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If ever there were two politicians who most definitely deserved each other, it might be Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz. So it should hardly be a surprise that Trump, who has long championed Gaetz and his political aspirations — no matter how poorly the 40-year old Florida congressman has behaved — has officially endorsed the incumbent to retain his political position.

As Forbes reports, Trump made his support of Gaetz officially known on Saturday on the former president’s social media platform, Truth Social. As Brian Bushard wrote:

Trump, who has supported Gaetz in the past, praised the Republican incumbent ahead of Tuesday’s primary as a “champion of our MAGA agenda” who works “tirelessly” to “drain the swamp,” defend the Second Amendment, stand up to the “woke mob,” and “fight the never-ending witch hunts from the radical left.”

This imagined war with the “woke mob” and “radical left” is just one of the many things Trump and Gaetz have in common. Being accused of sexual predation is yet another.

Trump, who just made history by becoming the first president (former or sitting) to have his private home raided by the FBI, has a decades-long history of being accused of sexual misconduct, which range from harassment to rape. In 1989, Trump’s ex-wife Ivana — who he may or may not have buried at his New Jersey golf course, but most definitely attempted to fundraise while announcing her passing — accused The Donald of rape, then later recanted her statement. Gaetz, meanwhile, is currently embroiled in a scandal involving the sex trafficking of a 17-year old.

Mark Lombardo, another Republican who is facing off against Gaetz in tomorrow’s Florida primaries, has made the charges lodged against his opponent a key part of his campaign strategy. As Forbes reports, in a recent ad, Lombardo labeled Gaetz a “liar who doesn’t respect women,” “generates falsehoods” and “promotes conspiracy theories.” He also suggested that it was Gaetz who ratted Trump out to the FBI.

Gaetz’s response? To accuse Lombardo of having financial ties to liberals — which is apparently as unforgivable a sin in MAGA World.

(Via Forbes)

Vladimir Putin faced another devastating setback to his plan to invade and conquer Ukraine over the weekend when the daughter of his key war advisors was killed by a car bomb.

Darya Dugina was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a leader of Russia’s far-right who was commonly known as “Putin’s Brain.” Dugin holds such a strong influence over Putin’s fascist views that many Russians blame him for the president’s decision to invade their democratic neighbor. Dugina was a pro-Kremlin TV pundit who was outspoken in her support of the Ukraine invasion but she likely wasn’t the target of the car bombing. Both Dugin and his daughter attend a pro-traditionalist Russia festival where authorities believed the bomb was planted on Dugina’s car. Dugin was supposed to ride with his daughter but switched vehicles at the last minute. As the Daily Beast explains, he was following her car for 10 minutes before the bomb exploded and most of the videos and photos circulating social media at the moment show Dugin standing shocked at the scene while his daughter’s car catches fire.

Naturally, plenty of pro-Kremlin supporters are trying to frame this as an assassination attempt by Ukraine but new reports coming from Russia suggest the culprit of the attack might reside closer to home. In fact, in more bad news for Putin, there’s speculation that the bombing was the work of his own security agents who are sick of the despot’s obsession with Ukraine and see him as weak after reports that his health is failing.

“The blowing up of the car of the famous Russian fascist and ideologist of the Putin regime, Alexander Dugin, was organized, it seems, by the Russian security services,” historian Yuri Felshtinsky told The Daily Beast. “The Ukrainian special services, involved in a deadly battle with the aggressor on the territory of Ukraine, are unlikely to be able to send their officers to Moscow to organize terrorist attacks there.”

Apparently, plenty within Russia despise Dugin, calling him “Putin’s Rasputin” and blaming him for the six-month-long standoff with Ukraine — one that’s cost the country thousands of lives including those of some of its top military generals. There’s precedent for this too, according to Felshtinsky, who referenced the apartment building bombings of the late 90s that lead to Russia’s war with Chechnya and Putin’s rise to power.

Whether Putin ordered the hit or not, those within his inner circle are now worried they might be next, especially considering threats issued by Russian Resistance movements like National Republican Army. In other words, things are looking bleak for Putin and his cronies the longer this war with Ukraine goes on.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Fox Nation is getting into the (lady) movie business. After realizing that movies are the “unsung heroes” of streaming services, the right-wing platform is rolling out four films geared towards female Fox News fans. Think Lifetime movies, but everyone’s armed to the teeth, probably. According to a Fox Nation spokesperson, the filmmaking idea was sparked after the success of Duck Family Treasure, which for the record, isn’t a movie, but man, if it didn’t boost streaming views amongst women, somehow.

The first project to capitalize on this new strategy is an adaptation of the Nancy Neigle novel, The Shell Collector, which will apparently try to connect with the same audiences who watched the cast of Duck Dynasty look for buried treasure in real life. (No lie, that’s the premise of the show.) Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“I think first and foremost, we saw the success of film, and it fits into the whole idea of expanding into a lifestyle and entertainment service,” Klarman says, adding that by having direct control over the development process Fox can pick individual projects in genres that best fit with their strategy. And that strategy, at least with films, is about reaching female viewers.

“These films are definitely targeting the female Fox News fan, and we know that this is the kind of title [The Shell Collector] that will absolutely attract her, and creating unique originals that she can’t get anywhere else is certainly part of the strategy to drive growth,” Klarman says.

Will the same people who watched the Duck Dynasty family hunt for treasure actually watch a feature-length movie based on a book? Who knows? But hey, if that’s what Fox Nation says female Fox News viewers want, it’s their money.

The Shell Collector premieres September 1 on Fox Nation.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Now that Megan Thee Stallion has released her second album, Traumazine, she argues she should be done with her record deal, according to new legal filings in her lawsuit against 1501 Certified Entertainment reported by Rolling Stone. Not only that, but she’s now also demanding $1 million in damages from the label after previously only asking for non-monetary relief.

Megan initially sued the label in February, asking the court to grant her a release from her contract with 1501, arguing that her 2021 release Something For Thee Hotties should count as her fourth obligated album. The label later countersued on the grounds that the compilation project was not made up of original recordings and couldn’t be considered an album under the terms of the contract. For what it’s worth, she’s now released seven projects under 1501 including her breakout EP Tina Snow and her official debut album Good News.

Meg’s amended suit maintains that 1501 has not paid her share of royalties from her music. Furthermore, she’s also accusing the label of leaking Traumazine, forcing her to release the album early. She says she’s hired forensic investigators to get to the bottom of the leak. Meanwhile, 1501 founder Carl Crawford has asserted his own view that Megan has yet to share percentages of profits from touring and merchandise, which he says their contract entitles him to.

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

For MyPillow Man Mike Lindell, a “moment” lasts approximately 48 hours. Over the weekend, the unhinged pillow magnate hosted the Moment of Truth Summit, which he promoted as an “historical” two-day event where no conspiracy theory was too bonkers to share (no, Lindell didn’t say that last part). Among the many planned events, was something called “The Trial of the Machines,” where Lindell presumably argued with a bunch of inanimate objects that could not respond to his inanity.

While it was Lindell who did most of the talking, he also welcomed plenty of MAGA ride-or-dies to the stage, including Donald Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, who claimed it was God who wanted to see her overturn a totally fair election in Trump’s favor and upend democracy as we know it; Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who doesn’t serve on any committees, so really had nothing better to do; and Steve Bannon, who hosted two special episodes of his podcast, The War Room, from the event.

While Bannon was consistently positive about the event and what it would reveal (spoiler: it didn’t reveal anything), even his guests couldn’t help but notice that they were surrounded by a truly, well, unique group of people. At one point, Liz Harrington — Trump’s official spokesperson — sat down with Bannon and commented on the crowd that had gathered.

“You can tell they’re innervated by what they’re finding and that they know they’re having an impact,” Bannon said of the attendees, while Harrington nodded in agreement. Then, in what was presumably meant to be a compliment, marveled at how “everyone’s from all these different walks of life, yet — I was telling someone last night, it’s almost like The Island of Misfit Toys.” (To save face, she noted that she included herself in that descriptor.)

As for the rest of the Summit, it seemed to be as action-packed as Lindell had promised:

Even with HBO Max crashing right out of the gate, House of the Dragon still managed to bring in record-breaking numbers and claim the throne as the “strongest digital premiere performance of any HBO episode.” The Game of Thrones prequel series also managed to take out Stranger Things 4, which had been dominating streaming (and music) charts for almost the entire summer.

According to new numbers from Samba, the House of the Dragon premiere brought in 2.6 million households during its first six hours. Stranger Things 4: Volume One only brought 1.2 million for its first day, which means the HBO series more than doubled the haul of the Hawkins crew during its debut. Via Deadline:

Ashwin Navin, Co-Founder & CEO, Samba TV beamed, “HBO has once again tapped into the magic of Game of Thrones with its spinoff series, House of the Dragon. Diehard GoT fans have been eagerly anticipating more from the franchise and they turned out in force for House of the Dragon, with the HBO program generating the biggest single day premium cable or streaming viewership premiere in 2022. More than doubling initial same-day viewership of Netflix’s Season 4 premiere of Stranger Things, the Game of Thrones prequel recaptured the fire of HBO’s original masterpiece in a big way.”

Of course, the big question is whether House of the Dragon can match the same momentum as Stranger Things 4, which picked up even more steam for its Volume Two premiere.

“Just as Stranger Things’ most recent Season 4, Volume Two drop surpassed its Volume One audience, HBO must look to innovative marketing that drives incremental audience growth to break through today’s saturated content marketplace,” Navin said.

Considering House of the Dragon lit up an entire apartment building three years after Game of Thrones went off the air, and quite disastrously some might say, it’s probably a safe bet that the show will continue to pick up speed with audiences. Unless something goes way south like one of the dragons starts talking about the power of a good story. In that case, run.

(Via Deadline)

Nicki Minaj’s latest single, “Super Freaky Girl” has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making history along the way. While women in hip-hop have made a resurgence on the chart in the last couple of years, “Super Freaky Girl” is now the first song by a solo female rap act to debut at the top of the chart since 1998 when Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” was released in limited quantities making the song eligible to appear on the chart after initially being released as a radio-only single two months earlier.

Meanwhile, Nicki helped push her own hit to the top of the charts by teasing it on Instagram a month before its release, then taking a fan poll when the title needed to be changed for copyright reasons. Finally, after the single’s release on August 12, she followed up less than a week later with the “Roman Remix” of the song, which added another verse, and juiced its streams at the 11th hour to get her all the way over the hill (and past Harry Styles, whose single “As It Was” held onto the top spot for 10 weeks prior).

“Super Freaky Girl” is now Nicki’s third No. 1 single after she cracked the seal with Doja Cat on “Say So” in 2020, then followed up with Tekashi 69 and “Trollz” later that year.

It’s been increasingly common for certain movies to get minor edits for clarity in other countries, and sometimes it’s a good thing, but the latest change in Minions: The Rise Of Gru took it a bit too far.

At the end of the family-friendly yellow monster movie (uh, spoilers), Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) and Wild Knuckles (voiced by none other than Alan Arkin) successfully avoid being captured by authorities by faking his death after robbing a bank and stealing the Mona Lisa, naturally. But that’s not how it ends in the international version, according to Reuters.

In China, the film added an addendum in which Wild Knuckles was actually caught and spent 20 years in jail, showing that no bad deed goes unpunished! The subtitles then suggested that Gru ended up being a good guy who raises a family instead of turning to crime.

Obviously, this doesn’t entirely align with the rest of the series, which portrays Gru as an evil guy with a ton of yellow minions following him everywhere, doing evil things. But he does have three cute daughters!

This isn’t the first time a movie has been altered for overseas audiences: earlier this year, Pixar’s Lightyear was banned in numerous countries because of its same-sex kiss. Unfortunately, it happens in America, too! The movie still shattered box office records and brought Gen Z to the movie theaters, so it seems like the little yellow guys will be okay.

Neil Gaiman fans should be peachy-keen pleased. We’ve received an ongoing The Sandman Audible production for the past few years, and now, the first season of the long-awaited Netflix show has turned out to be a streaming hit. The entire first batch of episodes is freaking gorgeous from both substantive and aesthetic viewpoints, and “The Sound Of Her Wings” turned out to be the most beautiful episode of TV so far this year.

The show’s also been sitting atop the Netflix Top 10 charts for over two weeks, and to celebrate, Gaiman announced a bonus episode that features a live-action “Calliope” installment, which is one of the most telling and hard-hitting issues (this is where I chuckle at how Marc Maron admitted that he used to view the comic as “journalism” during a drug-induced era) of the entire The Sandman comic. Did I mention that the show’s a worldwide streaming hit? As of late last week, a Netflix press release revealed that the show accrued “196.98 Million hours viewed since its debut” and sat atop 93 country charts. That includes Denmark, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, and France.

Will we get a second season though? Maybe, and the official explanation from Neil Gaiman is pretty simple: The Sandman costs a lot of money, and Netflix (which isn’t as able to pour dollars into shows at the moment) isn’t ready to shell that out yet. “Because Sandman is a really expensive show,” Gaiman revealed. “And for Netflix to release the money to let us make another season we have to perform incredibly well. So yes, we’ve been the top show in the world for the last two weeks. That still may not be enough.”

Binge watching appears to help the cause, as Neil seems to suggest.

So there you have it: Netflix is looking at the binging numbers, and those hours add up. The Verge previously reported that completion rate matters a lot when it comes to renewal, so if The Sandman fans thought that parceling out episodes each week was a good strategy for renewal, well, that’s not the case. They might as well binge it all and watch it again (I highly recommend this tactic).

Speaking of fans, horror author Joe Hill (who knows quite a bit about seeing his work on the streaming screens) urged Gaiman devotees to heed the call. “[I]f you were thinking of giving #Sandman a try, don’t wait,” he tweeted. “To use a horrid industry term, engagement matters, especially immediate, overwhelming engagement. We can have 5 – 7 seasons of this, but only if you show Netflix you want it.”

The Sandman‘s full first season (with bonus episode) is currently streaming on Netflix.

You think sitting on a chair made of swords is tough? Try being on social media. Emily Carey, the 19-year-old actress who plays the younger version of Alicent Hightower on HBO’s House of the Dragon, quit Twitter after she got tired of hearing from toxic so-called “fans” over an innocuous comment she made at a recent convention.

“There were some gaps that we had to fill, so to figure it all out I sort of started journaling, and with the help of [co-showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik], I managed to come up with some form of backstory, and it proved to be very useful,” she said about playing the Hand’s daughter. “I’ve never had the freedom to create a whole human being like this before. It was so much fun being able to go so in depth with her.”

This, apparently, upset the worst A Song of Ice and Fire purists who were mad that Carey came up with her own backstory for her character, instead of only relying on George R.R. Martin’s original text. The “loud” backlash led the actress to bail on Twitter.

“I love social media. I’m 19, so I’m all on social media, and I’ve been on social media since I was a kid because I’ve worked since I was a kid so I’m very conscious of things… Any hate that comes in, it’s just… It’s a person behind a screen. You just have to move on from it,” Carey told news.com.au. “But I will say I did delete Twitter [after Comic-Con] because it’s just so loud. Even when it’s good, there’s so many and it’s so loud.” She loves the “buzz” of Twitter, “but sometimes it can be overwhelming.”

Here’s my advice for what we should do to Twitter:

This applies to a lot of social media, actually. Something to think about it.

(Via news.com.au)