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Following a damning report on his history of sexist and racist remarks, Mike Richards has stepped down as the host of Jeopardy! as the controversy surrounding his selection to replace Alex Trebek continued to bring one embarrassing headline after another for the iconic game show.

After Claire McNear of The Ringer unearthed Richards’ old podcast where he made remarks about women’s bodies along with problematic comments on Jews and Asians, Variety reported on Thursday that Sony Pictures was starting to consider “alternative scenarios for the host slot” even though Richards had just begun filming new episodes that day. However, by Friday morning, Richards was out, and McNear’s reporting is being widely credited on social media as the final nail in the coffin.

Considering he was the show’s executive producer, Richards being chosen as the new host of Jeopardy! was already a controversial decision. Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings was believed to be a solid candidate for successor, and there was a sizable fan campaign to see LeVar Burton become the new host. However, fans of the classic game show were shocked by Richards being chosen, and that decision was soon followed by damaging headlines about his past controversies on The Price Is Right and revelatory reports that he had more influence on the selection process than his public statements suggested.

In a nutshell, people on Twitter are not holding back their thoughts on the Richards fiasco.

Heck, even Dictionary.com got in on the action:

And then there was this LeVar Burton tweet, which is apparently something he does every Friday, but it seemed to have a palpable hint of schadenfreude following the Richards’ announcement:

In 50 years from now (provided the world still exists), we’ll be telling our grandkids about the time a crack-addict-turned-pillow-salesman attempted to convince the world that the 2020 presidential election was hacked by shouting nonsensical words and regularly shaking his fists at the clouds during a chaotic “cyber symposium.” If, however, you happen to be Douglas Jensen—the 41-year-old insurrectionist who chased Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman in a video that has since gone viral—you might remember Mike Lindell’s 72 hours of online chaos as the thing that sent you back to the clink.

Jensen, who spent seven months in a D.C. jail before being sent home to Des Moines under house arrest in July, could be headed back to the hoosegow after he admitted to a court officer that he spent two days streaming Lindell’s off-the-rails event. Why does that matter? Because one of the terms of Jensen’s release, according to BuzzFeed News, was “a prohibition on using devices with internet access, including cell phones.” As Zoe Tillman writes:

“But according to the government, 30 days after he was released from jail, a court officer assigned to check on him arrived at his house and found Jensen in his garage listening to news on a WiFi-connected iPhone through the video platform Rumble…

More than that, though… Jensen also eventually admitted to the pretrial services officer that he’d spent two days watching a ‘cyber symposium’ hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the most prominent and prolific proponents of the election fraud conspiracy theories and lies that fueled the January 6 riots.”

Jensen, you may recall, is the QAnon conspiracy theorist who posted a video of himself “touching the f*cking White House!” (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t the White House.)

Ironically, as the Des Moines Register shared, it was that video that helped get Jensen sprung from jail when Judge Timothy Kelly ultimately decided that, “It’s hard to imagine Mr. Jensen planned or coordinated the events of January 6 when he had no basic understanding where he even was that day.” Also working in Jensen’s favor was that he had publicly disavowed his association with QAnon; in court filings, according to the AP, Jensen’s lawyer claimed his client felt “deceived, recognizing that he bought into a pack of lies.”

Jensen’s decision to tune into Lindell’s cyber nightmare, however, tells another story. “Jensen’s swift violation confirms what the Government and this Court suspected all along: that Jensen’s alleged disavowal of QAnon was just an act,” assistant U.S. Attorney Hava Arin Levenson Mirell wrote in a petition to send Jensen back to jail, adding that:

“Jensen managed to violate one of the most difficult-to-enforce conditions in the most egregious way imaginable… Indeed, the Court need look no further than Jensen’s virtual attendance at a symposium dedicated to challenging the legitimacy of the 2020 electoral election to know that Jensen will continue to let his loyalties to certain conspiracy theories prevail over his obligations to this Court and his family.”

(Via BuzzFeed News)

Mike Richards’ run as new Jeopardy! host is over as quickly as it began. In a surprise move, the embattled executive producer abruptly stepped down on Friday morning, days after his history of troubling remarks surfaced in a lengthy report from The Ringer’s Claire McNear. Add that to what was already known about Richards’ controversial past as a game-show producer, and Sony had a nightmare on its hands.

Well, Richards is out, and the search for a new replacement-for-the-replacement is undoubtedly in process. There’s no word on whether this will affect Mayim Bialik’s role as host of Jeopardy! prime time incarnation and spinoffs (probably not?), but one should expect renewed calls for LeVar Burton to receive additional consideration (and a more optimal guest-host slot, hopefully) after still riding high in fan polls. And speaking of LeVar Burton, look at what he tweeted around the same time that the Richards resignation news broke: “Happy Friday, y’all!”

That’s everything that one would expect from the Reading Rainbow host, even though part of everyone would want this tweet to mean a whole lot more. Admit it, you want to see LeVar drop some shade, too, but alas, this was not what happened. As Whitney McIntosh pointed out on Twitter, this a LeVar Burton tweet that pretty much happens every Friday. The man loves his weekends!

Fingers are still crossed for Burton to tweet something about Richards’ resignation, though. And maybe we’ll also see something from Laura Coates, the Black female attorney that beloved longtime host Alex Trebek once namedropped as someone who he’d like to see as his potential replacement. And the hosting fiasco continues!

UPDATE – 11:55 EST: Judging from this tweet that LeVar “liked,” he’s got a little fire in him, for sure.

Lil Nas X has never been afraid to put his flamboyant personality front and center of his public persona or to share some details of his private life that other stars would shy away from. In a new feature in VMAN magazine, Lil Nas X reveals in a conversation with Kevin Abstract that he’s currently dating and calls the relationship “natural” and “effortless.” Abstract, who is able to ask some piercing questions — there might be a future in journalism for that one after his rap career is over — also asks Lil Nas about the influences other queer artists have had on him.

“I feel like without Frank and people like [Kevin], it definitely would’ve been much more scary,” Nas admits. “I feel like for everybody, no matter who the artist is, there’s always some person that in some way made them feel slightly more okay with doing something and being themselves… That’s what you guys did for me.”

Nas, who describes himself as “much more of a pop star now than a rapper,” also addresses the reaction to his “Montero” video from his nearest and dearest. “My dad texted me the next morning,” he recalls. “He was like, ‘I got through it’ — almost as if it was a bad movie or something. Even that was great [to me]. For the rest of my family, I don’t think everyone’s going to be 100 percent honest with me about how they felt. But a lot of them were understanding, to say the least.”

Read Lil Nas X’s full interview with Kevin Abstract here.

Musically, Selena Gomez has fared better than most over the past decade, a period that included a No. 1 single, “Lose You To Love Me,” in 2019. Still, in an interview from earlier this year, she spoke about the possibility of leaving music, explaining, “It’s hard to keep doing music when people don’t necessarily take you seriously. I’ve had moments where I’ve been like, ‘What’s the point? Why do I keep doing this?’ ‘Lose You to Love Me’ I felt was the best song I’ve ever released, and for some people it still wasn’t enough. I think there are a lot of people who enjoy my music, and for that I’m so thankful, for that I keep going, but I think the next time I do an album it’ll be different. I want to give it one last try before I maybe retire music.”

Now, though, she has walked that back, saying in a new Elle interview, “I don’t think I’ll ever quit making music.” She also noted that she always feels like she’s always proving herself, saying, “I’m not saying I want a Grammy. I just feel like I’m doing the best I can, and it’s all about me. Sometimes, that can really get to me.”

Meanwhile, she also spoke about how spending less time on Instagram, where she currently has 253 million followers, was good for her, saying, “This tiny little phone that had 150 million people on it — I just put it down. That was such a relief for me.”

Check out the full interview here.

This week’s episode of Indiecast has Steve and Ian discussing a band that wouldn’t have fallen into the show’s purview on their last record. But the new record from San Francisco black metal heavyweights Deafheaven doesn’t sound very much like black metal at all. Instead, Infinite Granite is a genuine departure, a straight-up shoegaze record that starts the band on a completely new path.

Where singer George Clark previously leveled up the intensity with his harsh vocals from previous records, Infinite Granite has him trying on melodic vocals, while the rest of the band is keen on shimmering expansive instrumentals. Plus, it’s all doused in layers of reverb very reminiscent of modern shoegaze bands like DIIV and Nothing.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is is shouting out Portland shoegaze-dream-pop-college-rock hybrid Alien Boy, whose new album Don’t Know What I Am just dropped. Meanwhile, Steve is highlighting Trace Mountains, whose forthcoming album House Of Confusion is due in October.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 52 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Following accusations of discrimination and resurfaced offensive comments, Mike Richards has stepped down as the host of Jeopardy!.

“It pains me that these past incidents and comments have cast such a shadow on Jeopardy! as we look to start a new chapter,” Richards wrote in a statement. “As I mentioned last week, I was deeply honored to be asked to host the syndicated show and was thrilled by the opportunity to expand my role. However, over the last several days it has become clear that moving forward as host would be too much of a distraction for our fans and not the right move for the show. As such, I will be stepping down as host effective immediately. As a result, we will be canceling production today.” He added, “I want to apologize to each of you for the unwanted negative attention that has come to Jeopardy! over the last few weeks and for the confusion and delays this is now causing. I know I have a lot of work to do to regain your trust and confidence.”

Richards, who will keep his role as executive producer, was considered by Sony Pictures Television to be the “safe” pick to replace Alex Trebek. But he was involved in multiple lawsuits alleging workplace discrimination during his time on The Price is Right and, as reported by The Ringer‘s Clair McNear, he made made disparaging remarks about Jews and women on now-deleted episodes of The Randumb Show podcast.

The search for a new full-time host begins again. Maybe Mayim Bialik is interested?

(Via Variety)

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re officially in Young Thug season. The rapper’s last album came in the summer of 2019 with So Much Fun and since then, the rapper teamed with his YSL label for Slime Language 2, joined Chris Brown for Slime & B, and worked with countless other artists on various other songs. However, now it’s time for Young Thug to shine and the new era for the rapper comes with a new sound as well, one that’s easily heard on his new single “Tick Tock.”

The Atlanta rapper’s newest release takes heavy influence from the rock and pop world while keeping his trademark raps intact for what results in a riotous clash of genres. “Tick Tock” is a record Thug originally premiered at Miami’s Rolling Loud festival at the end of July. It’s there that he announced that his next album would arrive in the near future. “Yo so listen,” Thug said onstage. “I’m about to put this album out, right? It’s called Punk. Days later, he would perform the song as well as other new records from Punk during his NPR Tiny Desk. His set, which also featured an appearance from Travis Barker, is where the rapper revealed Punk is set to arive on October 15.

Young Thug first announced Punk during a profile with Fader, and in it, the rapper revealed what listeners can expect on the new project. “It’s most definitely touching music,” he said. “It’s music that the world is going to embrace. […] [Punk] means brave, not self-centered, conscious. Very, very neglected, very misunderstood. Very patient, very authentic.”

You can listen to “Tick Tock” in the video above.

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

Despite a significant amount of controversy that has already required new Jeopardy! host Mike Richards to apologize several times for his past actions, Sony Pictures Television has started filming with the embattled and self-appointed successor to Alex Trebek. According to TODAY, new episodes of Jeopardy! went into production on Thursday, less than 24 hours after the latest damaging report on Richards in The Ringer.

However, keeping Richards as the permanent host is becoming an increasingly untenable situation for Jeopardy! producers and Sony Pictures. Following The Ringer controversy, which unearthed sexist and racist remarks made by Richards on his now-deleted podcast, the Anti-Defamation League demanded a thorough investigation on Twitter:

The ADL published the following statement today on Twitter: “New Jeopardy! host Mike Richards’ disparaging remarks about Jews, women & Asians are no laughing matter. Stereotyping is an entry point to hate and his apology lacks acknowledgment of its harm. This reported pattern warrants an investigation.”

Sony Pictures has declined to comment on Richards’ podcast remarks reported by The Ringer, and there are no signs that filming has been suspended after it went into motion on Thursday. However, Variety reports that “multiple sources” have said the situation has caused “grave concern” and there is “little doubt that Sony Pictures is starting to consider alternative scenarios for the host slot.”

(Via TODAY, Deadline)

Gutfeld!, the angriest late-night show on TV, is also the most popular.

The Wrap reports that Tuesday’s episode of host Greg Gutfeld’s punishingly unfunny “comedy” program “beat every other late-night show… in total viewership and the advertiser-coveted age demographic of 25 to 54.” The episode was seen by 2.120 million viewers, including 434,000 in the 25-to-54 demo, topping The Late Show with Stephen Colbert‘s 1.896 million total viewers and 423,000 demo viewers.

Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show came next with 1.216 million total viewers, on average, and 354,000 in the demo… Gutfeld! has routinely beaten Fallon’s program, as well as Jimmy Kimmel’s Live! on ABC in the past. Live! garnered an average of 1.978 million total viewers on Tuesday, of whom 301,000 were between 25 and 54 and 198,000 were between 18 and 49.

Colbert is still tops in the 18-to-49 demo with 322,000 viewers to Gutfeld’s 281,000.

Fox News has been targeting Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, etc. since Gutfeld! launched in March. The right-wing network bought a billboard near the studio where the Jimmy Kimmel Live! is filmed (it read, “Cancel Culture Just Got Canceled!”) and placed ads during The Late Show, The Tonight Show, The Late Late Show, and so on. I guess the marketing blitz worked — Gutfeld! is number one among uncles who still use Facebook.