Spooky season is officially over, meaning it’s time for Mariah Carey to shine as the reigning Queen of Christmas. The singer ushered in the start of the holidays on Monday by smashing some jack-o’-lanterns with a candy cane. But no holiday season is complete without a showstopping TV special, and Mariah’s got that covered as well.
The singer announced Tuesday that she’s teaming up with Apple TV+ for the exclusive special, Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues. The special will feature a performance by Mariah alongside Grammy Award-winning singer Khalid and famed gospel crooner Kirk Franklin. The trio will give a rendition of their new song “Fall In Love At Christmas,” which was announced Monday and officially drops on Friday.
Per a report from Billboard, Mariah is acting as one of the special’s executive producers, which is fitting seeing as it’s certainly not the first time the singer has starred in a Christmas special. Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues was directed by Joseph Kahn, who is also an executive producer on the special and has worked with major pop stars like Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga in the past.
Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues will be available for streaming on Apple TV+ next month. Watch it here.
The Miami Heat received buckets of attention in advance of the 2021-22 NBA season. Though the Heat lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in blowout fashion during the 2021 NBA Playoffs, the team is just 12 months removed from a run to the 2020 NBA Finals in the Orlando Bubble, and the Bucks team that defeated the Heat went on to win the 2021 title. On top of that, Miami made a big splash in fortifying the backcourt with a deal for Kyle Lowry, all while bringing back Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro.
Though any six-game sample should be met with some level of skepticism, the Heat have answered the bell at the outset of the season. Miami is 5-1 with the NBA’s best net rating (+16.5) and, even with the caveat of a 42-point win against a shorthanded opponent in the opener, the Heat are passing both the statistical and eye tests. The Heat are leading the NBA in defensive rating, allowing 95.1 points per 100 possessions, and that figure dips to 88.3 points per 100 possessions with Adebayo on the floor. Miami has allowed 103 points or fewer in every game, dominating the defensive glass and holding opponents to a 46.4 percent effective field goal shooting mark.
Miami’s defense was always supposed to be its calling card, but the offense is also showing early signs of encouragement. The Heat currently rank in the top five of the NBA in offensive efficiency, and Miami is scoring nearly 1.15 points per possession during an active, four-game winning winning streak. Miami has been relentless on the offensive glass, grabbing 32.2 percent of their own missed shots, and the Heat are getting enough from Herro (22 points per game, 39.5 percent from three) to feel more optimistic about a bench that doesn’t have overwhelming depth.
In an overarching sense, the Heat couldn’t answer every question in October, largely because this team was built with the playoffs in mind. However, Miami has performed at a higher regular season level than many projected at the outset, and Butler is playing at an All-NBA level in helping all of the pieces fit together. The Heat still have a lot to prove in this iteration, but Miami profiles as a team that could be trouble in the East, and it could be happening earlier than expected.
Where do the Heat land in this week’s DIME power rankings? Let’s dig in.
1. Miami Heat (5-1, Last week — 13th)
Miami gets a TNT showcase against Dallas on Tuesday and that will be a nice measuring stick. Objectively, though, the Heat have played the best basketball in the NBA this season.
2. Chicago Bulls (6-1, Last week — 4th)
The NBA’s only six-win team checks in at No. 2 and it’s been a wild start for Chicago. After four wins over shaky opponents and a close loss to the Knicks, the Bulls just beat the Jazz and Celtics in back-to-back games. Chicago totally embarrassed Boston in the fourth quarter and, even if there may be some smoke and mirrors here, it’s been fun.
3. Utah Jazz (5-1, Last week — 2nd)
Utah was the best team in the NBA during the 2020-21 regular season, and the Jazz may be on their way again. They have one loss, on the road to Chicago, and a statistical profile that isn’t exactly porous. The Jazz haven’t hit a meaty portion of their schedule yet, but they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt anyway.
4. Golden State Warriors (5-1, Last week — 3rd)
Golden State has only played one team with a winning record right now, but the results are strong. Golden State’s only loss came in overtime on the road, and the Warriors are also in the middle of an eight-game homestand that could allow them to rack up even more wins.
5. Philadelphia 76ers (5-2, Last week — 8th)
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Ben Simmons is still out and now Tobias Harris may be sidelined for a bit. That will probably harm the Sixers’ ability to continue to win at a lofty clip, but Philly is on a three-game winning streak that includes wins over Atlanta and Portland. Philadelphia will face Chicago twice in the next few days, and that will help to reveal answers on both sides.
6. Milwaukee Bucks (3-4, Last week — 1st)
Milwaukee just lost three games in a row at home. Without context, that might set off alarm bells, but the Bucks continue to operate without Brook Lopez and Jrue Holiday. In fact, roster absences have been the No. 1 theme of the season so far in Milwaukee, and there is no reason to worry about the champs just yet.
7. Brooklyn Nets (4-3, Last week — 5th)
James Harden seemed to find himself this week and, if that holds, the Nets are still terrifying on offense. Brooklyn has not been dominant in the way that was expected, but they have enough to get by… and more.
8. Toronto Raptors (5-3, Last week — 22nd)
Toronto has been a lot of fun. The Raptors have won four in a row, including a very nice road win at MSG on Monday. This is a top-eight defense and a team with a +4.3 net rating through eight games. Will that hold? We’ll see, but the run is impressive.
9. New York Knicks (5-3, Last week — 12th)
New York would’ve been even higher if not for the aforementioned loss to Toronto on Monday. The Knicks still have a top-three (!) offense, and the “Bing Bong” rallying cry is ongoing.
10. Los Angeles Lakers (4-3, Last week — 14th)
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One would think the Lakers would be higher than this after winning four of the last five games. The loss, though, was brutal in that it came against the lowly Thunder in a game in which Los Angeles led by 26 points. The Lakers still have a lot to work out, but just staying afloat as they sort through details will be helpful.
11. Atlanta Hawks (4-3, Last week — 7th)
After a pair of disappointing road losses to Washington and Philadelphia, the Hawks got right in a breezy win over the Wizards on Monday. That game showcased Atlanta’s offensive ceiling and, even with a few early-season hiccups, the Hawks are 4-3 and in perfectly solid shape.
12. Denver Nuggets (4-3, Last week — 6th)
As expected, the Nuggets are being carried by a defense that is allowing fewer than a point per possession. Wait, what? There was an injury scare to Nikola Jokic last week but, since he returned, I can say that the Nuggets will be just fine as long as he is the centerpiece.
13. Phoenix Suns (2-3, Last week — 9th)
Phoenix is the only team in the league with only fives games on their ledger. The Suns also haven’t played since Saturday and, while the early results are not good at all, we just have to see more. It’s also possible that Phoenix found itself with a solid win against Cleveland over the weekend.
14. Washington Wizards (5-2, Last week — 20th)
Washington lost on Monday to Atlanta, but the Wizards beat the Hawks last week and the only other loss came on the road in Brooklyn. The Wizards haven’t had their full roster available, but they are playing slower and scoring enough to get by. This is one of those teams where a larger sample is truly needed to find out where the real level is.
15. Dallas Mavericks (4-2, Last week — 16th)
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Given the large sample of effectiveness, it would be unwise to assume that Dallas is simply bad on offense. At the same time, they have fallen off a cliff in terms of efficiency, Luka Doncic is slumping early, and the Mavs can’t seem to make threes despite lofty volume from beyond the arc. Dallas has also managed to be 4-2 and they can break out against Miami in a national TV spot on Tuesday.
16. Memphis Grizzlies (4-3, Last week — 11th)
Memphis is really intriguing. The Grizzlies beat the Nuggets on Monday, and Ja Morant continues to put up gaudy numbers (28.3 points, 7.7 assists per game) in keying the offense. They’ve been outscored by 3.4 points per 100 possessions, though, so perhaps there is some unevenness under the surface.
17. LA Clippers (2-4, Last week — 15th)
Offense is down across the league, but it is jarring to see the Clippers scoring only a point per possession. In fact, L.A. would be lower than this if the rankings were based solely on this season, and the 2-4 mark is deserved with how the Clippers have played.
18. Charlotte Hornets (5-3, Last week — 10th)
As of Nov. 2, the Hornets have the No. 2 offense in the NBA. LaMelo Ball is shining, Miles Bridges is breaking out, and this is a fun group. In contrast, Charlotte ranks No. 28 in defense and the Hornets lost at home to the Cavs on Monday.
19. Cleveland Cavaliers (4-4, Last week — 21st)
The Cavs have four solid wins and no bad losses. Cleveland beat Atlanta, Denver, Charlotte and the Clippers in the first two weeks, and they are flummoxing opponents with odd lineup combinations. Oh, and Evan Mobley is very, very exciting.
20. Portland Trail Blazers (3-4, Last week — 19th)
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No one should worry about Damian Lillard, but his early struggles are one of the reasons why Portland is scuffling. Lillard is shooting 34.9 percent from the floor, headlined by 15-of-65 (23 percent) from three-point range. The Blazers would’ve been higher if not for a disappointing loss on Monday, falling by 10 points to a Sixers team that was missing its best pieces.
21. Minnesota Timberwolves (3-3, Last week — 17th)
The results are encouraging for Minnesota, but the profile is strange. For a team with offense-first personnel, the Wolves are floundering on that end, scoring only 1.01 points per possession. On the flip side, the defense has been quite a bit better than projected, but Minnesota’s home loss to Orlando on Monday forces a bit of a tumble in the rankings.
22. Sacramento Kings (3-3, Last week — 23rd)
Sacramento keeps playing close games and they are breaking even through six contests. That is far from disastrous and, when looking for optimism, the Kings have been leaps and bounds better defensively so far in 2021-22. Sacramento has still been a bottom-10 defense, but from where they came from, that feels acceptable.
23. Indiana Pacers (2-6, Last week — 24th)
Indiana stopped a four-game losing streak with a home win over San Antonio on Monday. That kept the Pacers from falling in this space, but the start hasn’t been encouraging for a team with reasonable expectations. The Pacers haven’t been full strength, but there also isn’t a lot to get excited about on paper right now.
24. San Antonio Spurs (2-5, Last week — 25th)
With early-season caveats attached, the Spurs have a net-neutral (0.0) point differential. That doesn’t override a 2-5 start, but San Antonio’s offense has been better than expected. Unfortunately, part of the hope with the Spurs is that the defense could be quite good, and that hasn’t manifested just yet.
25. Boston Celtics (2-5, Last week — 18th)
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The danger zone is here in Boston. The Celtics are below-average statistically on both ends of the floor, including a surprising bottom-five figure in defensive rating. On top of those shaky peripherals and a 2-5 record, Marcus Smart made a few interesting comments after Monday’s loss, pouring gas on the fire. Boston is better than this on paper, but it could be teetering.
26. Orlando Magic (2-6, Last week — 28th)
Orlando jumped a couple of spots on the strength of a nice road win in Minnesota on Monday. The early start of Jalen Suggs has been concerning, but Franz Wagner is playing well and Cole Anthony is hot at the outset. Anthony is averaging 19.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game with a 59.6 percent true shooting clip. That may not continue, but it’s been encouraging.
27. New Orleans Pelicans (1-6, Last week — 26th)
Zion is going to miss a few more weeks and that is disastrous news for the Pelicans. They are drowning without him and, for every game he misses, the buzz gets louder about the dysfunction in New Orleans. Other than that, it’s going great.
28. Houston Rockets (1-5, Last week — 27th)
Houston has a lot of talent, but the Rockets are a mess on offense. They are scoring 97.8 points per 100 possessions right now, with the worst assist-to-turnover ratio (1.09) in the NBA and a turnover rate (18.6 percent) that is all-time bad. The flashes are fun, and they did beat the Thunder, but woof.
29. Detroit Pistons (1-5, Last week — 29th)
Cade Cunningham is on the court now, which is almost all that matters for Detroit. The Pistons still have ghastly offensive numbers, but simply having the No. 1 pick available to play should do wonders in bringing optimism. Detroit is also totally fine on defense, and the offense is due for some level of positive regression.
30. Oklahoma City Thunder (1-6, Last week — 30th)
The Thunder won a game this week! That may not happen often, but it was a wild one in which OKC overcame a 26-point (!) deficit against the Lakers. That is worth celebrating, but the Thunder have the worst record and net rating (-12.8) in the league and it feels worse than that if you watch them for any length of time.
While we adults have (hopefully) learned how to mask our disappointment when things don’t quite turn out the way we planned, one of the wonderful things about kids is that they haven’t, and for the 11th year in a row Jimmy Kimmel (okay, and Jennifer Lawrence that one time) has proven few things are more amusing than their pure, unadulterated reactions to their parent’s shortcomings. On last night’s episode ofJimmy Kimmel Live!, the late night host held back a laugh as he shared the latest video in his annual Halloween candy prank series, in which parents prank their unsuspecting little ones by telling them they accidentally ate all of their Halloween candy while recording their reaction. Kimmel said that despite telling parents not to do the gag this year, over 200 videos were submitted to the show — and wasting the footage seemed senseless.
“It felt like kids have had it hard enough lately, so we decided to hold off this year. We did not ask parents to do this,” Kimmel said. “But a lot of the parents just went ahead and did it anyway. In fact, I think we got 200 videos. So, since the kids got pranked anyway, you know, why waste [the videos]?”
Kimmel then joked that the footage was, therefore, “unauthorized and unwanted” shortly before rolling the clip, revealing four different tiny tots reacting to their parents’ betrayal.
While the video was significantly more condensed than previous years, there was certainly no shortage of upset children. While one young boy reminded his mother she was on a diet when she broke the news, another — dressed as Captain America, no less — was quick to call his mom “a d**k” when she “admitted” to eating all his candy. If you’re looking for some giggles, or to be shocked by what some kids can get away with saying to their parents, you can watch the full segment in the video above.
If the only thing on your gift wish list this holiday season is a Cameo greeting from Marjorie Taylor Greene, stranger things have happened. While it’s no secret that the Georgia representative spends a lot of her time harassing her colleagues and waxing philosophical about Jewish space lasers, it turns out she has another quirk: racking up some pretty hefty bills with seemingly no plan to pay them.
“Wood, the Georgia defamation lawyer who has floated some of the fringiest of fringe theories about ex-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, posted a note on the Telegram messaging app over the weekend blasting Greene and claiming she still owed him for previous legal work.
But it turns out that Wood was not representing his former ally in her personal capacity. Instead, his services went to Greene’s campaign committee as it fought two defamation disputes. Worse still for Greene is Wood’s claim that the Greene campaign has never paid him, raising a number of questions about the legality of their arrangement.”
Being a deadbeat is one thing, but the fact that Wood’s work was for Greene’s campaign could spell bad news for the Rep. Crazy Eyes from a legal perspective. Daily Beast spoke with four experts on campaign finance laws who confirmed that Greene’s failure to pay this bill is actually a violation of federal financial reporting laws. “They also raised concerns about illegal corporate and in-kind contributions, with some experts pointing to two possibilities in other legal realms: breach of contract, and, in a word, ‘theft,’ if Wood were to take an austere line in state court,” Sollenberger writes.
The funniest part of the story? (And by “funniest,” we mean “most pathetic.) The total sum owed to Wood is… $5,000.
While federal election law allows attorneys to volunteer their services in certain instances, defamation cases are not covered, explained Brett Kappel, campaign finance specialist at Harmon Curran.
“If [Wood] sent an invoice for legal services, this wouldn’t fit under the category of legal services lawyers can provide for free,” Brett Kappel, a campaign finance specialist at Harmon Curran, explained to Daily Beast. “So the Federal Election Commission would say that these costs must be reflected on her reports. It could be what’s called a ‘disputed debt,’ but you still have to report that, along with who did the work and what it was for.”
“A worse interpretation for Greene,” Kappel added, “would be that the campaign accepted an illegal corporate contribution But at the end of the day, a campaign can’t have someone do this kind of legal work without it being disclosed.”
Greene’s team had no comment for the story. But her action (or inaction) in the face of a $5,000 bill for legal services certainly doesn’t bode well for her ever paying the $48,000 The Hill reports she owes in fines for defying the House mask mandate.
Christopher Nolan‘s next film continues to add to its all-star cast. Starring Cillian Murphy in the title role, Oppenheimer will center on the inventor of the atom bomb, and there will be some A-list stars long for the ride. According to Deadline, Robert Downey Jr. and Matt Damon are in talks to join the production, and Emily Blunt is reportedly circling a role as well.
Damon has previously worked with Nolan in 2014’s Interstellar, but this will be Downey’s first time with the famed director. It’s an interesting choice given some choice comments Downey made about The Dark Knight back in 2008. The highly celebrated sequel to Batman Begins arrived just a few months after Downey kicked off his unparalleled Hollywood comeback by wowing audiences as Tony Stark in the first Iron Man film. Granted, Downey’s new superstar status was nowhere near cemented at the time, but that didn’t stop him from taking a pot shot at the competition by voicing his thoughts on the Nolan sequel.
Here’s what Downey told the now-defunct Moviehole via /Film:
“My whole thing is that that I saw The Dark Knight. I feel like I’m dumb because I feel like I don’t get how many things that are so smart. It’s like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.’ I loved The Prestige but didn’t understand The Dark Knight. Didn’t get it, still can’t tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so high brow and so f***ing smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.’ You know what? F*** DC comics. That’s all I have to say and that’s where I’m really coming from.”
Obviously, there were no hard feelings on Nolan’s end, but Downey’s box office clout probably helped smooth things over real quick. That’s one way to get butts in seats, which is something Nolan is very concerned with after notably parting ways with Warner Bros. over its controversial decision to stream its entire 2021 film slate on HBO Max.
Back in 2019, Pavement fans were in for a treat when the veteran indie rockers announced they would be hitting the road in 2020 for the first time in nearly a decade. Those two shows ended up being shelved for obvious reasons and instead, the band now plan on staging a proper reunion tour in 2022. Pavement has officially unveiled the dates to their Reunion Tour, showing tour stops in major cities across the US and Europe.
The official tour kicks off next June at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival, which they were scheduled to perform at in 2020, before arriving in the US in August and coming to a close back in Europe in November.
Check out Pavement’s Reunion Tour dates below.
06/02/22 — Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound
06/10/22 — Porto, Portugal @ NOS Primavera Sound
09/07/22 — San Diego, CA @ Balboa Theatre
09/09/22 — Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum Theatre
09/10/22 — Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum Theatre
09/12/22 — San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
09/13/22 — San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
09/14/22 — San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
09/16/22 — Troutdale, OR @ Edgefield Amphitheatre
09/17/22 — Seattle, WA @ The Paramount Theatre
09/19/22 — Denver, CO @ Paramount Theatre
09/20/22 — Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
09/21/22 — St. Paul, MN @ The Palace Theatre
09/22/22 — Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
09/24/22 — Detroit, MI @ Masonic Cathedral Theatre
09/26/22 — Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
09/28/22 — Boston, MA @ Boch Center Wang Theatre
09/30/22 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
10/01/22 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
10/02/22 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
10/05/22 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Met
10/06/22 — Washington, DC @ Warner Theatre
10/08/22 — Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
10/09/22 — Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
10/11/22 — Austin, TX @ ACL Live at the Moody Theater
10/17/22 — Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy Leeds
10/18/22 — Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom
10/19/22 — Edinburgh, UK @ Usher Hall
10/20/22 — Manchester, UK @ O2 Apollo
10/22/22 — London, UK @ Roundhouse
10/23/22 — London, UK @ Roundhouse
10/24/22 — London, UK @ Roundhouse
10/25/22 — London, UK @ Roundhouse
10/27/22 — Paris, FR @ Le Grand Rex
10/29/22 — Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
10/30/22 — Oslo, NO @ Sentrum Scene
10/31/22 — Stockholm, SE @ Cirkus
11/02/22 — Aarhus, DK @ VoxHall
11/04/22 — Bremen, DE @ Pier 2
11/05/22 — Berlin, DE @ Tempodrom
11/07/22 — Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
11/08/22 — Amsterdam, NL @ Royal Carré Theater
11/10/22 — Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street
11/11/22 — Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street
Tickets for Pavement’s Reunion Tour go live November 5. Get them here.
“Queen Latifah is amazing,” Meg tells Glamour‘s Zandria Robinson. “She is all around someone I look up to because she took it further than music. She’s an all-around businesswoman who lets me know I can like more than one thing, and I can pursue more than one thing.”
Among the things Meg is currently pursuing is a degree in health administration from Texas Southern after switching from nursing and business. She recently completed all the coursework for her graduation this year and previously showed off her graduation cap on social media.“I’m making A’s now; I’m focused,” she says.
Meg also explains why she’s become such an outspoken advocate for women’s rights — especially Black women — to the point of using her 2020 SNL performance to call to “protect Black women” despite backlash from both fans and politicians. “The bigger I get, the bigger my platform gets, I start realizing that I’m not the only woman that goes through what I go through, and it doesn’t matter what scale it’s on,” she says. “Mine is just public because I’m a public figure. I want to bring things to light so other women don’t feel like they have to continue to be silent.”
Her lyrics? Sincere and captivating. Her timing? Unprecedented in its perfection.
If you hadn’t been paying attention to Olivia Rodrigo’s rise to global pop stardom, it may seem like she’s just been here all along. But, just a year ago, Rodrigo wasn’t a well-ingrained neural pathway in the pop culture conscious, but a one-line credit scrolling at the end of a Disney Channel show. So, it may seem fair to refer to Rodrigo, who happens to be barely 18-years-old, as an overnight success. But that qualifier borders on the offensive when you consider she’s been working since the ripe old age of 12.
Listeners aren’t the only ones who found Rodrigo’s warp speed success staggering, however. She recently told Rolling Stone that her transition from lesser-known actress to household name felt “super-quick,” adding “It definitely wasn’t overnight. But the ‘I’m writing songs in my bedroom,’ to ‘Oh, my gosh, lots of people know this song’ was really quick for me.” So, how did that rapid leap from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series cast member to expletive wielding, pop-punk resurrecting, generationally transcendent musical icon occur? It was a perfect storm of timing, talent, and even TikTok, that catapulted Rodrigo to stardom in a way we haven’t seen since the ‘90s and will likely never see again.
It was only last January that Rodrigo dropped “Drivers License,” a heartbreakingly relatable track that saw breakout success, becoming the most-streamed song on Spotify in just seven days and sitting pretty atop the Billboard Hot 100 for eight consecutive weeks. Then in May, she released her album Sour, 11 tributes to love gone wrong which showed off her songwriting prowess, ability to effortlessly shift between genres, and scored her this year’s biggest debut. But it wasn’t just her music that magnetized listeners, Rodrigo’s honesty which seems to be present not only in her writing but her personality drew in a massive fanbase.
The success of pop stars like Rodrigo seems to be a reaction to the tight constraints and expectations society placed on chart-toppers of the past. Decades ago, stars like Christina Aguilera and pop’s pivotal cautionary tale Britney Spears were expected to handle the pressure of the limelight graciously, dealing with constant critique from the outside world, while walking away unscathed. But Gen-Z and its idols have no interest in perfection, and Rodrigo’s success reflects that. One example of this is her comfort in speaking about mental health. When asked about going to therapy by CBS Sunday Morning Rodrigo responded, “Sometimes people are like, ‘Oh, you don’t need that. You have so much. Your life is so great. What are your problems?” She added, “I think that’s definitely a thing that sometimes older people can do to younger people, too — kind of trivialize what they’re going through just because, you know, ‘Ah, they’re fine, they’re just kids. They’ll get through it.’ But it feels so real when you’re in it. It’s so valid.”
That awareness of the validity of her emotions, and herself as an individual outside of her music also separates her from acts like Miley Cyrus and Lindsey Lohan who both dropped their Disney golden girl persona by way of tabloid-covered bad behavior. When asked about the difference between her and previous Disney darlings, including her fondness for F-bombs, Rodrigo told W “If that naturally sort of separated me from the Disney archetype? That’s cool.” That previously mentioned honesty and humanity of her songwriting also make her stand apart, she’s not afraid to be flawed, jealous, romantic, and resentful, or as she laughs in the beginning of her song “Brutal,” messy.
Rodrigo’s emergence would also be impossible were it not for the singer-songwriters who preceded her. Artists like Taylor Swift who Rodrigo told NME she’d “always looked up to,” who found similar success through candid diary-like songwriting. Rodrigo’s music also gleans inspiration from the petulant energy of the pop-punk provocateurs who pushed boundaries before her and she’s done this without fear she’d lose the audience who fell in love with the soulful ballad that first gave notoriety. That ability to embrace multiple soundscapes can be attributed to the internet generation Rodrigo was raised in, one that could easily access any song at any time, one that has allowed her to create music without worrying about boundaries because. As she told The Face, “I feel like music is becoming increasingly genreless.”
Although Rodrigo proudly wears her inspirations on her sleeves, not all imitation has resulted in flattery. She was called out by Hole’s Courtney Love, who alleged Rodrigo stole the teenage prom queen aesthetic seen in Sour’s promo photos, from the cover of the band’s album Live Through This. Olivia has also given up millions in publishing royalties to people who’ve influenced her work, like Williams and Josh Farro of Paramore, for the interpolation of their song “Misery Business” into her track “Good 4 U.” She also now shares writing credits with her idol, Swift, along with Annie Clark (St. Vincent) and Jack Antonoff for her single “Deja Vu” which she openly admits was inspired by the song the trio wrote, “Cruel Summer.” Despite this, Rodrigo has somehow stayed out of the drama, coyly telling GQ in response to Love’s comments, “To be honest, I’m just flattered that Courtney Love knows that I exist.”
Another surprising player in Rodrigo’s meteoric success is the pandemic. Bored and isolated, listeners started consuming and sharing music via TikTok, giving artists a new and engaging way to share their music and also granting fans a way to become critics, adding their own context and opinions to the app. When word got around that “Drivers License” was possibly based on a love triangle between Rodrigo, her HSMTMTS co-star, Joshua Bassett, and singer Sabrina Carpenter, the app became overrun with theories, opinions, and luckily for Rodrigo, her hit song. Even Rodrigo has shared that without the pandemic she doesn’t know if she would have been able to share her songs with the same confidence. She told Rolling Stone, releasing her music during quarantine was a blessing, sharing, “I honestly loved it. I put out my first song, which did really well, and I didn’t expect any of that sort of success so early on. I think had I not just been doing the same thing that I had always been doing and writing songs in my bedroom, maybe I would have gotten a little more in my head about it than I did.”
The most important element of Rodrigo’s success, however, has been her innate talent. It’s her ability to write vulnerably and with excruciating detail about first-hand experiences while pulling in listeners under a relatable guise that makes them wonder if she’s in fact writing about them. It’s also her voice, an instrument she uses to show stress through vibrato, resentment through amplification, joy through laughter, and love through breathlessness. Yes, the timing of Rodrigo’s spotlight was astonishingly perfect, but all of her success was possible thanks to her readiness to step into it.
Celebrities go viral every day for things like questionable Halloween costumes or raunchy music videos, but it’s not as common that they go viral for surviving a wild boar attack. That’s exactly what happened in late September to Shakira. She was out for a stroll with her son in a Barcelona park when all of the sudden, wild boars came out of nowhere and made a beeline for her purse. The singer previously noted she “stood up” to the animals, and has now shared the full story.
Shakira recently sat down for a cover interview with Glamour UK to talk about her upcoming music and her fight against climate change. But, of course, the conversation kicked off with the singer providing more details about what exactly went down the day she was attacked by wild boars this fall. The singer said it all happened thanks to an innocent sandwich:
“I was taking my son, Milan, for a walk in the park and I got him a little ice cream. We sat on one of those park benches and we were just minding our own business. And then two huge wild boars came from the back and ambushed [us] and took my purse! And I was like, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’ and screaming, because they were taking it away, with my phone in it, my car keys, everything! Like they could understand me! And people were just watching and they weren’t doing anything! They started digging inside my purse… Obviously my son’s sandwich was inside the purse, so that’s why they were so interested. So they took the sandwich and walked away and left my purse. It was wild.”
Surprisingly, wild boar attacks are more common that you might think. They are actually considered an invasive species in Europe and have an estimated population of over 10 million in the continent. Apparently, Barcelona has a particular problem with the animals and has received over 1,100 phone calls about wild boar attacks since 2016 alone.
With the new Morbius trailer released into the wild on Tuesday morning, Marvel fans naturally started sifting through the preview of the Jared Leto vampire flick with a fine-tooth comb for Easter eggs, but what they found has them more confused than ever.
To set the stage, a day before the new trailer hit, Sony unveiled a featurette where Leto not so subtly says that Morbius opens up a “web of opportunity,” which is an obvious reference to Spider-Man. So when the new Morbius trailer dropped, fans were expecting at least a few nods to Tom Holland‘s hero, and those were definitely there in the form of Michael Keaton’s Vulture and references to Mysterio being “murdered” in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Going off of those clues, it would seem that Morbius is set in the current MCU. Not so fast.
In a noticeable move to prop up Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, Venom is referenced twice in the trailer. First, in a subtle line about San Francisco, and then less subtly, by Leto’s Morbius joking about being Venom. Considering Venom isn’t part of the MCU (yet), this is a wild addition to the trailer. And things get even weirder as the trailer includes visual nods to both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s versions of Spider-Man.
With so many conflicting Easter eggs bouncing around, Marvel fans are more confused than ever as to what universe Morbius is actually in, but it should be noted that the film arrives after Spider-Man: No Way Home, which will undoubtedly disrupt the status quo as Spidey and Doctor Strange get in way over their heads by messing with the multiverse.
You can see some of the Morbius reactions below:
The new Morbius trailer references Venom, we see Michael Keaton’s Vulture, Tobey’s Spider-Man painted on a wall and the Oscorp logo is from the TASM universe.
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Fall in Love at Christmas
, wtf is going on 
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