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The 2020 election happened almost two years ago, and Mike Lindell still hasn’t gotten over it. The MyPillow guy has devoted a lot of his time — and a lot of his fortune — to spluttering and failed attempts to prove the existence of fraud big enough to cost Donald Trump a second stint in the White House. He’s spent so much dough that he’s gotten desperate: He’s begging people to buy stock in his bedwear company.

Lindell spoke with a reporter for the far right network RSBN during an event, during which he made a thrilling announcement. “For the next couple weeks — could be for two to four weeks — we’re offering stock to the public. This is going to be amazing,” he crowed. “I want every person out there to have a little piece of the pie.”

Lindell then blurted out a reason for wanting people to buy MyPillow stock. “I spent over $40 million, and I need help,” he said. “We need help making our voice bigger. I can’t tell the details. The lawyer says, ‘I will only let you tell this much.’”

Adding insult to injury, Lindell was recently ordered to fork over $5 million to software developer Robert Zeidma, who entered a contest in which Lindell promised that amount if they could prove his election data claims were wrong. Zeidma did just that. He also recently claimed MyPillow is not going broke.

(Via Raw Story)

Lil Durk is almost healed from the past traumas of losing his friends and family to gun violence, or so his forthcoming album’s title suggests. But, unfortunately, in hip-hop, beef is what moves the promotional needle forward. The rapper has had his fair share of high-profile feuds, including longstanding tension with NBA YoungBoy and social media disputes with Tekashi 69 and Soulja Boy. Still, Durk alleges that he has been offered money to participate in a few. Taking to Twitter, he wrote, “Labels try to pay me to beef. I just can’t fake it. I’m different. I’m him. Unpredictable.”

Later in the day, he returned to the platform to post, “Automatic support get y’all munyun (money) together all that other cap is bap,” many fans believing that Durk was closing out his initial post.

Over the past few years, the “All My Life” rapper has begun to publicize his advocacy work. While some have criticized his motives, Durk has maintained that it is to showcase his positive work, highlighting that he is much more than the beef he’s been linked to. Some of those efforts included meeting with his hometown Chicago’s mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, to discuss programs for the city’s children. Another was the formation of his HBCU-focused scholarship.

Taylor Swift’s rumored romance with The 1975’s frontman Matty Healy is still brewing; her bond with her fans (the Swifties) is rock solid. A security guard in Philadelphia learned this the hard way. On Saturday, May 13, during her The Eras Tour stop at the Lincoln Financial Field Arena, the singer noticed a commotion happening around the barricade surrounding the stage.

In footage secured by TMZ, Swift is visibly upset with the arena’s staff and the way in which they were handling her fans. As she belts out the lyrics to her song “Bad Blood,” she stopped to protect a fan mid-performance. “She’s fine. She wasn’t doing anything,” yelled Swift to reprimand the guard.

A fan claiming to have been in the audience at the time of the incident took to Twitter to recount what led up to Swift’s exchange with security. “Taylor was yelling at a security guard because they fully kept putting their hands on us to physically push us off of the barricade instead of just telling us to move,” they wrote. “We weren’t throwing anything. We weren’t screaming anything insane, she was fully coming over to dance and sing with us, and it resulted in security being extremely aggressive for no reason.”

Swift’s tour is set to return to the venue tomorrow for its final show in Philadelphia.

Ja Morant has once again been suspended for an incident involving a firearm on Instagram Live. The Memphis Grizzlies announced on Sunday morning that their All-Star guard has been “suspended from all team activities pending League review” after a video surfaced of him holding a gun while sitting in the driver’s seat of a car that wasn’t moving.

Additionally, the NBA announced through a spokesperson that it’s going through “the process of gathering more information.”

A video began circulating on Sunday morning of Morant via an Instagram Live broadcast that showed him in a car listening to music with some friends. At one point, Morant is no longer on camera, and when it cuts back to him, he’s pulled out a gun that he’s waving around. The camera is quickly taken off of him, and when he returns, he no longer is holding a gun.

This came on the heels of an incident back in March in which Morant, while sitting in a club in Colorado, pulled out a gun and waved it around. He took a leave of absence from the team before getting suspended eight games by the league. During his time away from the Grizzlies, Morant announced that he entered a counseling program in Florida.

When he first toyed with the idea of buying Twitter, Elon Musk vowed to make it a haven for unbridled free speech. He promised to reinstate accounts that had been banned, including the one belonging to Donald Trump. Soon after the deal first went through in October, he tweeted, “Comedy is now legal on Twitter.” And so freedom flew on Twitter…unless you’re in Turkey.

Over the weekend, it was revealed that Musk had bowed to requests from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s incumbent president, who’s facing a tough battle to hold onto his seat. The Erdogan administration is infamously restrictive and undemocratic, to the point that they demanded Musk censor tweets from his opponents or face the whole service being blocked in the nation. So the free speech absolutist censored free speech.

When called out on it by journalist Matthew Iglesias, Musk stood his ground. “Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” he replied.

Musk was roundly condemned for backing down on his alleged principles.

The founder of Wikipedia even stepped in to let Musk know how they’ve handled such attacks.

Some pointed out that this has happened with Erdogan before — and Twitter did not comply.

Perhaps Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s original honcho, is feeling even more remorse than he already did.

(Via Mediaite)

It’s fair to say that there’s no kinder character on TV than Ted Lasso. Over three seasons, star Jason Sudeikis has explored the complexity of decency. Ted isn’t perfect and he wrestles with demons, but he’s powerfully uncynical and always seeks the best in people. One reason the show has clicked is because these are dark times, with people divided. So it’s no shock to learn that Ted was partly inspired by a certain divisive politician.

In a new profile by The Guardian (in a bit caught by Deadline), Sudeikis talks about the evolution of the character, who originated in a sketch from the early 2010s. In 2015, Sudeikis decided to revisit the character, who he described as more broadly comic and “belligerent.” Obviously he dramatically changed his mind about that after seeing where the culture was heading.

“I’m not terribly active online and it even affected me,” Sudeikis says about the world becoming angrier and more divided. “Then you have Donald Trump coming down the escalator. I was like, ‘OK, this is silly,’ and then what he unlocked in people… I hated how people weren’t listening to one another. Things became very binary and I don’t think that’s the way the world works. And, as a new parent – we had our son Otis in 2014 – it was like, ‘Boy, I don’t want to add to this.’ Yeah, I just didn’t want to portray it.”

And that’s why Ted Lasso is such a nice guy and why Ted Lasso is such a nice show. The character has become a kind of guru of positivity in a negative era. When Sudeikis and his cast visited the White House recently to discuss mental health issues, they discovered that someone had even taped a blue-and-white sign above the door with the word “BELIEVE” — the motto of the show’s team. It’s almost a shame that it’s (probably, almost certainly) coming to an end.

(Via The Guardian and Deadline)

Ja Morant has once again been seen holding a gun on an Instagram Live broadcast. In a video that started to make its way around the internet on Sunday morning from the account of his longtime friend Davonte Pack, the Memphis Grizzlies star was seated in the driver’s seat of a car while listening to music with some friends.

At one point, Morant is no longer on camera, and when it cuts back to him at the 13-second mark, he’s holding a firearm, which leads to his friend immediately taking the camera off of him. You can watch the video below:

This is the second incident in several months involving Morant brandishing a firearm while on an IG Live. Back in March, Morant flashed a gun in a nightclub in Denver, which led to an investigation from the NBA, a leave of absence for Morant that turned into a suspension, and his entry into a counseling program in Florida, where Morant said that he needed “to get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being.”

It is unclear if this incident can lead to any sort of investigation from the NBA, as one of the major questions surrounding the incident in Denver revolved around whether or not Morant violated the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement by bringing the firearm somewhere he was not allowed.

Every single week, our TV and film experts will list the most important ten streaming selections for you to pop into your queues. We’re not strictly operating upon reviews or accrued streaming clicks (although yes, we’ve scoured the streaming site charts) but, instead, upon those selections that are really worth noticing amid the churning sea of content. There’s a lot out there, after all, and your time is valuable.

TIE: 10. The Great: Season 3 (Hulu series)

As of now, Elle Fanning’s Catherine the Great and Nicholas Hoult’s Emperor Peter III still haven’t killed each other, but give them time. First, they must get their marriage somewhat together in order to maintain power. In real life, Catherine went on to be Russia’s longest reigning female empress, and Peter did not fare nearly so well, given that she overthrew him, but this show has taken several liberties for the sake of fun, and no one can hate on that.

TIE: 10. Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel Studios movie on Disney+)

Before Star-Lord became the Worst Avenger, he charm-danced his way into the heart of Marvel fans in his lovely initial MCU installment. A chaotic prison stint and a Power Stone-enclosing orb filled in the spaces between wonderful bits of dialogue and grumpiness from my dude, Rocket Raccoon. As well, there are still plenty of Groot, Gamora, and Drax the Destroyer devotees out there, so before you watch the group’s last ride together, revisit their first outing.

9. The Diplomat (Netflix series)

People are so happy that Keri Russell is back on TV that this show is still kicking around on this list. She’s also back in the realm of intrigue, albeit with a less tension-packed performance than we saw in The Americans. However, her two roles are similar enough, given that there’s a challenging marriage at stake while an all-encompassing career reigns supreme. This series also appeals as the binge-friendly, meat-and-potatoes, The Night Agent agent type of content, so keep looking for similar series (and a never ending stream of espionage) to come, in addition to second installments of both shows.

8. Love & Death (HBO Max series)

David E. Kelley and Nicole Kidman proceeded with executive producing this second take on the Candy Montgomery story, so one can rest assure that they saw value in taking a different path to telling the story of the ax-murdering suburban adulterer. In the end, this show won’t be on the the top true-crime dramatizations in history, but it does shine some intriguing light on the maneuverings of Candy and the more-than-willing role that Jesse Plemons’ character played in this entire mess. After WandaVision as well, Elizabeth Olsen is probably too good at playing these picture-perfect-from-the-outside women who are long past being on the verge.

7. Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (STX film streaming on VOD and Amazon Prime)

Jake Gyllenhall (in everything by now) and Antony Starr (The Boys, obviously) are part of this ensemble cast, in which Gyllenhaal’s U.S. Army sergeant character, John Kinley, goes to great lengths to repay the goodwill of Ahmed (Dar Salim), an Afghan interpreter who helped him escape an ambush during the war in Afghanistan. After the U.S. gives Ahmed the shaft, Kinley must race against time to find his old friend before the Taliban hops in line.

6. Silo (Apple TV+ series)

After you finish preparing for Justified: City Primeval by watching Raylan Givens in the “Long in the Tooth” essential episode, you might want to dive a few hundred stories underground for Graham Yost’s currently running show. The story follows the first book within Hugh Howey’s Wool omnibus and follows Rebecca Ferguson’s hard-as-nails engineer, Juliette, as she moves from saving a good chunk of humanity to scrutinizing a murder mystery. The series co-stars Common’s leather jacket along with Rashida Jones, David Oyelowo, Tim Robbins, and Harriet Walter.

5. Evil Dead Rise (New Line Cinema film streaming on VOD and Amazon Prime)

Although this installment cannot possibly compare to the groovy gore of yesteryear (or even the Jane Levy film), the streaming audience seemingly cannot get enough of watching this movie at home. And that’s wild because horror was once thought to be optimally watched in a crowded theater while gripping the seat handles and streaming along with one’s surroundings. Hey, it works at home, too, so draw those curtains and pour all the butter on your popcorn before making sure that you cannot sleep tonight.

4. Barry (HBO series streaming on HBO Max)

The charm of Anthony Kerrigan’s Noho Hank cannot be beat, even if this final season is a bleak affair, which only further highlights the genius of Bill Hader. Soon enough, this will be one of many shows to ride off into the sunset this year, but get in to see the final act of this assassin-turned-actor and thank the TV gods that we have been able to witness this unique combination of humor and darkness.

3. Succession (HBO series streaming on HBO Max)

The Swede bleeds himself, as we already learned, and it sure sounds like he was pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes because he’s not even a real coder. Yikes. Shiv will need to maneuver hard to recover from nearly hopping onto that ship, along with that horrible scorpion-snake fight. As always, Brian Grubb keeps us updated with his weekly Report Card, and we only have a few episodes left, so hopefully, the Roy family will make them count.

2. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix series)

This spinoff might be even more enjoyable than the main Bridgerton series. This spinoff travels back in time to give us an origin story for the title character, who is portrayed by India Amarteifio, and the show deftly hops between the past and the “present”-day period (which still stars Golda Rosheuvel) of the principal series. Corey Mylchreest portrays the younger King George, and although sadness is in the cards for this couple, their initial love story did produce 15 children. Can’t Charlotte get one royal grandbaby? C’mon. Regardless, the couple falls in deep, unyielding love despite the arranged nature of their marriage, and they went through challenges, alright.

1. Air (Amazon Prime Video movie)

Ben Affleck directs this film and also appears as Nike co-founder Phil Knight. He is joined by Matt Damon and Jason Bateman, as Nike execs Sonny Vaccaro and Rob Strasser, respectively. Their mission: to sign Michael Jordan to a shoe deal that will be lucrative for all involved. We never do get to see Jordan, but Viola Davis portrays his mother, and it’s always a joy to see lifelong BFFs (but non-compatible roommates) Affleck and Damon onscreen together again. The film also stars Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Chris Tucker, Gustaf Skarsgård, and Matthew Maher.

The Phoenix Suns are making a major change in the aftermath of their defeat in the Western Conference Semifinals. According to multiple media reports, the team has made the decision to part ways with head coach Monty Williams, marking the end of a tenure that saw Phoenix make the NBA Finals in 2021 but fail to reach those highs again in each of the last two seasons.

The decision to fire Williams comes on the heels of a second consecutive blowout home loss in the conference semis to end their season. Last year, as the top seed in the Western Conference, Phoenix was obliterated by the Dallas Mavericks in Game 7 at Footprint Center. While they were the lower seed this time around and were not expected to win the series, the Suns got blown out by the No. 1 seed Denver Nuggets, 125-100, on Thursday night.

Phoenix is one of the most interesting jobs in the league, as a new coach will need to step in and figure out how to make a team work around Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. Phoenix reportedly will look in to moving Chris Paul and Deandre Ayton this summer, as the team needs to try to rebuild the depth that it lost when it pulled off a major move for Durant at the trade deadline this past season.

The 2022 NBA Coach of the Year, Williams accrued a 194-115 record in four years as the head coach of the Suns.

In the aftermath of the Los Angeles Lakers taking down the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs, LeBron James took a few not so subtle shots at Dillon Brooks on social media. While he didn’t have as prominent of an antagonist during the Lakers’ Western Conference Semifinal series against the Golden State Warriors, he still seems like he used social media as a way to clap back at someone.

One of the big talking points in the series was the free throw disparity, with Warriors coach Steve Kerr alleging that the Lakers flopped. After James responded by saying they don’t do that, JaMychal Green posted the following on his Instagram Story:

James never responded to this while the series was ongoing, but one day after the Lakers won Game 6 to eliminate the Warriors and make the Western Conference Finals, he posted the following on Instagram, which very well might have included a response to Green.

The song is “Tuscan Leather” by Drake, and includes the lyric “bench players talkin’ like starters, I hate it.” While it’s by no means as explicit of a response to someone as his posts about Brooks last round, we’re willing to bet LeBron was just as glad he got to post this one.