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A mother on TikTok is livid after a perceived slight at a birthday party, and it kicked off a passionate discussion about proper parental etiquette. It all started when popular TikTok creator Kat Stickler, 28, took her 3-year-old daughter Mary-Katherine (MK) to a neighborhood park in Florida to play. While at the park, the young girl struck up a friendship with some children who were there for a birthday party.

“I’m going to mom shame. The only people I’ve ever mom-shamed are myself and my own mother. But one other mother is going to be added to the list,” Stickler began her video with over 10 million views.

“It was us and this birthday group, right?” Stickler said, adding that her child played with the kids who were there for a party for about 30 minutes. “I thought they were welcoming her with open arms,” she added.

However, things changed after the cake came out.

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When the parents at the birthday party began to serve cake, MK lined up with the rest of the kids because they had been playing together. Remember, she’s only 3 years old. So, Stickler approached the people cutting the cake to make sure that it was OK for her daughter to have a piece.

“So I, like, walk over to make sure it’s OK—as a formality. Honestly, I was like, obviously, it’s OK. It’s cake. It’s a massive cake. There’s lots of leftover pieces,” Stickler recalled.

@katstickler

No cake for me thanks, I’m full…of rage👹

But according to Stickler, it wasn’t OK, and after MK was served a piece, the mother of the child having the birthday took it away from her.

“The mother takes the plate away from MK, and gets down to her level, and says, ‘You can not eat this cake, OK? This is not your birthday party. These are not your friends. Where’s your mother?’” Stickler said. She couldn’t believe her eyes when a grown adult took her daughter’s cake out of her hands.

“I was right there,” Stickler told Today.com. “The mama bear in me was like, what just happened?”

Over 54,000 people took to TikTok to give their opinion on the story. Most thought the mother who took the cake was way out of line.

“I would be livid!!” Chelsea Campbell wrote. “I shared cake and cupcakes with all of the kids at the park for my daughter’s first birthday. They became her and my other daughters’ friends and I had plenty…the nerve she had to bend down and say that.”

“Public park means you better be prepared for extra! Like how dare she even speak to her like that,” Patience Swinford agreed.

“The cake didn’t get me… ‘these are not your friends’ is such a catty messed up thing to say to anyone, let alone a child,” Hovago08 added.

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But some people thought it was wrong for Stickler to allow her daughter to hang around during the cake-cutting.

“That is so sad BUT that wasn’t a party she was invited to so I would’ve grabbed my kid as soon as happy birthday started. It is a bit entitled,” Josephine Mary wrote.

“Although it is VERY RUDE, it is the mom’s right to tell MK no to cake bc she technically wasn’t invited,” Abby wrote.

Some sat on the fence.

“I’m the mom that would call my kid away once they went over for cake, but I’m also the mom that’d offer cake to the ‘extra’ kid,'” Tessa Lewis wrote.

Brian Fike had a very practical response to the situation. “I’m inviting every kid in the park over because I’m not trying to bring all that cake home,” he said.

In the end, MK got over it because, after the party mishap, her mother took her to get some ice cream.

“She was totally fine,” Stickler said. “She was excited to go get ice cream with me!”

Even with a literal ray of sunshine like Drew Barrymore, lightning has to strike once in a while. Especially when it comes to words being twisted by the media.

In a recent interview with “New York Magazine,” Barrymore offered some heartfelt honesty regarding the complicated relationship with her mother and former manager, Jaid Barrymore, as she has done several times before.

After the interview came out, certain news outlets extrapolated a statement by Barrymore to create salacious headlines, presumably for clicks, that claimed the “50 First Dates” star “admitted” that she “wished her mom was dead.”

Barrymore, who has already had more than her fair share of exploitation by the media, was simply not having it.

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In a heated Instagram post, Barrymore held no punches as she was quick to remind the tabloids that the tumultuous details of her childhood have been a source of news fodder. Then she proceeded to tear them a new one.

“To all you tabloids out there, you have been fucking with my life since I was 13 years old. I have never said that I wish my mother was dead. How dare you put those words in my mouth!”

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What Barrymore actually said was that she didn’t have the “luxury” that many other previous child actors who went through similar tumultuous childhoods had—of being able to cleanly process that trauma after a parent had passed. Instead, she has to process while maintaining a relationship with her mother, who is still alive.

Her words were: “All their moms are gone, and my mom’s not. And I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t have that luxury.’ But I cannot wait. I don’t want to live in a state where I wish someone to be gone sooner than they’re meant to be so I can grow. I actually want her to be happy and thrive and be healthy. But I have to fucking grow in spite of her being on this planet.”

Knowing this, her anger certainly seems justified. It’s clear that Barrymore in no way meant that she was “excited” to see her mother die.

“I have been vulnerable and tried to figure out a very difficult, painful relationship while admitting it is difficult to do while a parent is alive,” she said in the Instagram video. “Don’t twist my words around or ever say that I wish my mother was dead. I have never said that. I never would.”

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It’s no secret that humans are quicker to pay attention to stimuli that is negative, and news sources vying for said attention often use that to their advantage with eye-catching, emotion-inducing headlines. And look, no one knows the importance of compelling headlines like the writers at Upworthy—without them, readers will simply keep scrolling, and valuable stories won’t get read.

However, intriguing a potential reader to engage with a story we find worth sharing and falsifying information for the sake of clicks are two completely different things. And in this case, it not only feeds off of someone’s trauma, it can damage their character in the process.

Luckily, Barrymore handled the situation like a champ and was quick to get support after sending her video—both from fans and fellow celebs alike.

Jennifer Garner, a long-time friend of Barrymore, wrote, “You’re brave and real and I adore you xxx”

“Yes, let them have it!” Jennifer Hewitt chimed in.

Model and host Padma Laksmi also wrote, “Ugh. So sorry. We all knew what you meant. Thank you for your vulnerability always ❤️”

It’s great that Barrymore had the fortitude to respond the way she did. But in all reality, she shouldn’t have to respond to something like this in the first place.

Childcare in America has been an issue since well before most of us were born, and it continues to be a struggle for parents. Daycare costs are rough—at one point in time, I paid $276 a week for one child to attend a daycare center, and that’s not even the highest price I was quoted. But not everyone can afford the cost of childcare, and when you have multiple children who all need adult supervision, the cost can become astronomical.

The cost of childcare can cause some parents to make the decision to stay home while the other works if the family can survive on one income. In other instances, parents may be working from home while also juggling full-time parenting responsibilities. For parents in the latter category, one mom’s new email signature is serving as a reminder that childcare is expensive and school is out for the summer.

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Some folks who saw my email signature commented on it, so I wanted to share. The US is the only developed nation w/o subsidized childcare. Adding it would increase our GDP over 1 trillion dollars. Not a handout — it’s a smart decision when facing a recession and labor shortages. pic.twitter.com/iZGLMg1PJW

— Meg St-Esprit (@MegStEsprit) May 31, 2023

Meg St-Esprit was in the process of looking up babysitters and summer camps and realizing how unaffordable it was to try to accommodate four children when a “snippy” email came through, according to Today.com.

“In the moment, I was like: ‘This is how it’s going to be — people are going to need to know that this is how it’s going to be for the next couple months,'” St-Esprit, told Today.com. “I’m still good at my job. I’m still a professional. I’m also a mom of four kids and this is reality in America.”

St-Esprit is a freelance journalist based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so while her job may allow her to have some flexibility, people still expect prompt replies to correspondence. This mom decided that instead of adding additional stress to her plate, she would be brutally honest in her email signature. Honestly, the signature is pretty darn accurate. There are plenty of families in similar situations that probably wish they could change their email signature to something similar.

The signature reads, “Please note I may be slower to respond to email in the months of June, July and August due to the United States’ inability to provide affordable childcare for working mothers.”

St-Esprit shared a photo of her email signature to Twitter where she received a lot of support from other parents. She wrote about the benefits of universal subsidized childcare for the United States, saying, “The US is the only developed nation w/o subsidized childcare. Adding it would increase our GDP over 1 trillion dollars. Not a handout — it’s a smart decision when facing a recession and labor shortages.”

While states do offer childcare assistance for lower-income families, the threshold can unintentionally cause parents to make difficult decisions to keep their childcare subsidy. I recall a phone call made by a parent who attended my child’s daycare. The mom was explaining to her partner that she was given a promotion, but after speaking to the daycare director, if she took the raise, she would lose her subsidy and they would suddenly be responsible for paying nearly $900 a week. My eyes bulged at the thought, and as she collected her twins from my son’s classroom, she pondered accepting the position but asking to keep the same pay because the new cost of daycare would essentially be a pay cut.

Today I went to my 4yo’s PreK Counts classroom for yoga with a special grownup. This is the only subsidized childcare my children have been able to access as middle earners and it’s been a GIFT. It also reduces educational costs long term because of the early education benefits. pic.twitter.com/hYUt5h129h

— Meg St-Esprit (@MegStEsprit) May 31, 2023

I have no idea what the outcome was in that situation because I was just a bystander, but the conversation stuck with me. It partly stuck out because I could’ve benefitted from a subsidy and partly because many middle-class families struggle with affording childcare but don’t qualify for any sort of program to assist.

In a different tweet, St-Esprit also mentions this in-between experience.

“Today I went to my 4yo’s PreK Counts classroom for yoga with a special grownup. This is the only subsidized childcare my children have been able to access as middle earners and it’s been a GIFT. It also reduces educational costs long term because of the early education benefits,” the freelance journalist wrote.

Surprisingly, through St-Esprit’s frustrated signature, she found solidarity in the email responses she’s received.

“I work with a lot of clients, so I thought maybe I should delete it,” St-Esprit told Today.com. “Then people started to reply to it, writing: ‘Side note: I love this.’ ‘Side note: Oh my gosh, this.'”

Obviously, there’s something a little wonky with America’s way of handling childcare. It’s especially noticeable in comparison with other industrialized countries that have found a way to not only offer extended paid parental leave but also provide subsidized childcare for working parents.

No parent is perfect, even though some social media stars and mommy bloggers want us to think they have it all figured out. In the real world, parenting isn’t that easy. Every parent is beautifully imperfect, and every kid is delightfully quirky. So, as long as we do our best, it’s more than enough.

A Reddit user who goes by brookeaat wanted to feel better about how she has fallen short of parental perfection. So she asked the followers of the BreakingMom subforum to “share their mom secrets so that I don’t feel so bad about myself.”

She started the conversation by leading with her dark secret. “Sometimes I give my 5-month-old a little bit of water (like a capful from a plastic water bottle),” she wrote. “She loves it so much, and since it’s such a tiny amount, I don’t mind, but I know most other moms would judge the sh** out of me if I said that.”

For those who didn’t know, pediatricians say that you shouldn’t feed a baby water until they are 6 months old. “It’s because babies’ bodies aren’t suited for water until several months after birth. Tiny tummies and developing kidneys put them at risk for both nutrient loss and water intoxication,” Healthline reports in a medically-reviewed article.

Many of the responses centered around screen time, and many moms admitted to allowing their kids to have as much as they like. That opposes the recommendations that children under 2 years old should have zero screen time and those over 2 years old no more than two hours a day.

Many moms also admitted that they have given up trying to feed their children consistently healthy meals, and they have given in to their kids’ desire to each chicken and french fries for every meal.

Here are 18 of the most revealing “deep dark” mom secrets the mothers admitted to on the Reddit post.

1.

“Sometimes I just seriously want everyone in my house to leave me the f**k alone.” — transponster99

2.

“My 2.5yo had two slices of cheese and an ice cream sandwich for dinner.” — GroundbreakingTale24

3.

“Oh man… I don’t care what my child eats. I mean, I CARE. I TRY. But it’s so draining for me to fight him about food. He turned 3 in April and you know what? He gets almost all of the important vitamins/nutrients from smoothies. I hide zucchini and carrots in banana bread. Spinach is tasteless in smoothies. Eats pasta. Refuses veggies most of the time. Will eat chicken if fried or in nugget form but no other meat and no other way. If my child is gonna sit there and eat a whole loaf of bread, I really do not care anymore. I DO care about his sugar consumption. That’s all lol.” — Inner-Membership-175

4.

“Screen time is ongoing at my place. I’m 37 weeks pregnant and I don’t think I could do toddlering without Blues Clues. When this baby comes, I def will continue the screen time. Survival.” — MaleficentMouse666

5.

“I’m tired of being nice to my kid all the time. She is like, the nicest lil 6 year old ever. Nice to toddlers. Popular with all ages. Sticks up for others. Would literally give me her last bite of ice cream if I asked. But, oh, man, I want to scream I DONT F****** CARE!!! the next time she says ‘Mom, look at me…’ do whatever inane thing she’s already done 10000x. I want to scream SHUT UP FOR ONE DAMN MINUTE every time she runs out of her limitless words and begins just making stupid noises to entertain herself. I want to say OMG I DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU the next time she hits me with a weaponized ‘you’re weeelllcooom’ when she does the barest minimum of anything and I’m supposed to fall over myself with gratitude. I want to ignore her every time she narrates her every friggin action to me, oh hey, she’s telling me a riddle right now that makes no sense, oh god it’s still going and I’m smiling and pretending to get it. Ha ha, that’s a good one.
Seriously. The best kid ever. Teacher’s favorite. Emotional intelligence far beyond her years. I’m a monster. I would never actually say any of this. But my poor brain, just let it hear itself think. Just let me be still. Let me stop having to react all the time.” — throneofthornes

6.

“I regret having my oldest child. He has ruined my life and I’m stuck in a hellscape I never wanted for myself. My literal only hope some days is that he leaves at 18.” — redtonks

7.

“My 11yo doesn’t have a bedtime or screen time restrictions (he has site/app restrictions).” — Its_Me_Jess

8.

“I rarely wash my kiddo’s hair. I brush it and she takes baths daily, but I can’t justify her screaming every night.” — Weekly Pie

9.

“I don’t usually bother to put anything more than a diaper on my one-year-old while we’re at home unless it’s cold or she’s going to bed. She eats in her pjs and they get covered in oatmeal, so I take them off and she just stays like that, not worth the fight and distress of the manhandling that she hates just so I can do even more laundry. Also, it’s interesting how even given the choice to watch as much TV and screens as she wants because I don’t limit it she watches only pretty much an hour a day.” — PeachGotcha

10.

“I let my 2-year-old sleep on my butt most nights. He has a beautiful, woodland-themed bedroom complete with a large Montessori bed, camper-shaped tent, and Hatch machine.But he’d rather sleep to cat videos on the couch with my butt as a pillow.” — Choice-Examination

11.

“Kids wear the same clothes for school and sleep 2 days straight because we bath every other day and I’m too lazy to change their clothes other than after bathing or if very dirty.

I only brush their teeth once a day.

I ditched safe sleep because my first had a horrible flat head, my second slept so much better in his stomach, and my third I didn’t even try safe sleep and I don’t feel guilty at all.

I also sometimes drink too much while watching the kids. That I feel guilty about.” — babystay

12.

“I’d half charge the iPad and when the battery died, they were out of screen time for the day. Now they can turn on computers and the Xbox so they don’t use the iPad anymore, but it always bought me enough time in the mornings to have some coffee and get ready.” — CrimeBrulee_

13.

“My husband cleans the house while I breastfeed my kid to sleep. I almost always lay next to her for a bit longer and scroll on my phone and enjoy her presence until I can hear him finished, so that I don’t have to help.” — HollyBethQ

14.

“My son slept in our bed until he was like 13 years old. Sometimes when he visits (he’s 23 now and turned out fine!) he will still get in my bed with me and read or watch videos. He also camps out in our bed (on my side) when I’m not there, so I think he just likes our bed.” — Apprehensive_Set_151

15.

“I honestly can’t stand to be around my 8-year-old son anymore; I don’t like who he is. His behavior is awful and he does things purposely to shock and irritate me. He got mad and threw a toy at me the other night when I sent him to his room for time-out; he threw it so hard that it hit the floor and it bounced up and cut my leg. I feel like an awful mother/human being for feeling this way and it breaks my heart. I just don’t know what to do with him anymore. He’s in counseling and takes medication, but it only does so much.” — NorwegianMuse

16.

“I let my 15-year-old drink. Sometimes. With family and food. If I, or my mother, has- cooked full, fancy, meal, and we’re all sitting down to with either a full bottle or a split, he can have a up to a glass with his meal.” — [deleted]

17.

“I really don’t think I should have ever been a mom, I regret it a lot and wish I could do my life over. I do love my child with all my heart and try to do as best as I can and I will never let them know how I feel.” — purplejanuary14

18.

“I just wanna say….I love all you ladies so much. This thread is hella refreshing!” — Bob-Bhlabla-esq

What do you do when you find out your kid bullied someone? For many parents, the first step is forcing an apology. While this response is of course warranted, is it really effective? Some might argue that there are more constructive ways of handling the situation that teach a kid not only what they did wrong, but how to make things right again.

Single dad Patrick Forseth recently shared how he made a truly teachable moment out of his son, Lincoln, getting into trouble for bullying. Rather than forcing an apology, Forseth made sure his son was actively part of a solution.

The thought process behind his decision, which he explained in a now-viral TikTok video, is both simple and somewhat racial compared to how many parents have been encouraged to handle similar situations.

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“I got an email a few days ago from my 9-year-old son’s teacher that he had done a ‘prank’ to a fellow classmate and it ended up embarrassing the classmate and hurt his feelings,” the video begins.

At this point, Forseth doesn’t split hairs. “I don’t care who you are, that’s bullying,” he said. “If you do something to somebody that you know has the potential end result of them being embarrassed in front of a class or hurt—you’re bullying.”

So, Forseth and Lincoln sat down for a long talk (a talk, not a lecture) about appropriate punishment and how it would have felt to be on the receiving end of such a prank.

From there, Forseth told his son that he would decide how to make things right, making it a masterclass in taking true accountability.

“I demanded nothing out of him. I demanded no apology, I demanded no apology to the teacher,” he continued, adding, “I told him that we have the opportunity to go back and make things right. We can’t take things back, but we can try to correct things and look for forgiveness.”

@thehalfdeaddad Replying to @sunshinyday1227 And then it’s my kid 🤦‍♂️😡 #endbullyingnow #talktoyourkidsmore #dadlifebestlife #singledadsover40 #teachyourchildren #ReadySetLift ♬ Get You The Moon – Kina

So what did Lincoln do? He went back to his school and actually talked to the other boy he pranked. After learning that they shared a love of Pokémon, he then went home to retrieve two of his favorite Pokémon cards as a peace offering, complete with a freshly cleaned case.

Lincoln would end up sharing with his dad that the other boy was so moved by the gesture that he would end up hugging him.

“I just want to encourage all parents to talk to your kids,” Forseth concluded. “Let’s try to avoid just the swat on the butt [and] send them to their room. Doesn’t teach them anything.”

In Forseth’s opinion, kids get far more insight by figuring out how to resolve a problem themselves. “That’s what they’re actually going to face in the real world once they move out of our nests.”

He certainly has a point. A slap on the wrist followed by being marched down somewhere to say, “I’m sorry,” only further humiliates kids most of the time. With this gentler approach, kids are taught the intrinsic value of making amends after wrongdoing, not to mention the power of their own autonomy. Imagine that—blips in judgment can end up being major character-building moments.

Kudos to this dad and his very smart parenting strategy.

This article originally appeared on 3.24.23

Like many of us, Bonny Doon were moved by Waxahatchee‘s music. But unlike many of us, they were actually invited to collaborate on the singer’s hit 2020 album, Saint Cloud, and act as a backing band on her subsequent tour. “The experience raised the ceiling on our imagination,” says vocalist/guitarist Bobby Colombo.

Traces of their time collaborating with Waxahatchee can be heard throughout the album. Not only because Katie Crunchfield offers backing vocals to three of the tracks, “Let There Be Music,” “San Francisco,” and “You Can’t Stay The Same,” but also in the twangy vocal delivery and pastoral, Americana-leaning ballads. Throughout 10 tracks, Bonny Doon focus on finding joy in small moments, like the serenity that comes with watching the trees sway in the wind on “Crooked Creek.”

Staying grounded is a central theme of the band’s music, particularly since the album was recorded amid a few health scares for the band. Drummer Jake Kmiecik was healing from complications due to a chronic health condition and Colombo was healing from a brain injury and undiagnosed Lyme disease. Despite the setbacks and many doctors visits, Boony Doon managed to come together for Let There Be Music, their most refined and joyous work to date.

Ahead of the release of Let There Be Music, Bonny Doon sits down with Uproxx to talk Grateful Dead, You’ve Got Mail, and living in the moment in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Understated, humane, simple, thoughtful.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

As something special from a simpler time.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

Detroit, but also anywhere and everywhere.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

Neil Young. We have Neil tattoos. He has always been an uncompromising artist who knows how to keep the essence of a feeling intact.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

Lake Inez in Toronto.

What album do you know every word to?

Dookie, American Beauty.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Roscoe Mitchell at Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, 2018, there were about fifteen minutes where he played solo, circular breathing to a crowd of about fifty people and I’m convinced it’s the closest to the divine I’ve ever seen a person get.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

A suit, clean and simple.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

The insta page for Apology Magazine.

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

Grateful Dead Sirius station.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Dead & Company Cornell 5/8/2023 soundboard haha

What album makes for the perfect gift?

The Brenda Ray collection D’Ya Hear Me!: Naffi Years, 1979-93. It’s hard to find but it’s perfect music.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

Massive co-op in Berkeley, going into after a fifteen-hour drive unaware that it was a co-op. First thing I saw walking in was about thirty bikes and got very alarmed.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

The aforementioned Neil tattoos, an homage to the man.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

Whenever I catch “Somebody’s Baby” by Jackson Browne it’s a good day.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

My girlfriend came to see Phish with me last summer, but most importantly she enjoyed it.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Be here now.

What’s the last show you went to?

Last band I saw was our friend Kacey Johansing, very special music.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

You’ve Got Mail.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

Somehow still avoiding T*kT*k.

Let There Be Music is out 6/16 via Anti. Find more information here.

On Tuesday, about a month-and-a-half after being canned by Fox News, Tucker Carlson debuted his follow-up show on Twitter. It wasn’t the slick, long or even energetic program his viewers were used to. Instead it ran a mere 10 minutes, looked like it was filmed in a rec room, and featured him being decidedly low-energy. At one point one could hear the sound of someone off-screen closing a door. Hope it was worth it because, one day later, the inevitable happened.

As per a letter obtained by Axios (and verified by Mediaite), Fox News notified Carlson’s lawyers that their client had breached his contract. Thanks to a noncompete clause, the news network can keep him off the airwaves (and maybe Twitter) all the way through January 2025, i.e., another year-and-a-half. Carlson has vowed to give them hell over the contract he’d signed, but so far his only move is to create an online show for a social media service, despite any legal headaches it may cause him.

Carlson’s lawyers told Axios that any legal action is purely hypocritical. “Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” lawyer Bryan Freedman said in a statement.

Fox News abruptly fired Carlson in late April the week after they agreed to a whopping $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over false claims they made about the 2020 election. The reason(s) for Carlson’s firing have never been made public.

In his maiden Tucker on Twitter episode, Carlson offered a dense thicket of conspiracy theories involving everything from Ukraine to BLM protests to 9/11 to aliens to the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. As of this writing, the video has racked up over 90 million views.

(Via Axios and Mediaite)

Taco Bell has, hands down, the best vegan and vegetarian menu in the fast food universe. Sure there are vegan-focused chains like Loving Hut and Monty’s Good Burger, but those chains are region specific and don’t have the nationwide reach of something like Taco Bell. While most fast food chains are dropping plant-based burgers and chicken (and then quietly discontinuing them while hoping no one will notice) at Taco Bell you can turn just about every menu item into a vegan or vegetarian meal, and so long as Taco Bell doesn’t have some sort of special meat-based fried menu item (like wings, or fried chicken), the frying oil is free of animal by-products as well.

That’s great for vegan Taco Bell heads. But unfortunately, it has also allowed Taco Bell to f*ck around all of these years and not have a true vegan meat taco, something that is almost guaranteed to sell well. I’ve been to many Taco Bell tastings at the Taco Bell Test Kitchens, and they’ve tried all sorts of different formulations of plant-based non-meat “meats,” but in all of that time they haven’t cracked a true vegan taco that lives up to their OG. Well today, I’m happy to report that they are officially one step closer.

Beginning today, select Taco Bell locations in Los Angeles, New York City, and Orlando, Florida will be selling the Vegan Crunchwrap for one week (or while supplies last), a dish that has now become — spoiler warning for the review — our favorite vegan meal in all of fast food. The Crunchwrap features proprietary seasoned vegan beef, proprietary nut-free vegan blanco and nacho sauce, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and a crunchy tostada shell wrapped up in a giant grilled tortilla.

So how good is it? Let’s break it down.

Vegan Crunchwrap Review

Tasting Notes:

Before we start talking about how this thing tastes I think it’s important to mention that I am not vegan or vegetarian. I like eating meat and, as such, I’m not the biggest fan of “meat substitutes.” Give me a dish that tastes good and I won’t care if it has meat or not, but the minute you ask me to pretend a plant-based burger tastes as good as the real thing, I’m out. I’ve had very good plant-based fast food, Umami burger in particular, but most plant-based fast food (KFC’s vegan nuggets come to mind) just can’t nail texture and flavor the way real meat does.

Having said all that, I think I like Taco Bell’s Vegan Crunchwrap more than the real thing. Let’s be honest, Taco Bell’s ground beef isn’t great and while I love a Taco Bell crunchy taco (see our Taco Bell ranking here), the primary flavor profile of the ground beef is grease and salt. The meat substitute used in the Vegan Crunchwrap delivers so much more flavor, I’m tasting chili powder, garlic, onions, black pepper, and a hint of cumin — resulting in something that is incredibly savory and mildly spicy, no sauce packet required.

When it comes to texture I can’t really say how it compares to the real thing because a Crunchwrap, true to its name, is full of crunch courtesy of the tostada shell and lettuce, which means I’m not thinking about the texture of the pea-protein based “meat.” All I’m getting is the flavor, which is objectively more complex and interesting than the real thing.

I’m also liking the vegan blanco and nacho cheese sauce a lot more, the sauces here are made totally nut-free (a lot of fake cheese is made with nuts) and still come across as complex adding an indulgent quality to this Crunchwrap that makes each bite incredibly addicting. Best of all, you get that without the overly salty notes of the regular nacho cheese sauce. It’s almost eerie how delicious this thing is, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t even the target audience of this dish.

The Bottom Line:

Taco Bell is absolutely knocked it out of the park with the Vegan Crunchwrap. It’s delicious, packed full of the sort of zesty flavor Taco Bell is beloved for and doesn’t cut any corners in the process. It manages to take a beloved dish on the Taco Bell menu and actually improve upon it. We can’t wait until you’re able to substitute the vegan meat into other classic Taco Bell dishes like the Crunchy Taco and Mexican Pizza.

Sadly, as of now, you can’t. Trust me, we asked!

Right now this dish is priced the same as the OG Crunchwrap which means if you’re in the test market, there is absolutely no reason for not trying this if you already love the Crunchwrap.

Here is a list of locations currently carrying the Vegan Crunchwrap:

Los Angeles—6741 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028
New York City—976 6th Ave., New York, NY 10018
Orlando—11893 East Colonial Dr., Orlando, FL 32826

Find your nearest Taco Bell here.

Rap fans were impressed — and confused — when by Barbra Streisand‘s hip-hop knowledge when the 81-year-old quoted New York rapper Memphis Bleek on Twitter.

Streisand, who has long had a reputation for political activism, tweeted a dire warning about a future Donald Trump presidential candidacy. “Trump is going to be indicted for stealing classified documents,” she wrote. “He is going crazy with his tweets urging his cult to ‘FIGHT.’ We remember what happened on January 6th. ‘The strong are quiet, the weak start riots.’ – Rapper Memphis Bleek.” (The lyrics in question are from a song on the Jay-Z-led compilation album The Dynasty, “1-900-HUSTLER,” which features Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek, and Freeway.)

Although largely recognized within the culture as being Jay-Z’s protege throughout the late ’90s and early 2000s, Bleek did have an expansive solo career that saw him release minor hits like “Is That Yo Chick” and “Like That.” However, he was never much of a fixture on mainstream charts, leaving fans nonplussed that Streisand would quote him, of all people.

The idea that Streisand would be a huge Memphis Bleek fan turned out to be a source of amusement, though — much like a similar incident with actress Sharon Stone donning a movie prop that got her tagged a fan of underground rapper MF DOOM.

Check out some of the more amused reactions below.

Pete Davidson is famously a pretty chill dude. When he was on SNL, he regularly took his real-life problems and mined them for comedy gold. You probably have to really do something bad to piss him off. That, apparently, is what PETA did. A higher-up at the animal rights organization received a, shall we say, colorful voicemail from Davidson after they torched him for purchasing, not adopting, a new dog. As per Entertainment Weekly, he later explained to TMZ why he did what he felt he had to do.

In the message, Davidson revealed that the Cavapoo puppy he bought at an NYC store was for his mother, who’s dog Henry had just died.

“I haven’t seen my mom and sister cry like that in over 20 years. I was trying to cheer up my family,” Davidson explained. “I was already upset that the store had filmed me without my permission or acknowledgement. Then this organization made a public example of us, making our grieving situation worse. I am upset. It was a poor choice of words. I shouldn’t have said what I said, but I am not sorry for standing up for myself and my family.”

The mishegoss began when video surfaced of Davidson buying the puppy. PETA slammed Davidson for not going with a “borough-born mutt from a city animal shelter,” adding that the organization “urges Pete to show some big heart energy by adopting, not shopping, in the future.”

So Davidson rang up PETA’s Senior VP of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch and left her a message. “Thank you so much for making comments publicly that I didn’t adopt a dog,” he said in the voicemail, noting that he’s “severely allergic to dogs,” and that he had to “get a specific breed.”

Davidson also slammed Nachminovitch for not checking up on his possible motivations — including the death of his mother’s dog — urging her to “do your research before you [bleep] create news stories for people because you’re a boring, tired, [bleep].” He wrapped up his message by saying, “[Bleep] you and suck my [bleep].”

PETA responded to Davidson’s explanation to TMZ by telling the publication that “there’s no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog,” adding that “at least a quarter of dogs in shelters are purebreds, and that Petfinder has listings for homeless dogs of every breed under the sun, including the one he purchased.” They also said their “hearts go out to the Davidson family for the loss of their dog” before again urging him to “adopt next time.”

Davidson later acknowledged that he was unaware he could adopt a “specific hypoallergenic dog” and that he was told that “it wasn’t an option, and if it was, it was rare.”

In other new Pete Davidson news, he also admitted that he was “very stoned” when he and Colin Jost bought a Staten Island ferry last year and that they’re still “figuring it out” as to what they’re going to do with a big boat.

(Via EW & TMZ)