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Though 2021 may be off to a rough start, Phoebe Bridgers fans got a delightful bit of news a few weeks ago — that she’d be making her debut on Saturday Night Live. Given the dearth of concerts and most of the country still following relatively strict lockdown orders, SNL is the closest we can get to a live show these days, and with a performer like Phoebe, the songs do not disappoint. Starting off with “Kyoto,” one of the more upbeat, early singles off her new record, Punisher, Bridgers closed out her two-song set with the towering closer off her latest record, “I Know The End.”

The song is a doomsday, apocalyptic affair, only made more fitting by the cataclysmic way 2020 unfolded, and Phoebe did the song justice on the SNL stage by going so far as to smash her guitar at the end of the performance. It’s the kind of tongue-in-cheek-but-deadly-serious move that’s made Phoebe such a beloved star over the past few years, and though there might’ve been a few diehard fans who wanted to hear songs off her first record, Stranger In The Alps, overall the song selection made sense for where Bridgers is right now. And that’s what makes a great TV performance. Check out the clip aboove.

Last year Phoebe Bridgers released her second album, Punisher, to immense critical acclaim. The follow-up to her debut record, Strangers In The Alps, came mid-summer, just as the pandemic was beginning to become a more intense reality and civil rights protests for Black Lives Matter following the death of George Floyd were erupting all over the country. In response to the growing unrest, she released her album a week early, hoping it would be a balm for some and wanting to step out of the spotlight while more important conversations were happening.

It’s that kind of self-awareness that has turned her into such a beloved young musician, and seeing her appear on Saturday Night Live — along with Schitt’s Creek star and creator Dan Levy — is a bright spot for fans during a rough start to 2021. For her first song on the show, Phoebe performed the more upbeat “Kyoto,” one of the first singles released off Punisher. It’s a song that might sound more hopeful, but deals with disassociation and disappointment. And for the special performance Phoebe and her band brought back what has now become a signature skeleton suit. Check out the video performance above and stay tuned for her second song later in the evening.

Cheer was an instant hit when it was released on Netflix in early 2020, the documentary series even garnering an SNL sketch of its own. But the story of the cheerleaders from Navarro College in Texas has become much more harrowing in the months since the series initially aired.

One of the show’s most notable cheerleaders, Jerry Harris, was arrested on child pornography charges in September. And according to reports, two more people featured on camera during the show’s episodes have been arrested for sexual misconduct involving minors. According to Deadline, Robert Joseph Scianna, a 25-year-old coach and choreographer, and Mitchell Ryan, a member of the Navarro College team, were arrested in separate cases earlier in the week.

Scianna Jr. was arrested Wednesday in Virginia and charged with felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child and using an electronic communication device to solicit sex. The Chesterfield County Police Department claimed he arranged to meet a juvenile with whom he connected on social media for sex.

Ryan was also arrested Wednesday in Texas. Ryan, 23, was charged with felony aggravated sexual assault of a child relating to an unspecified incident that allegedly occurred July 24, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department records show.

It’s troubling news to say the least, coming just months after Harris was arrested on charges of soliciting nude photos and sex from minors. Cheer was already a show that cast a lens on some of the more troubling and dangerous elements of the physical risks and demands competitive cheerleading puts on participants. But these recent cases are an indication there’s even more disturbing things going on that weren’t caught by cameras.

Things have not gone particularly well for the Detroit Pistons this season, and as a result, one of the team’s veterans is interested in seeking greener pastures. According to a report by Shams Charania and James L. Edwards III of The Athletic, the Pistons and backup Derrick Rose have come to a mutual agreement that a trade would be in the best interest of both sides.

The good news for Rose is that if he wants out of town, an old friend has interest. Tom Thibodeau, who coached Rose during his MVP season in 2011, and the New York Knicks are reportedly “engaged in talks” with Detroit about a deal to send Rose to the Big Apple, and while there is no word on any other teams that are conversing with the Pistons, the report indicates that a few teams have reached out in recent days about Rose’s availability.

Additionally, Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports brings word that a deal with the Knicks is “close.”

Rose has not played in a game since Jan. 30. He was fantastic off the bench for the Pistons last season, and word has been circulating since last trade deadline about the level of interest that other teams would potentially have in the All-Star. This year, Rose is averaging 14.2 points and 4.2 rebounds in 22.8 minutes per game. Rose has previously played for the Knicks, as he suited up for them in 2016-17, and would give them a steady hand in the backcourt in place of the mercurial Elfrid Payton. On Saturday, New York beat the Portland Trail Blazers to move into a tie for sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

The Xbox 360 GoldenEye that never was now is … kind of. The remake of the 007 classic from the Nintendo 64 never got a release on Microsoft’s second gaming console, but a ROM of the game hit the internet after years of clips and teases that showed the classic game with some refurbished graphics and gameplay.

As The Verge reported earlier in the week, the Xbox Goldeneye game, though unfinished, leaked online. And now it’s making the rounds on filesharing services. The game even had an option to switch from N64-style graphics to the, at the time, next-gen look.

As Polygon explained, the game was never released because of copyright issues.

Grant Kirkhope, composer on the original GoldenEye, told VideoGamesChronicle that the game was never released to the public because of a complicated knot of copyright and legal issues. “The main reason it didn’t happen was because there were too many stakeholders,” said Kirkhope. “Microsoft, Nintendo and [Bond rights-holder] EON could never agree on terms, and that’s before you even start to consider getting all the original movie actors to agree to have their likenesses used again.”

This is why you have to find it on filesharing services in 2021. If that’s too much effort, you can always just play Perfect Dark, a game that borrowed heavily from GoldenEye and saw a release on Xbox. But if you’re looking to get the GoldenEye experience with slightly improved graphics, it’s out there waiting for you.

A whole lot of prop bets get made for the Super Bowl, with books all over the world offering a collection of lines that appeal to everyone from the hyper-casual bettor to the folks who put money on everything. There is some bad news: One of the more well-known Super Bowl prop bets got ruined thanks to one intrepid reporter with a cell phone.

Zach Maskavich, a reporter with WESH out of Orlando, found himself near Raymond James Stadium, the site of Super Bowl LV, on Friday afternoon. His timing was pretty fortuitous — while he was outside, Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church were practicing their rendition of the national anthem, which they will perform before kickoff.

Now, Maskavich knew that the over/under on how long the anthem will take is quite popular, so he started recording, pulled out his cell phone, and gave away how long their sound check went.

“I just thought it was pretty funny,” Maskavich told David Purdum of ESPN. “Some of the responses have been hilarious; some people are really mad.”

As Purdum laid out, Maskavich’s video unsurprisingly caused a bit of a stir in the gambling world, as PointsBet, a book out of Australia, saw money come in on the over after this video went up, and in response, they halted betting on that line. If this ruined any of your prop bet plans, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

After a three-year absence, Bryson Tiller made his return to the music world in late 2020 with two projects: his Trapsoul deluxe album and Anniversary. Shortly after he released the latter project, the singer revealed that there was more music on the way for fans and during a recent stream on his Twitch channel, Tiller shared his plans for the next 12 months.

His first update was about his Serenity album. Before he dove into the new details, Bryson revealed that the album was one that he’s incrementally worked on since his 2017 album True To Self. Due to his struggles with depression, however, he was forced to put the album’s creation on pause to better himself and find the right “peace of mind” to continue working on it. That time finally came and now the album is on the way, but it won’t be your typical project.

“Over the years, I realized how much f*cking music that I had for Serenity, all this different sh*t, so Serenity is now not one album, but it’s three albums,” the singer said during the stream. “It’s three volumes, one is a rap album, one is an R&B album, and then one is a pop album.”

While this is exciting news for fans there is just one obstacle in the way of its release.

“Until I figure out the sh*t for my deal, with my label and all that sh*t, the business side, I can’t necessarily give that,” Bryson said about a potential release date, though he does still plan to release Serenity sometime in 2021. “That’s the only thing holding those projects back.”

As if the triple album wasn’t enough for fans, the Lousiville singer will also drop a complete Anniversary album soon. He said the original project was “never finished to begin with,” but because of a deadline to submit the album, he was forced to release what was complete at the time. During an appearance on Sneaker Shopping with Complex, an on-screen message revealed the deluxe album would arrive at some point in February.

You can watch talk about the album in the video above.

The NBA world’s collective eyes were on the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night, and not for a particularly flattering reason. Kevin Durant was unable to start the team’s 123-117 loss to the Toronto Raptors, and while he was eventually able to take the floor, during the game, Durant was told that he had to stop playing due to questions surrounding contact tracing, which were later revealed to be a member of his circle testing positive for COVID-19. The former NBA MVP was visibly upset about the incident, and after the game, he took to Twitter to vent some frustration about the entire situation.

Perhaps some of that frustration was explained by a report from ESPN that came out in the aftermath of the news. According to Malika Andrews and Adrian Wojnarowski, Durant will not only not be able to join the team in Philadelphia for its upcoming tilt against the 76ers, but he could end up missing a handful of games due to contact tracing for the second time this season.

After a confounding night surrounding the status of Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant at the Barclays Center — which included him getting pulled out of the lineup in the pregame and third quarter for contact-tracing protocols — Durant won’t travel to Philadelphia for Saturday’s game and could be lost for multiple games for the second time in a month, sources tell ESPN.

It is unclear when Durant could be able to get the green light from the league so he can return to action. The Nets standout has already dealt with the novel coronavirus, as he was among the first NBA players to receive positive tests that were made public back in March of 2020. Brooklyn has four games in the next week: Trips to Philly and Detroit on Saturday and Tuesday, respectively, before playing host to Indiana on Wednesday and a trip to take on the Warriors next Saturday.

Last week, allegations of abuse emerged about Marilyn Manson, starting with his former fiancée Evan Rachel Wood, followed by nine other women. Wood accused the singer of “grooming” her, starting when she was a teenager, and said she was “brainwashed and manipulated into submission.” Now Wood is going into further details, accusing him of various forms of bigotry.

The actress made her accusations on her Instagram stories. “I was called a ‘jew’ in a derogatory manner,” she wrote. “He would draw swastikas over my bedside table when he was mad at me.” She claimed he also gave her a hard time because her mother wasn’t born Jewish. “Because she converted and wasn’t of Jewish descent he would say things like, ‘that’s better’ because I wasn’t ‘blood Jewish.’”

And there’s more:

She also posted pictures of two tattoos he has that she says he received after their relationship began. One is an M-Swastika tattoo he has above his chest, which can be seen in many photos on the Manson Wiki, and the other is a skull and bones tattoo on his arm that she implies is a Nazi-era “Totenkopf” (“death’s head”) symbol.

“He did not have these tattoos when we started dating,” she added.

But allegedly Manson — whose stage name was in part inspired by noted cult leader Charles Manson — wasn’t just into anti-Semitism. “I heard the ‘n’ word over and over,” Wood added. “Everyone around him was expected to laugh and join in. If you did not or (god forbid) called him out, you were singled out and abused more. I have never been more scared in my life.”

Wood concluded by shooting down the offensive theory, floated by some, that theirs was simply a failed attempt at BDSM. “Brian and I never had a ‘BDSM’ relationship,” she said. “We didn’t even have ‘kinky’ sex. We weren’t having sexual intercourse when I was being tortured, before or after. I thought I was going to die the entire time.”

Among the other people who’ve shared hair-raising stories of Manson include Phoebe Bridgers and one of his earliest collaborators, Trent Reznor. Manson has denied all allegations.

(Via Consequence of Sound)

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the fifth and most recent episode of WandaVision. Tread lightly.

WandaVision, the MCU’s first Disney+ show, was a bit of a gamble, and it took four episodes for things to finally start to make some sense. But Marvel heads have been extraordinarily game, going along with a show that began as a parody of ’50s and has only gotten weirder and more ambitious from there. Their patience was rewarded with the fifth episode, widely considered the best one yet, and which delivered a few welcome surprises. Among them: the return of Wanda’s Sokovian accent.

The episode concluded with a stand-off between Elizabeth Olsen’s telekinetic Avenger and SWORD, the agency trying to figure out and stop Wanda’s alternate reality, populated by dozens of kidnapped people. So far Wanda has kept a bubbly American accent, but during her face-off, her old accent briefly slipped out. And people loved hearing it once again.

Wanda debuted the accent in Avengers: Age of Ultron, when she and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Pietro Maximoff — aka Quicksilver, though they weren’t legally allowed to call him that then — made their first full, non-bumper appearance in the MCU.

“The Sokovia accent was created by me and Aaron and our dialect coach because it’s a fake country and we could find different sources of Slavic sounds,” Olsen told Collider. “And we wanted to make sure it didn’t sound Russian because Black Widow speaks Russian, and so we just needed to sound more like Slovakian. So we created these sound changes that worked for Aaron’s British accent going to Slovakia basically and my American accent so that we sounded related.”

Now we have to wonder if Evan Peters, who played Quicksilver in Fox’s X-Men movies and who popped up at the end of WandaVision’s fifth episode, will suddenly start sounding Sokovian.

(Via ComicBook.com)