Category: Viral

While the RNC poured sugar on America on Wednesday night, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah joined the NBA in calling for change for what’s truly happening in the U.S. In doing so, Noah compared the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake (who was left paralyzed after being shot seven times in the back) to the treatment of Kyle Rittenhouse. The latter is a white, 17-year-old vigilante who opened fire on Black Lives Matter protesters (killing two of them) with a semi-automatic rifle. He has since been charged with first-degree intentional homicide. However, he was apprehended by police in a very different manner than Blake, and Noah wants to call attention to this discrepancy.

It’s a heated subject, made even worse by Tucker Carlson eclipsing himself while defending Rittenhouse, with people calling for his Fox News firing as a result. Whereas Noah calls BS on Rittenhouse and his militia buddies for driving to Kenosha to “protect a business” when, really, they must have had other, more violent designs.

“Let me tell you something. Nobody drives into a city with guns because they love someone else’s business that much. That’s some bullshit,” Noah argued. “No one has ever thought, ‘Oh, it’s my solemn duty to pick up a rifle and protect that T.J. Maxx.’ They do it because they’re hoping to shoot someone.”

Noah asks why the unarmed Blake was shot while exiting his vehicle, yet Rittenhouse was peacefully taken into custody after clearly committing an act of violence:

“And while what happened with those shootings last night is tragic, what happened afterwards was illuminating. It really made me wonder why some people get shot seven times in the back, while other people are treated like human beings and reasoned with and taken into custody with no bullets in their bodies.”

Noah further wondered why “warning shots” don’t seem to be a thing, since police brutality incidents appear to escalate from demands to deadly force. “Are we really meant to believe that the only two options a cop has is do nothing or shoot somebody in the back seven times?” he wondered. You can watch the full The Daily Show segment below, but in other Trevor Noah news, he’s spoofing Donald Trump’s 1990s New York Times pro-death-penalty ad about the Central Park Five again. Enjoy this faux-lawyer ad for “Trevor Noah & Associates & Sons Presidential Attorneys.”

Tekashi 69 had a hot return to music after his release from prison, with his Nicki Minaj-assisted “Trollz” hitting No. 1 on the charts after “Gooba” peaked in the third spot. With all he’s been up to (which includes ill-advised and maskless meet-and-greets in the streets), fans have been wondering when his second album will be coming out. It turns out the answer is “soon.” Yesterday, Tekashi announced that his new album is called TattleTales and that it’s coming out next week, on Friday, September 4.

Tekashi says in a video of him walking down a street that he shared on Instagram, “We just landed in Chicago and all that. Yo, I got a huge announcement for y’all: I’m droppin’ the album September 4. TattleTales, the album. I think the killers, the hitters, is over here. Try to keep it down. September 4th. Yo, listen. September 4th, the album’s coming.”

A full tracklist isn’t available at the moment, but pre-order links reveal that album will feature 13 tracks and run for about 32 minutes. Included on the release are the four singles Tekashi has released in 2020: “Gooba,” “Trollz,” “Yaya,” and “Punani.”

Check out the TattleTales album art below.

TattleTales is out 9/4 via 6ix9ine. Pre-order it here.

In her March video for “Never Worn White,” Katy Perry revealed that she was pregnant with her and Orlando Bloom’s first child. Now, the pair have revealed that their daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom, was born.

The announcement was made on UNICEF’s Instagram page, after which Perry and Bloom (both UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors) re-shared the post on their own pages. The image is a black-and-white photo of Daisy’s hand holding onto Bloom’s thumb, with Perry holding her daughter’s hand. After declaring that they are “floating with love and wonder from the safe and healthy arrival of our daughter,” they went on to explain how not all mothers around the world are as fortunate as they are to have access to adequate healthcare. They also set up a donation page to “help every mother and newborn get the care they need.”

Read the full post below.

“We are floating with love and wonder from the safe and healthy arrival of our daughter.

But we know we’re the lucky ones and not everyone can have a birthing experience as peaceful as ours was. Communities around the world are still experiencing a shortage of healthcare workers and every eleven seconds a pregnant woman or newborn dies, mostly from preventable causes. Since COVID-19 many more newborn lives are at risk because of the increased lack of access to water, soap, vaccines and medicines that prevent diseases. As parents to a newborn, this breaks our hearts, as we empathize with struggling parents now more than ever.

As UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors, we know UNICEF is there, on the ground, doing whatever it takes to make sure every expecting mother has access to a trained health worker and access to quality healthcare. In celebration of the heart we know our daughter already has, we have set up a donation page to celebrate DDB’s arrival. By supporting them, you are supporting a safe start to life and reimagining a healthier world for every child. We hope your [heart] can bloom with generosity.

Gratefully-

Katy & Orlando.”

One of Stephen Colbert’s responsibilities as The Late Show host is to stay up to date with the news, but you can’t blame him for not watching the Republican National Convention. Seeing the not-coked-out photos of Donald Trump, Jr. online is good enough for him, thank you very much. Colbert opened Wednesday night’s episode of The Late Show with a confession: “I did not watch much of the convention tonight. And fullest disclosure: I did not watch any of it.” But you missed… a sh*t-ton of flags.

“Because right now in America, we’re facing a global pandemic that has killed 180,000 Americans, heavily armed Rambo wannabes are murdering people in our streets, the strongest hurricane in the history of the Gulf Coast is making landfall as I speak, and the RNC’s message is: Who’s up for four more years?” Colbert said. He knows that not watching the RNC means “I didn’t do my job tonight,” but “I feel great about it”:

“Why should we pay attention to what they’re saying if none of what they’re saying tonight is about what’s happening in America right now? Why should we watch their reality show if it doesn’t reflect our reality? Why subject ourselves to their lies that stick to your soul like hot tar? Lies like: Donald Trump cares whether you live or die.”

Colbert later covered the Trump administration pressuring the CDC to change coronavirus testing guidelines and the shooting of Jacob Blake. “That is why voting in November is so important,” he said. “Because Donald Trump does not care if you live or die of COVID, or racism, as long as he wins.” Watch the clip above.

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” is more explicit than most No. 1 songs, which is a challenge for radio. People want to hear the song on their favorite stations, but many of its lyrics aren’t suitable for the airwaves. So, as artists often do, Cardi recorded a clean version of the tracks, replacing the lyric “wet-ass p*ssy” with “wet and gushy.” Now Cardi has revealed that she doesn’t care for that change at all.

She guested on Australia’s Kyle And Jackie O Show recently, and she and the hosts got to talking about “WAP.” Kyle asked Cardi for a reminder of what the clean version of the titular lyric was, and she responded, “‘Wet and gushy.’ Ugh, I don’t even like saying it.” The hosts insisted the clean version comes across as grosser to them than the explicit original, and Cardi added, “I would have had to replace it with, ‘Now from the top, make it drop, bounce that big ol’ booty,’ because that was the only thing that rhymed. It was really hard for me to clean this song up because nobody could convince me to keep ‘gushy,’ because I hate the word ‘gushy.’ Ugh!”

Listen to the full interview here.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

John David Washington’s first credited role is technically “Student in Harlem Classroom” in Malcolm X, starring his Oscar-winning father, but his first credited role where his character has a name was Ballers. He starred on the HBO series alongside another football player-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who gave John “The David” Washington some helpful advice before he started filming Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.

“Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson gave me some great advice before he sent me off to the grad school of Nolan. He said, ‘Make sure you eat and stay hydrated.’ He always was telling me to hydrate when we were shooting Ballers,” Washington told Total Film. “I used to think it was funny, but I see what he means now. Hydration is key when it comes to that stuff, man.” You’d need water if you had to eat Robert Pattinson’s dry-ass pasta, too.

Washington also discussed Nolan’s audition process, or lack thereof:

“I guess I never looked at it like an audition process. I’m sure it was, but it never felt that way in the initial meeting. I was informed that Christopher Nolan wanted to meet me, so I appeared at his office, and we talked for several hours about everything and anything but the movie, really. It was like a first date, ‘getting to know you’ thing. It was like: ‘Are you cool?’”

It was love at first impossible-to-spoil script.

(Via Total Film)

The Portland Trail Blazers and the Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to play Game 5 of their first-round series on Wednesday, but that contest and all other games were officially put on hold as players chose to sit out in protest of the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man who was trying to break up a fight in Kenosha, Wisconsin last weekend.

Damian Lillard was already going to miss that contest anyway after suffering a right knee sprain against the Lakers on Monday night, and his status for the remainder of the series was unclear even if the Blazers were able to extend it to a Game 6 with a win on Wednesday.

Given the latest developments and the uncertainty surrounding the remainder of the season, Lillard is reportedly returning to Portland on Thursday for further evaluations on his injured knee, according to the team.

Lillard had been spectacular during his time in Orlando, leading Portland through a gritty eight-game regular-season gauntlet to earn their spot in the postseason and delivering several unbelievable performances that earned him MVP of the seeding games.

Lillard and the Blazers certainly made the most of their opportunity with a healthy Jusuf Nurkic back in the lineup and in the process reminded us just how dangerous they can be at full strength. Unfortunately, they appeared to have run out of gas in their first-round series against the Lakers after a stunning victory in Game 1.

Now, Lillard and the Blazers will look toward an uncertain future as the fate of both the current season and next season hang in the balance as the players and owners work collectively to find a way forward.

When the Milwaukee Bucks made the decision to not play Wednesday’s Game 5 against the Magic in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, they chose to remain in the locker room and work towards figuring out what was next and how they could ensure their choice to strike was going to have an impact.

What that led to was a conference call with Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, and attorney general, Josh Kaul, in which they discussed what steps they could take to get justice for Blake. The result was a statement they released as a team after finally emerging from the locker room hours later, calling on the Wisconsin state legislature to return to session after months off and vote on a bill that included police reform policies.

That was the main takeaway from their conversation with Barnes and Kaul, who noted the most impactful thing they could do was to push for lawmakers to return and put change into action. After that call, Kaul spoke with reporters as he provided an update on the investigation into the police officer who shot Blake and his partners that were at the scene, and made it clear that just in that brief period the Bucks had done more on the issue of police violence and racism than Wisconsin’s state government.

The question now becomes whether the push from the Bucks and others will lead to action, which is one of the reasons players are calling on league ownership to get more heavily involved. Owners have deep ties in local government (and some nationally), particularly teams like the Bucks that have recently gotten public funding for a new arena, and wielding that power and influence could be what can push lawmakers to enacting some of these changes that players and the people are calling for but otherwise are being ignored.

The fate of the NBA season remains in a holding pattern after teams decided to sit out their scheduled playoff games on Wednesday night as a form of protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake and to put pressure on lawmakers and team owners to enact some kind of tangible change. The decision to postpone all three of Wednesday’s games came after the Bucks announced that they were sitting out Game 5 of their opening-round series against the Orlando Magic in protest.

Since that announcement, players inside the bubble have been meeting to try and collectively decide whether they will finish the season or cancel the remaining games altogether. News has emerged from inside that meeting that both the Lakers and Clippers were in favor of canceling the season and leaving Orlando, but that their stance was apparently odds with the rest of the teams.

They’re scheduled to reconvene Thursday morning, just as the NBA’s Board of Governors will be meeting via telephone to discuss a way forward. During the meeting on Wednesday, there was reportedly some frustration among other teams about the Bucks’ unilateral decision to sit out their game against Orlando — with Jaylen Brown of the Celtics apparently stepping up in full support of the Bucks decision.

Sources to @YahooSports: There was frustration with Milwaukee players for doing this without talking to others. LeBron James initially stated he would go with the consensus, then got angry and stormed out.

— Vincent Goodwill (@VinceGoodwill) August 27, 2020

Sources: As some in tonight’s meeting wanted to hear Bucks’ explanation for making an abrupt decision independent of rest of teams to boycott game, Boston’s Jaylen Brown essentially said that the Bucks didn’t need to explain themselves and he fully supported what they did today.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 27, 2020

It’s important to note the tensions and stress of this moment were almost always going to lead to some frustration and emotions running high in a meeting to, basically, determine whether they should go on strike. Still, it was something Kyle Korver reportedly addressed when he spoke on behalf of the Bucks and apologized for how it left the rest of the league’s players out of the loop.

Nothing was decided officially during their meeting, and it’s possible that LeBron, Kawhi, and the Lakers and Clippers’ hard-line stance is an effort to exert even more pressure on the owners to come up with some sort of solution during their meeting Thursday morning that the players would find satisfactory enough to continue with the playoffs. Until then, it’s a wait-and-see game to find out whether we’ve seen the last of the NBA this season, as all parties seem to have much more to discuss to all get on the same page.

NBA players held a meeting on Wednesday evening in the aftermath of the day’s slate of playoff games getting postponed due to a strike. The main takeaway from the meeting was that two teams, the Los Angeles Clippers and Lakers, voiced their support for ending the NBA season altogether, while the remaining teams would apparently like to continue playing.

All of this came on the heels of the Milwaukee Bucks opting not to play against the Orlando Magic, which led to the remaining two playoff games on the day getting put on hiatus, too, as a form of protest after a police officer shot a 29-year-old Black man named Jacob Blake of Kenosha, Wisconsin in the back seven times. Despite everyone in the Bubble attending the meeting, there is still more conversations to be had, and according to ESPN, a follow-up conversation is currently scheduled to occur on Thursday morning.

In an interesting twist, this will happen at the same time that the league’s Board of Governors is scheduled to discuss everything going on.

As was reported in the aftermath of Wednesday’s meeting, there are still plenty of conversations that need to occur among the players, and the action taken by the two Los Angeles teams was not a formal declaration that they won’t play the season no matter the outcome of Thursday’s meetings, but rather, those two teams expressing where they stand right now. It is unclear what is going to come of either meeting on Thursday, but regardless, it does not feel hyperbolic to say that the fate of the remainder of this season could be shaped based on what the players and the Board of Governors will discuss in their respective sessions.