There are multiple reasons why kids might start experimenting with a curse word…or two…or three. It might be because the word soundsfunny, or they’re imitating their parents (oops), or because they’re trying to vent some intense feelings and that word seems to feel right. It’s all part of exploring language.
But even though this phase is innocent and natural, it can still make for some pretty awkward moments for adults.
For Tina Midkiff, that moment came while teaching daycare. Midkiff was “trying to resolve cussing issues” with a young girl in her class, especially since Midkiff didn’t want the other kids hearing it.
Getting creative, she found the perfect place for her adorable pottymouth—the bathroom.
In a video posted to Midkiff’s TikTok, we see the plan in action. Midkiff tells the girl “we’re only going to cuss in the bathroom. We’re not cussing anywhere but in the bathroom. And we’re not going to give the finger anywhere but in the bathroom.”
Midkiff also confirmed that this was a “mother approved” strategy for getting it out of the little girl’s system.
The little girl complies with sweet little “otays,” and is clearly ancy to let it all out. As soon as her teacher leaves the room, the expletives start flying.
Mid rant, Midkiff asks “are you unfinished?” but the little girl yells back “No!” and more F-bombs pour out in a clandestine whisper.
Then as the end of her swear session approached, the little girls instruct herself to only use those words in the bathroom.
“Did you get it out of your system?” Midkiff asks as she comes back in, to which the girl replies “yeeeeaaaah,” before frolicking off to her class.
Nearly 15 million people watched Midkiff’s video, and found the clip kind of precious, if not incredibly relatable.
One viewer quipped, “Me when I’m rehearsing fights in my head.”
Another added, “Her whispering her bad words is so cute.”
Just about everyone seemed in agreement that the little girl did indeed simply need to let it out.
“She needed to release this, daycare buds getting on her nerves. Lol,” one person commented .
In a follow-up video, Midkiff explained that she posted the video to highlight the importance of giving kids a “safe space” to express themselves. In this case, it proved to be more effective than punishment, which the little girl wasn’t responding to.
“We had to go outside the box…to see what was the best [thing] for the child,’ Midkiff said, adding that sometimes adults can get stuck in a rut of redirecting or doling out punishment, which keeps the situation from actually being dealt with.
Other adults seemed to agree with Midkiff’s reasoning.
One person wrote, “This! Every child is different. You made it work for her—you didn’t shame her. You let her express it so she can move on with her life.”
Another added, “I will now use this method for my child. Thank you Ms. Tina.”
Just as Midkiff was able to find success by uncovering why this little girl felt the need to cuss, so too can others find a solution once they know the specific underlying motivation of their own kid. For instance, if the curse words are to get attention, it might be recommended to ignore the pleas as to not encourage that kind of behavior. If it’s from repeating what’s heard at home, then perhaps being more mindful of your own swear habit is key.
Bottom line: kids are individuals, and might need an individual approach. Even when it comes to expletives.
There are multiple reasons why kids might start experimenting with a curse word…or two…or three. It might be because the word soundsfunny, or they’re imitating their parents (oops), or because they’re trying to vent some intense feelings and that word seems to feel right. It’s all part of exploring language.
But even though this phase is innocent and natural, it can still make for some pretty awkward moments for adults.
For Tina Midkiff, that moment came while teaching daycare. Midkiff was “trying to resolve cussing issues” with a young girl in her class, especially since Midkiff didn’t want the other kids hearing it.
Getting creative, she found the perfect place for her adorable pottymouth—the bathroom.
In a video posted to Midkiff’s TikTok, we see the plan in action. Midkiff tells the girl “we’re only going to cuss in the bathroom. We’re not cussing anywhere but in the bathroom. And we’re not going to give the finger anywhere but in the bathroom.”
Midkiff also confirmed that this was a “mother approved” strategy for getting it out of the little girl’s system.
The little girl complies with sweet little “otays,” and is clearly ancy to let it all out. As soon as her teacher leaves the room, the expletives start flying.
Mid rant, Midkiff asks “are you unfinished?” but the little girl yells back “No!” and more F-bombs pour out in a clandestine whisper.
Then as the end of her swear session approached, the little girls instruct herself to only use those words in the bathroom.
“Did you get it out of your system?” Midkiff asks as she comes back in, to which the girl replies “yeeeeaaaah,” before frolicking off to her class.
Nearly 15 million people watched Midkiff’s video, and found the clip kind of precious, if not incredibly relatable.
One viewer quipped, “Me when I’m rehearsing fights in my head.”
Another added, “Her whispering her bad words is so cute.”
Just about everyone seemed in agreement that the little girl did indeed simply need to let it out.
“She needed to release this, daycare buds getting on her nerves. Lol,” one person commented .
In a follow-up video, Midkiff explained that she posted the video to highlight the importance of giving kids a “safe space” to express themselves. In this case, it proved to be more effective than punishment, which the little girl wasn’t responding to.
“We had to go outside the box…to see what was the best [thing] for the child,’ Midkiff said, adding that sometimes adults can get stuck in a rut of redirecting or doling out punishment, which keeps the situation from actually being dealt with.
Other adults seemed to agree with Midkiff’s reasoning.
One person wrote, “This! Every child is different. You made it work for her—you didn’t shame her. You let her express it so she can move on with her life.”
Another added, “I will now use this method for my child. Thank you Ms. Tina.”
Just as Midkiff was able to find success by uncovering why this little girl felt the need to cuss, so too can others find a solution once they know the specific underlying motivation of their own kid. For instance, if the curse words are to get attention, it might be recommended to ignore the pleas as to not encourage that kind of behavior. If it’s from repeating what’s heard at home, then perhaps being more mindful of your own swear habit is key.
Bottom line: kids are individuals, and might need an individual approach. Even when it comes to expletives.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – Pixar, I am begging you
Sequels can be tricky business. They can be fun when there’s a legitimate way to continue the story, but they can also come across as lazy cash grabs targeted at a baked-in audience. Sometimes movie franchises try to have it both ways by setting up a sequel by ending on a cliffhanger, which is extra annoying and a good reminder that both the most recent Fast & Furious movie and the most recent Mission: Impossible movie cut to their respective credits after an open-ended reveal about a submarine that was either trapped under or bursting out of a sheet of ice. Which was actually kind of funny. Both movies also featured frantic car chases through Rome and twists related to characters that died many movies earlier. This isn’t where I thought this paragraph was headed when I started writing it but it’s still important to note.
The point here is that you need to have a good story to earn a sequel. And that original stories can be hard to create. And that it’s kind of nice when the universe just goes right ahead and plops one in your lap. This brings us to this bit of news out of France from earlier this week.
Wine worth more than €1.5m ($1.6m) has vanished from La Tour d’Argent, one of Paris’ most famous restaurants and the inspiration for the film Ratatouille.
I think you see where this is headed. Especially if you are a regular reader of this column. But let’s get some more of the facts about this French wine mystery out of the way before we get to all of that.
The loss was discovered during a routine inventory of the 300,000 bottles at the “largest cellar in Paris,” a sommelier told Le Parisien.
An estimated 83 bottles are thought to be missing, according to the last inventory, which was taken in 2020.
Three things worth noting here before we press on:
300,000 bottles of wine is so many bottles of wine
If 83 bottles of wine are missing and the estimated value of the whole haul is $1.6 million, that means the average cost per bottle comes in just south of $20k
If I spend $20k on a bottle of wine it better drive me home when I’m done drinking it
One last blockquote.
Among the missing bottles are wines from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti a Burgundy estate famed for producing expensive vintages.
A bottle of Romanée-Conti from 1945 was sold for €482,000 ($523,878) in 2018, becoming the most expensive bottle in the world at the time.
Okay, that’s enough actual information to get us where we’re headed, which is… here: Let’s make this the sequel to Ratatouille. You saw the thing up in the first blockquote about this being the restaurant that kind of inspired the movie. Well, there you go. There’s your hook. We fast-forward from the end of the 2007 Pixar film to the present day, almost two decades later. We see Remy and Linguini thriving in the little bistro they opened at the end of the movie. We do NOT Google things like “rat life span” or “how long do rats live.” Everything is great.
But.
Then.
The bistro’s impressive little wine cellar is ransacked. Maybe not to the tune of $1.6 million but still. It has the chance to ruin them. Maybe Linguini forgot to file the insurance paperwork. (Classic Linguini.) And so Remy and his rat friends across the city must investigate the situation themselves, in part to save the restaurant but also out of a love of fine food and drink. Something must be done. I really must stress once again that we do not question how a fully grown rat has survived for almost 20 years. That’s important.
I have this image in my head of Remy in the sewers in a little toy boat he’s driving like a speedboat, a match in his hand like it’s a torch, hunting down the many bottles of fancy wine that went missing. It’s a full-on animated thriller, a cartoon action movie with a thumping soundtrack. Yes, the thief is voiced by Pierce Brosnan. You see the vision here.
Coming to theaters next summer…
It’s time for…
Rata2ille.
(Sorry.)
ITEM NUMBER TWO – While we’re on the subject of Hollywood-adjacent heists
A dying thief who confessed to stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” because he wanted to pull off “one last score” is expected to stay out of prison after he’s sentenced Monday.
What’s actually happening here is that the man has months to live and is on hospice care and so everyone is just agreeing that jail isn’t necessary BUT it’s more fun — by a lot — to read this as saying he used “I needed to do one last job” as his actual defense and the jury rolled with it.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. He gave into temptation after an old mob associate told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value, his attorney revealed in a memo to the federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth.
So, two things are true here:
Stealing is bad and you should not do it
If I knew I had months to live, I might try to steal some famous jewel-encrusted slippers, too
Seize the day, you know? And the slippers. Seize the day and the slippers.
“At first, Terry declined the invitation to participate in the heist. But old habits die hard, and the thought of a ‘final score’ kept him up at night,” DeKrey wrote. “After much contemplation, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft.”
This story is a bummer on a number of levels if you dig down below the surface of it all but it’s going to take a backhoe for me to dig past “a mobbed-up career criminal drove himself mad by contemplating the theft of Judy Garland’s slippers from The Wizard of Oz as his one last score before his death” sooooooo…
Yeah, let’s just leave it there.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – Buddy, Elmo had a week
This is a video of Larry David physically assaulting Elmo on The Today Show and then being forced to apologize for it like a child, which is a lot to comprehend with or without context. And the explanation of how we all got here doesn’t make any of it less weird. But it’s fun. Here’s the shortest version I can put together.
Earlier this week, Elmo — or at least the social media manager who is tasked with being the voice of Elmo — tweeted this.
And Lord in Heaven, did people ever tell Elmo. It became a whole thing. Thousands of people around the world replied to an adorable fuzzy red puppet to unburden themselves of piles of pent-up stress and anxiety and existential dread. There were write-ups and stories about it on the actual news, like the news normal people who aren’t online-addled weirdos consume. It achieved the escape velocity to get to the civilians, which is always a good barometer of whether something is an actual big deal or just something the rest of us goblins are shouting about.
A little while later, Elmo tweeted this follow-up, which is also adorable and proof that Muppets and Sesame Street characters are better-adjusted than the humans watching them.
Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing. Elmo will check in again soon, friends! Elmo loves you.#EmotionalWellBeingpic.twitter.com/jhn2LNKfHf
Anyway, that is how and why Elmo was on The Today Show, where he was assaulted by Larry David, who was also there to promote the final season of a television show he’s been making for almost 25 years. I would bet my life and the lives of everyone I love on the fact that this represents the first time those words have been typed in that order.
I’ll leave you with this: The whole ordeal and my subsequent Googling led me to this, an interview with the aforementioned social media manager who tweets as Elmo that was conducted before this whole fiasco. Her name is Christina Vittas and she seems pretty cool.
I probably watch more Elmo content than a whole preschool class combined, but I am not learning my ABCs and 123s, I am learning comedy, character traits, and so much more that all goes into the work I do. I feel in touch with my inner-Elmo and am grateful that the joy, curiosity, and spirit of friendship that we share comes naturally to me.
In conclusion, please imagine being the person behind the couch in that video who has the Elmo doll slipped over a hand that is getting battered by world-famous comedian and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. There’s a story you can dine out on for years.
We can get through this one in three bullet points and a blockquote:
This is the trailer for Monkey Man, an upcoming film from Dev Patel and Jordan Peele
It was released last Friday about 10 minutes after I submitted that week’s edition of this column, which was infuriating to me, a crazy person who pouted for 30 minutes that I would have to wait a week to mention it
It looks freakin awesome
Here’s the description in the as-promised blockquote:
A young man ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he’s beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, he discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
We are absolutely going to see this movie.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – This is fascinating to me
FX
Calista Flockhart is out doing the promotional rounds for the new season of Feud, which is titled Capote Vs. The Swans. I haven’t seen any of it yet and don’t know if or when will, but I do like this for Calista Flockhart. She’s always struck me as a cool lady, dating allllllll the way back to Ally McBeal, the show that made her a network TV icon almost 30 years ago. She’s not as active now, picking and choosing roles as opposed to gobbling them up as they come along, but it’s good that she’s doing it today because it means people can ask her about her decades-long romance with Harrison Ford. They’ve always struck me as a fun celebrity couple, one that just kind of adores and is proud of each other and doesn’t feel the need to shove it in anyone’s face.
They hold hands on the red carpet; they get caught on camera canoodling at the airport as they shuttle between Brentwood and their ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and they play practical jokes on each other.
I’m breaking up this passage only because I really need you to focus on this next part. Please. Both eyeballs on the screen.
“I’m called the ‘Scare Monster’ in my house because I hide behind every corner,” she said. “And so Harrison will walk in, and then I’ll go, ‘Raaah!’ And he’ll go, ‘W-uy-aah!’ And then I die laughing. I’ll put a plastic spider inside his big ice cubes in the tray, and then he’ll drink it. But then I’ll go to bed two weeks later, and he’s out of town in Jackson, and I’ll take the covers down and there’s this little rubber scorpion. It’s fun.”
Three things worth noting here, once again via bullet point:
Let’s go ahead and confirm my “Calista Flockhart seems cool” hypothesis
Please close your eyes and picture Calista Flockhart hiding around a corner and leaping out and Harrison Ford — Indiana Jones, Han Solo, all of that — getting startled and shouting “W-uy-ahh!” in the hallway of his Wyoming home
Please close your eyes and picture Harrison Ford at like a Five Below buying a rubber scorpion and looking the flabbergasted cashier in the eye and saying “I’m trying to get back at my wife for scaring me”
The people who truly deserve a reality show are the kind of people who would never want to star in one. It’s cruel but kind of beautiful.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Paul:
I’m curious to hear your thoughts about the new Christopher Reeve documentary. His injury was like yours, right? I hope that’s okay and not too weird to ask. It’s just interesting that there’s this cool documentary coming out about a famous actor who had a spinal cord injury and one of my favorite entertainment writers has a spinal cord injury, too. Please feel free to ignore me if it’s not something you want to discuss.
Buddyyyyy I do not mind talking about it at all. To some degree, I even like when people ask about it because it allows me to answer their specific questions quickly and in a more targeted way rather than doing a whole What It’s Like To Use A Wheelchair rant. I like talking about other stuff, too, like heists and Jason Statham movies and sandwiches I ate, but you’re good.
A little background will help here, mostly for people who have never read my writing before and scrolled this far after finding this article with a Google search of “ratatouille sequel” (lol) (hi). Yes, I do have a spinal cord injury, too. Mine is not quite as severe as Christopher Reeve’s was, though. His was way up at the C1 and C2 vertebrae. Those are the ones that control, like, breathing. That’s why he was pretty much completely paralyzed from the neck down and used a ventilator. My injury is a little lower, at C4, and I’ve gotten a little recovery below that point, too. I still use a power wheelchair but I have some use of my right arm — it’s how I am typing this run-on sentence — and I am able to breathe on my own and drive an accessible van with a joystick like a dorky fighter pilot.
But yeah, the short version is that I think this documentary is cool. I haven’t seen it yet but I love almost anything that increases the awareness of disability issues like this and I like that it might start some conversations I would like people to start having. Christopher Reeve was a dope dude who didn’t run off and hide away when bad stuff happened to him and he did more to raise the public profile of disability advocacy than almost anyone I can think of. Someone like that deserves a documentary. I’m glad it appears to be a good one rather than the cheesy tearjerkers that often get made. Those always annoy the hell out of me. You can usually see them coming because the word “inspirational” is involved in a prominent way. Those are, in my biased opinion, puke city.
And while I’m already doing some Wheelchair Blogging, let’s go ahead and get this out there again, too: Documentaries and feel-good disability stories are fine, and again I support almost anything that advances visibility, but I do hope we see more movies and shows that have a dude in a wheelchair whose entire personality is more than just A Dude In A Wheelchair. And we cast people who have the disability in the role instead of, like, putting some able-bodied theater kid in a chair while the cameras are rolling. This does not feel like an unreasonable ask.
It is very funny to me that we’re about to go from Serious Disability Chat to… well, this…
With their purple, gold and green colors and toy babies hidden inside, king cakes are staples of Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, but apparently they’re also valuable enough to steal — at least this time of year during the Carnival season.
Do…
Do we have a cake heist?
A Mardi Gras cake heist???
A thief stole seven king cakes — about as many as he could carry — during a break-in last week at a New Orleans bakery. The thief also took cash and a case of vodka from Bittersweet Confections last Wednesday, according to New Orleans Police Department.
MARDI GRAS CAKE HEIST
As much as I loved typing that, I do have to stop here and wonder. What, exactly, does one do with nine cakes? I get the vodka thing because alcohol doesn’t go bad but… that’s a lot of cake. It’s more than one person or family can eat. Feels like a crime that wasn’t fully thought throu-… aaaaaaand someone stole 100 cakes, too.
A sweet-toothed thief made off with 100 king cakes during a smash-and-grab in New Orleans early Tuesday.
100 CAKES
Mike Graves, owner of the King Cake Drive-Thru, said someone broke a window on his van and stole the cakes, which were to be sold today at the company’s pop-up in Meridian, Miss.
I can’t decide if I want this to be the same guy who stumbled into a strangely lucrative black market cake hustle or if I want it to be a different thief who saw the original nine-cake heist and was like “Oh, I can definitely top that.”
Either way, we have a string of cake heists in the Big Easy. Shaping up to be a wonderful Mardi Gras.
While frustrated with the theft, Graves said he was grateful that no bakeries were left in the lurch because he’d already paid for the pilfered king cakes. The theft, he said, is just something that happens in the city.
This guy is remarkably chill about getting 100 cakes — ONE HUNDRED CAKES — stolen from him. We should all strive for this attitude. Good for him.
“Nobody got injured, and everybody has been very sweet and supportive,” Graves said. “There’s more good in the community than bad.”
Could taking five minutes out of your hectic morning to really connect with your partner over coffee be the key to a good relationship? An Australian relationship coach says it saved her marriage.
In a piece originally written for the Australian website Kidspot, which was picked up by several publications worldwide, Aston Simmonds explains that she and her husband, Adam, were on the brink of divorce four years ago.
Simmonds is a relationship coach, podcaster, author, speaker, and mother of two who works to inspire people to create the best lives and relationships possible.
The stress of parenting their two young kids had gotten to the couple. Their once meaningful communication had devolved into mostly housekeeping and family-rearing talk. “Parenting, bills, food shopping, and comparing and arguing about who was doing the most or not enough,” Simmonds recalls in the viral article.
“We started to wonder if this is what a relationship is meant to be like?” she writes.
Instead of calling a lawyer, the Perth-based relationship coaches started doing a 5-minute check-in over coffee every morning. And the results were powerful.
Simmonds says when she talks to couples, communication is almost always the area they find the most challenging.
“When couples feel like they don’t have time to communicate, women often feel like they can’t express themselves, they feel misunderstood and don’t feel heard. Men are left feeling like nothing they ever do is good enough and like they are not appreciated for what they are doing,” Simmonds writes.
Enter the 5-minute check-in.
But it’s not just a “How are you? Good?” and then back to your phones. There’s a specific set of questions Simmonds uses.
Here they are:
How are you feeling about yourself and our relationship?
What do you love about our relationship? What is working?
Is there anything on your mind that isn’t working that you haven’t shared?
What is important to you this week and how can I support you? What do you need?
What actions do we need to take after this check-in?
“We begin with open communication about how we are both feeling in ourselves and within the relationship,” says Simmonds about the question, “How are you feeling about yourself and our relationship.” Each person takes one minute or less to share. “The intention is to listen,” she explains.
About the second question, “What are you loving about our relationship, what is working?” she says, “This process is to reflect on recent positive aspects of your partner or positive experiences that have strengthened your connection. The intention is to appreciate and celebrate each other first before correcting.”
The third question, “Is there anything on your mind that isn’t working that you haven’t shared?” works to bring to light “any concerns, worries, or unspoken thoughts. It’s essential for both partners to feel comfortable and safe sharing openly. The intention is to hold a space of non-judgement for each other.”
The fourth step, “What is important to you this week and how can I support you? What do you need?” involves discussing your personal and shared goals. “Communicating your needs and brainstorming ways to support each other and ensure both your needs are being met is vital at this point.”
The last step, “What action do we need to take after this check-in?” is more pragmatic. “We decide what actions need to be taken, if any, and allocate or schedule them. For example, you may need to schedule a date, adjust your priorities, etc.”
Simmonds says this final one “is all about getting clear on the tangible action steps you need to take and deciding on the best solutions together.”
It sounds like a lot of ground to cover in five minutes, but it’s more about the practice, prioritizing the connection than anything.
“The hack is more than just a caffeine fix; it’s a relationship hack that keeps us connected, even in the midst of life’s chaos,” Simmonds writes.
Could it really be that easy?
Jouslin Savra, LMFT, agrees that communication is one of the most important ingredients for a successful marriage. She says it allows partners to “gain important insights in terms of our perceptions and how we think.” She adds that it also “builds trust and respect” between partners and prevents “small issues from developing into larger ones.”
“I truly believe the difference between a successful relationship and a failing relationship is that [successful couples] check in with each other regularly, NOT just when they’ve had enough and are ready to check out,” writes Simmonds.
Joe Biden doesn’t go on all-caps rants about his political opponents — at least not in public. Behind the scenes, he’s just as sick of Donald Trump as Trump is of him.
During his first campaign speech of the 2024 election cycle (ah sh*t here we go again), Biden recalled Trump mocking Paul Pelosi after a home intruder nearly killed the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a hammer. “At his rally, he jokes about an intruder, whipped up by the Big Trump Lie, taking a hammer to Paul Pelosi’s skull,” the president said. “And he thinks that’s funny. He laughed about it. What a sick…”
Biden intentionally stopped himself before finishing the sentence with an expletive, but according to Politico, “In private, he doesn’t stop short.”
The president has described Trump to longtime friends and close aides as a “sick f*ck” who delights in others’ misfortunes, according to three people who have heard the president use the profane description. According to one of the people who has spoken with the president, Biden recently said of Trump: “What a f*cking asshole the guy is.”
“It’s a shame that Crooked Joe Biden disrespects the presidency both publicly and privately,” Trump adviser Chris LaCivita said about Biden’s alleged comments. “But then again, it’s no surprise he disrespects the 45th president the same way he disrespects the American people with his failed policies.”
The WWE 2K series is riding high after consecutive successful launches, with WWE 2K23 becoming the highest-rated game in the franchise’s history. After rolling out WarGames as a playable match, a bevy of updates to the franchise, and a really robust Showcase mode, it was hard to imagine how 2K could top last year’s iteration.
Over the weekend, I got a first look at WWE 2K24 as part of a hands-on preview event just hours before the Royal Rumblein St. Petersburg, and the early results are promising. The game is far from finished, but gameplay remains strong from last year’s edition and the graphics felt like a slight upgrade in terms of crisp character models, the return of the ramp facing camera view, and greater attention to detail in superstar entrances.
This year’s iteration has some significant additions that bolster the gameplay and add unpredictability and excitement to matches, like saving up three finishing moves for Super Finishers, opportunities to perform a top rope dive onto a group of opponents outside the ring, new Paybacks, throwing weapons, and a sleek new Trading Blows mini-game.
I saw the Trading Blows mini-game in action, which requires you to time holding the right button to keep superstars trading shots while the crowd goes nuts, and it felt like one of the most realistic additions to a game in recent memory. Add in the fact that 2K is porting in real WWE referees you see week to week in the ring, and it feels extremely close to a WWE-style TV presentation.
Showcase mode this year isn’t star-driven like last year’s journey through John Cena’s career. Rather, fans are taken through 40 years of WrestleMania, letting us re-live some of the biggest moments in professional wrestling via 2K’s Slingshot Tech, which blends gameplay to actual footage of the matches and back again. I found myself just as impressed as I was from last year’s version, as I had the chance to recreate Rhea Ripley’s show-stealing match with Charlotte Flair from WrestleMania 39 as part of the Showcase, yet again earning unlockable content by hitting certain match objectives.
Another highlight of 2K24 is the addition of new match types slated to roll out this year, which ranges from the Special Guest Referee, Ambulance Match, Casket Match, Gauntlet Match, and a revised Backstage Brawl. I had the chance to test drive the new four-person version of the Backstage Brawl as part of the hands-on event. The area is incredibly expansive, with a working elevator, breakable control room glass, and a vending machine with throwable sodas. The backstage area has a second level, but my only frustration in the space came when I couldn’t perform a diving maneuver from the upper section of the space a la Hell in a Cell.
I also got a quick look at the Ambulance Match, which offered no real surprises as far as how to finish the match. The gameplay is relatively simple — beat your opponent until they can’t escape your attempt to throw them into the back of the ambulance and complete a mini-game to close the door. Throughout the match, you can also open and close the ambulance doors, climb to the top of the ambulance, throw your opponent off, and beat them around the ring. In a first look, WWE’s Xavier Woods also shared an update I didn’t see live, which is that you can travel backstage during the Ambulance Match, interact with the Backstage Brawl area (around the 23 minute mark), and finish the match in a second ambulance positioned in that space.
Some of 2K’s biggest features weren’t immediately available, but I can’t wait to see what all is captured in this year’s full Showcase mode. Alongside returning matches like WarGames, I am looking forward to causing chaos in Special Guest Referee and making matches mean more with Double Title opportunities. Add in MyFaction, a revamped MyGM mode, new career experiences in MyRise, new stipulations in Universe, and a robust Creation Suite that features Create-A-Referee and Create-A-Sign, and 2K24 looks like it’s ready to keep building on the game’s recent success.
Uproxx was invited on a hosted trip by 2K Sports for reporting on this piece. You can find out more about our policy on press trips/hostings here.
Taylor Swift has a busy schedule coming up: The Eras Tour resumes in Tokyo soon, Travis Kelce is playing in the Super Bowl, and the 2024 Grammy Awards are this weekend, on February 4. She should be able to make it to the Super Bowl, and she’s expected to attend the Grammys, but will she perform at the awards show?
Is Taylor Swift Performing At The 2024 Grammys?
It appears not, no.
In a new episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast shared yesterday (February 1), Grammys executive producer Raj Kapoor didn’t rule out the possibility of Swift, who is not currently scheduled to perform during the broadcast, taking the stage. Kapoor said, “We’ve had a lot of last-minute things come in on the show. Sometimes they’ve happened days before, and yeah, we’re always open to the idea.”
Rolling Stone relayed that in a post about the episode, but they updated that post today to add, “Update: Rolling Stone learned Friday morning (Feb. 2) that Swift will not be performing at the Grammys because she has to immediately fly to Japan, where she’ll be resuming the Eras Tour with four back-to-back shows.”
This follows a previous report from Entertainment Tonight that also said Swift won’t perform, for the same reason Rolling Stone cited. ET said, “ET has exclusively learned that the ‘Karma’ singer, 34, will be in attendance at the Feb. 4 award show, however, she will not be performing as she has a quick turnaround before resuming her record-breaking Eras Tour on the other side of the world.”
So, as Kapoor noted, last-minute changes aren’t unprecedented, but in the case of Swift, it seems unlikely she’ll be able to perform this year.
The countless references to anime in her music make it abundantly clear that Megan Thee Stallion is a manga nerd (an otaku, if you will). But yesterday (February 1), the “Cobra” rapper showed off her deep Rolodex of reality television moments. While on the set of a secret project, Megan quickly caught up with her biggest Hottie fans on the internet radio broadcast app, Stationhead.
During the stream, Megan revealed that she’s finding herself in a much healthier mental space since the tumultuous obstacles she faced last year. After revealing that she’s working on a documentary about her life, she went on to say that she’s gotten reprimanded for giving away too much content online. However, users online believe that Megan subtly taunted her foe, Nicki Minaj, in the closing moments by leaning into her Roc Nation affiliation.
“Don’t make me call Porsha,” Megan joked about her management team getting reinforcements to stop her from oversharing. The reference to Bravo’s Real Housewives Of Atlanta then turned into, “Don’t make me call Roc Nation.”
After the clip hit social media, users online took the line to be shade toward Minaj based on her recent jabs at the company. On January 29, during the height of their (“Hiss” versus “Big Foot“) sparring season, Minaj slammed Roc Nation on X (formerly Twitter) for promoting Megan’s diss record toward her.
“Spending so much money,” she wrote. “But she’s the lil broke independent artist. Desiree, you gotta let it go, baby. The world knows she’s ass & can’t rap. Stop f*cking trying to make fetch happen. #BigFOOT. I just put out a song with no promo, no video, and it’s already #2. ”
Spending SOOOOOOOO MUCH MONEY. but she’s the lil broke independent artist. Desiree, you gotta let it go, baby. The world knows she’s ass & can’t rap. Stop fkng trying to make fetch happen. #BigFOOT.
Is it shade? It very well could be, and given Megan’s clever use of double entendres (that recently almost led to a potential lawsuit), you certainly can’t put it past her.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Henry Cavill has spoken before about his close call with becoming James Bond. The actor made it so far in the audition process for Casino Royale that the choice came down between him and Daniel Craig, who ultimately locked down the 007 role. Well, according to Argylle director Matthew Vaughn, Cavill got even closer to the role than he thought.
For a little background info, Vaughn played a significant role in Craig’s James Bond ascension thanks to casting the actor in the imminently cool British crime film Layer Cake. That performance put Craig on the map and on the path to 007. However, the decision was a close one.
“I’d go off and meet with Daniel and he said, ‘There’s this young guy called Henry Cavill who I think they’re seeing as well,’” Vaughn revealed during a SiriusXM interview (via Total Film) with Cavill sitting next to him. “We hadn’t done Stardust yet, and that’s how you came onto my radar.”
That’s when Vaughn dropped the bombshell news that Casino Royale director Martin Campbell actually preferred Cavill over Craig but was overruled by legendary Bond producer Barbara Broccoli.
“I know that the director preferred your audition, but Barbara preferred [Daniel Craig’s 2004 film] Layer Cake,” Vaughn said. “Then they decided you were too young. I probably shouldn’t have said that, but the Broccolis aren’t too keen on me anyway, so what have I got to lose?”
Vaughn’s recollection jibes with what Campbell has shared in interviews. Cavill was only 22 when he auditioned for Bond, but despite being in terrific shape, his age was too hard to overlook in the casting process. The role went to Craig, who was 38 at the time.
Elmo, most people would contest, is among the more agreeable beings in entertainment history. For decades, the Sesame Street star has taught children about sharing, spelling, and other important things kids should know about as they grow up, all in a fun and upbeat demeanor. Basically, you don’t really hear about Elmo having enemies.
In a surprising (but also somewhat not surprising) turn of events, though, Elmo was recently attacked on live television by Larry David. Elmo and David were both appearing on Today yesterday (February 1), and during Elmo’s segment, David came out of nowhere, grabbed Elmo’s face, and started shaking it violently. Well, Elmo has found himself an ally in T-Pain.
First, here’s a video of the incident, as well as a fantastically executed artistic rendering for good measure.
T-Pain saw that and couldn’t believe what he was watching, tweeting, “I know I didn’t just see my mans @elmo assaulted on live TV.” He didn’t stop there, as he shared the tweet on his Instagram Story (as People notes) and added, “@Elmo say the word.” The apparent implication there is that should Elmo ask, T-Pain would eagerly square up and throw hands at the Curb Your Enthusiasm star.
I know I didn’t just see my mans @elmo assaulted on live TV
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but she’s the lil broke independent artist. Desiree, you gotta let it go, baby. The world knows she’s ass & can’t rap. Stop fkng trying to make fetch happen. 
