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Over the last couple years, Sydney Sweeney has become one of the biggest young stars in Hollywood, becoming both a sex symbol and an acclaimed actress currently up for multiple Emmys. She’s also been vocal about how the way the industry currently operates isn’t as lucrative for actors as it once was. But with fame comes unusual, sometimes absurd levels of scrutiny. Such is the case when a lot of people on social media got up in arms over learning she has some MAGA relatives, prompting Sweeney herself to tell them to chill the heck out.

Sweeney, who hails from Spokane, Washington, visited her family for her mother’s birthday, where they threw what she called a “surprise hoedown.” She posted pictures from the gathering, with everyone in Western garb — and in one case, a “Blue Lives Matter” t-shirt.

As the photos circulated over social media, some expressed horror that Sweeney has MAGA relatives, or might even be MAGA herself. Eventually, Sweeney herself felt compelled to step in and swat down any suggestion that politics played a key part in what was for her a lovely celebration for her mom’s birthday.

“You guys this is wild. An innocent celebration for my moms milestone 60th birthday has turned into an absurd political statement, which was not the intention,” she tweeted that night. “Please stop making assumptions.” She added, “Much love to everyone [heart emoji] and Happy Birthday Mom!”

So, guess what? Lots of people who live in progressive parts of America come from less progressive parts of America. They have lots of relatives who don’t share their socio-political beliefs. They also have to see them from time to time, especially during family birthday gatherings. In any case, happy birthday to Sydney Sweeney’s mom.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Now that The Rehearsal’s six-episode run is over — with more, semi-improbably, given HBO’s troubles, en route — we can finally wrestle with the big questions. Is what creator/star Nathan Fielder did ethical? Do the randos who appeared on the show — and sometimes exposed some of their dodgiest qualities — bear some responsibility for what they allowed cameras to pick up? Is hoped-for-mommy Angela Sankovich right and it’s bad for a kid to call himself “Dr. Fart”? Whatever the case, an already thorny show just got thornier, as a bunch of its participants are now trying to make money on Cameo.

This was caught by The A.V. Club, who noticed that when you search the celebrity messaging service for “Nathan Fielder,” you don’t get Fielder himself, who’s probably still busy with that group of young TikTok dancers. But you do get Angela, who will record a birthday greeting or what-have-you for a mere $140. You can get Robbin Stone, the ultra-religious numbers fanatic who believed his roommate was possessed or at least had a demon, for a third of that, namely $46.

Elsewhere on the service, you can enlist arguably the show’s nicest participant, Kor Skeete, the bar quiz enthusiast stressing over a very minor lie, for a steal at $50. You can even get Miriam Eskenasy, the cantor and educator who pushes back at Angela’s, uh, interesting take on Judaism, only to reveal her, uh, very strong thoughts about Israel.

Like Nathan for You, The Rehearsal purposefully blurs the line separating fact from fiction, questioning who’s really exploiting who. The sudden avalanche of Rehearsal figures, even controversial ones, suddenly trying to make a couple bucks on the same place where you can get Brian Cox to swear at you for about 700 clams, only makes the whole affair more questionable and fascinating. What a show!

(Via The A.V. Club)

Danilo Gallinari left Italy’s World Cup Qualifier game against Georgia in the fourth quarter on Saturday after pulling up with a left knee injury that many, including Italy’s coach, feared would be a significant one.

Gallinari suffered the injury trying to plant his left leg to go right and avoid a defender on a fast break, but bent his knee awkwardly and immediately let the ball go and grabbed at it. While the initial fear was that he’d suffered an ACL injury, the MRI on Sunday revealed he had torn his meniscus but had suffered no damage to any of his ligaments.

While Gallinari is obviously disappointed to be out of World Cup qualifying and the upcoming EuroBasket tournament for Italy, this is, all things considered, about the best case scenario given how the injury looked. A meniscus tear is certainly not a minor injury, but the recovery time is typically shorter than an ACL, which would have very likely cost him the entire 2022-23 NBA season. The timetable for his recovery will be determined later, but the hope would be that he’s able to join the Celtics at some point in the regular season after signing with the reigning East champs this summer.

Last week, Joe Biden announced he would be making the lives of millions of Americans much better, and Republicans could not be more angry. The president unveiled a comparatively modest form of student debt forgiveness. It won’t wipe it all out, as some had hoped, but it will still help an entire generation all but crippled by their decision to pursue higher education. This made the GOP mad — mad that people keep pointing out how many of them have had their own loans forgiven; mad that the government is doing something, anything to improve the lives of citizens; mad that the Democratic Party may have locked down the millennial and Gen Z vote.

But few conservatives were mad in as creative a fashion as Lauren Boebert. The firebrand, who dropped out of high school and wound up marrying a guy who exposes himself to women and terrifies their neighbors, went on Fox News to rant and rave about graduates not drowning in debt and ever-escalating interest they’ll never be able to pay off. She was also hopping mad that Biden called the MAGA wing of the Republican Party “semi-fascists.”

“How the heck does Joe Biden call America First conservatives a threat to democracy with a straight face and a dry diaper?” she said. “He is the one who’s allowed millions to invade our southern border. He’s the one who is robbing hard-working Americans to pay for Karen’s daughter’s degree in lesbian dance theory.”

It’s the kind of outright homophobia — not even dog-whistling — that has returned to the GOP with a vengeance, and has all but killed their chances at appeasing younger, more diverse, more progressive voters. Indeed, Boebert is such a joke that her comments weren’t even seen as offensive. In fact, many thought “lesbian dance theory” sounds pretty rad.

Others just made jokes.

And some dwelled on Boebert’s hostility to education, even at the basic K-12 level.

In the meantime, summer’s almost over and universities are about to start their fall semesters, and it’s probably not too late to sign up for “Lesbian Dance Theory 101.”

Here is a thing that is usually very funny: mascots playing sports. For whatever reason, clips of adult humans in ginormous costumes trying to participate in an athletic endeavor is great, usually because it just looks extremely weird. This is made even better when those mascots are going up against children in a sport, because the kids seem to have a good time trying to, like, get buckets against them or something.

Every now and then, we get the holy grail, which is the clip of a mascot trying way too hard and something really stupid happening as a result. We got one of those clips on Saturday during halftime of an Atlanta Falcons preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Apparently, a bunch of mascots played a game against a team of children who were in their full uniforms.

This brings us to Blooper, the mascot for the Atlanta Braves. Blooper took a hand-off and took off, trying to get to the edge en route to the end zone. One brave young athlete tried to take him on, but instead, Blooper threw out the single most ferocious stiff arm I have ever seen in my entire life.

A few more kids tried to take Blooper down, all of them failed. Do not mess with Blooper.

Madden NFL 23 dropped earlier this month, giving NFL fans who like video games the opportunity to pick up the latest version of the game. More than just a game that features updated rosters and uniforms, the newest Madden game features a new gameplay system called FieldSENSE that does make this year’s edition feel a bit different in a very good way.

Having said that, this is still a Madden game, which means that the days following the release of the newest game means that a bunch of silly videos of glitches that gamers run into while they’re just trying to do a standard football thing. We might have gotten the best of the bunch for this year’s version of the game thanks to this clip. Just watch it, enjoy it, maybe crack open a drink before you dive in and really savor it.

From what I can gather, the plan here was for a fake punt on fourth-and-2 on the opponent’s side of the field, only instead of a fake punt, the game decided that it would be better for the snap to not be corralled, the ball to float like a plastic bag in the wind, and for the two teams to get locked up in a rugby scrum with one another. This might be a hot take but I do not think this would ever happen in a real NFL game.

After a tumultuous few years, Britney Spears made her grand return to music alongside Elton John with their single “Hold Me Closer.” Such an exciting moment for the “Gimme More” artist and her fans could only be boosted by more content from her, and TMZ reports that a video for the record is on the way.

The exact quote states that “a music video for ‘Hold Me Closer’ is underway in some fashion” but no date was provided from the source. Given how long Britney Spears’s fans waited for new music period, this shouldn’t cause too much of a commotion.

Spears has been on an unintended hiatus since 2016’s Glory due to her conservatorship. Glory is anchored by “Make Me” featuring G-Eazy and “Slumber Party” featuring Tinashe. While her return to the public is exciting, it doesn’t come without the usual complications as the pop star will have to miss the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards due to a scheduling conflict that will keep her in Los Angeles, according to TMZ.

As for Elton John, he shared Regimental Sgt. Zippo back in July, and Madman Across The Water the month prior. Notably, the 75-year-old also collaborated with Gorillaz and 6lack on “The Pink Phantom” in 2020.

Check out “Hold Me Closer” here.

We’re a little less than two months away from the NBA season tipping off. Before we get to that point, NBA players of European descent have a whole lot on their plates, as teams are in the midst of FIBA Basketball World Cup qualifiers right now and EuroBasket begins next week.

This led to a pretty major upset on Saturday afternoon, as the second-best team in Europe by FIBA rankings, France, traveled to Sarajevo to take on Bosnia and Herzegovina. The No. 46 team in the FIBA rankings, Bosnia and Herzegovina managed to defend their home court in a 96-90 victory. It was a matchup of two of the continent’s top centers, with Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic and recently-acquired Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert going head-to-head.

Nurkic had one heck of a night, going for 21 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals, and a block. This included one moment when he put France big man and former Boston Celtics center Vincent Poirier on a poster.

A few possessions later, Nurkic got to battle with Gobert on the block and managed to convert a jump hook right over him. Not only did this make him smile, but Nurkic decided to take things one step further by hitting Gobert with a too small celebration.

Gobert won’t have to wait long to potentially get some revenge on Nurkic. Bosnia and Herzegovina is in France’s group at EuroBasket, with the two teams slated to play one another on Sept. 6 in Germany.

There is nothing like going to a show to see one artist, and being surprised when they bring out another popular act. At Reading Festival, Bring Me the Horizon treated attendees to an appearance by none other than Ed Sheeran during their co-headlining set.

After delivering several of their scorching records at the August 27 show, namely “Can You Feel My Heart,” “Strangers,” and “Kingslayer,” the band brought out the “A Team” artist to perform their rock iteration of his 2021 pop hit “Bad Habits.” The remix to “Bad Habits” was released in February of this year, and debuted worldwide live at the 2022 BRIT Awards that same month, so the crowd erupted during this momentous occasion before Bring Me The Horizon ended their set with “Throne.”

Bring Me The Horizon is co-headlining the Reading And Leeds festival with Arctic Monkeys, and is headed to Leeds on Sunday (August 28). As for Ed Sheeran, he recently joined Papoose and Big Narstie for “Groundwork.” In early July, he joined Burna Boy on “For My Hand” from the Nigerian artist’s latest album Love, Damini. What a diverse 2022 it has been for Ed Sheeran, though he is no stranger to experimenting within all realms of music.

Check out his appearance during Bring Me The Horizon’s Reading Festival set above.

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

Latto has been very vocal about women’s rights in her music, but she isn’t afraid to step away from the booth and approach the matter in a different way. In a recent public service announcement, the “Big Energy” artist joined Planned Parenthood in an effort to advocate for abortion rights and access after the controversial Roe vs. Wade decision.

In a Youtube video, the 23-year-old passionately spoke about the state of the country as it relates to pregnant women. “We already know who’s going to be hurt the most by these ridiculous abortion bans: Black women, Brown women, the LGBTQ+ community, and communities with low incomes,” and added “Because of this country’s history of racism and discrimination, these folks already have a hard time getting the health care they need. We all deserve to be safe and it’s every person’s right to make decisions about their own bodies.”

The Columbus artist concluded her PSA with “As an artist, I want to use my platform to let these politicians know: My body is for no one to control, but me.”

Though what comes of this partnership is unclear at the moment, Latto will be recognized for her advocacy within music too at the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards when she receives the Video For Good award for her latest single “P*ssy.”

Check out Latto’s public service announcement via Planned Parenthood above.