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Joel Embiid will stay with the franchise that drafted him for the foreseeable future. According to reports by Ramona Shelburne of ESPN and Shams Charania of ESPN, the 2021-20 NBA MVP runner-up and the Philadelphia 76ers came to terms on a supermax contract extension, one that will pay Embiid $196 million for the next four years.

Bobby Marks of ESPN broke down the financials behind the deal, which is projected to pay Embiid more than $50 million over each of its final two years.

Because Embiid has two years remaining on his current contract, he’s not eligible to hit free agency again until the 2027 offseason, when he will be 33 years old. One former teammate took to Twitter upon hearing the news to celebrate Embiid’s big payday.

The face of The Process had his best season as a professional last year, earning second-team All-NBA and All-Defense nods while finishing second to Nikola Jokic in MVP voting. Arguably the most impactful center in the league due to his ability to help the Sixers win games on both ends of the floor, Embiid averaged a career-high 28.5 points with 10.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.4 blocks, and one steal in 31.1 minutes per game. Despite the individual success and the team racing out to the best record in the Eastern Conference last year, it did end abruptly, as Philadelphia lost to the Atlanta Hawks in seven games in the conference semifinals.

Britney Spears often wears revealing outfits in her Instagram posts, but in recent weeks, she has upped her skimpiness drastically by regularly sharing photos of herself topless (but covering her breasts with her hands). These pictures have arrived mostly without context, but in her latest skin-bearing post, Spears explains why she has been so revealing lately.

Spears started by clarifying that her breasts have looked larger recently because she “devoured food,” not due to pregnancy or plastic surgery. She went on to explain:

“I bet you’re wondering why I’d expose my body NOW … well it’s because I was born into this world naked and I honestly feel like the weight of the would has been on my shoulders and it’s made me view myself that way !!!! I wanted to see myself in a lighter way … naked … like the way I was born and to me looking back at my pictures when I shoot it’s insane the psychology in seeing myself in my purest form gives evidence that pain … hurt … tears … and heavy burdens aren’t who I am. I am a woman …. a beautiful … sensitive woman who needs to look at myself in my purest form !!! No … I’m not going to do topless pics for the rest of my life cause that would get boring but it sure as hell helps when you need to be enlightened !!!!”

Find Spears’ full explanation and post below.

“No guys … I didn’t get a boob job in just a week … nor am I pregnant … I have boobs in these pics cause I devoured food !!!! Before I show you more pics of my body … I want you to understand my thoughts on exposing my skin !!!! In my opinion it’s quite twisted the immediate response of when any woman is hot and they want to shed a layer … no … I’m not talking in a strip club or a performance … just on a practical scale of being in your car and realizing you’re wearing a stupid long sleeve shirt in the summer !!!! The immediate reaction to any woman who does this after shedding a layer is DAMN I FEEL BETTER … therefore you think you look better !!! I’ve had a billion shows where I’ve done that and to my horror uhhh we’ll … sometimes I didn’t look so great … TOO MANY TIMES and it’s embarrassing as f*ck but in my imagination it felt great !!!! I mean I don’t want anybody to see the big dimple on my ass but I feel like performing made me too self conscious about my body and that’s not attractive ….. anyways I bet you’re wondering why I’d expose my body NOW … well it’s because I was born into this world naked and I honestly feel like the weight of the would has been on my shoulders and it’s made me view myself that way !!!! I wanted to see myself in a lighter way … naked … like the way I was born and to me looking back at my pictures when I shoot it’s insane the psychology in seeing myself in my purest form gives evidence that pain … hurt … tears … and heavy burdens aren’t who I am. I am a woman …. a beautiful … sensitive woman who needs to look at myself in my purest form !!! No … I’m not going to do topless pics for the rest of my life cause that would get boring but it sure as hell helps when you need to be enlightened !!!! And I will admit the FREE BRITNEY comments after I took my shirt off were actually really fucking funny !!! The Free Britney campaign started with all your amazing pink Free Britney shirts 3 years ago !!! There’s a way deeper meaning to the movement than you can ever imagine … my fans have always been so damn amazing and I love you all !!!! Psss this was shot on holy Sunday yesterday !!!!”

Some people (yours truly included) are lucky enough to be able to do what they love as a job. Presumably, Matthew Rhys also adores acting, which he’s spun into a series of successful roles, not only including The Americans and Perry Mason (which was recently renewed for a second HBO season) but also less acting and more hosting on The Wine Show for Sundance Now. For three tipsy seasons thus far, Rhys has globe-trotted to different wine-tasting venues alongside Matthew Goode, James Purefoy, and Dominic West. Is it a good time? Sure. But there’s a lot of dubious endurance involved.

Rhys appears in W Magazine‘s second annual TV portfolio issue in a Hemingway-inspired photo, and he talks about his love of all things Ernest, including boats and booze. Speaking of the latter once more, Rhys says that it’s rather difficult to keep his feet underneath him during those long days of shooting because this is how it feels to shoot The Wine Show on location:

“Absolutely wasted. Wasted! That first season, it was such a shock, especially Italy. When they do wine tasting, Italians firmly believe that… You do not spit the wine… So, if you imagine we start at 8:30 in the morning, we would stop at like 6:30 in the afternoon — by midday, we were on our knees!”

That sounds slightly miserable, actually. I’d be asleep by 11:00 am for the day, most likely, unless it’s permissible to screw up one’s palate with coffee pairing, and even that might not help much with the consciousness factor. And Rhys admits that it was harder to keep it together by around 2:00 pm because producers began saying, “You’ve got to stop slurring, you’ve got to say something more than, ‘Oh, this is nice!’”

It’s a tough gig, but as they say, someone’s gotta do it. The Wine Show is available to stream on Acorn TV, AMC+, and Sundance Now, and you can read the rest of the W Magazine TV portfolio here.

(Via W Magazine)

Michael Imperioli (Christopher Moltisanti) and Steven Schirripa (Bobby Baccalieri) invited Robert Patrick to Talking Sopranos, their episode-by-episode podcast breakdown of The Sopranos. The hosts are up to season six’s “Luxury Lounge,” but they had the Terminator 2: Judgment Day actor on to discuss his three-episode appearance in season two. Patrick played Davey Scatino, a gambling addict and childhood friend of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) — he also had a memorable first day on the show’s set.

“I had never met Mr. Gandolfini. I am out front on a bench smoking a cigarette with Jimmy after we’d just done this read through. And we’re trying to get to know each other a little bit because we’re supposed to be high school buddies,” he recalled. “As the conversation was winding up, I said to him, ‘You know the scene where you come to get your money, you better bring your f*cking A-game.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Oh, I’ll bring my f*cking A-game.’” Gandolfini even flicked his cigarette at Patrick.

The day of Davey’s beatdown, Gandolfini asked Patrick, “How’s your balls?” (Unless it’s from a doctor, that’s a question you never want to hear.) “They’re fine,” he replied. “I’m hungover,” Gandolfini said, “let’s do this f*cking scene.” It took one take, “and he scared the living shit out of me. I was so intimidated. What a fantastic experience,” Patrick said.

You can watch the scene below, and the Talking Sopranos episode above.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Posthumous albums have been a major part of the musical landscape in recent years, as projects from Mac Miller, Pop Smoke, Juice WRLD, and other late artists have been successful. It’s not an entirely new phenomenon, though, as artists like Joy Division, Aaliyah, and countless other older acts also had defining releases after their lives ended.

Anderson .Paak isn’t a fan of posthumous releases, though. More specifically (and perhaps more accurately), he’s not a fan of any of his unreleased music coming out once he’s gone. He’s so adamantly against that happening, in fact, that he went ahead and declared that in a new tattoo.

In a recent Instagram Story (as NME notes), .Paak showed off the ink on his arm, which reads, “When I’m gone, please don’t release any posthumous albums or songs with my name attached. Those were just demos and never intended to be heard by the public.”

The good news is there’s more music from .Paak to look forward to while he’s still with us. His and Bruno Mars’ Silk Sonic recently released its second single, “Skate,” and there’s more on the way from the duo.

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

Licensed characters appearing in games is kind of a huge deal right now. It seems like every other week there’s a new familiar face arriving in Fortnite and more and more we’re seeing other games follow suit and using pre-existing properties to pull in players. One such game is the popular multiplayer horror title Dead By Daylight, which has added nearly a dozen major horror movie monsters since revealing its Halloween/Michael Meyers collaboration back in 2016. However, the big problem with these games using licensed characters? Well, they’re not technically theirs.

Such is the problem Dead By Daylight is facing right now following what is presumably the expiration of their deal with Netflix’s Stranger Things. According to a post shared on the official Dead By Daylight blog earlier today, all Stranger Things-related content is being removed from the game’s store on November 17, 2021. This announcement comes merely two years after the Stranger Things Chapter was added to the game back in September 2019, and perhaps more importantly, raises some concerns as to what other licenses are set to expire and what that means for these big, license-heavy games. While we might not have any answers to those looming problems yet, we do have a few more details on just what’s going on with the Stranger Things DLC for those who have already purchased it or were planning to.

According to Dead By Daylight developers Behavior Interactive, all players who purchase the Stranger Things Chapter or any of its individual contents prior to November 17 will still have access to all three playable characters (the Demogorgon, Steve Harrington, and Nancy Wheeler) following the chapter’s removal. The only part of the Stranger Things collection being officially removed from the game is the Hawkins National Laboratory map, which is scheduled to be retired the same day the DLC is taken down from the store.

Despite the characters remaining, however, it does seem very likely that their names will be changed following November 17. In a tweet made by the Dead By Daylight official Twitter, the developers stated some of the Stranger Things-related perks will soon be getting new, generic names in order for players to still use them. Based on this news, it seems likely that could extend to our heroes as well.

Generic versions of the perks will appear in the shrine. They’ll be functionally identical to the originals.

— Dead by Daylight (@DeadByBHVR) August 16, 2021

As of right now, all of Dead By Daylight’s Stranger Things DLC is on sale for between 50-60% off with the character sale scheduled to last until November 17 and the costume sale running until September 8. While there’s no telling what all this news means for Dead By Daylight‘s other licensed properties in the future, if you’re still interested in this one it sure looks like now is your final chance to grab it.

While no one still seems to have figured out how Mike Lindell got it into his head that the future of our country’s democracy rests in the hands of a pillow salesman, the MyPillow CEO is charging ahead and using any outlet he can find to shout it from the rooftops that the 2020 presidential election was rigged—even if it’s a fruitless cyber symposium he has to create all on his own (and almost got ousted from). Fortunately, few people want to actually hear from him about it, which was the topic of his latest rant.

It must have been a slow news day over at OAN on Monday, as Raw Story reports that the ultra-conservative network—which has never been super concerned about the integrity of their guests, or whether the theories they’re spewing are true—basically became The Mike Lindell Show. Lindell, who is fresh off his disastrous cyber symposium, used the opportunity to continue pushing the narrative that the 2020 election was hacked and he has the proof, despite the fact that one of Lindell’s own cybersecurity experts has admitted that what they’ve got is jack sh*t. But Lindell had other matters on his mind: specifically, why his cyber symposium didn’t get the press attention it should have—particularly from known-to-be-loon-friendly networks like Fox News.

After telling Fox News that “Fox, you need to step it up and help save our country!” (note to Lindell: Fox isn’t a person, it cannot hear you), Lindell’s senseless chatter turned to individual Fox News hosts (who are actual people… at least that’s what we’ve been told) for not inviting him to be a guest on their shows. First up on his list of perceived enemies was Sean Hannity:

Sean Hannity told me once, he said, ‘Mike, I can say whatever I want on Fox, as long as it’s the truth.’ Well the truth is Sean, we had a cyber symposium. And the truth is it was attacked and hacked… And the truth is you’re not saying anything on your show. Neither are you, Laura [Ingraham.]

It should be noted that Lindell had promised to share the boatloads of evidence he claims to have that the election was hacked during this symposium, but supplied what basically amounted to a stale gummy bear, some loose change, and a piece of lint pulled from his pant pocket. The best part of his tirade was yet to come, however, as he attempted to make Tucker Carlson the semi-hero of this story… but referred to him as what sounded like Trucker.

“Trucker [Carlson] tried a few times to talk about the 2020 election. I give him some credit. I thought might be a breakthrough, it was a couple weeks ago, but none of them are talking. What is Fox doing to you? Are you guys so worried… about your money and your job?”

Hats off to Hannity for at least attempting to politely tell Lindell that he’s f*cking bonkers. But when even Tucker (sorry, Trucker) Carlson—a man whose entire brand is built of spreading lies—thinks you’re too crazy to be believable, you’ve got a problem. You can watch the full rant below.

(Via Raw Story)

There’s been a lot of drama in the usually well-oiled Marvel Cinematic Universe of late. First Black Widow underperformed (after a pandemic-best opening weekend). Then its star, Scarlett Johansson, sued Disney, who owns the MCU, for releasing the film PVOD on Disney+. Over the weekend, another Marvel actor came for his bosses: Simu Liu, star of the forthcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, took issue with Disney CEO calling the film an “experiment.” Now MCU honcho Kevin Feige has tried to clear the air.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Feige took some time during the film’s premiere to address the kerfuffle, which he said was a misunderstanding. What Chapek was referring to when he called the film an “experiment” was not, as Liu thought, the fact that it has a mostly Asian cast. He meant that it’s their first film that will have a 45-day theatrical window before being made available on streaming.

Feige cleared that up in diplomatic fashion, saying of Liu, “He is not a shy man. I think in that particular tweet you can see and I think everyone does, a misunderstanding. It was not the intention.” He also praised the film itself. “The proof is in the movie and we swing for the fences as we always do. With the amount of creative energy we put in and the budget, there’s no expense spared to bring this origin story to the screen.”

The exec did discuss the issue of race, but he did so by comparing the film to Black Panther, which was the franchise’s first with a mostly Black cast. “When you have the opportunity to showcase a hero that looks like a huge segment of the globe that feels like they haven’t been showcased, the magic can happen if you deliver,” he told the crowd. “I think Destin [Daniel Cretton, director] and Simu have delivered for this movie.”

When Chapek’s comments were first made available, Liu pounced, tweeting, We are not an experiment.

We are the underdog; the underestimated. We are the ceiling-breakers. “We are the celebration of culture and joy that will persevere after an embattled year. We are the surprise.”

Shang-Chi, which also features Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh, and Tony Leung, opens in theaters — and in theaters only — on September 3.

(Via THR)

For the last several months — and for the last couple weeks in particular — things have been a little awkward for Chris Cuomo. His brother, exiting New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, has been the subject of multiple controversies, among them allegations that he sexually harassed 11 women, several of them staffers. Chris, who admitted to advising his brother on his scandals, wasn’t allowed to cover any of it. But nearly a week after his older brother announced his resignation, he finally did.

Chris was on vacation last week, when the big news broke, but he was on the air when New York Attorney General Letitia James released her damning report, concluding that Andrew was guilty of harassment and creating a toxic work environment. He didn’t mention it then, but, on Monday, after discussing the chaos in Afghanistan, he addressed the elephant in the room.

“I’m not an adviser. I’m a brother. I wasn’t in control of anything, I was there to listen, and offer my take,” Chris told his audience. “My advice to my brother was simple and consistent, own what you did, tell people what you will do to be better, be contrite, and finally accept that it doesn’t matter what you intended, what matters is how your actions and words were perceived.”

He did claim there was one piece of advice Andrew took: “And while it was not something that I ever imagined ever having to do, I did urge my brother to resign, when the time came.”

Chris also addressed his previous attempts to advise Andrew, for which he apologized, saying it wouldn’t happen again. “I stopped, and I meant it,” Cuomo said. “I never made calls to the press about my brother’s situation, and I never influenced or attempted to control CNN’s coverage of my family.”

Andrew used to appear occasionally on his younger brother’s show, often joking around about their sibling semi-rivalry. After allegations came forth about COVID-related nursing home deaths in New York, accusing Andrew of mishandling their health protocols, those appearances ended.

(Via THR)

Today’s Trumpist conservatives have one main directive: own the libs. Anything that can rile progressives can be whip up the base. But sometimes the wires get crossed. Such was the case with wacko far right lawmaker Lauren Boebert, who on Monday tried to roast Joe Biden and the Democrats over the chaos taking over Afghanistan, from which U.S. troops have been pulled after 20 long years. But in the middle of some lib-owning, she seemed to…praise the Taliban? Or something.

“The Taliban are the only people building back better,” the Colorado representative tweeted.

What she meant by that was unclear. Was she marveling at the ingenuity of the violent Islamist movement, who harbored Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders after the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Did she mean to slam the Dems but instead accidentally sort of praised one of America’s biggest enemies over the last two decades-plus? Maybe she had a bad malfunction at out popped word salad that could be read as treason?

Whatever she meant, it didn’t go over well on social media. Some were sure they knew what she meant.

Or simply weren’t surprised.

Others reminded her of what the Taliban stands for.

Some were amazed that she has such a powerful job.

But she could always get a new one.

Boebert was pretty busy on Monday — at least on social media. Hours after her cryptic Taliban tweet, she was at it again, this time seemingly making fun of the Afghans who were trying to flee the country.

In case she was trying to take the moral high ground on this issue, people reminded her that she voted against a bill to grant visas to Afghan interpreters and others who aided U.S. forces.

Meanwhile, others dug up an old tweet from January in which she — surprise surprise — endorsed America pulling out of Afghanistan.