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In a weird year (I’m using “weird” as shorthand for “miserable,” “maddening,” “depressing,” “occasionally decent,” and “McRib-filled”), Jimmy Kimmel thinks that he’s found the most 2020 sentence. It involves the Tiger King, naturally.

During Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel discussed the letter that Joe Exotic, real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage, sent to Kim Kardashian asking for help with getting a pardon from Donald Trump (my head hurts). “I know you have never met me and may never want to however I do believe that you hold the values of our justice system dear to your heart,” it reads. “Please help me by just taking 10 minutes out of your life and placing a call to President Trump to look at my 257 page pardon.”

After reading excerpts from the note, Kimmel joked, “If there’s a single sentence that sums up 2020 to me, it’s ‘Joe Exotic asks Kim Kardashian to help him get a pardon from Donald Trump.’” The only things missing are “pandemic” and “Sonic.” Exotic is serving 22 years in prison for a murder-for-hire plot and several wildlife violations. Maldonado-Passage reached out to Kardashian after she and her family (but not husband Kanye West) dressed up as Carole Baskin, Exotic, and a streak of tigers for Halloween.

You can watch the Jimmy Kimmel Live! clip above.

Nathan (made a show) for you.

Showtime announced on Thursday that it has ordered a half-hour comedy titled The Curse created by Nathan Fielder and Uncut Gems co-writer and -director Benny Safdie and starring Oscar winner Emma Stone. The other Safdie brother, Josh, is listed as an executive producer. There’s a lot to like in there. “The Curse is a genre-bending scripted comedy that explores how an alleged curse disturbs the relationship of a newly married couple as they try to conceive a child while co-starring on their problematic new HGTV show,” according to a press release. There’s a lot to like in there, too.

“The fierce intelligence and wit of the incomparable Emma Stone make her the perfect partner with the ingenious minds of the Safdie brothers and the subversive comedy of Nathan Fielder,” said Amy Israel, Executive Vice President, Scripted Programming, Showtime Networks Inc., in a statement. “Together, they promise to deliver a groundbreaking satire that is both unexpected and deeply human. Showtime continues to shine as a beacon for visionary filmmakers who are looking to create their ambitious, singular shows.” That sounds like industry jargon, because it is, but credit where credit’s due: Showtime gave us Twin Peaks: The Return, and now this.

The “holy sh*t, I’m gonna…” meme has never been more appropriate.

On May 7 this year, Kid Cudi tweeted this:

A couple months later, he and Eminem linked up on the single “The Adventures Of Moon Man And Slim Shady.” While it seemed obvious that initial tweet was a promotional ploy to drum up interest for the collaboration, it turns out that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, the tweet was pretty literal, as it was genuinely Cudi’s attempt at making first contact with Eminem.

Cudi spoke about it was Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in a new interview, revealed that he really wasn’t in touch with Eminem before that tweet. He said:

“That was me. Like, ‘Yo, I want to be respected as an emcee. Yo, who do I f*cking get? Who do I f*cking get to spar with? Who do I go bar for bar with? Eminem.’ Man, I tweeted at him. No, it wasn’t even in the DMs. Just my timeline. It was public. I was like, ‘Yo Rap God, help!’ And we’re really close with Paul Rosenberg and he was able to connect us and we were able to get it done. He was in Detroit, I was in LA. It’s a nail biter. Because I’m like waiting, I’m waiting. And I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t. They’re asking me questions. They don’t say he’s going to do it just yet. They’re just asking me questions. And I’m like, so this means he’s going to do it. Right? Because they’re asking me questions. And literally it was like every day I was like, ‘Is today going to be the day? Is today going to be the day?’ And like, I got it. And I was like, ‘Holy sh*t.’ I was like, it was something for me to get the validation from Eminem by doing that record. Him doing that record let me know, like he was telling me like, ‘Yo, I f*ck with you as an artist fully, even your bars are dope.’”

Cudi previously revealed that in addition to Rosenberg, Lil Wayne was apparently also part of how he got through to Em.

Check out Cudi’s full interview with Lowe above.

Austin five-piece Sun June released their debut album back in 2018, but they’re now gearing up for the next effort. After teasing a new era with a handful of singles, Sun June return with the delicate number “Bad Girl” alongside a peaceful video.

Directed by Sun June vocalist Laura Colwell, their “Bad Girl” video depicts dancer Sarah Annie Navarrete gracefully moving her way through the day. Speaking about the project in a statement, Colwell said:

“‘Bad Girl’ is about a deep manic drive to regress into the person I used to be – back when being bad was cool and being cool was everything. I was given a lot of freedom as a teenager and always took advantage of it. After I lost a good friend in high school, my fear of death was overwhelming. The song reflects on how that fear combined with my own thrill-seeking affected my decisions since. It cycles through self-destructive choices I’ve made in relationships to avoid responsibility, and how my fear of loss has lead me down some dumb paths. The tone is sad and resigned, but also self-righteous somehow.”

Further speaking about the visual’s concept, Colwell said they pulled inspiration from some cult-classic films. “There’s something pushing and pulling between the lyrics and the beat, so we thought a dance video might draw out some internal tension,” she said. “We filmed around Lockhart, TX, where we recorded the album, because there are so many farms and fields out there that are unchanged despite the area’s growth. We took some inspiration from films like Blood Simple and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which were also shot in rural towns just outside of Austin. Basically, we tried to channel Frances McDormand, Willie Nelson, and Haim (if Haim were an only child).”

Watch the “Bad Girl” video above.

Somewhere is out 2/5/2021 via Run For Cover. Pre-order it here.

This summer, there was apparently a bidding war between streaming platforms to obtain the rights to an Ariana Grande film about her Sweetener tour. Sure enough, those rumors were confirmed yesterday when Grande and Netflix announced that Excuse Me, I Love You would start streaming on the platform on December 21. Ahead of then, a trailer for the movie has been shared.

The Netflix synopsis of the film reads, “Ariana Grande takes the stage in London for her Sweetener World Tour and shares a behind-the-scenes look at her life in rehearsal and on the road.” Indeed, Excuse Me, I Love You appears to be part concert film and part tour documentary. In addition to footage from on stage, the trailer also includes behind-the-scenes clips of Grande spending time with her mother and having emotional moments with her touring crew.

All in all, Grande has done a tremendous job at putting a bow on the last two months of an awful year. Positions became her fifth No. 1 album, she’s launching an animal rescue center, she just had a new single with Mariah Carey (in addition to appearing in her holiday special), and she broke a big Spotify record.

Watch the Excuse Me, I Love You trailer above.

Natalie Portman made her acting debut at 12 with The Professional in 1994 and Beautiful Girls in 1996. Both films featured Portman’s characters having controversial and complicated romantic feelings towards an older man, which made her keenly aware at the time that she was starting to be portrayed as a “Lolita” figure. While appearing on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Portman opened up about how she didn’t feel safe during her years as a teen actress and made conscious decisions to avoid being preyed upon by older men. Via People:

“Being sexualized as a child, I think took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid and it made me like the way I could be safe was to be like, ‘I’m conservative,’ and ‘I’m serious and you should respect me,’ and ‘I’m smart,’ and ‘don’t look at me that way.’”

As part of more “conservative” approach to her career, Portman steered clear of the usual teenage fare. “When I was in my teens I was like, ‘I don’t wanna have any love scenes or make-out scenes,’” she told Shepard. “I would start choosing parts that were less sexy because it made me worried about the way I was perceived and how safe I felt.” However, Portman stands by her choices because her defense mechanism ultimately “worked out” and kept her safe.

Portman’s heightened awareness clearly worked with Moby, who made claims in his 2019 memoir that he had a romantic encounter with Portman leading the actress to put the musician on blast for his “creepy” behavior. “I was surprised to hear that he characterized the very short time that I knew him as dating because my recollection is a much older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school,” Portman told Harper’s Bazaar. “He was on tour and I was working, shooting a film, so we only hung out a handful of times before I realized that this was an older man who was interested in me in a way that felt inappropriate.”

(Via Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard)

We’re still in a pandemic, during which many in Trump’s inner circle have contracted coronavirus and even bragged about their “celebrity” treatment of the disease. Yet what happens when one approaches MAGA-apparel wearing ladies, who are asked to explain why they won’t wear masks? Clearly, they’re not interested in the fact that masks work best by shutting off the two-way street of droplet spread. They’re largely meant to protect others, and in turn, others should wear masks to protect you.

As comedy duo The Good Liars found out (via Raw Story), though, two particular Trump supporters swear they won’t ever wear masks, and they have a surprisingly hippy-dippy reason for their stance. “We don’t have the vibrational frequency to host the virus,” one woman explained. “So, if you don’t have that vibrational frequency right here, you’re not gonna get it.” Her friend proudly added, “And I taught her that!”

The first woman wasn’t done yet. “Did you know that everything in this universe vibrates? And is alive, and there is life with that?” The second lady chimed in, “I don’t put life into COVID. I’m not gonna wear a mask. Ever.”

2021 (and widespread vaccination) truly cannot come soon enough. Fortunately, Biden’s first course of action as president will be to disinfect the White House and ask Americans to wear masks for 100 days. No word on how that will go with the MAGA crowd, but I suspect that it won’t go well at all.

Paul George is not going to hit free agency at the end of the 2020-21 NBA season. While the Los Angeles Clippers’ All-Star wing had the potential to decline a player option for next year, Adrian Wojnarowski brings word that George and the Clippers came to terms on a four-year max extension that could keep him in Los Angeles for the next five seasons.

According to George’s agent, the deal tacks another $190 million onto his already-existing contract. It also features a player option should George decide to part ways with the team prior to the 2024-25 campaign.

The Clippers also announced the news in a release.

George came to Los Angeles following one season in Oklahoma City. He was expected to play a major role alongside Kawhi Leonard in helping the Clippers get over the hump and compete for an NBA championship, but the team came up short, blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Semifinals. On the season, George averaged 21.5 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 1.4 steals in 29.6 minutes per game.

There is major intrigue around the Clippers heading into this season for a handful of reasons — the way last year ended, the rumblings of major discord in the locker room over the treatment of George and Leonard, etc. This news, though, indicates that the potential that George could hit free agency at the end of the year is now off the table heading into the season.

Since rising to fame, Lizzo has become an inspiration in the body positivity movement. She’s known for her feel-good lyrics and optimistic outlook, but that doesn’t mean she’s happy every day. Like everyone else, Lizzo has days where she’s struggling to keep her mental health in check. In a recent video, the singer got real about how negative comments can affect her body image in order to let fans experiencing the same know that they’re not alone.

Sharing a video on TikTok, Lizzo opened up about how hard it can be to not believe hateful comments about her body — and she doesn’t always have an answer:

“I came home and took my clothes off to take a shower. And I just started having all these really negative thoughts about myself like, ‘What’s wrong with me? Maybe all the mean things people say about me are true. Why am I so disgusting?’ And hating my body. Normally, I’d have something positive to say to get me out of this, but I don’t — and that’s okay too. I think these are normal, they happen to everybody, they happen to the best of us. We are the best of us and I just have to know that tomorrow how I feel in here is going to change and I can only hope that it changes for the better. But I know I’m beautiful, I just don’t feel it, but I know I’m going to get through it.”

This isn’t the first time Lizzo has opened up about how fame has affected her mental health. “Fame only puts a magnifying glass on the sh*t that you already have,” Lizzo said in a previous TikTok video. “If that sh*t is f*cked up, you’re just going to have even more magnified f*cked up sh*t situations where it doesn’t even seem valid or like you’re even like supposed to feel that way so it f*cks you up even more because you feel super f*cking ungrateful.”

Watch Lizzo’s honest TikTok video above.

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

Compton dance-hop upstart Channel Tres has released his third EP, I Can’t Go Outside, a day early after announcing its intended release date, December 11, earlier this week. The seven-track EP features guest appearances from Tinashe and Tyler The Creator, the latter appearing on the track “Fuego,” which Tres broke out as a single today as well.

Featuring a typically uptempo beat and deadpan verses from Tres and Tyler, “Fuego” serves a double purpose in addition to its lewd dancefloor come-ons. Speaking to Apple Music about the collaboration, Tres explained, “‘fuego’ was the first song I wrote when I started the project. It was just really about me questioning my art, like, ‘Yo, it ain’t that bad. Why are you scared of this shit?’… So, that’s just me questioning myself as an artist and why am I doing it and stuff like that. And then, Tyler comes in and just kind of shuts up all my doubt. He definitely blessed me with that verse, for sure.”

“Fuego” is the two artists’ second outing as a collective, after Tres remixed Tyler’s “Earfquake” into a techno bop. Tres can also be found on Disclosure’s new album, Energy.

Listen to “Fuego” above. I Can’t Go Outside is out now. Get it here.