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While 2021 started as what appeared would be a very strong year for Morgan Wallen, it all came crashing down when a video of the singer using a racial slur was widely shared online. TMZ published the video, and it caught him referring to his friend as a p*ssy as n*****.

In the following 24 hours after news about the incident was shared, Wallen had his record label contract suspended and he was denounced by Maren Morries, Jason Ibell, and other country stars. Now, more than a week later, the singer is trying to clean up the mess he made by starting with a new apology video.

Wallen tried to explain his actions and apologized for them in an Instagram video that lasted for more than five minutes. “The video you saw was me on hour 72 of 72 of a bender, and that’s not something I’m proud of either,” he said at one point in the video before explaining why he waited so long to apologize publicly.

“This week, I’ve been waiting to say anything further until I got to apologize to those closest to me that I know I personally hurt,” Wallen added. He also acknowledged the severity of his actions while revealing some of the work he’s done in the past week to turn things around. This includes speaking with members of the Black community and embarking on a new period of sobriety.

“Since that video was taken, I’ve been sober for nine days,” Wallen said. “It’s not all that long of time, but it’s enough to know the man in that video is not the man that I’m trying to be.”

You can watch the singer’s full apology video above.

Lil Uzi Vert is undoubtedly one of today’s more unique artists, and his one-of-a-kind character often shines in areas outside of his actual music. According to the rapper himself, his eccentric style has earned him a high compliment from one of rap’s best names: Jay-Z.

According to Lil Uzi, Jay compared him to the late Prince. The Philly native shared the news in a tweet that read, “OG and Hov said I’m Like Prince ..so I’m Lil Prince now” with an umbrella and bat emoji. “OG” most likely refers to Juan Perez who co-owns The 40/40 Club in Manhattan with Jay in addition to his position as president of Roc Nation Sports.

Whether the comparison — if it was actually made — is valid or not, there’s no denying Lil Uzi’s uniqueness. For the last week, the rapper has been one of the most-talked-about artists on Twitter after he got a pink diamond placed on his forehead. The gem was installed by New York-based jewelry company Eliantte & Co. and it left fans with a wide array of reactions to the diamond which reportedly has a price tag of $24 million. Shortly after, he and Grimes shared plans to get “brain chips” together.

You can read Lil Uzi’s tweet above.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Wednesday brought some significant casting news for the HBO adaptation of The Last Of Us, to say the least. First there was word that one of the show’s main roles, Ellie, would be played by Bella Ramsey. Ramsey is a significant get for a major role: she played a fan favorite in a handful of Game of Thrones episodes as a Stark ally and also voiced the titular character Hilda in a charming Netflix series.

But later in the evening we learned the male role in the show will go to The Mandalorian himself. Deadline reported on Wednesday that Pedro Pascal would play Joel opposite Ramsey.

Based on the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for the PlayStation platforms, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel (Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Game of Thrones‘ Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

Pascal’s Joel, tormented by past trauma and failure, must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity.

Shortly after the news broke, executive producer and creator of the Naughty Dog game Neil Druckmann confirmed the news: The Red Viper is returning to HBO for a very different role.

It’s also noteworthy that the casting news came on the same day Pascal’s co-star on another major show, The Mandalorian, was removed from the Disney+ series after a long series of extremely problematic social media posts about a wide variety of subjects. Pascal will now be plenty busy filming The Last Of Us, and the timeline for a new season of The Mandalorian is far from certain right now but it’s clear the man behind the mask will be focus his attention on another television universe in the immediate future.

NBA fans on the internet are a strange bunch, and one of the best examples of this is in Cleveland where the “Me vs. Nuggets” challenge has become an annual tradition whenever the Cavs face the Denver Nuggets. The premise is simple and can be traced back to @WayneEmbrysKids, who started it a decade ago, as they try to eat a chicken nugget for every point Denver scores in the game. This can be disastrous, as Cleveland’s defense isn’t always the best and Denver, especially recently, has been a very good offensive team.

What started as one guy’s mission grew into an actual thing that the team itself has acknowledged, and on Wednesday, it gained its biggest mainstream moment when Larry Nance Jr., who is out with a wrist injury, decided to join the fun.

As tip-time approached, Nance proudly showed his spread of 120 Chicken McNuggets to the delight of Cavs fans everywhere.

However, things quickly got out of hand as Denver started piling up the points, scoring 64 in the first half.

As Denver neared the century mark in the third quarter, Nance Jr. recognized it was time to jump ship and tapped out, nearly 100 nuggets into the night.

As someone who has done an ill-advised chicken nugget challenge of his own on a Chick-fil-A all-you-can-eat night, I am well aware of the feeling Nance has right now. There’s the physical pain of all those chicken nuggets lurking in the pit of your stomach, but also the emotional distress and regret of knowing you have no one to blame but yourself. Add in watching your team get smacked, as happened on Wednesday, and this has to be a real low point of poor Larry’s NBA career.

Still, it was a valiant effort, and no one can blame the man for tapping. Hell, he would’ve run out of nuggets by the mid-fourth anyways had he continued since he only had 120 to start. For anyone else still fighting the good fight in #MeVsNuggets, godspeed to you and your facilities at home.

Taylor Swift has been full of surprises over the last year. The singer dropped not one, but two surprise albums for fans in 2020, that being Folklore and Evermore and by the looks of it she already has another one prepared for her supporters in 2021.

On Wednesday night, Good Morning America revealed that the singer has a surprise announcement to make to fans, one that she would share with them exclusively on the ABC morning show on Thursday. After catching wind of the tweets, Swifties from all corners of the world took to Twitter to share their theories on what the announcement could be about.

The bulk of the responses find her fans anticipating news on her re-recorded songs. “Love story re-recording is coming,” one person said in reply to the GMA tweet. Another said, “HERE WE GO” with the hashtags #TaylorSwift #tayloriscoming #rerecordings, and #lovestory.

The singer has been re-recording her past albums since November 2020 when the embargo that prevented her from doing so was lifted. Her reason for doing so is because her former label, Big Machine, refused to give her the masters of music she made before 2018. Instead, they were sold to another individual for $300 million. Since then, Swift has been hard at work with the process, so much so that she missed the American Music Awards because she was locked in the studio working on the new recordings.

You can read some more reactions from Swift fans below.

Shaquille O’Neal has kept himself busy in retirement. In addition to becoming a staple of Inside the NBA, the big fella has dipped his toe into all sorts of off-court ventures, many of which include lucrative endorsement deals with popular commercial products and brands.

Icy Hot, Papa Johns, General Insurance, and Frosted Flakes are among some of the more visible brands Shaq has lent his voice and image to in recent years, as Shaq has consistently kept his eye on diversifying his various revenue streams. He recently added Krispy Kreme to that growing list.

But on Wednesday morning, tragedy struck the Atlanta-area location he owns when a massive fire broke out and caused significant damage to the historic building on Ponce de Leon Ave. Two employees were reportedly inside the store at the time but were able to get to safety without injury. Shaq later posted a video of the terrifying blaze on Instagram, along with a message of hope.

This particular store is a historic landmark, as one of the first Krispy Kremes to open up outside of the original locations in North Carolina. The store became famous for donating donuts to mourners at local churches on the day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral.

Word that Gina Carano was fired from The Mandalorian spread like wildfire on social media on Wednesday night, as the Cara Dune actress’s social media history seemed to finally catch up with her after months of drawing the ire of fans who followed her on Twitter and Instagram.

According to multiple reports, Lucasfilm revealed publicly that Carano is no longer employed by the Star Wars company and they had “no plans” to employ her to play Dune in any Star Wars property, including The Mandalorian. Carano’s social media history included transphobic messages, anti-Semitic posts and anti-mask coronavirus skepticism that upset fans on a number of occasions. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday’s social media outcry was the last straw for the company after a long series of incidents online.

Last November, she issued contentious tweets, one in which she mocked mask-wearing amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and another in which she falsely suggested voter fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election.

“They have been looking for a reason to fire her for two months, and today was the final straw,” a source with knowledge of Lucasfilm’s thinking tells THR.

It’s a surprising turnaround from whispers at various times since The Mandalorian debuted that Cara Dune may have ended up with her own starring role in a Star Wars show in a world where her more problematic social media posts didn’t gain as much attention.

Multiple Mandalorian spinoffs are in the works from executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, including Rangers of the New Republic, which could have potentially starred Carano, though that was not ever officially confirmed. According to sources, Lucasfilm had plans to unveil Carano as the star of her own show during a December investor’s day presentation but scrubbed those plans following her November tweets.

And while the news that Carano won’t return may change the trajectory of the Star Wars universe, or at least prompt an unexpected casting change, many couldn’t help but celebrate news that Carano won’t return to Star Wars after months of problematic moments on social media.

At the very least, they had a lot of jokes ready.

Fittingly, there were a lot of Star Wars videos and GIFs that seemed to fit here.

A number of people suggested ways they could write Cara Dune out of The Mandalorian without much effort.

What happens next in the Star Wars universe next is unknown, but it seems finalized that Carano won’t be a part of it as new shows hit Disney+ moving forward.

The Hawks and Mavs have one of the strangest “rivalries” in the NBA, as there isn’t much in the way of animosity on the court between any of the players, but the fans of the two teams regularly get into it because their two stars, Trae Young and Luka Doncic, were famously traded for each other on Draft night in 2018.

Both players have become All-Stars early in their careers, and the matchups between the two teams have been terrific when Young and Doncic go head-to-head. The two burgeoning stars have become friends and are highly respectful of the other, but when they play the other they certainly seem to enjoy putting on a show. On Wednesday, that was the case once again as the two met in Dallas and each had big nights. Young had 25 points, 15 assists, and 7 rebounds, while Doncic piled up another triple-double with 28 points, 10 boards, and 10 assists in what ended up being a 118-117 comeback win for Dallas.

The Hawks had a shot to win it late, but a Danilo Gallinari fading shot clanged off the iron at the buzzer. The play designed by Lloyd Pierce was not for Gallinari, who started on the weakside wing away from the play, but rotated to the ball after the initial action, where Young set a backscreen for John Collins on a rim run, got blown up. It got blown up because Willie Cauley-Stein, turning to chase Collins, ran through the smaller Young — who seemed to sell the contact by going to the ground — and the referees had it as a play on. Young was incensed by the no-call and after the game ended, ran up to the referee closest to him and blew up at him in his face.

You can at once understand why there was no call and why Young might’ve felt there should’ve been. Young definitely did take a shoulder to his grill, which will make anyone upset, but there was nothing intentional on the part of Cauley-Stein who simply turned into the screen as he went to chase Collins. Just simply by virtue of being a 6’1 guard setting a backscreen on a 7’1 center, you’re going to run the risk of getting a shoulder to your face without the center doing anything illegal.

The play, I assume, was initially for Collins — which Huerter probably could’ve tossed the lob to, but Tim Hardaway Jr. did a good job of digging and showing at the rim to make him think twice — and then if it wasn’t there, Young was going to pop out to get the ball and isolate. Instead, when Young went to the ground on the screen and Huerter didn’t throw it to Collins, it went to Plan C, which was Gallinari coming over and trying to create a game-winning shot.

Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce stuck up for Young after the game and felt there should’ve been a foul called and said he set a great screen on the play.

As for the man who ran Young over, Cauley-Stein said he never saw Young and applauded his “sneaky” effort at trying to draw a foul.

Cara Dune may still exist in the Star Wars universe, but according to a report it won’t be Gina Carano playing the role in The Mandalorian moving forward. According to i09, Carano will no longer work for Lucasfilm and there are “no plans” for her to return to the Star Wars universe.

In a statement obtained by io9, a Lucasfilm spokesperson said the following:

“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

The statement, which made clear Carano is not working for Disney, also condemns the tweets that make her employment newsworthy in the first place. The report comes on the same day Carano drew new outrage over various social media posts in recent months and days about a variety of subjects that shocked fans of the Star Wars franchise. Earlier in the week, Carano shared an anti-Semitic story on Instagram that drew immediate outrage from fans. That sparked other people sharing past tweets about cancel culture and other topics, and the #FireGinaCarano hashtag trended on Twitter throughout the day.

Other speculation about Carano surrounded fellow Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal issuing enthusiastic support for his sister, Lux, coming out as transgender. In past social media messages, Carano had posted transphobic messages, among other problematic statements about coronavirus mask policies and other right-wing talking points.

Despite that, Dune remains an important part of The Mandalorian and was likely to appear in other Star Wars shows as the universe expanded on Disney+. Those plans, at least involving Carano, appear to have changed abruptly this week.

It’s never a great idea for celebrities to become Reply Guys on Twitter, but sometimes you just can’t resist if the perfect comeback falls into your lap. That appears to be the case with Mindy Kaling, who replied to a critical tweet by pointing out a bit of The Office history that certainly topped the initial insult she endured.

Wednesday brought word that HBO Max is expanding the number of animated shows it offers in a big way, starting with a reboot of a cult MTV hit Clone High. But another series that got some attention is a cartoon focused on the origin story of Velma from Scooby Doo.

As The Hollywood Reporter laid out, Mindy Kaling will voice Velma in an “adult-focused comedy” that she will also executive produce. As the news circulated online, one fan on Twitter was upset to hear Kaling was involved in the show. They replied with a GIF version of Michael Scott yelling “no” over and over again, which came from the cold open of Frame Toby, an episode from Season 5 when Scott learns that Toby, his nemesis from HR, has returned to Dunder Mifflin.

Normally it’s not a great idea for a celebrity with more than 11 million followers on Twitter to reply to someone with double digit followers, but there was a particular reason Kaling couldn’t resist: she wrote the episode that GIF came from.

The tweet was soon deleted, though you can see video of the GIF that was used here, if you need it. But beyond that tweet, Kaling certainly seemed to appreciate the excitement she saw from others.