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Lizzo is far from coy about her sexual liberation. A track called “I Love You B*tch,” from her latest album, Special, is evidence of this, as she tells her best friend, “I want to text you these fire nudies.” While she didn’t specify the nature of her conversations with her peers in the music industry, she admits that she and Rihanna occasionally DM from time to time.

During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen (per Yahoo), a fan called in and asked if they could ever expect a collaboration with Rihanna.

Lizzo then asked the fan, “Okay, did the army send you? Rihanna was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll be a Lizzbian for a day.’” (“Lizzbian” is the stan name for fans of Lizzo.)

The “About Damn Time” singer continued, saying that the two will playfully flirt with each other, and occasionally talk about sex.

“We don’t talk about sex a lot, but we’re just always giving it to each other,” Lizzo said. “We don’t talk about work, it’s all play with me. But not since she’s been, you know, mommy. ‘Mommihanna.’ So congratulations to her and ASAP Rocky.”

Additionally, Cohen asked Lizzo about other celebrities who have slid into her DMs. She didn’t call anyone out by name, but she implied that several big names have tried to shoot their shots.

“You know, they’ll always be like, ‘Man, you playin’.’ ‘Hey, what’s up, Lizzo?’ Like, I always see that, and I see their name. I’ll be like, ‘Not today,’” Lizzo says.

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

The reactions are pouring in for Jordan Peele‘s third film, the mysterious UFO thriller Nope, which re-teams the director with Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya. While taking great pains not to give away the plot of the sci-fi flick, critics are overwhelmingly here for Peele putting his stamp on the invasion genre with a film that’s rife with social commentary but is also a visual spectacle like nothing Peele has delivered before. Going by the reactions, it appears that Peele swung big with Nope and crushed it.

“I really loved NOPE,” Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan tweeted. “Beyond the symbolism (there’s a good amount of that), I think it really works as a fun alien movie in the spirit of TREMORS (a movie, as I found out, Jordan Peele loves). It feels like a summer alien movie throwback. Great fun.”

“NOPE is out of this world” CNN’s Frank Pallotta tweeted. “A monster mash with great performances (esp. Kaluuya) and a 50s sci-fi invasion motif. A spectacle about the horrors of spectacles. Jordan Peele has been compared to Hitchcock, but NOPE shows he’s a next-gen Carpenter. Enjoy the show and don’t look up.”

“Not going to spoil any aspect of @JordanPeele’s #NopeMovie except to say *big* thumbs up,” writes Steven Weintraub at Collider. “And cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema shot the movie using @IMAX cameras so if you’re going to see #Nope see it in IMAX. Hoytema previously shot ‘Tenet,’ ‘Dunkirk,’ and ‘Interstellar.’”

“The most important thing you need to know about NOPE is it’s crazy different from Get Out & Us,” Yahoo! Entertainment’s Kevin Polowy tweeted. “This is Jordan Peele spreading his wings and making big budget Spielberg/esque sci-fi, but with the subtext you’d expect. Enter with an open mind and you’ll be rewarded.”

“So #NopeMovie is absolutely phenomenal in so many ways,” writes Heather Wixson of Daily Dead News. “Perfectly blends together a sci-fi spectacle w/a story that is also something of a Hollywood reckoning & it blew my expectations away. Gorgeously shot, the sound mix is thunderous & the cast all shines. Love love loved it.”

You can see more Nope reactions below:

Nope opens in theaters on July 22.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently reported that Democratic lieutenant governor (and Snooki’s preferred candidate) John Fetterman has “heavily” out-fundraised his opponent, TV huckster Dr. Oz, in the race for the open senate seat in Pennsylvania.

“Mr. Fetterman’s total haul from individuals and committees, according to campaign finance reports due to the Federal Election Commission on Friday, checked in at $9.9 million,” the Post-Gazette wrote, while Dr. Oz only “brought in $1.1 million, closing the gap a bit by loaning his campaign another $2.2 million.” Fetterman has “five times as much cash” as Oz “at a total of $5.5 million to $1.1 million.”

On Monday, Oz spoke to a skeptical-sounding Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who asked why the not-so-good doctor is being lapped by his rival. His answer involved guns and lawnmowers, or something. “The Democrats have very cleverly taken all of these issues that have come up over the summer ― the Dodd decision, the concerns about guns ― and they’ve used these as excuses to raise money from the Democratic loyalists,” he said. “And interestingly, when Republicans get mad, we go out and mow the lawn. Democrats, when they get mad, donate money to their party.”

Dr. Oz reportedly has a net worth of $100 million — he hasn’t mowed his lawn in years.

You can watch the clip below.

(Via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

On July 14, The Weeknd kicked off his After Hours Til Dawn tour at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. There was a heartwarming story from that show, as The Weeknd flew out a young fan, who was seen heartbroken outside of The Weeknd’s canceled Toronto concert.

However, the Philadelphia concert also had some tragedy: CBS3 Philly reports a 32-year-old man, who a friend identified to the station as Hugo Sanchez, died at the show. Officials say just before 11 p.m., Sanchez was sitting on an escalator rail and fell about 40 feet. He was rushed to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and was pronounced dead shortly after midnight. Per officials, the incident appears to have been an accident but an investigation is ongoing.

According to a previous CBS3 report, the station reached out to promoter Live Nation for a statement but had yet to hear back, while Lincoln Financial Field representatives declined to comment out of respect for Zanchez’s family.

The Weeknd has yet to offer a public statement about the incident. After the show, though, he did share a gallery of photos from it on Instagram and write, “Philadelphia … we finally did it. thank you for helping me ring in the tour. last night was emotional for all of us. i could feel every single one of you. next stop NEW YORK !”

Greeting a ruthless dictator is a tricky proposition, as Joe Biden discovered late last week. On Friday, during his first visit to the Middle East as president, Biden met with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at Alsalam Royal Palace. Biden’s reported goal? To not appear too friendly with MBS, especially given the president’s very vocal campaign promises to turn the kingdom into a “global pariah.” Biden’s success in achieving that by offering a fist bump instead of a handshake? Total failure, according to Trevor Noah.

The Daily Show host had a hell of a time mocking the president, whose approval rating has dropped to what Noah described as “somewhere between long COVID and [the] Uvalde Police Department’s.” Inflation and skyrocketing gas prices (though they are now dropping) aren’t doing Biden any favors in that department, which is why, according to Noah, the president spent the weekend in Saudi Arabia “making nice with a frenemy who just happens to own a lot of oil.” But the biggest news to come out of the visit was Biden’s bruh-like greeting of the human rights nightmare, who is believed to be behind the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Noah was amused by how the entire situation played out:

“It’s funny how Biden thought it would be better to fist bump Mohammed bin Salman, because that seems less friendly than a handshake? That’s the whitest decision of all time… Because it’s the opposite. Handshakes are the most formal way to meet someone, even your enemy… But fist bumps? It’s almost like, ‘Ayyyy… What’s up? What’s up, killer? I see you. I see you, man. I see you, player!’”

If Noah had been at the wheel, he would have suggested that Biden go “in for the handshake, and then given him the ‘Psych!’ Just do that move. There’s no comeback for that. Devastating!”

You can watch the full segment above, beginning around the 3:30 mark.

Former Trump Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is spending his week tying up legal system resources in a case that his own podcast guests see no hope of him winning. That would be the contempt charges for his refusal to testify for the Jan. 6 committee, and given that he did, in fact, refuse to testify upon subpoena, it sure seems like a cut-and-dried case. Leaked audio of Bannon’s maneuvering doesn’t help matters for Congress’ actual proceedings either for the alleged “coup plotter,” but at the moment, people are very outraged about a comparison that’s surfaced in what appears to be a courtroom sketch.

There’s no verification on precisely what evil has transpired, but what’s outraging people is an addition (to the sketch) that compares Bannon’s physical appearance to that of a beloved Peanuts comic strip character. All of this is happening after Bannon actually attempted to clean up a bit ^^ for court after previously growing upset at how people believe that he resembles a “deranged incel.” With that said, here’s that “courtroom sketch” as tweeted by meme-mischief king Paul Leigh. It’s Pigpen!

The image (which appears to be gleaned from the work of artist Bill Hennessey, whose sketches so far can be viewed at CNN) purports to be Bannon’s appearance in open court, although jury selection’s currently ongoing.

The reactions came fast and fierce, led by Mark Hamill, who declared “This is SO unfair to Pigpen.”

From there, the outraged responses continued, including people who lamented the injustice of Pigpen being compared to a megalomaniacal podcaster who pushed to overthrow the U.S. government. Pigpen would never.

And to end things, here’s a Beetlejuice comparison. “It’s showtime,” for sure.

During “Point and Shoot,” the eighth episode of Better Call Saul’s sixth and final season, my heart rate went up so high that my FitBit recorded a workout. The intense, gripping nightmare of an episode that put Kim Wexler very close to death was a masterpiece in television storytelling. It felt like it lasted for five minutes but also five years. It never gave itself, its characters, or its audience any time to breathe without feeling overstuffed. Stressful events followed stressful events until the episode ended with a gut punch so emotionally devastating (Mike Ehrmantraut buries Howard Hamlin with his murderer Lalo Salamanca underneath the meth lab Walter White and Jesse Pinkman would later work in) that it felt like I actually got punched in the gut and lost air for several minutes. Medically, I am fine now.

The following episode, titled “Fun and Games,” is anything but that. Although slower-paced than “Point and Shoot,” it’s an essential episode that accelerates the story. By the end of the episode, Gustavo Fring has flirted over wine, Kim has left Jimmy and, finally, we see what so many expected of this show since the beginning: Saul Goodman in a lavish but tacky house, a saturated button-down and wide tie, just as we knew him on Breaking Bad.

For its first five and a half seasons, Better Call Saul moved slower than, say, a Buick in South Florida or me after a couple of glasses of wine. The show’s deliberate slow burn provided a significant contrast to its predecessor. The show focused on gradual character development rather than a fast-paced narrative. The first several seasons unpacked the complex dynamic between characters Jimmy McGill and his older, more successful brother Chuck McGill. Once Chuck died, the show began to focus most of its energy on the on-and-off-again romance between Jimmy and Kim Wexler. Along the way, the show gave us glimpses of Jimmy’s life both before Saul Goodman and after Saul Goodman, with subplots we’re familiar with from Breaking Bad developing in the background. At times, the show moved so leisurely that it felt like it would never get to the point where we even met Saul Goodman. Slowly, but surely, it’s gotten there with four episodes left.

All along, no matter how snail-paced it was, Better Call Saul felt like it was teasing an explosive endgame with an increase in pace along with inevitable death and destruction. The first half of the final season, which aired this spring, teased that speed and darkness with the final days and moments of Nacho Vargas and Howard Hamlin. Generally, though, the show kept its foot on the brakes. Now in its final episode push, the foot isn’t just off the brakes: it’s flooring the gas pedal with the brakes cut off.

Better Call Saul is now the opposite of what it’s always been. It is straight-up stressful, perhaps even more stressful than Breaking Bad, which spent its entire run at an incredibly rapid pace with frequent violence and wreckage, both physical and emotional. While nothing could have prepared anyone for the devastating episode that was “Ozymandias” (don’t make me say it but that’s the one where Hank dies), that outcome was inevitable and unsurprising given what came before it. On Better Call Saul, which has spent its entire run in a patient, quiet place, we’re completely unprepared for what’s to come. With Breaking Bad we could ask “is Hank going to die?” but we always knew the answer. With Better Call Saul we ask “will Kim die?” and we genuinely have no idea (though I, personally hope for her survival).

After years of coddling us with a reliable if slow pace, the final episodes of Better Call Saul feel like getting slapped in the face constantly for their 50ish minutes. Ultimately, this pace reversal is a dark, clever metaphor for how quickly Jimmy permanently abandons Jimmy McGill for Saul Goodman.

Later this week, Issa Rae will begin the next chapter of her career as her new show Rap Sh!t will premiere on HBO Max. The show follows two Miami-based rappers who are seeking success in the music industry. The first season of Rap Sh!t, which stars Aida Osman and KaMillion, will put forth eight episodes in total, with the first two arriving on July 21. In addition to work from Rae behind the scenes, Rap Sh!t also features contributions from a number of people in the music industry. During a recent interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Rae spoke about some of them.

During their conversation, Meyers asked Rae how she was able to have authentic rap lyrics and songs on the show. She revealed that there were artists in the music world present in the show’s writers’ room to help craft the songs. Rae said that she was able to “employ some of my favorite rap artists” like PineappleCITI, Ncognita, and Dreezy to construct songs for the show. Rae also noted that she is “really proud of the music on the show.”

In addition to the aforementioned artists, City Girls’ JT and Yung Miami will serve as executive producers on the show while Devonte Hynes, also known as Blood Orange, is the show’s music composer.

Find Rae’s full sit-down on Late Night With Seth Meyers in the video above.

Back in December, Finneas revealed he and Billie Eilish had started working on a new album. Indeed, new music has been happening, as Eilish debuted a song called “TV” live in Manchester last month. Now, Eilish has seemingly offered a behind-the-scenes look at their recording process: In an Instagram photo gallery she shared over the weekend, one of the photos (the second one) is of herself and Finneas in what appears to be Finneas’ home studio (which they’ve mentioned before).

The post doesn’t indicate when exactly the photo was taken, but it does seem it’s from after at least early December 2021: On the left side of the frame, sitting on a piano is a cue card from her week being the host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live, and that episode aired on December 11.

Looking elsewhere in the photo, the focal point is Finneas’ production setup. Finneas sits (in a Steelcase Leap chair, it appears) in front of a wide desk that features a pull-out drawer for a keyboard (the musical kind, not a QWERTY). There’s also a monitor (displaying various bits of music software), a couple speakers, and what appear to be other music production devices. Meanwhile, on a table near Eilish are some fruit, pistachios, some water, a frozen drink, and artist Friedrich Kunath’s book You Owe Me A Feeling.

Elsewhere in recent Eilish social media activity, over on TikTok earlier this month, Eilish sang along to a video of a man playing her “Listen Before I Go” on piano, so in case you missed it, check that out below.

After overcoming a brief bump in the road at the beginning of his Justice World Tour due to a COVID-19 outbreak within his team, the hope was that Justin Bieber would be smooth sailing for the remainder of the tour dates. Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case as the singer was forced to postpone several performances in North America after he was diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which paralyzed the entire right side of his face. A month and a half after he received that diagnosis, Bieber and his team have confirmed that the Justice World Tour will resume at the end of July.

According to NME, Bieber’s first performance to continue the tour will be on July 31 at Italy’s Lucca Summer Festival. After that, Bieber will bring his talents to Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. Rescheduled dates for the canceled North American dates have not been shared yet, but a press release reveals that they will be announced, “very soon.”

Last month, Bieber took to his Instagram Story to speak about the Ramsay Hunt syndrome diagnosis while providing some optimism about recovering to his fans. “Obviously, my body’s telling me I gotta slow down,” he said. “It will go back to normal. Just time and we don’t know how much time that’s gonna be, but it’s gonna be okay. And I have hope, and I trust God, and I trust that this is all for a reason. I’m not sure what that is right now. But in the meantime, I’m gonna rest.”