Category: News

Ray J loves his sister Brandy. I mean, he really loves his sister Brandy. Last year, he got a large tattoo of Brandy’s name inked on his arm in the same font as the cover of her debut self-titled album. But that wasn’t enough, because Ray-J just got another tattoo of his sister on his body. This time it’s of her face and it’s on his right leg. But it’s not as straightforward as that may sound.

Ray J posted an Instagram Video (set to Brandy’s song “Best Friend”) to showcase the new ink, done by tattoo artist Mashkow, who has a very distinct style. It’s a portrait of Brandy, but with “Best Friend” written on her forehead, “4 Ever” on her cheeks (“4” on one and “Ever” on the other) and Mashkow’s signtaure over her right eyelid. It makes Brandy almost look like a Post Malone-style face-tatted caricature. But this is what Mashkow is known for and Ray J was pumped. “New Brandy tattoo by one of the greatest!! Mashkow,” he posted. Adding that, “I’m getting my whole leg tatted with – music- love – scriptures – the vocal bible – family -ghosts -positive words and themes – real gothic like — ‘The Holy Leg!! – Gonna take a minute!! But I got the best doing it!! Stay Tuned!! Full leg tatt — I had to start with my best friend!!”

It’s quite the homage to his sister. And perhaps now, it will finally register with people (ahem… Jack Harlow) that not only are Ray J and Brandy siblings, but they have been their whole lives.

Blackpink have been teasing their return for quite a bit this year, telling interviewers that they were preparing for their return and planning a tour. Today, YG Entertainment has finally announced the group’s return, which will happen this summer. New music will come in August; they’re currently in the final stages of recording an album.

“A lot of BLACKPINK-esque music has been prepared over a long period of time,” YG Entertainment said in a statement. “On top of new music and large-scale projects, BLACKPINK will also go on the largest world tour in the history of a K-pop girl group by the end of the year to expand their rapport with fans worldwide.”

The group’s last studio album was the eclectic 2020 LP The Album, whose video for “How You Like That” set the record for the biggest video premiere ever on the platform after 1.65 million people tuned in to the clip’s YouTube premiere. Shortly after, they broke another record: They became the most subscribed artist on YouTube, surpassing Justin Bieber with a total of 65.2 million subscribers, only five years and three months after they launched their official channel. Their long-awaited comeback is sure to be met with waves of excitement and enthusiasm.

In the aftermath of the horrifying mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois during a July 4 parade, the far right have done what they usually do in such situations: They tried to blame everything but the easy accessibility of assault-style rifles. The NRA actually posted about the glories of guns just before the incident, then made excuses after it happened. Marjorie Taylor Greene, meanwhile, fired off lots of fiction, prompting lots of bewildered pushback.

But the Georgia representative, who last week was simply making up words, wasn’t done. In a series of unhinged posts about the suspect, Robert Crimo, who has since been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, she went so far as to post an obviously photoshopped image of him.

Greene was demanding more be known about Crimo, who was only apprehended Monday night. “Release his records, school record, arrest, drugs and prescription drugs, hospitalizations, psychiatric,” she wrote.

Fair enough. But then she started speculated wildly, thanks in part to an image that was clearly doctored. It showed him smiling wildly, holding a bible while sitting in some kind of cell. One need not be an expert to know it was a fake, and not a very good one. But wouldn’t you know, it snookered the person who once believed in “Jewish space lasers.”

“Is he in jail or rehab or a psychiatric center in this photo? That’s not his bedroom,” she wrote. “22 yrs old and 5’11 and 120 lbs is not normal or healthy. What drugs or psychiatric drugs or both does he use?”

Not long thereafter, she offered a not-quite mea culpa, saying the image she posted — and used to fuel conspiracy theories about his history with mental health facilities — was “supposedly” photoshopped. But rather than prove her claims fake, she wrote, “More reasons to release his records. What’s wrong with him?”

There has been one part of Crimo’s history that’s come to light: In 2019, he threatened to kill his family, prompting a relative to call the police, who then confiscated numerous weapons. Three years later he was still able to legally obtain five guns, including the high-powered rifle he used to kill seven people and wound 30.

(Via Newsweek)

Believe it or not, Tom Cruise hasn’t had a billion dollar grosser until Top Gun: Maverick. During his first stint as the biggest movie star in the world, from the mid-‘80s through the mid-aughts, movies almost never made that kind of money. Then he was seen as kind of a weirdo for about 15 years, after his couch-jumping, Scientology-spouting antics made him a PR nightmare. But he’s worked his way back into the public’s good graces, and the reward is not only his biggest-ever hit, but also one absurd payday.

In a new piece for Puck, entertainment reporter Matthew Belloni breaks down the deal Cruise and his legal team worked out for the belated sequel he spent so long not wanting to make. His contract worked in two parts. First up, he was paid $12.5 million upfront. Then he scored 10 percent of the first dollar gross, “with escalators that increase his percentage at certain milestones,” Belloni says.

Right now the film’s worldwide gross is around $1.1 billion. It’s still in the box office Top 5 in North America. In fact, it’s behind last week’s big winner, the Minions sequel. Cruise doesn’t start getting backend until Paramount hits about $125 million in revenue, and they usually take about half of the box office gross domestically and a bit less internationally. If the film gets to $1.3 billion, which seems likely, Paramount’s revenue would be about $600 million, and 10 percent of that is, to be safe, about $55 million.

And that’s just from theatrical. He also gets cuts from home video, pay TV, streaming, etc. It’s not clear what his cut from those would be, but Belloni estimates that, end of the day, Cruise will get around $80 million to $90 million. He may even wind up with nine figures, just for one movie. And should there be a sequel, his contract would almost certainly be even better.

Anyway, good news for someone who’s already the most limber 60-something in the business.

(Via Puck)

Clairo‘s music can be pretty heartbreaking, especially when it comes to “Bags,” a vulnerable breakup ballad from her 2019 album Immunity. But the star has managed to render the song even more painful by inviting none other than Phoebe Bridgers to sing it with her on stage tonight in Milan, Italy at the Carroponte.

Crazed fans, of course, were able to capture the moment with videos on Twitter and frenzied captions. The footage is mostly screaming and the crowd singing along, but still, it was obviously a beautiful moment.

When the news broke that Roe V. Wade was about to be overturned, Bridgers was one of many musicians to use her platform to speak up about it. “As a white, upper-middle-class woman from California, even if it were to be overturned, I will always have access,” she wrote. “I have a friend who went to medical school — every time I need a doctor, I say, ‘Do you have someone that you recommend?’ So I would just go, ‘Hey, where do I go for the thing? Wink-wink.’ The people with access will always have access. What pisses me off is that we’re not talking about me. It’s so easy: I played in Texas the same week, and then I went home and was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Made the appointment. It was 12 hours of my life.”

On the 4th of July, a gunman opened fire at a parade in quaint Highland Park, Illinois, killing at least six people, injuring dozens and traumatizing (once again) an entire nation.

My family member who was at the parade was able to flee to safety, but the trauma of what she experienced will linger. For the toddler with the blood-soaked sock, carried to safety by a stranger after being pulled from under his father’s bullet-torn body, life will never be the same.

There’s a phrase I keep seeing in debates over gun violence, one that I can’t seem to shake from my mind. After the Uvalde school shooting, I shared my thoughts on why arming teachers is a bad idea, and a gentleman responded with this brief comment:

“Way to create more soft targets.”

Soft targets. That phrase gets me every time.

As far as I know, there are only two places in the world where children in school or people gathering for enjoyment are referred to as “soft targets”—active war zones and the United States of America.

Never in a million years would I think to use the words “soft targets” to refer to schoolchildren—or parade-goers, or people enjoying a live concert, or grocery shoppers or people in a bible study. I wouldn’t even use the term “unarmed civilians” unless I were in the military and actively involved in a military operation.

They’re not targets, they’re people. People just living life.

That’s what freedom is supposed to be, isn’t it? The ability to just live life?

Instead, we are being held hostage by a militarized monster of our own making, one that says the answer to America’s gun violence is more guns. (The irony, of course, being the fact that we already have more guns than people.) We see it in the weird worshipping of weapons, the Christmas cards with the whole family carrying, the bizarre fetish with one interpretation of one constitutional amendment to the exclusion of all others. It’s in the language being used not only in reference to guns, but in reference to people just going about their daily lives—that is, “soft targets.”

u201cThis poem is a punch in the gut.u201d

— Nikita Gill (@Nikita Gill)
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The truth is we should be “soft targets.” No, really. That’s what freedom is. We should be able to go to school and the store and our houses of worship without fear of being shot. We should be able to peaceably assemble per our First Amendment right without being scattered and shattered by gunfire.

We shouldn’t feel the need to arm ourselves simply to go about our daily lives. Feeling compelled to carry a gun at all times isn’t freedom. Living like we’re living right now, with mass shootings on the regular, isn’t freedom. And adding more guns won’t make us more free. It won’t. It hasn’t.

If the Highland Park parade shooting proved anything, it’s that even an event with a police presence in an idyllic, upscale, objectively “safe” suburb isn’t safe from mass gun violence. There were good guys with guns there. There were good guys with guns in Uvalde, too. There were good guys with guns in Buffalo. So many good guys with guns. And yet, here we are.

It’s time to look in the mirror and recognize how ridiculous we’ve become. Other civilized nations don’t refer to children as “soft targets.” They just don’t. While we’re debating whether the U.S. is a gun violence outlier because of doors or video games or mental illness, which the rest of the world has as well, our peers in other developed countries live their daily lives with freedom that we do not have—the freedom to gather without worrying that a whack job with a weapon of war is going to open fire, the freedom to go to school without rehearsing for a mass shooting event, the freedom to not ever think about carrying a gun to defend themselves against other guns.

Gun violence can happen anywhere, yes. But it happens far, far more often here than in other developed nations. There’s a reason for that. Perhaps when we finally accept that our culture’s dysfunctional relationship with guns is the problem, the idea of referring to people simply living their lives as “soft targets” will be as disturbing here as it is everywhere else.

There were multiple mass shootings in America on July 4, including an attempted one in Philadelphia that sent crowds racing to safety. But the deadliest occurred in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago. Seven people were killed and 30 injured, with the shooter escaping the scene. Robert Crimo, 21, was later apprehended and has now been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. But new details suggest his actions could have been thwarted had there been stricter gun laws.

As per The Guardian, police first encountered Crimo back in April of 2019, after a suicide attempt. In September of that same year, one of his relatives called police after Crimo threatened to “kill everyone” in his family home. As a result, a police taskforce confiscated several weapons: 16 knives, a dagger, and a sword.

And yet four years later, Crimo was still able to legally obtain five guns, including the high-powered rifle he used to snipe at crowds at an Independence Day parade from atop a building. (Highland Park outlaws assault-style weapons within city limits, but officials don’t always enforce such rules.)

Police report that Crimo had been planning the massacre for weeks, even posting dozens of violent videos. One featured him reading, “Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, even myself.”

The Highland Park mass shooting has so far followed the usual trajectory of such tragedies. Survivors and local leaders call on something, anything to be done, while far right second amendment absolutists tweet nonsense, knowing it won’t.

(Via The Guardian)

This year, Key Glock has been working tirelessly, releasing song after song after song, with videos as well. He released “No Choice” last month, as well as “12AM” and a remix of Denzel Curry’s “Walkin.” In March, he unveiled the deluxe version of 2021’s Yellow Tape 2, which had 30 songs and no features.

The 24-year-old rapper is back today with “Diapers,” a two-minute track with a seamless flow full of flexes and quips: “First name Michael, I ball like Michael / Tyson, 10-carats in rings bitin’ / Came in f*cking sh*t up, Joe Biden.” It also comes with a video with lots of smoke, wads of cash, and an appearance from Big Moochie Grape.

In April, the Memphis native was asked in an interview with Mormon how he’s been doing since the death of Young Dolph, who was his friend and was tragically shot and killed in his hometown of Memphis while shopping at a bakery. “I’m maintaining,” Glock said. “Like, I’m not getting better, I’m not getting worse. I’m just here right now.” He continued, “I can’t shake it, man. I ain’t even gonna lie. I can’t even shake it. It is what it is.”

Watch the video for “Diapers” above.

Another year and another hot girl summer for Megan Thee Stallion. She has been incredibly busy coming into 2022’s mid-year season, starting with the drop of her provocative video for “Plan B. She’s also been using her platform to spread awareness about a woman’s right to choose, starting a, “My body, my motherf*cking choice” chant during her Glastonbury festival set, and is trying to find time to chill out as festival season begins to pick up steam.

These music festival appearances are about to dominate Meg’s summer and she’s currently on top of the lineup of a slew of European fests. She just wrapped up a headlining set at Dublin’s Longitude fest and heads to Switzerland’s Openair Frauenfeld next. But in between these trips, she also knows how to find a shoreline or two to relax and recharge by the beach. According to Megan’s Instagram stories, she was just taking a breather in Portugal. She just posted a series of photos to social media donning a string bikini that does not leave much to the imagination. Posing both on the beach and against a marbled wall, the butterfly-themed swimsuit accentuates her curves to the max. “This why he obsessed, CLINGY,” she said in the caption.

From Switzerland, she heads to Wireless Festival in London, before an eventual grand finale at Lollapalooza in Paris. So there’s no telling where the next relaxation station will be.

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

Passing around your yearbook to have it signed by friends, teachers and classmates is a fun rite of passage for kids in junior high and high school. But, according to KDVR, for Brody Ridder, a bullied sixth grader at The Academy of Charter Schools in Westminster, Colorado, it was just another day of putting up with rejection.

Poor Brody was only able to get four signatures in his yearbook, two from what appeared to be teachers and one from himself that said, “Hope you make some more friends.”

Brody’s mom, Cassandra Ridder has been devastated by the bullying her son has faced over the past two years. “There [are] kids that have pushed him and called him names,” she told The Washington Post. It has to be terrible to have your child be bullied and there is nothing you can do.

She posted about the incident on Facebook.

“My poor son. Doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better. 2 teachers and a total of 2 students wrote in his yearbook,” she posted on Facebook. “Despite Brody asking all kinds of kids to sign it. So Brody took it upon himself to write to himself. My heart is shattered. Teach your kids kindness.”

Parents saw the post and told their kids the heartbreaking story. So a group of kind upperclassmen at the school stood up for Brody by tracking him down and signing his yearbook.

“We walked in and we were like where’s Brody at? Is Brody Ridder in here? And they’re like yeah he’s in the back and we’re like Brody! We’re here to sign your yearbook bud,” Simone Lightfoot told KDVR. In a quick reversal of fortune, Brody had a line around him to sign his book and he received more than 100 signatures.

While students rallied around Brody at school, the story and Facebook post went viral, attracting the attention of one of the most beloved guys in Hollywood, “Ant-Man” star, Paul Rudd.

After Rudd heard Brody’s story he called him on the phone.

“I heard about you and I’m like, ‘I gotta talk to this kid, because this kid sounds like my kinda guy,'” he said in a recording posted to Facebook by Cassandra. “He likes chess, he likes fencing, he likes dinosaurs. Am I right?”

Rudd also sent him a letter that read:

“It’s important to remember that even when life is tough that things get better. There are so many people that love you and think you’re the coolest kid there is — me being one of them! I can’t wait to see all the amazing things you’re going to accomplish.”

He also sent a gift, an Ant-Man helmet for when Brody decides to take on “the WORLD!”

Rudd’s gesture was a wonderful example of someone using their celebrity to uplift others. It’s no wonder that Stephen Colbert once called him “the nicest person on the planet.”

The outpouring of support from his classmates and people from around the world was encouraging for both mother and son.

“It just made me feel better as a person. I don’t know how to explain it. It just makes me feel better on the inside,” he told KDVR.

“It made me feel like there’s hope for the school, there’s hope for humanity and there’s a lot of good kids in this world,” his mother added.

If you would like to send Brody a letter, mail it to:

Brody Ridder

PO Box 99

Henderson, CO 80640