Shannon Sharpe found himself trending on social media on Wednesday, but it had nothing to do with anything the Hall of Famer said on First Take or his Club Shay Shay podcast. Unfortunately for Sharpe, he was a trending topic because of an Instagram Live on his account where fans that clicked on his Live were suddenly presented with what certainly sounded like two people having sex.
There was nothing to be seen, as the phone was pointed towards the ceiling, but it was a very NSFW mid-morning IG Live that no one was expecting, leading to plenty of clips being passed around Twitter and elsewhere. Later in the afternoon, Sharpe released a statement on Instagram claiming he was hacked and that his team was “working vigorously” to find out what happened.
Instagram
Because Sharpe is never seen on camera, the hacked excuse certainly is plausible, although it’s fair to wonder why someone would hack an Instagram to do this on a Live, but people have done stranger things. Not appearing on camera certainly helps Sharpe’s case, especially when it comes to handling this with his ESPN and Disney bosses, because we have seen how a Hall of Fame player can get ousted from ESPN for a wild IG Live — just ask Paul Pierce.
The “First Person Shooter” rapper showed his support for Lil Wayne by sharing five photos of his mentor to an Instagram Story on Tuesday night, a likely reference to the controversy over the Louisiana native not being selected for the New Orleans-set game. (Nicki Minaj has a lot of thoughts.) Instead, the honor went to Lamar, who will likely perform Drake diss track “Not Like Us” for an audience of 125 million people and countless owls.
Earlier this year, Lil Wayne expressed his desire to headline the Super Bowl halftime show. “I will not lie to you, I have not got a call,” he said on YG’s 4HUNNID podcast. “But we all praying, we keeping our fingers crossed. I’m working hard. I’m going to make sure this next album and everything I do is killer, so I’m going make it very hard for them to… I want to just make it hard for them not to highlight the boy.”
Considering how well the New Orleans Saints played during a week 1 win against Carolina, maybe the Derek Carr-led team will make it to the Super Bowl and invite Lil Wayne to perform the National Anthem. Dream big!
Since early 2023, Pharrell has been the Men’s Creative Director for Louis Vuitton. After the screening incident, PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman issued a statement after the incident, saying, “We would be happy to stop disrupting Pharrell’s appearances but despite a lot of lip service, he’s yet to ditch fur and exotic skins. Pharrell can decide in a heartbeat, today, to use his power for good and stop being complicit in cruelty — it’s quite easy to be kind.”
The statement also notes the protestor “blasted” Pharrell “for his disgraceful use of wild-animal skins and fur.”
After the protester was removed from the screening, Pharrell said to the audience:
“Let me address that. You know, Rome wasn’t made in a day, and sometimes when you have plans to change things and situations, you have to get in a position of power and of influence, where you can change people’s minds progression. That’s not necessarily the way to do it, and sitting in my position, when I have conversations on behalf of organizations like that, unbeknownst to them, they come out here and do themselves a disservice. That’s OK: When that change comes, everybody in this room, will remember that I told you we’re actually working on that, and if she would have just asked me, I would have told her. But instead, she wanted to repeat herself.”
It must be nice to see a familiar face on set when you start a new gig. Surely, Ben Affleck feels comfortable on his sets when his pal Matt Damon shows up because the two work well together, and we all know how much fun Ryan Reynolds had when bringing his friend Rob McElhenney to the Deadpool set (even if his part was cut). So when Harry Lawtey joined the cast of Joker: Folie A Deux, he was understandably relieved when he learned that his Industry costar Ken Leung is also entering Todd Phillips’ Joker-verse.
Lawtey was cast as Harvey Dent in Phillips’ highly-anticipated sequel to Joker. Leung also appears in the film in an undisclosed role, though Lawtey didn’t know about it until the day before he began filming. The actor told I-d: “Oh my god! I only found out the day before because [Industry co-star] Myha’la told me!” Lawet revealed. While he mentioned hsi first scene was opposite star Jauquin Phoenix, his first speaking role was addressing Leung.
“My first shots were with Joaquin but my first line of dialogue was [spoken to] Ken. It made such a difference because the stakes were so high,” he expressed. Having a familiar face helped make the jump a lot less scary, Lawtey said. “The first time I had to speak on camera, I was speaking to someone I really, really love and have a huge amount of trust and admiration for. They just felt like safe eyes to look into. That’s always the case with Ken.” It’s nice that somebody feels comfort when looking into Ken’s eyes because the man has played some seriously disturbing characters.
You would think that Phillips would know about this beforehand, but he seemed surprised to know that his stars had worked together before. “Halfway through the scene, [Phillips] comes up to me and says: ‘Apparently you guys are in a show together?’”
On the other hand, going from Pierpoint and Co to the gritty streets of Gotham is pretty intimidating, though not as intimidating as working with Lady Gaga. “There were a few occasions when I got to be a metre away from her while she sang. I had a front-row seat to that experience. I kept thinking, how many people would pay loads of money to have that?” How much money would you pay to see Ken Leung explode at you about incorrect budgets?! Something to think about.
Joke: Folie A Deux dances into theaters on October 4th.
Despite the fact that we are at the deepest point of the NBA offseason, a month removed from the Olympics and a month still to go before training camp starts, we have had a few bits of controversy still pop up. We’ve seen Shaq continue his beef with Rudy Gobert (and Ben Simmons), while Anthony Edwards reignited the seemingly never ending war of words between NBA generations.
While we typically see older players criticizing the current generation for being soft, Edwards spun it around and said players from the 80s and 90s didn’t have any skill — with the exception of Michael Jordan — in a somewhat bizarre, one-off answer to a question in a wide-ranging Q&A that never followed up or built off that statement. Unsurprisingly, that led to plenty of push back and ruffled feathers, with Magic Johnson offering the most scathing rebuttal, noting he didn’t feel the need to respond to someone that’s never won a championship at any level, from high school to the pros.
On a recent episode of Podcast P, Paul George and DeMar DeRozan discussed Edwards remarks (video above), and, while trying to give Edwards the benefit of the doubt that maybe some context was missing, noted that they didn’t understand why he’d say something like that. DeRozan, in particular, seemed taken aback by the comments, explaining that “I would never undermine anybody that came before me because they built the foundation for us to be where we was at today.” DeRozan also points out that he hopes the game keeps growing to where players in 20 years look more athletic and more skilled than the players now, but that he wouldn’t want those players trashing guys like Ant — who he also said is his favorite player right now.
In an age where top streaming TV shows (Wednesday, Severance, and Peacemaker come to mind) are taking three years to return for second seasons, it’s nice to realize that certain genuinely bingeworthy series do achieve followups at a steady clip. Those would include Reacher on Prime Video/Amazon, and on a not-entirely-dissimilar similar note, The Diplomat on Netflix. Heck, some ongoing series don’t even get renewed faster than these these two series can turn around new seasons.
An even better part of this budding rapid-fire release pattern: Keri Russell has been a TV mainstay for much of her life for good reason. Her Mickey Mouse Club days were followed by success on Felicity (including a fateful haircut) and The Americans (including butt kicking and wigs), and now, The Diplomat‘s appeal has been resting mainly on her shoulders.
This is no slight against her co-stars (including Rufus Sewell), of course, but let’s also admit that Russell is almost uniquely able to tackle this show’s hefty blend of suspenseful drama mixed up with some sardonic, even at times straight-up funny, flair. With that said, let’s get down to business on what to expect from more of The Diplomat.
Plot
Alright, so Netflix’s teaser trailer drop answers the most prominent question that was on viewers’ minds: does Hal Wyler live?
The answer (unless he somehow enters into another life-or-death situation) would be “yes.” And choosing to reveal his fate in the trailer is a clear signal that showrunner Debora Cahn would like us to focus elsewhere going into the season. For starters, Kate and Hal are also shown in the trailer while displaying a united front against the onscreen debut of Allison Janey as Vice President Grace Penn giving straight-up lethal looks to the married diplomats. However and as Cahn revealed to Entertainment Weekly, Hal is “shaken,” and “[a]lmost dying like that can shake a lot on every level.”
This will likely yield more personal-life disaster because, according to Cahn, this experience will throw Kate and Hal back together again despite the budding Dennison (David Gyasi) situation:
“Kate was ready for this new relationship. She was really ready to move on, and there’s nothing like a near-death experience for you to just cling to somebody and forget all of the stuff that was driving you apart. It was over. They had reached a conclusion, so when suddenly she’s like, ‘I’m back. I’m here now.’ Do you trust it? Do you trust her? A lot of the season is about trust and there is a line that comes later in the season, where Kate says to Hal, ‘Of course, I don’t trust you. This isn’t built on trust.’”
Additionally, the show juggles the matter of Kate realizing that Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) was surely behind the attack that nearly killed Hal, but there’s the difficulty of not being able to spy on him due to U.S.-U.K. relations. As Cahn describes the matter, “So how do you prove it? And then if you prove it, what the hell do you do about it?”
“I think the people around them in the story don’t know what’s happening. They don’t know what to make of them. It’s unnerving because they’re fighting cats and dogs or they’re completely backing each other up in this fierce way. And it’s unnerving because people don’t know where they stand.”
These Kate-Hal developments might have disappointed David Gyasi, who previously followed up on the first season finale by telling Town and Country his hopes for the second season: “I’d love to explore what that relationship is with Kate. I mean, maybe they’d just gotten to a place when she makes that choice for that beautiful red dress. It’s the first time that they touch—they touch hands.” Well, damn.
In other words, expect the personal and professional relationships of this series to be even more intertwined than within the first season. And as Vanity Fair has reported, a Netflix consultant, ex-CIA official Kari Amelung, believes that the show does well at portraying how married diplomats will often stay married because filing for divorce causes them “to forfeit coveted overseas assignments to return to the States.” So, they will “just live in hatred [with each other].” God, this is so irresistibly messy.
Cast
Keri Russell returns as Kate Wyler with Rufus Sewell as Hal. Allison Janney appear to be ready to shake up everybody’s little world, and David Gyasi will return as Austin Dennison. Presumably, we will also see Rory Kinnear as PM Trowbridge and Ali Ahn as Eidra Graham.
Release Date
The Diplomat will return on October 31, 2024.
Trailer
Behold the return of Hal, even though he never left:
Danity Kane’s Dawn Richard is the latest accuser to come forward with allegations against Diddy and has now sued him.
In the lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone, Richard claims Diddy “manipulated her with mantras that submission to his depraved demands was necessary for career advancement, instilling in her the belief that such abuse and exploitation were required for female artists to succeed in the music industry.” The suit alleges that Diddy groped Richard, locked her in a car for two hours, and threatened her life. It also claims Richard saw Diddy become physically violent with women.
The suit was filed in the Southern District of New York on September 10, and Richard (who was in the group Diddy-Dirty Money alongside Diddy and Kalenna Harper) has also sued former Bad Boy Entertainment CEO Harve Pierre.
Richard’s suit backs up claims made by Cassie in her own Diddy lawsuit, with Richard saying she saw Diddy chose and strangle Cassie. On one occasion, she witness him throw a hot pan of eggs at Cassie and drug her up some stairs. She also says she tried convincing Cassie to leave Diddy, but he was apparently enraged when he found out, saying he makes “n****s go missing,” and, “I end people.”
As Rolling Stone notes, Richard is now the eighth person to accuse Diddy of sexual assault.
In Eden, Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armas separately travel to a secluded island in the Galápagos. Based on the reviews for the Ron Howard film out of the Toronto International Film Festival, it sounds like their characters do not get along. But in real life, Sweeney and de Armas would have at least one thing in common: the same desert island disc.
While playing a game of “Recommendation Roulette” for Vanity Fair, the actresses named their current favorite movie soundtrack. At the same time, and with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm, they both said, “Mamma Mia!” Or more specifically, Mamma Mia! The Movie Soundtrack, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. It lost to Juno, but could The Moldy Peaches sing ABBA’s “Our Last Summer” with the burning passion of Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, and Stellan Skarsgård? I think not.
You can watch the video with Sweeney and de Armas here.
As for Eden, Sweeney told The Wrap that she was shocked it was based on a true story. “You read all these crazy characters, there’s no way that they all are real, and they all come together and they have all these experiences,” she said. “But then I went and I read Dora [Strauch’s] book, and I read Margret [Wittmer’s] book, and I found all the newspaper clippings of all their stories and it’s the most wild account of people just put together.”
Also wild: that a movie with Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law, and Daniel Brühl does not have a release date yet.
Frankie Beverly, best known for his work with the R&B band Maze (also known as Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly and Frankie Beverly & Maze), died on September 10. He was 77 years old.
Grieving the loss of a loved one is a deeply personal and emotional experience. During this time, as we are navigating feelings of sorrow, reflection, and remembrance we kindly ask for privacy and understanding, allowing us the space to grieve in our own way. This period for is one of healing, and your respect for our need for solitude is appreciated as we honor the memory of our beloved Howard Stanley Beverly known to the world as Frankie Beverly.
He lived his life with pure soul as one would say, and for us, no one did it better. He lived for his music, family and friends.
Love one another as he would want that for us all.
Howard Stanley Beverly aka Frankie Beverly
12/6/46 – 9/10/24
The Beverly Family”
Beverly formed Raw Soul in 1970, and at the suggestion of Marvin Gaye, the band changed its name to Maze. The group would go on to release seven gold-certified albums between 1977 and 1993, all of which were at or near the top of the Billboard R&B charts.
The band received renewed attention in 2019 when Beyoncé covered “Before I Let Go” on Homecoming: The Live Album. Beverly reacted at the time, “I feel bigger than ever! I feel like I have a huge smash out there. It’s definitely a blessing.”
Beverly and Maze went on a farewell tour earlier this year, wrapping up in July 6. Beverly shared a statement with Billboard at the time the run was announced, saying, “I want to share with my lifelong fans and associates that I’ll be going out on the road one last time, then retire. Thank you so much for the support given to me for over 50 years as I pass on the lead vocalist torch to Tony Lindsay. The band will continue on as Maze Honoring Frankie Beverly. It’s been a great ride through the decades. Let the music of my legacy continue.”
As Bridgerton approaches its fourth season, our young high society members are growing up way too fast. Several of the eligible singles have been paired up, much to the delight of fans, but poor Benedict Bridgerton hasn’t been able to find his own love story, even after seeing all of his siblings have their own romance arc. But all of that is about to change for the lad.
Season four of Bridgerton is finally shaping up and Dune: Prophecy actress Yerin Ha has joined the cast as Sophie Baek, a new love interest for Benedict, who’s own romantic endeavors have caused various fan theories over the years.
According to Netflix, Baek has been forced to spend much of her life working as a maid for a demanding client. But she orchestrates her own Cinderella moment and disguises herself in order to attend Violet Bridgerton’s masquerade ball, where she meets the very desirable Benedict Bridgerton. What could possibly happen next?! You’ll have to wait. Here is the official longline for season four:
The fourth season of Bridgerton turns its focus to bohemian second son Benedict (Luke Thompson). Despite his elder and younger brothers both being happily married, Benedict is loath to settle down — until he meets a captivating Lady in Silver at his mother’s masquerade ball.
Netflix shared a short teaser featuring Ha prepping for her role. “What drew me to Sophie was that she immediately has obstacles — something that she constantly has to overcome,” Ha told Tudum. “Whether it’s this battle around social status or trying to hide her feelings from Benedict.”
Season three of Bridgerton was released in two parts this year, with the most recent batch of episodes dropping at the end of June. Season four will consist of eight episodes, which are currently in production. No release date has been set.
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