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Being on live television is surely a nerve-wracking experience, but Camila Cabello had a particularly rough go of it recently as she had a wardrobe malfunction on the air.

BuzzFeed News notes Cabello was a guest on BBC’s The One Show yesterday, and during the interview, host Alex Jones (not that Alex Jones) asked Cabello to stand up and show off her favorite dance move. After she stood up, she adjusted her shirt, which left her nipple exposed for a brief moment, which got some “oh!” reactions from others on the show.

“Almost flashed you,” Cabello said before continuing, although there was no “almost” about what happened. After Cabello finished her dance, she added, “I hope you didn’t see nipple.” Trying to help Cabello save face, Jones responded, “Do you know what? There was a bit of a wardrobe malfunction. I don’t know what I saw. There was a flash of something.” Cabello nervously laughed and said, “My mom is in the next room right now, possibly freaking out about my wardrobe malfunction.”

Later, Cabello laughed the moment off on TikTok, sharing a video of herself lip-syncing to Muni Long’s “Time Machine,” specifically the line, “I wish I had a time machine.” On-screen text reads, “when my stylist asked me if I wanted nip covers and I said no.” Cabello also commented on the post, “Least they’re cute tho [smiling tongue sticking out emoji].”

The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik is used to being on series with passionate fanbases, but Jeopardy! viewers are on a different level. For instance, it did not go undetected when the host made the smallest of tweaks to the game show’s format by referring to the opening round of Jeopardy! as “Single Jeopardy,” as opposed to simply “Jeopardy.” Bialik, whose Twitter mentions must be a nightmare (“There’s no reason hearing Mayim say ‘Single Jeopardy’ should annoy me as much as it does but it makes me irrationally annoyed” reads one of the few non-all caps tweets), discussed the, uh, “controversy” in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment.

“People care a lot. I get it. And I’m sorry; I’m doing my best!” she said. Bialik also explained that she doesn’t go off-script; if she did, the show’s producers would stop the taping. “If it wasn’t right, they would’ve had me redo it. I barely act alone… there’s so many things that we re-tape,” she explained. “If it was literally not kosher there’s a million producers, writers and researchers and they’re all listening to me.”

Besides, it’s not like she’s the first person to say “Single Jeopardy.”

Bialik says that dearly departed Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek himself was known to use it on certain occasions. “I know it may not be the norm, but… it was not not out of the norm,” she says. “I will never do it again! Even if it’s in this script, I will not say it.”

If it was good enough for Alex, it should be good enough for everyone.

(Via Yahoo Entertainment)

It’s 1966. Jerry Garcia is tripping on acid while walking through Los Angeles at dawn. He and his band, The Grateful Dead, have just driven to a local neighborhood to stare at the Watts Towers art installation. An iconic work of outsider art, the cement-and-steel towers were built out of found objects over the course of 30 years by an Italian immigrant construction worker named Sabato “Simon” Rodia. It’s precisely the sort of thing you want to look at if you’re high as hell at sunrise.

Jerry peers at the towers. As his mind expands beyond the limits of his skull and toward the farthest reaches of the universe, he decides that his future as a musician will be the opposite of what these towers represent. He will not devote the next 30 years of his life to building a monument that will come to dominate the landscape. He will instead live in the moment, and for the moment, without any thought of what he leaves behind. Instead of creating a legacy that will survive his own death, he will have fun now.

When I first heard this story in Amir Bar-Lev’s 2017 documentary Long Strange Trip, I was confused. Yes, I understood how Jerry’s point translated to the Dead’s philosophy of live improvisation and favoring the concert experience over the relatively stale ordeal of making albums. But … aren’t The Dead basically the musical equivalent of the Watts Towers? That’s where I assumed the story was going! It seemed more logical: As a group who allowed — even encouraged — fans to tape their shows, they are likely the most closely documented rock band ever. Maybe Jerry left the music behind each night as soon as he left the stage. But the rest of us are able to hear practically every note he ever publicly performed. And this, many would agree, has been an incredible boon for music lovers.

I bring this up in order to address what’s become a hot-button issue in the live music world. A scourge that has compelled some of our most famous musicians to speak out. No, I’m not talking about the run-of-the-mill annoyances that seem frustratingly unsolvable: The guy behind you who won’t stop talking over the music no matter how many times you flash him a dirty look, the idiot who starts whistling non-stop when the person on stage attempts to tell a funny story between songs, the beefy dude who won’t budge when you attempt to recover your spot on the floor after hitting the bathroom.

I refer instead to the epidemic of phones. Some artists apparently find them anathema to the concert experience. Last month, Mitski took to Twitter to complain about fans using their phones to film her performances. In Jerry-like fashion, she declared that phones can get in the way of living in the moment. “When I’m on stage and look to you but you are gazing into a screen,” she wrote, “it makes me feel as though those of us on stage are being taken from and consumed as content, instead of getting to share a moment with you.”

Jack White — possibly the most anti-phone musician on the planet — has gone as far as to confiscate phones from fans before they’re permitted into his concerts. And he’s defended this, again, using “Jerry at the Watts Towers” logic. “I want people to live in the moment, and it’s funny that the easiest way to rebel is to tell people to turn off their phone,” he said in 2018. “If your phone is that important to you that you can’t live without it for two hours then I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to see a therapist.”

As was the case when I watched Long Strange Trip, I can certainly understand where the anti-phone people are coming from. The prevalence of phones in every facet of our lives can seem oppressive and even anti-human. We are all stuck living a highly mediated existence in which we are cut off by technology from the primal immediacy of the natural world. If you have the courage to stand on stage in front of thousands of people in order to expose your very soul via your art, I’m sure it can be disconcerting to look out and see rows and rows of gadgets made in sweatshops staring back at you.

Personally, I try not to use my phone at concerts. Occasionally, if I have downed one too many beers, I will tweet an over-enthusiastic assessment of how my face is being rocked off my head and in the process use too many exclamation points. (I apologize for this.) But I’m not one who is generally into shooting videos or taking pictures. For the most part, I guess, I subscribe to the idea that concerts are great because they are fleeting, and you have to hold on to them with your own personal memories.

But here’s the thing: I’m happy not everyone is like me. In other words, I think the Watts Towers are cool and I’m glad they exist, even though I would never spend three decades building art out of garbage. Similarly, I’m grateful that I can go on YouTube and see literally millions of shaky, grainy, and sometimes shitty videos of wonderful performances I wouldn’t get to see or hear otherwise.

Just last week, someone posted a video of My Morning Jacket performing the Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” with Phish’s Trey Anastasio in Mexico. It appears that the person who filmed it was standing about 100 feet from the stage, so it’s not a great angle. You don’t ever get a close up of the musicians. The sound quality is decent but I wouldn’t want to hear it on a Dolby system. Nevertheless — as a person who enjoys MMJ, the Rolling Stones, and Trey Anastasio — I was delighted by the video. Was it Jonathan Demme directing Stop Making Sense? No. But it brightened my day.

I have had countless other experiences with fan-shot videos over the years, both as a fan and as a music critic. When I wrote recently about The War On Drugs’ current tour, I was enriched greatly by the scores of videos that concert attendees have posted, including several complete shows. When I was unable to attend a local Turnstile gig, the raucous clips circulating on social media provided a methadone fix (while also exacerbating my FOMO). When weighing the pros and cons of purchasing a concert ticket, I have often consulted YouTube to determine whether the money is worth it.

And then there’s the documentary aspect of these clips. The era of phones capable of shooting decent-ish video is still relatively young. We can’t fully appreciate yet how these amateur-made mini-movies will affect how music history is written. But it seems clear that the ability for anyone to collect sounds and images in the live-concert wild will inform how the music of today is remembered many years from now. These videos won’t have to be filtered through the perspectives of filmmakers or journalists with their retrospective biases. It will be raw data available for anyone to appreciate in the future. All because the person next to you took out his stupid phone last night and filmed the set’s hottest banger.

There’s an assumption, I think, on the part of anti-phone artists that people who shoot video of a concert are more enamored with their phone doing something cool than with the music. And maybe that’s true for some or even most people. But there are also those who wind up sharing those videos with the rest of us, and I would argue that they are providing a service that benefits fans and, yes, artists. (That is, unless you suck at performing live. Then posting video evidence might in fact be a hindrance.)

Circling back to the “Jerry at Watts Towers” story: For an artist, there’s obvious merit in approaching a concert as a once-in-a-lifetime proposition, because it gives every performance the urgent edge it needs. But for us listeners, having the ability to revisit great performances of the past also has obvious merit. Imagine if phones had existed during all of the legendary concerts of the past that technology wasn’t around to document — the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the first performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring, any barroom gig by Robert Johnson. Even Jack White would probably be probably psyched to see that last one.

For all of the irritating aspects of ubiquitous phone use, documenting live music performances for the sake of posterity strikes me as a rare positive attribute. That doesn’t mean I won’t get mad if your phone blocks my view. But as long as the phone people aren’t impeding on the experience of their fellow audience members, I see little harm and lots of good that come from their efforts. Living in the moment is essential. But making the moment last for others has value, too.

This past weekend, Saweetie was honored with the Game Changer Award at Billboard‘s 14th annual Women In Music event in Inglewood. While the Bay Area rapper behind “My Type” and “Best Friend” also performed the new track “Closer”with HER at the event, it was her date for the evening who had everyone talking.

Saweetie’s mom, Trinidad Valentin, actually presented the Game Changer Award to her daughter. Before the show, Saweetie posted a series of selfies on her Instagram and her Twitter accounts of her and Valentin’s look for the evening. It didn’t take long for social media to be ablaze and in disbelief that her Mom looked very much like she could’ve been her sister.

“Momma ate her up. Also if you told me that saweetie’s mom was a secret older sister of Jhene Aiko I would definitely believe you,” one user said, while another replied on Twitter, “Your mom!? If you said your sister I so would have believed you.” “Yall look like sisters. Not mom and daughter,” said one Instagram commenter. Another simply cited how they both looked stunning with, “She literally get it from her mama, beautiful!”

The caption on Saweetie’s post says “mahal kita mamaaa,” which in Tagalog means “I love you mom.” It’s a nod to Saweetie’s Filipino heritage from her mother’s side. Check out the photos on Saweeties’s Instagram below.

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

Russell Westbrook’s first season with the Lakers has been about as rough as anyone could’ve imagined, as the former MVP has struggled to find his place within the hierarchy of L.A.’s new Big Three in the sporadic time they’ve had all together, much less when the roster has been in flux due to injuries and absences.

Westbrook has clashed with the coaching staff at times over rotations and being sat at the end of games when he’s had a poor night, and at the February trade deadline there was considerable buzz that the Lakers were trying to find a way to move him but ultimately weren’t willing to give up a first round pick to make that happen. What we are left with is an awkward situation that will now drag on into the summer, when L.A. will again have to make a decision on Westbrook’s future with the team, and in the meantime he will continue playing things out on a Lakers team that is mired in the bottom half of the West, scrapping for a play-in spot, far from the contender they planned to be.

The Lakers problems go far beyond Westbrook, but he is the starting point for most all criticism and his struggles make for an easy target. While critiques aren’t new for Westbrook, playing on the Lakers brings a new level of scrutiny and every game makes for new fodder for the A-block of national sports TV shows. On Tuesday, Nina Westbrook took to Twitter to call out Skip Bayless for being “childish” with his constant talk about Russell and called for him to apologize, before offering up more thoughts on what she and her family deal with from fans.

After the Lakers loss to the Spurs on Tuesday night, Westbrook addressed his wife’s tweets and opened up in a way he rarely does about how this season is affecting him and his family.

Harrison Faigen provided a full transcript of his statement, as he spoke on how it’s weighing on his family and why the name-calling at games has hit him so hard recently after seeing his son be so proud of his last name.

It is incredibly sad that Westbrook feels he can’t bring his family to any games, even at home, without them dealing with harassment. One of the main reasons Westbrook wanted to get traded to Los Angeles was to be closer to his family, and for that to be soured the way it has is unfortunate.

They’re the bickeringest pair in D.C., and on Monday they were at it again. As per Raw Story, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had to school Fox News’ Peter Doocy for the umpteenth time. Their beef this time? Doocy tried to pin the blame for rising gas prices squarely on President Joe Biden. But Psaki was ready for him, explaining that it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Doocy accused the Biden administration of “blaming Putin” for the sky high gas prices, claiming they were “going up anyway because of post-pandemic supply-chain issues.” Psaki effectively said he was right the first time, that rising energy prices are “a direct result of the invasion of Ukraine.”

When Doocy asked why the U.S. simply isn’t drilling for oil at home, Psaki told him, “Federal policies are not limiting the supplies of oil and gas.” When he persisted, Psaki did what she always does at this point in their conversations: She got quippy.

“Let me give you the facts here,” Psaki told him. “I know that can be inconvenient but I think they’re important in this moment.” She then explained that “there are 9,000 permits that are not being used,” adding that “the suggestion that we’re not allowing companies to drill is inaccurate.”

Psaki also argued that “the best thing we can do is reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil because that will help us have a reliable source of energy so that we’re not worried about gas prices going up because of the whims of a foreign dictator.”

She also took some time to remind Doocy that former president Donald J. Trump pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal with Iran because he didn’t like it.

(Via Raw Story)

In the second week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world watches the coverage of it with horror. We see scenes of bombed-out buildings, streets filled with rubble and debris, and desperate Ukrainians attempting to flee the violence. The beautiful capital city of Kyiv has, so far, remained under Ukrainian control but is being shelled by Russian forces and battles are being waged in the streets.

Some families have fled the city while others have holed up in shelters and bunkers, trying to stay safe. It’s a hard reality to imagine, as two weeks ago Ukrainians were just going along, living their lives in the bustling, artsy metropolis, going out to dinner, enjoying walks in the park, meeting up for playdates. Now the very concept of “living life” has been turned upside-down. Now it’s literally about survival.

But even in a shelter in a war zone, beauty persists. One of the most miraculous things about human beings is that we create and express ourselves through art, even in the most tragic of circumstances. The arts have a way of rushing our humanity to the forefront, reminding us that we are made not just to exist, but to live full, rich lives.

And when that reminder comes from a child, it’s even more potent, which is why a video of a young girl singing in a crowded shelter in Kyiv is being shared widely.

In a video that appears to have been taken by Marta Smekhova, a little girl named Amelia stands smiling in the middle of a room full of people before opening her mouth to sing. As soon as people hear her voice, they fall silent—even a baby who was fussing just seconds before.

According to the Facebook translation of her post shared on March 3, Smekhova had been painting with a boy and a girl in the bomb shelter “to somehow decorate this not so happy place,” and the girl was “so friendly, so talkative.” The girl, named Amelia, told Smekhova that besides drawing, she loved to sing. Then she whispered that her dream was to sing on a big stage in front of an audience.

“So what’s the matter?” Smekhova asked her. “Do you see how many people are here? That’s what you sing for!”

Amelia told her it was loud and she wouldn’t be heard, but Smekhova convinced her to try. So she did.

From the first word out of her mouth, the people in the shelter stopped to listen. “Everyone put their business aside to listen to a song by this girl who was just beaming light…even men couldn’t hold back the tears,” she wrote. “Amelia, your singing left no one indifferent.”

Indeed, Amelia’s sweet, clear voice ringing out touches something inside all of us. In that place and under those circumstances, especially, watching a darling little girl with two missing teeth singing her heart out is heart-rending. It’s a powerful reminder of what’s at stake in this war—and in any war.

The video has been shared far and wide on social media, including by Idina Menzel, the actress and singer who played Elsa in “Frozen” and sang the iconic theme song.

“We see you,” she wrote in her Twitter share of the video. “We really, really see you.”

We see you. We really, really see you. https://twitter.com/Ankita20200/status/1500496884255051776u00a0u2026

— Idina Menzel (@Idina Menzel)
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Not that we needed yet another reminder, but Amelia’s bomb shelter performance illustrates the real costs of war—the innocent dreams of children, the opportunity to hone their gifts and talents to shine their unique light on the world, the potential wrapped up in every person whose lives get cut short by the guns and the bombs and the insatiable hunger for power.

And it reminds us, yet again, that that cost is far too high.

Over the franchise’s many movies, everyone generally plays Batman the same way — tough, stolid, gravel-voiced, angry — but what of Bruce Wayne? Michael Keaton portrayed the Caped Crusader’s real self as a reluctant socialite, though one who still got dates. In the hands of Christian Bale, he was a fake trust fund douchebag, pretending to be a dumb drunk to throw people off his scent. Ben Affleck was older but still a Gotham (and Metropolis) scene fixture.

Then there’s Robert Pattinson’s take. In The Batman — that is the one that finally cast Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman — Wayne’s face is almost never seen. And when it is, he’s, if anything, moodier than his besuited alter ego. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t paint the town red. He only hooks up with Kravitz’s Selena Kyle, and then only in uniform. When he appears at a big time funeral, everyone makes a show of him showing his face at all, because he never does.

Well, there’s a solid reason for that. In a recent group chat with most of the film’s main players for Entertainment Weekly, Pattinson discussed the reason he and the The Batman team decided to lose the rakish playboy side of Wayne entirely:

“When you think about Bruce Wayne, you kind of think he’s a playboy, and then that’s how he disguises himself, so no one knows he’s Batman. As soon as you take that away, it made the character almost make more sense … There’s something about a person who would be able to delineate three incredibly distinct personalities, and then just being able to switch them as an outfit at will. That’s really way more sociopathic than someone who doesn’t really have much more control over it and is compelled to put this suit on. It’s kind of out of his control a little bit.”

There was another reason for skipping that side of Bruce. “Also, it made more sense with the grieving process as well if he hasn’t gotten over being the 10-year-old boy who, in his mind, let his parents die,” Pattinson continued. “What he feels is himself, he thinks is an incredibly weak and vulnerable child, and he needs to have an entirely different alter ego to survive himself, let alone fight all the criminals of Gotham.”

And that’s why you don’t see Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne gallivanting about with Gotham’s most beautiful. Then again, he could always have a change of heart in the sequel. Or one of its spinoffs.

(Via EW)

Conference tournament season has arrived in full in college hoops, with smaller conferences wrapping up tournaments and the major conferences getting set to begin, which means we are being treated with the return of crazy finishes and buzzer-beaters to send teams to the Big Dance.

On Monday night, Chattanooga and Furman met in the SoCon championship game in Asheville, North Carolina in a battle between the two top teams in the conference, with just one of them getting to advance to the NCAA Tournament (SoCon has never sent two teams to the NCAA). It was a wild game that saw Chattanooga go ice cold in the first half, trailing 26-16 in a rock fight at the break. A 13-0 run in the early second half put the Mocs up and they would seemingly take control of the game by the middle of the second half, but could never truly break away from Furman.

After going up three in the closing seconds, Furman’s Mike Bothwell drilled a stepback three after the Mocs didn’t see their coach calling for them to foul up three, sending the game to overtime. In the OT period, Furman started a perfect 4-for-4 from the field and twice took a three-point lead, but Chattanooga found timely three-point shots to tie the game, including with inside 30 seconds to play. Furman would take the ball and Bothwell scored his 23rd and 24th points of the night on a drive to the bucket to seemingly send the Paladins to the Tournament with 4.3 seconds to play. However, David Jean-Baptiste had one more prayer left for the Mocs that went answered at the buzzer, creating pandemonium in Asheville.

It is the ultimate thrill of victory and agony of defeat moment, as Bothwell collapses to the floor after putting up a herculean effort to get the Paladins into overtime and into the lead, while Jean-Baptiste gets swarmed by teammates (and Mocs fans who made the trek to Asheville) on the court.

The revisionist Western The Power of the Dog, from beloved New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion (The Piano), hasn’t only been an awards magnet. (It’s up for 12 Oscars, among them Best Picture.) It’s also been an unexpected streaming hit. It’s cracked the Netflix Top 10. It’s inspired lots of online discussion. But there’s been one fierce critic: legendary actor Sam Elliott, who called it a “piece of s*it.” But one actor is not letting that get him down.

That person is Kodi Smit-McPhee, the former child actor (you may remember him from Matt Reeves’ Let Me In or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, as well as a couple X-Men films). He scored his first Oscar nomination for his work as Peter, the young son of Kirsten Dunst’s Rose whose relationship with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Phil is, shall we say, loaded.

The film’s muted-but-present queer angle is one of the issues that enraged Elliott. In an appearance of WTF with Marc Maron, the actor railed against, among other things, how the men “running around in chaps and no shirts,” and that there’s “these allusions of homosexuality throughout the f*cking movie.”

Cumberbatch gave a semi-cryptic response to Elliott’s comments. (As did, it seemed, Netflix.) But when asked about the flap, Smit-McPhee took a more Zen approach.

When Variety asked him what he had to say in response, Smit-McPhee said, simply, “Nothing. ‘Cause I’m a mature being and I’m passionate about what I do. And I don’t really give energy to anything outside of that.” He added, “Good luck to him.”

And that’s that! So Smit-McPhee is just going to go on living his life, not worried that another brilliant actor had some issues — some dodgy issues, even — with one of his movies. If only all of us could compartmentalize like him.

(Via Variety)