Category: News

Social media users weren’t the only people lighting up Jimmy Kimmel for laying on the ground during Quinta Brunson’s Emmys speech. Her Abbott Elementary co-star (and fellow Emmy winner) Sheryl Lee Ralph apparently gave Kimmel a piece of her mind backstage. During a Television Critics Association panel for Abbott‘s upcoming second season, Brunson played down the Emmys moment and encouraged everyone to tune into Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday night where she planned to have a “good time” with the late night host.

Ralph, on the other hand, made it very clear that she did not appreciate Kimmel’s bit and told him as much. Via The Wrap:

“I was absolutely confused. I didn’t know what was going on. But I was like, ‘I wish that man would just get up off of the ground.’ And then I realized it was Jimmy Kimmel, and then I was just, ‘Ooh, the disrespect Jimmy.’ But that’s just me, sorry. I am so sorry.” She added sarcastically, “Oh, it was lovely that he was lying on the floor during her wonderful acceptance speech.”

“I told him too — to his face — and he understood,” Ralph concluded.

With the Kimmel issue settled, and co-star Lisa Ann Walters loving how “so bold” Ralph has become since her Emmys win, the cast dropped some new details about Season 2. According to Decider writer Meghan O’Keefe, Brunson told the panel that the show will follow the teachers “home” to learn where these people came from. However, Walters made a point to note that the family drama in the second season is not about her real family even though her sister will probably think it spills personal details. “It does not, Laura!” Walters quipped.

Abbott Elementary Season 2 premieres September 21 on ABC.

(Via The Wrap)

10 years ago, a budding Canadian singer named Carly Rae Jepsen splashed into the pop music world’s hearts with her first single, “Call Me Maybe.” Somehow, it’s still her only No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 and it has gotten ARIA platinum certification 15 times over. But the album it was on, Kiss, was truly about much more than just that one viral hit. Songs like “Good Time” and “Tiny Little Birds” are an integral part of the CRJ canon. Fellow Canadian Justin Bieber even hopped on “Beautiful” and the album hit the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart.

So now that Kiss celebrates its 10th anniversary this week, Jepsen took to Instagram to reflect on the past ten years and what that album meant to her now-illustrious career in pop. “This is my first-ever pop record! And the reason I couldn’t give up on Los Angeles too fast,” she wrote. “10 years ago, I came to LA for one little show and then accidentally moved here forever. It was meant to be a weekend trip but I’d call home every few weeks to say ‘send more clothes.’ We made the album KISS in those months and I sang about my first round of LA hallucinations…”

She thanked fans for sticking with her on the ride and also announced a vinyl release to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Kiss. Meanwhile, her new album, The Loneliest Time will be coming out on October 21st.

As Marcus Mumford is getting ready to release his debut album, the Mumford & Sons leader opened up about how Neil Young inspired the project. In a recent interview with NME, Mumford talked about the advice that the Canadian rock icon gave him a decade ago.

Following over a decade of success with Mumford & Sons, Mumford is releasing his album Self-Titled on Friday (September 16). In July, he first teased the LP with his haunting lead single “Cannibal.” Mumford has since followed with the singles “Grace” and “Better Off High.” In the interview, Mumford spoke about how a chat with Neil Young inspired his debut album.

A decade ago, Young gave Mumford advice that turned out to be invaluable for putting together his solo LP. Mumford said:

“Neil Young sat me down about ten years ago and told me the importance of recorded music and that I should pay more attention to the way in which we record because I was always [like], ‘Ah, it’s just an advert for a live show.’ He was like, ‘No man, these things last.’ I felt like on this record, I listened to that [advice]. I paid closer attention to the way it sounded than anything I’d ever done before.”

Back in July, Mumford performed with Joni Mitchell as part of her surprise set at Newport Folk Festival. About the experience of performing “My Funny Valentine” for her, he added, “It was just magical. Joni actually said to me, ‘Your instincts are good, you should just play’, when I was worried about a song. I was like, ‘Well, that’s a tattoo I’ve gotta get! Joni Mitchell says I have good instincts.’ It was just so sweet.”

Check out Uproxx’s ranking of every Neil Young studio album here.

Self-Titled is out 9/16 via Capitol Records. Pre-order it here.

Last week, Modest Mouse announced that they’ll be heading out on a tour this year to for the 25th anniversary of their iconic album, The Lonesome Crowded West. Beginning in November, they’ll be hitting the road across the country and what better way to celebrate the milestone than selling off a bunch of gear that they used to record it and just about every other album and tour that they’ve ever done? Sounds wild, but these are facts only my friends.

Beginning on September 21st, Modest Mouse will be opening “The Official Modest Mouse Reverb Shop” on the Reverb musical instruments re-sale platform. Some of the gear includes Line 6 Variax Acoustic 700s, which were used on the Good News For People Who Like Bad News and We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank tours, A Wunder Audio Console that they have used for “everything Modest Mouse since 2012” and — perhaps the piece de resistance — a pair of Fender Super Six guitar combos, which they used in the band’s early days up until 2001, including the This Is A Long Drive, The Lonesome Crowded West, Interstate 8, and Building Nothing Out Of Something recordings and tours. “We dragged these amps all around the world for the first 10 years of the band,” Modest Mouse said on Reverb. “If these two Fender Super Sixes could speak, they would be advised to keep their mouths shut.”

The shop goes live on Reverb 09/21 and you can sign up for a newsletter to get notified when the sale is live here.

Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver was given a one-year suspension and fined $10 million as the result of a nearly year-long investigation into dozens of reported incidents in which Sarver repeatedly used the N-word, fostered a hostile work environment for women, and more.

That is a considerably light punishment for someone with as much money as Sarver, who won’t lose out on anything else during a year suspension other than the ability to be around the team. The punishment felt particularly lenient considering the last two times NBA owners have been investigated and found to have used racist language — most famously the Clippers with Donald Sterling and more quietly the Hawks’ Bruce Levenson — those owners have been either forced to sell the team (Sterling) or voluntarily sold it to avoid such scrutiny (Levenson).

On Wednesday, Adam Silver met with the media and tried to defend the choice of punishment and the difference between Sarver and Sterling, without offering any specifics and citing it was “proprietary” due to confidentiality agreements.

Silver had the option to suspend Sarver for more than a year but chose not to, citing Sarver expressing remorse for his actions — which is quite the difference from a year ago when Sarver vehemently denied the reporting from ESPN’s Baxter Holmes that proved to be true and accurate.

The more Silver was pressed, the more it became clear there wasn’t really a good answer for Sarver still being an NBA owner. He said the quiet part out loud about the privilege of being an incredibly rich man in America, noting that there’s different rules for owners and team employees (who surely would be fired for similar behavior).

As for the insistence that Sarver has evolved over the last 18 years and many of the allegations are from early in his tenure as owner, Vince Goodwill pointed out that a recent known use of the N-word from Sarver was in 2017.

The truth is, there’s not a good reason for Sarver getting away with this beyond the other owners not liking the precedent being set that using racist and sexist language and fostering a hostile work environment is enough to get someone forced into selling their team. Mark Cuban rather famously called the Sterling decision a “slippery slope,” which we probably should have seen as foreshadowing for the inevitable report that came in 2018 on a hostile work environment in the Dallas Mavericks organization towards women.

This press conference was a reminder that, for as nice as Silver is as a commissioner, his job is to do what the owners want and to then be the meat shield when questions arise. He earned those paychecks on Wednesday, even if the answers he provided were far from what anyone other than the owners wanted to hear.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: There’s a grand conspiracy to make Alex Jones look bad. Only this time around, it’s not about the spy ring that’s reportedly keeping tabs on his wife (both former and current) nor is it the chemicals hidden in soda cans that are trying to shrink his penis. Nope, this latest conspiracy is about preventing the world from knowing that Jones’ new book, The Great Reset, is the biggest best-seller of all time.

While stopping by the Louder with Crowder radio show, Jones boasted that his book has outsold literally everything on the market, but the numbers are being hidden by The New York Times and the publishing industry at large. Via Mediaite:

“Stuff way down their list, we sold dozens of times more. And that’s just in the first month of its sale at cash registers at stores. That’s how that happens. It doesn’t count all the massive amounts that got sold online at Amazon or InfoWars.com,” Jone insisted.

“So it is the number one book, not just fiction, not just non-fiction — all of them. More than any textbook, more than any Harry Potter book,” he declared.

Like most of Jones’ claims, there’s zero evidence to back up his claims. As Mediaite notes, Publisher’s Weekly has The Great Reset selling 300,000 copies, which is nowhere near the juggernaut sales of the Harry Potter books. As for Jones’ claim that sales have been phenomenal on InfoWars.com, he’s provided no data to prove that’s the case. You’re just going to have to take his word for it, which we strongly advise not doing. We mentioned the soda can thing, right? Enough said.

(Via Mediaite)

Donovan Mitchell, apparently, was just like the majority of the NBA world when it came to his surprise when he ended up being dealt to Cleveland out of the blue two weeks ago. At his introductory press conference with the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday, the three-time All-Star addressed an array of topics, including his belief that he was going to be traded to the New York Knicks.

“I thought for sure I was going back home, I’m not gonna lie about that,” Mitchell said. “But when I found out where I was headed, who I was playing with, the group, the team, the coaching staff, I couldn’t be more happy to be here, to be a part of this organization … and add to do it. I think that for me is what I’m truly excited about.”

When news of the deal between Cleveland and the Utah Jazz broke, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported that Mitchell was playing golf. Ecstatic to learn none of Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley or Kevin Love were involved, he jubilantly ran around the golf course in celebration. On Wednesday, nearly two weeks later, Mitchell confirmed Windhorst’s report.

“When I first found out, I was golfing, so that report is true,” he said. “I was running around crazy, mainly in fact when I figured out who we kept in the deal because I didn’t know who was in the trade. I just knew I was traded. And when I found out DG, JA, Ev, and Caris (LeVert) and all these guys, I was like, ‘Wow, like we got a talented group.’ ”

Mitchell also said that when Rudy Gobert was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves in late June, he “kind of saw the writing on the wall” as to the fact his time in Utah was likely over.

As a fun tidbit, he noted he grew up as not merely a LeBron James fun, but a Cavaliers fan as a whole and loves playing in Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

“It’s crazy how life comes full circle,” he said.

Bad Bunny is in the midst of his World’s Hottest Tour of stadiums around North and South America. After passing through Texas last week, his Western US swing begins tonight at Oakland’s RingCentral Coliseum. But he was already in the Bay Area yesterday when he decided to bring 80 of his closest confidants out to dinner at a small, but popular Puerto Rican restaurant in the Bay Area.

“Over the phone, they just said, ‘We have 80 Puerto Ricans,’” Francisco Gomez of San Rafael Puerto Rican staple Sol Food told the San Francisco Chronicle. A caravan of black SUVs rolled up at around 6 p.m., and Bad Bunny stepped into the restaurant decked out in full Louis Vuitton get up, including an LV scarf covering his face. At one point, the “Tití Me Preguntó” singer went to the restaurant’s kitchen to err… lend a hand to the cooks, and posted a clip to his Instagram Story of the backstage restaurant jaunt:

Treating his dancers and tour staff to a homestyle Puerto Rican dinner while on tour comes with a reason celebrate for Bad Bunny and his team. On Monday, his album Un Verano Sin Ti, shot back up to the top of the Billlboard 200 chart, marking it’s 10th week atop the charts in 2022. With that, it broke the Encanto soundtrack’s record for the year of weeks at No. 1.

While fans of Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series grew to love Olivia Rodrigo‘s character Nini over the span of the show’s three seasons, it seems she won’t be returning for season four.

Prior to the release of season three on July 27, fans had wondered just how much of a role Rodrigo would play, as her 2021 debut album made her an immediate pop star. She had stepped down from a main cast member for the third season, appearing in only a handful of scenes across three episodes. Still, Rodrigo appeared alongside her castmates at the season three premiere.

“love all these people so so so much. knowing and working with them has been one of the greatest joys of my life. episode 1 of season 3 of hsmtmts is streaming now! wildcats forever,” Rodrigo captioned photos of them together on Instagram, leading many to believe her time on the show was officially over.

Rodrigo’s story arc as Nini finds her traveling to LA to meet her biological dad, before returning to tell her teacher Miss Jenn that she wants to move there for good in today’s finale episode. Basically put, she leaves the school, while being able to wrap up her permanent departure from the series nicely.

“Miss Jenn, I didn’t want to say goodbye because goodbye means it’s over. So I just want to say thank you. After tonight’s performance, it’s clear that there’s already so much talent at East. So I’m gonna go West. Here’s to the start of something new. Forever your Wildcat, Nini,” her character writes in the show, according to Popbuzz.

The High School Musical: The Musical: The Series showrunner Tim Federle had also alluded to Rodrigo’s ending on the show during a July 21 interview with Entertainment Weekly. “This season it’s about trying to give her character a proper sendoff while also leaving room for other characters to really step into the fray and step into the spotlight. And personally, it’s a joy to see Olivia’s music explode in such a big way,” Federle said.

Still, he makes it clear that there is always the possibility for fans to see her acting as Nini again someday, if Rodrigo chooses. “It’s so funny, we are early enough in the season 4 writers’ room that I’d be lying if I told you I had an exactly right answer for that. I would never say never to Olivia, and I would never use the word ‘last,’ because I hope the show goes on and on and on,” he noted in a separate EW interview.

It’s hard to imagine what the early 2000s would’ve been like without Britney Spears’ debut hit single “…Baby One More Time” as the soundtrack. However, notorious grump/American Idol judge Simon Cowell recently revealed that he almost prevented the track, written by Max Martin, from going to Spears.

Not only did Cowell ask Martin to give “…Baby One More Time” to 5ive, a British boy band he was working with, instead, but he bribed him. On Howie Mandel’s podcast Howie Mandel Does Stuff, he said:

“I had a boy band at the time called 5ive, who I’d put together. And we were just on the verge of breaking them from America. Someone phones me from America and says, ‘I’ve just been played this song. And it was written for TLC.’ TLC passed. The guy plays it down the phone to me, this song ‘Hit me baby one more time.’ I’m like, ‘My God, I’ve got to have this song.’ So I phoned up Max. I said, ‘Max. Please, please give me this song.’ And he went, ‘I’ve promised it to someone else.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll send you a Mercedes — literally a Mercedes 500 SL if I can have this song.’ And he went, ‘No. I promised it to somebody else.’ And I went, ‘Who.’ He said, ‘Britney Spears.’ I said, ‘Max, let me give you some advice. No one is going to have a hit with a name called Britney Spears.’”

Listen to the full podcast episode above.