Category: Viral

At multiple points during Thursday night’s Game 1 of the 2024 WNBA Finals at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, it looked like the New York Liberty were going to cruise to a blowout win over the Minnesota Lynx. The Liberty ran out to a 30-14 lead, as Jonquel Jones was dominant inside, Sabrina Ionescu was pouring in threes, and the Lynx couldn’t get anything going offensively.

Then, the Lynx would pull back within single digits at halftime and were able to cut the deficit down to two in the third quarter, before New York re-established order and pulled ahead by 15 with 5:20 left in the fourth. At that point, it certainly felt like the game was in hand, but Minnesota, as has been the case all season, refused to lay down and steadily chipped away at the lead. Napheesa Collier and Courtney Williams led the charge, and got the Lynx all the way back to within three at 83-80 with 20 seconds to play, as the offense woke up and the defense held New York to just two points over a five-minute stretch.

Minnesota turned to Williams in an effort to tie the game, but her three-point attempt went begging off the rim. For most of the game, New York dominated the glass, but the Lynx were able to get a timely board from Alanna Smith, who kicked it back out to Williams, where she drilled a three while getting fouled by Ionescu for a 4-point play to give the Lynx their first lead of the game (watch here).

The Liberty advanced the ball on the ensuing possession and after the Lynx fouled intentionally on their foul to give, referees called a jump ball after their second inbound that pretty clearly went off Breanna Stewart’s foot after Collier deflected it. A violation was called on Williams on the jump ball, giving another side out, but Stewart got blocked by Collier going to the rim, leading to another inbound under the basket with one second to play. This time, Stewart got it under the hoop and got fouled with 0.8 seconds left (watch here), giving the former MVP a chance to give the Liberty the lead again. Instead, she split the free throws, sending the game to overtime (watch here).

In overtime, the Lynx’s defensive dominance continued, as they shut down the Liberty offense and pulled ahead by four, with Williams delivering a pair of clutch shots to keep them ahead by two possessions with less than a minute to go (watch here).

However, New York was able to tie the game back up at 93-93 after getting two steals that led to layups, first by Ionescu on a bad pass by Williams in the backcourt, and then when Jones stole the ball on the ensuing inbound and took it all the way to the rim. From there, Williams got blocked by Stewart, but Collier hit a clutch, tough turnaround bucket with 10 seconds left to push Minnesota back in front (watch here).

After Collier fouled Stewart on the floor with a foul to give and 2.6 seconds to play, the Liberty got the inbound to Stewart, who got all the way to the rim but smoked the layup, giving Minnesota the most improbable of wins, stealing homecourt in the Finals.

The Liberty finished with four starters scoring 17 or more, as Jones (24 points), Ionescu (19 points), Stewart (18 points), and Leonie Fiebich (17 points) all had productive nights. The problem was, only Jones had an efficient scoring night (9-of-14), as Ionescu, Stewart, and Fiebich combined to shoot 20-of-61 (32.7 percent) from the field. On the other side, the Lynx has three players hit 20-plus points on better than 50 percent shooting, as Collier (21 points), Kayla McBride (22 points), and Williams (23 points) were all able to have strong nights despite limited possessions for the Lynx given New York’s dominance on the glass for most of the evening.

Down the stretch, New York’s offense just could not get out of the mud, while the Lynx were able to get loose and, as is often the case in Finals games, were simply able to hit more tough shots down the stretch. Collier showed why she was the DPOY, racking up six blocks and three steals, as she was everywhere to anchor a Minnesota defense that, as a whole, was the best in the league this season. Their ability to apply pressure on the ball and their length on the back line with Collier and Smith makes them so difficult to deal, especially when you start trying to take the air out of the ball. The Liberty will need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to closing out a game before Game 2, as they have to maintain their pace and tempo that got them the advantage, because the Lynx are not a team that will tap out, as New York learned the hard way in Game 1.

It’s been a big month for K-pop stars going solo after spending most of their careers as part of groups. Blackpink’s Rosé announced her debut album Rosie is coming soon, while her bandmate Lisa released her Sixpence None The Richer-inspired solo single, “Moonlit Floor,” a few days later.

Today, a third bandmate, Jennie, dropped her own video for “Mantra” after teasing it earlier this week. The video pays homage to the 1998 action/comedy classic Rush Hour, opening with a sequence recreating the inciting event of the film. The rest of the video is occupied with displaying Jennie’s fashionable sensibilities, shooting her in couture looks in locations all across Los Angeles (incidentally, the film’s setting). Classic cars are a recurring motif; in each scene, Jennie poses and preens near a color-coordinated auto, whether that’s lounging in a blow-up swimming pool, dancing on the cab of a cherry-red big rig, or snacking on the trunk of a white Ferrari. There’s even a DeLorean for full nostalgia factor. The final shot of the video finds Jennie and her crew doing choreo as the bodies of several cars burn around them.

You can watch the video for Jennie’s new solo single “Mantra” above, and stay tuned for more info on her upcoming solo album.

The trial against Sean “Diddy” Combs for racketeering and sex trafficking has tentatively been scheduled for next spring, according to Rolling Stone. The trial is set to begin on May 5, 2025, with prosecutors saying in a hearing today in a New York courtroom that they will need about three weeks to present their case, and warning that another indictment against Diddy could override the current charges. While accused have the right to a speedy trial, prosecutors say they need time to process evidence recovered in April raids of Diddy’s properties, including 96 electronic devices.

Diddy is currently jailed in the special housing unit of New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center awaiting trial after being denied bail; he’s currently preparing a third appeal with a new legal team, offering $50 million and a long list of restrictions including GPS monitoring and limited communications with anyone who could affect the outcome of the trial. However, two judges so far have agreed that his freedom could present a danger of witness tampering. Meanwhile, Diddy’s defense complained of leaks of sensitive information from law enforcement, such as the hotel security footage of his assault on ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, which could bias a jury against him.

The music mogul is accused of a litany of crimes in the furtherance of his alleged racketeering enterprise, including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.” If convicted, he could go to prison for 15 years to life.

The WNBA is growing. Whether that’s in the league’s perpetually rising television ratings, the new teams coming into the W over the next few years, or any other number of metrics, things are going pretty well for the WNBA right now. With growth usually comes change, and on Thursday night, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert laid out some of the ways that the league is going to tweak its schedule during both the regular season and playoffs.

Engelbert spoke about these changes, which have all been approved by the league’s Board of Governors, ahead of the start of the 2024 WNBA Finals between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx. Starting next season, teams will play 44 games during the regular season, while the playoffs will go from a 2-1 format in the first round — i.e. the higher seed hosts the first two games, while a win-or-go-home Game 3 is hosted by the lower seed if necessary — to a 1-1-1 format, which guarantees that the lower seed will host a home game. And when it comes to the Finals, Engelbert announced that the league will go from a best-of-5 to a best-of-7 format to crown its champion.

There was also a bit of news pertaining to one of the new expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries. Englebert announced that the league will hold its Draft Lottery in November, and when the WNBA Draft rolls around next year, the Valkyries will have the fifth pick in each round.

Lil Baby (real name Dominique Jones) has one less thing to worry about now: His Las Vegas weapons case has been dropped.

Back in August, it was reported that the rapper was allegedly carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, a felony. Baby was brought to the Clark County Detention Center and held on $5,000 bail.

Lil Baby’s attorneys, Drew Findling and David Chesnoff, told TMZ at the time, “To be clear, Dominique Jones has a valid Georgia Carrying a Concealed Weapon (CCW) Permit. On his behalf we are actively investigating the facts and circumstances surrounding his arrest in Las Vegas.”

Now, though, it appears this is all behind him, as TMZ reports today (October 10) that per legal documents, the charges have been dropped and the Clark County District Attorney is declining to press charges.

In a new statement, Findling and Chesnoff told TMZ, “We’ll let the court record speak for itself.”

This news comes amid a relatively quiet 2024 for Lil Baby. He has popped up for a few collaborations this year, though, including Central Cee’s “Band4Band,” Tay B’s “All Ten,” and 4Batz’s “Roll Da Dice.” Baby ended 2023 with a pair of new songs, “Crazy” and “350,” and fans are currently awaiting the rapper’s first album since 2022’s It’s Only Me.

In case one evil clown movie in theaters isn’t enough for you, Terrifier 3 is out today.

The third film in the ultra-violent horror franchise brings back David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown for more good ol’ fashion murdering, this time during Christmas (“Is Terrifier 3 a Christmas movie?” asks hopefully no one). Why that merry holiday in particular? “I’ve always wanted to do my spin on the maniac Santa Claus,” writer and director Damien Leone told Bloody Disgusting. “That’s just such a classic archetypal horror trope. To see Art now mixed with the maniac Santa Claus is really exciting, really exciting.”

Will people who are afraid of puking in public have to wait until Christmas for Terrifier 3 to be available to watch at home? There’s no announced streaming date yet, but it probably won’t be that long. The smartest move would be to keep the film in theaters until Halloween, then put it on streaming. But again, at the moment, there’s no official word on a streaming debut.

Here’s more on Terrifier 3:

Art the Clown is set to unleash chaos on the unsuspecting residents of Miles County as they peacefully drift off to sleep on Christmas Eve

Both Terrifier and Terrifier 2 are available to stream on Prime Video.

It only took five weeks for the first NFL coach firing of the season, as the New York Jets kicked Robert Saleh to the curb after a 23-17 loss in London to the still undefeated Minnesota Vikings. It was not the kind of loss that typically precedes a midseason firing, but it was clearly the last straw in a string of disappointments in New York since Saleh took over, some his fault but many beyond his control. That he lost in London, where owner Woody Johnson was once the ambassador to the UK, probably didn’t help his cause, and now the Jets (2-3) are hoping to find their form as the contenders as they expected to be prior to the season starting.

As we shift our focus to Week 6 in the NFL, the Jets are certainly one of the teams we have our eyes on to see what, if anything, changes without Saleh. There are still 12 games to go this season, but even so, time feels like it’s getting short for some teams to get going, including the Jets.

Primetime Game of the Week: Bills at Jets (Monday 10/14, 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN)

Niners vs. Seahawks on Thursday Night Football is the better game, but come on, it has to be Bills-Jets. On one side, you have Buffalo, which has had a flat-out awful couple of weeks between a beatdown at the hands of the Ravens and a Josh Allen disasterclass in a winnable game against the Texans. They have a bunch of important players banged up, and they really should kick the tires on a high-profile wide receiver in a trade (Davante Adams? Amari Cooper?), but Buffalo has gone from “they can win the Super Bowl” to “eew, not great” in two games. Which is fine, plenty of time left, but still, not great.

But come on, the game with the Jets on it is the Primetime Game of the Week this week. Aaron Rodgers has denied his involvement in the team firing Robert Saleh, with a rumor that Saleh was either going to fire or strip play-calling duties from Nathaniel Hackett, the team’s offensive coordinator who is Rodgers’ longtime buddy. New York’s offense has been a mess this year, while their defense has been unsurprisingly great. New interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich (formerly the team’s defensive coordinator) went ahead and changed play-callers anyway on Thursday, taking the playsheet out of Hackett’s hands and giving it to Todd Downing. There is a ton of pressure on Rodgers and co. to perform now that Saleh is gone, and if they look dramatically better on offense without their head coach and Hackett no longer calling plays, it will make for fantastic sports talk fodder. The fact that their first test is against the division rival they’re trying very hard to unseat only makes it more intriguing and, well, you really can’t write this stuff.

Sunday Funday Game of the Week: Commanders at Ravens (Sunday 10/6, 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS)

Being ultra-reductive can be pretty annoying, but it works here: One team has Jayden Daniels, the other team has Lamar Jackson, and both of them are capable of lighting opposing teams on fire at their best. The Commanders offense has been unbelievable of late with Daniels seemingly running away with Rookie of the Year, while the Ravens seem to be hitting their stride on that side of the ball as well. Neither defense has been great this year, so fireworks figure to be in play.

Under the Radar Banger: Cardinals at Packers (Sunday 10/6, 1:00 p.m. ET, FOX)

Both of these teams have been pretty erratic this season, and that could make for a very fun game where I don’t think either fan base will feel particularly safe with any lead until the clock hits triple zeroes. The Cardinals won a wild one against the Niners last week to avoid a 1-4 start to the season, while the Packers had to fend off a late Rams charge to stay at 3-2 and in the mix in the highly competitive NFC North. Green Bay is favored in this spot for a reason, but the Cardinals have a gear they can reach that can compete with any team in the league, it’s just a matter of whether they can find that and sustain it.

Who Won The MVP Last Week: Kirk Cousins

The Atlanta Falcons have good vibes. No, seriously, I can’t believe it either, and I really can’t believe that the reason they have good vibes is the addition of Cousins, who is starting to look more and more like himself as he makes his way back from an achilles tear last year. He was out of his mind on Thursday Night Football against the Bucs last week, going for 509 yards and four touchdowns while leading a thrilling drive as regulation expired for a game-tying field goal.

Best Bet (2-3): Cowboys (+3) vs. Lions (4:25 p.m. ET, FOX)

Against all odds, the Raiders and the Broncos gave us a loss in this space by combining to score 52 points. This week, we’re heading to Dallas to take the ‘Boys against Detroit. I fully understand why this line is where it is, but I also think the Cowboys have stabilized things a bit since halftime of that Ravens game. I think this game should be closer to a pick ’em, and so getting a full three points at home has me buying low on a Dallas team that I think is starting to figure a few things out.

We’re a few New Music Fridays away from Halsey’s latest album, The Great Impersonator, which is set to drop on October 25. She further teased the project today with a new song “I Never Loved You.”

Aside from the single, Halsey has also been rolling out the album by sharing re-creations of photos of music stars who inspired songs from the project. Halsey has so far done Dolly Parton, PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, and Cher.

Halsey previously said of her upcoming album:

“I really thought this album would be the last one I ever made. When you get sick like that, you start thinking about ways it could have all been different. What if this isn’t how it all went down? 18-year-old Ashley becomes Halsey in 2014. What if I debuted in the early 2000s? The ’90s? The ’80s? The ’70s? Am I still Halsey every time, in every timeline? Do I still get sick? Do I become a mom? Am I happy? Lonely? Have I done enough? Have I told the truth? I spent half my life being someone else. I never stopped to ask myself: If it all ended right now, is this the person you’d be proud to leave behind? Is it even you?”

Listen to “I Never Loved You” above.

The Great Impersonator is out 10/25 via Columbia Records. Find more information here.

The NIL space in college sports is a growing industry, but one that features very little in the way of regulation.

Now that college athletes are allowed to make money off of endorsement deals, we’ve seen the stars of the sport cash in with big contracts that allow them to financially benefit from their star power before they make it to the pros. It’s great to see the likes of Juju Watkins and Cooper Flagg be able to make some money at the collegiate level. Even for players who aren’t stars on a national scale, it provides an opportunity to get paid by local businesses and school NIL collectives, getting something a bit more than just their scholarship for their athletic abilities.

All of that is a fantastic thing, but one of the unfortunate side effects of a new, largely unregulated world where money is changing hands is that it’s also an opportunity for some to take advantage of kids that don’t fully understand the financial world — with many coming from situations where they do not have much money.

A new NIL company, Nilly, that was founded by Kendrick Perkins and Chris Ricciardi, formerly of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street investment firms, operates in that gray area of the NIL world. Perkins and Ricciardi tout their service as a way for athletes to get money up front and guarantee themselves some financial security, avoiding the uncertainty of exactly what they’ll get offered on the NIL market — NIL “valuations” are famously wonky, and not always emblematic of the actual money out there on the market. However, some financial advisors and consumer protection experts believe the company’s practices are predatory, similar to high-interest loans, as ESPN’s Dan Murphy investigated.

The way Nilly works is they offer an up front payment to high school athletes about to head off to college (from $25,000 to six figures) in exchange for a percentage of a player’s future NIL earnings for the next seven years. The example Murphy provided was a player who got $50,000 in exchange for 25 percent of his future endorsement earnings for the next seven years, or until Nilly got paid back $125,000, whichever came first. The percentage Nilly takes can vary from 10-50 percent.

Perkins claims the goal of the company is to take some of the financial stress off young athletes, particularly those that come from situations where they don’t have much money.

“You have so many athletes and their parents who are struggling day-to-day,” Perkins said. “Because we’re actually taking a bit of a gamble on what the student-athlete is going to make in the NIL space, the benefit is the kid — the student-athlete — is able to get financial security so they don’t have to rush.”

However, others pointed out to Murphy that it feels “predatory,” taking advantage of kids that come from poor families and taking a significant chunk of what they would earn by flashing up front money.

“To me it feels like you are preying on people who need the capital now and using that to cloud their focus on the future,” said Michael Haddix Jr., whose company Scout provides financial education seminars to college athletic departments. “It feels predatory, and it’s capitalizing on young people who need money and haven’t thought through the long-term implications.”

Nilly pushed back on the categorization of their enterprise as a loan operation, noting the players are not required to pay back any money if they don’t get any NIL deals. However, Murphy’s piece lays out how the legal system could decide these are closer to a loan than a licensing deal, if it were to get challenged in court. The entire piece is a fascinating look at why the lack of regulation or real oversight in the NIL world can create these sorts of gray areas and questionable practices.

Perkins pushes back on the idea that this is predatory, claiming the risk is entirely on Nilly and the investors, but any time former Wall Street guys are diving into something new and willing to put up big money for early investments in a lightly regulated field, it’s hard not to see red flags regarding who is really at risk. They are clearly seeing opportunity to cash in and the rate of return has the potential to be massive — and for the athlete, brings the chance to significantly dampen how much money they can make on the NIL market, losing out on much more than what a traditional agent’s cut would be.

The legality of it all is an extremely complex issue that I am far from qualified to declare anything about, but I can say that pretty much everyone’s initial read on this is that it all feels a bit shady and gross. As for Perkins, at best he truly believes this can help athletes and he also may be getting used as the face of this company as a former athlete by people who are looking to seize an opportunity. At worst, he knows how desperate the athletes are to get some fast cash and recognizes his own opportunity to profit off of that.

We live in a society… where Joker: Folie à Deux bombed.

Whereas 2019’s Joker made over a billion dollars and was nominated for 11 Oscars, including wins for Best Actor and Best Original Score, the 2024 sequel will, uh, not be doing any of that. Joker: Folie à Deux brought in a “tragic” $37.8 million in its first weekend of release at the domestic box office, the same amount of money the original made on its first Friday alone. Critics savaged the film (33 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes), which also earned a dismal “D” CinemaScore. That’s the lowest grade from the survey-taking research firm for a comic book movie ever. Yes, even lower than Madame Web.

Where do stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga go from here?

For Phoenix, it’s not the next Todd Haynes movie, that’s for sure, so let’s go right to Lady Gaga. The singer and actress is reportedly “shocked” at the negative reaction to Joker: Folie à Deux. “She put so much heart into the movie,” a source told The Daily Mail. “Her team is quietly looking at other projects they can roll out as they want to move on… as quickly as possible.”

That won’t be difficult. For one thing, Gaga isn’t the issue with Joker: Folie à Deux. In fact, she’s one of the best things about it (“Gaga is a compelling live-wire presence, splitting the difference between affinity and obsession,” The Hollywood Reporter raved), so her magnetic-if-underused performance as Harley “Lee” Quinn won’t stain her filmography. Besides, even before Joker: Folie à Deux came out, Gaga was already hard at work on her next era.

In September, Gaga shared an image on her social media channels of her itinerary, or, because it was in Italian for the Venice Film Festival, her “itinerario.” There were two “date importanti” listed: “04 October: Joker: Folie à Deux in theaters” and “XX October: LG7 first single.”

At some point this month, Gaga will release her the first track from her seventh studio album, and first since 2020’s pandemic-impacted Chromatica (Harlequin doesn’t really count). Little is known about the album, other than Vogue describing one of its songs as an “old-school Gaga banger.” The inspiration to make a full-blown pop album came from Gaga’s fiance, Michael Polansky. “He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music,’” she explained. Polansky added, “Like anyone would do for the person they love, I encouraged her to lean into the joy of it. On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her; I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”

It was fitting (and perhaps wisely calculated) for Gaga to list Joker: Folie à Deux and LG7 back to back on her “itinerario.” If the movie was a hit, great. If it underperformed compared to Joker, she was ready to return to her music career anyway. But now that we know Joker: Folie à Deux is a flop, something few saw coming, it’s an even more shrewd bit of planning. The low box office, the bad reviews, the behind-the-scenes drama (none of which is Gaga’s fault), all will be forgotten as soon as we get the first taste of LG7.

Lady Gaga is remarkably resilient. She went from playing for a few dozen people in the middle of the afternoon to having the no. 1 single in the country in less than two years, and her career has never waned since then. She’s won Grammys and an Oscar; she’s influenced too many artists to name them all (but here’s one: Chappell Roan); and she’s the rare singer-turned-movie star to receive near-universal acclaim for her acting. Even now, Gaga has the biggest streaming song in the world for the sixth straight week. Not bad for someone nearly 20 years into their career.

The poor reception to Joker: Folie à Deux is a minor footnote in the larger story of Lady Gaga. No matter what her former classmates think, she will be famous.