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Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who has made numerous transphobic statements over the years, unfollowed horror master Stephen King on Twitter after he tweeted that “trans women are women.” She also bizarrely deleted a tweet praising her fellow multi-millionaire novelist. King was asked about the interaction — and Rowling’s petty unfollowing — in an interview with the Daily Beast, where he said, “Jo canceled me.”

King says that Rowling is welcome to her opinion, even if it’s a sh*tty, hateful opinion, because “that’s the way that the world works. If she thinks that trans women are dangerous, or that trans women are somehow not women, or whatever problem she has with it — the idea that someone ‘masquerading’ as a woman is going to assault a ‘real’ woman in the toilet — if she believes all those things, she has a right to her opinion.” But “I just felt that her belief was, in my opinion, wrong. We have differing opinions, but that’s life.” The It author was also asked about the infamous Harper’s letter, in which Rowling, Noam Chomsky, and Salman Rushdie, among others, unsuccessfully argued that stifled free speech is creating an “intolerant climate,” something something cancel culture. He agrees that she’s said some vile things, but they also agree on many politicized topics.

“Jo’s opinion on trans women is an outlier in her entire political spectrum,” King said. “She was very much anti-Brexit and very much anti-Trump. She’s on the side of the angels in most respects, but she does have this one thing that she’s very vehement about. No doubt.” The days of them teaming up to troll Trump seem like forever ago.

(Via the Daily Beast)

The past few years have been a time of tremendous personal change for Demi Lovato. Aside from bouncing back from a drug overdose, the singer has also come out as pansexual, and now, they have shared some more major personal news: Lovato revealed today that they now identify as non-binary and have changed their pronouns to they/them.

Lovato shared the news in a video introduction to a new series titled 4D With Demi Lovato. They begin the video by explaining the meaning of the series, saying, “Living in the fourth dimension means existing consciously in both time and space, but for me, it means having conversations that transcend the typical discourse.”

They go on to reveal they now identify as non-binary. The caption of the post echoes a lot of the points Lovato makes in the video and it reads:

“Every day we wake up, we are given another opportunity and chance to be who we want and wish to be. I’ve spent the majority of my life growing in front of all of you… you’ve seen the good, the bad, and everything in between. Not only has my life been a journey for myself, I was also living for those on the other side of the cameras. Today is a day I’m so happy to share more of my life with you all — I am proud to let you know that I identify as non-binary and will officially be changing my pronouns to they/them moving forward. This has come after a lot of healing and self-reflective work. I’m still learning and coming into myself, and I don’t claim to be an expert or a spokesperson. Sharing this with you now opens another level of vulnerability for me. I’m doing this for those out there that haven’t been able to share who they truly are with their loved ones. Please keep living in your truths and know I am sending so much love your way xox.”

Check out Lovato’s post below. Lovato also shared the first episode of 4D featuring author and performer Alok Vaid-Menon as the debut guest, so watch that below as well.

Barack Obama isn’t saying it was aliens… but it was aliens. Maybe.

In an interview that would make Giorgio A. Tsoukalos proud, the former president stopped by The Late Late Show With James Corden (virtually) on Monday night, the day after 60 Minutes aired a mind-blowing report about the reality of UFOs or, as the government calls them, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—UAPs for short, probably so that it doesn’t sound like they’re spreading bizarre UFO conspiracy theories. While he seemed to understand that the general concept of UFOs has been written off as something only people wearing self-styled tinfoil hats might want to talk about, Obama did corroborate that these reports are 100 percent real.

After joking that he asked about where the secret alien lab was after coming into office —”I was like, ‘Alright, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceship?’ And they did a little bit of research and the answer was no.”— Obama confirmed that there are people who take the investigation of these sightings very seriously, and that they should.

“What is true—and I’m actually being serious here—is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory—they did not have an easily explainable pattern.”

Since we don’t know what these flying objects are, it would then follow that we don’t know how to defend ourselves against them if they ever decided to attack… which could mean that Tucker Carlson is right? [Shudder!] That—not an alien invasion — is just too terrifying to think about.

“Liam Neeson” is the name of the Northern Irish actor who earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Schindler’s List. It’s also shorthand for a very specific kind of movie in which a man (who is always Liam Neeson) with a very specific job (think snowplow driver) faces a painfully specific life-or-death challenge (rescue your teenage daughter from an Albanian sex trafficking ring) and uses his very specific set of skills in order to meet that challenge. Sort of like if Mad Libs were a movie plot. On Tuesday, Netflix released the trailer for its upcoming thriller The Ice Road, which sees Neeson chasing down the clock to save 26 trapped miners in less than 30 hours and dropping lines like “This is personal!” and “Now I’m angry!” in the Neesoniest way possible.

Netflix describes the movie as follows:

“After a remote diamond mine collapses in far northern Canada, a ‘big-rig’ ice road driver (Neeson) must lead an impossible rescue mission over a frozen ocean to save the trapped miners. Contending with thawing waters and a massive storm, they discover the real threat is one they never saw coming.”

Yep, that sounds about right.

It’s worth noting that Neeson was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to his action star status. It wasn’t until 2008’s Taken, which was co-written by Luc Besson, that the actor’s career took a turn for the action-packed. In the years since then, he has made what feels like hundreds of other thrillers with similar plots and almost identical posters.

Yet Neeson has also said that he, too, has made enough action-thrillers to last him a lifetime. In 2015, he announced that he’d be retiring from action movies in two years. In 2017, he claimed to be officially retired from the genre, telling journalists at the Toronto Film Festival: “I’m sixty-f***ing-five. Audiences are eventually going to go: ‘Come on.’”

But that was four years ago. And in January of this year, Neeson once again stated that the end of his days stunting and yelling at people are about to come to an end. “I’m 68 and a half—69 this year,” Neeson told Entertainment Tonight. “There’s a couple more I’m going to do this year—hopefully, COVID allowing us—there’s a couple in the pipeline and, then I think that will probably be it. Well, unless I’m on a Zimmer frame or something.”

Does he truly mean it this time? Don’t bet on it.

(Via /Film)

It’s been four (long) years since Aziz Ansari’s brainchild, Master Of None, brought a sophomore season to Netflix. And it’s been a heck of a four years since then. Not only did you-know-what happen to slow down Hollywood productions (and everything else), but Ansari also retreated from the public eye following sexual assault allegations made against him in 2018. Those accusations did not result in charges, though they did prompt him to grow reflective during his insightful comedy special that went a long way to show that he’s gazing inward. During that tour, Ansari still appeared stunned at how distanced he had felt from the perspective of his accuser, although many felt that the accusations against him (which read, frankly, like a very bad date) seemed to prove that knee-jerk times are truly upon us, and people are eager to pick sides on every loaded issue.

Tellingly, Netflix declared back in 2019 that they were more than ready for more Master of None when Aziz was ready to make it happen, and people, it is happening. Granted, it’s a short season — with episodes titled “Moments Of Love, Chapter 3,” and so on, which range from 25-55 minutes apiece — but still, it’s here. As one might expect, Aziz’s experience as an accused man appears to have affected the lens with which he views human relationships; and one of the most awkward details about this situation is that his character, Dev, got stuck in a (relevant) tough situation in the Season 2 finale. Dev’s co-star-within-a-show (BFFs), Chef Jeff, was accused of on-the-job sexual harassment by many, many women. As the season wound down, the show indicated that BFFs had evaporated, and Dev would be left to pick up the pieces.

Little did anyone realize that Aziz would soon be, at least to a degree, regrouping to reformulate his own professional plan. And part of that plan (at least for Master of None) involves moving Dev to the background, so that his childhood best-friend character, Denise (Lena Waithe) can tell her story — this has actually briefly happened before, during the Season 2 “Thanksgiving” episode, and the results were marvelous — while Aziz continues in the director’s seat. He and Waithe co-wrote this new batch of episodes, and this season feels like an evolution. That’s true not only for the way that Aziz is writing about relationships, but also for the incredible depth in the way he shoots this season.

In short, he slows everything down, both figuratively and literally, and that allows for plenty of opportunities to lay these characters’ souls as bare as possible. In the case of Denise, her at-times impenetrable exterior means that, yeah, this intimate approach to what she’s going through is gonna get interesting. That’s especially the case because she’s now married (to Alicia, played by Naomi Ackie), and as a freshly successful author, she’s moved out of the New York City bustle to a roomy house upstate. This setting, on one hand, caters to the pandemic shooting mode of fewer people in one place, but also, it allows the show to strip away any side stories in a realm where there’s no pretense allowed. There’s no room for maneuvering away from difficult situations. No distractions exist for conversations that one might want to avoid. Vulnerability can shine through.

The process brings utterly unpretentious results (unlike what happened with the same getaway-to-a-remote-house approach for Malcolm and Marie), so that’s also a bonus. Also a good thing: Aziz is not entirely absent from being in front of the camera, but those moments are sparse. Perhaps he purposely meant to hang back to keep from drawing attention to his recent situation and distracting from this season’s mission. Yet even more so, he’s seizing this opportunity to further hone his eye behind the camera. The results are fascinating, particularly because Denise can be a tough egg to crack. Watching her layers emerge, although she never fully reveals herself at once, is fascinating. In fact, seeing what Denise chooses not to tell the world makes her all-the-more compelling, and her marriage is truly a modern love story, including the inevitable drama that arises. Meanwhile, Aziz knows how to point a damn camera, and he knows the value of restraint while allowing his subjects to simply do their thing without any rush to action.

Less humor can be expected this season, although it’s still present during more subtle moments. And Aziz appears to be done with having his characters move at a fast pace while going nowhere at all. Sure, that was part of the charm of the first seasons, but now, he sets up the long shot on his subjects and lets things unfold in a more organic way. Whether that means that he’s simply allowing Denise and Alicia to do break out in wordless dance for a few minutes while doing laundry, or he’s focusing on Denise slowly eating a hamburger alone in her car, all of these decisions to linger have a purpose.

It sounds weird, right? If I look at what I just wrote, the thought of Denise eating a burger doesn’t sound too compelling, but trust that there’s an undercurrent to the scene that communicates a lot about her inner state during the episode. Hey, remember how Mad Men received some criticism for lack of straight-up, plot-pushing action at times, too? It’s a little bit like that, and the followup to that burger scene delivers an emotional payoff.

What it all comes down to is this: Ansari is showing the world that he’s learned to listen. Whether or not that’s a result of his #MeToo accusations, well, no one can say. Perhaps he’s simply maturing and realizing that there are better stories to tell than Dev getting snowed in with an engaged Italian woman who’s leading him on, and so on, where that arc felt like a surface interaction. In contrast, there’s so much going on within these Season 3 characters. It’s cool, it’s heartbreaking at times, and it’s compelling as hell, all while Aziz breaks into new storytelling ground while Dev, during his limited onscreen time, does a heck of a lot of reflecting and communicates gratitude for his own process. I don’t want to spoil what happens, but there’s some Aziz Ansari in there.

If I had one complaint here, I’d only wish there were more episodes. We can cross our fingers for Season 4, though, while hoping that this show continues to transform. Master of None has always been an easy show to binge, and now it’s a rewarding one.

Netflix’s ‘Master of None’ will stream on Sunday, May 23.

The Chicago White Sox throttled the Minnesota Twins on Monday evening, prevailing by a final score of 16-4. Other than the lopsided nature of the contest, there was nothing terribly out of the ordinary in the game until the top of the ninth inning, and the events of that half-inning carried over into Tuesday. First, White Sox rookie Yermin Mercedes came to the plate against Twins position player Willians Astudillo and drove a 3-0 pitch for a home run to extend the margin from 15-4 to 16-4.

Following the game, White Sox manager Tony La Russa expressed displeasure with Mercedes’ decision to swing in that particular situation.

“Big mistake,” La Russa told reporters. “The fact that he’s a rookie, and excited, helps explain why he just was clueless. But now he’s got a clue.”

“I took several steps from the dugout onto the field, yelling, ‘Take, take, take,’” La Russa added. “The way he was set up, it looked to me like he was going to swing.”

In many ways, this is on-brand for La Russa, who is perhaps the most “old-school” manager in baseball at this point. Still, these comments from the manager only exacerbated the issue and generated a time-honored tradition of unwritten rule litigation across the baseball world. That also included members of Chicago’s roster and Mercedes himself weighing in on what transpired.

Fast-forward to Tuesday and the White Sox and Twins took the field once again. This time, Minnesota prevailed by a 5-4 margin, but there were more fireworks, including Twins pitcher Tyler Duffey being ejected for throwing behind Mercedes.

And, finally, the kicker is that La Russa didn’t have an issue with this.

Chicago has been very good this season, boasting a 25-16 record, so it isn’t as if things are crumbling for the White Sox. At the same time, this stance from the manager almost can’t be exceedingly popular in the clubhouse, which is something that could manifest in various negative ways. La Russa not having the back of his player, as well as going beyond that by publicly decrying his actions, is something to keep an eye on, and the great unwritten rule debate continues.

The Boston Celtics are the 7-seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Boston took on the Washington Wizards in the play-in tournament on Tuesday evening, and thanks to an All-NBA-level performance by Jayson Tatum, the Celtics will not need an extra game to know their playoff future. Tatum scored 50, his third game with at least 50 points this season, en route to a 118-100 win for the home team.

Boston found itself comfortable for essentially all of the first quarter. While Washington held onto the earliest of early leads, going up 5-3 less than two minutes into the game, the Celtics were able to pull ahead and stay ahead for the entirety of the frame. The Wizards, however, were able to patch together a run thanks to a surprisingly nice half from reserve guard Ish Smith off of the bench, chipping away at the lead throughout the second frame before going ahead a little more than halfway through.

Washington ultimately sat with a tenuous 54-52 lead as the two teams entered the locker room at the half. Bradley Beal (13 points) and Russell Westbrook (eight points, 13 rebounds, five assists, two steals) did their usual heavy lifting, with Smith’s 11 points providing a huge boost. The Celtics relied heavily on Jayson Tatum’s 18 points, while Kemba Walker pitched in 12 of his own.

And then, Tatum exploded in the third. The Celtics’ All-NBA forward dropped 23 points in the frame, giving the Celtics a 10-point lead entering the fourth quarter. Everything he tried to do seemed to work, carving up the Wizards’ defense with a steady diet of ultra-skilled 1-on-1 moves that led to jumpers.

Perhaps the most impressive moment, the one that truly hammered home that he was locked in, came when he attempted to draw a foul on Smith, who was doing everything he could to give Tatum zero room to work. Tatum looked for contact, did not get the call, and still hit a jumper, anyway.

Tatum cooled off a bit in the fourth, if only because it would have been very hard to have a second consecutive quarter like this. But as a team, the Celtics built the lead to as many as 22 points, making any effort by the Wizards to get back into the game for naught.

Tatum stuffed the stat sheet on the night: 50 points on 14-for-32 shooting while making all 17 of his free throw attempts. He also had eight rebounds, four assists, two steals, and a block. Walker was also outstanding, with 29 points and seven rebounds of his own. For Washington, four players scored in double-digits, led by 22 from Beal, but the team could not hit anything from deep, going 3-for-21 from three.

With the win, Boston will take on the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, with the first game scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 22, at 8 p.m. EST. The Nets won all three game in the season series.

As for the Wizards, they’ll have to take on the Indiana Pacers to learn their postseason future. Indiana trounced the Charlotte Hornets earlier in the night, 144-117. The two teams will play on Thursday evening with the winner going on to earn the 8-seed in the East and setting themselves up for a series with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Last year proved to be a great year for both Kehlani and viral producer Amorphous. The former shared her sophomore album It Was Good Until It Wasn’t early on in 2020, and it proved a hit, ranking high on critics’ year-end lists. As for Amorphous, the producer became a viral name on social media after sharing a number of DJ mashups that earned him a large fan base, catching the attention of many big names in music. Now, the two acts have come together for their brand new single, “Back Together.”

The track is a summer-ready number, with Amorphous providing a high-spirited beat for Kehlani, who sings about maintaining her independence while avoiding an exclusive. “Need you to know we ain’t gettin’ back together,” she sings on the chorus. “But that doesn’t that we can’t come together.”

Amorphous’ last release came as a feature alongside DJ Khaled and Fat Joe for “Sunshine,” which arrived with a video showing the trio enjoying a party aboard a yacht. As for Kehlani, “Back Together” marks the latest in a string of guest appearances she’s made over the past month, which includes tracks with T-Pain, Pink Sweats, Lil Durk, and more.

You can watch the video for “Back Together” above.

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

Before November of last year, few knew the name Dominion Voting Systems. But after Donald Trump lost re-election, he and his supporters made them a household name. They floated surreal, convoluted, and baseless claims about it and other voting machine equipment companies, such as Smartmatic, helping to steal the election for Biden. And then those voting companies struck back, suing those on the right who spread said lies, from lawyers like Sidney Powell to MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell.

Dominion also came for Fox News, filing a $1.6 billion lawsuit for repeatedly airing untruths that they claimed tarnished their reputation. Now the network is attempting to get it dismissed. As per The New York Times, their legal team turned in a 61-page response, arguing, essentially, that they were just, you know, being journalists.

“A free press must be able to report both sides of a story involving claims striking at the core of our democracy,” the motion reads, adding, “especially when those claims prompt numerous lawsuits, government investigations and election recounts.” It continues: “The American people deserved to know why President Trump refused to concede despite his apparent loss.”

The motion goes on to defend a number of instances in which Fox News anchors and personalities aired said lies, arguing that they weren’t stating them as fact but merely repeating what others had said.

In a statement released Tuesday, the network’s lawyers tried to rebrand their legal woes as a first amendment issue. “There are two sides to every story,” they wrote. “The press must remain free to cover both sides, or there will be a free press no more.”

Could their crazy plan just work? Their coverage of the post-election fallout might be hard to spin, given how many times anchors, such as Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs (whose show was cancelled shortly after a lawsuit from Smartmatic), uncritically repeated false claims made by the likes of Powell and beleaguered Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. Still, given how much Trump supporters hate the media, Fox News trying to paint themselves as one of the fold is an…interesting tack.

(Via The New York Times)

After a few months of teasing the project, J. Cole finally released The Off-Season last week. The full-length effort delivered a batch of songs that left even his biggest critics satisfied. Days after its release, Cole gave the effort a boost with a fiery video for the track “Amari.” But it turns out the song’s creation didn’t go easily, as J. Cole revealed during a sit-down with Timbaland’s BeatClub YouTube channel.

“Amari” began life during a Twitch livestream held by Timbaland, who produced the song, during which he created what became the song’s beat. After Cole heard it, he decided to record over it. “So I looped up the YouTube lil’ rip, made a whole song on this sh*t,” he said during the sit-down. “I spent the next two days writing and recording the song, and right when I was 90% through writin’ it, I was like, I should probably call him now and get the real file.”

However, things didn’t go as Cole might have expected. When he asked Timbaland to send him the beat, the producer told him he forgot to save it. Luckily, Cole and Timbaland found time to recreate it.

You can watch the BeatClub interview above.