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Model and former-Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller received nationwide attention over her response to a question about marriage equality during the 2009 Miss USA pageant. When asked (by Perez Hilton, because 2009) whether same-sex marriage should be legalized, she infamously replied, “I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.”

That’s when Prejean Boller became a “right-wing hero,” as Los Angeles Magazine called her. She now shares her conservative views to her 11,000-plus followers on Instagram, where she has recently pivoted to offering money to people at Target if they remove their masks. (Her bio includes an American flag emoji followed by the number “45.”)

Rolling Stone reports that Prejean Boller, who married former-Baltimore Ravens quarterback Kyle Boller in 2010, encourages “people to defy indoor mask policies and go mask-free in big-box stores in exchange for money. In this series, Prejean Boller and fellow anti-mask activist Patrice Reynolds, who identify themselves as the ‘muzzle-free patrol,’ stand in front of a Target sign mandating face coverings indoors before going up to people who are not wearing masks inside Target and giving them $1 bills.”

Have we learned nothing from “stranger danger”? Do not accept money from randos.

According to her Stories, Prejean Boller has been speaking at conservative rallies, hobnobbing with far-right influencers like Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn at Mar-a-Lago, and, with Reynolds, has been actively campaigning for people to violate mask policies at big-box stores. In a video from three weeks ago, they went into a Home Goods in Encinitas, California, giving the “muzzle-free” (adult) shoppers $5 bills with smiley faces on them and offering money to people to take off their masks. “I love seeing all the normal people who do not comply with tyranny!” she said in a caption.

Prejean Boller, who had her Miss California title revoked for failing to fulfill her contractual commitments (there were many “you’re fired” headlines at the time), went viral for her comments at a school board meeting in California. “I’m a mama bear and I know there’s a lot of mama bears here tonight, and no one’s gonna mess with our cubs,” she said. “I’m simply here to tell you to unmask our children. We’re done begging. In fact, we’re done asking for permission. We are gonna be unmasking our children today.” She also claimed that the pandemic was “over.” This was in August 2021.

(Via Rolling Stone)

The View moderator Whoopi Goldberg generally keeps the show’s conversation from getting too out of line. Yet she went off the deep end in her own way on Monday with unfortunate remarks about the Holocaust, which she declared “isn’t about race,” despite the Nazi regime’s systematic and targeted extermination of Jews. Whoopi ended up apologizing three times for her remarks, but that wasn’t enough. Reports that Whoopi was in huge trouble turned out to be accurate, and on Tuesday night, ABC News suspended her for two weeks with ABC News president Kim Godwin declaring that Whoopi will “take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments,” which Godwin described as “wrong and hurtful.”

Godwin added, “The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.” Well, former co-host Meghan McCain made her thoughts known by condemning Whoopi’s major slip-up. And she’s not the only one who’s graced that soundstage and is now weighing in, but in a different way. The Daily Beast reports that “co-hosts Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar, and Ana Navarro are furious with the network’s decision.” Not only that, but Navarro spoke directly to The Daily Beast:

“I love Whoopi Goldberg. I love The View,” she said on Tuesday evening. “This was an incredibly unfortunate incident. Whoopi is a lifelong ally to the Jewish community. She is not an antisemite. Period. I am sad. And I have nothing else to say.”

And the show will go on. Wednesday’s program will feature guests including fashion designer Christian Siriano and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who will discuss how he’s slashing drug prices and using his billionaire powers for good.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift have been good friends for years and now it looks like the pair is getting ready to drop a new collaboration, as fans think a new Instagram post from Sheeran indicates.

Sheeran shared what looks like an autographed CD case, the art of which is modeled after a playing card and features a “queen” that looks suspiciously like Swift, an observation also made by virtually every user who commented on the post. Sheeran wrote, “Signing some cds for something coming in a bit, keep an eye out.”

There’s context here. The Daily Mail notes that in late 2021, Sheeran said of the song in an interview, “That is my next single, I’m super excited about it. I’ve done a collaboration for it that will come out in the new year with someone I just love.” Furthermore, the publication also notes (as does a Reddit thread from October) that Sheeran’s “Overpass Graffiti” video contains apparent hints at the collaboration, like references to Swift in a newspaper and a patch on his jacket. There has also been speculation that Swift included a visual reference to Sheeran’s = album in her “I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version)” video.

It hasn’t been that long since the pair’s previous collaboration, as they recently popped up together on Red (Taylor’s Version).

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

As the controversy over Whoopi Goldberg‘s Holocaust comments on The View continued to dominate headlines, former co-host Meghan McCain, who left the show on not the greatest terms, couldn’t resist wading into the situation. Shortly after Goldberg made her remarks that the Holocaust “isn’t about race,” McCain dipped her toes in the water by not directly naming The View, but it was clear who she was talking about.

“Antisemitism is a cancer and a poison that is increasingly excused in our culture and television – and permeates spaces that should shock us all,” McCain tweeted on Monday afternoon.

Following her tweet, Goldberg would go on to apologize three times for her remarks. First, in a tweet regretting her choice of words, again on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and a third time at the start of Tuesday morning’s episode of The View before turning things over to Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

However, despite all of that, McCain dropped a second tweet on Tuesday afternoon, and this time, she directly named her old stomping grounds.

“I hate commenting on my old employer because I have moved in every way a person can move on,” McCain tweeted. “That being said I am an activist against antisemitism and it is a big part of my life. The growing threat is real and virulent and everywhere. I am heartbroken about what was said.”

Turns out McCain’s tweets had a purpose. They were building towards her dropping a new column in the Daily Mail where she rails against ABC for having a “double, triple, and even quadrupled standard” when it comes to liberal hosts on The View.

In the new column, McCain complains about how liberal hosts are “protected” and, in a moment that brings back memories of her time on the show, McCain calls Goldberg’s apology “half-assed.” Via Daily Mail:

Whoopi has said a slew of insanely-controversial and hurtful things over the course of her tenure at The View. Some of the more notorious ones include defending Roman Polanski for raping a 13-year-old (calling it ‘not rape, rape’) and defending Bill Cosby after over 50 accusers had come out publicly with their stories.

With age and status comes protection at The View. This goes for the other liberal hosts as well.

Instead of half-assed apologies and bringing in experts in the antisemitism space, maybe dedicate an entire ‘Hot Topics’ segment to discussing why what was said was so deeply offensive and dangerous. In the world of media, there are people who will never face the same ramifications and repercussions that others will.

To the surprise of no one, McCain ended up being proven wrong. Just a few hours after publishing her column, Goldberg was suspended from The View, confirming reports that her Holocaust remarks landed her in huge trouble with ABC brass. Maybe next time, Meghan.

(Via Daily Mail)

Few artists had a 2021 like Olivia Rodrigo did. The young singer rose to fame at the top of last year with her breakout single, “Drivers License.” Months later she released her debut album, Sour, which wound up being one of the most successful pop albums of the year. She also landed seven nominations for the 2022 Grammys. Starting in April, Rodrigo will tour in North America and Europe and she’s bringing a trio of singers with her for the string of shows.

Who Is Opening The Olivia Rodrigo Tour?

Gracie Abrams and Holly Humberstone will support Rodrigo during her performances in North America while Baby Queen will serve as her opener for shows in Europe and the UK. Gracie Abrams’ latest release arrived at the end of 2021 with This Is What It Feels Like, which boasted 12 songs without any guest features. As for Holly Humberstone, she released the EP The Walls Are Way Too Thin. She’s also already released a new single this year with the song “London Is Lonely.” Lastly, Baby Queen’s most recent release was “Wannabe,” which arrived in November, following her debut album, The Yearbook.

You can see the full list of dates for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour Tour below.

Stop the presses! Sound the alarm! Wake your children! Gasp audibly! Collect on all the things you were promised “when hell freezes over,” because it appears it has. According to newly surfaced reports, Donald Trump’s desperate attempts to overturn the results of the totally legit 2020 presidential election became so unhinged that even Rudy Giuliani was apparently taken aback.

According to The New York Times, the former New York City mayor—who will now forever be known as the guy who held a press conference next to a dildo boutique—actually voiced his reluctance when Trump and his cronies were talking about all sorts of wacky plays to declare the 45th president the winner of the 2020 election. Which he most definitely was not. One of the most popular ideas was for Trump to send in the military to collect the voting machines in states where the incumbent nominee lost bigly to preserve as evidence of “fraud,” despite the fact that no such evidence existed.

The New York Times reports that it was retired Army colonel Phil Waldron, a former colleague of Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who initially floated this idea. As the NYT writes:

“According to people familiar with the accounts, Mr. Waldron, shortly after the election, began telling associates that he had found irregularities in vote results that he felt were suggestive of fraud. He then came up with the idea of having a federal agency like the military or the Department of Homeland Security confiscate the machines to preserve evidence.”

Trump liked what Waldron was selling, and had reportedly already been thinking about trying to persuade the Justice Department to confiscate the machines from states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, where the mere fact that Trump lost led him to conclude that something fishy was happening. Yet, all along, it was Giuliani—Mr. Hair Leak, the guy who farted during a public hearing—who was buzzing in their ears as the voice of reason. As the Times writes:

Mr. Giuliani was vehemently opposed to the idea of the military taking part in the seizure of machines, according to two people familiar with the matter. The conflict between him and his legal team, and Mr. Flynn, Ms. [Sidney] Powell and Mr. Byrne came to a dramatic head on Dec. 18, 2020, during a meeting with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office.

At the meeting, Mr. Flynn and Ms. Powell presented Mr. Trump with a copy of the draft executive order authorizing the military to oversee the seizure of machines. After reading it, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Giuliani to the Oval Office, according to one person familiar with the matter. When Mr. Giuliani read the draft order, he told Mr. Trump that the military could be used only if there was clear-cut evidence of foreign interference in the election.

When Waldron altered his plan to appease the naysayers, he suggested that Trump ask the Department of Homeland Security to do the dirty work—a task Trump reportedly delegated to Rudy, who obliged but reported back that that was a no-go, too. According to an inside source, while Flynn and Powell continued to push a military interference as the president’s best hope at not having to fill out a change of address form for the post office, Giuliani—despite being one of the biggest pushers of The Big Lie—was stating behind the scenes that these unnecessary shenanigans were likely to get his pal Trump impeached.

Six words I never thought I’d type: If only Trump has listened to Rudy.

(Via The New York Times)

Simon Cowell is giving electric bikes a bad name—or at least his ability to ride one safely. As US Weekly reports, the notoriously cranky former American Idol judge had an accident while driving his e-bike near his London home last week, and ended up being hospitalized. But this was no simple spill.

“Simon is lucky to be alive,” a source told the outlet. “He was pedaling along, with his electric motor on, when the wheels suddenly went from under him after hitting a wet patch. He slipped and went flying over the handlebars into the middle of the road.”

Though Cowell was released from the hospital the same day as the accident, he suffered a broken arm. This isn’t Cowell’s first e-bike dust-up either: in August 2020, while testing an electric bike in Malibu, he took a major spill and broke his back, which led to an emergency surgery that night in which a metal rod was placed into his back. Cowell was not wearing a helmet on either occasion, which might be the one good thing to come out of the story.

While Cowell is not ready to ditch his electric wheels just yet, the source did confirm that he has agreed to start wearing a helmet.

(Via US Weekly)

It’s impossible for me to pick my favorite John Wick set piece (they’re all great), but one of my favorites is the Casablanca shoot out in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. I’m not saying it’s better than the movie Casablanca, but I’m also not not saying that, because Casablanca doesn’t have Halle Berry shooting a guy in the shoulder and then instructing one of her dogs to bite him in the nuts, and I don’t remember Humphrey Bogart using someone’s back as a spring board to climb a wall and tear into a gunman.

Please enjoy.

Berry was a welcome addition to the John Wick cinematic universe (her dogs, too), and the Oscar winner recently teased that her character, Sofia Al-Azwar, might be getting a spin-off. “There could possibly be a Sofia… her own movie,” she told IGN. “So she might not be in [John Wick: Chapter 4], but she might be doing her own thingy-thingy.”

Berry compared the “thingy-thingy” to “putting some ointment on a little sore,” a reference to the canceled spin-off movie based on her Die Another Day character, Jinx. Instead, MGM decided to reboot the James Bond franchise, beginning with hiring Daniel Craig to play a grittier, more grounded, less invisible car 007. Oh well. A Jinx spin-off sounds good, but a Sofia spin-off sounds better — once Halle Berry is done saving Earth from the moon, that is.

(Via IGN)

Being nominated for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is one of music’s biggest honors, and now a new crop of artists can add that to their resume. Nominees for the 2021 class were announced today, and the list includes 17 iconic artists: A Tribe Called Quest, Beck, Carly Simon, Devo, Dionne Warwick, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, Eminem, Eurythmics, Fela Kuti, Judas Priest, Kate Bush, Lionel Richie, MC5, New York Dolls, Pat Benatar, and Rage Against The Machine.

Of those, A Tribe Called Quest, Beck, Carly Simon, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, Eminem, and Lionel Richie are first-time nominees. The rule for Rock Hall eligibility is that an artist must have released their first commercial recording 25 years before the year of the nomination, meaning that this is Eminem’s first year of eligibility. Eminem is the only 2022 nominee in his first year of eligibility.

Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Foundation Chairman John Sykes said in a statement, “This year’s ballot recognizes a diverse group of incredible artists, each who has had a profound impact on the sound of youth culture. Their music not only moved generations, but also influenced the sound of countless artists that followed.”

Fan voting for the 2022 class is open now via the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame website. The list of inductees is expected to be announced in May, followed by the induction ceremony at some point this fall.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

NFTs have become very popular in the music industry with a number of artists like Nas, Eminem, Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Mick Jagger, and more jumping on the wave. While the concept of an NFT may still be confusing to some, things have been smooth sailing for the time being. Unfortunately, all of that changed on Tuesday when the NFT platform HitPiece was exposed and accused of selling NFTs of numerous artists’ songs with their consent. The platform claims to sell “one of one NFTs of all your favorite songs,” but according to the many complaints from artists, this is far from the case.

One of the complaints against HitPiece came from the Nashville-based record company Needlejuice, who shared a statement on Twitter condemning the platform’s actions. “Neither us nor our artists have consented to @joinhitpiece selling NFTs of our music,” they wrote in a tweet. “Crypto grifters prove once again that they do not care about artists or ethics- just their dystopian end goal of turning every facet of life into a stock market pump & dump scheme.” In an interview with Newsweek, Needlejuice’s co-founder Brandon Brown added that “NFTs are fundamentally antithetical to our core values as a company.”

Many users of social media have concluded that HitPiece scraped Spotify’s API and used the streaming platform’s data to “auction” NFTs of songs without being completely clear about what is being sold in the NFT. After a few hours of being attacked by artists all over, HitPiece shared a statement about the matter on their Twitter page.

“Clearly we have struck a nerve and are very eager to create the ideal experience for music fans,” they wrote. “To be clear, artists get paid when digital goods are sold on HitPiece. Like all beta products, we are continuing to listen to all user feedback and are committed to evolving the product to fit the needs of the artists, labels, and fans alike.”

You can view more reactions from artists below.