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Tucker Carlson is gone at Fox News, and who’s to say why. Apparently not even the network’s former biggest star knows the reason he got canned. But there have been some reports on possible reasons that, put together, may explain why Fox News was willing to kick its ratings juggernaut to the curb.

A new report from The Daily Beast offers some possible explanations. There was his routinely conspiracy-laden coverage of the Jan. 6 riots, which allegedly enraged Fox brass. There’s the lawsuits from former producer Abby Grossberg, who painted an unflattering portrait of a sexist boy’s club atmosphere. There’s comments he made about Fox management that were made public during their pricey Dominion lawsuit.

Then there’s this:

But most egregious, and what loomed large in his termination, people familiar with the matter told Confider, was how during his deposition with Dominion lawyers, when he was asked if “this wasn’t the only time you referred to Sidney Powell as a cunt,” the Fox News star responded: “You know I-I-I can’t know and I just want to apologize preemptively. I mean you’re trying to embarrass me, you’re definitely succeeding as I am embarrassed.”

Carlson being nailed in court documents for his repeated use of the overtly misogynist c-word was a key factor in his demise, as Fox News had rid itself of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly after years of sexual-harassment complaints and could not have its biggest star undermining any supposed progress.

Al Capone was taken down for not paying his taxes, and if this is true, then Tucker Carlson — the guy who laughed at an epic, should-have-been-devastating The New York Times takedown — got busted for being a sexist pig. He’ll surely be getting a golden parachute, and then he has all the time in the world to hang out with other fellow Fox News firees like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, who will show him what his future really looks like.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Taylor Swift’s record-breaking The Eras Tour is going strong. Many cities have gone above and beyond to welcome the “Anti-Hero” singer. Several municipalities renamed their towns in her honor, including Glendale, Arizona, and Arlington, Texas. Over the weekend, as Swift plated roots in Houston, Texas, NRG Stadium took it a notch up to rename the venue in her honor. But they weren’t the only business in the city doing something special for her.

The Houston Humane Society announced they would reduce cat adoption fees to $13 (Swift’s lucky number). The organization even recreated her album covers for the campaign’s official flyer. The captions are riddled with Swift’s notable song titles, like “Adopt your new LOVER this weekend, and know ALL TOO WELL how much joy & happiness they’ll bring to your life! HHS is BEJEWELED to announce our Lucky $13 Cat Adoption event to HONOR ‘The Eras Tour’ Houston dates this weekend! April 17th-April 23rd, cats that have been in our shelter for 30+ days will be available for adoption with a $13 adoption fee!”

The singer is a proud pet parent to her cat, Olivia Benson and a cat enthusiast overall. As for the significance behind the number 13, in an interview, Swift said, “I was born on the 13th. I turned 13 on Friday the 13th. My first album went gold in 13 weeks. My first #1 song had a 13-second intro,” she said. “Every time I’ve won an award, I’ve been seated in either the 13th seat, the 13th row, the 13th section, or row M, which is the 13th letter.”

Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour will run until early August. For more information, click here.

On Monday the unthinkable happened: Fox News kicked its biggest star to the curb. For the third time in his life, Tucker Carlson lost a gig at a high-profile 24-hours news network, having already burned bridges at CNN and MSNBC. Carlson was a ratings powerhouse, and at 8pm every weeknight he poisoned the brains of millions with all manner of nonsense. When his old time slot came up, how would they handle the news? Turns out very, very, very briefly.

Brian Kilmeade sat in for Carlson during what was once Tucker Carlson Tonight, now rechristened simply Fox News Tonight. The show will have revolving hosts until they find a replacement, and the Fox & Friends co-host addressed the elephant in the room right off the bat. He also did it as fast as he could.

“As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” Kilmeade told Carlson’s usual viewers (provided they didn’t skip out in protest). “I wish Tucker the best. I am great friends with Tucker and always will be.” He then quickly moved on. “But right now it’s time for Fox News Tonight, so let’s get started.”

When they first revealed Carlson’s departure, Fox News used careful wording to make it sound like it was amicable — even though it was effective immediately, with his last show, on last Friday, ending with him telling viewers he’d see them on Monday. He didn’t.

Indeed, subsequent reports have alleged that Carlson had no idea what was in store, that he was even working on a new five-year contract, and also that he was straight-up fired. He reportedly doesn’t (or didn’t) even know why, though it could be a number of factors, including the pricey Dominion lawsuit and the two lawsuits from former producer Abby Grossberg, who had some deeply unflattering things to say about her time working with the network’s former biggest star.

So RIP Tucker Carlson’s Fox News stint. And it even ended without him being humiliated on live TV by Jon Stewart.

Rick Ross is the self-proclaimed biggest boss the music industry has ever seen. Stepping into his head honcho persona, the rapper is offering former CNN anchor Don Lemon some career advice following his recent termination from the network.

In a video uploaded to his Instagram Stories, the musician took a moment away from promoting his upcoming car show to share a message with Lemon.

“Just found out Don Lemon was terminated from CNN. Damn, Don. But guess what, the brothers got your back,” Ross declared. However, you’d be wrong if you thought his follow-up would be a call to action or action to help the former television pundit regain his on-air slot.

Ross added, “We’re hiring at Wingstop,” referring to the chicken chain, which Ross owns over two dozen locations of across the country. “And for some reason, I feel like you know what you’re doing with them lemon pepper wings,” he said, throwing in a pun on Lemon’s last name.

Ross closed the video by saying, “So, man, just send over your resume — I’m going to ensure I get you in front of the right grill. Stay solid, brother.”

If Lemon doesn’t accept the offer, maybe Ross could offer him something on his home ranch to help manage his unruly buffalo.

Nicolas Cage is a great actor, and he’s very in-demand. Sometimes he’s been too in-demand. Starting in the teens, he suddenly started doing more films than he had before. They often weren’t big films. They sometimes barely got released. Nor did they get good reviews. Remember the Left Behind remake? Cage has opened up about why he did some stinkers before: He had acquired massive real estate debt. Now he’s admitting that some of them weren’t so hot (although he did his best in them).

“I was over-invested in real estate. The real estate market crashed, and I couldn’t get out in time,” Cage explained in a sit-down for 60 Minutes. “I paid them all back, but it was about $6 million. I never filed for bankruptcy.”

Cage says this was a “dark” period in his life, but doing movies — even in questionable fare — helped get him through it, both financially and mentally.

“Work was always my guardian angel. It may not have been blue chip, but it was still work,” Cage said. “Even if the movie ultimately is crummy, they know I’m not phoning it in, that I care every time.”

Sprinkled through the detritus are some strong films, boasting some of his finest performances: David Gordon Green’s Joe, Paul Schrader’s Dog Eat Dog (which at one point finds him doing a leftfield Bogie impersonation), Mandy, and one of the five films he’s most proud of, Pig. Who knows? Maybe films like Rage, The Runner, Arsenal, or Inconceivable are actually secretly good.

(Via Deadline)

Lizzo declared 2023 as the year of SZA, and based on the “No Love” singer’s latest career milestones, she’s right. First, her prolific sophomore album, SOS, crushed several music records. Now, as she prepares to head out on the second wing of her SOS Tour across North America and Europe, she has another accolade to celebrate with fans while on the road.

SZA’s breakout single “Kill Bill” has just landed her her first No. 1 song on the Hot 100 charts. Although her SOS album, in which the song appears, sat atop the music charts for over ten weeks, “Kill Bill” is the first song off of it — as well as across SZA’s discography — to make it to the top of Billboard’s charts.

Just a few weeks ago, SZA teamed up with Doja Cat to release an official remix of the track. Their collaborative song “Kiss Me More” is SZA’s longest-charting song (spending 43 weeks on the charts). It peaked at the No. 3 spot.

Before Billboard’s latest announcement, “Kill Bill” held on comfortably at the No. 2 spot. Other songs from album to score placement on the charts include “Nobody Gets Me,” peaking at No. 10, “Shirt,” peaking at No. 11, and “Snooze” at No. 29.

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

In early September, the Cleveland Cavaliers paid a king’s ransom to acquire Donovan Mitchell in a blockbuster trade with the Utah Jazz. Things worked out fairly well for Cleveland in 2022-23, earning a top-four seed in the East, but the Jazz received a strong package in return that included Lauri Markkanen. When the deal came together, Markkanen was seen as an intriguing player but, at the same time, he was not viewed as a jewel or even as the centerpiece of a sprawling transaction. Following a breakout campaign this season, though, Markkanen is now the winner of the NBA’s 2022-23 Most Improved Player of the Year award.

Markkanen was the centerpiece of a Jazz team that surprised many in the NBA world on the way to 37 victories, and he outlasted New York’s Jalen Brunson and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to win the award with 69 first place votes.

In his three previous campaigns combined, Markkanen averaged 14.4 points and 5.7 rebounds per game and converted only 44.8 percent of his field goal attempts. In 2022-23, the 25-year-old forward erupted for 25.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game while shooting 49.9 percent from the field, 39.1 percent from three-point range, and 87.5 percent on a career-best 6.0 free throw attempts per contest.

Beyond his individual contributions and improved efficiency, Markkanen was also key to Utah’s success. The Jazz out-scored opponents by 3.8 points per 100 possessions with Markkanen on the floor, and that dipped to a -6.5 net rating when he was off the court this season. The next step for Markkanen will be attempting to follow up this All-Star season with a repeat performance, but he was the betting favorite for the award for a large portion of the season and the voters agreed with that notion.

Roman Roy — and by extension his portrayer, Kieran Culkin — has been given a bit more to do on the final season of Succession. He’s now the interim co-CEO of Waystar Royco, which means he’s had to step things up. His dad also suddenly died, meaning we got to see some real emotion from a guy who’s usually a sarcastic quip machine. But getting promoted and acting like a real person with real feelings is just the start.

As per Variety, HBO has decided that when they submit award contenders for the Emmys this year, Culkin will be promoted for the lead actor category. Culkin has been nominated twice before, in the supporting actor section. That made sense at the time: Roman is a main cast member, but in past seasons he wasn’t ever center stage the way Jeremy Strong’s Kendall has often been. While Kendall was been dealing with a drug habit and duking it out with the father that doesn’t believe in him, Roman has been doing things like sending dick pics to one of his dad’s most trusted employees.

But now Roman is (maybe temporarily) running the ship with Kendall. He’s even making bold moves, like accusing the blood-collecting weirdo who wants to buy their company of effectively killing his dad, and during a heated negotiation. (Hey, apparently it worked!) He even looked pretty despondent at the end of the fifth episode. And there’s still five episodes left for Culkin to strut his stuff.

(Via Variety)

Monday got off to a wild start, with news that Tucker Carlson was suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, done at Fox News. (Don Lemon is also — and also shockingly — out at CNN.) Initial reports made it sound amicable, that they’d agreed to go their separate ways. Newer reports, though, claim that Tucker was straight-up fired, and that he was as stunned by the news as everyone.

Vanity Fair has a more detailed report on how it went down:

On Monday morning, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott called Carlson and informed him he was being taken off the air, and his Fox News email account was shut off. According to a source briefed on the conversation, Carlson was stunned by his sudden ouster from his 8 p.m. show, the most watched program in cable news last month. Carlson was in the midst of negotiating the renewal of his Fox News contract through 2029, the source said. As of last week, Carlson had told people he expected the contract to be renewed.

But why was Tucker terminated? Apparently not even he knows. Scott reportedly told him that the decision was made “from above,” which likely means Rupert Murdoch himself. Carlson has also allegedly speculated that Murdoch’s children intend to sell the company down the road — shades of Succession’s Waystar Royco — and they wanted his controversial show off their airwaves.

There have already been other reports about the big decision. The Los Angeles Times claims it has to do with those two lawsuits brought against them by former producer Abby Grossberg, who’s already made public some unflattering stories about working alongside him. The Washington Post, meanwhile, reports that the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, specifically unearthed comments Tucker had made about management, “played a role in his departure.”

More details may emerge later, but for now, Fox News viewers have already seen their last Tucker Carlson show, at least on that network. After all, his termination was effective immediately. Instead, those tuning in at 8pm will have to made do with Brian Kilmeade. At least Tucker has Megyn Kelly on his side.

(Via Vanity Fair)

Social media is often a flashpoint for misinformation and disinformation, and one of the worst offenders is Twitter. A prime example is a rumor that swept the app calling Fugees member Pras Michel an “FBI informant” after his testimony in the federal money laundering case against him last Tuesday.

<em>Rolling Stone reported that Pras made the unusual move to testify in his own defense after consulting with his lawyers and “the universe” according to Mother Jones reporter Dan Friedman. However, in the report, Rolling Stone noted that Pras had met with FBI agents over the course of the investigation into his association with Malaysian financier Jho Low and whether Pras had helped Low, a foreign national, make campaign contributions illegally in the 2012 election. Low is also under investigation — and currently a fugitive — for allegedly stealing $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund.

Obviously, this is a complex case and those “hip-hop Twitter” gossip accounts aren’t exactly legal geniuses. But it doesn’t take a genius to extrapolate “FBI informant” from the report — just a dire misunderstanding of the facts of the case. And once there’s a hot take circulating online, it doesn’t take long for it to start circulating, true or not, as long as it’s inflammatory enough.

In hip-hop, the term “informant” carries a lot of baggage, so of course, “Pras is an informant” is one hell of a takeaway.

In reality, Pras is simply on trial because he allegedly took money from Low and put it into Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and lobbied Donald Trump’s administration to stop investigating Low and extradite Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, an associate of Steve Bannon. Michel said he met with FBI agents to discuss sending Guo back to China but denied doing so on behalf of the Chinese government (Guo fled to the US in 2015 to escape fraud, corruption, and rape charges, according to Mother Jones. Guo sought asylum, claiming to be a whistleblower).

The rumor probably won’t stop circulating now, but here’s yet another reminder that Twitter gossip is not a trustworthy source — especially not now that old emerald mine nepo baby Musk is in charge.