Hartley Sawyer was fired from The Flash on Monday after a series of sexist and racist tweets were circulated in the wake of continued protests against racial discrimination and police brutality. Sawyer’s tweets, many of which were from 2011-14, are now deleted but their amplified presence on social media forced The Flash to remove him from the show altogether.

Sawer, who joined the show in 2017, was fired on Monday after a number of tweets surfaced from his past that included references to sexual abuse or contained racist jokes. Sawyer played Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, as a reoccuring character before becoming a series regular in 2018. But long threads of screenshots of his old tweets circulated online over the weekend, including one where Sawyer said “The only thing keeping me from doing mildly racist tweets is the knowledge that Al Sharpton would never stop complaining about me.” He also referred to seeing a woman naked in an audition in 2014: “Enjoyed a secret boob viewing at an audition today.”

Others specifically referenced assaulting women, or just contain troubling language about sexual violence. “Date rape myself so I don’t have to masturbate,” Sawyer once tweeted.

The Hollywood Reporter shared details of the announcement, including a statement from the show.

“Hartley Sawyer will not be returning for season seven of The Flash,” reads a statement from The CW, producers Warner Bros. TV and Berlanti Productions and executive producer Eric Wallace. “In regards to Mr. Sawyer’s posts on social media, we do not tolerate derogatory remarks that target any race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation. Such remarks are antithetical to our values and polices, which strive and evolve to promote a safe, inclusive and productive environment for our workforce.”

Wallace also tweeted about the matter on Monday.

For his part, Saywer issued an apology on Instagram.

His Twitter account, however, no longer exists.

[via THR]

While the NBA has been on hiatus since March 11 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, a different virus has reared its ugly head again — this one, mired in the depths of U.S. history. Since then, George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and nationwide protests for Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the countless other Black lives lost to police violence have ensued. Nurses and doctors have worked tirelessly on the hospital front lines while protesters have risked their own safety and lives to march for justice.

As the NBA is gearing up to resume its season in Orlando next month, so many within the league believe that it is important to not lose sight of the message and the fight for justice. On Monday, the Los Angeles Clippers released a powerful two-minute video narrated by Paul George, who spoke about the events that have transpired in the U.S. while the NBA was on pause. The short film, titled “While We Were Away,” shows how the country has banded together to fight the coronavirus and protest against structural racism and police violence against Black Americans.

The video opened with the words, “Basketball is the greatest game in the world, but it cannot ease our pain nor heal our wounds.” George, who joined the team in free agency last summer, began by acknowledging the work and commitment of health workers and other essential workers during the pandemic.

“While we were away, they closed up the courts, pulled down the rims,” George said. “The virus spread, the hospitals surged. Masks became the uniform. Zoom became the job. Essential was redefined — doctors, nurses, the grocery clerk: our All-Stars.”

The 30-year-old went on to pay tribute to Floyd, Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and call out the “national cycle of racial injustice and police brutality.”

“While we were away, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery were murdered. Cause of death: another, more familiar virus, centuries-old,” George said. “The names and dates change. The national cycle of racial injustice and police brutality do not.”

George also noted the importance of continuing the movement, saying, “There is action to take, work to do beyond pretty statements and glossy videos.”

In the past two weeks, many NBA and WNBA players including Jaylen Brown, Malcolm Brogdon, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard, Natasha Cloud, Jewell Lloyd and Stephen Curry have partaken in nonviolent protests and marches for the Black Lives Matter movement. While George and the short film conceded that many lives, jobs and livelihoods have been lost due to the pandemic, the protests have brought hope and some signs of progress. Additionally, as basketball’s return is imminent, its role as a global platform for social good and awareness will be equally as important.

“Basketball offers no vaccine, no cure,” George said toward the end of the video. “Only an example of teamwork, of togetherness.”

The words, “Bigger than basketball,” flashed on the screen to end the video.

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Booking a rental home is never easy. You have to actually find one across a plethora of sites, deal with the occasional odd landlord, and sometimes, the house just straight-up tries to murder you and your whole family.

In the new trailer for You Should Have Left from Blumhouse Productions, Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried find themselves trapped inside one particularly creepy piece of architecture that seems hell-bent on terrifying the couple and their young daughter. The house also seems to have a nightmare-ish focus on Bacon’s character as it turns his own secrets against him.

Here’s the official synopsis from Universal:

Theo Conroy (Bacon) is a successful middle-aged man whose marriage to his much younger actress wife, Susanna (Seyfried) is shredding at the seams, frayed by her secretiveness, his jealousy, and the shadow of his past. In an effort to repair their relationship, Theo and Susanna book a vacation at a stunning, remote modern home in the Welsh countryside for themselves and their six-year-old daughter, Ella (Avery Essex). What at first seems like a perfect retreat distorts into a perfect nightmare when Theo’s grasp on reality begins to unravel and he suspects that a sinister force within the house knows more than he or Susanna have revealed, even to each other.

You Should Have Left hits VOD on June 19.

(Via Universal Pictures)

Wu-Tang Clan is of course one of the most highly respected groups in the history of hip-hop (and music in general). Like any group, though, fans have members who are their favorite or who they think are best. Method Man himself has weighed in on this, and if you ask him, Wu-Tang’s most underrated member is Inspectah Deck.

He discussed this with MC Serch on a recent episode of the Serch Says podcast, and he made the case for Deck being the most underrated rapper in the group, saying:

“I think a lot of the appeal to Deck is […] remember back in the day, before videos, and you heard an MC, you had to kind of — you never knew what they looked like, all you could focus on was the words. I think if Deck came in that era right there where all they could focus on was the words and not the spectacle of what’s going on around him, he would have blew up much more than he did. He’s very well respected, but when you think of Wu-Tang, honestly, his name doesn’t come up first. But when you think iconic verses, his name is coming up first.”

He went on to declare Deck one of the best rappers ever, saying, “I’m giving him his roses now. Deck. Top five, dead or alive.”

Check out the full Serch Says episode here.

Up-and-coming singer Dominic Fike launched his career in music when he gained a fanbase following an EP of demos released in 2018. The EP caught the attention of many major labels and the singer eventually signed a multi-million dollar deal with Columbia Records. Fike has been working on his debut album since and was supposed to release its lead single this week. However, in light of the protests happening across the country in response to Minneapolis police’s murder of George Floyd, Fike has opted to delay his release. Instead, the singer shared his own story of experiencing police violence.

Fike made the announcement in a typed letter on social media. “It doesn’t feel right to release music today but it does feel right to continue this conversation,” Fike wrote. The singer added that much of his family has been targeted by police:

“My life has felt cursed since I was a little kid. I’ve watched police, the supposed good guys, beat my mom and take her away. I’ve watched my brothers taken away. Aunts, Uncles. Sh*t, my dad just got 20. It’s like they had a problem with my family. I’ve since realized the real curse is the system we live in is designed fun us to lose, again and again.

After what I witnessed in my upbringing, I’ve made it a point to not be an aggressor with police. Yet somehow, I caught a felony battery on law enforcement charge and did eight months. This was not the reality of what happened. I tried to defuse a situation with the police and my younger brother, I interfered and the cop made up a story to fit his actions. The judge thought I was better off with this sh*t on my record. I’m lucky I could do music, since no one will ever hire me. I can’t tour in the UK. I can’t go to so many places, because of a decision this asshole made out of spite. None of these decisions were based on trying to help us, they wanted us to disappear.”

Fike continued to dispel the narrative that police violence happens because of a few “bad” officers: “Systemic racism and brute, abusive power are issues engrained into this country but things can change.”

Read Fike’s full statement above.

At the Oscars, only six black filmmakers have been nominated for Best Director (John Singleton, Lee Daniels, Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins, Jordan Peele, Spike Lee), and they all lost. Only four black actors (Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker) have won Best Actor, and only one black actress (Halle Berry). And in 2019, “the number [of movies] directed by filmmakers of color fell to 18 percent in 2019,” according to IndieWire. It’s obvious — at least it should be obvious — that something needs to change, and according to Spike Lee, that change needs to come from the top.

When asked by CinemaBlend how the industry can provide more opportunities for filmmakers of color, the Da 5 Bloods director replied, “The answer is very simple. We need to have black and brown people in those lofty positions of the gatekeepers. These are the people who have the green-light votes. And very rarely do any of these studios have people of color in a position where they have a say in what gets made, and what doesn’t get made. I’ve been saying this for years. And that has not happened yet.”

In a separate interview to promote his Netflix movie, this time with British GQ, Lee discussed what would happen if “Agent Orange,” as he calls Donald Trump, served a second term as president. “If this guy wins, the world is in peril. Not just the United States of America. The world,” he said, later calling him the “worst president of the United States of America.” Congratulations to James Buchanan, and no one else.

Da 5 Bloods premieres on Netflix this Friday, June 12.

There’s not necessarily a ton of overlap between indie music and the programming of Cartoon Network. However, hardcore indie-rock fans might be familiar with Craig Of The Creek (created by former Steven Universe writers Matt Burnett and Ben Levin), as Jeff Rosenstock is the show’s composer. The show’s first musical episode, “In The Key Of The Creek,” premieres today, and alongside that, Rosenstock has shared a ten-minute album featuring music he wrote for the episode.

The singing here is reserved for the show’s cast — including former SNL star Noël Wells, Lauren Lapkus, and Phil LaMarr — so there are no Rosenstock vocals here. Still, all of the sub-2-minute tracks have a lot of the rocking characteristics of Rosenstock’s other music, and it’s fun to hear him creating new material in an entirely different context. Terry Crews is a part of the show’s cast, but unfortunately, he is not heard here.

This is the second unexpected dispatch of new Rosenstock music in recent days, as he is fresh off the release of a surprise new album, No Dream. That followed his 2018 record Post-, which was also a surprise release.

Listen to In The Key Of The Creek: A Craig Of The Creek Musical below.

This Sunday at Backlash, Edge and Randy Orton will have their second match since the Rated R Superstar came out of retirement, and according to WWE, it’s going to be “The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever.” Will it actually be the greatest wrestling match ever? In a recent interview with ESPN, Edge says he doesn’t think so.

When asked about the upcoming match’s moniker, Edge replies that what is considered the greatest of any work of any kind of art is subjective:

I’ll preface all of this with saying there’s no such thing as the greatest match ever. You’re not going to be able to say definitively, what is the greatest song of all time? What is the greatest painting of all time? What is the greatest movie of all time? What is the greatest band of all time? It’s impossible because there’s no general consensus. You can have great matches, but what is the greatest is going to be different to almost everybody.

Here’s how Edge describes his initial reaction to finding out how his Backlash match would be promoted:

I just laughed because I didn’t think it was serious. Then I realized fairly quickly it was. Then my reaction was, is this wise, because anytime you say something the greatest ever beforehand, you’re setting yourself up for failure. And I don’t ever want to think that way. I need to think the opposite of that. I can’t control the court of public opinion. I need to do and be proud of the work that I put in.

He later adds, “All I can do is take it as if this is all just a bonus and in a weird way, a compliment. Or it’s a giant rib. I don’t know.” But whether it’s a rib or a compliment, Edge doesn’t think the match should be promoted this way.

This shouldn’t even be happening. Let alone for the company, and let’s call it straight, Vince, to think that he can bill this the ‘Greatest Match Ever.’ Would I have preferred they not billed it as that? Absolutely. But I also know there are times where heels get dug in the sand and there’s no changing it.

Though he has issues with the match’s promotion, Edge is positive about other aspects of his feud with Orton, saying “I’ve been given a lot of freedom, in terms of writing my promos and in terms of storyline.”

The Spurs are among the 22 NBA teams that will convene in Orlando in July for a restarted season, but they will do so without the presence of one of their top stars.

LaMarcus Aldridge averaged 18.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game for the Spurs this season, but will not be with the team later this summer after he had arthroscopic surgery to repair a rotator cuff injury to his right shoulder on April 24.

It’s a significant blow to the Spurs, who enter the restarted season at 27-36, four games back of the Grizzlies for the eight seed. Despite having a major gap to makeup to reach the postseason, the Spurs were set to come into Orlando as the team in that group battling for the final playoff spot with the best record this season against above-.500 teams. That is a key distinction for the bubble league, as only playoff teams plus the additional five in the hunt in the West and the Wizards in the East were making the trip. Teams are only going to be playing the best in the NBA, and as such, it might be a war of attrition among those looking to claw their way into the postseason.

The Spurs will have to lean more heavily on the likes of Jakob Poeltl and Rudy Gay to fill the void left by Aldridge — who had become, somewhat improbably, the team’s second best three-point shooter this season from his frontcourt spot.