Category: News

On Feb. 2, Hulu subscribers will finally get to see the first three episodes of Pam & Tommy, the miniseries that chronicles the release of one of the most famous sex tapes in history. Truth is often stranger than fiction, and so it is with the wild story of how a most intimate tape found its way onto video store shelves. It remains to be seen how accurate the show, which stars Lily James and Sebastian Stan as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, will be. (Though Anderson rebuffed James’ attempts to get in touch.) But it’s not as though they have to do much fibbing to make it interesting.

Anderson and Lee were only married for three years, but they had a whirlwind relationship. As per a new piece about the tape by Esquire, Anderson, a model and then one of the breakout stars of Baywatch, met Lee, drummer for raucous metal rockers Mötley Crüe, at a New Years Eve party in 1994. Four days later, he proposed. By mid-February they were wed. They documented their honeymoon night, albeit only for themselves.

But in early 1996, shortly after Anderson gave birth to their child, they learned the tape of their post-martial assignation had somehow gone public. “One night, Pamela and I were chowing down on some dinner and flipping through television stations when we heard our names being mentioned on some news show,” Lee told Esquire. “On the screen, there was a dude at Tower Video stocking the shelves with videotapes. And we knew just what they were.”

How did this very private tape find its way into the world? It had to do with builders who had been hired to work on their Malibu home. After being dismissed for doing what Lee deemed a poor job, one of them — a former porn star named Rand Gauthier — broke into their home, removed a safe containing the tape (as well as jewelry, family heirlooms, and photographs), and sold it to a retired porn star, who sold copies over the internet. That prompted a legal battle led by Lee and Anderson to get sales of the tape stopped.

You can learn more about the sex tape scandal on Esquire, and you can watch the miniseries version — featuring Seth Rogen as Gauthier — starting Feb. 2 on Hulu.

Though Katy Perry’s life has been a bit more focused on events like marriage and motherhood lately, she still managed to release a new album, Smile, back in 2020. And since then, she’s also been working on a career-spanning Vegas residency called Play that recently debuted. A campy, balls-to-the-wall Vegas show full of costumes and new vocal arrangements is also the perfect time to appear on Saturday Night Live, so Perry has brought two of her Play-style songs to the late show tonight.

Kicking off her performances with the most logical choice, a brand new EDM banger that’s a collaboration with Alesso called “When I’m Gone,” Perry proved just how much of an acid trip her Vegas show is by performing with a series of dancers who can only be described as wearing “mushroom penis costumes.” Clad in a patent leather, shiny red pantsuit of her own, Perry brought a powerful vocal performance to the song, and Alesso was there performing it with her And since so many people get criticized for a fear of performing live vocals on SNL, it was impressive that Katy’s were very clearly live. And the same is true for her second performance of the night, her 2019 single “Never Really Over.”

Check out her live version of “When I’m Gone” above.

LCD Soundsystem should’ve ended 2021 with a triumphant slew of year-end shows that welcomed fans back to live music — but that dreaded Omicron variant had other plans. When a new outbreak of Covid-19 began to wreak havoc on New York City, even severely limiting taping for that week’s episode of Saturday Night Live (and sadly no Charli XCX), the NYC indie icons ended up making the heartbreaking decision to cancel some of their last shows during the mini-run at Brooklyn Steel.

Luckily for them, the band will still have a chance to put on a show (and maybe even play the hits?) for fans next month as the musical guests on Saturday Night Live. The announcement came as a bit of a surprise tonight, when the upcoming show’s host, comedian John Mulaney, took to Twitter to give fans the good news. He used the phrase “and just like that” to let fans know he’d be hosting — marking his fifth time hosting the show — and getting in a clever use of the title of the Sex And The City reboot all at the same time.

Since Mulaney’s last public appearances, he has gotten divorced from his longtime wife, Anna Marie Tendler, and also got together with Olivia Munn and fathered a child with her. So, maybe he has some new material in the works? Seems likely. Check in next month to see what he has to say — and for those James Murphy dance moves.

Katy Perry has been shifting gears in her career recently. The pop star recently had her first baby, Daisy, so she wrote a song that name checks her daughter, natch. She also recently unveiled Play, a very campy, career-spanning show in Vegas, and pretty shortly after let fans know a sneak peek of that show would be coming to SNL.

Though she’s been a bit more of a downturn critically since the release of her 2017 album, Witness, her latest release in 2020, Smile, had a few more bangers that made their way through. And some of them even made their way into her Vegas show, and by proxy, SNL. Perry opened up the show with an adapted version of her latest single, a collaboration with Alesso called “When I’m Gone,” but her second song of the night was of the 2019 single “Never Really Over.” This one involved a more acoustic version of the song, more mushroom dancers, and a stunning, voluminous blue tulle skirt.

If the clips of her Vegas residency on social media are to be trusted, costumes are a huge part of the residency, so she’s brought that same energy to Saturday Night Live to help illustrate how involved the show is. Check out her performance of “Never Really Over” above.

The Brooklyn Nets went out to the west coast to take on the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night, and while Kyrie Irving was on the floor, Brooklyn didn’t have the services of Kevin Durant or James Harden. As a result, the team didn’t quite have enough firepower to take down the Dubs, and the home team won, 110-106.

There was a moment late in the game, however, that presented a gigantic swing in Golden State’s favor. Steph Curry pump faked and got Kessler Edwards in the air, at which point he jumped into the Nets’ rookie, pretended to shoot for a split second, then realized nothing good could come of it and passed. The problem for Brooklyn was that Edwards, somehow, got called for a foul here.

If anything, Curry initiating the contact here means that the foul should have been called on him. But instead, he got the call, went to the line, and knocked down a pair of free throws to extend the Warriors’ lead to 102-97. There was an avenue through which this could have been remedied — the Nets had not used their challenge at this point — but Steve Nash decided he didn’t want to do that.

It raised the question: Why on earth did he do that when this is an objectively bad call that is going against his team? As Nash explained after the game, it’s because someone told him not to do that.

With the loss, Brooklyn fell to sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

The Memphis Grizzlies are one of the best stories in basketball this season, as the team entered Saturday night 34-17, good for third place in the Western Conference. Part of what has made Memphis so much fun to watch this season has been the play of third-year guard Ja Morant, who has taken quite the leap en route to being named an All-Star starter for the first time in his young career.

Morant produces highlights at an insane rate, something that really just applies to the Grizzlies in general. Behold our latest example of this, which happened on Saturday night against the Washington Wizards and almost did not count.

Spencer Dinwiddie thought he had a dunk, but was met at the summit by Desmond Bane. The ball eventually made its way into the hands of Jaren Jackson Jr., who brought the ball up the court and decided to throw a dang lob up for Morant, who took off, threw down a windmill, and dunked.

As you can see, the referee called Jackson for a charge, which took a little bit of the juice out of the moment, but Taylor Jenkins challenged and it got overturned. It is unclear if the overturn was because it was not a charge (it was not) or if the referee decided this was far too cool to not stand.

It’s World Surf League season! Starting today and running through February 10th (wave conditions permitting), WSL’s Billabong Pro Pipeline competition will put an official start to the 2022 WSL Championship Tour. The Pro Pipeline will see world champion surfers, Olympians, and even some up and comers hailing from all around the world come together to begin competing for the world title race.

This year’s competition is particularly notable because it marks the 20th anniversary of the film Blue Crush, which is based on Susan Orlean’s terrific article “Life’s Swell,” which chronicles the story of the women of the late ‘90s Hawaiian surf scene and holds a special place in the surfing community — especially as the WSL makes real, determined efforts to better involve women in the pro surfing scene. This year’s competition will see women included in the infamous Pipeline contest as well as a full combined tour with men.

“To have the women surf Pipe is incredible,” says Tyler Wright, two-time consecutive WSL World Champion. “A lot of hard work has happened to get us here today. I think it will take us a few years to get used to it, but it’s exciting.”

“I’m scared of Pipe,” Wright continues. “I don’t even hide that. It’s a wave that makes you pull every single resource. All the choices and all these things you have to read within half a second while surfing there really pulls everything you got as a surfer. ”

That’s a sentiment shared by 2019 World Title champion Italo Ferreira, “Pipeline demands a lot from us surfers,” he says. “It’s a challenging wave for sure. Winning my World Title here in 2019 and making it to the semifinals last year doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be here on Finals day. Nothing is guaranteed when it comes to Pipe.”

Former champs showing this much hesitancy to talk a big game shows just how intense and demanding this year’s competition is set to be. Anything can happen, and that’s what makes the Pro Pipeline a must-watch in the weeks ahead.

To catch the WSL Billabong Pro Pipeline, be sure to keep your eye on the official WSL site from now until February 10th (the Men’s contest started today) or watch via the WSLapp or the official WSL YouTube channel.

The second season of Euphoria got underway earlier this month, bringing back the many characters we’ve come to love (or despise) over the course of the show’s first season. They include Rue Bennet (played by Zendaya), Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer), Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie), and Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney). This season has also brought new characters into the mix, a group highlight by Elliot who is played by Dominic Fike. Elliot meets Rue at a drug-filled New Year’s Eve party and the two quickly form a bond that Jules, who is also Rue’s girlfriend, initially questions but later accepts after warming up to Elliot.

So, who is Dominic Fike from Euphoria?

Aside from being an actor on the show, Fike is also a singer who delivered his first project back in 2017 with his Don’t Forget About Me, Demos EP. The project earned the singer plenty of attention from around the industry and it later sparked a bidding war between record labels to sign him. Fike eventually picked Columbia in 2018 where he re-released Don’t Forget About Me, Demos and his debut album, 2020’s What Could Possibly Go Wrong? That project featured no guest appearances across the 14 songs present on it.

Elsewhere, Fike has worked with Justin Bieber, Slowthai, Halsey, Kevin Abstract, and more throughout his career.

Five months after Kanye West released his tenth album Donda, which was met with a few delays, the rapper is prepared to release its sequel. Earlier this week, West announced that Donda 2 will arrive on February 22 and that it will be executive-produced by Future. Many are understandably unsure if West will deliver the album on that day, as he has a well-documented history of pump-faking on release dates. However, thanks to an Instagram story Kanye shared, there’s seems to be some significance behind the date he chose, which hopefully means it will arrive on schedule.

West shared a screenshot that revealed February 22 is also a big deal in astrology. “Astrologically, a Pluto return is when the heavenly body returns to the same position in a birth chart where it was when the chart began,” the image read. According to Bustle, Pluto’s return occurs once every 248 years, meaning that this will be the first one in the United States since the nation’s founding.

Furthermore, one of Future’s nicknames is Pluto, dating back to his 2012 debut album of the same title. Other times Future has used the name were on his 2012 mixtape Astronaut Status, and his 2021 joint project with Lil Uzi Vert, Pluto X Baby Pluto.

You can view a screenshot of Kanye’s post above.

Earlier this month, in news that doesn’t augur well for the rest of 2022, one of the more beloved celebrity couples —Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet — split up. It was amicable. The two released a joint statement in which they declared that they have decided to “free each other.” Momoa wasn’t just close with Bonet. He also had great relationships with both her daughter, Zoe Kravitz, and her father/Bonet’s ex-husband Lenny Kravitz. And despite the break-up, it looks like he has every intention of staying in their lives.

On Thursday, Momoa dropped an Instagram post featuring a new poster for The Batman, the forthcoming revival of the Caped Crusader, which stars Robert Pattinson in yet another bleak-o-rama take on the classic comic book character. Zoe plays Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, who appears to be friendly-ish with Bruce Wayne, as in The Dark Knight Rises, in which she was played by Anne Hathaway.

“so proud. can’t wait. march 4th love u zozo,” Momoa wrote in the caption.

The Batman — whose filming was famously halted mid-shoot due to the onset of the pandemic — will finally hit theaters on March 4, and it has a truly epic run-time. Before that, HBO Max subscribers can watch Zoe in KIMI, Steven Soderbergh’s new thriller, due on Feb. 10. As for Momoa, he may be going bad for the 10th Fast & Furious outing.

(Via HuffPost)