Ever since his father took office, Donald Trump Jr. has pivoted from know-nothing business executive to know-nothing right-wing commentator. However, where Don Jr. separates himself from the rest of the pack is his manic, blitzed out rants that make people wonder if he needs an intervention. Sure, he hits all of the usual talking points like a loyal MAGA foot soldier, but Junior always brings an extra level of energy that teeters on the edge of a heart attack.
In a new parody called “Cocaine News,” The Daily Show ruthlessly skewers Junior’s teeth-grinding commentary by literally just showing clips of him doing his thing with a couple cocaine graphics added for fun. It really didn’t take much to stick the landing on this one.
“Want a news show that parties? Watch Cocaine News with your host Donald Trump Jr.” a coked out voiceover says. “Hot takes, hard drugs and all the finger quotes you can handle.”
In a real “Methinks the lady doth protest too much” moment, Don Jr. recently complained that he has no idea why everyone thinks he’s on coke all the time. He’s just giving “impassioned” speeches, you guys.
“I got thrown into politics in my late 30s, and all the sudden, it’s like, hey, I just actually believe this stuff. I will more than happily fight for it,” Junior ranted on his podcast last month. “It would have been a lot easier to shut the hell up and be a real estate developer.”
Following a duel in Paris (A Duel in Paris kind of sounds like the name of a mid-tier Bond film, or the worst Woody Allen movie), John Wick is killed and buried under a “loving husband” tombstone next to his late wife. Or was he?!? I mean, yeah, he’s probably dead, but there are ways for John Wick 5 to happen.
“There’s a will and there’s an openness. And you could certainly interpret that ending in different ways,” Lionsgate motion picture group chair Joe Drake told the Hollywood Reporter. “We’re all going to take a tiny rest here and then scratch at ideas about whether there’s a credible way to get into five.”
He added, “But there’s no guarantee.”
John Wick 5 is only under consideration because John Wick: Chapter 4 had a franchise-best $73.8 million opening weekend at the domestic box office and made a massive $141.4 million worldwide; it’s the second best opening of Keanu Reeves’ career, behind only The Matrix Reloaded. (If you include his voice acting work, Toy Story 4 made more, which I only bring up to remind you that he played a Canadian daredevil named Duke Caboom.)
“Keanu and [director Chad Stahelski], rightly so, are very protective about never screwing with the audience. So we certainly have our work cut out for us,” Drake said. “Keanu is so beloved and that character is so beloved; that’s not lost on him.” If Keanu feels like John Wick’s story has been wrapped up in a neat little package, he could — and should — hand the franchise over to Rina Sawayama.
Chloe Bailey’s sex scene in the new Prime Video series Swarm had fans talking once they realized it was her. However, others have viewed it as too NSFW and pushed back. Chlöe herself recently responded to this debate on Big Boy’s Neighborhood podcast.
“I’m an actress and I feel like it’s about art,” she said. “It’s not about seeing me in the mirror of that scene. But I think because it’s me doing it, that’s what kind of makes it blow out of proportion.”
During her appearance, she was also asked if she thought her scene partner, Damson Idris, had received a similar discourse — as Bailey is barely seen for a split second.
“I don’t think so because he’s a man,” she answered. I was just doing my job and people got to remember that I’m an adult and I’m an artist and nothing was seen that they haven’t seen from me. You didn’t see nipple. When I first received the script, I was just like… It was just insane and gorgeous and I think people are forgetting the plot of that scene.”
Along with her acting crossover, she is gearing up to drop her debut solo album, In Pieces.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
Indigo De Souza is in her car, taking a break from helping her mom move. She’s been digging up some old childhood memorabilia in the process, including letters addressed to her future self from kid Indigo. “There were ones like, ‘Why are we alive? Why do we die and where do we go and why am I here?’” she laughs. “It was so dark.”
There’s some similar existential grappling in her new album, All Of This Will End. It’s a record on which De Souza is honest and pretty matter-of-fact about the darkness, sadness, and trauma that color a lot of our lives. “Am I losing to the dark? Is it overtaking me?” she asks on “Losing.” “I’m not sure what is wrong with me, but it’s probably just hard to be a person feeling anything,” she admits on “Parking Lot.” On the title track, she movingly offers: “There’s only love, there’s only moving through and trying your best / Sometimes it’s not enough / Who gives a fuck? All of this will end.”
There is probably no better songwriter right now than Indigo De Souza when it comes to songs that sum up all the struggle and joy of being human. Across this album and her previous ones — 2018’s I Love My Mom and 2021’s Any Shape You Take — the Asheville, NC artist has cultivated an unassuming yet life-affirming viewpoint, in which unconditional love and kindness towards yourself and everyone else is the thing that will pull you through the hardship. And she sounds like no one else; she flits between heavy, grungy rock and ecstatic synth-pop, and she pulls her vocals to every corner of their range, often ending up in breathtaking places.
UPROXX last spoke to De Souza two years ago upon the release of Any Shape You Take — her debut for Saddle Creek — and since then life has been kind of a whirlwind. There’s been a lot of touring, a lot of press, but also some downtime in which she’s been deepening her connection to nature and her loved ones — “celebrating being alive and celebrating our bodies and dancing and making fires and making food outside,” she says. Below, read UPROXX’s conversation with her about her last couple years and All Of This Will End.
Do you still live in Asheville?
Yeah. It’s really great. I actually am just about to move into the country. I’ll have a big area of the woods and a creek to myself with my best friend, and we’re gonna have some animals. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, to just really sink into a piece of land and come to understand everything that nature is doing there.
There’s scary things happening right now in the South, particularly with regards to LGBT rights. How does it feel to live there at the moment, and more broadly how much do you identify with being from the South?
That’s a good question. Yeah, it’s funny ‘cause I love this place so much for a lot of reasons, and then I also hate it for a lot of reasons. But the reasons why I hate it, although they’re strong, feel like reasons why I shouldn’t abandon it. Because we can’t just leave places that have a lot of hate in them to just be filled with hate forever. There has to be people that care about the land and the space and creating communities that are safe for people that need it. And I think I just have fallen so in love with the nature and the trees and seeing the mountains and getting to swim in the rivers — it’s almost like I can just feel the land begging me to stay here. But yeah, I see some brutal things, that make me feel really scared of the people here sometimes. It can be really scary.
You’ve done a whole lot of touring over the last couple of years since Any Shape You Take. Is there anything you’ve learned from that, whether personally or creatively?
Yeah, I’ve learned a lot. Touring is crazy, and it’s very unsustainable. The music industry is extremely flawed in many ways. And I think over the course of the past two years I just kind of entered into a lot of harsh realities and saw the way that the industry works from the inside-out and was very not happy about a lot of parts of it. And I feel like it made me a lot stronger ‘cause I realized that it is kind of my place to stand up for things that need to be stood up for and to speak up and try to change things in the ways that I can. But other than the industry I love touring so much, and I love being with my bandmates and my crew, and I love playing shows to crowds that wanna be there.
Is there anything specifically that you’ve found disillusioning?
Mostly festivals, festivals really upset me. Because they are often about making money rather than being about art. They really just pull in all these acts that they know people will be really excited about, and then they don’t actually care about the artist, they don’t take care of them super well. Yeah, I think festivals are definitely getting to me. They’re tough. I just feel like a baby when I’m walking around them. They’re like, ‘Look at this, look at this! You wanna buy this? You wanna eat this? You wanna go in our TikTok tent?’ [Laughs] It’s weird.
Let’s talk about All Of This Will End. What kind of place were you in while writing it?
I was living alone and I had a lot of time on my hands because we were in lockdown. Everything was in this standstill, and I was watching all of the systems that I’d been surrounded by my whole life fall apart, and people that said they knew what they were doing didn’t know what they were doing. It felt like this huge veil was lifted off America, and we were just seeing everything for what it has been the whole time but it’s been hiding itself. It was just so ugly.
[Recent single] “Smog” was definitely related to that. Just having to navigate the world in the way that it was back then, and see the way people were reacting to the pandemic or not reacting to it was strange and uncomfortable and awkward. So yeah, that song was definitely just kind of a fever dream. I remember making it in my room when I was alone at night and just dancing around a lot, and realizing that I was kind of the only safe space that I had.
I think it just brought me a lot closer to myself and to my friends, and then all of those songs poured out in a weird way. I almost don’t even remember writing them that much. It’s kind of a blur because that time was kind of a blur.
Something I love about your songwriting is how it comes from a place of tenderness and kindness. But I feel like this album also has so much darkness and sadness in it. I’m interested in how you reconcile those viewpoints.
That’s interesting, ‘cause I think pretty much every other interview I’ve done so far they’ve said that they felt like this album was lighter than the last ones.
Really? Wow, maybe that says something about me.
[Laughs] Yeah, I think sometimes people hear it in the way they are feeling or they want to. But yeah, I mean, there will always be darkness in my songs. I can’t imagine there not being. Because the songs are kind of where the darkness comes out. I’m not dark when I’m out in the world, I’m actually pretty joyfuI and I just like to spread light wherever I go. It’s kind of like the songs are the safest place for me to be dark and say things that I wouldn’t just say in my day-to-day life.
So yeah, in some way the songs feel intense to me, but they also feel very confident and very certain and clear. I feel as I get older and older I get clearer and clearer in my mind. Because I have a lot of mental health issues, that is something that I’m very proud to say at this point, now I’m growing and getting a lot better. And I’m able to hear my thoughts and understand them and I have tools to navigate them in a way that I didn’t have before. And I think the music reflects that. It feels a lot less muddled to me and more straight and to the point.
Where would you say that clarity shows up?
I think it happens musically and lyrically. “Wasting Your Time” for example is extremely straight, and it just hits and all of the parts are very concise, but also very distorted and loud, and they feel messy but they’re perfectly where they need to be. But then also when it comes to lyrics, like, “You Can Be Mean” for example feels very angry, but also humorous, and as if I’ve already moved past that stage in my life. That song feels like a departure from the tendency to allow people into my life who treat me badly. So playing that song feels really great.
I wanted to ask about the album title, All Of This Will End. I feel like there are a lot of themes of anxiety about the future and things changing on this album, and I’m interested in how it relates to that.
I think the title felt really beautiful to me, because those words kind of change for everyone, depending on who you are and the way that you’re perceiving it. You could see it as something really dark and heavy. But there’s also a really positive way to look at it, which is that once you come to an acceptance that everything is going to end and stop spending time feeling so torn up about it, then you’re able to move forward pouring intention and care into your life, because you understand the preciousness of it and the fleetingness of it.
And yeah, I liked the title because that’s kind of something that I’ve come to learn. And it’s why my mental health has gotten a lot better, because I basically flipped from one side to the other. Like I used to be very upset about that and couldn’t really let go of it. Since I was really little it always bothered me, the fact that we’re just alive to die. And then when I started to really feel involved in my community and to feel seen by people in the world and understood in a way that I hadn’t been before, I suddenly started to feel more positive about being alive. It’s such a fire under my ass, that thing, All Of This Will End. Not only do I care so much about my own life, but I care so much about what I can do to bring joy and meaning to other people’s lives.
You’re able to approach topics like that in such a soothing way. What does it mean to you to approach those ideas with patience and acceptance instead of anger or grief?
The crazy part is, I think it doesn’t look like anything very large. All it looks like is every day waking up and doing everything that I do with care and intention. Every conversation I have with a human being, every choice that I make about what I’m doing with my day, every piece of merch that I put out, every song that I write, everything that I write online for people to read, I always pour so much intention into everything. I think I just at some point realized that there’s no point in doing things if they’re not for good.
All Of This Will End is out on April 28 via Saddle Creek. Get it here.
The grand jury hearing evidence in the Donald Trumphush money scandal reconvened on Monday with a surprising — and potentially damning — witness: former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
If Pecker’s name sounds familiar (beyond the most obvious jokes that come to mind), that’s probably because he made a lot of headlines back in 2016, just ahead of the election — and in the midst of President P***y Grab’s November surprise. It was Pecker who reportedly bought the rights to a number of stories surrounding Trump’s sexual shenanigans, then sat on them. And on Monday, it was Pecker who was apparently divulging what he knows about Trump’s involvement with Stormy Daniels to the grand jury investigating the former — and wannabe future — president.
As the Daily Mail reports, Pecker was photographed leaving the court on Monday, after meeting with the grand jury. While the former publisher’s testimony, if any, is not yet known, Pecker was linked to the hush money case by Trump’s attorney-turned-enemy Michael Cohen.
Cohen testified that it was he who recommended Trump attempt to buy the rights to Daniels’ story from the former adult star, in order to make sure it didn’t leak. They approached Pecker about making a deal, but the publisher declined — which was odd, given that he had purchased such stories in the past in order to help out Trump.
On March 18, Trump went on a social media rant in which he claimed that he would be arrested regarding his involvement in this hush money payment scandal the following week. Much of America — and the world — has been on #IndictmentWatch ever since. According to Daily Mail:
[Trump] has since used the absence of an indictment or arrest to claim that the investigation is somehow faltering.
Meanwhile, sources have told DailyMail.com that Bragg is having trouble convincing the grand jury to indict, with one court source saying he has a ‘weak’ case.
On March 24, the “Shape Of You” singer played The O2 in London, and made it special for one specific fan named Luke Gittins. The 22-year-old posts covers of Sheeran’s songs on YouTube, so Sheeran invited him on stage to sing “The A Team” with him.
“Do you know ‘The A Team,’” he asked. “Do you want to come up and sing ‘The A Team?’ This isn’t set up, so thank you very much for doing this last-minute. We’ve got a guitar set up for you.”
“The reason I wanted to do this, guys, is like… being an up-and-coming singer-songwriter is really, really, really tough,” he said. “And when I wrote ‘The A Team,’ I was in a room and I was writing songs, and I was trying to make people care about the songs I wrote. I was covering other people’s songs to try and make people care about the songs that I wrote.”
Vladimir Putin’s decade is not going as he planned. After Ukraine dared to not fall to Putin’s troops, his war has spiraled into a deadly affair for Russia. And to add further insult to injury, not only have world leaders been mocking his shirtless photos, but the Russian people are fending through an economy left in tatters. Meanwhile, his current team and other assorted underlings are said to be privately freaking out over his international arrest warrant over fears that they’re next. Morale must be pretty bad these days at the Kremlin.
The Daily Beast has spoken to some ex-Kremlin associates who are, quite frankly, thrilled that they’re not part of this mess. Robert Schlegel, an ex-member of a “pro-Kremlin youth movement” who is now exiled and living in Germany, told the publication about how he met Putin many years ago and observed that his public image was “a total superman,” a label that has obviously faded. And an ex-Kremlin political technologist, Marat Gelman, helped to stage photo ops (similar to the horseback photo shown above) to beef up that image, which he says has now crumbled into a puddle of fear:
“I regret that time and my role now, of course. The idea was to stage scenes of Putin being active, traveling, doing things, solving problems without saying a word,” Gelman, who is now an art collector and gallerist, told The Daily Beast. “I wrote texts that were published in newspapers as his … He was not afraid, it seemed he did not care much if he would lose, but now he is really terrified, because of the real danger he is facing.”
Gelman has further observed “how truly lost” Putin is after “he has burnt everything.” In other words, it’s no wonder that Putin is fretting over the day that he might see a true sign of presidential failure that could be coming: the loss of one vegetable. That veggie could be the true litmus test for how much Russians will tolerate as Putin’s disastrous war drags on into infinity.
John McEnroe might be the professional tennis player most closely associated with temper tantrums, but it turns out that Andre Agassi was a champion in that department, too. As Page Six reports, the Olympic gold medalist’s nickname “The Punisher” was as appropriate in Agassi’s personal life as it was on the court.
In a new interview with The New Yorker, Brooke Shields — who was married to Agassi from 1997 to 1999 — says that the legendary athlete threw a massive fit when his then-girlfriend made a guest appearance on Friends in 1996. In the episode, Shields plays a Days of Our Lives super-fan who is stalking Matt LeBlanc’s Joey Tribbiani (who in the world of the sitcom stars on the soap as Dr. Drake Ramoray).
“In the scene, I’m supposed to lick Joey’s fingers, because they’re the hands of a genius, and I want to devour them, and I’m a nut,” Shields explained:
“Andre was in the audience supporting me, and he stormed out. He said, ‘Everybody’s making fun of me. You made a fool of me by that behavior.’ I’m, like, ‘It’s comedy! What is the matter with you?’ I learned later that he was addicted to crystal meth at that point, so that irrational behavior I’m sure had something to do with that.”
The erratic behavior didn’t end on the set, however. When the couple got home, Shields shared that Agassi was still so mad that he “Smashed all his trophies. Who wins for that? That’s just—don’t!”
Shields and Agassi first got together in 1993; they were married from 1997 to 1999. In 2001, Shields married Funny or Die co-creator Chris Henchy, who is known for writing the Will Ferrell vehiclesThe Other Guys and The Campaign. Something tells us he has a better understanding of comedy.
The third season of Dave is coming right up, with the premiere set for April 5 on FX and the next day on Hulu. So, Dave Burd (aka Lil Dicky) is making the promotional rounds and he stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! yesterday (March 27). There, he told Kimmel about his first time meeting Larry David, an encounter that went just about how you’d expect it to.
Towards the end of the conversation, Kimmel mentioned that Jeff Schaffer, who co-created Dave with Burd, worked with Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm (and previously on Seinfeld, too). Kimmel then pointed out how he has noticed that Burd and David seem to have similar dispositions and approaches to life.
Dicky noted that he “idolizes” David and shared the story of the first time they met:
“I go into [Schaffer’s] office thinking I’m just, you know, about to meet up with Jeff to work on the show, and I just walk in and it’s just Larry, by himself in the kitchen, holding a granola bar. And he’s looking at it, and this is my first time… I don’t think I idolize anyone more than Larry David, so I walk in: immediately shell-shocked.
And he’s looking at this granola bar, he looks up at me, and he says, ‘You know, it says it expired two months ago.’ And I said, ‘Oh.’ And he said, ‘You think these are real, these expiration dates?’ I said, ‘I have no idea. I’m the last guy to ask about anything expiration date-related.’ He said, ‘Eh, I don’t think it’s a real thing.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I don’t know.’ And he said, ‘Do you want it?’
And I looked at it because I’m… honestly, I’m taking every moment of this in, you know, and it was pecan-based, it was a nut-based thing. I said, ‘I don’t like pecans,’ and he said, ‘OK,’ and that was the end of the conversation.”
You have to wonder if David’s conversation-ending “OK” was preceded by one of his classic Curb stare-downs.
At this point, who knows how many “Carpool Karaoke” segments we have left, since The Late Late Show With James Corden is set to air its final episode on April 28. Corden is making the most of his final days on the show, though, by bringing on some heavy hitters for “Carpool Karaoke.” He hosted Bad Bunny a couple weeks ago, and on last night’s (March 27) show, it was Lil Nas X who hopped in the passenger seat.
The segment started with Corden taking notice of Lil Nas X’s shirt, which featured a bedazzled cross (certainly a departure from all the devil stuff). Nas explained, “Oh, this? You know, I’m having my, like, ‘woman of God’ moment. Like, hmm, Christian era.” Corden then joked, “I feel like Mary Magdalene,” a Biblical figure who was a Jesus Christ associate and is often portrayed as having been a prostitute. Nas didn’t get it, though, asking, “Who’s Mary Mag-dolan?” Corden replied, “It’s a long story, let’s not get into it.”
Aside from driving around and singing songs, the main attraction of this installment was Nas and Corden stopping by the Bold And The Beautiful set to film a scene for the long-running daytime soap opera. Nas was given the part of a waiter, while Corden was relegated to holding breadsticks in the background.
Watch the “Carpool Karaoke” segment above.
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