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Rudy Giualiani is not having an easy go of things right now. On top of still dealing with the $1.3 billion lawsuit filed against him by Dominion Voting Systems, for spreading the Big Lie, he has had his license to practice law in both New York and Washington, DC. suspended. Then there are the heart problems—and who can forget the light tap on the back heard around the world? Now Rudy’s got another headache to deal with in the form of an ex-wife who is demanding more than a quarter-million dollars from her former husband to help pay for the Palm Beach, Florida house they shared — but she took in the divorce.

As Page Six reports, Judith Giuliani — who was married to the former New York City mayor for whopping 16 years, from 2013 to 2019 — filed papers against her ex with the Supreme Court of the State of New York and claims that Rudy has failed to pay $262,000 that was part of their divorce settlement, which was specifically to be used to pay for their house in Palm Beach, a housekeeper to clean said house, and private club fees. You know, just the everyday necessities.

As Page Six writes:

In a sworn affidavit, Judith accuses Rudy of owing her $140,000 for their South Lake Drive, Palm Beach, property alone. The lux condo was listed on the market in 2019 for $3.3 million. It didn’t sell, but Judith claims in the documents that Rudy “is required to pay me $200,000 regardless of whether or not the property has been sold” per the divorce agreement, and she claims that he’s only given her $60,000.

While the agreement stipulated that they each needed to pay their own dues at their country club, because Rudy neglected to pay his half of said dues, Judith had to “in order to remain in good standing with the clubs,” per court papers.

While their divorce settlement also stipulated that Rudy needs to cough up $5,000 per month for Judith to have some kind of help—be it a housekeeper or a personal assistant—she says in the lawsuit that Rudy “has made inconsistent and sporadic payments to me, including a $10,000 check in June 2021 that was returned due to insufficient funds.”

It’s hardly a secret that Rudy is facing a litany of legal issues himself. In fact, he set up his own legal defense fund in the past that was such an abject failure, it was forced to shutter. Despite his financial woes, Judith is confident Rudy’s got the dough to pay her and has demanded he hand it over immediately.

(Via Page Six)

We all know that Beyonce is borderline ubiquitous at this point. Whenever she releases new music, the world stops, and everyone from Diane Warren to Monica Lewinsky weighs in on her creative choices. Even Fox News, which normally pretends that Black women don’t even exist until they need to prop up a wannabe fascist strongman with disingenuous sock puppet theater, gets in on the action, using her as a straw woman to tsk-tsk about declining moral standards (the irony!).

So naturally, with Beyonce’s new album Renaissance out now and dominating the discourse, low-key Beyonce stans are finding all kinds of creative ways to show their excitement. In Philadelphia, NBC reporter Sheila Watko said that she “had to celebrate Bey Day,” so she crammed her morning traffic report with as many of Bey’s song titles as she could get away with turning them into a stream of cheeky, funny-bad puns. While “Formation” and “Heated” seem like low-hanging fruit, it’s pretty impressive how she sneaks in titles like “Beautiful Liar” and “Crazy In Love” — especially off the top of her head. A convenient counter keeps track; she makes it all the way to 15 before her co-anchors offer some relief, contributing a few Beyonce references of their own to complete the clip. You can check it out below.

Brad Pitt’s about to careen back into theaters in David Leitch’s Bullet Train, which co-stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who’s been seen zipping about as Quicksilver in the MCU and will soon appear as a very different Kraven the Hunter that what the world knows. That doesn’t mean that he’s physically impervious, though.

Johnson took a few knocks during the course of Leitch’s actioner, and as he told Variety‘s Marc Malkin, he had a particularly bloody day on set when he fell weak due to a “crazy mad Keto diet.” Messing with one’s blood sugar is no joke, as Johnson explained. His animated delivery in the above clip is everything, and here’s what happened:

“Because I got all scrawny and lean for this, so I basically had low blood sugar levels. We were in a fight sequence and I get drop-kicked across the room. And the one sharp bit of the corner where there wasn’t any padding took a chunk out of my hand. And I literally went wham, passed out. And then I came back and was like ‘Should we go again?’ And they were like ‘No, no, no. You gotta go get stitches at the hospital.’ So then I spent the night in the hospital.”

He lived to tell the tale, obviously, and I’m not about to bash anyone’s diet if keto works for them (big carb fan here, though), but as Aaron appears to suggest, the diet’s not the best fuel for onscreen physical combat.

Bullet Train crashes into town on August 4.

(Via Variety)

With new episodes of Beavis and Butt-head set to premiere this week after being teed up by their new movie, Beavis and Butt-head Do the Universe, creator Mike Judge has been opening up about the show’s wild prominence during the ’90s.

Originally released on MTV, the cartoon featured two teenage morons as they watched music videos and got into all kinds of mayhem out of sheer boredom and stupidity. While the show’s comedy style quickly found an audience, it also became a lightning rod for controversy thanks to Beavis’s love of fire, which had to be frantically yanked from the series. Beavis wasn’t even allowed to say the word following accusations that a five-year-old committed arson because of the cartoon.

“The show came along at a time when there wasn’t a whole lot going on in the world,” Judge told IndieWire. “Things were pretty good. The Cold War was over. Crime was starting to go down in the ‘90s. Suddenly there was this whole thing about blaming violence on television. ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ was served up perfectly as the show that defined that.”

However, Judge revealed that he wasn’t causing concern with just parents and the media. He apparently had one particular fan who did not appreciate that Beavis and Butt-head made white people look bad. Yup:

Back in the ’90s, I got a string of hate mail from this one neo-Nazi white supremacist because of the way I was portraying white people. He was accusing me of being Jewish, too. He would circle my name in articles and say things like, “Is this real name Judge-stein?” He was just a really awful dude. Every now and then these days, someone celebrates this work the wrong way, but I don’t see it as often as the reverse.

Neo-Nazi hate mail aside, Judge has been pretty happy that, as far as he can tell, Beavis and Butt-head never took off with Donald Trump supporters.

“I haven’t really seen any of the MAGA-head right-wingers celebrating these guys,” Judge said. “Beavis and Butt-Head are such losers. They’re not tearing ass with a giant truck or anything. So hopefully it doesn’t cross paths with all that.”

Beavis and Butt-head starts streaming new episodes August 4 on Paramount+.

(Via IndieWire)

It’s been an astounding 60 years since The Rolling Stones formed, so Mick Jagger has been performing live for a long time now. Even after all these years, it looks like Jagger is still having a ton of fun on stage, especially at a recent concert.

At a performance in Spain (as Daily Mail notes), as the band played “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Jagger spotted a female fan who had gone ahead and removed her top, leaving her chest exposed for all to see as she bounced around seated on top of somebody’s shoulders. Jagger took notice and decided to return the favor by lifting his own shirt up. Jagger shared a video of the fun moment on his Instagram Story.

It’s nice to see Jagger doing well, as Rolling Stones had to cancel a June concert after Jagger tested positive for COVID-19. Elsewhere, Jagger found himself in the news back in May after sharing his thoughts on Harry Styles, saying, “I mean, I used to wear a lot more eye make-up than him. Come on, I was much more androgynous. And he doesn’t have a voice like mine or move on stage like me; he just has a superficial resemblance to my younger self, which is fine — he can’t help that.”

Revisit our recent ranking of The Rolling Stones’ songs here.

A new mainline title in the Pokémon franchise is already almost here and we can’t believe it, either. Soon enough, all of us will be diving in, choosing our starter Pokémon and going on an adventure through a whole new region. Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, the latest releases, promise to be some of the biggest yet with promises of an entirely open world and some wild looking legendaries.

On Wednesday, we got a closer look at the upcoming games thanks to a Pokémon Presents showcase, which gave us some new information about Pokémon Go, the world championships, and other Pokémon spin-off games, like Pokémon Cafe. That wasn’t what everyone was waiting on, though — the stars of the showcase were obviously Scarlet and Violet, and we got a lot of fun information to break down throughout the presentation.

Legendary Rider Pokémon

Remember when legendary Pokémon were great beasts to be conquered? They were mini-boss fights that put a player’s skills and patience to the test to see if they were worthy of taking on the power of such beasts. As time has gone on, though, they’ve become less a challenge to be conquered and instead an ally on the player’s journey. In Scarlet and Violet, they’re taking on their most prominent role yet by being the player’s main form of transportation. Biking, surfing, and flying can all be accomplished with the assistance of legendary Pokémon, and that’s a little odd to see when you consider what the games used to be like. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, because what child didn’t dream of riding around the Kanto region on a Zapdos, but it’s just weird that these creatures that used to be a major challenge of the game are now a mode of transportation.

Terastal Forms

Ever singe MegaEvolutions were added to the franchise, every new mainline game has needed a new special form of some kind. There were Z-Moves, Gigantamax, and now, there’s Terastal. This new transformation for our Pokémon surrounds our allies in a shiny crystal that unsurprisingly makes them more powerful, but it can sometimes come with a type change on top of that. The showcase didn’t give away too much info about how these new crystals will impact gameplay, but it sounds like Pokémon can have multiple “Tera-Forms,” which will obviously encourage players to catch the same kind of Pokémon more than once.

New Multiplayer Features

The last couple of Pokémon games have been taking big steps forward in improving the multiplayer aspects of the game. Scarlet and Violet will be no different with each game providing new features like co-op multiplayer, where multiple players will be able to run around in the same world. Not only that, but the games will allow players to hang out with each other, creating some fun virtual get together opportunities with friends. The new big feature has to be buffed up “Tera-Raids,” where players will be able to try and capture extra powerful Tera-Form Pokémon in raid battles. Features like this are always fun because it’s going to give players more to do beyond the single player plot.

No Set Gym Path

Gyms are returning in Scarlet and Violet, but there’s a really cool twist to them that most games in the past haven’t done. These games will allow players to tackle the gyms in any order they want. Essentially every traditional Pokémon game has sent the player on a set order to explore the world, but by removing that, it’s going to make this new open world feel that much more freeing for longtime fans. This does raise the question about just how “open” these gyms are going to be. Will the game’s difficulty be based on how many badges a player has gotten, or will they have a set difficulty from the start? If it’s the latter, then most players will obviously take on the easy gyms first, which kind of defeats the purpose of letting players choose. It will be fun to see what the devs at Game Freak have decided.

Two Extra Stories

For anyone tired of the old gym format, don’t worry, because there’s supposed to be two more plot lines the player can follow along. Having multiple plots isn’t exactly new in a Pokémon game, but they’ve traditionally been interwoven together so the presentation making it a point to tell us that there are two extra plots for players to follow will hopefully mean that they’re just as fleshed out as the gym badges path that most traditional players will follow. Hopefully, these aren’t just the same three plots in most Pokémon games — Gyms, 11 year old saves the world, complete the Pokédex — and we actually get some variety.

Everything teased Wednesday sounds like an opportunity for the devs at Game Freak to take the mainline games in an entirely new direction. It’s also an opportunity to repackage what many of us are used to and call it something new, but let’s be hopeful and assume it’s the former. The franchise has been leaning towards a refresh for a while and maybe this is finally it.

[Potential spoilers for future episodes of Better Call Saul]

If you watched the latest meme-inspiring episode of Better Call Saul, “Breaking Bad,” on AMC Plus, here’s what the closed captioning for Jimmy / Saul / Gene’s call that ends with him angrily smashing the phone against the booth reads.

Saul (not doing Jimmy / Saul / Gene every time) was trying to get in touch with Kim, who has apparently left New Mexico for the swampier pastures of Florida. Did he succeed? According to a German-speaking Better Call Saul fan on Reddit, he did — and the contents of the phone call may have been revealed, too.

“The ‘inaudible’ conversation in the phone booth is actually pretty audible in the German dub. Here is what is said,” the title of the post from Redditor mcmike8 reads.

German: „Du hast keine Ahnung was ich getan, oder nicht getan habe, okay? Wieso stellst DU dich nicht, auf mich musst du keine Rücksicht nehmen, ich kann nur EINMAL gehängt werden. Okay, hör zu, Kim, wieso reden wir überhaupt darüber. Wir beide sind zu clever…

English translation: (The beginning is inaudible…but it’s mid-sentence and he is already upset about what Kim must have said): “(…) you have no idea what I did or didn’t do, okay? Why don’t YOU turn yourself in, you don’t have to be considerate of me, I can only be hanged ONCE. Okay, look, Kim, why are we even talking about this. We’re both too smart…“

Saul writer Thomas Schnauz confirmed that “we will learn the details of the phone call” in a future episode (there are only two left), but if the Reddit transcription is true, Gene and Kim are a long way from a possible reunion. This makes me… something like this.

(Via Reddit)

Last year, Kathy Griffin was “locked out” of Twitter for reposting a 2017 photo where she’s holding the bloody, decapitated head of Donald Trump. The gory pic cost the comedian and My Life on the D-List star jobs and she was “erased” from culture, but she’s continued to criticize the former-president on social media, including a recent tweet where she’s drinking from a “F*CK TRUMP” mug.

Although maybe it should read “F*CK ROGAN.”

Griffin recently appeared on the Pivot podcast, where she expressed her concerns about the influence of The Joe Rogan Experience host. “It’s kind of the Roganization of America that I now am more worried about than Trumpism,” she said.

While Griffin didn’t specify the source of her concerns about Rogan, she told Interview earlier this year that she makes a point of avoiding “guys like Joe.” “His fan base is very frightening because the misogyny runs so deep,” she explained. “When I make fun of his show, the Elon Musk army comes after me, the Rogan army comes after me…They’re very into swarming. I’ve known guys like Joe my whole career, and guys like that are best to stay away from. There are other people that can get in the arena with him.”

To recap, this is a star of Suddenly Susan being worried that a NewsRadio actor is more dangerous than the host of The Apprentice. NBC has an oversized influence on American politics in the 21st century. In this essay, I will…

(You can listen to the podcast below.)

Warner Bros. Discovery stunned DC Comics fans on Tuesday when the studio announced that it was pulling the plug on the Batgirl movie. While the film was originally headed to HBO Max, there was talk of expanding it to theaters, which made the sudden decision to completely shelve the project altogether all the more surprising. Not only did the film have Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman, but Brendan Fraser had been tapped to play the movie’s villain Firefly.

“A minute after this story posted got a call from a rival studio exec who was floored by move,” Deadline reporter Justin Kroll tweeted. “‘Worked in this town for three decades and this is some unprecedented sh*t right here.’”

Naturally, fans on social media have been reacting heatedly to the news, but Brendan Fraser fans seem particularly aggrieved. The actor started trending on Twitter as fans couldn’t believe that Warner Bros. would just go ahead and shelve a film that locked down The Mummy star as a Batman villain. It just didn’t make any sense.

You can see some of the reactions below:

As for why Warner Bros. made the unprecedented move to shelve a superhero blockbuster that was, by accounts, mostly finished, it’s a tale as old as time: For the tax write-off. Via Variety:

Releasing the movie on HBO Max would seem to be the most obvious solution. Instead, the company has shelved “Batgirl” — along with the “Scoob!” sequel — and several sources say it will almost certainly take a tax write-down on both films, seen internally as the most financially sound way to recoup the costs (at least, on an accountant’s ledger). It could justify that by chalking it up to a post-merger change of strategy.

Needless to say, #ReleaseBatgirl has already become a thing, but after recently getting burnt by the “Release The Snyder Cut” campaign, maybe don’t hold your breath on Warner Bros. giving into this latest hashtag.

(Via Variety)

Whether or not Time Skiffs was Animal Collective’s comeback record, Panda Bear has never fallen off. 2019’s Buoys and especially 2015’s Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper were bona fide slaps and just like he always has with Animal Collective, Panda Bear’s Noah Lennox has always explored child-like dreamworlds and nostalgia. He’s picking up in that familiar sphere with his new collaborative album with Sonic Boom (the moniker of Beach House and MGMT producer Peter Kember). Their album, Reset, is due out next week and the latest single, “Edge Of The Edge,” hearkens back to ’60s doo-wop with a decidedly modern message.

Kember fancies himself a collector of ’60s records and a sample of “Denise” by Randy & The Rainbows is prominently featured on “Edge Of The Edge” as soon as the track begins. The video, directed by Danny Perez, is chock full of emoticons and digital-age imagery. Over clicks and dial tone effects, claps and bells, Panda Bear seems to warn us of the perils of our addictions, and in the video’s case, of online fixations, singing: “One taste to break the fall, one wave to take us all to the shore. Can’t say it’s what you bargained for, it’s forever at the push of a button.”

Watch the “Edge Of The Edge” video above.

Reset is out 8/12 via Domino Recordings. Pre-order it here.