had dared to exercise his constitutional rights by participating in the election justice protest on January 6th.”

Election. Justice. Protest.

Carlson went on to state that “this is a full-blown political purge” and noted that “that’s not a talking point, it is not in any sense a conspiracy theory. It’s completely real.”

Also real? The fact that by illegally and forcefully entering the Capitol and being part of a traitorous insurrection that led to the deaths of at least seven people, Griffin was in violation of the 14th Amendment, which states that: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Something tells us Tucker wouldn’t see it that way.

For years now, Taylor Swift has been dealing with a lawsuit regarding her song “Shake It Off.” In 2017, songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler filed a lawsuit accusing Taylor Swift of copyright infringement, insisting the “Shake It Off” chorus copies 3LW’s “Playas Gonna Hate” (which they wrote). That song features the lines, “Playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate.”

In 2018, the case was dismissed, but the case was reopened in 2020. In late 2021, Swift again filed to have the case dismissed, but now, it has been decided that she will indeed have to stand trial in the copyright case.

Rolling Stone reports that during a hearing in downtown Los Angeles yesterday (September 12), US District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald said, “The motion for reconsideration is denied. I don’t think it meets the standard for reconsideration, and even if it did, and I was approaching it again on the merits, I still think there’s a genuine issue of material fact in part because of the expert opinion.”

One of Swift and her co-defendants’ lawyers asked if he could give an oral argument before Judge Fitzgerald issued his written ruling, but was denied, with Fitzgerald saying, “I apologize there’s been the delay, but I have no intention of having oral argument.” He also noted he is “not moving the trial date” from January 17, 2023.

There was a time before Marvel movies became an entire universe when it was pretty easy to just be in one of the films without having to sign on for multiple movies and spinoffs, plus an appearance on a Disney+ show or two, and maybe a fast food tie-in if you’re lucky. So in 2010 when Sam Rockwell signed on to be the villain in Iron Man 2, there was no way to know if he’d still want to play the bad guy over a decade later…right? Well, now we know! And Rockwell wants in on more Marvel stuff!

Rockwell portrayed Justin Hammer, the cocky Hammer Industries CEO that rivaled Stark Industries in the second Iron Man installment. While Hammer has been mentioned throughout the MCU various times, the character hasn’t been brought back to the big screen, and Rockwell thinks it’s time.

The actor stopped by The Playlist’s podcast The Discourse to discuss his upcoming film See How They Run (which he stars in alongside Saoirse Ronan) and naturally, Marvel came up in conversation, specifically Thunderbolts, the villain-centric movie in the works with a 2024 release date.

When asked if he would return, Rockwell expressed interest. “Yeah, definitely. I would be into that. [Thunderbolts] sounds cool…[Hammer’s] fun, he’s a real Lex Luthor.”

The rest of the Thunderbolts cast was announced at D23 last week, and Marvel is bringing back a variety of bad guys for the film. The movie will star Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell as John Walker, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

While nothing is confirmed for Rockwell, just showing interest is a good sign. If it can work for John Krasinski, it can (maybe) work for anyone!

(Via CBR)

Senator Lindsey Graham has been getting ripped apart on social media after a report in the Washington Post revealed that he planned to introduce an aggressive abortion ban. Graham’s move goes against the Republican talking point that abortion access would be left to the states in the aftermath of Roe V. Wade being overturned.

On Tuesday morning, Graham’s official senate website revealed the text of the bill, which would ban abortion after 15 weeks, according to Politico reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein. It also includes strict guidelines for exemptions in the case of rape and the life of the mother:

“The text of Graham’s bill just dropped. It bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. His previous versions of the bill set the limit at 20 weeks. The bill has exemptions for cases of rape (including statutory rape), incest and when ‘necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.’ That life exemption notes that it doesn’t apply to ‘psychological or emotional conditions.’ The rape exemption also requires the patient to prove they obtained medical treatment or counseling or reported it to law enforcement at least 48hrs before the abortion.”

You can watch Graham introduce the bill below:

Prior to Graham’s abortion ban being formally introduced, the South Carolina was getting ripped apart on social media for attempting to restrict women’s rights. He was also roasted for rallying Democratic voters who have shown that that will show up to defeat Republicans at the polls when abortion access is on the line.

You can see more reactions to Lindsay Graham’s nationwide abortion ban below:

(Via Washington Post)

Russell Wilson played a football game in Seattle on Monday night. The catch: Instead of suiting up for the Seahawks, Wilson led the Denver Broncos onto the turf at Lumen Field, marking the first time in his decorated career that he played for a team other than Seattle. It didn’t work out the way he would have liked, as the Seahawks came out on top, 17-16, thanks in part to some late game clock management by Denver that drove Peyton Manning up a wall.

Wilson had a solid game, completing 29 of his 42 pass attempts for 340 yards and a score, but it ultimately was not enough. And after the game, Wilson gave us a very good example of how old habits die hard, as he met with the press to discuss what happened on the field. He ended his presser with an updated version of how he has long ended them, by saying “Go Broncos, let’s ride,” but hesitated for a split second, presumably because he’s said “Go Hawks” about 100,000,000 times in his life.

The good news for Wilson is that he won’t be in this exact situation again for a while, as the Broncos won’t have to travel to Seattle any time soon. Regardless, it looks like Wilson’s still getting used to life elsewhere in the NFL.

Nicki Minaj has had a tough go on social media to start the week after her response to the murder of Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock was compared unfavorably to Cardi B’s. While Nicki and Cardi have been on-and-off rivals for a while, the contrast in both of their responses was noted by fans of both, who criticized Nicki for offering advice to fellow rappers along with her condolences to PnB Rock’s friends and family.

“After Pop Smoke there’s no way we as rappers or our loved ones are still posting locations to our whereabouts,” she wrote. “To show waffles & some fried chicken????! He was such a pleasure to work with. Condolences to his mom & family. This makes me feel so sick. Jesus.” Nicki’s response was deemed inappropriate and victim-blaming as fans decried a swiftly spreading theory that the robbers who accosted PnB at Roscoe’s Chicken And Waffles in South Los Angeles were clued in by Instagram posts.

However, one thing Nicki Minaj won’t do is back down. She followed up with a string of responses peppered with all-caps exclamations, emphatically defending her point that entertainers must remain vigilant due to jealousy and greed. “The ppl around these rappers gain so much,” she insisted. “It’s time to start really reminding them over & over!!! At least TRY to put your foot down if you CARE! Tell them!!! You’re not loved like you think you are!!! You’re prey!!!! In a world full of predators!!!! What’s not clicking???!!!”

“It’s never the wrong time!” she continued. “f it saves ONE YOUNG RAPPER!!!! JUST ONE!!!!! THEN WE’VE DONE OUR JOBS!!!!! I spoke on losing our own @ the VMAS!!!! Enough is enough!!!! MY GOD. IDGAF about no fkng hate tweets!!!! Go fuck y’all dumb fkng selves!!!!! Y’all r not the ones that be bawling crying after you just worked with or just spoke to ONE OF YOUR OWN!!!!! I BELONG TO THIS SHIT. IMA FKNG SPEAK ON IT!!!! If it gets attention from y’all being ignorant than so be it!!! At least it’ll save lives. FOH.”

Meanwhile, PnB Rock’s death has prompted mournful responses from plenty of his peers, which you can see here.

The 2022 Primetime Emmys gave us some of the best and worst of these kinds of fancy Hollywood awards ceremonies, from exciting new honorees and inspirational acceptance speeches to groaner bits that lasted forever and a handful of egregious snubs. Let’s try to sort through it all by identifying the night’s most notable Winners and Losers.

WINNER: HBO, generally

HBO and its new parent company have had a weird couple of weeks with various merger and/or Batgirl fiascos, but on Monday night they went back to what they do best: Collecting a wheelbarrow filled with trophies at prestigious television awards shows. Succession? Won a lot. The White Lotus? Won a LOT. Jean Smart and Zendaya in their lead roles on Hacks and Euphoria? Won, although please consider this my official pitch for them to appear on each other’s show in the next season. I think the world could use Jean Smart as a wiseass English teacher on Euphoria. I think we’ve earned that.

But yeah, just a dominant performance by the network that kind of put prestige television on the map a few decades ago. And, the flipside of that coin, a pretty disappointing performance for a slew of other premium networks and streamers, with the exception of Apple and Ted Lasso. Although Apple also got blanked for its other big hit, Severance. So there was that. That probably stung. Not as much as the harsh but extremely true monologue jokes about Showtime (barely exists as a network despite the Yellowjackets love) and Netflix (that debt joke… yeesh), I imagine. A little sting. A baby bee. A little baby bee with a little baby stinger.

Let’s move on before this gets weird.

LOSER: Better Call Saul

It is madness to me that Better Call Saul has yet to win a single Emmy. I can understand the concept of Breaking Bad fatigue after that show cleaned up for a few years, and I get that spin-offs aren’t always viewed as favorably as the originals they were based on, but…yeah. No. This is nuts. How did Rhea Seehorn not win? How did Bob Odenkirk not win? How did Tony Dalton not even get nominated for playing Lalo Salamanca, the most charismatic and devious villain on all of television. It’s not right. I hate it. I’m mad. And I’m even more mad now that I remembered Frasier won a zillion Emmys in the 1990s and that show was a spinoff of Cheers, so there is precedent here. Come on. Jesus Christ.

The silver lining here is that the year’s eligibility window meant that only the first six episodes from the split final season were considered, which means everyone gets another chance to fix this next year. It’s going to be weird to hand out a bunch of hardware to a show that ended like 14 months earlier, but “weird” is better than “a gross miscarriage of justice that results in me going to prison for burning Hollywood to the ground,” so I will take it.

WINNER: Sheryl Lee Ralph

Three things are worth noting here:

• Sheryl Lee Ralph rules
• It was cool to see Abbott Elementary take home whatever awards Ted Lasso didn’t win, both because it’s nice to see a network sitcom succeed in 2022 and because Abbott Elementary is good as heck
• I cannot even begin to fathom the amount of confidence it takes to stand up on the stage in front of millions of people and full-on sing the first chunk of your acceptance speech

I would crash through as many brick walls as Sheryl Lee Ralph asked me to now. I hope she keeps it under, say, three, just for the sake of my cranium, but I’ll keep going until she says stop.

LOSER: Bits

I mean, do we still need bits in 2022? Or big song and dance numbers? Do we need dudes playing dead on the stage during acceptance speeches by first-time winners of fun shows? I… I don’t know. I really don’t. I doubt people watching at home are that jazzed about them at this point. There’s something to be said for trying to make the show entertaining for viewers who don’t necessarily care about the network scorekeeping and inside baseball elements of flubs and snubs, especially at a time when there are so many shows that your average civilian probably isn’t even watching more than a handful of the shows that got nominated. That’s fair.

I… don’t know, though. We could probably cut all of the singing and most of the bits and just let funny/charming people present to the winners and see if we can get this sucker in under two hours. Not made of time over here.

WINNER: Jennifer Coolidge

GOOD: Jennifer Coolidge won for her performance on White Lotus and gave an acceptance speech that started with a brief chat about lavender baths and bloating, which could not possibly have been more charming.

BAD: They started playing her off after what felt like 30 seconds, which stunk, especially considering the thing I mentioned in the last blurb about time burned on bits and singing that meant well but dragged the rest of the show out.

VERY GOOD: Jennifer Coolidge doing the thing in the screencap up there the year after she did this while taking the stage to present at the 2021 ceremony.

I love her very much. She’s the best. Let’s just invent a new awards show for the purpose of giving her a trophy and letting her talk as long as she wants.

LOSER: Whatever exactly this is

Let’s go ahead and file this one under “things I could have done without in a telecast that literally put the winners on a clock while accepting their awards,” too. I’m glad the bills got paid, I guess. That’s as far as I’ll go with that, though.

DRAW: Comedians with outrageous looks

ON ONE HAND: Jerrod Carmichael accepted his Emmy for Rothaniel wearing a white fur coat with a chain and zero shirts underneath it. That was… awesome. Such an incredibly high degree of difficulty there, doubly so for doing it all like it was just a normal thing to wear. Imagine showing up to your job dressed like that for one day. Imagine any of the other nominees last night wearing that. Imagine Michael Keaton in that exact outfit accepting the first award of the night. Just tremendous. Good for him.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Pete…

No, buddy.

Looks like he hopped out of a time machine straight from what, like, 1988 thinks the future looks like.

I cannot support this. I say this as someone who is wearing khaki shorts a free t-shirt I got at a giveaway at a bar over 10 years ago. So… take my fashion opinions with many grains of salt.

WINNER: Squid Game

The weird thing here is that Squid Game was both Netflix’s only real success of the night and the only thing really resembling a massive popular hit taking home a handful of awards. It’s kind of the best-case scenario for The Future of Television or whatever, this idea that a foreign drama about wealth inequality that only exists on the internet can capture enough attention to have it beat out big expensive American cable shows at the Emmys. That is kind of cool if you think about it a little.

Just a little.

Because then we get into the whole Netflix of it all.

Which we do not want to get into.

So… let’s not.

LOSER: Jason Mantzoukas (yes, I am still mad about it)

A few notes:

• Jason Mantzoukas voiced Tommy Lee’s penis in Pam & Tommy
• He was not nominated for doing so
• I have been furious about this for over a month

I’m fine. It’s fine. I guess we just don’t honor greatness in television anymore. But I’m fine.

WINNER: Kenan doing his little punches and kicks

God bless Kenan. I stand by what I said many times about the bits and the songs and not needing them at all, but I did love this guy walking around the stage during his monologue and punctuating his jokes with his little fist pumps and kicks. He’s a good man who has been doing this for many, many years and has rarely, if ever, failed to deliver.

Say what you will about the ceremony as a whole but leave Kenan alone. He is doing the best he can.

LOSER: Anyone who had to take the stage after Lizzo

Lizzie took the stage in a big feathery red dress and collected her trophy and shouted out her crew of big girls way up in the balcony and really kind of jammed an adrenaline needle into the heart of this whole thing for a minute or two. It was great. I love seeing people look like they are legitimately having fun out there like this. I love seeing people shout out their crews in the cheap seats. I love all of it, basically.

I would not love being the person who has to take the stage after her, though. Talk about an impossibly high bar to clear. You or I will never match this energy. We could hurt ourselves even trying. Best to play it safe and just stay home.

WINNER: Henry Winkler

Dude has been massively famous for like 50 years now and seems to be just delighted by the spectacle of it all even today.

What a wonderful man.

Back in October of 2021, the Phoenix Suns and several members of the organization released a statement regarding an upcoming ESPN story about the team’s owner, Robert Sarver. It was unclear what, exactly, they were talking about until a few weeks later, when a story came out alleging that Sarver fostered a hostile work environment, which included numerous examples of racism and sexism in the workplace.

The NBA announced an independent investigation shortly after, and on Tuesday, the league handed down its punishment based on more than 300 interviews and “the evaluation of more than 80,000 documents and other materials, including emails, text messages and videos.” As a result, Sarver is banned from the Suns and the Phoenix Mercury for a year, he has been handed a fine of $10 million, and while he is away from the teams, Sarver is required to “complete a training program focused on respect and appropriate conduct in the workplace.”

Beyond that, the Suns and the Mercury “must fulfill a series of requirements for workplace improvements set forth and monitored by the NBA.” The investigation determined that, among other things, Sarver has used the N-word on multiple occasions and was inappropriate towards women and men.

Sarver purchased the Suns and the Mercury in 2004. Earlier this week, Ashley Silva, a former employee of the organization, criticized the NBA for its handling of the probe, tweeting that “a lot of us trusted you, broke our NDA, and were traumatized all over again speaking to the attorneys you assigned because we thought you’d do the right thing.”