Category: News

While the majority of Rihanna fans are waiting for a new album from the singer, as her last one arrived in 2016 with Anti, the long wait don’t mean that she’s spent the last five years doing little to nothing. Rihanna has been hard at work building her Fenty empire, one that began in 2017 thanks to the launch of Fenty Beauty. The following year she would start her Savage X Fenty lingerie line and in 2019, her Fenty fashion house was officially born. After debuting Fenty Skin last year, Rihanna is preparing to bring a new line to her company, that being Fenty Hair.

According to Harper’s Bazaar, the singer filed a trademark application for Fenty Hair on March 3. The publication reports that the trademark looks to cover “everything from styling, straightening, relaxing and waving products, as well as hair color and even hair glitter.” The news comes after the singer decided to shut down her Fenty fashion house last month, one that was launched in collaboration with LVMH. Despite this, it was also announced last month ago that Savage X Fenty’s net worth reached $1 billion.

After hearing news of the new line, fans celebrated the news on Twitter and one support shared a great reaction to it. “Can’t wait to be around the house in my Fenty furniture, Fenty Skin on, in my Savage X Fenty, doing my Fenty Hair, wearing Fenty X Puma, while listening to absolutely NOTHING,” they said, throwing a slight jab at the singer’s yet-unreleased ninth album.

Nearly five years ago, Nick Jonas unleashed his third album, Last Year Was Complicated. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard album charts and spawned one of his most successful tracks, “Close” with Tove Lo, which peaked at No. 14 on the singles chart and served as the third top-20 hit of his career. Despite the success, Nick would take a break from his solo career and spend the next few years a coach on The Voice and making a Jonas Brothers comeback with his siblings Kevin and Joe. Now, Nick is back, and on Friday he’ll release his fourth album, Spaceman.

Its arrival is preceded by a new video for the album’s title track. For it, the singer finds himself on a foreign planet as he desperately attempts to return home. Nick runs across the unfamiliar terrain while passionately singing the lyrics from “Spaceman:” “I’m tryna get home, I’m a spaceman.” The visual also features an appearance from his wife, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, in the form of a hologram.

The visual arrives after Nick hosted and performed on a recent episode of Saturday Night Live where he sang “Spaceman” and debuted his “This Is Heaven” single.

You can watch the video above.

Spaceman is out 03/12 via Island. Pre-order it here.

WandaVision‘s story came to a close last week, and with it some answers that fans had asked basically the entirety of the show’s run. But one answer was a bit disappointing for many of the fans who spent the days between new episodes launching an unending wave of fan theories about what was actually happening in the town controlled by some pretty impressive magic.

Namely, that Vision actor Paul Bettany was actually trolling when he teased a big star he played opposite of in the show’s final episodes. As the weeks wound down, many wondered if he was just teasing fans, and (spoilers ahead) that speculation increased when White Vision showed up. And though many were disappointed by the troll, the man in charge of WandaVision wasn’t nearly as upset by the ruse as some fans were.

Collider spoke to WandaVision creator Jac Schaffer, who was asked about the tease from Bettany that ended up being a pretty clever troll in the end. And while some fans may still be let down, Schaffer thinks the actor has “earned the right” to get fans riled up.

I’m sure you saw Paul Bettany make comments a few weeks ago about how the finale included him getting to work with an actor “he always wanted to work with”? What was your reaction to that?

SCHAEFFER: Well, I mean, I talked to him about it. It was hilarious. He’s hilarious. He’s just what you want him to be. He’s wildly charming, and mischievous and just wonderful. I’m not a trickster, ever. It scares me too badly. But he’s been doing this forever and he’s been doing this since the very beginning. If anyone has earned the right to troll, it’s Paul Bettany.

Interestingly, some of those fan theories actually changed the trajectory of what happened in the show’s later episodes. So while Bettany’s tease may have led some fans in the wrong direction, at least it didn’t impact what actually did happen on the show.

My best friend lives in San Diego. One day a few years ago, her teenage son came home and told her he’d made a new friend at the skate park. He talked about how they had struck up a conversation, the guy had given him some pointers, and they’d chit-chatted about this and that. “He was really cool,” her son said. Then he showed her a selfie they’d taken together.

Yeah, his “new friend” was the skateboarding icon Tony Hawk. True story.

Tales of Tony Hawk not being recognized as Tony Hawk—even for people who actually know who Tony Hawk is—have become the stuff of legends. The 52-year-old made a name for himself in the skateboarding world decades ago and is credited with bringing the sport into the mainstream. Even in 2020, he was listed among the Top 10 skateboarders of all time. He’s had his own video game, cameos in film and television shows, his own clothing line—everything, apparently, but a recognizable face.

The “people not recognizing Tony Hawk as Tony Hawk” thing is so common it’s become a meme of its own. Hawk himself jokes about it all the time, sharing hilarious interactions he has with people on his Twitter account.

This one from a couple of years ago has re-gone viral:

Which is just one of many similar stories. Hawk told Business Insider that it happens often, but he only shares the interactions that are the funniest.

Now the meme itself results in some funny interactions with people.

People’s funny reactions to the meme are becoming their own meme: “I will know Tony Hawk when I see him.”

Part of what makes the whole thing so delightful is that Tony Hawk himself is so delightful. He’s down-to-earth, friendly, doesn’t take himself too seriously, does a lot of connecting out in the community, and is just a genuinely likable guy.

And to top it all off, he’s still a heck of a skater. Though he retired from the pro circuit in 1999, he still skateboards for fun and charity. In fact, he recently landed a 720—two full 360-degree turns in the air off a ramp—which isn’t easy for even a young skater to pull off, and then auctioned the board to raise money to help build more public skateparks. (He did say it might be his last time pulling off that trick, but who knows. Good for him for pushing the age envelope.)

Tony Hawk—skating legend, father of five, nice guy to all, supporter of community parks, and man that everyone adores but nobody recognizes—thanks for being such a ray of sunshine in our world. May we know you when we see you, or at least be entertaining enough to make your Twitter account if we don’t.

The life of Amanda Berry is an amazing story of someone bravely turning tragedy into triumph. Berry was kidnapped in Cleveland, Ohio by Ariel Castro in 2003, right before her 17th birthday. She was taken after a job interview at a local Burger King.

Authorities originally thought she had run away until a few days later when Castro called her mother saying she’ll be “coming home in a couple of days.”

Those couple of days turned into 10 years.

In 2013, she bravely helped two other women and Berry’s own six-year-old daughter escape. Her daughter was born in captivity.

Now, Berry has taken the pain she endured living in subhuman conditions and used it as inspiration to help rescue other kidnapping victims. In February 2017, she joined the Fox 8 Cleveland news team as an advocate for missing people.

Berry told Good Morning America that working to find missing individuals was a way for her to find her voice.

“In the beginning, I was so scared to do anything,” she said. “I was really scared to leave the house and you know, being noticed. But now I just feel like I take it more as a blessing that I am on this side and that I am blessed enough to be able to help and I can finally use my voice for good.”

Amanda Berry`s 3-year anniversary at FOX 8

www.youtube.com

Her segment “Missing with Amanda Berry” has helped save countless missing individuals. “It’s invaluable, it really is. I don’t know if she really realizes the impact she does. I can’t tell you the amount of calls and tips I’ve got from your segments,” Cleveland Police detective Kevin Callahan told Berry on her third anniversary with the station.

Recently, Berry partnered with U.S. Marshals to help rescue missing children through Operation Safety Net. Working with state and local partners, Amanda has helped rescue 57 missing and endangered children between the ages of 13 and 18 in the northern Ohio area.

The success of the effort led to the creation of a permanent squad in the area.

“One of the biggest reasons Operation Safety net was a success was Amanda Berry,” U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio Pete Elliott told Good Morning America. “She is a great example for Cleveland, Ohio, where you fight and you never quit and that’s what she does. We’re doing this all over the country and we’re gonna try to bring back every single kid that we can, together with Amanda Berry.”

Berry credits her mother for her dedication to her work. Her mother was a tireless advocate for her while she was held captive; unfortunately, she died in 2006 and was never able to see her daughter return home safely.

“I push every day more and more for my mother. She fought so hard for me while I was gone, and I think now, I’m trying to finish kind of what she started for the missing,” Berry said. “In the beginning, there was nobody to call, there wasn’t someone there to help you print your missing posters of your child. So you know, a lot has changed since 2003 and I’m just glad that I can be here and continue my mom’s work.”

Berry’s story is amazing, but far from being completely told. She’s had so much success in such a short time helping rescue missing people that there’s no telling how much of an impact she’ll make on the lives of others going forward. But there’s a beautiful thing we can be sure of at this point, through her dedication to finding others, she’s been able to find herself. Which is miraculous given the trauma she’s had to overcome to get to this place.

Following Armie Hammer‘s very public fall from grace that culminated in being dropped by his agent and publicists after a series of online allegations accused him of sending disturbing graphic messages to women, Vanity Fair has published a lengthy dive into Hammer’s wealthy, ‘Succession’-esque family, which has been plagued by scandal going all the way back to 1919. The feature also sheds new light on the circumstances leading up to Hammer’s divorce from Elizabeth Chambers, and his seemingly unhinged behavior thereafter. The situation went south during the early months of the pandemic when Hammer had trouble living in close quarters with his wife and kids on the Cayman Islands. He fled to the U.S., and reportedly detonated his marriage before he even got off the plane.

When Armie touched down in the U.S., he mistakenly sent a raunchy text message meant for someone else to his estranged spouse. Elizabeth filed for divorce shortly after.

According to Vanity Fair, the errant text message wasn’t an isolated incident. Chambers was aware of Hammer having previous affairs, including shortly after their son’s birth (How very Trumpian!), and the two had been in counseling together. However, Hammer reportedly began leaning into a very bizarre hobby:

Several years back Armie introduced Elizabeth to shibari, a Japanese bondage art form in which people are tied up in intricate patterns. Elizabeth tried to be supportive of the new interest, which Armie allegedly indulged by buying mannequins and inventing elaborate knots. Elizabeth even tried to find a lucrative spin on the obsession: “She suggested he write a book about a hobby called Why Knot?” laughed the friend.

Hammer’s obsession with knots, particularly tying up mannequins, resurfaced on the secret Instagram account that he started shortly after his divorce. Under the handle @el_destructo_86, Hammer shared a photo of a tied-up mannequin and wrote in the caption, “If quarantine doesn’t start moving more quickly I’m going to f*ck this thing.”

While reiterating that the online allegations against Hammer have not been corroborated, Vanity Fair spoke to Hammer’s former lover who has accused the actor of not respecting BDSM consent boundaries. The feature also draws parallels between Hammer and his father who went through a very public and scandal-ridden divorce involving drugs, women, and tattoos just like his son.

While Chambers did not comment for the profile, she issued her public support for Hammer’s alleged victims in early February. “Heartbreak aside, I am listening, and will continue to listen and educate myself on these delicate matters,” Chambers wrote on Instagram. “I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know. I support any victim of assault or abuse and urge anyone who has experienced this pain to seek the help she or he needs to heal.”

(Via Vanity Fair)

The world of whisk(e)y can be a messy business. Federal (and local) regulations, taxes, and tariffs can have a pretty big effect on the price of your bottle of bourbon, scotch, or Irish whiskey before it ever hits shelves. This has been made even clearer over the past few years, because of ex-President Donald Trump’s trade wars. But drinkers definitely got some good news on that front this week, when the new U.S. administration and the U.K. government jointly decided to suspend trade tariffs on Scotch whisky imports to the U.S. (along with cheese and wool).

As of March 8th, all tariffs will be reduced to zero for a four-month “show of good faith” while trade deals between the two nations are renegotiated. So how did we get to this point, where trade negotiations are dominating whisky news? Back in 2019, the U.S. decided to put a 25 percent tariff on food and drink imports (amongst other imports) from the EU/U.K. as a tactic to move along the seemingly never-ending Boeing/Airbus trade war which started 16 years ago.

Over the 16 months that the tariffs were in play, they applied to every bottle sent over the Atlantic from Scotland. Naturally, the Scotch industry suffered. A lot. The Scotch Whisky Association said in a statement last month that the industry has lost 35 percent of its export business, creating a $635,000,000 loss for the overall industry in Scotland.

That’s pretty goddamn steep. Especially for an industry that has nothing to do with aviation.

As a matter of retaliation, the U.K. and the EU levied tariffs on U.S. booze. That, in turn, caused imports of American spirits (bourbon particularly) to decline by 53 percent, hurting the industry to the tune of over $70,000,000 over a two year span. Those tariffs have not been lifted by the U.K. or EU in return. In fact, tariffs on U.S. spirits heading to the EU are set to rise to a whopping 50 percent in June of this year. At which point the U.S. is set to levy a 25 percent tariff on all brandy and wine coming in from France and Germany.

Obviously, when you’re dealing with geopolitics, things get messy in a hurry. But in the end, there’s a human cost to all this. It’s the workers at these distilleries who are losing their jobs.

So what does this mean for you? Nothing… yet. While the tariff freeze went into effect last week (it was backdated to March 4th, 2021), you are unlikely to see any change in price right away. The bottles on the shelf now pretty much all came over with that 25 percent tariff on top. It’s not magically going away.

Moreover, and let’s be real here, whisk(e)y retailers are not exactly known for their egalitarian pricing on bottles of booze. We may, however, see some change in prices come during the holiday season as shelves are restocked in anticipation of a huge shopping quarter. That’s a big “if,” of course, depending on whether this four-month tariff suspension actually lasts that long.

To be sure that there wasn’t any immediate change, we checked prices from last week’s scotch roundup (published before the tariff was suspended) against prices for those same bottles today. There is no change. Still, whisk(e)y aficionados can rest assured that scotch distilleries are racing to get their expressions into the country ASAP — they fully understand that lower sticker prices make buying decisions easier.

If you’re eyeing special bottles, it’s fair to anticipate marginally cheaper scotch later in the year. At the very least, importers are going to be buying more of it and pushing it on retailers. Even if the tariffs come back, there will be a small window at some point that can be exploited by collectors and anyone trying to stock their bar carts.

Until then, we’re going to keep using the cheap stuff for our highballs!

How many TV ads have you seen pitching shampoo “for normal to oily hair” or lotion “for normal skin”? Probably more than you can count. The problem is when it comes to beauty products, the term “normal” has always seemed to be code for “white.”

For decades, this white-normative labeling has sent a subtle, but damaging message to people of color by casting them as abnormal. It also reinforces notions of white supremacy by heralding white people as the measuring stick for all humanity.

That’s why Unilever, the London-based company that owns Dove, Vaseline, Axe, and Sunsilk beauty products is banning the term from their products and advertising. The move comes after the company conducted a 10,000-person study across nine countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.

via Unilever

According to a Unilever press release the poll found that “More than half of people (56%) think that the beauty and personal care industry can make people feel excluded.”

It also revealed that “Seven in ten people agree that using the word ‘normal’ on product packaging and advertising has a negative impact.”

“The decision to remove ‘normal’ is one of many steps that we are taking to challenge narrow beauty ideals, as we work towards helping to end discrimination and advocating for a more inclusive vision of beauty,” Unilever said in its release. “It comes as global research into people’s experiences of the beauty industry reveals that using ‘normal’ to describe hair or skin makes most people feel excluded.”

The announcement was accompanied by a video that explains how many of the norms we’ve been conditioned to accept — especially those surrounding masculinity, beauty, health, animal rights, pollution, and sexuality — are really quite the opposite.

“We won’t accept a world where any of this is normal,” the ads says.

The company wants to reposition its messaging so it focuses on what the product does rather than who it’s for.

“Unilever has made the most progress with hair products, where ‘normal’ was removed or repositioned and replaced it with descriptions that highlight the benefit of the product,” a company representative told The Washington Post. “We want to communicate what a product does — not who it is for — without the manufactured description of ‘normal.’ For example, we’ll explain that a product will replenish moisture or help to meet specific needs.”

A company representative says Unilever has over 200 products with the word “normal” on the label. It has already started the removal process and hopes to be completed by March 2022.

Ateh Jewel, an advisory board member of the British Beauty Council, told The New York Times the changes were “completely necessary” after the Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year.

“Saying the word ‘normal’ has been used to set you apart,” Jewel said. “I am normal. My dark skin is normal. My juicy West African curvy body is normal. Everything about me is normal.”

Click to download here.

Johnny Sack Loves His Curvy Wife

As a teenager, Johnny Sack was often teased by his friends for his attraction to girls on the thicker side, ones who were shorter and curvier, girls that the average (basic) stunad might refer to as “chubby” or even “fat.” Then, as he became a made man and started to educate himself on issues such as feminism and how the mafia marginalizes women by portraying a very narrow and very specific standard of beauty (thin, tall, no 90lb moles on their ass), he realized Ralphie Cifaretto needed to die. Hear all about it on the latest episode of Pod Yourself A Gun. Matt and Vince are joined by Patrick Monahan from the What A Time To Be Alive podcast to discuss season 4 episode 4 of the Sopranos, “The Weight.”

We are officially at the halfway point, folks. This is episode 43 of 86, and as discussed on the podcast, maybe a low point for the series. Still a watch-worthy episode with a great Furio shirt and the introduction of some hitmen who have a real elderly McPoyles vibe, but as Patrick points out, it’s the closest the Sopranos comes to making a Frasier-style farce where everyone is saved by their own grace. It doesn’t make sense for these sociopaths. For these reasons, the episode receives the lowest grade the podcast has ever handed out – a solid B+.

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Description by @brentflyberg

Some cooking shows are all about the stress of turning out 200 plates for food personalities, prestigious chefs, and diners like our own Vince Mancini. Others see beloved chefs enter a culinary Thunderdome to cook under high-pressure time constraints. It’s rare to get a cooking competition that’s simply about having fun.

That’s why truTV’s Fast Foodies, which airs Thursdays at 10:30 eastern (and streams on Hulu), feels like a breath of fresh air. A win isn’t going to make some upstart chef’s career or get them a corporate catering gig. The show’s highest ambition is for you to say, “That looks tasty! And everyone is having so much fun!”

Because sometimes that’s enough. Also, getting an audience to say that is a higher bar than you might think. And Fast Foodies is great at clearing it.

The show stars Top Chef alums Kristen Kish, Jeremy Ford, and Justin Sutherland. While Kish is basically the host, all three work together to keep the vibe extremely chill while also acting as competitors, recreating iconic fast food dishes. It’s all very bingeable, but in the “watch one more episode on autoplay” way, not the “Oh my god, what happens next???” way.

As for the food itself, we all pretty much know the dishes in play — KFC buckets, sausage breakfast sandwiches, hot dogs... basically the same stuff we cook in our own chef competition series. In the process of highlighting those items, the show manages to explore how fast-food has shaped the eating habits of so many Americans. Then it asks, “What can we do with those flavors that feels a little more natural, cleaner, less-rushed, more high-end, etc.?”

These questions are investigated in two parts — with a segment focused on the three chefs doing a copycat recreation and another that has them reinterpreting the featured flavors for a high-end presentation. The final results are creative, inspiring (for the ambitious home cook), and super easy to imagine. Because face it, we mostly all know what the baseline dishes taste like, providing a solid frame of reference.

Each episode is co-hosted and judged by a different celebrity guest. But it’s all very breezy. Drinks are poured, helping hands are given, the shit is shot, and a winner is crowned. No one gets their feelings hurt.

That’s not to say that there’s no deeper theme to be taken away here. Without ever seeming like it takes tremendous effort (it shouldn’t!), Fast Foodies does a great job feeling representative of our diverse nation. Everyone making the show obviously cares about unique voices and experiences, and they prove that in the simplest and most straightforward way possible: by reflecting it through the people appearing on screen.

While this sounds like a no-brainer, it’s not some happy accident. When I reached out to Michael Rucker, the Fast Foodies showrunner, he said: “We didn’t want a tired series that felt one-note but something that reflected the real world, the amazing spectrum of voices in the culinary world, and was the type of kitchen that you’d actually want to hang out in.”

That’s obviously not rocket science, but it sure has taken a long time for folks to figure the concept out. Kudos to Fast Foodies for actually doing the damn thing and making the process so much so fun to watch. As a result, the show ends up feeling “American” in the most authentic sense — not in its focus on the fried sandwiches we gorge ourselves on but in how it highlights people of different backgrounds enjoying one another while sharing a meal.

It’s laid-back-yet-engaging and welcoming to all. Not a bad recipe, by any means.