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In the summer of 2021, Rita Ora, now-husband Taika Waititi, and Tessa Thompson were seen getting cozy together, so much so that rumors the three were a “throuple” quickly proliferated. In the months after that happened, Waititi and Thompson shared their perspectives, and now so too has Ora.

In a new GQ interview, Ora explained:

“I just chose to not acknowledge that because it’s ridiculous. I think when some things are so absurd, and it’s hard to fathom any sense of it, you just have to ignore it. I’ve taken that approach for a lot of things, because you don’t want to put energy towards something that’s nonexistent. It’s like trying to explain something that didn’t happen means you’re feeding into nothing.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve had a lot of drinks and everyone’s your best friend? And then the next day you’re like, ‘I was talking to this person in the smoking area for four hours and I’ve got no idea who they are?’ Literally — that [photo] was just a bunch of friends having a good time. They [Waititi and Thompson] had a crazy schedule and everyone was letting loose. I love that. Each to their own.

The good news though, is that when I was on Twitter talking to my fans, all of my incredible LGBTQIA+ fan bases were like, actually — whether this is true or not — I’m so inspired that this is being normalized publicly. That made me really happy. You don’t know who it’s touching.”

Meanwhile, back in 2021, Waititi responded when asked if the hubbub bothered him, “Not really. I think in the world of the internet, everything goes away pretty quick. And also, ‘Is it that big a deal?’ No, not really. I was doing nothing wrong. It’s fine.” Months later, Thompson said, “This idea that we were caught in some private salacious moment is frankly just untrue. If you look at those images, nowhere are our lips touching. Those are just my friends. They remain my friends, they were just my friends that day, and they continue to be.”

Find the full interview here.

The 95th annual Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 12th, and we’ve actually got a host. Jimmy Kimmel will return to do those (dubious) honors on ABC, and movies continue to be a strange realm these days. Tom Cruise and James Cameron very well may have saved the box office with Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way Of Water, and the latter looks to win some technical awards with big questions remaining for the former film. Maverick looks to be a lock for a Best Picture nomination, but will Tom score a Best Actor nomination? He’s been nominated thrice before and never taken home that gold, and given his dedication to resurrecting trips to the theater, one would think that this could be his year. We’ll find out soon if that’s the case.

Elsewhere, the Banshees of Inisherin could bring us more charming Colin Ferrell to the awards stage, and Cate Blanchett will likely be recognized for her Tár performance. More Austin Butler accolades for his Elvis voice could be on the way, and of course, people will be attempting not to mention The Slap.

Here are your 2023 Oscar nominations:

Best Picture

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett, Tar
Ana de Armas, Blonde
Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Actor

Austin Butler
Colin Farrell
Brendan Fraser
Paul Mescal
Bill Nighy

Best Supporting Actress

Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Hong Chau, The Whale
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Supporting Actor

Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway
Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Costume Design

Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
Everything Everywhere
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Best Sound

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Batman
Elvis
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Original Score

All Quiet on the Western Front
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans

Best Adapted Screenplay

All Quiet on the Western Front
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Living
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking

Best Original Screenplay

The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Tár
Triangle of Sadness

Best Animated Feature

An Irish Goodbye
Ivalu
Le Pupille
Night Ride
The Red Suitcase

Best Animated Short

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
My Year of Dicks
An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
The Whale

Best International Feature Film

Argentina, Argentina, 1985
Belgium, Close
Germany, All Quiet on the Western Front
Ireland, The Quiet Girl
Poland, EO

Production Design

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans

Best Cinematography

All Quiet on the Western Front
Bardo
Elvis
Empire of Light
Tár

Best Visual Effects

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Foreve
Top Gun: Maverick

Best Director

Best Documentary

Best Live Action Short

Best Film Editing

Live Action Short Film

Documentary Short Subject

Best Original Song

Beyoncé hasn’t been much of a live performer in recent years, but she recently took the stage for the first time in a few years for a private performance in Dubai (for which she was reportedly paid $24 million). Naturally, this has fans in other parts of the world wondering if and when they’ll get to see Beyoncé perform in their neighborhood. Well, it looks like a tour in support of Beyoncé’s 2022 album Renaissance is indeed happening.

According to a report from TMZ, Beyoncé’s father Mathew Knowles said his daughter is currently planning a Renaissance tour and it will be announced when the time is right.

He also addressed the backlash Beyoncé has received for the performance, due to United Arab Emirates’ anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Knowles spoke about his daughter’s power to bring people together and that the show had a diverse crowd. He added she wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt anybody, and that there was a mutual respect between her and the country.

Lizzo didn’t make it to the Dubai performance, but the noted Beyhive member did catch a livestream of the performance, which was her 11th time seeing Beyoncé live.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There is no shortage of dire news about the state of modern recycling. Most recently, this NPR article shared the jaw-dropping statistic that about 5% of all plastics produced get recycled, meaning the rest of it ends up in landfills. While the underlying concerns here are sound, I worry that the public narrative around recycling has gotten so pessimistic that it will make people give up on it entirely instead of seeing the opportunities to improve it. What if instead of focusing on what isn’t working, we looked at these news stories as an invitation to do better?

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This question isn’t rhetorical for me; it’s been the motivation behind how I’ve spent the past five years of my life. It started when my son Owen asked me how we could recycle our dead batteries where we live in Seattle. After making a few phone calls and realizing how complicated it was, we made it a weekend project to pick up our neighbor’s batteries along with other hard-to-recycle items.This novel approach of having your hard-to-recycle stuff “carpool” with your neighbors quickly caught on in Seattle. Our rapidly growing community was looking at their junk drawers with new eyes, felt inspired to be part of something bigger, and kept asking what else we could pick up.

This enthusiasm turned my family’s passion project into Ridwell, a company whose mission it is to make it easy to deal with hard-to-recycle materials like plastics, light bulbs, batteries, & more. We pick up where curbside recyclers leave off, providing our members in six states with a way to recycle and reuse materials right from their doorsteps. In 2022 alone, our community kept more than one million pounds of hard-to-recycle plastic film out of landfills. To date, we’ve kept more than ten million pounds of hard-to-recycle materials from going to waste. All of this impact started with a simple, optimistic reframe. Instead of dwelling on what our curbside service couldn’t take, we instead asked ourselves how we could help.

It’s been a lot of work to be sure, but what’s kept me motivated on this journey has been learning about all of the exceptional efforts happening elsewhere to make recycling work better for everyone. Our elected officials are creating new policies that powerfully shift market incentives, like Maine’s law that makes companies pay for their own recycling or California’s law that creates more demand for recycled plastic. Engineers are developing new ways to recycle tricky plastics, while citizens across the country are raising awareness about the need for government and corporations to do more.

The longer I’ve worked in the recycling space, the more I’ve found allies and collaborators who are finding surprising uses for materials that used to be dismissed as trash. Trex has pioneered a method of turning soft plastics like grocery bags into high-performance decking for homes. Companies like ByFusion and Arqlite are turning multilayer plastic packaging once considered unrecyclable into building materials and hydroponics gravel. The types of innovations we’ll need to solve our recycling crisis are all around us; we just need to keep connecting these pockets of innovation into a more holistic system of reuse and recycling.

So while the news cycle around recycling can often feel overwhelming, I always encourage people to use these grim statistics as motivation to lean into the challenge and look for solutions. For some people, that’s calling their legislators, and for others, it’s coming up with new packaging that has a smaller environmental footprint. For those of us at Ridwell, it’s about how we can help make it easy for households to keep hard-to-recycle materials out of the landfill. As the past decade has shown us, the overwhelming “Pacman-shaped” chunk of the pie chart often shows us where the most impactful innovations must come from and where the next wave of businesses must focus. Yes, we are at an inflection point when it comes to addressing the problems posed by excessive waste in this country. To be honest, I’ve never felt more optimistic that we have what it takes to address this problem, together.

Ryan Metzger is a guest contributor to Upworthy and founder and CEO of Ridwell

The singles from Runnner’s forthcoming album Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out have been strong whirlwinds of feeling. “NYE” found Noah Weinman asking, “Am I choosing what’s important?”

“Bike Again” dove into melancholy confessions: “It’s so embarrassing / How much I want to call you now.”

“Runnning In Place At The Edge Of The Map” is the newest single out now. Defeatedly, Weinman contemplates the present by comparing it to the past: “Was I better then: / When I sang about my dog with my friends? / Can I understand what’s curving away from my hands?” The twangy guitars are magnetic, and the vocals are poignant — it’s a visceral song.

“I wrote this song about feeling frustrated in my communication and video games,” he said in a statement. “I’d work myself into a kind of mute, catatonic state, and the more I tried to think through it, the more stuck I felt. The only way I could picture it was like when your character in some open-world game is just running into that invisible wall over and over again.”

Listen to “Runnning In Place At The Edge Of The Map” above.

Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out is out 2/17 via Run For Cover Records. Pre-order it here.

Meek Mill is the unintended comedic gold mind that keeps on giving. Whether he is promoting new music or speaking with a friend on FaceTime as they recover in the hospital, the rapper just can’t help but put a smile on someone’s face. This time fellow rapper JID is caught up in the Philadelphia native’s humor storm.

As the “Dope” rapper was brushing up on his lyrical skills, he came across an old picture Meek had uploaded to Instagram. The image innocently features Meek’s leg dipped into a swimming pool. However, a lap full of plain french fries are strangely scattered on top of his soaked swimming trunks. Inspired by the image, JID took to Twitter to share a throwaway freestyle line.

In a now-deleted tweet, JID wrote, “tryna get inside ya thighs like Meek Mill’s fries.”

Although the picture was originally uploaded back in May 2020, JID revealed he had no clue it existed until yesterday (January 22), writing, “I just saw this for the first time today.”

Meek hasn’t responded to JID’s bar but based on his past acceptance of being the king of awkward memes, he is sure to brush it off.

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

Donald Trump may not be able to win more than one presidential election (so far), but at least he’s great at golf. Or so he says. Some have disputed his claims of mighty golfing prowess (and the people he gets money from to keep them going), and what went down during a tournament at one of his own courses only it that much fishier.

Over the weekend, the former president nabbed the gold medal at the Senior Club championship at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach over the weekend. Good for him! The big guy sure could use a win these days. It was a short tournament, only two days long. The thing is, he only made half of it.

On Saturday, instead of being down in Florida near the resort in which he now lives, Trump was making headlines some 600 miles away in Fayetteville, North Carolina. There he attended the memorial service for Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway, one half of the MAGA cheerleaders Diamond and Silk. Diamond recently passed away suddenly. Trump honored her with a speech in which he admitted he had no idea who her sister, Rochelle “Silk” Richardson, was.

Rather than insulting the dearly departed’s sister — and talking about himself, of course — Trump could have been at his own course, fighting to win a championship. He did anyway. But if you thought he was able to beat everyone in half the time, you’re mistaken. As per The Daily Mail, he’s reported to have told members that he played a killer game on Thursday, and that counted for the championship.

The Daily Beast asked his campaign spokesperson to explain the discrepancy, but they dodged the question, responding, “In addition to being an excellent golfer, President Trump is an even better human being. He was honored to be in North Carolina on Saturday to celebrate the life of Diamond, a remarkable individual whose legacy will continue to live on.”

So to recap: The presumptive presidential nominee for the Republican party spent the weekend: a) making things awkward at a memorial and b) rewriting the rules of a golf tournament so that he won. And they say he’ll have trouble winning back South Carolina.

(Via The Daily Mail and The Daily Beast)

Move over, Elton John. Apparently, you’re not the only legacy act looking to bow out of the music industry with a farewell performance documentary. Pioneer hip-hop group Run-DMC is also looking to hang up their famous Adidas Superstars. The news comes just months after the 20th anniversary of the group’s late DJ, Master Jay’s tragic murder.

In a recent interview with Rock The Bells, emcees Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons spoke about the discussion to retire the group and the next steps.

McDaniels told the outlet, “People got understand this — is Dave Grohl still running around trying to be Nirvana? Is Sting still running around trying to be The Police? Are Paul and Ringo running around trying to be The Beatles? There’s enough life left for both of us. We can’t be Runcan’tC. without Jay.”

Although the group has successfully managed their appearances, performances, and collaborative opportunities as a duo, its core was certainly their DJ, Jam Master Jay. But the pair plans on putting down their Kangos with a larger-than-life final show.

McDaniels spoke out the plans stating, “The final show that we are ever going to do is going to be at Madison Square Garden in April. It’s going to be the last episode of the documentary we’re doing. ‘Cause it’s time for Run to go be Paul McCartney and me to be John Lennon. We done did what we could do. The show is going to be like ‘The Last Waltz’ by The Band.”

Fans can expect a long list of guest appearances, including Ice-T and Wu-Tang. According to the group, those who aren’t able to attend the show live the group will be filming the show with the intention of selling the rights to “Netflix or to the highest bidder.”

The official concert date has not yet been released.

It was 16 years ago this summer that some viewers — a lot of viewers, judging from the number of similar anecdotes — thought their cable had suddenly cut out at the very end of the final episode of The Sopranos. It didn’t. (Although it almost concluded with a very different song.) But something similar happened to some viewers of Sunday night’s airing of Accused, the new anthology crime drama that bowed on Fox — or least most of it did.

As per Deadline, more than a dozen markets — at least 8% of the country, but maybe much higher — were in for a downer ending to the show’s maiden episode. Instead of finding out what happened to the lead character, played by Michael Chiklis, many watched as stations suddenly and prematurely cut to local commercials. Deadline breaks down what went wrong:

The stations reportedly cut to local commercial at 10:55:45 PM and returned at 10:58:06 PM. The ad break was supposed to start at 10:58:20, following the sixth and final act of the episode. Instead, it pre-empted 2.5 minutes of action when key revelations about the case were revealed, rejoining the episode for the final 14 seconds.

Some of the areas affected by the snafu were Cleveland, Sacramento, St. Louis, Indianapolis, San Diego, Greensboro, Little Rock, Lexington, Honolulu, Springfield, Ft. Smith, Monroe, and Jackson.

There’s a happy ending, of sorts: Those unfortunate souls who were left hanging — and fuming on social media — can mosey on over to Hulu and watch the entire uninterrupted episode. Also good news (for Fox at least): Accused drew in 8.4 million viewers — a record for the network for a debut. Hopefully most of those people liked the episode enough to want to see how it ended.

(Via Deadline)

Coldplay had a lot of fun on their last tour. They covered the viral “My Money Don’t Jiggle Jiggle” TikTok hit at Wembley Stadium, and on another night at that same venue they honored Olivia Newton-John with a rendition of “Summer Nights” with Natalie Imbruglia and Jacob Collier.

The band has added US dates to their previously announced Music Of The Spheres Tour to bring songs from their 2021 album to the stage again. They’ll be hitting Seattle, WA; Vancouver, BC; San Diego, CA; and Los Angeles, CA.

Check out the full dates below.

03/10 – São Paulo, BR @ Estadio do Morumbi *
03/11 – São Paulo, BR @ Estadio do Morumbi *
03/13 – São Paulo, BR @ Estadio do Morumbi *
03/14 – São Paulo, BR @ Estadio do Morumbi *
03/17 – São Paulo, BR @ Estadio do Morumbi *
03/18 – São Paulo, BR @ Estadio do Morumbi *
03/21 – Curitiba, BR @ Estadio Couto Pereira *
03/22 – Curitiba, BR @ Estadio Couto Pereira *
03/25 – Rio De Janeiro, BR @ Estadio Nilton Santos Engenhão *
03/26 – Rio De Janeiro, BR @ Estadio Nilton Santos Engenhão *
03/28 – Rio De Janeiro, BR @ Estadio Nilton Santos Engenhão *
05/17 – Coimbra, PT @ Estádio Cidade de Coimbra
05/18 – Coimbra, PT @ Estádio Cidade de Coimbra
05/20 – Coimbra, PT @ Estádio Cidade de Coimbra
05/21 – Coimbra, PT @ Estádio Cidade de Coimbra
05/24 – Barcelona, ES @ Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys
05/25 – Barcelona, ES @ Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys
05/27 – Barcelona, ES @ Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys
05/28 – Barcelona, ES @ Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys
05/31 – Manchester, UK @ Etihad Stadium
06/01 – Manchester, UK @ Etihad Stadium
06/03 – Manchester, UK @ Etihad Stadium
06/04 – Manchester, UK @ Etihad Stadium
06/06 – Cardiff, UK @ Principality Stadium
06/07 – Cardiff, UK @ Principality Stadium
06/21 – Naples, IT @ Stadio Diego Armando Maradona
06/22 – Naples, IT @ Stadio Diego Armando Maradona
06/25 – Milan, IT @ Stadio San Siro
06/26 – Milan, IT @ Stadio San Siro
06/28 – Milan, IT @ Stadio San Siro
06/29 – Milan, IT @ Stadio San Siro
07/01 – Zurich, CH @ Stadion Letzigrund
07/02 – Zurich, CH @ Stadion Letzigrund
07/05 – Copenhagen, DK @ Parken
07/06 – Copenhagen, DK @ Parken
07/08 – Gothenburg, SE @ Ullevi
07/09 – Gothenburg, SE @ Ullevi
07/11 – Gothenburg, SE @ Ullevi
07/12 – Gothenburg, SE @ Ullevi
07/15 – Amsterdam, NL @ Johan Cruijff Arena
07/16 – Amsterdam, NL @ Johan Cruijff Arena
07/18 – Amsterdam, NL @ Johan Cruijff Arena
07/19 – Amsterdam, NL @ Johan Cruijff Arena
09/20 – Seattle, WA @ Lumen Field ^
09/22 – Vancouver, BC @ BC Place ^
09/27 – San Diego, CA @ Snapdragon Stadium ^
09/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ Rose Bowl ^

* = w/ CHVRCHES
^ = w/ H.E.R. and 070 Shake

Find ticket information here.

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