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Vladimir Putin has a lot on his mind these days. He’s still trying to clean up the mess from that mutiny of the Wagner Group leader, and Russia’s been sending over replacement troops with such speed that some of them are so untrained that they cannot repair their own broken-down equipment. Add this to the reported use of aged ammo that can “explode in your face,” and it’s safe to say that Putin is still losing troops at a dizzying speed. They have lost lives so rapidly, in fact, that they’ve been compared to hamburger meat.

Putin might be numb to it all by now? Or he might not be listening while fellow officials brief him on dead troops. As The Daily Beast relays, Putin offered a non-comforting response to Governor of Irkutsk Oblast Igor Kobzev, who relayed news about slaughter on the Ukraine battlefield. The Daily Beast viewed a Kremlin transcript, which described how Kobzev praised 192 troops who had recently died for Russia. And Putin, strangely, wished them “hello”:

[Kobzev] somberly shared an anecdote about a “Hero of Russia” who was killed in Mariupol early last year. “He covered a grenade with his body, thereby saving his fellow soldiers,” he said, adding that “for us they are all heroes, they are in our memory, in our hearts.” “Putin, not even bothering to look up from a photograph he was eyeing, muttered simply, “”Tell them I said hello.” Absolutely,” Kobzev said.

Not ideal! One wonders what happened here. Was Putin distracted and missed the gravity of this discussion? There’s no telling yet, but we could possibly see a Kremlin clarification/statement come out, given that this apparently sourced from their own transcript.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Kid Cudi has worn many hats over the course of his career — rapper, actor, writer, and tattoo enthusiast. However, an image recently circulated online featuring a tattoo, which Cudi is denying belongs to him.

The tattoo appears to be a creation of the iOS Emoji keyboard, featuring a set of “frequently used” emojis. A Twitter user posted a picture of the tattoo, and captioned it, saying, “Kid cudi just got the worst tattoo in the world.”

Cudi shared the tweet and instantly shut down this claim.

“This is not me lame,” he said, with a crying emoji next to the statement.

While Cudi (and hopefully anyone in their right mind) didn’t actually get a tattoo of the Emoji keyboard, the multihyphenate did recently get a tattoo of the KAWS-designed Moon Man cartoon which is featured on the boxset featuring Cudi’s Man On The Moon album trilogy.

Recently, Cudi’s animated film Entergalactic, which accompanies his 10th studio album also titled Entergalactic, was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program.

Cudi took to Twitter to celebrate this remarkable feat, and particularly showed love to his frequent collaborator and friend, Travis Scott.

“Love to all the homies that hit me and showed love about the emmy nom,” he said. “Trav hit me first before anyone sayin congrats. It feels good to know I got real homies, real family out here that support me always.”

Work on the live-action Snow White remake is underway, and some photos from the production have caused some drama online. The images, published by The Daily Mail last week, indicated that the roles of the seven dwarves will all, except for one, be played by average-sized people.

This ignited criticism over the movie’s casting and revived questioning about Rachel Zegler portraying the traditionally fair-skinned Snow White character. In particular, Ben Shapiro took exception to Zegler’s casting, saying in part, “[The word ‘white’] is literally in her name. That’s why she has her name. So I guess just to like, screw with people, they’re casting… Rachel Zegler’s a very talented person. It’s weird casting, you might say.”

Now, Halle Bailey, who herself faced some criticism when she was cast as Ariel in the remake of The Little Mermaid, showed support for Zegler.

Sharing some childhood photo of herself wearing various princess outfits, Zegler tweeted on July 15, “extremely appreciative of the love i feel from those defending me online, but please don’t tag me in the nonsensical discourse about my casting. i really, truly do not want to see it. so i leave you w these photos! i hope every child knows they can be a princess no matter what.”

Bailey quote-tweeted the post and added, “we love you so much [heart emoji] truly the perfect princess.” Zegler responded, “my sweetest girl [heart emoji] i love you always.”

After a steady string of non-stop films, Matt Damon had promised his wife in couples therapy that he would start taking some time off. However, the actor managed to secure a caveat that he honestly didn’t expect to pan out: If acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan came calling, Damon would get a pass to work with him. Well, Nolan did reach out to Damon for Oppenheimer, and here we are.

“This is going to sound made up, but it’s actually true,” Damon told Entertainment Weekly before explaining why he included “the Nolan exemption” in his promise to his wife:

“I had — not to get too personal — negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. I had been in Interstellar, and then Chris put me on ice for a couple of movies, so I wasn’t in the rotation, but I actually negotiated in couples therapy ­— this is a true story — the one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called. This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything, because he never tells you. He just calls you out of the blue. And so, it was a moment in my household.”

Lest anyone thinks Damon is dismissive of his wife, he recently credited her for pulling him out of funk while he was filming a movie he knew was going going to be bad halfway through production.

“She just said, ‘We’re here now,’” Damon told Jake’s Takes. “You know, and it was like… I do pride myself, in a large part because of her, at being a professional actor and what being a professional actor means is you go and you do the 15-hour day and give it absolutely everything even in what you know is going to be a losing effort.”

Oppenheimer drops into theaters on July 21.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Congratulations to Margot Robbie. She’s the star of one of the biggest movies of 2023 (and the most underrated movie of 2022), and 6,731 people think she has “beautiful” feet. Equally important achievements.

The Barbie star spoke to Cinema Blend about the internet’s fascination with her feet, which she showed off in the Greta Gerwig-directed film’s trailer and in a memorable scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywoodx.

“The very first time I Googled myself,” she said (there’s your first mistake), “you know how when you type something into Google and it predicts what the rest of it is going to be? I’d started working and I was on some things and I hadn’t Googled myself before, and so I wrote in ‘Margot Robbie’ and before I finished writing ‘Robbie,’ ‘Margot Robbie feet’ came up.”

Specifically, her Wikifeet, where 97 people think Robbie has “ugly” feet. Are there feet trolls? There must be (and I don’t mean Danny DeVito).

Robbie continued, “I clicked on it and realized that there were pictures zoomed in on my feet and people were writing about them and someone had made a video compilation of footage of my feet and I was like, ‘oh wow, this is like a thing. I didn’t realize.” Instead of feeling icked out, the actress said that she’s “really flattered that people are excited about my feet. I think that’s lovely. I am, genuinely. I don’t feel weird about it. I am actually like, that’s nice.” Robbie really wants to be cast in Quentin Tarantino’s final movie, huh?

(Via CinemaBlend)

This might sound hard to believe, but Ted Cruz was once best known for being incendiary in a way that doesn’t involve his ill-advised decision to flee to sunny Cancun during a deadly Texas ice storm. That tail-between-the-legs outing eclipsed most of Ted’s shenanigans, including the time that he hid in the bushes at the border and filmed himself.

Yes, Ted was once cringey without also being famous (and, as is the case lately, raging over the Barbie Movie). This came to light when he ran for president in 2016, through tidbits from his mid-1990s stint as a Supreme Court clerk for then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Ex-colleagues of Ted’s did speak to the New York Times about how Ted used to irk them during basketball breaks by shouting “my bad!” while he “elbowed wildly.” This tidbit didn’t surprise at all, but could Ted one day be back and wearing those robes?

Such a reality is conceivable, according to GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has apparently been raising mega campaign funds while Meatball Ron DeSantis is beginning to lose steam (and he didn’t have much to begin with) in the primary race. And if Vivek ends up being the GOP nominee (he’s already besting Mike Pence in polls) because Trump headed to prison (an actual possibility), then Supreme Court Justice Ted Cruz could be a thing.

Ramaswamy threw down that prophecy on Twitter, where he named his top picks for federal courts. Here’s why he likes Cancun Cruz:

Ted Cruz, U.S. Senator, Texas
– Fought for the Constitution and against left-radical court-packing.
– Champion of religious liberty who was the 2017 American Legion Religious Liberty Award winner.

So, prepare yourself for Ted Cruz, The Princess Bride lover and Barbie hater, having a shot at lording over one of the most powerful positions in the land. For a lifetime appointment. Eek.

This might sound hard to believe, but Ted Cruz was once best known for being incendiary in a way that doesn’t involve his ill-advised decision to flee to sunny Cancun during a deadly Texas ice storm. That tail-between-the-legs outing eclipsed most of Ted’s shenanigans, including the time that he hid in the bushes at the border and filmed himself.

Yes, Ted was once cringey without also being famous (and, as is the case lately, raging over the Barbie Movie). This came to light when he ran for president in 2016, through tidbits from his mid-1990s stint as a Supreme Court clerk for then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Ex-colleagues of Ted’s did speak to the New York Times about how Ted used to irk them during basketball breaks by shouting “my bad!” while he “elbowed wildly.” This tidbit didn’t surprise at all, but could Ted one day be back and wearing those robes?

Such a reality is conceivable, according to GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has apparently been raising mega campaign funds while Meatball Ron DeSantis is beginning to lose steam (and he didn’t have much to begin with) in the primary race. And if Vivek ends up being the GOP nominee (he’s already besting Mike Pence in polls) because Trump headed to prison (an actual possibility), then Supreme Court Justice Ted Cruz could be a thing.

Ramaswamy threw down that prophecy on Twitter, where he named his top picks for federal courts. Here’s why he likes Cancun Cruz:

Ted Cruz, U.S. Senator, Texas
– Fought for the Constitution and against left-radical court-packing.
– Champion of religious liberty who was the 2017 American Legion Religious Liberty Award winner.

So, prepare yourself for Ted Cruz, The Princess Bride lover and Barbie hater, having a shot at lording over one of the most powerful positions in the land. For a lifetime appointment. Eek.

During J Balvin’s new interview with Rolling Stone, he revealed that not only has he made a full EDM-inspired album, but he also has another collaborative one planned for next year. A few months ago, Sheeran had also teased the project through the same outlet, but a lot of it is still under wraps.

Balvin decided to join forces with Ed Sheeran once more after the two had worked together on his past songs, “Forever My Love” and “Sigue.”

“I was in New York at Christmas for shows and we decided to have one day in the studio that led to so so much more,” Sheeran shared in a statement at the time, via Variety. “He wanted to bring me into his world, and I wanted to bring him into mine. It was a proper challenge learning Spanish for this and I had so much fun doing it.”

Balvin has since expressed similar thoughts about how the two of them working on a full-length collaboration came to be.

“It came about in an organic, natural way. We met; we had coffee; we’d run into each other at the same gym, at the hotel,” he told Rolling Stone. “That’s going to be another album that will offer a lot to talk about because it’s like merging two worlds.”

Until then, J Balvin will lead fans into the electronic solo album with the eventual lead single, “Click Click Flash,” according to the publication.

Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

During J Balvin’s new interview with Rolling Stone, he revealed that not only has he made a full EDM-inspired album, but he also has another collaborative one planned for next year. A few months ago, Sheeran had also teased the project through the same outlet, but a lot of it is still under wraps.

Balvin decided to join forces with Ed Sheeran once more after the two had worked together on his past songs, “Forever My Love” and “Sigue.”

“I was in New York at Christmas for shows and we decided to have one day in the studio that led to so so much more,” Sheeran shared in a statement at the time, via Variety. “He wanted to bring me into his world, and I wanted to bring him into mine. It was a proper challenge learning Spanish for this and I had so much fun doing it.”

Balvin has since expressed similar thoughts about how the two of them working on a full-length collaboration came to be.

“It came about in an organic, natural way. We met; we had coffee; we’d run into each other at the same gym, at the hotel,” he told Rolling Stone. “That’s going to be another album that will offer a lot to talk about because it’s like merging two worlds.”

Until then, J Balvin will lead fans into the electronic solo album with the eventual lead single, “Click Click Flash,” according to the publication.

Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Doja Cat became a household name thanks to pop-leaning hits like “Say So,” but that’s not the space the rapper/singer wants to be in anymore. In a new interview with V Magazine, Doja spoke about the “palatable, marketable, and sellable” music she’s made, and how she’s excited to be doing something different now.

Doja said:

“I have thrown fits my whole career because I have been making music that didn’t allow me to have a mental release. I have been making music that is palatable, marketable, and sellable, that has allowed me to be where I am. Now I am making music that allows me to express the way I feel about the world around me. […] These upcoming projects are going to be very different compared to everything I have done and I am excited about that. I do not care if people are not.”

She also noted, “I do not consider myself a rock star. I have made pop music. I’m currently making rap, soul, and R&B music with jazz elements. But this is a representation of how I feel. When I wear black, when I wear metal, or very scantily clad outfits… it’s all a representation of how angry, liberated, and sexual I am.”

Read the full interview here.