GoneTrending

Charli XCX is a big-time success now, but in the early days of her music career, she was just like most other artists getting started: playing small and perhaps dirty venues for handfuls of people. While the comforts that come with success are great, there’s a part of Charli that misses the nitty-gritty of the old days, so much so that she tried to re-create them with an unusual tour request.

In an interview with BBC Music, Charli admits to trying to recapture the feeling of her early career by asking that her tour dressing rooms already be trashed by the time she got there. She said, “Five years ago, I used to request that my dressing room be trashed, like there’d just been a party in there. It was fun for about two weeks and then we were kind of just sitting in a literal mess. Now it’s definitely a lot more health-orientated backstage — Kombucha and echinacea tablets. Real rock star stuff.”

Of those fledgling times, Charli also noted, “When I was younger, I was always up for getting down and dirty. I miss the ease and the fun of those shows, for sure.”

Read more from the interview here.

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

Rapper Swae Lee has been keeping busy. From a stacked selection of features to new Rae Sremmurd music, it’s safe to say he’ll have the year on lock. But it appears soon Swae has even more exciting news in the pipeline. According to posts from his longtime girlfriend, Victoria Kristine, the two are expecting a baby.

The two celebrated the baby’s impending birth at a safari-themed celebration this past weekend, where decorations read Baby Brown, referring to Swae’s legal name, Khalif Brown.

“Our little wild one is on the way,” wrote Kristine in an Instagram caption.

Kristine later shared in her Instagram stories that Swae had gifted her a Land Rover to celebrate their little one.

Earlier this month, French Montana celebrated his Swae Lee collaboration, “Unforgettable,” going diamond. Swae also dropped a Rae Sremmurd track called “Community D*ck,” which features Flo Milli and is set to appear on the duo’s upcoming fourth album, SREMM4LIFE.

The duo’s upcoming album will also feature James Blake, as Swae revealed in an interview with GQ.

“I be in my melody stuff, and I respect bro craft so much,” said Swae of Blake. “He’s one of my favorite artists…[He’s] putting out some of the best vocals in this generation, in this decade, in this whole music industry. It’s a different style of music from Rae Sremmurd too.”

How’s your morning going? Unless the answer is “I thought there was a Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tart waiting for me in the pantry, but all that was left was an unfrosted,” a true tragedy, it’s probably going better than Donald Trump‘s. The former president has spent the last couple of hours sharing the dankest memes you’ve seen on TRUTH Social, his preferred social media platform (because he’s banned from the good ones).

Raw Story reports that Trump “amplified numerous posts from supportive accounts on his social media website, including one from the user ‘God & Country’ that showed an extreme closeup of Trump’s glowering face urging followers to possibly give up their lives — an apparent copy of a Nike ad featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick that uses the same slogan and similar graphics.” Along with the black-and-white photo, Trump wrote, “We have no other choice. We are losing America!”

Elsewhere, he called another meme — this one with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, among other Democrats, taking credit for things that liberals blame Trump for (I think?) — from user God & Country “brilliant.” Trump also praised another meme that shows Biden purportedly “destroying America” “crazy, but true,” and took credit for gas being $1.22 per gallon during his presidency. “The good old days,” he wrote, despite the fact that the “highest price during his administration was $2.96 in May 2018, and its lowest was around $1.77 in April 2020, when much of the country was locked down.”

There’s also this one, and this one, and this one about the “crime of the century” (yes, it’s about the 2020 election). All from this morning.

If these often-blurry memes didn’t originate on Facebook, it’s where they’re going to end up. Facebook: an elephant graveyard for memes.

(Via Raw Story)

With only two episodes out in the wild, HBO has officially renewed House of the Dragon for a second season. The Game of Thrones prequel series debuted to juggernaut numbers, which proved the franchise is still a massive hit with fans. In fact, HBO’s decision to renew Season 2 was rewarded just a few days later when the series’ second episode brought in even more viewers than the record-breaking premiere.

“We are beyond proud of what the entire House of the Dragon team has accomplished with season one,” Francesca Orsi, Executive VP of HBO Programming said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Our phenomenal cast and crew undertook a massive challenge and exceeded all expectations, delivering a show that has already established itself as must-see-TV.”

Set 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, House of the Dragon has already captured the same fantasy fever that made the original Game of Thrones a pop culture juggernaut that’s here to stay. Fans are absolutely loving the tales of the Targaryen family’s fiery reign and poring over intricate details that hint at Westeros’ future. The show’s second episode, The Rogue Prince, debuted to even higher numbers than the premiere and quickly blew up social media as fans went wild over watching Matt Smith’s Daemon forge an alliance with the mysterious Crabfeeder.

House of the Dragon has clearly captured the same magic of the original series, so it’s no wonder that HBO quickly pulled the trigger on preparing Season 2 to fly.

House of the Dragon airs new episode Sundays on HBO.

Like many septuagenarians, Rudy Giuliani is longing for the good ol’ days, and it’s hard to blame him. Life for the 78-year old was much easier back in the day — back when he was married to his cousin, when he was named TIME’s Person of the Year and referred to as “America’s Mayor,” and when he wasn’t the target of a criminal election fraud probe in Georgia. But the times, they are a-changin’ — and boy does Rudy know it!

On Monday, Rudy chatted with conservative talk show host Joe Pags (a clear indication that even Newsmax might be tiring of being the only network to welcome the former New York City mayor as a guest) and lamented how sensitive the world has become to what used to be perfectly acceptable behavior… like police brutality.

While discussing “how bad” it has become for police officers, Giuliani whined about how today’s police “can’t use [their] guns” and “can’t touch anybody.” Poor things. Rudy then went on to make what he likely thought was a truly astute observation and cute family story:

One of the reasons why cops are having a hard time — people go, ‘they’re not strong.’ … they’re not allowed to touch you… They can’t punch you! I had an uncle, who was the most decorated police officer… Great hero. My uncle had a knockout punch. All he had to do was blow it past you and you fell down. He was 6’4” — but you could be 6’4” and not have a knockout punch… My father was a boxer; my father taught him how to box and this guy could put you down with one punch. Nowadays… Think of the people he didn’t have to shoot because of that!

While neither punching nor shooting a suspect would also be an option, one has to imagine it might be hard to convince Rudy of that. Which is all pretty rich coming from a man who swore a light tap on the back nearly killed him.

Even Brian Cox knows that he’d never stand a chance in the face of his Succession character, Logan Roy. The show’s currently filming Season 4, and the Logan Roy notoriety follows Cox everywhere. He’s happy to chat about it, always, including his admission that filming that dick pic scene was too much fun, and of course, Roy remains the mogul and patriarch who lobs the most irresistible insults of all time, from an audience standpoint.

Cox opened up at the Edinburgh TV special, where he admitted that Logan Roy would probably insult him, too. Via Deadline, Cox made it clear that he “respects the character,” but Roy would probably have nothing to do with him, mainly because “he is the antithesis of who I am.” Cox feels as though he’s much more of an optimist, which is a sentiment that Logan Roy would probably loathe.

“I think things would get better and he doesn’t so Logan would hate me,” Cox told the festival’s full house, who undoubtedly enjoyed this followup: “He would say ‘I wish that Brian Cox would just shut the f*ck up.” So there you have it: Brian Cox knows that he’d be loathed by his most infamous character, and he further stressed that Logan Roy easily tops Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch because “he’s self made.” Cox further believes that Logan Roy’s great “curse” is that “he loves his children.” And that insight, right there, should make us even more excited after the Season 3 finale’s events. Logan Roy fully screwed his kids, and let’s hope that at least one of them throws a drink in someone’s face during the Season 4 premiere.

(Via Deadline)

At a Megan Thee Stallion concert, a fan had an idea. They decided to start recording a video on their phone and throw it onto the stage, presumably hoping Meg would notice and do something fun for the camera, leaving the fan with a unique keepsake of their favorite artist. Well, Megan saw the phone and she obliged in a big way.

Meg herself shared the video on Instagram yesterday (August 29), writing, “Somebody threw their phne on stage already recording [crying laughing emojis] I said welp [shrugging emoji].” In the clip, Megan approaches the phone and put her hands on her hips and playfully looks into the camera when she realizes what’s going on. Then, as “Savage” plays in the background, Meg stands over the phone and offers a bottom-up view of her twerking butt before smiling and grabbing the phone, then presumably returning it to its owner.

Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Megan will be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a role in She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, saying of her TV and movie ambitions, “When I look at them [Queen Latifah and Ice Cube], it inspires me to take it further than just music. I don’t feel like I’m only going to be an actress — I feel like I’m also going to be a director and I’m also going to be a producer.”

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Last Jedi is either your favorite of the Star Wars sequel films, or your least favorite. It’s hard to imagine it being anyone’s second favorite. I personally think it’s the third best Star Wars movie overall, after The Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope, and a lot of critics agree: it has a 91 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes… but only a 42 percent “Audience Score.” That’s even lower than The Rise of Skywalker, the clumsy conclusion to the Skywalker saga. The Last Jedi inspired a backlash from very online Star Wars fans who did not enjoy Luke being a crank, among other supposed misdeeds, but writer and director Rian Johnson is still proud of his vision, as he should be.

“I’m even more proud of it five years on. When I was up at bat, I really swung at the ball,” the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery filmmaker told Empire. “I think it’s impossible for any of us to approach Star Wars without thinking about it as a myth that we were raised with, and how that myth, that story, baked itself into us and affected us.” He continued:

“The ultimate intent was not to strip away – the intent was to get to the basic, fundamental power of myth. And ultimately I hope the film is an affirmation of the power of the myth of Star Wars in our lives.”

The Last Jedi has a auteur-like vision, which is not something you often get from blockbusters these days, let alone a Disney movie. Also: porgs. It’s hard to believe that anyone could hate The Last Jedi when it gave us porgs. And “let the past die…” and the throne room scene. But mostly the porgs.

(Via Empire)

Before the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards kicked off on Sunday (August 28), Variety‘s Marc Malkin was on the red carpet for interviews. As he chatted with some of the most beloved stars at this year’s VMAs, he made it a point to ask about Britney Spears and her new comeback song with Elton John, “Hold Me Closer,” getting a mixed bag of answers.

When Malkin mentioned Spears to recent Uproxx cover star Chlöe, she lit up and said, “I’m so proud of her. I love Britney and I’m so happy to see that she can be herself on her own terms.” He then asked what song he’d like to duet on with Spears and she went with “Toxic.” Malkin tried to coax Chlöe into singing a bit of the song but she playfully declined.

He also asked Latto the duet question and she answered, “We gotta do something from scratch, we gotta do something from scratch.” She added, “Brit: call me, girl. It’s nothing. I do think, some new Britney… the world needs some new Britney.”

Answering the same question, J Balvin chose “Slave 4 U” and even sang a brief snippet of it.

Måneskin and TikTok star Chris Olsen also chatted about Spears, so check out those clips below.

Consumers of American pop culture are used to see Jimmy Fallon in a particular way: Behind the Tonight Show desk, wearing a suit, and overall well put together. He sports some facial hair here and there, but for the most part, he’s consistently clean-shaven. On Sunday (August 28), though, Fallon was at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards looking decidedly different than he usually does and onlookers felt some sort of way about it.

The Tonight Show host was on hand at the VMAs to present Harry Styles the Album Of The Year award for Harry’s House, looking not as buttoned-up as always. Rather, he sported a loose white shirt and a scruffy beard. That aroused some feelings and Fallon took notice. On Instagram yesterday (August 29), Fallon shared a photo of himself from the show and screenshot of a Cosmopolitan article titled “Jimmy Fallon’s Presence At The 2022 VMAs Is Causing Thirst And Confusion On Twitter,” with the subhed, “Maybe it’s the beard?.” Fallon captioned the post, “Out here causing ‘thirst’ and ‘confusion’. That was fun, @mtv!! #vmas #maybeitsthebeard.”

Cosmopolitan had it right with their framing, as a look at Twitter reveals VMAs viewers who were surprised at the effect Fallon’s look was having on them. Check out some reactions, including comparisons to Styles, below.