The Weeknd has reached world-dominating levels of fame, especially after unveiling Dawn FM earlier this year. But he, real name Abel Tesfaye, is also a nice person; in July, he flew a 6-year-old superfan out to his concert after they missed a postponed Toronto show. He showed more of his goodness over this past weekend.
A fan’s mom tried to reach Tesfaye on Twitter in order to get her daughter, a cancer patient, to meet him. “My daughter wants to meet her favorite artist @theweeknd and go to his concert,” she wrote in a tweet. “I want to make that happen for her, she deserves the best of the best. she’s kicking cancer’s butt and still being a light in this world. help me make it happen for her. #AbelMeetKatana.”
She added, “My sister already got us floor seat tickets to see Abel in Los Angeles on Sept 2nd. Katana’s birthday is September 9th. It would be the biggest present I could possibly give her to meet her favorite artist and see him live. She wants to go with me so badly.”
my daughter wants to meet her favorite artist @theweeknd and go to his concert. I want to make that happen for her, she deserves the best of the best. she’s kicking cancer’s butt and still being a light in this world. help me make it happen for her. #AbelMeetKatanapic.twitter.com/lOrrR1laza
According to her TikTok, it happened! She posted a clip of the wholesome interaction as the kid asked the superstar, “Are you going to sing on the stage?” and he answered, “Yes, I’m getting ready to sing on the stage.” Watch the video below.
During WWE’s No. 1 contender fatal 4-way match, Strowman made his surprise return, dispatching Alpha Academy, New Day, Street Profits and Los Lotharios with ease. As Chad Gable locked Montez Ford into an ankle lock, Strowman’s music hit and made his way to the ring. He tossed all eight of the championship contenders around the ring, beat down security, put Otis through the ringside barrier and slammed Angelo Dawkins through the announce table. After his destruction, Strowman posed on the middle rope, slammed Gable yet again, and then made his way to the back.
Strowman was a surprise cut from the roster following his involvement in the WWE title match at WWE Backlash against Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre. Since leaving WWE, he joined EC3 and a variety of others in the Control Your Narrative promotion before jumping back.
During his first stint with the WWE, Strowman held multiple titles, including a 151-day WWE Universal Championship run reign that started with a WrestleMania victory over Goldberg and ended with a loss to “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt. As has been the case since he took over, Triple H brings back another ex-WWE star to fill out the roster in the wake of Vince McMahon’s departure.
According to numerous reports from the likes of Fightful Select and the Wrestling Observer, an altercation did in fact take place backstage in Punk’s locker room following his explosive press conference. Who threw the first punch changes depending on the report, but the hands started flying between Matt Jackson and Punk, when Ace Steel also got involved. Nick Jackson reportedly was hit with a chair thrown by Steel and may have been knocked out, but no reports have confirmed if injuries were sustained. Steel also allegedly got physical with Omega, with the Observer reporting that Omega got bitten in the altercation.
According to multiple sources that lined up with some of Fightful’s reporting, there was a fight backstage afterward with Punk allegedly starting things by swinging fists at the Bucks’ Matt Jackson. Punk trainer/friend and AEW producer Steel (part of the storyline that got Punk into Sunday’s Jon Moxley match) threw a chair that hit the Bucks’ Nick Jackson in the eye. Steel (Chris Guy) allegedly bit Omega and grabbed his hair. (via Wrestling Observer)
Despite all of the backstage drama, Tony Khan said the EVPs are still significant contributors to his organization, but admitted what is going on is a “dicey situation,” per Jon Alba. We’ll see how well that holds up when AEW sets up for its next episode of Dynamite on Wednesday evening, but if nothing else there’s plenty of intrigue coming out of All Out — whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.
Harry Styles is an expert at breaking the internet. The other week, his Rolling Stone profile wreaked havoc on social media when he was called “the new King of Pop.” Now, he has Twitter in a stir after he and his costar Nick Kroll kissed on the mouth during the Don’t Worry Darling standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. A picture of the moment was shared, and quickly went viral.
Harry Styles & Nick Kroll share a kiss during the ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ standing ovation at Venice Film Festival. https://t.co/EHlloXBaOJ
Don’t Worry Darling has been at the center of many controversies. Today, during a predictably awkward press conference, director Olivia Wilde did her best to sidestep the “tabloid” issues. She called Florence Pugh “a force, and we are so grateful that she’s able to make it tonight despite being in production on Dune.” (Indeed, she arrived in town while the presser was still going.) She added, “I can’t say enough how honored I am to have her as our lead. She’s amazing in the film.” Then she tried to dismiss all the elephants in the room by saying, “as for all the endless tabloid gossip and all the noise out there, I mean, the internet feeds itself. I don’t feel the need to contribute. I think it’s sufficiently well-nourished.”
Burning Man is the mecca of all music festivals, offering massive art installations, a colorful community, and unexpected twists (and orgies) around every corner. Celebrated annually and finishing up on the Labor Day holiday, an ode to the unofficial end of summer, the Playa out in the Nevada desert makes for a scorching celebration, in more ways than one.
Fortunately for this year’s Burners, they’ll be able to find relief at the “Canada Chill Station.”
Destination Canada is bringing its beloved winter vibes to the desert with a custom-designed, refrigerated pop-up where Burners can enjoy ice-cold refreshments and cool off — open September 4th and 5th as people leave the festival. The goal? To provide burned and worn-out festival attendees with some much-needed relief before their journeys home. The best part is that Burners who show their festival tickets can redeem a ski lift ticket at one of Canada’s world-class resorts, so they can experience an actual Canadian winter for themselves. After all, Canada is the proclaimed home of winter. Burners can find the Canada Chill Station on their way out of the festival grounds, located southbound on 447 at 285 Main St, Gerlach, NV 89412.
If you’re heading home from Burning Man this week (first of all, good luck), make sure to hit the Canada Chill Station to cool down on your way out.
Don’t Worry Darling got off to such a good start. It’s Olivia Wilde’s directorial follow-up to Booksmart. It had that super sexy trailer, which was supposed to be even sexier. But over the last few weeks what was supposed to be a sure thing has been plagued with bad press. When it finally debuted this weekend at the Venice Film Festival, it scored not very good reviews, as well as a pretty awkward press conference, which its star Florence Pugh decided to skip. But one actor to stayed knew how to handle it: he zoned the eff out.
Chris Pine — who plays some guru loosely modeled on pseudo-intellectual incel champ Jordan Peterson — showed up at the presser looking pretty fly, with long blonde locks. He looked handsome in the photos, but he also looked…detached. He didn’t look drugged-up, but he looked like he had decided to self-disassociate from a press to-do in which journalists were reportedly not allowed to address a number of large, controversial elephants in the room. He either looked zen or he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
The photos scored a lot of jokes, with some worried about him.
The once and future Captain Kirk may have seemed out-of-it at the press conference, but the red carpet was a whole other story. He had a disposable camera, a different outfit, he looked like he was having fun.
chris pine with the disposable camera taking pictures of florence pugh is something that can be so personal pic.twitter.com/7AwpO0xBJI
chris pine disassociating at a press conference, florence pugh showing up 15 mins late with an aperol spritz, tom cruise clinging to a plane and saying “see you at the movies!”, brendan fraser getting a six minute ovation…maybe cinema really is back
High schools are a perfect breeding ground for weirdness. First of all, you have a bunch of teenagers who are starting to deal with adult problems but they don’t have the experience or the brain development to figure out how to navigate complex feelings and relationships.
Then you add sex, drugs, learner’s permits, the stress of trying to get into college and really bad facial hair to the situation and you have all the ingredients for people and situations to go completely sideways.
Then there are the teachers. High school teachers tend to be a bit more eccentric than those in the younger grades because they are hired as specialists in a given field, such as history, math or science. Whereas teachers in younger grades have to be nurturing and have a more holistic approach to child development.
Also, hindsight makes a lot of things that seemed normal at the time begin to seem a bit strange. As we get older and have a firm grasp on the realities of being an adult, there are some things that we can’t believe we lived through as teenagers in high school.
When I was in high school we had a drama teacher that sat in the gym and chain-smoked while we rehearsed the play and we didn’t think anything of it. I’m pretty sure my home economics teacher hit the cooking sherry during lunchtime, and we got a day off from school due to the L.A. riots in 1992.
Everyone dealt with some amount of weirdness while they were in high school, so Jimmy Fallon asked his “Tonight Show” audience to share their stories with #MyHighSchoolWasWeird and he read some of his favorites on his show.
We took a look at the hashtag and picked some of the responses we liked the most. Here are 19 of them. Why was your high school weird? Tell us in the comments on Facebook.
Itu2019su00a0Hashtagsu00a0time! Tell us something weird or funny about your high school, and tag it with #MyHighSchoolWasWeird. Could be on the show!
We had a kid nicknamed Johnny Appleseed ( JohnA for short) who placed marijuana seeds in any available place they could grow. Our school had pot plants popping up so often they had to get rid of all the potted plants in classrooms and offices . #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
#MyHighSchoolWasWeirdnOne teacheru2019s bathroom pass was an actual toilet seat that you had to carry with you to the restroom. pic.twitter.com/tesVLEpKe9
This is the mascot at the high school i went to. nPart anthropomorphic sugar beet part food processing machinery. nn#MyHighSchoolWasWeirdpic.twitter.com/2R42p5zCYu
#MyHighSchoolWasWeird because Grimace won every student vote by a landslide. If you werenu2019t writing in Grimace on your ballots you were a narc. Youu2019d think Mayor McCheese would make more sense, being an actual politician, but I guess enough kids couldnu2019t spell it or something.pic.twitter.com/N6CrLw4v7r
One time a swim meet was canceled at my friend’s high school because the pool “caught on fire.” Still have no idea how that’s possible. #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
My high school had the mayonnaise bandit who would put mayo on the under side of the stair railings from the cafeteria making them useless or risk getting a handful of slimy mayonnaise on your way to class #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
My Junior year of high school there was a competition for one of the teachers to kiss a cow. Of course the most disliked teacher ended up kissing the cow. #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
There was this kid that would run around during highschool and hiss at people. He was really smart but he would just randomly hiss lol #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
Got a new principal in my senior year who decided to enforce the dress code with bright orange “Dress Code Violator” t-shirts. They became badges of honor instead of the intended punishment… 🤦♀️ #MyHighSchoolWasWeird
Our cafeteria’s chicken fries were such a rare and glorious experience, once people GRADUATED, they would still come back to buy them. #myhighschoolwasweird
#MyHighSchoolWasWeird because we had a bring your tractor to school day, those who brought one in got to skip all classes and just talk with others about their tractors. It always causes traffic delays because there was one main road into the school.
If you look back at how you acted, dressed and behaved in high school and have a little bit of shame, that’s probably a good thing. If you cringe a little when you think about your former self, that shows that you’ve grown as a person.
But wouldn’t it be great if you could go back to high school knowing what you know now? How much easier would it be to approach that special person you wanted to ask to the dance but couldn’t muster up the courage? How much more would you appreciate those carefree days when all you had to worry about was a bio test or who had a crush on whom in homeroom?
Personally, if I went back to high school I’d have a lot more appreciation for my teachers knowing just how hard of a job they have. Now that I’m an adult I have a lot more sympathy for what we put them through and I can totally understand why teaching at a high school can turn someone a little weird.
Here’s Jimmy Fallon reading off some of his responses to #MyHighSchoolWasWeird.
Since invading Ukraine in late February, Russia has been hit with intense pushback — at least from people who don’t work at Fox News. Sanctions have partially crippled the economy. Businesses have pulled out, resulting in attempted creativesalvage jobs. Russia has pushed back, too, banning a number of sometimes random figures. Did you know Morgan Freeman can no longer enter the nation? Nor can Rob Reiner or Piers Morgan. Now there’s a few more people who will have to stay away from the watchful eye of Vladimir Putin.
As per Newsweek, Russia released a new batch of banned figures. There are only 25 of them, but they include lawmakers like Kyrsten Sinema. There are also some entertainers. Sean Penn is on the list, and so is Ben Stiller.
Penn’s inclusion should shock no one. The actor and activist has been very vocal in his support of Ukraine, even visiting the country in the early days of the invasion. He’s even making a documentary about the war. Eventually he was told to skedaddle, if only for his own safety.
But what’s Stiller doing with a lifetime Russia ban? Well, for one thing, he’s good buds with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in part because they’re colleagues: They’re both comic performers, though only Zelensky became president of a country, which he’s helped steer through unimaginable strife. Stiller has even called him “my hero.”
For the record, Stiller has also done his part to use his fame for good. He’s been helping to bring attention to the global refugee crisis since 2016, and he visited Ukraine in June, on National Refugee Day, where he observed the heavily-bombed nation. Apparently that enraged Putin and associates. Still, at least Penn and Stiller — and Sinema — can say they’re among increasingly august company.
In a recent segment on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, the program went ahead and hurled an insult at Maren Morris by showing a photo of her on screen and giving it the label “lunatic country music person.” Morris had some fun with that, sharing a screenshot on Twitter on Friday (September 2) and jokingly declaring, “#NewProfilePic.”
She didn’t stop there, though, as she took the mean-spirited jab and turned it into a fundraising effort to which Carlson probably didn’t contribute.
On the same day Morris shared the screenshot, she offered a new bit of merch for sale, a t-shirt. The shirt has her name on it as well as the Fox News appointed title “lunatic country music person.” Below that is the phone number for the Peer Support & Crisis Hotline for trans youth, (877) 565-8860. Morris noted that all proceeds from sales of the shirt will be split between Trans Lifelife and the GLAAD Transgender Media Program.
The response was enthusiastic. Morris noted that in just two hours, the shirts had raised $63k. The next day, less than 24 hours after the shirts went up for sale, Morris offered another fundraising update, tweeting, “Over $100K raised. Have a great Labor Day weekend, lunatics.”
Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw Lil Baby and Gorillaz both launch their own new eras. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
Last Friday (September 2) brought a Rushmore-ian announcement for Lil Baby’s upcoming third album, It’s Only Me. The day also yielded a single to kick things off, “Detox,” on which the rapper lauds a minimal style while boasting a set of skills that’s anything but paltry.
Ari Lennox and Summer Walker — “Queen Space”
Music fans are pumped for Ari Lennox’s new album, Age/Sex/Location, to drop — J. Cole, for one, “can’t wait ’til this sh*t comes out.” The album’s out in just a few days but Lennox didn’t want her fans to wait even that short period of time, so she offered an EP, Away Message, last week. Highlighting that effort is “Queen Space,” a smooth and soulful Summer Walker collaboration.
The 1975 — “I’m In Love With You”
Being Funny In A Foreign Language, the upcoming album from The 1975 due out in October, is shaping up nicely so far. Advance singles have teased a promising LP, with new single “I’m In Love With You” carrying the promotional weight last week. It’s the lively sort of pop-rock tune that has brought the band much success in recent years, and the cherry on top here is a Phoebe Bridgers’ appearance in the song’s video.
Arctic Monkeys — “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball”
It’s been a hearty minute since Arctic Monkeys’ last album, 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. The wait for its follow-up won’t last much longer, though, as The Car is set to drop in November. The group previewed it last week with “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball,” a ballad much in the vein of the album that preceded it.
Gorillaz — “New Gold” Feat. Tame Impala and Bootie Brown
Next February, Gorillaz will bring us to Cracker Island on their just-announced new album. The Thundercat-featuring lead single/title track came back in June and the LP’s second single is also a collaboration, this time with Tame Impala and Bootie Brown. The song is “New Gold” and it definitely has Kevin Parker’s psychedelic stamp all over it, with Brown’s verse living harmoniously in the song’s groove.
Freddie Gibbs — “Too Much” Feat. Moneybagg Yo
While it’s been a quiet 2022 for Gibbs, that’ll change soon: His recently announced new album Soul Sold Separately is out at the end of the month and “Too Much,” a Moneybagg Yo single that’s Gibbs’ first of the year, dropped last week. Uproxx’s Armon Sadler says of the tune, “It is a unique foray for Gibbs, as the production is more trap-focused and he utilizes Aut-Tune on his vocals. As for Moneybagg, this beat is right in his usual brooding yet high-energy pocket.”
Kali Uchis — “No Hay Ley”
Uchis has indicated she’s working on a third album and while one hasn’t been officially announced yet, it would seem that last week’s single “No Hay Ley” is a taste of it. Uproxx’s Alex Gonzalez notes of the upbeat tune, “Over a hypnotic house-inspired dance track, Uchis sings about the ‘cosas magicas’ she wants to do with her lover.”
Smino — “24-8”
Last month, it would have been late NBA icon Kobe Bryant’s 44th birthday. Sports fans continue to mourn the loss of the superstar, including Smino, who honored Bryant’s jersey numbers on the single “24-8,” an introspective track that pays homage to the beloved Laker.
Justin Bieber — “Beautiful Love (Free Fire)”
In recent years, the virtual worlds of video games have become increasingly accommodating spaces for musicians to perform and share their work. Just recently, Bieber debuted a new song called “Beautiful Love” in the Free Fire game and now he’s given the afrobeats-leaning tune a proper release.
Charlie Puth — “Smells Like Me”
Puth has long proven himself to be an extremely capable songwriters and invoker of aesthetics. He fulfills both roles on last week’s “Smells Like Me,” a catchy ballad that reaches its presumed goal of sounding like a modern take on an emotional, lovelorn track from an ’80s movie.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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