Category: News

The NBA has spent the past few years trying to figure out how to improve its All-Star festivities, and has seemingly found a pretty great formula for the All-Star Game itself. The player draft has brought some intrigue to the selection process, while the Elam Ending format has delivered far more competitive fourth quarters since its institution.

For the 2022 edition of All-Star Weekend in Cleveland, the NBA is looking into ways to spruce up its Friday night event, as the Rising Stars Game has not been the most exciting in recent years — particularly since going to the USA vs. World format. This year, though, the league is getting rid of those designations and will invite 28 players to participate, breaking them into four teams of seven that will play a bracket style format.

The teams will be drafted from a pool of 12 rookies, 12 sophomores, and 4 members of the G League Ignite (one for each team), and the semifinal games will be a race to 50, with the final game being a sprint to 25.

There will also be a “Clutch Challenge” between the second semifinal and the final in which teams of two will try to recreate legendary shots, which sounds a lot like a NBA 2K minigame being brought to real life.

The Rising Stars Game can produce some fun moments, but usually drags on for too long with a lopsided score. The new format will make for quicker, hopefully more entertaining games, and adding fresh faces from the Ignite might boost the competitive juices, as they’ll surely be looking to make a name for themselves and the current NBA players will be trying not to be on the wrong end of a viral clip from a 17- or 18-year-old.

We’ll find out how well the new format works on February 18 at 9:00 p.m. ET on TNT.

Ari Lennox has had enough. She made her feelings abundantly clear this week that she wants out of her Dreamville/Interscope Records deal following the backlash she received online following an interview with Johannesburg-based Podcast And Chill podcast. “I want to be dropped from the labels. I’m done and tired,” Lennox said in a since deleted tweet.

From where I’m standing, an interviewer asking a female artist “Is someone f*cking you good right now?” is not something that constitutes healthy music media practices — regardless of whether or not it’s a reference to one of the artist’s songs. Come on, dawg. So Lennox’s annoyance with the internet peanut gallery (in another since-deleted tweet) seems warranted. “For Christ sakes,” she wrote. “I realize I have no hits. I realize you all can live without hearing my music. I realize my complaining is so aggravating to y’all. I don’t ask blogs to post me when I’m at my worst. You judgmental self-hating parasites wouldn’t last a day as a signed artist.”

Hardly a peacemaker, Rick Ross decided to join the peanut gallery with his thoughts on what might make Lennox feel better about her displeasure with the label. “She needs @wingstop,” he commented on an Instagram post from hip-hop gossip account The Shade Room. Never mind that Ross owns over 25 Wingstop franchises himself, including one that he recently bought for his son’s 16th birthday.

And while Ross’ was the top comment on that Instagram post for a while, it’s now the second most liked comment to one from user @n.askey, who said “I think all her songs are hits to me !!! I love her.” Looks like today, love prevails over snark and self-promotion. Holler.

Mississippi rapper Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd was arrested for battery in Miami this morning according to TMZ, which reports that Jxmmi is accused of attacking his girlfriend, with whom he has a child, and pulling out her hair extensions. The altercation began when the woman confronted the rapper about a woman he was following on Instagram.

After the argument, the report says, Jxmmi and a friend left the residence, and when he returned, he was apparently drunk. According to police, the alleged victim tried to move their child from a playpen to a bed, Jxmmi yanked one of the braids out of her scalp when he pulled her hair. When she pulled out her phone to record him, he took it and threw it over a balcony after a chase through the home in which he allegedly kicked down a door. Police say they recovered the phone from the street.

However, Jxmmi’s girlfriend later denied the report according to TMZ, writing, “Oh wow. This is cap. Dade County y’all are wrong for this. I told you guys he did not hit me. Every officer you guys had in my face are wrong for this. No hands were put on anybody, I stated it more than once. It was a loud argument and the police were called. You guys turn nothing into something. It’s our son’s first birthday tomorrow, what’s wrong with y’all?”

While Rae Sremmurd hasn’t been as active as a duo as they were when they first exploded into stardom with “No Flex Zone,” they had teased a comeback with Sremmlife 4 in late 2020, and guest-starred on Lil Dicky’s FX show Dave. Meanwhile, the duo’s other member, Jxmmi’s brother Swae Lee, has been active as a solo artist, featuring on projects from Alicia Keys, the Madden NFL video game franchise, and the soundtrack to Marvel’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings alongside Jhene Aiko.

Despite being heavily involved in the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally that turned into an insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol building, Alex Jones wants everyone to know that he now feels the entire day was a “horrible historic fiasco.” The conspiracy peddling podcast host was recently hauled in front of the January 6 committee that’s been investigating the attack, and Jones, surprisingly, had nothing but kind words about the process.

“They were polite, but they were dogged,” Jones said during the latest episode of InfoWars where he also revealing that he plead the fifth “almost 100 times” per his legal team’s instruction. But the most notable change in demeanor came when Jones started throwing the MAGA rioters under the bus and denying that he wants nothing to do with a civil war in case anyone asks. Via Mediaite:

“We learned there were a bunch of people inside the Capitol,” Jones said. “And that was so stupid and so dumb. I didn’t support it that day and I don’t support it now.”

“We got the hell out of there once we couldn’t stop it,” Jones added, saying the events of Jan. 6 were a “horrible historic fiasco.”

“Let’s get something clear for the committee and my audience and everybody else: I don’t want a civil war in this country and that’s a terrible idea,” Jones explained.

Of course, Jones’ odd change of tune might have something to do with his recent public breakup with Donald Trump. The anti-vaxxer host vowed in December that he’s ready to “dish all the dirt” after the former president came out in favor of COVID vaccine boosters. With that in mind, there’s no telling what Jones told the January 6 committee about his former BFF.

(Via Mediaite)

As the authors of some of the most popular tweets by far, K-pop group BTS seem to make waves across Twitter whenever they do something of note. This time, BTS even caught the attention of chain restaurant Chipotle. A video circulated of a BTS member mispronouncing Chipotle’s name, and the brand totally ran with it.

A behind-the-scenes video of BTS’ The Late Late Show With James Corden performance shows the group being delivered Chipotle for lunch. After opening the box of food, BTS’ Jungkook pronounced it “Chicotle,” with fellow member with J-Hope adding he thought they were being served chocolate. Chipotle then took it upon themselves to change their official Twitter name to “Chicotle,” and BTS fans were very much on board.

It looks like the name change is also a way to tease an upcoming partnership between BTS and Chipotle. After updating their Twitter, the corporation sent out a tweet meant for BTS stans. “gm tannies,” they wrote, which is a word used to affectionately refer to BTS fans.

One fan replied to Chipotle’s tweet, asking the brand to have a discount code exclusively for BTS fans. Chipotle replied, teasing that a BTS collaboration might actually be in the works. “Tomorrow?” they wrote with a purple heart emoji.

The next day, Chipotle re-tweeted a tweet from one of the largest BTS stan accounts, which said they were partnering with the chain for “something big tonight.”

The brand hasn’t revealed the exact nature of the partnership, but it definitely wouldn’t be the first time Chipotle teamed up with a musical group. Last spring, Chipotle and Twenty One Pilots created a menu item based on one of the band members’ favorite meals. More recently, Chipotle tapped none other than Kacey Musgraves to lend her vocals on a heart-tugging cover of Coldplay’s hit track “Fix You,” which appeared in a short film created by the chain.

Some of the artists covered here are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

File this one under: Movies That Could Have Looked a Lot Different. On Monday night, Kristen Stewart dropped a seriously obscure piece of movie trivia on Stephen Colbert’s audience when she told a story about Nicole Kidman. (No, that’s not the shocking part.)

Stewart shared that she and Kidman have known each other for years because they worked together on a movie, which Kidman ultimately had to drop out of. That movie? David Fincher’s claustrophobic 2002 thriller Panic Room.

Colbert seemed as surprised as the rest of us when he asked, “She was going to be the Jodie Foster role in Panic Room?” Stewart confirmed that she was indeed—and, in fact, that “we rehearsed for weeks.” Stewart admitted that it was a long time ago, and that she was 10 years old when they began filming the movie, but turned 11 during production. She remembers that birthday vividly because “Jodie Foster got me a mariachi band for my eleventh birthday.” (We assume not to keep?)

Stewart, who is now 31, who was on the show to promote her new film Spencer, in which she portrays the late Diana, Princess of Wales and the hell she endures over the course of a single Christmas holiday with the royal family. Stewart is receiving lots of awards buzz for the role.

You can watch the full clip below:

Star Wars is one of the coolest franchises ever made. While opinions on the movies have always been mixed, there is no question that the universe they are set in has endless potential for telling incredible stories. As a result, we’ve seen some really spectacular spin-offs through books, television, and video games.

For a long time, Star Wars video games were a genre in itself. The endless potential of that world and its popularity made it a great option for video games, Unfortunately, the purchase and shutdown of Lucasarts, as well as an exclusivity deal with EA, led to the previous decade severely lacking in new Star Wars games. We’re finally starting to see that problem remedied though, with exclusivity for the franchise ending, and even EA promising to increase its output in Star Wars games.

On Tuesday, EA announced that it had three new Star Wars games in production, all from Respawn Entertainment. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier shared some information that confirmed one of the three games is likely a sequel to 2019’s Jedi Fallen Order. The other two games are apparently a strategy game and a shooter of some kind.

More Star Wars games is excellent news because that franchise’s universe has so much potential for interesting storytelling and we want to see more games from it. That’s especially opened up now that EA doesn’t own the exclusive rights to it, although the development studio behind these games has a really great track record with games like Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Jedi Fallen Order under its belt.

We can’t wait to see what these games end up looking like when we get to see more of them. For now, we’ll just have to eagerly wait for more information.

Jerry Falwell Jr. is, for lack of a better term, a bit of a weirdo. Fortunately, he seems to know it. If you’re a fan of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, just imagine him as a real-life version of Jesse Gemstone, Danny McBride’s not-terribly-religious pastor and heir to the Gemstone Ministries megachurch.

Like Jesse Gemstone, Jerry Falwell Jr.— who broke out a “Yo Mama” joke at the 2016 RNC—has spent the bulk of his life riding the coattails of his dad, the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, Sr. This included a stint as president of Liberty University, the Evangelical university Jerry Sr. co-founded in 1971. But Junior’s life began to implode back in 2020, when a sex scandal erupted and eventually led to his resignation as president of Liberty University.

Originally the story was that Jerry Jr. and his wife, Becki, were involved in a throuple situation with a former Miami pool boy named Giancarlo Granda. According to Granda, he spent approximately six years having sex with Becki while Jerry Jr. watched. A lot of he said/she said/he said followed, but now Falwell—alongside Becki, and with some contradictory quotes from Granda—is attempting to set the record straight on his very public fall from grace in an interview with Vanity Fair. And the biggest takeaway here is that the real fault for all his problems lies with… the testosterone supplements he was taking to win his wife back from the hunky pool dude.

Becki admitted to her affair with Granda and explained that it was happening because she was lonely. And what’s the cure for loneliness? Why, testosterone pills, of course! As Gabriel Sherman writes for Vanity Fair:

The affair inspired Jerry to get in shape to win Becki back. “I was thinking maybe I was the reason she was lonely because I wasn’t taking care of myself,” he said. Jerry hired a trainer. He lifted weights and took testosterone supplements. Jerry attributed a lot of the incendiary things he later did to side effects of the hormones. “The testosterone made me more combative,” he said.

Not combative enough to call it quits on his marriage, just enough to use it as an excuse for his many other bizarre behaviors. You can read the full story, including quotes from Granda—who has both a new book and a Hulu documentary coming out—here.

(Via Vanity Fair)

Anti-vax crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t agree with a lot of things his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, believes, and it goes both ways. Why they are still married is a question for the ages, it definitely does not make the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress look good.

Earlier this week, RFK Jr. spoke at an anti-vaccine rally and, as you would expect at an anti-vaccine rally, he said some pretty offensive nonsense. “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you [could] cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did.” RFK Jr. spoke, in reference to an uptick in vaccine mandates.

CNN rightfully called the remakes ‘deranged,’ and many took to Twitter to get a response from Hines, who has been married to RFK Jr. since 2014. Hines has never spoken publicly about her husband’s absurd comments and harmful anti-vax campaigns. But this morning, she tweeted:

As many Twitter users pointed out, it might not be a reflection of her views, but it is a reflection of what she seems to tolerate from her husband, who continues to spew incorrect and sometimes offensive misinformation. Hines famously required their family’s holiday party to be vaxxed-only, causing a rift between the two.

This isn’t the first or the second time RFK Jr. has related getting a vaccine to the Holocaust, and his Tweeted apology reads just like it did in 2015.

With last year’s incredible Ignorance, The Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman effectively broke through after making gorgeous folk music for over a decade. The album saw the Canadian artist expanding into her densest and most approachable avant garde output yet, and it was a frequent entry in numerous Best Albums Of The Year lists, including the Uproxx Music Critics Poll.

Now Lindeman has announced the new album How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, out March 4th, which she says is more of a companion to Ignorance more so than a sequel. She shared a statement on the creative ethos behind this installment:

“When I wrote Ignorance, it was a time of intense creativity, and I wrote more songs than I ever had in my life. The songs destined to be on the album were clear from the beginning, but as I continued down my writing path, songs kept appearing that had no place on the album I envisioned. Songs that were simple, pure; almost naive. Songs that spoke to many of the same questions and realities as Ignorance, but in a more internal, thoughtful way.

So I began to envision How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, a quiet, strange album of ballads. I imagined it not as a followup to Ignorance, but rather as a companion piece; the moon to its sun.”

Along with the album announcement, Lindeman has shared the first single, “Endless Time.” It’s a beautiful piano ballad and the video takes a look at the humanity and connection that people have been yearning for these past two years.

Watch the “Endless Time” video above.

How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars is out 3/4 via Fat Possum Records. Pre-order it here.