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iHeartRadio’s Jingle Ball Tour already suffered a huge loss last week with the announcement that Doja Cat had to pull out of the remaining performances due to a positive COVID test, but over the weekend, the tour’s organizers received even more bad news as members of Lil Nas X’s show crew also tested positive, forcing him to also pull out of the rest of the tour. Over the weekend, surviving acts Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber played extended sets, but with Doja, Lil Nas X, and Coldplay all dropping out, the holiday tour is decidedly a lot less jolly.

As yet, Lil Nas X has not commented on the cancellations on his own social media, and we don’t know whether he was among those who returned a positive result on the COVID test that forced him out. Before leaving the tour, though, he appeared to be having the time of his life, even as he laughed off an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction that caused him to fall onstage as he tried to keep himself covered up. Oddly enough, it was his second of the year after splitting his pants on SNL, which prompted him to switch to skirts in an effort to avoid a repeat — an effort that was apparently unsuccessful.

Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider has amassed quite the social media following thanks to her impressive winning streak on the classic game show. The champ has taken time to answer as many questions as possible from her new cadre of fans, and recently, she revealed the tattoo that she’s been covering up during her Jeopardy! wins.

While doing her best to field social media inquires with some help from her furry friends, Schneider shared a photo of her pretty sweet arm tattoo.

Naturally, the tattoo caught the attention of Schneider’s fans, so she let them in on the deep personal meaning behind it:

My tattoo is indeed of Ozma of Oz. For those who don’t know, L. Frank Baum wrote many sequels to The Wizard of Oz, and in all of them the ruler of Oz was Princess Ozma. She had been the rightful heir, but was kidnapped as a baby by a sorceress, who enchanted her to become a boy. Eventually, the enchantment is lifted, and she is revealed to be the beautiful princess she always was. So it seemed like the perfect image to commemorate my transition!

As for why Schneider has to cover her tattoo during her Jeopardy! appearances, it’s for a very simple reason: Copyright issues. During a recent interview, Schneider shared that her outfits aren’t her normal attire, but it helps with practical issues like mic placement and hiding her tattoo. As for settling her nerves, not so much.

“I also generally don’t wear long sleeves, but I had a tattoo that had to be covered up, because if it wasn’t they’d have to get clearance from the artist and that’s sort of a copyright issue,” Schneider told Newsweek. “So I had to wear long sleeves every day, which was unusual for me. So I was a bit worried about it.”

(Via Amy Schneider on Twitter, Newsweek)

SPOILER ALERT: Though many fans theorized that Samantha would be the character to bite the dust in the highly anticipated Sex & The City reboot, it was in fact Mr. Big who met his demise. The plot twist not only had mixed reactions from viewers, it caused Peloton stock prices to plummet.

Big’s death might have caused Peloton stocks to go six feet under, but their latest commercial is giving the internet life, and is the absolute epitome of “damage control.”

The video starts with Big, seemingly resurrected, next to a crackling fire, drinking wine with his favorite instructor Allegra, who also appeared in the show. Have the two run away together? That seems to be the case.

As Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata plays, Big toasts “to new beginnings.” Allegra tells Big how great he looks. Big asks his trainer-turned-mistress if she wants another ride, adding that “life is too short not to.”

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Cue the piece de resistance: we hear the voice of Ryan Reynolds saying:

“And just like that… the world was reminded that regular cycling stimulates and improves your heart, lungs and circulation, thus reducing your risk for cardiovascular diseases. Cycling strengthens your heart muscles, lowers your pulse and reduces blood fat levels.”

And then in a clever, fast, distinctly Ryan Reynolds kind of way, he whispers, “he’s alive!”

It took no time for the commercial to receive positive–and comical– reactions.

What a comeback hahahaha damn. Give the person/team who conceptualized this a RAISE

— amb (@_amb15) December 12, 2021

Including a tweet demanding a raise for whoever came up with the idea.

This is hilarious! Props for Peloton’s creativity. I don’t understand what all the hysteria is over a fictional character’s death. The bike didn’t kill him. The guy had a bad heart to begin with.
I’m guessing Chris got paid a $hitload of money to do this.

— Sam – Get boosted! #GoJoe (@Saj15Sam) December 12, 2021

As well as pointing out that perhaps no one should take a fictional character’s death as true commentary on the safety of a real life product.

Carrie watching this ad pic.twitter.com/KG5C2F0ojJ

— Liam Purcy ✨🪐💫 (@liampurcy) December 12, 2021

One person considered poor Carrie after she inevitably finds out Big ran away with his favorite instructor.

Peloton was faster with a response than Carrie was with dialing 911.

— Shep (@ShepHerdsTV) December 12, 2021

Another person wrote ”Peloton was faster with a response than Carrie was with dialing 911,” which is, if you watch the episode, kind of true.

yeah this looks like it was definitely filmed, edited, post-produced and put out over the course of a day and wasn’t a planned product placement campaign at all from the very beginning

— Jawn Didion (@sashaamato) December 13, 2021

And of course, some were less than convinced the commercial was as impromptu as advertised. Either way, it was a pretty creative move on Peloton’s part.

So Ryan Reynolds did a parody/response ad to the famous “Peloton wife” ad for his own gin brand and now Peloton hires him to do a parody/response ad to someone else… clearly, the only constant in this life is Ryan Reynolds. https://t.co/A786URDBP4

— Peter Sagal (@petersagal) December 12, 2021

Somebody had to acknowledge the one thing we can all count on: Ryan Reynolds being hilarious.

Today Peloton introduced the concept of Schrödinger’s Big, a character who may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead as a result of his fate being linked to opposing corporate interests

— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) December 13, 2021

It’s not every day that quantum mechanics get involved in Twitter comments, but one person managed to compare Big’s simultaneous aliveness and deadness to Schrödinger’s cat.

🎶The circle of life pic.twitter.com/oMcFsF8CVz

— Ced (@cedfunches) December 12, 2021

The strategy seemed to do the trick, going by the clearly visible upswing in Peloton’s stock prices.

See on Instagram

For more context: In what now can be seen as heavy foreshadowing, And Just Like That’s first episode starts with Big proudly announcing the thousandth ride of his exercise bike, and more than once mentioning about his favorite Peloton instructor, Allegra.

Cut to Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) coming home to find her collapsed husband (Big), suffering cardiac arrest post Peloton workout. Not the greatest look for a health product.

See on Instagram

Peloton has received its fair share of bad press over the years, but luckily this might have been the biggest blessing in disguise. And it gives “flipping the script” an almost literal meaning.

And just like that…a PR nightmare turns into a genius marketing campaign.

Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider has amassed quite the social media following thanks to her impressive winning streak on the classic game show. The champ has taken time to answer as many questions as possible from her new cadre of fans, and recently, she revealed the tattoo that she’s been covering up during her Jeopardy! wins.

While doing her best to field social media inquires with some help from her furry friends, Schneider shared a photo of her pretty sweet arm tattoo.

Naturally, the tattoo caught the attention of Schneider’s fans, so she let them in on the deep personal meaning behind it:

My tattoo is indeed of Ozma of Oz. For those who don’t know, L. Frank Baum wrote many sequels to The Wizard of Oz, and in all of them the ruler of Oz was Princess Ozma. She had been the rightful heir, but was kidnapped as a baby by a sorceress, who enchanted her to become a boy. Eventually, the enchantment is lifted, and she is revealed to be the beautiful princess she always was. So it seemed like the perfect image to commemorate my transition!

As for why Schneider has to cover her tattoo during her Jeopardy! appearances, it’s for a very simple reason: Copyright issues. During a recent interview, Schneider shared that her outfits aren’t her normal attire, but it helps with practical issues like mic placement and hiding her tattoo. As for settling her nerves, not so much.

“I also generally don’t wear long sleeves, but I had a tattoo that had to be covered up, because if it wasn’t they’d have to get clearance from the artist and that’s sort of a copyright issue,” Schneider told Newsweek. “So I had to wear long sleeves every day, which was unusual for me. So I was a bit worried about it.”

(Via Amy Schneider on Twitter, Newsweek)

Earlier this morning, the nominees for the 79th Annual Golden Globe Awards were announced in Los Angeles and to great surprise, Hollywood Foreign Press President Helen Hoehner gave way to an illustrious Southern Californian to read off the first half of nominations, saying, “And now to help me announce the 79th Annual Golden Globe nominees, please welcome a special guest… Snoop Dogg.”

Out came the lanky six-foot-four-inch rapper with a red “Murder” beanie on his head, an asymmetrical paisley button down shirt, modest-sized gold medallion, and of course, Locs sunglasses. First off, big shouts to Snoop Dogg for getting up in time to appear in front of a screen by 6 a.m. That’s a father of four right there, people.

But for all the jabs Snoop Dogg has received for mispronouncing a couple names (“Ben Uhffleck… Ben Affleck. My fault… sorry about that, Ben.”), he actually totally nails all or most of some pretty difficult names. He pronounced Dune director Denis Villeneuve’s name with very stout French pronunciation of a hard “e” at the end. He then showed his versatility in the love language by pronouncing The French Dispatch composer Alexandre Desplat’s name with a soft “t.”

Of course there were moments of hilarity, like the way he said Pose actress Michaela J. Rodirguez’s last name like it was one of the homies from the block (“Rordriguezz!”) or how he delivered the title of the musical Tick, Tick…Boom! like it was the punctuation to a song lyric.

So don’t listen to anyone who makes the condescending claim that Snoop Dogg was “butchering so many of the nominees’ names that it was hard to tell who actually got nominated.” Because he was absolutely himself and he did a fine job at the mundane task before him.

Watch Snoop Dogg announcing the 79th Annual Golden Globe Nominees above.

Over the past few years, more rappers than ever have shared their discontent with the modern label system. Most recently, Big Sean pointed out that Kanye apparently still owes him quite a bit from his GOOD Music days, Meek Mill demanded more transparency in the music industry, and Wale explained why he left Roc Nation early in his career. Through all those revelations, one artist has remained steadfast in his belief in his independent hustle — and outspoken in sharing his advice for industry peers.

Russ, who is currently doing promotion for his newly released mixtape Chomp 2, stopped by The Breakfast Club and explained how he financed the new project by taking out a bank loan rather than signing with a label. Using Wale’s 2019 single “On Chill” as an example, he explained how he would go about opening a line of credit to support the track. “Let’s say it’s $250,000… Guess what you can go do. Go get a line of credit… I don’t wanna play with my own money. Even though an advance, they give you a million dollars and spend money at radio, that still ends up being your money. If I get a line of credit from the bank… it’s about time value of money.”

“So with Chomp 2,” he continued. “I have millions of dollars in the bank, I could fund it myself. Why? … Everything on Chomp 2, I’m using the line of credit. I could pay $1,000 for the rest of my life. If the issue is upfront cash… A bank will give y’all millions of dollars.”

Of course, some folks on Twitter pointed out that not everybody has this particular set of options, but Russ was adamant his point was in pursuing alternative funding and maintaining ownership of publishing rights and his music career. Check out some of the reactions to Russ’ advice and his responses below.

Who was the top musical artist of 2021 on TikTok? Well, it depends how you look at it.

Today, the platform shared a bunch of year-end data, which reveals that Megan Thee Stallion was the top artist in the US by “catalogue creations,” meaning in terms of how many times users included her songs in their videos. This is Meg’s second year in a row securing that title. Following her in the top 10 are, in order, Doja Cat, PoppHunna, Olivia Rodrigo, Cardi B, YungManny, Soulja Boy, Drake, Kevin Gates, and Coi Leray.

When it comes to artists actually using TikTok themselves, though, Lil Nas X had the most-viewed music account in the US. After him on the list are Lizzo, iHeartMemphis, Jason Derulo, Oliver Tree, Leray, Selena Gomez, Charlie Puth, Billie Eilish, and Benny Blanco.

The post also includes a list of the year’s top emerging artists and it includes up-and-comer favorites like Baby Tate, Coi Leray, Magdalena Bay, PinkPantheress, and Shygirl. TikTok also compiled a list of the top “comeback tracks” in the US, meaning “trending songs released between 5 and 25 years ago.” Leading that list is Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills,” and also included are Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘n’ Nite,” Britney Spears’ “Gimme More,” and Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” featuring Timbaland.

TikTok shared a lot more year-end data than was covered here, so check out their post here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas-starring erotic thriller Deep Water was tragically pulled from the theatrical release calendar last week, but don’t give up hope for the horniest Disney movie since George of the Jungle.

Deadline reports that the film is going to streaming with Hulu getting “domestic play,” while Amazon Prime Video will have the rights overseas. The decision was made because adult dramas are not doing great at the box office, including Steven Spielberg’s critically-adored West Side Story, which opened to only $10.5 million this weekend. House of Gucci is one of the few non-comic book movies to break through with $41 million domestic after three weeks; meanwhile, another Disney title, Spider-Man: No Way Home, is expected to have a $135-$155 million opening weekend.

As far as what Deep Water is about:

Affleck and de Armas star as Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a married couple whose mind games with each other take a twisted turn when people around them start turning up dead. The couple staves off divorce in a loveless marriage by allowing each to take lovers, but it becomes messy as Highsmith exposed the surface façade of American suburban life.

If Disney told everyone Ben Affleck was secretly playing Superman in Deep Water, it could crack $100 million. It’s a good move for everyone.

No release date has been announced.

(Via Deadline)

Despite Jerami Grant being slated to miss extended time with torn ligaments in his right thumb, there is a robust trade market for the Detroit Pistons wing, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

Charania reported that the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers are “among the teams pursuing the Pistons’ versatile forward” and Detroit “is open to a possible deal.”

Riding out the second of a three-year, $60 million deal, Grant is eligible for a four-year extension “worth up to $112 million” this offseason. Last year, Grant averaged a career-high 22.3 points and has followed that up with 20.1 points per game through 24 games in 2021-22. He’s developed himself into a talented isolation scorer who can also spot up from deep (37 percent since 2018-19).

However, Grant is likely not a good enough playmaker or individual scorer to occupy the prominent creator role on a new team that he’s often tasked with in Detroit. Any club who trades for him would benefit from deploying him as a floor-spacer who provides help-side rim protection, the jobs he excelled at during his final season with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Whether he can regain his defensive form of yesteryear and adapt to an off-ball scoring gig again is unknown. But that’s his path to high-level contributions on a playoff contender, which is a vastly different role than the one he embodies for the Pistons and sought out when he chose Detroit over Denver in free agency two years ago.

This article originally appeared on 07.18.19

When Lily Evans set out to walk her dog, she had no idea the story of that walk would later go viral on the internet.

When she took to Twitter to recount her experience, she opened with a simple question, one that many men have probably wondered for a long time — though women already know the answer.

(Before you click through to the thread itself, note that Lily’s Twitter account is expressly for adults and may be NSFW.)

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The walk started off normal enough. Until she ran into a seemingly friendly stranger.

A man eating on a nearby bench offered her dog, Echo, a treat.

He eventually asked her if she lived in the area — which could be considered slightly intrusive — but all in all, it was just small talk.

But then she ran into him again shortly after.

Evans says his friendly banter — maybe innocent, but more likely not — was making her incredibly uncomfortable.

And yet he continued to linger.

Then he invaded her physical space with an out-of-nowhere hug.

“I was terrified,” she wrote.

Evans hurried home, petrified the man would follow her.

He didn’t. But the experience left her shaken and upset. Worst of all, she says, she has been through this many, many times before.

Her story went viral in a hurry, with over 44,000 retweets, 68,000 likes, and thousands of comments.

“The response from other women has been pretty heartbreaking,” Evans writes in a Twitter exchange with Upworthy. “Many, many women have used this as an opportunity to share their stories of harassment, assault, or even just being very frightened.”

The replies to Evans’ tweet thread is littered with similar stories — seemingly “nice” guys on the street or public transportation who push small talk far past its acceptable boundaries.

Though she’s glad her story made other women feel more comfortable coming forward with their own experiences, Evans hopes it also leaves an impression on men who read it.

“I had several guys ask me how they can be more non-threatening, and that’s exactly what I was aiming for.”

“I got a lot of replies from men saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry that happened, but we aren’t all like that! Some of us are nice guys,'” she says. “And while that’s true, my point was that strangers cannot know what your intentions are until it’s too late.

She hits on an important point: It’s not inherently wrong or creepy to strike up a conversation with a stranger, but women truly never know when a simple “hi” is going to turn into them being followed and harassed.

“I had several guys ask me how they can be more non-threatening, and that’s exactly what I was aiming for,” she says. “I just want men to be more self-aware and understand that when a woman they don’t know is skittish, it’s nothing personal. We’re just trying to be safe.”