Hasn’t Bob Odenkirk been through enough without discovering he has ties to the Royal Family? Apparently not. Per Rolling Stone, the beloved actor appeared on an upcoming episode of Finding Your Roots, where host Henry Louis Gates Jr. had an unusually unexpected surprise for him: King Charles III is his 11th cousin.
He then elaborated. “I’m an American. I’m not a monarchist. I don’t believe in, uh, that,” Odenkirk said. “You know, I feel like it’s a little twisted. I understand why society built itself around monarchs and leaders, and they passed them down through generations.”
He added, “I understand that goes through every society, every civilization. But I think that we’ve gotten to a better place with democracy and we should keep going down that road.”
The news was especially a shock because the relation comes from his father’s side. Odenkirk didn’t know much about his dad, who left the family when he was 15. Gates explained that the connection was pretty distant, that it was his father’s fifth great-grandfather who was born out of wedlock to Maria Catharina Bein and the Duke of Plön. Therein lies the mystery of how the current King of England is related to one-half of Mr. Show with Bob and David.
Today (January 30), SZA played a game of rapid fire, answering quick questions from fans for Apple Music on TikTok. She answered a question from a fan, who asked if she’d collaborate with Paramore.
She then confirmed that fans can indeed look forward to a collaboration between the two of them.
“Yeah. Soon, soon,” SZA said in response to the question. “It’s in the works.”
SZA did not indicate if the collab would appear on her upcoming album, Lana, however, she did share that “the era” of her sophomore album SOS is “over.”
“The era, for me, is before the album comes out,” says SZA. “That era of my life is over. This version — I don’t know. That story is still writing itself.”
As fans know, SZA’s pen game never disappoints. So what ever other stories she has in the works, we can’t wait to hear.
Few watching the maiden episode of Westworld could have seen the show’s final twist: It was cancelled. A year and change later, there’s still no word on whether there will be some belated finale. (What’s more, HBO poured salt on the wound by removing it from its streamer.) As is, though, there is no proper ending for the show, and it still haunts at least one of its stars to this day.
The Hollywood Reportercaught up with Evan Rachel Wood, who played Dolores Abernathy, the titular park’s oldest host. The actress said that after they shot the Season 4 finale, she asked creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan where the show was headed next. They wouldn’t tell her then. And they never did.
“I asked the creators after we got canceled, ‘Can you please just tell me how you’re going to end?’ And they wouldn’t tell me,” Wood recalled, laughing. “I think because, I don’t know, maybe somehow, someway, in some iteration we’ll get to finish it, but I still don’t know. It does still keep me up at night.”
Wood said the way Joy and Nolan always kept everyone was maddening:
“It was devastating in a lot of ways because, first of all, they don’t tell us where the show is going. We were just always told, ‘We know how the show ends,’ when we started,” Wood explains. “They weren’t writing it as we went along. They had an idea, and we were all just on a bed of nails waiting to see and hear what the conclusion of this was. What it all meant.
“We didn’t get to have that and so after building an arc and a character for almost 10 years and not getting the payoff at the end to see where it was all going — I think for us and the audience, it was awful in a lot of ways,” Wood adds.
So that stinks. But who knows? Maybe there’ll be a belated movie à la another prematurely ended HBO program, Deadwood.
Though Breaking Bad may have ended over a decade ago, co-stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have maintained a wonderful friendship. The two still make appearances at events together, promoting their Mezcal brand, Dos Hombres.
Last October, photos surfaced of the two online with Drake at the rapper’s birthday party. Many fans believed Drake had hired the Breaking Bad co-stars to bartend at his party. But last night (January 29), during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he revealed that their presence at the party actually came as a surprise to Drake.
Drake hired Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston from “Breaking Bad” to work as bartenders at his birthday party pic.twitter.com/mvfLF8xqLr
“Did Drake just call you and say, ‘Would you bartend on my birthday?,’” asked Colbert.
Cranston then shared that this was actually a side hustle he picked up amid the SAG-AFTRA strike.
“Well, no,” said Cranston. “He called the catering company, and because it was the strike, I needed a gig. I was bartending just to pick up a few bucks, you know. It was really fun because he didn’t know we were gonna be there.”
The actor then recalled Drake’s reaction to the pleasant surprise.
“We’re in Miami and we were behind the bar,” Cranston said, “and Drake is thinking, let’s see, what should I order? And I said, can I get something for you, sir? And he goes, yeah, I’d like… Oh!
The year of our lord 2024 was supposed to be when people got normal about Taylor Swift. Instead the exact opposite has happened. The far right, already incensed that a Biden supporter was the most popular pop star on the planet, went even further into the abyss. Some even hatched tinfoil hat conspiracy theories that she’s part of some deep state psyop tomfoolery to keep Donald Trump out of office (again). Others, though, aren’t worried, because MAGA has plenty of popular influencers. Like one of the guys from the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy.
After expanding some more on his Taylor Swift op theory, Jack Posobiec adds: “We don’t have Taylor Swift on our side, but you know who we have? We have Kid Rock. We have Ted Nugent. We have influencers. We have all these people — Jon Voight.” pic.twitter.com/IWIvNtYsdz
In a recent appearance at an RNC summit, Trump crony Jack Posobiec claimed that the Biden administration has been leaning on what he called “The Taylor Strategy,” which involves using the pop star to get out the vote. Or something! Posobiec had nothing against Swift herself. He just felt she was being used by the “machine that’s around her” that wants to “use the power of her celebrity.”
But never fear, because MAGA has some pretty popular celebrities, too.
“We don’t have Taylor Swift on our side,” admitted Pobosiec. “But you know who we have? We have Kid Rock. We have Ted Nugent. We have influencers. We have all these people — Jon Voight.
“We have people who can come out and use their audiences,” Probosiec said, asking MAGA heads to attend Kid Rock and Ted Nugent shows and perhaps even movie premieres for films with Jon Voight.
For the record, Jon Voight’s a very fine actor, so excellent that he still gets work despite his always awkward Trump stumping. Nugent and Kid Rock, less so, and the same goes for other low-rung MAGA celebrities like Scott Baio, Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain, and Chuck Woolery. Another thing all of these names have in common is that none are remotely popular with the young people today’s GOP has almost completely alienated, prompting the MAGA meltdowns that are getting both worse and weirder.
Anyway, when people caught wind of Probosiec comparing Jon Voight to Taylor Swift, there was plenty of laughter.
Jack Posobiec told a crowd that the left may have Taylor Swift, but they have “Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and Jon Voight” and now I can’t stop laughing.
And there were plenty of people pointing out that none of those folks could, as they said nearly 35 years ago, when Voight was in his 50s, “rock the vote.”
Jack Posobiec unveils his anti-Taylor Swift strategy: a battleground state concert tour featuring Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, and possibly Jon Voight. https://t.co/DuBcEqsBlK
young people are always talking about ted nugent and jon voight. they’ll really bring the taylor demographic to the polls this year https://t.co/Bie9hTIRZe
Many a celebrity has felt the wrath of Eminem’s scathing pen, but it looks like the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator Ben Johnson will avoid such a fate — for now. The coach had potential offers to move up to a head coaching role for teams like the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Commanders, but opted to stay in Detroit for the time being after the historically awful Motor City football club made a respectable push in the playoffs this season, taking it all the way to the NFC Championship, where they were narrowly defeated by the San Francisco 49ers this past Sunday, 34-31.
Eminem expressed his relief at Johnson’s decision on Twitter, where he joked that he had been working on a diss track, which is presumably shelved for the time being. He also called back to his earlier joke about joining the team, which he’s supported with his star power for years. “Guess I should stop recording this diss track..!!” he wrote. “@ Ben Johnson Thank you for staying!!! We can’t break this team up ESPECIALLY since I’M on it!!! Coach Campbell we love you bro!!! Let’s run it back next year!!…I’m READY!!!! I promise you I WILL get us to the super bowl!!”
Guess I should stop recording this diss track..!! Lol!! @ Ben Johnson Thank you for staying!!! We can’t break this team up ESPECIALLY since I’M on it!!! Coach Campbell we love you bro!!! Let’s run it back next year!!…I’m READY!!!! I promise you I WILL get us to the super…
The joke played on the media furor surrounding Em’s attendance at the recent NFC Championship, where he prematurely celebrated the Lions’ hefty halftime lead, gloating while flipping off the surrounding Niners fans. Unfortunately, his overconfidence came back to bite him right in the tuchus when the Lions fell apart in the second half, paving the way for San Franciso to stamp their tickets to the Super Bowl. It looks like the Lions will be running it back next year, and Em will have to pick a new target to poke (just as long as it isn’t Taylor Swift, for the love of God).
A year ago, “Saturday Night Live” poked fun at an obnoxiously large western hat trend made popular by Instagram influencers with a sketch called “Big Dumb Hat” starring Amy Schumer, Heidi Gardner and Chloe Fineman.
On January 27, Fineman and Gardner were back, this time with actor Dakota Johnson, poking fun at the next Big Dumb trend that’s popular with influencers and their followers, Stanley cups. Boosted by their popularity on TikTok, the $45 Stanley Quencher cup recently created a consumer frenzy with grown adults stampeding shopping displays in Targets across the U.S. to buy one.
The sketch opens with the 3 women, dressed in their Big Dumb hats, stating the requirements for owning a Stanley Quencher: driving to Target every day in a big car, being between the ages of 12 and 70 and being “physically or at least spiritually” blond.
Big Dumb Cups – SNL
Throughout the sketch, the women crack jokes about the cup’s unique properties while Johnson’s gets progressively bigger. “Mm! You can really taste the bacteria!” Fineman said, while Gardner added, “I’m getting lead.”
“If your car explodes, you won’t survive. But your Big Dumb cup will, Fineman said. “If I’m not sipping, I’m peeing,” Gardner added.
The sketch was a highlight in an episode that was criticized by some for allowing musical guest and frequent ‘SNL’ host Justin Timberlake upstage Johnson during the monologue. Timberlake would later reprise his role as Andy Gibb alongside Barry Gibb (Jimmy Fallon) in “The Barry Gibb Show.” The show was also notable because Dave Chappelle was announced at the end-of-show stage call, but didn’t appear in the episode.
Addie Rodriguez was supposed to take the field with her dad during a high school football game, where he, along with other dads, would lift her onto his shoulders for a routine. But Addie’s dad was halfway across the country, unable to make the event.
Her father is Abel Rodriguez, a veteran airman who, after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was training at Travis Air Force Base in California, 1,700 miles from his family in San Antonio at the time.
“Mom missed the memo it was parent day, and the reason her mom missed the memo was her dad left Wednesday,” said Alexis Perry-Rodriguez, Addie’s mom. She continued, “It was really heartbreaking to see your daughter standing out there being the only one without their father, knowing why he’s away. It’s not just an absentee parent. He’s serving our country.”
But as Addie sat there in front of the game’s crowd, with no one to join her on the field, someone ran toward her. That person was Central Catholic High School senior Matthew Garcia, who went to her after realizing she was the only cheerleader without a partner.
Garcia told local news station FOX 29, “I ran down from the bleachers right here, and I just hopped the fence, and I went over, and I kneeled down, I talked to her and I said, ‘Are you OK?'”
He then lifted Addie onto his shoulders just like the dads did with their daughters so she could participate in the routine. Many onlookers quickly realized they were witnessing an extraordinary act of kindness, and social media was abuzz:
@Harvard hopeful @matt_garcia_ exhibits the true measure of a man! Read about him on ABC News & GMA today/tomorrow!https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/student-rescues-cheerleader-whose-military-dad-couldnt-attend-performanceu00a0u2026
— Central Catholic HS (@Central Catholic HS) 1476293152
It may have been a small gesture for Garcia, but as Addie tells it, that little bit of assistance meant the world to her. They posed for a picture after the routine was done, and it’s clear this will be one encounter she won’t soon forget.
“I just felt like somebody saved my life,” Addie said, adding, “I thought that’s so nice, especially since my dad’s serving for us.”
A Business Insider column noted that two-thirds of the bottled water sold in the United States is in individual 16.9-ounce bottles, which comes out to roughly $7.50 per gallon. That’s about 2,000 times higher than the cost of a gallon of tap water.
And in an article in 20 Something Finance, G.E. Miller investigated the cost of bottled versus tap water for himself. He found that he could fill 4,787 20-ounce bottles with tap water for only $2.10! So if he paid $1 for a bottled water, he’d be paying 2,279 times the cost of tap.
2. Bottled water could potentially be of lower quality than tap water.
Fiji Water ran an ad campaign that was pretty disparaging about the city of Cleveland. Not a wise move. The city ordered a test of the snooty brand’s water and found that Fiji Water contained levels of arsenic that weren’t seen in the city’s water supply.
” Bottled water manufacturers are not required to disclose as much information as municipal water utilities because of gaps in federal oversight authority. Bottom line: The Food and Drug Administration oversees bottled water, and U.S. EPA is in charge of tap water. FDA lacks the regulatory authority of EPA.”
3. The amount of bottled water we buy every week in the U.S. alone could circle the globe five times!
That sounded like it just had to be impossible, so we looked into it. Here’s what our fact-checkers found:
“According to the video, ‘ People in the U.S. buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week.’ National Geographic says for 2011, bottled water sales hit 9.1 billion gallons (roughly 34 billion liters).
A ‘typical’ water bottle is a half-liter, so that’s about 68 billion bottles per year. Divided by 52 weeks would be a little over 1 billion bottles of water sold per week in the U.S. Because that’s based on a smaller ‘typical’ bottle size, it seems reasonable that a half billion bottles a week could be accurate.
The Earth is about 131.5 million feet around, so yep, half a billion bottles of varying sizes strung end-to-end could circle the Earth five times.”
4. Paying for bottled water makes us chumps.
Beverage companies have turned bottled water into a multibillion-dollar industry through a concept known as manufactured demand. Bottled water advertisements used a combination of scare tactics (Tap water bad!) and seduction (From the purest mountain streams EVER!) to reel us in.
Well, we now know their claims about the superior quality of bottled water are mostly bogus. And research shows that anywhere from a quarter to 45% of all bottled water comes from the exact same place as your tap water (which, to reiterate, is so cheap it’s almost free).
5. Bottled water is FILTHY.
It takes oil — lots of it — to make plastic bottles. According to the video, the energy in the amount of oil it takes to make the plastic water bottles sold in the U.S. in one year could fuel a million cars. That’s not even counting the oil it takes to ship bottled water around the world.
On top of all that, the process of manufacturing plastic bottles is polluting public water supplies, which makes it easier for bottled water companies to sell us their expensive product.
6. There are 750 million people around the world who don’t have access to clean water.
A child dies every minute from a waterborne disease. And for me, that’s the core of what makes bottled water so evil.
The video wraps by comparing buying bottled water to smoking while pregnant. That may sound extreme, but after learning everything I just did about the bottled water industry, I can’t disagree.
If you’re properly disgusted, here are a few ways you can help destroy the bottled water industry:
Don’t buy bottled water. Get a reusable water bottle. The savings will add up.
Rally your schools, workplaces, and communities to ban bottled water.
Demand that your city, state, and federal governments invest in better water infrastructure.
From a young age, Deddeh Howard was enthralled by fashion and its role in culture. Unfortunately, she was never really able to see herself in it.
“Something that always bothered me when you see these amazing images [was] that very rarely you ever see a black woman on them,” Howard, who grew up in West Africa but now resides in Los Angeles, wrote at her blog, Secret of DD.
“Black girls are almost invisible,” she wrote.
So Howard created “Black Mirror,” a photo series in which she re-creates famous photos with herself in place of models like Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Gisele Bundchen, and others.
Howard’s partner, Raffael Dickreuter, shot the series. As its title suggests, it holds a “black mirror” up to the fashion world. The project’s goal is both to make people notice the lack of diversity in the fashion world and to provide inspiration to other non-white models.
Of the models featured on the fall 2016 runways, 75% were white. There’s a major need for a diversity boost.
Sometimes, that lack of diversity can be downright embarrassing. Earlier this year, one fashion show featured models walking to Beyoncé’s “Formation,” a song Essence described as a “wholly and undeniable a tribute to Blackness — particularly Black girl power.” The problem: The show didn’t feature a single non-white model.
Diversity, representation, and visibility play key roles in shaping ambition and self-acceptance in the real world.
It’s important to be able to see yourself in the world, and it’s important to know that someone who looks like you can succeed.
“The next generation can only get inspired and reach for the stars themselves if they believe they can do it too,” Howard wrote on her blog. “For that reason diversity in ad campaigns is in my opinion much more important than you might think.”
This article originally appeared on 12.08.16
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