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Antonio Brown became a free agent in just about the weirdest way imaginable. Last week, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers cut the productive wide receiver on the heels of a highly-publicized incident in which Brown, after an argument on the team’s sideline during the game against the New York Jets, ripped off his pads, ran through the end zone without a shirt on, interacted with the crowd, and left the stadium altogether.

Calling it bizarre is an understatement, and that’s before we get to the part where Brown straight up just got a ride from someone into New York City after it all happened. There is a pretty major disagreement about what happened — Brown, who is adamant he was cut and did not quit on the team, claimed he was too injured to play despite being cleared, while the Bucs claim he never said anything about being injured that badly. But a few days removed, Brown concedes that the manner in which things went down was a bit much.

“It probably wasn’t necessary or professional,” Brown told TMZ as he was about to embark on an evening of doing stuff with Kanye West.

It’s unclear if Brown will get another shot in the NFL. As for the Bucs, they’ll begin their postseason on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Gunna is really trying to make “fetch” happen with his new single “Pushin P” featuring Future and Young Thug. The three Atlanta rappers sell their newfangled slang term as hard as they can in the NSFW-ish video, even inserting little interludes of them using it in everyday life while they party at a strip club. Whether or not it’ll catch on remains to be seen, but the song itself has proven to be one of the fans’ favorites from Gunna’s new album DS4EVER, which just dropped last Friday and is on track for a No. 2 debut on the Billboard 200 next week.

In addition to “Pushin P,” Gunna’s campaign for the album has included the singles “Too Easy” and “Livin Wild,” as well as a video for the remix of “Too Easy” featuring frequent collaborator Roddy Ricch. Gunna also released a deluxe edition of the new album just days after the original, sprinkling four new songs in amidst a tracklist that featured 21 Savage, G Herbo, Kodak Black, Lil Baby, Nechie, Yung Bleu, and Gunna’s possible girlfriend Chloe Bailey on the Jon B-sampling “You & Me.” And for fans who just can’t get enough of Gunna this week, he’s also listed as a feature on Cordae’s upcoming album, From A Bird’s Eye View.

Watch the “Pushin P” video above and stream DS4EVER, out now on 300 and Atlantic, here.

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

Damian Lillard is headed under the knife. According to a report by Brian Windhorst of ESPN, Lillard, who has been dealing with a lingering case of lower abdominal tendinopathy that has sidelined him for stretches this season, has decided to turn to surgery as a way to get the situation resolved.

Despite the fact that he will undergo a procedure, though, Windhorst reports that Lillard might not be shut down for the remainder of the year, with his return to action to be determined.

Per Chris Haynes of Yahoo, Lillard will be re-evaluated in 6-8 weeks post-surgery.

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups recently floated the possibility that Lillard might need to have some sort of extended time off to properly recover from the injury, telling the press “I think what we’re gonna do is just kind of meet, put all our heads together soon and then talk through some of those things. I think that’s probably gonna be the route that we go if he doesn’t get some kind of relief there.”

Lillard has played in 29 of the Blazers’ 40 games this season, which includes each of Portland’s last five. The Blazers currently sit at 16-24 on the season. Even when he has played, though, Lillard hasn’t quite looked like himself, as he’s averaging 24 points and 7.3 assists per game this season while connecting on a career-low 32.4 percent of his attempts from three.

On Wednesday, the Screen Actors Guild announced their 2021 nominations. There were plenty of surprises: no Kristen Stewart for Spencer, no Pose, no Penelope Cruz, no Alana Haim. (On the other hand, there’s the unexpected but deserved nom for Bradley Cooper’s maniacal turn in Licorice Pizza. Oh, and Jared Leto.) One film whose inclusion was not surprising is The Power of the Dog, the renegade Western by Jane Campion. Benedict Cumberbatch, Jodi Smitt-McPhee, and Kirsten Dunst were all nominated. But only one of them had to be woken up to hear the news because one of their kids spent the night puking.

The Wrap reached out to the actress, who earned her first-ever SAG citation for her turn as a widow in 1920s Montana who marries a ranch owner (real-life husband Jesse Plemons), much to the dismay of the man’s possibly closeted brother (Cumberbatch). She gave the usual gracious boilerplate. (“It just feels so wonderful to be included and be in a movie that people are watching and people are loving.”) But she was also unusually candid about how she learned she’d been celebrated.

“And one of my children threw up at 4 a.m., so I was actually napping when I woke up to all these texts that I’d been nominated,” Dunst confided. “And I was like, ‘Hold on, gotta give the baby a bottle first.’ It’s a funny balance right now between these two parallel worlds.”

So congrats, Kirsten Dunst, for being recognized for a strong performance in one of awards season’s biggest films — and for adding some life to a typically reverential season.

(Via The Wrap)

Six months after filing a harassment lawsuit against Nicki Minaj and her husband Kenneth Petty, TMZ reports that Jennifer Hough has voluntarily dropped Nicki from her suit . While TMZ’s source close to the case says that no money changed hands, the report does say that Petty remains a defendant. Nicki’s attorney, who previously called the lawsuit an attempt to shake down the rapper in connection with her husband’s ongoing legal issues stemming from Hough’s initial encounter in 1994.

Hough filed the suit in August of 2021, saying that the couple tried to pay her off, then bully her into recanting her previous testimony, which led to Petty’s conviction for first-degree attempted rape. Petty served his sentence but was added to the sex offender registry in the state of New York; however, when the couple moved to the Los Angeles area shortly after getting married in 2019, Petty was arrested for failing to register in California in March of 2020. According to Hough’s lawsuit, the couple’s representatives offered her substantial sums to recant, then resorted to veiled threats against her. She says she was forced to change her number and move, but Nicki’s lawyers contend that she contacted Nicki sometime after this to taunt her that US Marshalls were looking into the case.

Now Nicki’s lawyers say they will pursue repayment of her legal fees in what they call a “frivolous action” whose only goal was to get Nicki to pay up.

Running a minor league baseball team’s social media requires some serious creativity, particularly during the offseason (not to mention in the midst of a Major League Baseball lockout). The offseason content drought is very real, and trying to drum up some excitement for the upcoming season takes some extra effort.

For the Portland Pickles, a collegiate wood bat summer league team, they decided to turn their mascot, Dillon, loose for a social media takeover that almost immediately went off the rails when Dillon posted a selfie that, while intended to be him giving fans a thumbs up, looked like he was showing them a very different part of his mascot anatomy.

In a highly unfortunate photo crop, it certainly looks like we are staring at a fuzzy, green penis, which is immediately what everyone else jumped to in the replies, which were rather hilarious.

It took less than 15 minutes for someone on the social team to see all of the replies and realize they had made a grave mistake, and the Pickles ended the mascot takeover abruptly with an apology from Dillon, who was just trying to give a thumbs up.

As always, the lesson is to look carefully at pictures before you post them to your company’s social account because sometimes you might have a photo that makes it look like your mascot is exposing himself to everyone.

The Old Lock and Weir pub just outside of Bristol, England had a unique visitor stop by on Sunday, January 2 at about 11:30 in the morning, a seal pup somewhere between six and 12 months old. The seal swam up to the pub, which lies on the banks of the River Avon.

“It was amazing. Totally out of the blue,” Dan Rawlins, the general manager of the pub, told the BBC. “It’s not every day you expect to find a baby seal outside the pub,” said bar and kitchen worker John Jefferies.

The seal, nicknamed Nacho by the pub staff, was a social little guy who seemed to be comfortable around humans. “He was moving around quite a lot and didn’t seem too bothered about all the people around,” Rawlins told The Dodo.

Rawlins thinks that he probably walked up to the pub to get a bite to eat. Some fish and chips, maybe? Or possibly the pub’s signature prawn cocktail?

“As he was underweight, [he was] obviously attracted to the pub kitchen,” Rawlins told The Dodo. “We’re speculating that he was hungry.”

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The pub posted photos of the pup on its Facebook page and its regulars thought Nacho deserved a drink and some fish.

“Awww, bless wish I’d been there to see him, he’s gorgeous, so glad he’s safe now. Didn’t he get a free pint and some fish after traveling l that way to visit you?” Marilyn Williams asked.

“Bless him! Amazing work all involved. He defo deserves a nice whiskey to warm the cockles and couple of fish before heading back to Scotland!” Christian Wiltshire wrote.

Rawlins called the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) for some advice about how to handle the pup and was told to let the animal return to the water.

The pub workers redirected Nacho to the water and it was high tide so he jumped in and swam away. However, about an hour later, he was back at the front door of the pub. “He’d come up the slipway, straight under the gate and then when we spotted him again, he was right outside the pub,” Rawlins said, according to The Scotsman.

The pub staff created a small pen using pallets to contain the seal and wrapped him in wet blankets to keep him comfortable. British Divers Marine Life Rescue safely retrieved Nacho and brought him to RSPCA West Hatch for treatment.

The rescuers scanned the seal’s tag and discovered he had made a 300-mile journey to Bristol from Scotland. They also learned he had lost a serious amount of weight. He had weighed 73 pounds when he was tagged but only 31 pounds after being rescued. It was also discovered Nacho had seal pox, which had caused some hair loss.

The seal is currently undergoing treatment and once the little guy puts on some extra blubber, the plan is to release him back to the sea. Sadly, he has yet to enjoy any of the fine food offerings at The Old Lock and Weir.

The RSPCA shared a photo of Nacho on Tuesday and he appears to be doing well.

“Nacho has come along really well since then and is enjoying a rest, after the journey to the pub,” the RSPCA wrote on Facebook. “He is eating well and is now 16.4 kg [36 pounds]. This means he will soon be moved into our larger pool, along with another one of our seals called Wool, so they can socialize with the other seals in there and get ready for release.”

Everybody is talking about the game Wordle right now. What started as a passion project by creator Josh Wardle has exploded into the most popular and talked about game on the internet. The free-to-play word game is both extremely simple and, as we recently learned, very easy to replicate — clones of the game began popping up recently and some of them did not have the best intentions in mind.

One clone, in particular, gained notoriety when it appeared on the App Store. It was almost an exact replica in name (it called itself “The Wordle App.”), but while the game was free to download, it featured a paid upgrade advertising “unlimited plays” and “excellent customer service.” Word got around about the Wordle clones, and eventually, Apple removed them all from the App Store. Shortly after, the creator of this clone in particular sent out an apology in a series of tweets.

The truth about a lot of games and ideas is that most of them aren’t original — Wordle, for instance, is awfully similar to the game show Lingo — but typically when ideas are copied there’s a little bit of effort to make them feel unique. What upset everyone about this wasn’t just that it was an attempt to profit off of Wordle‘s popularity, but this was essentially a carbon copy of the game. Even if a concept isn’t original, we want to see some kind of effort to make it feel original.

Veronica Greenfield, better known as Ronnie Spector of the 1960s girl-pop trio The Ronettes has passed away at the age of 78, according to a statement from her family on her official website. The statement reads:

Our beloved earth angel, Ronnie, peacefully left this world today after a brief battle with cancer. She was with family and in the arms of her husband, Jonathan.

Ronnie lived her life with a twinkle in her eye, a spunky attitude, a wicked sense of humor, and a smile on her face. She was filled with love and gratitude.

Her joyful sound, playful nature, and magical presence will live on in all who knew, heard, or saw her.

In lieu of flowers, Ronnie requested that donations be made to your local women’s shelter or to the American Indian College Fund.

A celebration of Ronnie’s life and music will be announced in the future.

The family respectfully asks for privacy at this time.

Spector is set to be the subject of an upcoming film which is reportedly to star Euphoria and Spider-Man: No Way Home actress Zendaya as the pioneering singer, who was known for the hits “Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You,” and “The Best Part of Breakin’ Up.”

Trinity Rodman’s soccer career continues to be on the rise.

Rodman has received her first call-up to the United States Women’s National Team on Wednesday, as head coach Vlatko Andonovski named her to the 25-woman roster for the team’s January camp. Rodman, 19, was the NWSL’s Rookie of the Year last season with the Washington Spirit after she was the youngest draftee in league history. She was also named the U.S. Young Female Player of the Year for 2021.

The camp is scheduled for Jan. 19-28 with no friendlies scheduled. The USWNT’s next games are scheduled for mid-February in the SheBelieves Cup. Rodman, who was called up for the U.S.’s friendlies against Australia, but opted out, could be on the roster for the cup if she performs well in camp.

Rodman is the daughter of former NBA player Dennis Rodman. To date, she has seven caps for the U20 team and has nine career goals. She remains age-eligible for the upcoming 2022 FIFA Under-20 World Cup.

“She was one of the most exciting players in the league this past season, and she proved that she can be impactful at the professional level in NWSL. And now with that, she earned a call-up for the national team,” Andonovski said about Rodman in the release announcing the roster.

“Now, we don’t want to rush anything. We obviously have to be patient. She’s still young player, but we do want to expose her to the environment where she can get her feet wet a little bit, and get used to the environment, get used to my coaching and the players that she’s around, and hopefully she can continue growing and show that what she was able to do in the league, she can do that at the international level.”