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Saturday Night Live‘s 47th season entered its second week with Kim Kardashian as host, but plenty of special guests also joining the show to help out.

One sketch in particular was loaded with guests stars, as they did a The Bachelor spoof — The Dream Guy — with a number of stars from the world of entertainment making cameos and vying for Kim Kardashian’s love. Among them were Chase Crawford, Chris Rock, and Jesse Williams, but sticking out in a big way was Blake Griffin, who lurked not so subtly in the back line. Griffin earned a token despite his “inexcusable” behavior at the luau BBQ.

The sketch closes with Kim making the very difficult choice of having to pick between “Zeke” and John Cena, noting that Cena being married was certainly a difficult hurdle to clear in a potential relationship. Ultimately, she did choose the WWE superstar turned movie star, who continues to flaunt his comedic chops — Blockers is still one of the best comedy movies of the last decade. As for Griffin, I have to believe this won’t be his only SNL pop-in while he’s with the Nets, as his love of comedy is well known and his ability to play the absurd with a straight face (while also being gigantic) figures to have plenty of use on SNL.

We’re now into the second week of the 47th season of Saturday Night Live, and for this week’s episode, Kim Kardashian took on the hosting duties while Halsey arrived as the show’s musical guest. Kim, along with the rest of her family, are by far one of the most recognizable names in entertainment as they’ve amassed a huge following through several endeavors in the worlds of business, reality television, and more. Kardashian is no stranger to being on camera, so it’s no surprise that she delivered an entertaining and comical monologue to open the show.

One of the highlights came when she joked about her divorce from Kanye West. “I’ve been very blessed in this life, and I’m grateful for everything, honestly, all the ups, all the downs,” she said. “I mean, I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America, a talented, legit genius, who gave me four incredible kids. So when I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality.”

She continued, “I know it sounds mean, but people keep telling me that comedy comes from truth. And if there’s one thing that I always strive to be, it’s genuine.”

Kardashian also joked about her family’s failed political campaigns, that being Kanye’s run for president and Caitlyn Jenner’s run for governor of California, as well as being “much more than that reference photo my sisters showed their plastic surgeons.”

You can watch the full monologue in the video above.

Boxing’s latest trilogy fight lived up to the billing. WBC and The Ring heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (31-0-1, 21 KOs) put his championships on the line against his old rival, Deontay Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOs), in their first fight since Fury took those titles off of him back in Feb. 2020. It took 11 rounds, but ultimately, the Gypsy King was able to pick up a knockout to continue his reign atop the spot.

After two rounds of going back-and-forth, Fury sent Wilder to the mat first. Fury had Wilder up against the ropes and hit him with a left and right that had him rattled. Wilder dropped his head and Fury looked like he made contact with his right, which gave him the first knockdown of the night.

But after heading back to his corner and regrouping, Wilder came out and dominated round four. The Bronze Bomber picked up a pair of knockdowns, throwing the kinds of huge right hands that have been a staple of his career as a fighter so far. That was particularly the case on the first knockdown, as Wilder strutted away seeming to think he was a 10-count away from regaining his title.

Things looked like they were hanging by a thread for Wilder in the seventh round. Fury caught him with a pair of right hands, which led to Wilder wrapping him up. While there, Fury hit him with a left, but Wilder was able to survive the round despite looking awfully wobbly.

The following round, Fury once again made good contact and had Wilder stumbling, but he managed to stay on his feet.

In Round 10, Fury planted the seeds for his eventual win, knocking down Wilder with a vicious right. Wilder got back up, however, and looked like he caught a second wind towards the very end of the round.

But eventually, the Gypsy King finished the fight with a brutal right hand that sent Wilder to sleep.

At the time of the stoppage, Fury was up on the cards thanks to his relentless onslaught in the later rounds, erasing the early deficit after Wilder picked up a 10-7 round in the fourth.

Still, this was a fight that deserved a finish before going to the cards and Fury delivered, emerging with a sensational knockout win, while Wilder picked up a ton of respect for how he battled throughout despite the barrage of power shots Fury delivered.

Jimbo Fisher made history on Saturday night, becoming the first former Nick Saban assistant to beat the greatest coach of his generation. The top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide walked into College Station against an unranked Texas A+M side, and thanks to a field goal as time expired by Seth Small, the Aggies came out on top, 41-38.

Texas A+M seemed like they were primed for a special night from the beginning. Alabama turned the ball over twice in the first half, while their offense was nowhere near as lethal as it has looked at other times this season. By the time the two teams walked into the locker room, the Aggies found themselves up 24-10.

Still, this is Alabama we’re talking about here, so their ability to make stuff happen made a comeback seem inevitable. Its defense clamped down, with A+M only finding the end zone on a 96-yard kickoff return for the first quarter and a half of the second. And then, after back-to-back field goals followed by Aggies punts, Alabama broke through. A nine play, 82-yard drive ended with Bryce Young finding Jameson Williams for a seven-yard strike, and after the ensuing two-point conversion, the Tide went up, 38-31.

But the Aggies found a way back. On the next drive, A+M’s offense went 65 yards in six plays, with Zach Calzada dropping one in to Ainias Smith from 25 yards out to tie things up.

After forcing a three-and-out on the next drive, Calzada and the offense got the ball with two minutes left on his own 35. A+M marched right down the field, setting up Small for a layup. It looked, for a brief moment, like the ball was going wide left, but his 28-yard boot was good, and by the time it hit the net on the other side of the uprights, Alabama found itself losing to an unranked team for the first time since 2007.

The win snaps a two-game losing streak for A+M, as the team was coming off of losses to Arkansas and Mississippi State.

Criminal investigations and sting operations often have interesting code names the public only learns about after the fact, for obvious reasons. But one operation in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area had a very familiar name for fans of NBC comedies.

As CNN detailed, the hit sitcom The Office seems to have been the naming inspiration for a sex sting operation based out of the hometown of the fictional show. As officials divulged this week, “Operation Dunder Mifflin” was an operation that was meant to verify the addresses of registered sex offenders living in the Scranton area.

Between August 2 to September 17, US Marshals coordinated with the Scranton Police Department to verify the home addresses of 219 convicted and registered sex offenders living in the area, US Marshals said in a news release on Monday.

Of the offenders, 13 were found to be in violation of sex offender registration laws, nine were arrested and four are still being sought for violations, the release said.

The details of the operation and the sex crimes involved aren’t exactly funny, but it’s worth noting the operation’s name was very clearly inspired by The Office. This comes on the heels of “Operation Varsity Blues,” the cheating scandal over college admissions that ensnared a number of high-profile celebrities. That scandal, of course, was much less serious in the grand scheme of things. But it’s certainly interesting to see The Office continue to impact the real-world place it was said to chronicle.

[via CNN]

There’s a lot of college football played over the course of any given season, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more bonkers play than what South Dakota State and Southern Illinois delivered in the Missouri Valley on Saturday. The undefeated Jackrabbits took on the Salukis in what was widely considered a top matchup in FCS action, and it turned out to be a barnburner.

The play of the game, however, came at the expense of the Salukis after attempting some trickery in the red zone. Trailing 20-14 late in the third quarter, Southern Illinois running back Javon Williams Jr. took a carry on 4th and 2 at the 2 and looked like he was going to throw the ball into the end zone. An open man never materialized, however, and he tried his best to reach the end zone in the more traditional sense, position-wise.

What ensued was nothing short of chaos.

Williams was hit just before the end zone and sent flying. He also lost the football, which was picked up by Malik Lofton. He took off the other way, racing down the field for a 97-yard touchdown that put the Jackrabbits up 28-14. As the announcer indicated, there were flags all over the field but none of them impacted the fact that this play happened and also stood as called.

Incredibly, this play was just part of a wild back-and-forth game that saw the Salukis win in overtime, 42-41. In conclusion: college football rules, man.

Earlier this month, Adele surprised her fans with a first listen of her upcoming single, “Easy On Me.” The singer confirmed the track would arrive on October 15 and through posts to her social media that came with a quick glimpse of the track’s presumed music video. This visual featured just a few piano chords of “Easy On Me,” but not enough to make anything out of the song itself. Thankfully for those who hoped to get a better preview of the song ahead of its release on Friday, Adele delivered just that during an Instagram Livestream.

The new preview clocks in at just under a minute and, just as it was hinted in the first preview, “Easy On Me” is carried by luscious piano chords while Adele’s soaring vocals add emotive weight to the song.

“There ain’t no gold in this river / That I’ve been washing my hands in forever,” she sings on the upcoming record. “I know there is hope in these waters / But I can’t bring myself to swim.”

The preview comes after she confirmed that Tyler The Creator and Skepta will make unconventional appearances on her upcoming album, which is thought to be titled 30. The singer is also reportedly deciding between two locations for her rumored Las Vegas residency, that being the Park Theater at the Park MGM Las Vegas or the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Dates for the residency would occur at some point in 2022.

You can listen to the preview of “Easy On Me” above and read some reactions from fans below.

On Friday, James Blake shared his fifth album, Friends That Break Your Heart. In addition to appearances from SZA, JID, Swavay, and Monica Martin, the album also features several production credits from Blake’s girlfriend Jameela Jamil. This is far from the first time Jamil has contributed to Blake’s bodies of work as she can be found several times on his 2019 album Assure Form and the 2020 EP Before. Despite this, fans questioned the true nature of Jamil’s contributions to Friends That Break Your Heart after she was spotted on nine out of the album’s 12 songs.

In response, she slammed her critics in a lengthy message while receiving support from Blake himself.

“A lot of mostly women insisting I couldn’t possibly have actually worked on my boyfriend’s music, and that he must have just credited me to be nice,” she wrote on Twitter. “I was a DJ for 8 years, and studied music for 6 years before that. You are part of the problem of why women don’t pursue producing.” The Good Place actress spoke further about the matter in a post to Instagram.

“Man. James had to fight me to take credit on this album because I was so Preemptively sick of the internet,” she captioned the Instagram post. “An additional hilarious side to this misogyny is that they only don’t believe in my musical input when they love the songs. If they don’t like a song then suddenly I CAN produce and it’s all my fault, and I produced the whole thing alone!”

She continued, “I hope you’re taking credit for your work wherever you are in the world right now. I hope you know that if you’re not being believed over your achievements… that it’s not a reflection of you… it’s a reflection of people who are so underachieving, cowardly and insecure that they can’t fathom that you could be impressive.” To conclude her message, Jamil wrote, “It happens at every level in every industry. Even to me. Even when I don’t credit myself, my boyfriend just quietly credited me. We are in this shit together. Representation matters. It is not our responsibility to be believed, liked, understood or approved of.”

Blake himself chimed in with a message of support towards Jamil on Instagram. “F*ck yeah. Thankyou for the time you put into this record Jameela,” he wrote. “It wouldn’t be half what it is without the insane skill set you brought to it. Love you and I hope all this serves as an example to Women who are routinely discouraged by eye-rolling wankers that your work is necessary and important.”

You can view the posts from Jamil and Blake above.

Friends That Break Your Heart is out now via Republic Records. Get it here.

Less than two years after arriving with After Hours, The Weeknd is just moments away from delivering his sixth album to the world. It’s the latest in increased activity from the singer such a short time after he dropped off his 2020 album. The shortlist of moments from him include winning the Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award, continuing work on an upcoming HBO series, collaborating with artists like Kanye West, Doja Cat, and Belly, and winning a number of music awards after events like the Juno and Billboard Music Awards.

Next up for the singer comes a new role with the United Nations. The Weeknd was recently named The United Nations World Food Programme Goodwill Ambassador. The position was announced with a statement from the singer himself.

“The U.N. World Food Programme is doing urgent and important work to change and save lives on a daily basis and I feel passionately about addressing world hunger and helping people in need,” he said. “Our partnership is an authentic extension of all our efforts and intentions to help those in need and bring an end to so much suffering.”

The new position with The United Nations comes after a number of donations to humanitarian causes including $1 million to the U.N. World Food Programme’s work in Ethiopia. The Weeknd is of Ethiopian descent as his parents emigrated to Toronto before his birth.

“Whether he is performing or speaking out about global hunger, The Weeknd’s voice is powerful and inspiring, only matched by his dedication to helping people around the globe,” Barron Segar, CEO and President of World Food Program USA, said before adding, “We are honored that he has joined our mission.”

Machine Gun Kelly has found great success since he fully pivoted into the punk-rock lane with his 2020 album, Tickets To My Downfall. The project, which arrived after his rap-rock album, Hotel Diablo, became his first No. 1 album and his first Platinum-selling album. While some, like Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, are not too fond of his position in the rock world, Kelly is content on journeying further into the genre with his upcoming album, Born With Horns.

According to Billboard, during a recent interview on Sunday Today With Willie Geist, Kelly revealed what fans can expect on the new project, which features work with Travis Barker.

“It feels more guitar-heavy for sure, lyrically it definitely goes deeper – but I never like to do anything the same,” Kelly said. “Every album is a juxtaposition of the last album. So I went and studied ‘Tickets [To My Downfall]’, and I heard the bright sound that I had, and for this album I just turned the lights off.”

He added, “I’m not scared anymore, there’s nothing holding me back from being my true self – and my true self can’t be silenced, can’t be restrained. It’s a force, it’s like a hurricane. Can’t stop that, it just goes until it feels like stopping, and I don’t feel like stopping anytime soon.”

Kelly shared “Papercuts,” the lead single for Born With Horns, back in August with a Cole Bennett-directed video that featured an appearance from Travis Barker.

The entirety of Kelly’s interview on Sunday Today With Willie Geist premieres will air Sunday at 8 AM EST on NBC.