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It’s festival season. Which means some of your favorite bands are gearing up for epic reunions. Fans of No Doubt can look forward to a special reunion of the band’s classic line-up at Coachella 2024 in April. While this season is a magical time for music, not even the magic of money could get a certain band back together. Today (January 30), Billboard reported that Talking Heads were reportedly in talks to reunite at Coachella, and several other festivals this year.

This tidbit of information reportedly came from festival curator and Goldenvoice president Paul Tollett, who had traveled to the Toronto International Film Festival last year for the 40th anniversary of the band’s concert film, Stop Making Sense. Tollett told Billboard that while he was interested in booking Talking Heads for Coachella, he “sensed there were no shows happening, so [he] didn’t make an offer.” Though, sources familiar with the festival say the band could’ve earned $10 million from a headlining appearance.

According to the publication, Live Nation also reportedly “told the Talking Heads it was willing to pay the band $80 million to headline six to eight festival gigs and headlining slots, sources close to the group say. The Talking Heads ultimately rejected that offer as well.”

At the time of writing, neither Live Nation nor Talking Heads have commented on the matter.

Tyrese Haliburton has had a tremendous season for the Indiana Pacers this far, averaging 23.6 points and 12.6 assists per game this season. However, a hamstring injury cost him nearly a few weeks of action, and as the All-Star break approaches, the Eastern Conference starter is dangerously close to being eliminated from awards contention already. Haliburton has missed 13 games this year and if he misses 18, he will fall short of the new 65-game threshold to be under consideration for awards and this year’s All-NBA teams.

That’s a particularly big deal for Haliburton, who would see his contract extension signed last summer currently worth $207 million be worth more than $40 million more if he made an All-NBA team this year. If he continues on the pace he’s played at through the first half of the season, especially if he continues leading the league in assists by a wide margin, he’d be a near-lock to land on one of the three All-NBA squads (even in a crowded guard race).

As Haliburton said to The Athletic’s James Boyd when asked about it, he and many other players view it as a “stupid rule,” noting it’s what the owners want and, a bit tongue in cheek, said the most important thing is that “the owners are happy.”

“I think it’s a stupid rule, like plenty of the guys in the league, but this is what the owners want, so as players, we gotta do our job and play in 65 games if we’re able to,” Haliburton said after practice Monday. “So, that’s what I gotta do, take care of my body to be able to play in those games, and I think you’re seeing other players in the league kind of face the same thing. As long as the owners are happy.”

It’s hard to blame Haliburton for his frustration here. The idea with the rule was to provide another performative attempt at limiting load management by the NBA to please TV networks in the midst of broadcast rights negotiations — hence the “as long as the owners are happy” bit from Haliburton. The problem this would cause was easy to see, because it was a lock that someone would get legitimately hurt and miss somewhere between 18-21 games while putting together one of the league’s best seasons.

In this case, Haliburton is now one more minor injury away from being that player, and his annoyance with being caught in this position this season when he needs All-NBA to maximize his contract (and is playing at that level) is more than understandable. Some, like Joel Embiid, have made clear that they won’t worry about the 65-game threshold when it comes to the awards debate, even though he’d be an MVP frontrunner. However, that’s not messing with his earning potential nearly as much as it is Haliburton’s, and the truth is, voters have always factored in games played when voting on awards.

The MVP of the league has almost always played more games than this threshold, because voters factor it into their calculus unless it’s a year where every top player misses chunks of time. The same goes for the other awards, but All-NBA is, in particular, a unique set of circumstances because you might be able to argue for a few guys having put together more complete seasons than someone, but if someone leads the league in assists and plays in 60 games like Haliburton might, that guy has earned a third-team selection probably more than someone that played 66 games with a considerably lesser resume. The league won’t care because they look like they are being hard on load management and the players did agree to it in negotiations, but the potential issues that were always obvious certainly seem like they are going to come to fruition this season.

The ongoing feud between Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Though Meg herself hasn’t directly commented on the matter, nor called Minaj out by name, Minaj and her fans believed certain parts of Meg’s latest single, “Hiss” were aimed at her. Over the weekend, Minaj responded to “Hiss” with a Megan-aimed diss track called “Big Foot.” All the while, the Barbz have reportedly been trolling Twitter users decrying Minaj, and have been said to be doxxing fans and collaborators of Meg.

As a result, the Houston police department and local authorities have reportedly gotten involved in the matter. Over the weekend, the address of the gravesite of Megan’s mother, Holly Thomas — who died of brain cancer in 2019 — was shared online. TMZ reported that Houston authorities have amped up security after Barbz had reportedly threatened to deface the gravesite.

The publication notes that security “will continue to monitor the situation as they take all matters regarding safety and security seriously.”

At the time of writing, no incidents have been reported at the gravesite, however, the cemetery reportedly remains on “high alert.”

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Hasn’t Bob Odenkirk been through enough without discovering he has ties to the Royal Family? Apparently not. Per Rolling Stone, the beloved actor appeared on an upcoming episode of Finding Your Roots, where host Henry Louis Gates Jr. had an unusually unexpected surprise for him: King Charles III is his 11th cousin.

What was the erstwhile Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman/Gene Takavic’s reaction? Laughter, at first, and saying, “That is crazy.”

He then elaborated. “I’m an American. I’m not a monarchist. I don’t believe in, uh, that,” Odenkirk said. “You know, I feel like it’s a little twisted. I understand why society built itself around monarchs and leaders, and they passed them down through generations.”

He added, “I understand that goes through every society, every civilization. But I think that we’ve gotten to a better place with democracy and we should keep going down that road.”

The news was especially a shock because the relation comes from his father’s side. Odenkirk didn’t know much about his dad, who left the family when he was 15. Gates explained that the connection was pretty distant, that it was his father’s fifth great-grandfather who was born out of wedlock to Maria Catharina Bein and the Duke of Plön. Therein lies the mystery of how the current King of England is related to one-half of Mr. Show with Bob and David.

So congrats? Although it appears the news wasn’t all that welcome, as Odenkirk sounds like he agrees with the late Anthony Bourdain about the monarchy.

The Finding Your Roots episode where Odenkirk has his mind blown airs on PBS on Tuesday, January 30.

(Via Rolling Stone)

Over the years, Paramore and SZA have shown each other much love. Back in 2018, Paramore covered SZA’s “20 Something,” a song from her debut album CTRL during their After Laughter tour. SZA praised the cover, and continued to maintain a friendship with the band.

Today (January 30), SZA played a game of rapid fire, answering quick questions from fans for Apple Music on TikTok. She answered a question from a fan, who asked if she’d collaborate with Paramore.

She then confirmed that fans can indeed look forward to a collaboration between the two of them.

“Yeah. Soon, soon,” SZA said in response to the question. “It’s in the works.”

SZA did not indicate if the collab would appear on her upcoming album, Lana, however, she did share that “the era” of her sophomore album SOS is “over.”

“The era, for me, is before the album comes out,” says SZA. “That era of my life is over. This version — I don’t know. That story is still writing itself.”

As fans know, SZA’s pen game never disappoints. So what ever other stories she has in the works, we can’t wait to hear.

You can see a clip of the Q&A above.

Few watching the maiden episode of Westworld could have seen the show’s final twist: It was cancelled. A year and change later, there’s still no word on whether there will be some belated finale. (What’s more, HBO poured salt on the wound by removing it from its streamer.) As is, though, there is no proper ending for the show, and it still haunts at least one of its stars to this day.

The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Evan Rachel Wood, who played Dolores Abernathy, the titular park’s oldest host. The actress said that after they shot the Season 4 finale, she asked creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan where the show was headed next. They wouldn’t tell her then. And they never did.

“I asked the creators after we got canceled, ‘Can you please just tell me how you’re going to end?’ And they wouldn’t tell me,” Wood recalled, laughing. “I think because, I don’t know, maybe somehow, someway, in some iteration we’ll get to finish it, but I still don’t know. It does still keep me up at night.”

Wood said the way Joy and Nolan always kept everyone was maddening:

“It was devastating in a lot of ways because, first of all, they don’t tell us where the show is going. We were just always told, ‘We know how the show ends,’ when we started,” Wood explains. “They weren’t writing it as we went along. They had an idea, and we were all just on a bed of nails waiting to see and hear what the conclusion of this was. What it all meant.

“We didn’t get to have that and so after building an arc and a character for almost 10 years and not getting the payoff at the end to see where it was all going — I think for us and the audience, it was awful in a lot of ways,” Wood adds.

So that stinks. But who knows? Maybe there’ll be a belated movie à la another prematurely ended HBO program, Deadwood.

(Via THR)

Though Breaking Bad may have ended over a decade ago, co-stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have maintained a wonderful friendship. The two still make appearances at events together, promoting their Mezcal brand, Dos Hombres.

Last October, photos surfaced of the two online with Drake at the rapper’s birthday party. Many fans believed Drake had hired the Breaking Bad co-stars to bartend at his party. But last night (January 29), during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he revealed that their presence at the party actually came as a surprise to Drake.

“Did Drake just call you and say, ‘Would you bartend on my birthday?,’” asked Colbert.

Cranston then shared that this was actually a side hustle he picked up amid the SAG-AFTRA strike.

“Well, no,” said Cranston. “He called the catering company, and because it was the strike, I needed a gig. I was bartending just to pick up a few bucks, you know. It was really fun because he didn’t know we were gonna be there.”

The actor then recalled Drake’s reaction to the pleasant surprise.

“We’re in Miami and we were behind the bar,” Cranston said, “and Drake is thinking, let’s see, what should I order? And I said, can I get something for you, sir? And he goes, yeah, I’d like… Oh!

You can watch the full interview above.

The year of our lord 2024 was supposed to be when people got normal about Taylor Swift. Instead the exact opposite has happened. The far right, already incensed that a Biden supporter was the most popular pop star on the planet, went even further into the abyss. Some even hatched tinfoil hat conspiracy theories that she’s part of some deep state psyop tomfoolery to keep Donald Trump out of office (again). Others, though, aren’t worried, because MAGA has plenty of popular influencers. Like one of the guys from the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy.

In a recent appearance at an RNC summit, Trump crony Jack Posobiec claimed that the Biden administration has been leaning on what he called “The Taylor Strategy,” which involves using the pop star to get out the vote. Or something! Posobiec had nothing against Swift herself. He just felt she was being used by the “machine that’s around her” that wants to “use the power of her celebrity.”

But never fear, because MAGA has some pretty popular celebrities, too.

“We don’t have Taylor Swift on our side,” admitted Pobosiec. “But you know who we have? We have Kid Rock. We have Ted Nugent. We have influencers. We have all these people — Jon Voight.

“We have people who can come out and use their audiences,” Probosiec said, asking MAGA heads to attend Kid Rock and Ted Nugent shows and perhaps even movie premieres for films with Jon Voight.

For the record, Jon Voight’s a very fine actor, so excellent that he still gets work despite his always awkward Trump stumping. Nugent and Kid Rock, less so, and the same goes for other low-rung MAGA celebrities like Scott Baio, Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain, and Chuck Woolery. Another thing all of these names have in common is that none are remotely popular with the young people today’s GOP has almost completely alienated, prompting the MAGA meltdowns that are getting both worse and weirder.

Anyway, when people caught wind of Probosiec comparing Jon Voight to Taylor Swift, there was plenty of laughter.

And there were plenty of people pointing out that none of those folks could, as they said nearly 35 years ago, when Voight was in his 50s, “rock the vote.”

There were also some Seinfeld jokes, as Voight made one of the show’s more inspired celebrity cameos (and without saying a word).

Anyway, let the Trump folks think Zoolander’s dad will save MAGA from the Swifties. Heck, even Trump thinks he’s “more popular” than she is. Let them have their delusions.

Many a celebrity has felt the wrath of Eminem’s scathing pen, but it looks like the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator Ben Johnson will avoid such a fate — for now. The coach had potential offers to move up to a head coaching role for teams like the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Commanders, but opted to stay in Detroit for the time being after the historically awful Motor City football club made a respectable push in the playoffs this season, taking it all the way to the NFC Championship, where they were narrowly defeated by the San Francisco 49ers this past Sunday, 34-31.

Eminem expressed his relief at Johnson’s decision on Twitter, where he joked that he had been working on a diss track, which is presumably shelved for the time being. He also called back to his earlier joke about joining the team, which he’s supported with his star power for years. “Guess I should stop recording this diss track..!!” he wrote. “@ Ben Johnson Thank you for staying!!! We can’t break this team up ESPECIALLY since I’M on it!!! Coach Campbell we love you bro!!! Let’s run it back next year!!…I’m READY!!!! I promise you I WILL get us to the super bowl!!”

The joke played on the media furor surrounding Em’s attendance at the recent NFC Championship, where he prematurely celebrated the Lions’ hefty halftime lead, gloating while flipping off the surrounding Niners fans. Unfortunately, his overconfidence came back to bite him right in the tuchus when the Lions fell apart in the second half, paving the way for San Franciso to stamp their tickets to the Super Bowl. It looks like the Lions will be running it back next year, and Em will have to pick a new target to poke (just as long as it isn’t Taylor Swift, for the love of God).

A year ago, “Saturday Night Live” poked fun at an obnoxiously large western hat trend made popular by Instagram influencers with a sketch called “Big Dumb Hat” starring Amy Schumer, Heidi Gardner and Chloe Fineman.

On January 27, Fineman and Gardner were back, this time with actor Dakota Johnson, poking fun at the next Big Dumb trend that’s popular with influencers and their followers, Stanley cups. Boosted by their popularity on TikTok, the $45 Stanley Quencher cup recently created a consumer frenzy with grown adults stampeding shopping displays in Targets across the U.S. to buy one.

The sketch opens with the 3 women, dressed in their Big Dumb hats, stating the requirements for owning a Stanley Quencher: driving to Target every day in a big car, being between the ages of 12 and 70 and being “physically or at least spiritually” blond.

Big Dumb Cups – SNL

Throughout the sketch, the women crack jokes about the cup’s unique properties while Johnson’s gets progressively bigger. “Mm! You can really taste the bacteria!” Fineman said, while Gardner added, “I’m getting lead.”

“If your car explodes, you won’t survive. But your Big Dumb cup will, Fineman said. “If I’m not sipping, I’m peeing,” Gardner added.

The sketch was a highlight in an episode that was criticized by some for allowing musical guest and frequent ‘SNL’ host Justin Timberlake upstage Johnson during the monologue. Timberlake would later reprise his role as Andy Gibb alongside Barry Gibb (Jimmy Fallon) in “The Barry Gibb Show.” The show was also notable because Dave Chappelle was announced at the end-of-show stage call, but didn’t appear in the episode.

Thank you, Dakota Johnson, @jtimberlake, @jimmyfallon, @BarbaraCorcoran, @mcuban, and @TobeNwigwe! Goodnight!

— (@)