Category: News

Over the weekend, Dolly Parton appeared to launch an official TikTok account, which, turns out, was a fake all along. In the video, the country legend appears to say: “Why hello, I guess I’m on TikTok! I just dropped in to say everything’s gonna be OK, you keep the faith.” The account quickly amassed more than 700,000 followers, and the video itself got more than five million likes. Come Monday, though, the account was taken down.

This morning, a spokesperson for Dolly confirmed via the Today show that the account had been faked, explaining that an unverified user had taken an old video from Parton’s Imagination Library and “doctored it,” asking fans to “take a closer look” at the clip. A TikTok spokesperson also confirmed that the video had been removed for violating community guidelines around impersonation.

This is definitely not the first time fans have been scammed by TikTok celeb content. Remember the Tom Cruise deepfake videos? Likewise, back in July, Billie Eilish appeared to go live on TikTok, resulting in a flood of fan comments and gifts via the platform’s in-app tipping system. The account, however, was not verified, and the questions she was answering did not come from the Live’s comments section. Stay safe out there, fellow TikTokers!

While fans may be waiting on Rihanna’s ninth studio album, the singer has been hard at work growing her wealth. As a musician, beauty guru, and business mogul, Rihanna’s net worth last year jumped to a whopping $1.7 billion. That’s a number that’s hard to conceptualize, and even Rihanna agrees. The singer recently said when reflecting on her “humble beginnings,” her billionaire status can be “hard to even accept.”

Speaking in a recent interview with the New York Times, Rihanna said it can be difficult to wrap her head around her massive fortune:

“It’s tricky because it’s hard to even accept that’s where you’re at because I know where I’ve come from. At the same time, it feels good to be able to inspire young women and boys, who like me, come from humble beginnings, who come from parents who are immigrants or who are immigrants themselves, to be able to do this.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Rihanna noted that she aims to give back. She wants a lot of her massive fortune to benefit her Clara Lionel Foundation, which is named after her grandparents Clara and Lionel Braithwaite. The foundation not only funds emergency responses to natural disasters caused by climate change, but it also supports education initiatives for marginalized communities. “Every dollar I make, I want to give it back,” she said. “When it comes to people who need help, it hurts when I can’t do as much as I want, so now we’re just putting our foot down and C.L.F. is about to grow in a way that I’m really proud of.”

Read Rihanna’s full interview with the New York Times here.

Rappers often seem like they are in competition, probably because of the nature of their art form. They have to be brash, cocky, outspoken, and a lot of times, very self-focused, to the point it feels like they are all clamoring for a single spot at “the top” of the rap game. In reality, though, there is no real top or “number-one spot”; they can all collect the same trophies over time and many of them enjoy and respect each others’ crafts. Just watch Drake express his appreciation for J. Cole while refuting the North Carolinian’s self-deprecating third-place claim from “Heaven’s EP.”

In a similar way, Tyler The Creator — who has a legitimate claim on the rap album of the year thanks to Call Me If You Get Lost — praises Kendrick Lamar in his XXL cover story. He especially points to Kendrick’s verse on Baby Keem’s “Family Ties,” saying, “You know why it ruined me? Because it’s someone at that level still gunning. He’s trying new voices. He’s trying new shit. He’s still learning. You can tell he was off his phone for a few months.”

Watch Tyler The Creator’s photoshoot interview with XXL above and read the full cover story here.

A new excerpt from Stephanie Grisham‘s upcoming tell-all book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House, throws Jared Kushner under the bus and essentially blames the former president’s son-in-law for costing Donald Trump the 2020 presidential election. As a former press secretary and chief-of-staff for First Lady Melania Trump, Grisham had inside access to the inner-workings of the nepotistic administration where Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump had a disastrous level of free reign, which earned them both scathing nicknames. Via Washington Post:

She wrote that the first lady and White House staff called Ivanka “the Princess” who regularly invoked “my father” in work meetings, and Grisham dubbed Kushner “the Slim Reaper” for his habit of inserting himself into other people’s projects, making a mess and leaving them to take the blame.

Tellingly, Grisham writes that Ivanka and Jared tried to push their way into meeting Queen Elizabeth II alongside the president and first lady, a wild breach of protocol on a state visit, but were thwarted when they couldn’t fit into the helicopter. “I finally figured out what was going on,” Grisham writes. “Jared and Ivanka thought they were the royal family of the United States.”

According to Grisham, she also told the First Lady that if Trump loses the 2020 presidential election, it would be Kushner’s fault. Melania did not disagree.

As for Trump himself, Grisham accuses the president of what amounts to sexual harassment by allegedly making her enter his Air Force One cabin so that he could “look at her [behind].” The former president also allegedly phoned Grisham to specifically deny Stormy Daniels‘ accusations that his penis is small and shaped like Toad from Super Mario Bros.

(Via Washington Post)

This month was the three-year anniversary of learning Donald Trump’s penis is apparently shaped like a “toadstool” and nothing has been the same since. The horrifying revelation was made in adult film star Stormy Daniels’ book, Full Disclosure, where she wrote, “He knows he has an unusual penis. It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool… I lay there, annoyed that I was getting f*cked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a d*ck like the mushroom character in Mario Kart. It may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had, but clearly, he didn’t share that opinion.”

That “mushroom” character” is named Toad, and please keep him out of this.

Anyway, Trump usually loves people talking about his penis (he defended the size of his junk during a debate), but not in this case. The Washington Post reports that in her tell-all-book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, former-press secretary Stephanie Grisham discloses that Trump was, ahem, triggered by Daniels’ description of his manhood:

Trump behaved inappropriately with Grisham, too, she wrote — once calling her from Air Force One to assure her that his penis was not small or toadstool-shaped, as the porn star Stormy Daniels had alleged in an interview.

Grisham also alleges that “Trump became obsessed with a young, female press aide who isn’t named in the book. The president constantly asked where the aide was during press events, Grisham wrote, and allegedly once requested that she be brought to his cabin on Air Force One so he could ‘look at her [behind].’”

My reaction to all of this:

I’ll Take Your Questions Now comes out on October 5.

(Via the Washington Post)

The hills are alive… with the sound of abject failure. It’s been nearly a year since Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. And despite the fact that he was shown the door of the Oval Office and that another man has been sleeping in the White House residence since January, America’s 45th president cannot bring himself to admit defeat. And Jimmy Kimmel, for one, thinks it’s hilarious.

On Monday night, Kimmel spoke about Trump’s latest embarrassment: Siccing a company known as the Cyber Ninjas on Maricopa County, Arizona to recount the ballots—only to have them discover that Joe Biden actually won by a slightly larger margin than originally reported. As Kimmel explained:

“It turns out that not only did the Cyber Ninjas find no substantial differences between their tally and the official count, they actually found 99 more votes for Joe Biden and 261 fewer for Donald Trump. I would have loved to have been there when they broke that news to him!

Basically, Trump lost the election he thought was rigged against him, and then lost the audit of the election he thought was rigged for him. So now, in a desperate attempt to do as much damage to democracy as he possibly can, Trump is pushing for audits even in states he won! The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott—who never misses an opportunity to kiss that big orange ass of Trump’s—announced that they, too, will be conducting an audit to verify election results in a state Trump won by 600,000 votes. Which, wouldn’t it be hilarious if it turns out he lost Texas, too?”

Kimmel shared a clip of Trump speaking at a rally over the weekend in which the former president declared that the people who are against him are “evil and angry and destroying our country” and that they want to come after him because “I have, they think, a big mouth. I don’t have a big mouth. You know what I have? I have a mouth that tells the truth. I have a mouth that wants to save our country.”

Dubbing the rant Trump’s “I Have a Mouth speech,” Kimmel then joked that at the same event, “Mouth Rushmore also gave himself a pat on the back for one of his top 10 imaginary accomplishments… winning Fox News’ famous war on Christmas.” Which isn’t quite as impressive as winning the presidency, but at least it’s something.

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 2:00 mark.

Jay-Z and Kid Cudi, despite both being very popular rappers in the upper echelon of the genre’s best-known names, would seem to be diametrically opposed at first glance. Jay came up in the gritty ’90s and helped define the glitzy sound of the 2000s before settling into his elder statesman role in the last decade. Kid Cudi, however, was a part of the blog era movement to redefine rap, focusing on mental health rather than “Money, Cash, Hoes.”

But the two make for one awesome dynamic duo in the new trailer for the Netflix Western The Harder They Fall, where a new collaboration between them can be heard as Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors, and Regina King shoot at each other with old-timey revolvers. Fittingly, the song features a shootout theme, with Cudi’s chorus echoing the refrain “My guns go bang” and Jay’s verse describes a duel: “Bullets with your names, drew / Cock back, aim, shoot.”

Netflix has appeared to make an effort to reach out to both hip-hop generations in recent years; from the rap contest Rhythm + Flow to a new Kanye West documentary to a comedy special hosted by Saweetie, the streaming company has made sweeping overtures to capture a demographic with plenty of potential for all kinds of enjoyable content.

Watch the Harder They Fall trailer above and stream the film itself on Netflix on 11/3.

We’re in the midst of a new wave of Britney Spears documentaries, as some high-profile ones were just released. Spears herself caught some of one of them and she’s not feeling it.

Taking to Instagram, she wrote, “It’s really crazy guys … I watched a little bit of the last documentary and I must say I scratched my head a couple of times [shrugging emoji] !!! I really try to disassociate myself from the drama !!! Number one … that’s the past !!!” Then, making use of sarcasm, Spears continued, “Number two … can the dialogue get any classier [shrugging emoji] [crying emoji] ??? Number three … wow they used the most beautiful footage of me in the world !!! What can I say .. the EFFORT on their part !!!”

It’s worth noting that, like with other recent posts, commenters are speculating that Spears is not currently in control of her Instagram account. Fans pointed out that Spears deleted and re-shared the post, with different captions, multiple times. According to Page Six, an earlier and more directly phrased version of the post read, “It’s really crazy guys … I watched a little bit of the last documentary and I hate to inform you but a lot of what you heard is not true !!!”

Spears doesn’t specify which documentary she’s talking about, as both Hulu and Netflix recently released their own. Page Six notes that according to “a source,” Spears was actually referring to CNN’s Toxic: Britney Spears’ Battle For Freedom, which aired on Sunday.

Over the weekend, Billie Eilish performed at the Governors Ball festival in New York City, where, during “Everything I Wanted,” she briefly interrupted the set to ask the security staff why they weren’t paying attention. As NME points out, Eilish may have noticed an incident go down in the crowd when she asked, “Security, why aren’t you paying attention? Like, for real,” then adding, “One job, please.” She asked the crowd, “Everybody good? Are you OK?” The nature of the incident itself is unclear.

Also over the weekend, Eilish and her brother Finneas joined Coldplay onstage at the Global Citizen Festival in New York, where they all performed “Fix You” from the band’s 2005 album X&Y.

Eilish, who is currently touring her sophomore album Happier Than Ever, was recently included on Time’s list of 100 most influential people. Megan Thee Stallion wrote about the singer for the issue and called her a “rare spirit who speaks from her heart with no pretenses” and a “woman who stands up for herself and advocates for women everywhere.”

Watch Billie Eilish call out GovBall security in the fan-shot video above.

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

The WNBA announced a collection of awards for the 2021 season on Tuesday morning, and in addition to having the best record in the league during the regular season and the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, the Connecticut Sun managed to take home a number of individual honors. At the forefront was Jonquel Jones capping off her magnificent season by being named WNBA MVP in near unanimous fashion.

Jones received 48 of a potential 49 first-place votes en route to earning league MVP honors for the first time in her career. All season long, Jones has served as the focal point for the Sun on their run to the top of the league, averaging 19.4 points, 11.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 blocks, and 1.3 steals in 31.7 minutes per game while connecting on 51.5 percent of her shots from the field and 36.2 percent of her attempts from three. The only other player to get a first-place vote was Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury, who came in second place, while the rest of the top-5 vote getters consisted of Breanna Stewart, Sylvia Fowles, and Tina Charles.

It’s the latest bit of hardware in Jones’ increasingly full trophy case, as she adds an MVP to a Sixth Woman of the Year award in 2016 and a Most Improved Player award in 2017. That second honor returned to Connecticut this year, too, with Brionna Jones being named the league’s MIP. In a season that saw her named an All-Star for the first time in her WNBA career, Jones averaged 14.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 30.6 minutes per game while starting each of the 32 games the Sun played, all of which were career-best marks.

To round out the honors, Sun head coach Curt Miller was named the league’s Coach of the Year for the second time, having previously won it in 2017. The team will look to take all of its individual success and, as it has done so well this season, turn that into team success in its quest to win the first championship in franchise history when it kicks off its postseason on Tuesday night against Chicago.