GoneTrending

Seth Rogen recently recounted a great story that validated the universe’s universal adoration of Paul Rudd. Somehow, Rogen packed all the detail that was necessary (no more, no less) into a solitary tweet. “Once I was in the spa in a hotel in Vegas getting a massage,” Rogen related. “When I finished I turned over and to my shock Paul Rudd was massaging me. He saw me go in and convinced the masseuse to let him take over, thinking I’d notice immediately. I didn’t, and Paul did the entire rest of it.”

Gotta love the economy there. Rogen provided enough detail to allow everyone to visualize his astonished reaction to seeing Rudd and leave us impressed on how Rudd committed to the prank. Depending on the massage, as well (deep tissue, Swedish, shiatsu?), this could have been a strenuous endeavor, but at the very least, Rudd managed to stifle 45-60 minutes of giggles. That’s hardcore stuff, yet someone wondered whether Rogen had perhaps smoked a little too much weed that day, and Rogen remained unrattled. “I’m sure Paul would confirm it,” Rogen responded to a Twitter semi-skeptic.

Well, Paul Rudd has confirmed those goods. In a very concise statement to Mediaite, Rudd didn’t leave his friend hanging. “Haha! It’s 100% true,” Rudd replied.

Rogen reacted to the confirmation, too, and order has how been restored to the universe. “I maintain the utmost integrity with my stories,” Rogen tweeted.

And now we’re left to wonder exactly where Rudd got those massage skills…

(Via Mediaite)

Halsey become one of the talks of the internet yesterday thanks to her upcoming album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. She shared the cover art for the Trent Reznor- and Atticus Ross-produced effort, and given the fact that one of her breasts is fully exposed in it, the image quickly went viral and drew a ton of reactions. Now, she has offered more, sharing some skin-bearing behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot.

In both shots, which Halsey posted on her Instagram Story, Halsey and the baby sit on their throne as people involved in the production make adjustments to Halsey’s outfit and make-up. The photos were taken by Alev Aydin, Halsey’s screenwriter boyfriend.

Halsey previously explained the art:

“This album is a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth. It was very important to me that the cover art conveyed the sentiment of my journey over the past few months. The dichotomy of the Madonna and the Whore. The idea that me as a sexual being and my body as a vessel and gift to my child are two concepts that can co-exist peacefully and powerfully. My body has belonged to the world in many different ways the past few years, and this image is my means of reclaiming my autonomy and establishing my pride and strength as a life force for my human being.

This cover image celebrates pregnant and postpartum bodies as something beautiful, to be admired. We have a long way to go with eradicating the social stigma around bodies & breastfeeding. I hope this can be a step in the right direction!”

Check out Halsey’s posts below.

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is out 8/27 via Capitol. Pre-order it here.

Seeing Eddie Murphy play more than a half-dozen characters—including the Richard Simmons-esque Lance Perkins—in The Nutty Professor could be psychologically jarring to a lot of people. Now imagine having to be in the center of all that comedy mania after a heavy night of partying with booze, weed, and ‘a bad batch of ecstasy.’ Welcome to Jada Pinkett’s world circa 1996.

On the latest episode of Red Table Talk, her Facebook Watch show, the topic was the growing concerns of young women abusing alcohol—even more so since the beginning of the pandemic—and Pinkett Smith had a whopper of a tale to tell about her own party girl days. While filming 1996’s The Nutty Professor, the actor/host admitted that she “went to work high, and it was a bad batch of ecstasy, and I passed out. And I told everybody that … I must have had old medication in a vitamin bottle.”

While that might be the MDMA version of the “the dog ate my homework” excuse, it turned out to be a wake-up call for the actor. After arousing from her drug-induced slumber—which probably wasn’t helped by adding in alcohol and weed, a hat trick of substances that she says was her “cocktail” of choice in those days—Pinkett Smith could have found some way to shirk her filming duties for the rest of the day. “But I tell you what I did though,” she said. “Got my ass together and got on that set. That was the last time.”

Pinkett Smith said that telling herself that what she was taking was “harmless” was how she justified her overindulgence in drugs and alcohol at the time:

“I was like, this is not cocaine. This is not heroin. I wasn’t doing things that I thought was addictive, but I would do those three together. That was my cocktail. Your threshold becomes so high that what it takes for you to get to the place you need to get to … it’ll take me two bottles to get to ‘OK, if I do ecstasy, alcohol and weed at the same time, I’m gonna get there faster and I can keep the high going,’ because then I can just keep drinking. Because I know ecstasy’s gonna last me about three, four, five hours. The weed, you know, that’s just going to keep me just smooth, and then the alcohol’s gonna keep it going. I can just keep taking drink, drink, drink.”

The Nutty Professor incident wasn’t really even the worst thing that happened to Pinkett Smith. She also recalled who she was once “throwing all up over” Debbie Allen’s house during her days on A Different World. Good times.

Still, Pinkett Smith said it took hitting “rock bottom” for her to realize her partying ways were causing a problem. “Literally, I got it quick,” she said. “Once I was going for that third bottle of wine, I said, ‘You’ve got a problem,’ and it was cold turkey that day.”

Hercules! Hercules!

(Via Yahoo! Entertainment)

In his upcoming book Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, author Michael Bender writes that while visiting France in 2018 for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Trump reportedly told then-chief of staff John Kelly that Adolf Hitler “did a lot of good things.” When Kelly tried to correct him, Trump was “undeterred” and “[emphasized] German economic recovery under Hitler during the 1930s.” The claim, which would be shocking if it wasn’t so believable (the former-president was previously unfazed by comparisons to the Nazi dictator), provided fodder for Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Wanda Sykes during Wednesday’s episode.

After breaking out the side-eye cam over Trump’s comments, Sykes said, “Now, to be fair, we don’t know which Hitler was Trump was talking about. It could have been Steve Hitler.” There are still people out there with the last name Hitler, although not many: according to USA Today, the 2010 U.S. Census found “fewer than 100 people across the USA who have it; 133 people spell it Hittler.” I do not want to meet any of these “it’s a family name!” people. Sykes continued, “Hitler only did one good thing: he killed Hitler.”

You can watch her Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue above.

Diplo’s legal troubles are far from ending. According to TMZ, the DJ and producer has been hit with yet another sexual assault allegation involving a woman who said he coerced her into performing oral sex on him after a Las Vegas concert in 2019. The victim says the incident occurred when she was invited to an after-party by the DJ, which she attended with friends. She claims that she and her friends were all intoxicated upon arriving at the party and that they accepted weed and more alcohol from Diplo at the event.

Later on, the victim claims she was invited to Diplo’s personal room, and his security team proceeded to kick everyone out, including her friend, who was allegedly punched in the face when he refused to leave without her. Eventually, it was just the woman and producer alone in the room. Here, Diplo reportedly told the victim that she could not leave the room without performing oral sex on him. She repeatedly refused, but after realizing there was no way out, she reluctantly gave in and followed his demand. She also alleges that he filmed the encounter without her permission. As a result of it all, she’s suing the DJ for an unspecified amount in damages.

Bryan Freedman, Diplo’s attorney, denied the allegations and claims there’s a connection between the victim’s account and that of another woman, Shelley Auguste, who is also suing him for sexual assualt. “This complaint is completely outrageous, wildly untrue and yet also entirely predictable, given that it simply repeats the exact same claim already made by the plaintiff’s friend Shelly Auguste, an individual who has been harassing Mr. Pentz and his family for more than a year and already has repeatedly violated the restraining order issued against her,” he said.

He adds, “We have irrefutable evidence that this is a completely meritless claim and we will be providing it to a court as quickly as we possibly can to put an end to this shakedown by Ms. Auguste and her accomplices once and for all.”

Auguste, who is Diplo’s ex-girlfriend, sued him for sexual battery, assault, defamation, infliction of emotional distress, and fraud at the end of last month.

Now that we’re done freaking out over the lack of an end credits scene following that episode (but like seriously, how does this show just keep getting better?), let’s talk about where we did leave off: Loki and Sylvie, hand-in-hand, facing a giant palace after entering the mind of Alioth. Much like every scene of Loki, this then raises the question of what exactly are we looking at here — and we think we might know. Here are a few possibilities as to where the “enchanting” series finale will take place that would be equal parts epic and enlightening.

1. Kang’s Domain/Chronopolis

Between Ravonna, Alioth, the Time Variance Authority, and his role confirmed in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, all signs point to the location we see being none other than the home of Kang the Conqueror, Chronopolis. If so, it’s likely that rather than taking Kang on, Loki and Sylvie’s discovery is inevitably going to lead to his rise to power. This would reinforce Loki’s tendency to cause chaos wherever they go, which feels bleak for the show to do but is likely, and set a lot of phase four into motion. In addition, since the show is focusing on Ravonna, who is also on her way to the home of the TVA’s ruler, it would make sense for it to be Kang due to the nature of their shared story.

2. Evil Loki’s Palace

While this show certainly has the potential to go big, it could fool us all by going a bit smaller than we anticipated — which is a pretty Loki thing to do, Mobius would say. Just as Loki and Sylvie’s relationship can be seen as Loki finally finding a way to love and understand himself after years of self-loathing and insecurity, watching him face-off against a true evil Loki would give us a chance to see how far the God of Chaos has come. While it’s one thing to love yourself, it’s another thing entirely to own up to the worst bits of yourself. It could be that Loki is about to enter his own darkest lair, which will make for an exciting and cathartic final episode.

3. Doctor Doom’s Castle/Doomstadt

If Kang’s domain is Loki going big, Doctor Doom’s castle takes the show to a different dimension. I truly don’t think this is likely, but I’ve seen the rumors on Reddit and can’t deny that the location seen in their enchantment looks irrefutably like Doomstadt! If this ends up being true, this is a helluva way to introduce legendary villain Doctor Doom — and the Fantastic Four — to the MCU.

Of course, we have to admit there is always the possibility that Marvel will take us somewhere completely unexpected and our grasping at threads was all for naught. However, while all this speculation is maddening now, we know we sure are going to miss it when all our questions are answered in next week’s series finale.

Last week, Tucker Carlson made a surreal claim, even for a guy who sloppily attempted to downplay the Jan. 6 insurrection. He said he was being spied on. By the U.S. government. Why? Because, he said, they wanted to take down his show. He painted himself as an innocent journalist (even though his own bosses wouldn’t use that term), being pushed around by The Man. But the story seemed not only far-fetched but incredibly vague, as though he was omitting a key piece of information. Well, guess what?

According to Axios, around the time Carlson claimed he was the subject of illegal government surveillance by an agency that looks at foreign powers, he was…talking to a foreign power, one that’s been accused of spying on America and messing with its elections. Specifically he was trying to score an interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin. And wouldn’t you know government officials caught wind of that.

This, however, doesn’t mean that the NSA, or any government agency, had illegally intercepted any of Carlson’s emails, as he has alleged on his show, and there’s no proof that they had. Axios also points out that reporters reaching out to foreign leaders is common practice.

What actually happened is unclear — far foggier than Carlson has let on — but the publication says the most likely scenario is that whoever the Fox News host contacted was already under surveillance. What’s more, the two Kremlin intermediaries Carlson was allegedly dealing with allegedly live in the U.S., either as citizens or simply here temporarily. If the latter is true, the U.S. government doesn’t have to seek approval to monitor their communications.

The news broke soon before Carlson’s nightly Fox News show, and of course he did some damage control.

Carlson admitted the story about the attempted Putin interview, which he had kept hidden, was true, claiming that “any type of publicity would rattle the Russians and make the interview less likely to happen.” But then, he claimed, Biden and team decided to paint him as “a disloyal American, a Russian operative.” That seems far-fetched, but he had more, accusing whoever leaked the story, and thus unmasking him, to of committing an illegal act.

But people still werne’t buying his version of the story.

Some did their best to sum it all up.

Even some on the right saw through Tucker’s m.o.: to paint Americans as the enemy.

And others reminded everyone that his employers don’t even think he’s a real journalist.

Anyway, as usual with Tucker, what a mess.

(Via Axios)

Game 1 of the NBA Finals went to the Phoenix Suns, with Chris Paul playing a classic Chris Paul game and largely orchestrating the Suns’ 118-105 win. It was as strong as a start to the series as the Suns could have hoped for.

For Game 2 and the rest of the series, there’s also a lot of reason to think Milwaukee isn’t out of it. For one, a bigger offensive night out of Jrue Holiday would help immensely. Holiday has a large defensive burden regardless of who he’s guarding, but he was 4-14 from the field and 0-4 from three. When Paul has 32 points on 12-19 shooting and Devin Booker has 27 points (10 of which came from the free throw line), Holiday just has to be better.

There’s also the health Giannis Antetokounmpo to consider. Antetokounmpo played in Game 1 after being listed as doubtful, and then questionable, due to the hyperextended knee he suffered in the Eastern Conference Finals. In Game 1, he did score 20 points and largely looked physically right despite the injury. He also only took 11 shots (making six) along with 12 free throws (making seven).

For Game 2, a big night from Antetokounmpo seems possible if he can simply get more shots up and the Bucks make some adjustments to get him free on cuts and rolls towards the rim. It’s also likely that he’ll just be more aggressive after feeling out his knee in the opener. In 16 playoff games this year, Antetokounmpo is averaging 20.4 shot attempts per game, which would be the highest mark of his career if it holds through the end of the NBA Finals.

On the other side, Booker also could be primed for a big night. He was just 1-8 on three-point attempts, a very large dip from the 32.7 percent he’s shooting from three during the playoffs and the 34 percent he shot during the regular season. If Booker is more like his normal self, it could be a big advantage for Phoenix as they look to go up 2-0 in the series.

Game 2 TV Info

Tip Time: Thursday, June 8; 9 p.m. ET
TV Network: ABC

Game 2 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Series Prices: Suns (-345), Bucks (+270)
Spread: Suns -5.5 (-110), Bucks +5.5 (-110)
Total: Over 219.5 (-112), Under 219.5 (-109)
Money Line: Suns (-225), Bucks (+185)

Game 2 Player Scoring Props (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Jae Crowder O/U 10.5 Points (Over -105/Under -122)
Brook Lopez O/U 13.5(-106/-121)
Chris Paul O/U 22.5 (-106/-121)
Deandre Ayton O/U 16.5 (+102/-129)
Jrue Holiday O/U 19.5 (-106/-121)
Devin Booker O/U 28.5 (-105/-122)
Mikal Bridges O/U 10.5 (-125/-103)
Giannis Antetokounmpo O/U 26.5 (-125/-103)
Khris Middleton O/U 25.5 (-120/-107)
PJ Tucker O/U 4.5 (-135/+104)

A few weeks back, Marjorie Taylor Greene did something she’d never done before: She admitted she’d done something wrong and pledged to do better. After repeatedly comparing attempts to stop an out-of-control pandemic to the Holocaust — then doubling and tripling down on it after being called out, including by the social media team for the Auschwitz Museum — she did the unthinkable and apologized. But her promise to become a better person lasted, oh, about three weeks.

As per The Washington Post, the most controversial freshman lawmaker is back at it. President Biden recently announced he was taking the push to get everyone vaccinated one step further, saying he’d send people door-to-door, offering live-saving jabs. After all, right now the vast majority of COVID-19 cases, and COVID-19-related deaths, are from people who haven’t received even a first injection.

But Greene wasn’t having Biden trying to save American lives. “Biden pushing a vaccine that is NOT FDA approved shows covid is a political tool used to control people,” she tweeted . “People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations. You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment.”

The “brown shirts” are a reference to what were dubbed “brownshirts” — what people called Hitler’s paramilitary organization, so named because of the color of their garbs.

This being Greene, her comment was, along with being offensive, misleading. All three vaccines being distributed in the U.S. were approved by the Food and Drug Administration last winter, at the behest of no less than then-president Donald J. Trump. They don’t, however, have full approval, and the organization is under pressure to do so to convince doubters, like Greene, to get vaxxed. (Greene, of course, has declined to say whether or not she’s been vaccinated.)

In mid-June, when she was being called out even by top members of her own party, Greene tried to educate herself about why making comparing life-saving actions to life-killing ones is not only inaccurate but wrong. She even went to D.C.’s Holocaust Museum. But clearly learning about one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities didn’t take.

(Via The Post)

More than three years ago, Nipsey Hussle released his official debut album, Victory Lap, which arrived after years of critically acclaimed mixtapes including The Marathon Continues, Crenshaw, and Mailbox Money. The 16-track effort would become of the best hip-hop releases of that year and it later earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. Now it’s earned a new milestone: Its 100th overall week on the Billboard album chart.

It’s a feat few artists today have achieved, and it demonstrates the power Nipsey has continued to exude well after his untimely death. The album’s success started with its release, as it debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. It was later certified Platinum at the beginning of 2020.

The news comes after an announcement that revealed Nipsey would receive a posthumous star on Hollywood’s Walk Of Fame in 2022. Next year’s class of inductees also includes Ashanti, Black Eyed Peas, DJ Khaled, and late actress, producer, and writer Carrie Fisher. Nipsey’s star joins previous hip-hop inductees like Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, and 50 Cent.

Nipsey’s alleged killer, Eric Holder, still remains behind bars on a murder charge. Despite it being more than two years since the shooting, a trail for the murder has not begun.

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