Category: Viral

It seems like Rage Against The Machine simply wasn’t meant to complete their reunion tour. Zack De La Rocha injured his leg during the band’s show in Chicago this July, which was later revealed to be a torn Achilles after the band canceled their UK and European dates in August. This morning (October 4), the Los Angeles alt-rockers canceled the 2023 North American leg.

“It’s been almost three months since Chicago, and I still look down at my leg in disbelief,” De La Rocha wrote in a note posted to Twitter. “Two years of waiting through the pandemic, hoping we would have an opening to be a band again and continue the work we started 30 some odd years ago. Rehearsing, training, reconciling, working our way back to form. Then one and a half shows into it and my tendon tears. Felt like a sick joke the universe played on me. As I write this I remind myself it’s just bad circumstances. Just a f*cked up moment.”

He continued: “Unfortunately it is a moment that requires a lot of work and healing. I have a severe tear in my left Achilles tendon and only 8% of my tendon was left intact. And even that portion was severely compromised. It’s not simply a question of being able to perform again but extends to basic functionality going forward. That’s why I’ve made the painful and difficult decision to cancel the remaining shows on our 2023 North American leg.”

This reunion tour was initially announced in February 2020 and was scheduled to kick off on March 26, 2020, in El Paso, Texas. It was punted due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and their first show in 11 years finally took place at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in Wisconsin on July 9.

The band used their long-awaited set in Wisconsin to advocate against the Supreme Court after June’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Days later, they spread awareness around violence against Indigenous people in Canada as headliners at Ottawa’s Bluesfest.

De La Rocha’s cancellation announcement included confirmation that refunds will automatically be provided within 30 days for those who purchased tickets online from AXS or Ticketmaster.

Chloe x Halle are on a tear. The sisters have enjoyed plenty of success together, as Beyoncé’s R&B protégés and actresses on Freeform’s Grown-ish, but 2022 has thus far been marked by their individual successes. Halle Bailey is starring as Ariel in Disney’s 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, and Chlöe, August’s Uproxx cover star, is rolling out her self-titled solo debut album behind sizzling singles like “Have Mercy,” “Treat Me,” and “Surprise.”

And on Tuesday (October 4), Chlöe debuted as the face of Pepsi’s revival of its Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop, putting her unique spin on “Footloose.” The music video begins with a waiter named Kevin serving bacon — an obvious nod toward Footloose star Kevin Bacon and a perhaps accidental perpetuation of the Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon — but the star of this show is Chlöe.

The Atlanta star takes over the diner with her spicy performance, dancing on the countertops before being transported to a Pepsi-themed barn for a true dance party. According to Adweek, the commercial will make its TV debut during this Saturday’s (October 8) episode of Saturday Night Live.

According to a press release, Pepsi “is encouraging all to create their own modern take on the song via a TikTok dance challenge, inspired by summer 2022’s viral ‘Footloose’ TikTok trend” from October 7 to October 16 for the chance to win Chlöe-autographed posters and sneakers. Chlöe has never been one to shy away from a TikTok challenge herself.

Watch the new Pepsi spot above.

Kanye West appears to be on a mission to completely alienate whatever is left of his fanbase, and while he’ll always have defenders in some of the more controversial corners of the alt-right, it looks like many members of the fashion establishment are fed up with his nonsense. Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson walked out of Kanye’s recent YZY fashion show in Paris after his models walked in shirts reading “White Lives Matter” on the back, and when Kanye responded with his typical wave of trolling Instagram posts, supermodel Bella Hadid came to Karefa-Johnson’s defense.

After Kanye posted screenshots of Karefa-Johnson’s Instagram, calling her a “droid” and writing “I KNOOOOOOOW ANNA [Wintour, the notorious Vogue publisher] HAAATES THESE BOOTS” under one of her fit pics, Hadid chimed in in the comments. “You wish u had a percentage of her intellect,” she wrote. “You have no idea haha… If there’s actually a point to any of your sh*t she might be the only person that could save u. As if the ‘honor’ of being invited to your show should keep someone from giving their opinion…? Lol. You’re a bully and a joke.”

And as far as pots calling kettles “black” — every possible pun intended, IYKYK — fans were quick to point out that Kanye’s fits of late haven’t exactly rung any bells, while he’s received a wave of criticism from folks like Van Lathan, who has been calling Kanye out on his sh*t as long as anyone, and Jaden Smith, who made it a point to tweet “Black Lives Matter” after telling fans he too left the fashion show early.

It might be lost on Kanye now, but look: when even someone like Boosie is scoring easy points on you, it might be time to put that jersey in the rafters and walk away from the game before you do anymore damage to your legacy.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is getting roasted after showing up to survey damage from Hurricane Ian while wearing a staggeringly white pair of rain boots without a trace of dirt on them. It also didn’t help that DeSantis wore the boots during a staged photo op that forced relief workers to pause their efforts while the governor was on the scene.

Volunteers reportedly grew angry after working diligently to provide much needed supplies after the damaging storm only for DeSantis to come in and pause their efforts. A tense exchange took place with state troopers who seemed sympathetic to the relief workers. Via ABC Action News:

“I don’t give a rat’s ass,” one woman yelled.

“Personally, I want you to go over there,” one state trooper told Nelson. “I want you to get as much supplies to help these people out.”

“So, legally, why can I not?” Nelson asked.

“Our hands are tied,” the trooper said.

“I’m not trying to be rude,” Nelson told him. “But, we’ve been doing this very thing one street over, and the only reason we are not over there…”

“Is because the governor’s coming…I understand,” the trooper responded.

Meanwhile, DeSantis got roundly roasted on Twitter as the Nancy Sinatra jokes started flying. The governor’s awkward footwear proved to be an irresistible target as people dunked on the blatant photo op.

You can see some of the reactions below:

(Via ABC Action News)

Of the many ways Donald Trump has embarrassed himself over the years, what could have easily been in the Top 10 of All-Time single most mortifying moments of his presidency unfortunately — for all of us — never came to fruition.

On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel shared that, in an effort to prove that no amount of deadly virus pumping through his veins would ever be enough to take him down, Trump had planned a hokey stunt for when he left Walter Reed Medical Center in early October 2020 after being hospitalized with COVID: disrobing to reveal that he was Superman. As Kimmel explained:

Remember a couple of years ago, after Typhoid Donny was discharged from the hospital for COVID — when he had COVID? He said he wanted to open up his shirt like Clark Kent to reveal the Superman. Well, according to [Maggie] Haberman’s book, he didn’t just mean that figuratively.

While he was in the hospital, he sent an aide — a guy named Max Miller — to the store to buy a Superman shirt for him. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find Underoos in a size Triple XL, which is a shame. Can you imagine him coming out of that hospital squeezed into the shirt like Kal-El Pollo Loco or something?

In Haberman’s much-talked about new book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America (which, finally, comes out today), The New York Times reporter writes that that plan was for the then-president to be “wheeled out of Walter Reed in a chair and, once outdoors, he would dramatically stand up, then open his button-down dress shirt to reveal [a] Superman logo beneath it.”

“Listen, the only thing Trump does faster than a speeding bullet is have sex,” Kimmel noted. “We know that from Stormy Daniels.”

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 1:30 mark.

The soul of Hasan Minhaj’s howlingly funny and revelatory new Netflix comedy special, The King’s Jester (which you can stream now on Netflix), came from a prompt from his director (and Patriot Act co-creator) Prashanth Venkataramanujam: “I just need you to bleed on the page. Anything that you’re too humiliated or scared to talk about, you should talk about it.”

Seems simple, right? But accepting what Minhaj describes in our recent conversation as the closure of a gap between his public and private persona requires a commitment to a kind of authenticity that people have no problem talking about. Living that truth? Now there’s the challenge, but Minhaj seems to pull it off in a new special where the target is usually himself as he talks about the dopamine hit of social media uber relevancy and brushes with real consequences from his work pushing back on some of the world’s most powerful entities. Throughout, though, there’s a theme that we unpack in this interview: the idea of graduating and also being comfortable with who you are. Along the way, we also discuss the hard conversations that helped him get to a place where he could see the line and reorder his priorities and this golden age of stand-up special auteurism.

The thing that really drew me into this is you are unafraid to get vulnerable. Not that you were a closed book before, but this is just really open. I’m just curious about what it’s like to have to push past any sort of protective shield and also be self-aware enough to see these things.

For me, the bridge that I’ve always been trying to close is the gap between who I am on Instagram and who I am on iMessage. If I’m going to be honest with you, when I just had my notepad out and I was writing out the material and writing out the stories, there really was a gap there. People see me or saw me as the Daily Show, White House Correspondents dinner, Homecoming King, Patriot Act guy. And then there’s the iMessage, WhatsApp Hasan Minhaj that Beena, Ayesha, my parents, my in-laws, my cousins, they really know who I am. And there’s a little bit of, “Hey, if I’m going to try to do this thing, be an artist for life, I got to close that gap.” The King’s Jester, I think, is really my just sincere offering to try to do that as I continue to grow and evolve. And I don’t want to live a life where I’m kind of being duplicitous or I’m putting something on for the crowd. And I’m sure you know this in media, there’s that kind of blue check Twitter, Instagram persona, and then there’s who you really are. That goes for whichever side of the aisle you’re on. That’s not a political framing, it’s the actual quality of your character. For me, if I want to be an artist for the rest of my life, I got to show you who iMessage me is.

You talk about driving a Honda Minivan in the special, talking about sucking snot out of your kids’ nose, and there’s this idea of, “Okay, I’m going to talk about all this kid stuff.” I’ve talked to other comics about how that can be a tough transition for them. Does that factor into it at all?

Man, look, I really sincerely believe this, life is about graduating. There are two things you got to think about. I have to be honest, I do drive a black Honda Odyssey that we lease from White Plains Honda. My monthly payment is $938 a month. This is true.

That’s a tricked-out Honda.

Yeah. Bro, it’s got a leather interior. I’m doing all right. I’m not ballsy enough to buy, but I do lease. And I will say, if I was fronting, I’m not that. To me, I just don’t want to maintain that charade. And then also, there is something sad about the 37-year-old dude trying to act 25. There’s kind of nothing worse than that, and so I think it’s okay, especially in our society, we have this thing where we always want to hearken and hang onto the past through vintage style or the idea of rebooting. Really what we’re trying to do is just, there’s this warm blanket and you want to reach back to when things were simpler and made sense. I actually think it’s more courageous to be like, “Nope, I’m embracing this and I’m going to talk about it, and I want to break new ground for myself personally and for the audience.” And if you think that’s corny or lame or not incisive, that’s fine, but at least I have the satisfaction to know I’m being honest.

And this feels like a graduation. It does.

I hope so. Thank you, man. That was really what I was going for.

When you talk about some of the stuff you went through with Patriot Act — some scary shit (death threats, getting white powder mailed to him). When that happens, is there anger that rises in you and a want to push back harder at that point? Do you want to say, “Fuck this, I’m doubling down?”

I’ll be candid with you, I got to give a lot of credit to both Beena, my wife, and Prashanth Venkataramanujam, the director, but also co-creator and showrunner at Patriot Act. Both of those people in my life have served as kind of firewalls and guardrails of, “Hey, let me tell you something with the sobriety of morning here, these are the consequences that are going to happen. And the cost that you’re going to have to pay, that our family is going to have to pay, and loved ones are going to have to pay, are going to last a whole lot longer than, no disrespect, but what UPROXX or Vulture covered as the news of the day.”

People are going to forget about this viral video or this kind of mic drop moment with the flick of a wrist. We have to carry the consequences. So, do you want to make your pilgrimage and do your hudge and go to Mecca? Do you want your parents to be able to go to India and be okay? Do you want to be able to fly and be routed via Dubai and not be extradited and taken away? There are real consequences that IG stories and the Instagram Discover page do not care about, but your family has to really live with those things IRL.

So, those were sobering moments for me when kind of, “You get the bill,” and I’m like, “Oh wow, I’m dealing with this, Beena’s dealing with this, the kids and my parents, and nobody knows and nobody cares outside of our house.” That was the terrifying thing, that real kind of sobering reality of, and this is going to sound weird to say, “Man, if I died, people wouldn’t even put me in their feed. Maybe they’d share the story. The value of my life dissolves within 24 hours in the public eye. Man, I got to care about the people that don’t give a fuck about Blue Check Hasan Minhaj. They care about who I actually am.” And that was a real, “that’s my line.”

Was that an instant realization or was that something that you had to be kind of slapped in the face a little bit to get?

Candidly, when my marriage was going through those really tough spots, it was a realization that I came to and that my wife and I talked about, and it was like, “What really matters here?” And I care so much more about Beena than I do Deadline articles.

I love the visuals of this special. I feel like we’re in a golden age visually for stand-up specials right now.

I couldn’t agree more. The level of auteur filmmaking that is happening right now between Jerrod Carmichael, Bo Burnham, shout out to the Lucas Brothers and their amazing film, as well. It’s really inspiring. My personal belief, I think within the next 20 years we’re going to see five to ten standup comedians enter that genre of auteur filmmaking that 30 years ago, only Woody Allen embodied and was a part of that. There is no doubt in my mind that Bo, Jerrod, the Lucas brothers, they’re going to win Oscars, man. There’s no doubt in my mind.

I have had conversations with other comedians, though, older guard maybe, who have described it to me more as something that can sometimes be distracting. I get how that can be the case, but I don’t see that with any of the stuff that you just mentioned or Moses Storm’s special or anything like that, is that ever a concern for you, the idea of making it feel additive as opposed to distracting?

I actually think that’s a fair criticism. I think it starts with the idea and the PDF. Prashanth and I will talk about this all the time, start with the PDF and build from there. And so, one of the things that we started with when we just had the show on its feet, and I was doing it in black box theaters, the emotional threads that we were pulling, there were more emotional threads than visual cues or threads. For me, I wanted to use color as an emotional tool. What does fertility look like? What does clout look like? What does fear look like? All of those things. And you can see that in the special. So, I couldn’t agree more. I think you start with the idea itself and build from there. I think it’s distracting if you go, “Hey, I just want a crazy set. I want to use antique lenses. I want to shoot this on film.” But it’s not servicing the PDF. So for me, it’s always the power of the PDF, start there and then you can build from there. And I think the great shows and the great specials do that.

And I put this up in that echelon, this and Rothaniel really are my two favorite specials from this year.

Wow. Thank you, man. Dude, that’s an honor, man. Because Jerrod is operating at a level that I aspire to, man.

Yeah, like you were saying, he’s obviously being true to himself. He’s always been such a really interesting voice. It’s so great to see him be able to just get a chance to really just spread his wings.

You know what’s always humbling and terrifying? And I’m sure you’ve noticed this working in media. One of the lines they always use is, “Do we need this movie now or do we need this special now?” And one of the things you feel as an artist, author, creator, is what that’s implicitly saying is, “Do they need me now? Am I not cool? Am I not the cool kid anymore?” You feel like Woody in Toy Story, “Is Andy going to get rid of me?” But I can’t make art for the meta-narrative. You know what I’m saying? I have to do what feels honest. If that lines up to what, quote-on-quote, we need, great. If it doesn’t, at least I can go to sleep at night being like, “Hey man, I really did try. And I’m being, again, honest.” I just turned 37 and I’m now measuring success by… it’s actually a hedge against regret rather than what I can transactionally get out of an experience.

‘The King’s Jester’ is available to stream now on Netflix

On January 6, 2021, an estimated 2,000 rioters stormed the Capitol — less than half of whom have been identified and/or charged. If the FBI is looking for an easy way to identify the remaining insurrectionists, Trevor Noah has an idea: create a dating profile on The Right Stuff.

Over the weekend, the Peter Thiel-backed dating app for conservatives launched, and has since become the butt of many (many, many) jokes. On Monday, The Daily Show host joined in when he took a moment to talk about dating apps, or what he describes as “the quickest and most convenient way to meet a few dozen psychopaths.”

The Right Stuff, however, is different: It was founded by Daniel Huff and John McEntee, a pair of former Trump staffers who claim that being associated with the 45th president has been reason enough for more than one woman to get up and leave in the middle of a date. While Noah isn’t sure he’s buying that, he’s happy to hear that The Right Stuff will change all that for these narrow-minded singles. Because “once people started signing up, it was immediately clear that this isn’t like other dating apps,” Noah said. As he explained:

[T]here are prompts for things like Favorite Bible Verse. Well, that’s fine. Favorite Conservative Pundit — huh. And: January 6th Was… blank? Yeah, so good luck out there all you conservatives hoping to match with that special FBI agent monitoring the site.

You can watch the full clip above, including the promo for The Daily Show‘s new app — Hate F**k.

ESPN is heading into its 21st season as a broadcast partner of the NBA and will be making a number of updates and changes to its presentation of NBA games and studio shows for the 2022-23 season.

While the voices on games will be the same — the biggest news from Tuesday’s media call was Hubie Brown being back on a one-year deal to do “abut 15 games” and confirmation of JJ Redick being a more regular game analyst this season — there will be a number of ways things will look and sound different when watching games on ESPN. Among the biggest is a new NBA on ESPN theme for the first time in more than a decade, as they looked to make a more contemporary sound.

It is a perfectly fine theme, nothing particularly exciting, but it’ll surely get some reaction, good and bad, simply by being new. That will be heard prior to games, ahead of NBA Countdown, and in promo packages, while NBA Today might get its own theme in the near future.

As for visuals, there is a wholly new graphics package for games and promos this season, with an emphasis on team colors and logos (note: the music is not part of the NBA on ESPN changes, but just some commercial music they used to provide some backing for the new look).

In games, the biggest change being a scorebug that will no longer take up the entire bottom of the screen, instead going for a condensed look to provide more court space. Along with the condensed size, fans will also be pleased to learn that the color swatches for each team will change based on what uniform set that team is wearing so they always match, ensuring there’s no longer any confusion when a team wearing white might have a green scorebox.

They also have new player graphics to provide in-game updates and stats that share a similar look to the scorebug.

The full screen graphics will also be more colorful and feature player images more heavily.

Overall, it’s a solid update, particularly with the scorebug. Showing more of the court is always good and still getting information to viewers without as much clutter is a welcome change. All of these changes will go into effect for the ESPN’s first preseason broadcast on Thursday night.

Last week, George R.R. Martin announced that a new companion book, Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Volume One, would be released this month for anyone who wants to go even deeper into the Targaryen dynasty and their complex world of dragons. While this isn’t surprising considering the fact that Martin is busy doing everything besides actually finishing Winds of Winter, fans are upset with the book’s co-authors, Linda Antonsson and Elio M. García Jr.

In response to Martin’s tweet linking the book, many fans piled on with various examples of “racist” statements from Antonsson over the years. The two authors have been working with Martin since 1999 when they began an online lexicon of A Song Of Ice And Fire knowledge before Game of Thrones even existed on HBO. She and her husband García have been working as fact-checkers for Martin for over two decades.

Antonsson has a history of criticizing diverse casting choices in the series, which has angered fans who refuse to support her writing or works. Most recently, she was angered when House of the Dragon cast Steve Toussaint as Corlys. “There are no Black Valyrians and there should not be any in the show,” Antonsson blogged at the time. Obviously, this was not well-received!

In a statement to Variety, Antonsson said that it bothers her to be “labeled a racist, when my focus has been solely on the world building,” and that “diversity should not trump story” when it comes to the show’s casting. Antonsson also confirmed that Martin is “aware” of the backlash, though he has not made a public comment. According to the author, Martin “doesn’t see the point in engaging with people” on social media, and “he has not suggested we should stop sharing our opinions.”

Martin is no stranger to controversy and backlash, though he has consciously made the effort to avoid the “f*cking toxic internet” altogether after Game of Thrones ended. Instead, he will spend the next three decades working on Winds Of Winter, maybe.

(Via Variety)