If you scroll down Taylor Swift’s social media feeds, it won’t take too long before you come across a photo of one of her cats. Over the past year or so, though, some fans have noticed that one of those felines, Meredith, hasn’t popped up in a post in a while. Swifties began to wonder what happened to the cat, and now Swift has taken it upon herself to offer an explanation.

In the description of a video shared on social media this afternoon, Swift wrote, “WELL WELL WELL you all really went out and left my greatest expectations in shambles this week. Word on the street is you made Fearless (my version) the biggest country album first week of the last 6 years and the top release of 2021 so far. Honestly??? How?? Did I get this lucky???? I wanted to say thank you to you so today I will be addressing a very pressing issue.”

Holding her cat Benjamin Button, Swift says, “We’ve been hearing some rumors on the internet recently… they’re not about you, Benj’, they’re about your sister.” Swift then shared screenshots of comments from fans wondering where Meredith has been, then wrote in text, “The truth is, Meredith just HATES having her picture taken.” She then goes on to show a series of funny and awkward photos of the cat. Swift concluded, “So yup, there it is, there you have it. That’s the explanation: She’s just a really private little cat. She likes her business kept to herself, she doesn’t like a camera shoved in her face, and who can blame her? So um, there’s your update on Meredith.” Swift then ended the video with a clip of her asking Meredith, who gets herself away from Swift as she speaks, “Do you have any comment on the recent allegations that you’re a missing cat?”

Check out the video above and learn more about Swift’s cats, and the pets of some other musicians, here.

Calling Mel Kiper Jr. the GOAT of NFL Draft coverage undersells his importance to a gigantic date on the league’s offseason calendar. Kiper hopped onto ESPN Daily with Pablo Torre on Friday to discuss his role in growing the industry, from his pre-ESPN days to his role as the face of Draft coverage for the Worldwide Leader for nearly four decades.

All of it’s good, and if you like Draft talk, we highly recommend listening. Having said this, there is one thing we need to highlight from the episode, something Kiper tweeted about after it was posted:

Pause.

Ok, so, I read this tweet and felt compelled to immediately find where in the episode Kiper discusses how he consumes pizza. It turns out this was not an inside joke between himself and Torre — after discussing his well-documented breakfast that he eats whenever he can get his hands on it (pumpkin pie with whipped cream), Kiper broke down how he consumes pizza with the same gusto that he breaks down tape on a safety out of UT-Chattanooga with an UDFA grade.

“This is what I do, Pablo,” Kiper said at the 21:07 mark of the pod. “I take the cheese off. I take the cheese off the pizza, ok? And I eat the pizza with mashed potatoes. So mashed potatoes and pizza without cheese is what I do. Now, you say — and I think I’m healthy because I’m not eating the cheese, right? I don’t eat the cheese, I just leave a little on there for the flavor. You’re just like, ‘Why do you get away…’ the cheese does give you the flavor, and I do leave a little bit on … just a liiiiittle, just a liiiiittle, but it’s mostly just the sauce and the dough, and then I put the mashed potatoes on it, and that’s what I do.”

As someone whose last name ends in a vowel and calls Naples their ancestral home, I found this baffling. Beyond the fact that this is essentially carbohydrates + tomato sauce + a different carbohydrate and eating it would almost certainly require a nap, the issue I am having is wrapping my head around what this tastes like. Mashed potatoes are, obviously, terrific, but this seems like it’d just be a big textural mess with some tang from tomato sauce. And even then, unless these potatoes are really cheesy and really garlicky, it’s just hard to fathom how this works. While I am very much empathetic to baked potato pizzas, which does not have cheese and sauce but covers it with potatoes and things like cheese and bacon, this is very much not that.

Mel, you’re a legend, but candidly, this seems not great, although I am willing to try the exact slice you have — from the pizza place you like the most, with your preferred mashed potatoes — to reevaluate. Feel free to email at your leisure.

Last year, the Fox News nighttime talk-show response to Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot and killed two Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, was not a good look. Tucker Carlson defended the 17-year-old vigilante, and Sean Hannity’s Fox News show hosted Pam Bondi, who declared the following in the below video: “You’ve got a little boy out there trying to protect his community…”

Well, Sean Hannity is now under fire for his reaction to Chicago police shooting and killing 13-year-old Adam Toledo in late March. CNN published body-cam footage, which police claim shows that Toledo had been holding a gun. It appears as though an officer shot him while he began to raise both hands, and the Toledo family attorney maintains that Toledo was not holding a gun when he was shot by an officer that fired a lone bullet. On a Thursday episode of Hannity’s radio show (The Sean Hannity Show), the host stepped in it by referring to Toledo as “a man.” Here’s what he said:

“We are awaiting the release this hour of Chicago Police bodycam footage that captured the fatal police shooting of a young 13 year old man by the name of Adam Toledo. And if social media is any indication, there’s a lot of chatter today about possible unrest. I hope it doesn’t happen but with Chicago’s track record, every weekend — you know, I guess, you’d have to go with the odds, considering there are dozens and dozens of shootings and killings every weekend in Chicago — that this might not be particularly good.”

As one can imagine, the double-standard here is not going over well. The backlash has begun with everyone from Richard Marx to George Takei calling out Hannity’s unexplainable decision to refer to Toledo as “a man.” Will Hannity issue a correction? We’ll have to wait and see.

(Via MediaMatters)

In a storyline that only ALLBLACK could cook up, the Bay Area rapper takes a job at a bakery and saves the day when things get real in his hilarious new video for “Ego.” Assisting him in the shenanigans are Drakeo The Ruler and Kenny Beats, who play supporting roles and provide a crunchy, post-hyphy beat, respectively.

The video opens with ALLBLACK and his partners shooting dice in the back of the bakery before getting narced by ALLBLACK’s “cousin,” the bakery manager. He tells them that Drakeo is coming in later, so they take over the store, tying him to a chair and blasting ALLBLACK’s new song on the radio.

Unfortunately, the next person who comes in is a masked robber, who tries to stick up the employees. When they discover he has no gun inside his threatening paper bag, ALLBLACK decks him and becomes a hero. Meanwhile, Drakeo is also being hailed as a hero elsewhere after rescuing a cat from a tree, receiving a key to the city at a press conference with a hating-ass superhero in attendance.

Kenny Beats makes a cameo in a separate scene, riding a shopping cart down one of the Bay’s notorious hills with ALLBLACK as they’re pursued by an exasperated police officer.

“Ego” is the first single from his upcoming debut album TY4FWM, which is due May 7 via his own Play Runners label and distributed by Empire. Features will include E-40 (of course), G-Eazy (naturally), Mozzy (!), Sada Baby (!!), and Vince Staples (!!!).

Watch the “Ego” video above.

Acclaimed English actress Helen McCrory has died at age 52 after a battle with cancer. Her death was announced by her husband and fellow actor Damian Lewis, who shared a statement on his wife’s passing on Twitter:

“I’m heartbroken to announce that after a heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family,” Lewis wrote. “She died as she lived. Fearlessly. God we love her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now, Little One, into the air, and thank you.”

Following Lewis’ announcement, the BBC series Peaky Blinders honored McCrory’s passing. The actress was a regular on the series as Aunt Polly Gray, the matriarch of the Shelby crime family. “All our love and thoughts are with Helen’s family. Rest in peace,” the official Twitter account wrote in a statement.

On top of her roles in Peaky Blinders, the Harry Potter film series, Penny Dreadful, and Skyfall, McCrory was an award-winning actress on both stage and screen. Via Variety:

During her theater, television and film career, McCrory picked up several awards, like best actress at the London Film Critics Circle, the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, the Critics’ Circle Theater Awards and theatre actress of the year at the Glamour Awards. She was nominated for a Critics Choice Television Award and a Satellite Award for best supporting actress in a drama for “Penny Dreadful.” For her role in “Macbeth” in 1995, she was named most promising newcomer at the Shakespeare Globe Awards.

McCrory is survived by her husband Lewis and two sons.

(Via Damian Lewis on Twitter)

After getting a screenplay nomination at the Academy Awards for Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo waited 10 years before their next movie, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, which should have been nominated for Best Picture. The wait for their next feature won’t be nearly as long. Wiig and Mumolo are working on a “a live-action untitled Cinderella Evil Stepsisters film” for Disney, according to Deadline. “It is unknown whether Wiig and Mumolo would also be starring in the film,” but if they do, “it wouldn’t be as the stepsisters as the plan is for them to be played by younger actresses.”

The film is a fairy tale musical comedy that re-imagines the Cinderella classic from the point of view of her infamous evil stepsisters. Spanning their early childhood through the marriage of their universally beloved stepsister and beyond, we follow Anastasia and Drizella Tremaine as they struggle to uphold their family’s legacy.

First off, I did not realize Cinderella’s evil step-sisters had names (there’s only one animated Anastasia in this house). Also, Disney’s track record with live-action movies based on animated classics is spotty at best, but I’m comforted by the fact that Wiig and Mumolo can write one heck of a musical number.

(Via Deadline)

Retired NBA players purchasing ownership stakes in franchises is nothing new, and on Friday afternoon, we learned that Dwyane Wade has decided to get in on the fun. In an interview with Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Wade revealed that he is purchasing a small ownership stake in the Utah Jazz, which were recently bought by Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith.

As Wade explained, he does not want to purchase part of the team just to have it on his investment portfolio or anything like that. Instead, his plan is to have a hands-on role with the franchise.

“This goes way beyond the dream I had to just play basketball in the NBA,” Wade told ESPN. “I’ve seen Shaq do it in Sacramento. I’ve seen Grant Hill do it in Atlanta. I’ve seen Jordan do it in Charlotte. If this partnership is going to be anything like my relationship is with Ryan, there are going to be a lot of things that I’ll want to be involved in.”

Wade and Smith are friends, having known one another since 2019. As Smith explained, he believes that bringing Wade on board is a “perfect fit” for what he wants to accomplish at the helm of the Jazz.

“It wasn’t like we wanted more partners; that wasn’t what we were trying to do,” Smith said. “I want to work with Dwyane on and off the court, on the business side, and so do our partners — because of who he is as a human being and what he’s accomplished. Those are the kinds of people you want around.”

There is no word on how this will impact Wade’s budding broadcasting career, as he’s been a member of Turner’s NBA broadcasts in recent years and is one of the stalwarts on TNT’s Tuesday night studio show. One thing that is clear is that Wade is excited to work with one particular member of the Jazz organization.

“I call him 2.0,” Wade said. “If there’s a player similar to me, it’s Donovan Mitchell.”

In a new study conducted in November by the Centers for Disease Control based on laboratory modeling and released yesterday, the CDC doubled down on its recommendation that airlines should continue to block passengers from sitting in middle seats. The study indicated that middle seat vacancy reduced COVID-19 transmission by 23 to 57 percent compared to full aircraft occupancy on single-aisle and twin-aisle aircraft. A recommendation which many major airlines including American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta, Hawaiian Airlines, and Southwest Airlines politely shrugged off.

When asked for comment on the CDC’s new recommendation by Insider, all five major airlines deferred to Airlines for America, a spokesman for which told Insider, “multiple scientific studies confirm that the layers of protection significantly reduce risk, and research continues to demonstrate that the risk of transmission onboard aircraft is very low.” The group also shared studies by the Department of Defense, Harvard, and others that showed low transmission rates among passengers since enhanced safety measures were put in place at the start of the pandemic.

To be fair to the airlines who seem to be taking a laissez-faire approach, the CDC also gave the go-ahead in early April for fully vaccinated people to safely travel within the US without the need to self-quarantine or get tested before and after travel as long as safety protocols like wearing a mask and hygiene are followed. All of the major airlines still implement these enhanced sanitary practices and require passengers to wear face masks for the duration of their flight, regardless of vaccination status.

To date, Delta Airlines is the only major U.S. air carrier that is still actively blocking middle seats. But, they plan to stop doing so by May 1st.

Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald was accused of assault earlier this week. The lawyer for a man named De Vincent Spriggs alleged that Donald was not provoked, but attacked his client outside of a nightclub in Pittsburgh in the early hours of April 11, which sent Spriggs to the hospital. As Spriggs’ lawyer said, “his arm in a sling, his eye is closed, 16 stitches in his eye and a concussion and other severe injuries he’s suffered.” A photo of Spriggs’ injuries can be viewed here.

Donald’s lawyer, Casey White, appeared on a Pittsburgh-area radio show on Friday morning to respond to these claims. He unsurprisingly called them bogus, saying that Spriggs, while intoxicated, bumped into Donald and “started coming at Aaron.” Spriggs was taken outside, and shortly after, Donald left while Spriggs was waiting outside with “something in his right hand,” which he thought was a gun but ended up learning was a liquor bottle.

“This guy goes at Aaron and swings with his right hand, and Aaron ducks,” White says. “The bottle then grazes the top of Aaron’s head — Aaron has a lump on his head from the bottle grazing the top of his head, and that’s when all hell breaks loose.”

White goes on to claim that Donald is pulled away, some people who were with him went after Spriggs and roughed him up, and eventually, Donald frees himself and begins pulling people off of Spriggs to keep him from getting beaten up any more. Shortly after White’s appearance on the radio, video popped up of the incident and appears to back up that Donald tried to pull people away from Spriggs, although the footage does not show what happened in the lead-up.

According to TMZ, White said that he received a correspondence from the police that says they have no video evidence to indicate Donald attacked Spriggs.

The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Conway The Machine, Young Thug, and more.

Hip-hop got busy this week as more artists tuned up for the warmer months to come. Lakeyah plugged her newly released sophomore album with the “Poppin” video featuring Gucci Mane; DreamDoll joined the “Whoopty” freestyle bandwagon; Key Glock once again flexed his yellow Lambo truck in the video for “Move Around“; and Moneybagg Yo announced the impending release of his new album with “Go!” featuring Big 30.

Friday saw new releases from IDK (“Shoot My Shot” featuring Offset), DMX, French Montana, and Swizz Beatz (“Been To War“), and Saweetie (“Risky” featuring Drakeo from her Pretty Summer Playlist compilation) along with the releases listed below.

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending April 16, 2021.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

AJ Tracey — Flu Game

A grime rapper from Ladbroke Grove, West London, Tracey has been building his reputation for nearly a decade through EPs, mixtapes, freestyles, and his self-titled, 2019 debut album. Now, he’s cashing in all that credit and comparing himself to one of the greatest ever to do it. Featuring appearances from Nav, Kehlani, T-Pain, and more, Flu Game finds AJ Tracey spreading his wings as he aims for cross-cultural dominance.

Conway The Machine — La Maquina

We’ve already established that the Griselda Machine never stops chugging along. With La Maquina, though, Conway looks to expand the range of the prolific label’s influence. Tapping hitmaking producers like Bangladesh and Don Cannon, Conway changes lanes from the usual gritty output he’s best known for, connecting with ATLien stars like JID, Ludacris, and 2 Chainz to show that his comfort zone covers much more ground than you might think.

Kenny Mason — Angelic Hoodrat: Supercut [Deluxe Edition]

Rock influenced Atlanta spitter Mason carved out an intriguing niche for himself with the original Angelic Hoodrat, garnering attention for incisive raps and left-of-center production that helped him stand out from an increasingly crowded field. Its deluxe edition brings a collection of new songs and collaborators that includes Denzel Curry, Freddie Gibbs, and more.

Van Buren Records — Bad For Press

Hailing from Brockton, Massachusetts — a “city with no music industry” — the Seinfeld-referencing collective (they’re named for a street gang that sticks up Kramer at a pizzeria) brings all the chaotic energy of forebears such as Odd Future and Brockhampton, but with more cohesion, a lower-key presentation, and a level of focus that suggests they may have staying power more akin to the original rap supergroup, Wu-Tang Clan.

Young Stoner Life — Slime Langage 2

In the years since the original Slime Language helped introduce the Young Thug’s YSL collective to a wider audience, fans have clamored for a follow-up. With 23 tracks, fans got everything they asked for and more, with support coming from quarters including Big Sean, Coi Leray, Drake, Future, Lil Baby, Lil Uzi Vert, Nav, and Rowdy Rebel.

Zaytoven — Zaytoven Presents: Fo15

The Bay Area producer returns home to throw his support behind local acts with a new compilation, the brainchild of Empire CEO, Ghazi Shami. Corraling some of San Francisco’s most buzzing burgeoning artists, Ghazi curates a project custom-designed to put the more overlooked part of the Bay Area back on the map.

Singles/Videos

22Gz — “Casa”

Flatbush rapper 22Gz sings the praises of the surefire tequila brand over a looming drill beat

Big Jade — “Bonnet Freestyle”

The Texas native keeps her takeover campaign moving with a slick-tongued take on a warped version of Missy Elliott’s “Hot Boyz” beat.

Dave — “Titanium”

After a bit of a hiatus, Santan Dave came blazing back this week with a pair of moody singles, “Mercury” and “Titanium.” The latter is harder, while “Mercury” leans more introspective.

Lil Poppa — “A.M. Flights” feat. Toosii

An upbeat, melodic rumination on the relationship hiccups that come with the jet-setting rap life, Jacksonville rapper links up with the increasingly popular Toosii for a song that has lots of hit potential.

Mike — “Evil Eye”

All raps, no brakes on the latest single from Mike, who’s promoting his new album Disco!, coming out in June.

Paris Texas — “Force Of Habit”

A genre-bending duo from Compton, Paris Texas popped up seemingly overnight with their debut single “Heavy Metal” in February, garnering a ton of blog recognition thanks to its churning sounds and their mysterious allure. They’re due to drop their debut album Boy Anonymous on May 14, so here’s your chance to get familiar with a group that everyone’s talking about.

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