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Before Drake was an international superstar or a Certified Lover Boy, he was Aubrey Graham, an ensemble member on the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. This fact has been brought up as a mark against him, since the prevailing belief at the time he started his rap career was that rappers should come from hardscrabble beginnings and work their way up from nothing (this was never accurate, but try telling that to the folks who still hate Drake over it to this day).

Apparently, Drake foresaw some of this attitude even as he appeared on the show, resisting a development for his character Jimmy that came to define the role — as well as saddle Drake with one of his most enduring, demeaning nicknames, “Wheelchair Jimmy.” In a two-part season-four episode about the effects of bullying as well as touching on a new violent trend in then-current events, a character named Rick, fed up with mistreatment from his classmates, brings a gun to school and shoots Jimmy in the back as he runs away. Jimmy spends the next several seasons in a wheelchair. Drake, however, was initially adamant that his character not be paralyzed — mainly because of how he thought his rapper friends and fans might interpret the move.

In a new oral history of Degrassi for AVClub, the show’s writer James Hurst explains how the show’s staff learned of Drake’s apprehension… as well as how he convinced the burgeoning star to accept the change:

There was a letter from a law firm in Toronto, and it was from Aubrey. It was an odd letter that said, “Aubrey Graham will not return to Degrassi season six as Jimmy Brooks unless his injury is healed, and he’s out of the wheelchair.” I said, “Get him down here.” He came in and was like, “What letter? I don’t know about that.” And I said, “All right, I understand. But how do you feel about the wheelchair?” He’s like, “All my friends in the rap game say I’m soft because I’m in a wheelchair.” And I said, “Well, tell your friends in the rap game that you got shot. How much harder can you get? You got shot, and you’re in a wheelchair.” He was like, “Yeah, yeah.” He was so nice and apologetic about everything. He instantly backed down. I was very passionate about it, and I said, “Aubrey, there’s some kid somewhere in a wheelchair, who’s completely ignored, who’s never on television, never gets represented.” I need you to represent this person. You’re the coolest kid on the show, and you can say there’s nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair.”

Drake apparently got over it, and over the “Wheelchair Jimmy” appellation, eventually incorporating it as a self-deprecating sobriquet. And while he never quite shook off the “soft” designation, he learned to flip every derogatory assessment of himself from fans into a positive, becoming a one-man meme machine whose goofy sense of humor serves him in good stead to this day. Just check out his video for “Way 2 Sexy.”

You can read the full Degrassi oral history over on AV Club.

Netflix finds itself on the verge of an employee walkout over its handling of Dave Chappelle‘s latest comedy special, The Closer, which contains both transphobic and homophobic statements by the comedian. Meanwhile, Netflix’s LGBTQ Twitter account has broken its silence on the matter.

On Wednesday evening, the Most Twitter handle, which is “the home of Netflix’s LGBTQ+ storytelling,” fired off a short thread apologizing for not posting as the Chappelle controversy continued to dominate headlines. While the thread offered little in the way of details on conversations that are happening behind the scenes, it promised followers that the queer and trans employees who run the account are reading every comment and citing them during internal discussions:

sorry we haven’t been posting, this week f*cking sucks

To be clear: As the queer and trans people who run this account, you can imagine that the last couple of weeks have been hard. We can’t always control what goes on screen. What we can control is what we create here, and the POV we bring to internal conversations.

We have been reading all of your comments and using them to continue advocating for bigger and better queer representation.

ok you can go back to yelling at us now

Despite a revolt growing inside his company, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos continues to defend streaming the new Chappelle special, which he defended for a second time amidst news of a walkout. According to Sarandos, he disagrees that content on screen translates to “real-world harm,” so he sees no issue with displaying Chappelle’s anti-trans views.

“Adults can watch violence, assault and abuse – or enjoy shocking stand-up comedy – without it causing them to harm others,” he said in a company-wide statement.

(Via Most on Twitter)

While promoting his upcoming role in the badass western, The Harder They Fall, Idris Elba has opened up about his experience of being one of the very first celebs to catch COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic. Shortly after revealing that he and his wife tested positive, Elba was inundated with conspiracy theories, including some with extremely dangerous racial undertones. Despite putting on a strong front and swiftly smacking down the wild accusations as soon as they came across his radar, the actor recently revealed that the experience took a toll on him privately. Via Esquire:

“The good favor that some people in the public eye get–which I definitely benefit from–was gone in an instant. In an instant. People that loved me one moment absolutely f*cking hated me the next. It was like, ‘You’re fake; you’re being paid.’ No one really believed. It was really a tough time. So where I am now, you’re looking at a man that’s very thankful. You’re looking at a man that’s very reflective of what’s happened over the last eighteen months. You’re looking at a man that doesn’t really have time to waste on pretending to be anything but what I am. Who I am and what I am.”

Elba is referencing a viral conspiracy at the time where celebrities were accused of being paid to pretend they tested positive for COVID-19 to boost the perception that the pandemic is real, which it, of course, was. What was so surreal about the theory is that other celebrities were spreading it, which clearly was frustrating for Elba. Nothing like having your colleagues turn around and accuse of you faking a potentially fatal illness. That can’t be great.

(Via Esquire)

The past few years have really been something, but consider this, too: it’s been nearly six years since poor Steve Harvey rustled up the biggest mistake in Miss Universe history, and he transformed a usually dull event into a total disaster. That would be the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, which saw him endure the longest three seconds of his career while he realized that he’d announced the wrong winner. Well, Harvey has overcome this flub, and his TV career is even hotter these days. He went back to the Miss Universe pageant without too much incident and did the talk show hosting thing, and generally continues to go about his business. That includes deciding to pose a slick-looking photo of him looking sharp, and he provided zero context, simply the image of him gazing nonchalantly into the distance.

The pose had an effect, alright. And perhaps the post-and-run attitude contributed as well, but people immediately whipped out their Photoshopping tools and dug in with relish. Soon enough, Steve Harvey was transformed into anime characters, Captain America, Batman, you name it. And “someone’s aunty”? Sure. It’s rare these days to see people really enjoy themselves with some harmless fun online, and it felt like the good ol’ days of the Internet. Please enjoy.

And yes, of course someone couldn’t resist going all Squid Game up in Steve Harvey’s business. It is 2021, after all!

Hey, folks, so the preseason is almost over, which means teams are running their “dress rehearsal” games before the regular season. These are the rare spots where starters play real minutes in the preseason and try and ramp up the intensity and effort to that of an actual game. Sometimes those can get ugly if the other team is not in dress rehearsal mode — see Mavs-Hornets from Wednesday night — but they do offer us the best glimpse at what a team might actually look like come regular season time.

Wednesday night was that game for the Bucks, as they played host to the Jazz and let their starters get some extended burn into the third quarter. That meant more Giannis than we’ve seen to this point in the preseason, and one thing in particular stood out to everyone watching: his jump shot.

For years, the conversation about Giannis has been how if he can add a jumper, he’ll become unstoppable. That had finally quieted down after he won a title and Finals MVP last year, so naturally he showed up to camp this year with a reworked jump shot that seems like it might finally deliver us that final form of Giannis on the offensive end. Now, he’s not suddenly Steph Curry out here, but the rhythm of his new shot and apparent comfort with his tweaked form is quite notable from the midrange and from deep.

I am still skeptical that a Giannis three-point revolution is coming, but it’s the midrange that is most intriguing to me. He added the little post-fade counter last year, taking advantage of how opponents cede ground until just outside the restricted area where they wall up and try to draw charges and disrupt layup attempts. That leaner is still in his bag, but it appears he’s added a straight pull-up to his arsenal from the free throw line extended area, which is particularly terrifying. That is a shot he can get at literally any time off the dribble, because defenses have to be sinking back due to the ground he can cover with one stride.

He still has some of the same ticks to his jumper, like looking down at the floor and letting the ball sit in his left hand before entering his shooting motion, but it’s much less pronounced and looks significantly more rhythmic now. For someone who already has a lot of space to get his shot off, he doesn’t need a quick release, but he did need to take some of the hesitation out of his form. As for the shot itself, he just looks a bit more natural, with less bend and dip of his upper body, rising to a high point and letting it fly at a spot that is, effectively, unblockable for the majority of the NBA.

It’s the preseason, so all necessary caveats of small samples and a lack of pressure apply here, but it is notable how much more comfortable and smooth all of this looks for Giannis. We’re mere months removed from a championship run and he appears to have, once again, gone into the lab and upgraded his game for the defense of that title.

In the new promo spot for Lyft, Atlanta rapper Young Thug surprises a number of Lyft drivers, playing them songs from his upcoming album, Punk. In the opening of the clip, Thug shows off his sense of humor, reproducing the Twitter favorite meme of Thug in the studio with Lil Durk before heading outside to catch his ride. The various drivers are all shocked and amazed to find that their rider is the world-famous rapper, with one saying, “Some people call you the greatest. I’m starting to see why.”

In the press release for the promo, Thug explains, “In a car, you get to hear sounds you wouldn’t hear if you were in a studio, or in a club, or on stage. When you record a slap, you’re like, we got to go hear this in the car.” Naturally, in addition to promoting both Lyft and Punk, the brand partnership benefits fans, too: Riders will get 10% off Young Thug merch and music from the rapper’s online shop using the promo code “PUNKLYFT.” Also, while using the app, entering the promo code “YOUNGTHUG” in the rewards tab will unlock “SP5DER Mode,” offering Young Thug-themed icons.

Thug’s rollout for Punk, which drops this Friday, October 15 via YSL and Atlantic, has also included the purchase of 100 acres of land for a Slime City theme park, a Tiny Desk Concert with Travis Barker, and the slippery single, “Tick Tock.” He also played a trio of new songs at the Givenchy Paris Fashion Week show.

Coldplay leader Chris Martin and actress Gwyneth Paltrow divorced in 2016, and after that relationship came to an end, Martin ended up getting close with another familiar face: In late 2017, it was reported that Martin and Dakota Johnson started seeing each other. A few years later, the pair seems to be going strong, as Martin dedicated a song to her at a recent performance.

On October 12 at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, the band was getting ready to perform their BTS collaboration “My Universe.” Before launching into the song, Martin pointed up at Johnson in the venue’s balcony and said, “This is about my universe… and she’s here.” E! notes that after the shout-out, Johnson “could be seen briefly holding her palms together in appreciation, and then she threw her arms into the air as she danced along to the bouncy tune.”

The pair are famously tight-lipped about their relationship: In a 2018 interview with Tatler (as E! notes), Johnson refused to discuss her relationship with Martin, saying, “I’m not going to talk about it, but I am very happy.”

Meanwhile, speaking of Coldplay concerts, the band just today announced that they’re going out on tour in 2022.

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

There’s Tucker balancing an ice cream cone and the keys to his Ferrari in one hand, his phone in the other, camera flipped to film him and his son walking back to the car on a warm September evening in Miami, Tucker laughing, eyes crinkled with pride, rivulets of melting ice cream beginning to run down both their cones.

There’s Tucker, solid in the lane with his eyes narrowed on the offensive player with the bad luck of trying to be the one to get him to balk, to shift, to break just then. There’s Tucker in the back of a low, wood speedboat, head tilted cooly to the side and hands resting in his lap as the spray lifted from the Grand Canal kicks up away and behind him and his white Dolce & Gabbana suit.

There’s Tucker pressing his face against Kevin Durant’s, against Lance Stephenson’s, hissing into Dennis Schroder’s ear, coiling around Donovan Mitchell, all in the intimate distance reserved for lovers. There’s Tucker in the tunnel in a green silk Cuban shirt flared with bubblegum pink blooms, in a long snow white wool coat with perfect blue jeans and white Air Forces worn open, in black leather pants and a western denim shirt with pearl buttons and red and black Jordans, in a silk smoking jacket and matching pants with a button-down smeared with water-colour roses tucked snug in the front.

There’s Tucker in the tunnel

There’s Tucker in

There’s Tucker

His moods distilled to looks, to moments and finally, down to the man. A complete picture, nothing out of place. Anthony Leon Tucker Jr., down to Pops Junior, after his dad, down to P.J. — see the trend here? Edits, that’s the easiest way to put it. In fashion, a term that refers to clothes and accessories selected for a particular purpose or time.

On the floor, Tucker makes his edits as a line of best fit, precise flashes of devotion divvied up as slices of scorn or possessiveness. Namely, who is in his way, his guy’s way.

Tucker has honed his sensibilities through the seasons — fashion and basketball floor — since he arrived to the league and was bounced abruptly overseas. Israel, Ukraine, Greece, Italy, Puerto Rico, Germany, five years away from relevancy in pro-ball terms, squinting at the storylines an ocean away, like gleaning Fall/Winter trends from fives seasons ago by rifling through racks at an outlet mall. But he made it all work. Borrowing from the physicality of the Euro game, cinching it with that double-dare you sneer that’s become his signature.

Some people are born with a good eye, others with a knack for sifting like a magpie for whatever in the moment flashes. Tucker has both.

He’s told stories that he’d skip team dinners and go solo through the narrow, winter grey streets of Kiev in search of whatever couture flagship he could find, to come in from the cold among leather bags and boots soft as a promise. To say that Tucker wears clothes doesn’t quite fit. Tucker puts things on with the precision of someone who has thought through the swell of the moment the clothes are meant to carry him through. Even if that moment is going to mean the 30 quick seconds it takes to get from the elevator of the arena’s parking garage, down a dark tunnel, to the locker room awash in, no matter how dressed up, underground lighting.

The flourish and joy in dressing, for Tucker, is the place where he first started to pull away from the lunchpail necessity of his role. Where he warmed to silk, satin and leather as tools in his belt.

Never brooding, not like the other players who are known for the same surfeit of muscle and grit, Tucker punches into games methodically, with a buttoned down icy calm even when snarling. All his flareups and going, literally, chest-to-chest, come with the style and remove better associated with an Armani suit. There is never anything on the verge of losing control, there. Tucker played his first NBA Summer League at 27, forfeiting a contract in Russia on the off chance that the Suns — 2012 roster already replete with brawn in both Morris brothers, a late career Jermaine O’Neal and a prime scowling Marcin Gortat — would see something of that stout control in Tucker. He had staying power in Phoenix, had to, and it was when he helped to hone the rookie jumble of Devin Booker that Tucker would come into his tailored fit, the role he wears best.

Protector, muscle, intangibles with teeth, Tucker bore mercurial superstars like James Harden and teams like Toronto with internalized demands that carried the same stoic support. He dug in, length of stay irrelevant, offering the kind of confidence that comes from borrowed clothes. Costumed to start, until parts of that longed for persona start to settle permanently onto the borrowers shoulders.

There’s a reason that Tucker’s tenure in Milwaukee feels longer than a season, and it’s more than a ring. To the Bucks pragmatic, blue collar basketball Tucker was flashy by comparison, a florid jolt of just enough pretension to push the team out of its well-worn comfort zone.

And after chugging champagne in southern Wisconsin and signing to Miami, Tucker took what seemed the entire summer off from the one thing he loved on behalf of the other — the two wolves inside of him, one clad in basketball shorts and the other in a fuchsia brocade silk military jacket — and spent slow, gold days in Paris and Venice watching runway shows and putting all those antiquities dotting the streets to shame with the clothes he did it in. His love for fashion and clothing is open, with appetite, encompassing in the same way people who love food will look at a menu and opt for half of it, revel in the rhythm of plates being laid on the table in a chaotic jumble to make everything fit, insist on sharing. Desirous, with a cheerfully persistent mania that reject pretension, guided by gut and feeling over attention to what’s popular or what goes with what.

To say that for Tucker, who has spent a career compiling moments, editing each season spent chasing, then maintaining, then methodically transcending, this season with the Heat represents a reinvention would be like lacing a pair of Jordans, pulling on Levis, tying up a trench with a perfectly careless knot, without considering what it is that makes each piece more than a sum of its parts. But there’s a rapturous, lascivious casting-off that’s going on with Tucker now, a perfect combination of role, fit, and a climate ideal for him to drive around topless in his convertibles in.

The hard edges of Tucker aren’t softening, but he has found the best fabrics to cut and drape perfectly over them.

McDonald’s isn’t the only fast-food chain collaborating with rappers lately. Popeyes — which previously collaborated with Uber Eats and Migos — is joining the fun bringing Megan Thee Stallion for a theme-appropriate Megan Thee Hottie Sauce, as well as merchandise. In a press release, Popeye’s describes the sauce, saying it flaunts a sweet, yet bold flavor with a hint of spice, inspired by Megan’s sassy personality,” and revealing some of the ingredients, including Aleppo pepper, cider vinegar, honey. The sauce will be available starting October 19 as an option for the chicken sandwich and the newly added chicken nuggets.

Additionally, the food chain announced that Meg has purchased a Popeyes franchise — however, there was no information on the location or when it’d open. According to AdWeek, the merchandise collection will include bikinis, hats, shirts, and even plush dog toys shaped like chicken tenders (Meg’s French bulldog, 4oe, is almost as famous as she is on Instagram). Finally, the partnership will also be making a “six-figure donation” to Houston Random Acts of Kindness. AdWeek notes that the partnership is a departure from prior food-food-rapper bids, like Taco Bell naming Lil Nas X its “Chief Impact Officer,” due to the inclusion of Megan’s franchise ownership.

Watch the ad announcing the new Hottie sauce above and keep your eyes peeled for merch and more on 10/19.

Rifle Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is determined to tell her “haters” who is boss, and that did not work out as planned for the far-right politician who’s often seen as a Sarah Palin imitator. The latest round of Boebert messiness — following a hysterical tweet about the U.S.-Mexico border situation, a disastrous toilet joke, and a completely ineffective Office Space reference — follows up on a real doozy of a hashtag on Twitter.

That would be the #LaurenBoebertIsSoDumb entry that’s gone viral for about 24 hours. Yes, people have done this (in part) because Boebert didn’t graduate high school (she did recently pass the GED exam), but it’s more about Boebert’s constant confusion (and know-it-all air) while tweeting about the three branches of U.S. government. She also adores straw-man arguments and generally makes zero sense with her tweets, which are likely meant to be incendiary. Well, Boebert isn’t about to sit down for being called “dumb,” and so she made a two-minute video (for her “haters”), in which she declares that she won’t “bother entertaining the haters,” but that’s exactly what she’s doing here.

“Every time the Radical Left tries to make some nasty hashtag like #LaurenBoebertIsSoDumb trend,” Rootin’ Tootin’ Lauren tweeted. “I flip it on it’s head & claim a victory for FREEDOM!” She then included a fundraising link, as one does.

Naturally, the responses began to pour in on several notes. First, people pointed out that she’s doing everything to entertain her haters while outwardly refusing to do so. And people are going to see this as proof that the hashtag is accurate.

Also, there’s the very obvious elephant in the room: Boebert was recently busted while (illegally) using her fundraising dollars for very personal expenses.

And then there’s this: some thank-you messages for helping #LaurenBoebertIsSoDumb to trend even harder. Talk about counterproductive.