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NFTs are still a young phenomenon, though it’s already given celebrities another way to make some dough (or to just bore TV audiences). It’s also already become a target for thieves and scammers. Earlier this month, one lover of non-fungible tokens, whose Twitter handle was actually “ILovePonzi,” lost a large collection to a scammer. And on Saturday, the NFT world freaked out over hackers who’d nabbed nearly $2 million in digital doodads.

This comes from Vice, who report that someone or someones have been stealing and flipping NFTs on OpenSea, the internet’s largest exchange for digital collectibles. A warning on the service warned of a possible phishing operation and warned users to “not click links outside of opensea.io.” Those who’d been hit lost a number of high-end NFTs:

Blockchain records show that the attacker was able to transfer numerous NFTs from different users to their address for free. Stolen NFTs included examples from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and several other popular collections. The attacker has already sold some of the NFTs, for example, this NFT from the Azuki collection for 13.4 ETH ($36,380). The attacker’s wallet currently contains more than 600 ETH worth nearly $2 million.

That said, the hacker(s) did wind up returning some of their pilfered NTFs. Numerous tokens were returned to one user, save one, which remains frozen on OpenSea. Users of the service have been required to upgrade to a new contract, which fixes an issue that allowed hackers to nick valuable digital collectibles from unsuspecting users. So if you’ve spent a pretty penny on Bored Apes, best be careful.

(Via Vice)

Sunday afternoon’s Big Ten tilt between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Michigan Wolverines ended with the two teams needed to be separated in the handshake line. Late in the game, Wisconsin coach Greg Gard took a timeout when the outcome was already decided, which apparently did not sit well with Michigan coach Juwan Howard.

The two coaches came together at the end of the game for a handshake, but Howard had some choice words for Gard. Players and coaches attempted to get in between the two while tensions were on the verge of boiling over, but while that was happening, Howard extended his arm and swiped at Badgers assistant Joe Krabbenhoft, making contact with his face.

A brawl then broke out between the two teams, with plenty of pushing and shoving and several players appearing to throw punches without any of them landing.

This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened to Howard’s Michigan squad — the former Fab Five member-turned-head coach got ejected from a Big Ten Tournament game against Maryland last year for getting into it with now-former Terrapins coach Mark Turgeon, which he said was the result of him feeling like he was “being threatened.” The loss dropped the Wolverines, which entered the season ranked in the preseason top-10 but have struggled mightily to meet those expectations, to 14-11 on the year and 8-7 in conference play.

Shortly after this month’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, The Game hinted that he was a bit upset that he was left out of the lineup for the performance. The rapper, just like Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar, and Anderson .Paak who all performed at the show, is a prodigy of Dr. Dre’s, which may have been why he hoped he’d be invited to perform. Days later, The Game’s longtime manager Wack 100 said that his client wasn’t invited to the halftime show because he “told that n**** [JAY-Z] to suck his d*ck like 18 albums ago.” This caused The Game to step forward and set everything straight.

“Don’t nobody speak for ‘The Game’ except ‘THE GAME,” he wrote in an image he posted on Instagram. “I ain’t had no conversation with nobody regarding Jay-Z and the Super Bowl he put together. I don’t feel no way about no being included. It was a GREAT SHOW featuring iconic artists. It was a WIN for the culture.” He continued:

“I control my own narrative. Do not be fooled by the internet, blogs, podcasts or anyone speaking on my name that is not me. My life & new album are both amazing & I’m in a great space creatively & artistically. I’m in Miami to help Ye’ finish Donda 2 & support my friend in one of the most pivotal times of his life/career. Leave me & my name out of any NEGATIVE conversations unless I have given you a REAL reason to include me !!! Hov’ continues to break down doors for the culture & I am in full support of anything & anyone who is on the help side of urban greatness.”

Last week, in a naked attempt to court more viewers uninterested in their artistic nominations, the Oscars announced a new, strange category: It’s called #OscarsFanFavorite, and it gives social media addicts the chance to fête a movie that actually made some money. Perhaps it can go to movie theatergoers obvious favorite: a little movie called Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has now outgrossed even Avatar (not adjusted for inflation, that is). Or maybe it will backfire even amusing fashion.

That might be the case, as Deadline reports that right now, the leading horse is Cinderella, Amazon’s much-mocked musical take on the classic fairy tale, featuring Camila Cabello, James Corden, and Billy Porter as the “Fabulous Godmother.” It’s not exactly a critical darling. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a mere 43%. But audiences don’t seem that smitten with it either, with an audience score of only 60%.

So does young social media secretly love it? Or re a bunch of chuckleheads bombing the system because they think it’ll be funny when the snicker-inducing Cinderella movie is more successful at the Oscars than the award-gobbling South Korean drama Drive My Car? Whatever the case, given the silliness of the category, people on Twitter thought it was apropos.

Then again, it’s not too late to deep six a category that seems about as respected as the quickly aborted Popular Movie mishegoss from 2018.

(Via Deadline)

Later this week, Conway The Machine will release his new album, God Don’t Make Mistakes, which will be his official debut on Eminem’s Shady Records, which he signed to back in 2017. Last summer, the rapper revealed that it would include contributions from Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Benny The Butcher, Westside Gunn, Jill Scott, T.I., and more. Six days before the release of God Don’t Make Mistakes, which arrives on February 25, Conway decided to surprise his fans with a special treat: He released his latest mixtape, Greetings Earthlings.

“I spent my birthday Cooking up a plate for y’all and it’s All star weekend too so I’m in a good mood,” Conway said in a post on Instagram. “Here’s Something to hold y’all over until the 25th.” Greetings Earthlings is set to arrive with 14 songs and it’s mostly composed of freestyles and remixes of songs by Kanye West (“Jail Freestyle”), J. Cole (“Greetings”), Big Sean (“Moments”), Baby Keem (“Family Ties), and Nicki Minaj (“Seeing Green”). Greetings Earthlings features Conway’s latest single, “John Woo Flick” with Benny The Butcher and Westside Gunn. He also included “TRU Bethel,” his collaboration with 2 Chainz, on the new mixtape.

Greetings Earthlings and God Don’t Make Mistakes will be Conway’s first full-length releases since last year’s If It Bleeds It Can Be Killed with Big Ghost and La Maquina.

You can listen to Greetings Earthlings on DatPiff here.

God Don’t Make Mistakes is out 2/25 via Shady Records/Interscope.

It’s been four months since the tragic, accidental shooting on the set of the Western Rust, and details remain murky. An investigation is underway, hoping to discover what exactly led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed by a prop gun wielded by actor and producer Alec Baldwin. A new piece by Vanity Fair digs into what we now know. No one, from Baldwin to novice armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, is accepting blame. But one person who is wasn’t even on set.

Vanity Fair spoke with Neal W. Zoromski, a longtime Hollywood prop master whose credits include The Day After Tomorrow, Species, and Thank You for Smoking. Zoromski was offered the lead position on set less than wo weeks before principal photography was to begin.

“These folks started talking to me roughly 10 days before they were going to begin shooting,” Zoromski told VF. “And that’s a disservice, not only to the department and what the department is responsible for, but it’s a disservice to the film and a disservice to the actors that are working on the film.”

That was a big red flag but it wasn’t a deal-breaker. What was the deal-breaker was when he learned that he would only have two prop assistants, neither of which would focus exclusively on the many firearms. Instead, the unit production manager suggested making one of the assistants the armorer.

Then he learned he would have two prop assistants but no separate armorer to focus exclusively on the film’s array of firearms. “We’d really like one of the assistants to be the armorer that can push up on the gunfights and heavy armorer days,” Walters emailed him the next day. (She did not respond to requests for comment.)

“This would definitely create a dangerous situation with safety being minimized,” Zoromski said. When he realized he couldn’t hire a full-time armorer, he turned down the job — and is now overcome with grief, believing he could have prevented the accident. Indeed, when he heard the news, he was shooting a Super Bowl commercial with LeBron James. Feeling sick to his stomach, he went to the bathroom and threw up.

The investigation, meanwhile, continues. Last week, Hutchins’ family filed a wrongful death suit against Baldwin, who recently returned to work for the first time since the shooting.

(Via Vanity Fair)

This month’s Super Bowl Halftime Show turned out to be very beneficial for the artists that took the stage. Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Mary J. Blige, all saw an increase in their streams after their performance. On Spotify, Dre’s numbers went up 185 percent, Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama” saw an increase of 520 percent, and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” went up 250 percent. Additionally, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s “Still D.R.E.” saw its streams go up 245 percent. But that wasn’t all.

“Still D.R.E.” also became Dre and Snoop’s first video to reach a billion views on YouTube. While the video for the song, which appears on Dre’s second album, 1999’s 2001, was released on the week ending October 3, 1999, the video was uploaded to YouTube on October 2011. In addition to Dre and Snoop themselves, the video, which was directed by Hype Williams, also features cameos from Eminem, Xzibit, Funkmaster Flex, and Warren G. As for the song itself, Dre and Snoop have been very open over the years about the fact that it was completely written by Jay-Z.

The new milestone comes after Dre revealed what words the NFL made him remove from the entire Super Bowl performance. The opening lines for Kendrick Lamar’s “M.A.A.D. City” (“If Pirus and Crips could all get along / They’d probably gun me down by the end of this song”) did not fly with the NFL, according to Dre. “They had a problem with that, so we had to take that out,” he said. “No big deal, we get it. But, all in all, everybody came in, we were professional, everybody was on time.”

Though Justin Bieber was recently in Las Vegas to help celebrate the launch of his Our World documentary, dropping a few hints about when he wants to start a family in the doc in the meantime, he’s been forced to cancel an upcoming concert there. Due to what? Covid-19 of course. Even if the current Omicron variant isn’t wreaking so much havoc that SNL guests have to be canceled, like it was back in December 2021, the virus is still very much a threat and impacting live events and tours.

Justin’s Justice tour, which kicked off in San Diego this past Friday, has already had to postpone their second scheduled show. “Due to a covid outbreak within the team, Justin Bieber’s Justice World Tour show scheduled to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada has been rescheduled to June 28, 2022,” the Justice Tour News account posted on Twitter, along with the following statement:

“Due to positive COVID results within the Justice Tour family, we will, unfortunately, have to postpone Sunday’s show in Las Vegas. Justin is, of course, hugely disappointed, but the health and safety of his crew and fans is always his number one priority. The tour launch in San Diego was a massive success and Justin is excited to bring this spectacular show to his Las Vegas fans as soon as possible. The rescheduled date for Las Vegas will be June 28. Tickets for the original show will be honored. Refunds available at point of purchase.”

According to TMZ, Justin is the one who tested positive for Covid-19, but the pop star hasn’t confirmed that news. Wishing a speedy recovery to whoever it is on the Justice touring team who is dealing with exposure.

Bryan Cranston is one of the few performers who can do whatever he wants. But doing whatever you want sometimes means turning things down, knowing they might not go over well. That’s how he felt when he stepped away from directing a play that parodied the Ku Klux Klan, suspecting that it might not go over well given the current spike in white supremacy.

In a new interview with The Los Angeles Times (as caught by Page Six), in 2019 a playhouse in L.A. offered Cranston the chance to direct The Foreigner, a play by Larry Shue about an Englishman who puts the kibosh on a KKK plot to take over a Georgian fishing lodge. But after the murder of George Floyd and the protests that erupted, the Breaking Bad alum suspected a comedy lampooning racial tensions might not fly in the current climate.

“It is a privileged viewpoint to be able to look at the Ku Klux Klan and laugh at them and belittle them for their broken and hateful ideology,” Cranston told the publication. “But the Ku Klux Klan and Charlottesville and white supremacists — that’s still happening and it’s not funny. It’s not funny to any group that is marginalized by these groups’ hatred, and it really taught me something.

“And I realized, ‘Oh my God, if there’s one, there’s two, and if there’s two, there are 20 blind spots that I have … what else am I blind to?” he said. “If we’re taking up space with a very palatable play from the 1980s where rich old white people can laugh at white supremacists and say, ‘Shame on you,’ and have a good night in the theater, things need to change, I need to change.”

So instead Cranston accepted a job starring in Power of Sail, about a professor whose decision to have a Holocaust denier speak to his class does not go over well with his students.

“A good play may not change your life, but it could change your day,” Cranston explained. “To go deeper, a play can also stimulate the mind. It can make you question your thought process — your dogma. It could challenge you.”

(Via The Los Angeles Times and Page Six)

Tyrese Maxey has been one of the breakout stars of the 2021-22 NBA season, going from promising rotation player as a rookie to an apparent foundational piece for the Sixers as they hope to be a championship team this season.

Maxey took the reins as the starting point in Philadelphia this season amid the Ben Simmons fiasco and thrived, doubling his production from last year while actually becoming more efficient a scorer. The second-year star is averaging 16.9 points, 4.6 assists, and 3.5 rebounds per game on 46.9/39.0/87.1 shooting splits, making himself untouchable in James Harden trade talks as the Sixers see those two partnering to create a highly productive and dangerous backcourt combo opposite Joel Embiid’s dominant inside presence.

For All-Star Weekend, Maxey got to play in the revamped Rising Stars Game and take in the full All-Star experience in Cleveland for the first time. On Saturday, we got a chance to sit down with Tyrese at Mountain Dew’s The Block activation and talk about Rising Stars, he and Scottie Barnes hilariously missing bunnies, seizing opportunity this season, and lessons learned from Embiid and his newest star teammate in Harden.

How’s All-Star Weekend treating you?

It’s been going great, going smooth, but it’s freezing out here.

It is very cold.

No, it’s like, too cold.

It’s extremely cold. Aside from that, though, you had Rising Stars last night. That was fun for us as fans watching because the new format seemed to be genuinely fun and you guys seem really engaged. What did you think of the new format?

It was great. It was cool. It kind of kept things competitive, to a certain extent. But, no, it was great. It was fun. I had a great time. I made a lot of connections, talk to some guys and joked a little bit and had a lot of fun.

Are you and Scottie [Barnes] going to work on five-foot push shots a little more?

You know, maybe. After the break, though. My break started on Thursday night [laughs]. But nah, It was just a fun deal, you know. It just turned out like that and we didn’t plan it like that, but now it’s just it’s a funny thing.

And coming here to work with Dew. What does it mean to be able to partner with somebody like this who has an activation like this going on here at All-Star?

This is a major establishment and you really just appreciate it. Mountain Dew and The Block and you know, different things like that. It’s really good. It’s a cool thing to do.

I do want to talk about your season so far, because when we talked last year, we talked about you always being ready for opportunity whenever it came. Obviously this season you come in and you’re given an expanded role. What was it that lets you come in and take advantage of that opportunity to the degree that you have in getting the starting role this year?

Yeah, my father, he told me a thing when I was young about “Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.” So coming in, Coach Doc told me at the end of last year after we lost he was saying that no matter who’s here, no matter what the circumstance is gonna be, your role is gonna expand, it’s gonna be bigger. And he told me it’s gonna be a big summer for me. He wanted me to be ready to hit the ground running as soon as training camp started. So that’s what I did. I told myself that I’ll get one percent better every single day throughout the summer. And, you know, that’s what I did and now we’re here.

What are the things that if you look at where you were last year as a rookie, to where you are now in your second season, where do you think he took the biggest leap over the last year?

I think one is communication. Being able to talk to my teammates, having their trust, and them having the confidence in me to where when I say something they understand it and we can have that respect for one another to go out there on the court and execute it. And then just knowing where to be, like defensively. Because last year I missed training camp just because of the COVID situation, different things like that, so that helped me, having the full training camp and a full offseason. And then lastly, I think catch-and-shoot threes. I’m playing with Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, now James [Harden] the catch-and-shoot threes, the opportunities are going to be a lot more, and when it comes, you got to knock it down.

Your partnership with Joel Embiid, that seems to be more comfortable this year and you seem to be really learning how to work off of a guy like that. What have you learned about playing off with somebody who dominates inside that way, but also is able to step out and kind of create space for you, because it’s obviously working well for both of you?

Yeah, you know, you just appreciate it. Sometimes I have to sit back and not take the moment for granted, because what he’s doing is special. For him to be his size and to have the ball, like you say, shoot back threes and also dominate in the paint and defend the way he defends, it’s amazing. But yeah, I just try to pick his brain as much as possible. You know, I think our friendship off the court is really what helps us be successful on the court. We have a relationship to where when he criticizes me or when I criticize him, it’s still all love, but we just try to push each other to make each other better.

And you’ve now had a week or so with James in the building — obviously he’s not playing yet but he’s been on the practice court. What are you already picking up from somebody like that, who plays your position, who’s somebody I’m sure you’ve watched and pulled stuff from watching him but now you get to share the court with him?

I mean, he’s a former MVP. He scores the ball well, he creates for his teammates well, and I think the biggest thing is he has a high basketball IQ. He knows what a defense is going to be. He knows how to pick a defense apart if it’s pick-and-roll or just one-on-one isolation. So just picking his brain like that, and he’s really helped me as far as confidence as well. He’s like, man, don’t change who you are. You go out there and he said I’m here for you and we’re going to do this thing together.

Lastly, obviously you’re going to make the playoff push here coming up. What did you learn from your first postseason experience that you think is going to help you as you guys try to make a run at the title this year?

I think the biggest thing I learned is that the playoffs is single possession games. You know, every possession matters, every single possession. I feel like you don’t realize that until the end of the game when, you know, you had a layup or something and you turn the ball over and then now at the end of the game with five seconds left you down one or you’re down two and now it’s like, oh, man, I wish I had that layup back. Coach Doc said something last year that I think will stick with me the rest of my career. He kept saying that you never know how many good teams you’re going to be on. You never know how many contending teams you’re going to be on, and you never know how big the window is.

So every chance you get, you gotta cash in on the opportunity.