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When you’re posting photos of your travels on social media, someone is waiting to catch you slipping. Keep this in mind if your spouse is a drug kingpin and he’s wanted by the Feds.
A wanted, and since caught, drug dealer pushing major weight out of Costs Rica found this out the hard way after he got pinched thanks to his wife posting selfies while on vacation in Europe.
Reports the U.S. Sun:
The 43-year-old was held in London after arriving to celebrate the New Year with Estefania McDonald Rodriguez on a £16,000 holiday.
American Drug Enforcement Administration agents had followed her social media posts about visits to the capital, and Paris.
They had to strike while Grijalba was out of Costa Rica, as the nation usually bars extradition of its own.
One picture showed Grijalba, known as Shock, and his wife in a cream fur-collared coat in front of the Eiffel Tower.
The struggle drug dealer in question is Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba, 43, who got arrested in London this past December. He is reportedly accused of sending cocaine from Costa Rica to the United States, and will be looking at a hefty jail sentence.
And he got caught because his wife had to stunt on Instagram and Facebook. Son…
Reportedly, struggle El Chapo’s wife, Estefania McDonald Rodriguez, made sure to strike poses on the Internets during their European and Colombian vacations, making the job of the authorities (including the DEA) easier as they moved to arrest him when they peeped he was in London. Reportedly, the wife had a habit of travelling overseas but “Shock” wasn’t always with her.
Shock will be learning his fate—as in if he’ll be get getting extradited to the US—next month.
Grijalba faced Westminster JPs the day after his arrest and is contesting extradition to the US, where he can expect a lengthy jail term.
The case was adjourned until next month.
He has survived two assassination attempts in Costa Rica, including one in which he cowered behind a cherry tree while seven comrades were gunned down.
An NCA spokesman said: “Luis Picado Grijalba, 43, was arrested in the London Bridge area on December 29 and remanded into custody.
“Extradition proceedings are ongoing.”
No word on if he’s broken up with wife, though.
Deafheaven, the long-running and critically acclaimed metal band, have signed with Roadrunner Records and will make their debut on the label with Lonely People With Power. Their first album since 2021 is due out Mar. 28, and the band has released the new song “Magnolia,” along with an accompanying music video. Explore Explore See latest […]
Nominees: “After Hours” (Diovanna Frazier, Alex Goldblatt, Kehlani Parrish, Khris Riddick-Tynes & Daniel Upchurch); “Burning” (Ronald Banful & Temilade Openiyi); “Here We Go (Uh Oh)” (Sara Diamond, Sydney Floyd, Marisela Jackson, Courtney Jones, Carl McCormick & Kelvin Wooten); “Ruined Me” (Jeff Gitelman, Priscilla Renea & Kevin Theodore); “Saturn” (Rob Bisel, Carter Lang, Solána Rowe, Jared Solomon & Scott Zhang)
Analysis: It’s always a good sign when a song earns nominations in both songwriting and performance categories, which means Coco Jones (“Here We Go”) and SZA (“Saturn”) have particularly strong chances at taking this one home. Jones won best R&B performance last year with “ICU,” but lost best R&B song to SZA’s “Snooze.” “Saturn,” though a hit, wasn’t as big of a smash as “Snooze,” but SZA’s seemingly unstoppable momentum and forthcoming co-headlining North American stadium tour with Kendrick Lamar (a seven-time nominee this year), could help her win the trophy.
Nonetheless, the frontrunner across the R&B field is probably Muni Long. Revenge didn’t exactly light the charts on fire (it missed both the Billboard 200 and genre-specific album rankings), but the record spawned three consecutive top three Adult R&B Airplay singles, including the chart-toppers “Ruined Me” and “Make Me Forget.” With “Ruined Me” earning a lot of love from R&B circles and Long remaining a consistent cultural presence via performances and candid music industry revelations, this could very well be the Year of Muni Long.
Kehlani earned three nods this year, and this is her first nomination in this category. “After Hours” was one of the few uptempo R&B hits from the last year, which could help its chances in a songwriting category. Tems‘ “Burning” probably has the same chance of winning as “After Hours”; it’s a poignant track that finds the crossover star soaring in a leading role after being a key featured player on Grammy-approved hits like Future‘s “Wait For U” and Wizkid‘s “Essence.”
We’ll call this category for Muni Long; “Ruined Me” is fresh, commercially successful, critically acclaimed, and features the most-nominated R&B artist of the night.
Prediction: Muni Long, “Ruined Me”
Look Out For: SZA, “Saturn”
Billboard cover star Kai Cenat has gone from being a Twitch streamer to one of the most influential figures in the music industry. The influencer shares his journey from learning the ropes of hip-hop music to becoming a music industry commentator. He discusses his thoughts on the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef, how he manages his relationships with artists, the process of inviting artists over, and his advice for those wanting to start streaming, and more!
Kai Cenat:
I want to go to space, like, I want to be the first streamer in space. I feel like that’d be crazy, like going to the rocket, going up to space, saying, “Yo, chat,” come back down. I feel like that’ll be crazy. When I started streaming, the majority of my content was, like, blowing up based off of me just reacting to different songs and like we had to do different music when they dropped and albums when they dropped, and just enjoyed it for what it was. And then certain clips and certain videos from that stream would go crazy, and then everybody just loved it.
Damien Scott:
You’ve done very well for yourself. Forbes has you as the highest-earning Twitch streamer. You had a hell of a 2024. Became most subscribed streamer on Twitch, Mafiathon 2.
Yep.
Which was incredible to watch a feat of social engineering and just content overall. That, plus a number of other things, has you covering Billboard’s annual Power 100 issue.
That’s crazy.
Did you ever think you would be-
Heck, no. Billboard is insane. I grew up looking at things that like Billboard had posted in the past, and different people that’s been on Billboard already, and it’s definitely insane.
You remember any of the songs back when you were still making skits, you were still in the Bronx? What music were you gravitated to and were you listening to?
No, I was listening to… I did straight Michael Jackson up until high school.
What do you mean straight Michael Jackson?
Keep watching for more!
Kai Cenat — the eternally upbeat streamer whose profile has exploded in recent years to make him the most popular personality on the Amazon-owned Twitch platform — is taking a moment to think.
In the five years or so since he’s become a full-time content creator, Cenat has had some of the most famous hip-hop artists, athletes and actors come to his house to drop in and join the “chat,” the affectionate word he uses for any of the 700,000-plus people who subscribe to his channel. He’s thinking over whether he can recall a favorite moment among so many, but it’s tough. It wasn’t when SZA and Lizzo stopped by together in the fall, nor when NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving taught Cenat’s friends and family how to play basketball. It would be reasonable to think it might be one of the many times Kevin Hart, one of his idols, swung by to kick it during the holidays.
Sitting in the basement room of his mountainside Georgia mansion, the 23-year-old needs a beat or two to consider the options. The room is a temple of adolescence, with pictures of his favorite basketball players, vintage arcade machines like Pac-Man and a gaming racing wheel. He has a huge walk-in closet and a king-size bed, both of which are being used by his three-person styling team. The only part of the room that hints at some sort of professional living there is the desk at one end that contains the computer and camera setup that power his streaming empire. Dressed in a BAPE hoodie and stonewashed denim that make him look like he’s straddling sartorial eras, Cenat finally settles on an answer: The May weekend last year when Drake and Kendrick Lamar dropped a total of four songs, three of them back to back.
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“That was the most fun experience I’ve had,” he says with a smile bright enough to power a Tesla. “I’m not going to lie.” It’s tough to tell if he’s actually super excited or just trying to manage his constant and unbridled childlike energy.
“We never experienced something like that,” he explains. “It was a good week. Everybody had their opinions. I was literally hopping on stream and had like 60,000 viewers. As soon as they dropped, my s–t was spiked to like 100,000.”
When it came to the beef that ended up taking over hip-hop for the better part of 2024, most popular streamers took sides or called winners, and Cenat was no different. “I’m cool with Drake,” he says. “So people would expect me to be on Drake’s side.
“But I’m not going to lie,” he continues. “Kendrick won that battle. It was good. I loved every second of it. I was just appreciating the moment. Like, bro, we got bangers right now that’s dropping back to back and everybody’s talking about them. It was definitely fire.”
Kody Phillips top, Louis Vuitton pants, AMIRI hat, Jacob & Co. watch.
Andrew Hetherington
For a person who makes a living by staring straight into a camera for hours on end and connecting with strangers, appearing truthful and genuine is crucial — and it’s one of Cenat’s superpowers. It’s what has allowed him to not only become the most popular streamer on Twitch, but also the most popular streamer in hip-hop and, arguably, one of the most powerful people in all music. No other streamer has been able to corral as many artists to be a part of their online world as Cenat has — and very few have earned the cultural respect from fans and artists that he has. His words hold so much weight that he’s able to materially affect the careers of the superstars his fans care about. That’s why during that weekend in May, Drake told Cenat to “stay on stream” before dropping his “Family Matters” dis track — he knew a good review from the jovial streamer would bode well for him not only in his sales, but in his battle with Lamar. But it’s also why, after the streamer said Drake’s “The Heart Part 6” was weak, Drake allegedly blocked him.
That’s just one of many major moments Cenat has driven for music’s biggest stars over the past few years. He’s had spats with Nicki Minaj, Blueface and Ye, though he eventually made up with all of them. (Minaj even gifted him a pink throne that he proudly keeps in his bedroom and doesn’t let anyone sit on.) Most recently, while on a stream in early January, he panned Lil Baby’s highly anticipated fourth album, WHAM, even questioning why certain songs were added to it. WHAM trended on X — mainly due to jokes about Lil Baby being washed. While it’s unfair to attribute to Cenat the initial negative reaction Baby’s album received on social media, he had a significant hand in spreading the sentiment that it wasn’t Baby’s best work. That’s just the power Cenat holds in 2025: He’s a self-made institution. Like EF Hutton, when Cenat talks, people listen.
All of that has made him, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing Gen Z has to 106th & Park or TRL, the erstwhile midday live-music shows that used to air on BET and MTV and were appointment viewing for any fans wanting updates on their favorite artists. Cenat’s stream is now the main place to tune in to see artists having fun and feeling comfortable enough to let loose and relax. “Yeah, people will be saying that,” he says with an impish grin. “For everyone to come to play music or just have a fun interaction, it means a lot to me, honestly, because I didn’t think, out of everybody, they would want to come over to my house. I still haven’t got to like really let it sit in and really let it digest, but it does mean a lot to me, and I’m just having fun as I go on.”
Building a platform to rival the biggest cable music stations of the 1990s and early 2000s should take at least a decade — but it’s important to understand how quickly all this has happened. Cenat, who first started posting on YouTube in 2019, is not an overnight success. But considering how integral he’s become to the cultural fabric, you could be forgiven for thinking he’s been ingrained in the hip-hop internet landscape forever.
Before first appearing on the platform, the Bronx-born creator had moved to Georgia at a young age with his mother and siblings, living in a homeless shelter while his mother worked multiple jobs to create a better life for them. It was tough, but Cenat says with his trademark positivity that he doesn’t remember those times as rough or bad. The family eventually made its way back to New York, and Cenat enrolled at SUNY Morrisville to study business administration. In search of a creative outlet, he started posting funny skits on YouTube. For Cenat, the decision was a no-brainer: “I watched YouTubers growing up — that’s why I understand it so well.”
Andrew Hetherington
Andrew Hetherington
Mainly filmed in his dorm room and around campus, Cenat’s skits were low-rent affairs with minimal costumes or production where he came off as a slapstick comedian in the tradition of Martin Lawrence. His most viewed videos were his challenges, like the popular “Try Not To Laugh Challenge” that he still does to this day and clips like the Extreme Ding Dong Ditch series, which sounds crazy but was just Cenat and his friends playing the childhood game in different locations. They didn’t get massive traction, but they caught the eye of fellow Bronx-bred creator Fanum, who invited Cenat to join the AMP (Any Means Possible) collective of YouTube creators. Soon, Cenat was posting videos at an increasingly rapid pace, as well as appearing in clips by other AMP members.
By 2021, Cenat was ready to branch out from YouTube and grow his audience another way. He decided to try livestreaming and landed on Twitch, the platform Amazon acquired in 2014, as his new home. At the time, it was being used mainly by gamers to livestream gameplay while avid fans watched like a professional sport. Cenat enjoyed playing video games, but his first foray onto Twitch was through what are known as “just chatting” streams, where he’d sit down with a camera on his desk and, yep, just talk with his audience. By the end of his first day on Twitch, he had 5,000 followers. By the end of his first month, he had 70,000. The next month, 140,000 people tuned in.
Despite Cenat’s brand now being so closely associated with hip-hop, he didn’t start producing music content, really, until he started streaming. “When I started streaming, most of my content was blowing up based off me just reacting to different songs and listening to albums when they drop and just enjoying it for what it was and just saying, like, my opinions on it,” he remembers. “And then, like, people just loved it.”
In fact, he didn’t even listen to rap until he was a teenager. Growing up, “I did straight Michael Jackson up until high school” — which is when Cenat became a fan of a hometown hero who was then dominating the charts: A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. “That was my real transition,” he says. “I went from Michael Jackson to A Boogie, and I explored from then on.”
His musical exploration has fueled his Twitch channel’s growth: Thanks to his Mafiathons — monthlong 24-hour streaming marathons that he’s held with some of the most famous names in music, sports and entertainment — Cenat now has the most subscribers on Twitch (728,535 at press time) and holds its record for the most concurrent streamers at 720,000. He’s now also one of the richest streamers in the world, according to Forbes, which estimates his 2024 earnings at around $8.5 million. (Cenat declined to comment on his earnings.)
Andrew Hetherington
His manager, John Nelson, credits these streaming marathons with cementing the Kai Cenat brand. “His first 24-hour stream [in January 2023] is really when his trajectory went off,” Nelson says. “And it’s interesting — I believe it was that one that ended with Ice Spice [on camera]. Funny, because both of them took off at that same time. Two New York kids. And, you know, they were both very popular then, but they weren’t the megastars that they are today.” Each of Cenat’s Mafiathons has helped him not only grow his audience but also break Twitch records; the most recent, in November, featured a who’s who of pop culture that included Serena Williams, GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Druski that helped him break the record for most subscribers, with more than 340,000 new people paying $5.99 to join Club Cenat.
Yes, more than 720,000 people pay money to watch a 23-year-old talk about whatever comes to mind and prank his best friends. But why, exactly?
“I just think it’s the creativity,” Cenat says. “This is just the vibe I give off, like on my stream. I try to make it as fun as possible. And being able to, like, break ice with anybody who comes on.”
It’s the creativity, sure. But it’s the combination of that creativity with his comparatively radical sincerity that has endeared him to Fortune 500 companies like McDonald’s, T-Mobile and Nike. It’s also what drew the likes of Snoop Dogg, the veritable hip-hop pitchman who’s able to move between disparate worlds, to tap the young star to work together. And it’s the reason Hart, the blockbuster comedian who has mastered the art of multimodal content more than perhaps any other superstar, took a liking to him over any other streamer of the moment.
Cenat, much like Snoop and Hart, has built a brand on being genuinely unproblematic, which, combined with his affable demeanor, has appealed to an unusually large swath of people. Unlike several other popular streamers, he hasn’t delved into the incel echo chamber side of streaming culture that has, in part, been popularized by Twitch competitor Kick. The Australian-based streaming platform reportedly offered Cenat $60 million to switch to Kick, but he turned it down.
When asked why, Cenat struggles to articulate a clear metaphor. “Say, for example, you go to Steph [Curry] and you’re like, ‘Hey, man, we want you to be a running back [in] the NFL. You’re so good at basketball, but we want you to just leave everything behind right now and go to NFL football and be a running back,’ ” he says. “It doesn’t make sense! I’ve been on Twitch. I’ve built a core community. Kick is not my home. My home is definitely Twitch. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s what I live by.”
Andrew Hetherington
Andrew Hetherington
And, unlike a number of popular streamers, he’s managed to stay clear of the political discourse that dominated the conversation in 2024. “It’s just because I don’t understand it. Some people say I should just do some research on it and, like, inform myself,” Cenat explains. “Now, I’m living in America, so it’s good to know what’s going on in politics. But like, I’m just not educated enough to speak on that.”
On the early January day I sit down with Cenat, Adin Ross, the superstar Kick streamer who famously interviewed President Donald Trump and gifted him a Tesla Cybertruck, made a statement apologizing for “raising a toxic community” on the platform and vowed to do better. “I want to rebuild,” Ross said. “I want to actually completely revamp and reset everything. I want to go back to stuff that matters. With that being said, every stream that I do, especially at this point, until I say something else, is going to be something that’s heartwarming and something that’s meaningful.”
Sounds a lot like Cenat, doesn’t it? He brushes off the idea. Cenat believes a fan base is a reflection of the creator. “So if you feed it nonsense, you’ll get nonsense. [Ross] realized what happened and now he’s trying to make a big change.”
But regardless of how he frames it, Cenat still has major clout. On Aug. 4, 2023, a full-on riot ensued in New York’s Union Square when he announced to his massive audience that, to celebrate his first streaming marathon, he would be giving away PlayStation 5 consoles and gift cards there. But he didn’t have a permit. Around 3 p.m., large crowds started to form in Union Square, and police took notice when people began to destroy public and private property. The New York Police Department called in 1,000 officers to the scene — and then all hell broke loose. Cars were destroyed, store windows were broken, and seven people were injured, including three NYPD officers. Over 60 people were arrested, half of them minors. It was a rare dark day for Cenat — but it proved just how big his brand and celebrity had gotten.
In 2023, Cenat and his small team — his assistant/production partner Brianna Lewis, his videographers and manager Nelson — traveled to Nigeria. And when they stopped by Makoko, a small, impoverished waterfront settlement on the outskirts of Lagos, they realized they were out of their depth.
The village didn’t have broadly available internet like the city itself, so Cenat couldn’t stream. But what really caught him off guard was the state of the Makoko Children Development Foundation School and Orphanage. “I went over [to Nigeria] just to go visit it, see how it is, and I went out where I just seen things that I was like, damn,” he says. He decided then and there to at least try to help improve the town. “I stumbled across this school that they had in this very small school building. These small classes and the kids were so eager to learn even in the condition that they were in. Don’t get me wrong: When I went to Nigeria, I seen beautiful parts. They got great big houses, fire cars — like, Nigeria is beautiful. [But] the place where I went to was Makoko.”
His first plan was to just fund some renovations to the school, but soon that didn’t feel like enough. So he decided to give 20% of his earnings from his November Mafiathon 2 to build a brand-new school in Makoko. “Hopefully it comes out exactly like what I’m imagining,” he says. “They said it’s going to be done this year probably, and I want to go back to Nigeria and see how it is and [have] like a grand opening. I want to be able to stream that.”
Andrew Hetherington
Cenat’s work in Makoko offers a window into how he envisions his future. He has dreams of doing more with the streaming format, but also, maybe, leaving it all together. Though he loves streaming, he wants to act in and direct movies. (Not TV, though: In his words, “No one watches TV anymore.”) Hart, whom he now calls a friend, has been helping him prepare for that next stage of his career; Cenat won’t share specifics, but says Hart has given him certain movies to watch and has been advising him. “I would love to be in movies and stuff; he definitely pushes me,” Cenat says. “He tries to connect me to the right people that direct and write movies and produce them.”
Would he leave streaming behind for Hollywood? Perhaps — but not right now. “Our good friend, [YouTube superstar] Mr. Beast, was like, ‘Why would you use something that you’re so good at to catapult you into another category? Just be completely dominant in the category that you’re in right now and just take over that.’ And I’m like, ‘Damn, he does make a good point.’ ”
His current solution to the conundrum: eschew Hollywood entirely and produce a movie on his own. “I want to be able to, like, put it out to the world,” he says. “I’m going to take a hit financially. But like, I want to be able to put it out to the world and just see if a company will pick it up.”
For the moment, Cenat remains laser focused on streaming. After all, his is one of the only streams that can genuinely help (or hurt) an artist’s career, at least in his mind. When Cenat panned GloRilla’s 2023 single “Cha Cha Cha” with Fivio Foreign, the Memphis MC blocked him on social media. He felt he was just being honest. “If there’s some bad music, I’m going to let you know it’s bad,” he says. However, according to Cenat, after their dustup, Glo glowed up. “We’re good friends now. And ever since I told her that one song was bad, she’s been making hits!” He’s not wrong. Ever since that spat, Glo has notched five songs in the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.
And when the biggest names in entertainment are DM’ing and texting you to ask to visit your crib and hop on your stream, what could possibly measure up next? Going bigger — even bigger than the movies. “I want to go to space!” Cenat exclaims. “I want to be the first human in space to float around, [stream] and talk my talk to my chat and then come back down to Earth.”
He’s serious, too. He wants to do everything he wanted to do as a kid, living and dreaming in that homeless shelter. “I want to have the whole Avengers on my stream one day,” he says with the enthusiasm of a middle schooler. “I really believe that’s going to happen one day.”
This story appears in the Jan. 25, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Kai Cenat — the eternally upbeat streamer whose profile has exploded in recent years to make him the most popular personality on the Amazon-owned Twitch platform — is taking a moment to think. In the five years or so since he’s become a full-time content creator, Cenat has had some of the most famous hip-hop […]
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We are sad to report rapper, Future’s Grandmother, Emma Jean Boyd has passed away. The ATL rapper went to social media to break the news.
Pluto’s bond with his grandmother, Emma Jean Boyd, was deep, and her passing hit him hard. She was always there for him, guiding the rapper as well as showing him love. The Freebandz artist always showed his grandmother love back in big ways. In 2019, Future and his mom, Stephanie Jester, surprised his grandmother at the FreeWishes Foundation’s Golden Wishes Gala. At the event, they gave her a community service award to honor all the hard work she’d done giving back to the community. It was a big moment for Future, showing how much he respected her.
He’s also mentioned her a lot in his music. In his song “Love You Better”, Future raps, “It’s my love from my grandmother make me gentle when I care for you,” which shows how much she influenced him. Her love made him more caring and thoughtful, and you can feel that in his music. There isn’t any reports on the cause of her passing currently.
Losing her will be tough on Future, but the lessons she taught him about love and giving back will always be a part of him. Her legacy lives on not just in his life, but in the way she has touched her community. Our love, thoughts, & prayers go out to Future and his family.
Evan Rachel Wood issued a strong statement supporting survivors of domestic and sexual assault following Los Angeles County DA Nathan J. Hochman’s announcement last week that his office would not file domestic abuse and sexual assault charges against her ex-fiancé, shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
“My lawyer and I were advised by the Deputy District Attorneys and the Sheriff deputies who investigated the case that there was compelling evidence to support our claims, but that the statute of limitations prevents many of those crimes from being prosecuted,” Wood wrote on her private Instagram on Friday, according to People magazine. “We always knew that the statute of limitations would be a barrier, which is why we created the Phoenix Act so that other victims wouldn’t have to experience this outcome.”
Working with legislators and domestic violence survivors, Wood helped write the 2019 Phoenix Act, a California law that extended the statute of limitations for domestic violence felony crimes from three to five years. She was among a number of women who accused Manson (born Brian Warner), 56, of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, allegations the musician has denied.
On Friday, Hochman said his office decided that that statute of limitations had expired on any domestic violence charges against Manson and that they could not prove a sexual assault charge in court. In a statement, Hochman said prosecutors, “recognize and applaud the courage and resilience of the women who came forward,” thanking them for their “cooperation and patience… While we are unable to bring charges in this matter, we recognize that the strong advocacy of the women involved has helped bring greater awareness to the challenges faced by survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault,” Hochman said.
In her statement, Wood — who had alleged that Manson “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years” — added, “Unfortunately, the Phoenix Act cannot help in cases which occurred before it was passed, but I hope this shines a light on why it’s so important to advocate for better laws. Evidence of violent crimes should not have an expiration date. I am grateful for the work law enforcement has done, and I am endlessly proud of all the survivors who risked everything to protect others by speaking the truth.”
Game of Thrones actress Bianco accused Manson of abuse in 2021 and reached an undisclosed settlement with the musician in 2023 after alleging that he had “used drugs, force and threats of force to coerce sexual acts” and had “locked Ms. Bianco in the bedroom, tied her to a prayer kneeler and beat her with a whip that Mr. Warner said was utilized by the Nazis.”
Bianco also issued a statement following Hochman’s ruling, writing on Instagram: “Whilst I am deeply disappointed by the decision of the District Attorney to not bring charges in the case against Brian Warner, I am sadly not surprised. Within our toxic culture of victim blaming; a lack of understanding of coercive control, the complex nature of sexual assault within intimate partnerships, and statutes of limitations that do not support the realities of healing; prosecutions face an oftentimes insurmountable hurdle.”
She added, “Once again, our justice system has failed survivors. Not the individual prosecutors and detectives who worked for years on this case, but the system that made them do so with one hand tied behind their collective backs. Seven years ago when I was faced for the first time with that failure, it set me out on a journey of advocacy and activism, but with that came a very clear directive. My healing and peace could not be reliant upon the outcome of a desperately broken system. I know the truth of what happened to me. It sits deeply rooted in my belly, unshakable, mine. No-one and nothing can take that away. And so to all the survivors reading this, who are being hit by yet another piece of stinging news and feeling hopeless or discouraged, let me remind you: you know your truth also. Let that be your anchor, for it is stronger than the bars of any prison.”
With truth as her guide, Bianco vowed to continue fighting for justice reform and to “shine our light onto dark realities of sexual violence and intimate partner abuse, so that we can not only understand it, but end it.” She also had a blunt personal message to Warner, writing, “By you dragging me through hell, I discovered the unstoppable force of my own power. I learnt how strong, and brave and bold I really am. I emerged as a Phoenix from the ashes that you left of my life. You also know the truth, and may you endeavor to find peace with that.”
Manson has strongly denied all the allegations, at one point filing a motion to dismiss the case filed by Bianco, in which he accused her of “cynically and dishonestly seeking to monetize and exploit the #MeToo movement.” He also filed a defamation lawsuit against Wood, claiming she had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously” with false allegations against the rocker. Wood denied the counter-allegations and Manson dropped the suit in November 2024, agreeing to pay $327,000 of her legal fees.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
Looks like Martha Stewart never got the Brat summer memo last year. In a hilarious new teaser for Uber Eats’ upcoming Super Bowl commercial, the businesswoman lets Charli XCX know in no uncertain terms that she’s never heard of her before.
Sitting next to the “Guess” singer as they both take part in a trend called “We Listen and We Don’t Judge,” Stewart kicks things off with a gentle dig at her counterpart’s stage moniker. “Honestly, Charli, when my agent first sent me your name, I thought it was the wifi password,” the culinary guru says as the Grammy nominee chuckles.
But Charli immediately gives it right back to Stewart. “Well, when my agent told me you were doing this, I thought you’d be doing the catering,” she tells the author, who later asks the musician, “But seriously, who are you again?”
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Both Charli and Stewart will star in Uber Eats’ commercial airing Super Bowl Sunday, which this year takes place Feb. 9. Matthew McConaughey will also appear in the advertisement, leading the “Apple” artist and TV personality on quest to prove that football was invented just to sell food.
“It was cute filming my first Super Bowl campaign with Uber Eats!” Charli said of the commercial in a statement. “Matthew and Martha are obviously legends, so I felt right at home.”
The songwriter also filmed a solo teaser for the campaign that’s more in line with the vibes of her year-defining 2024 album Brat — which reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 — with Charli breaking down football positions in “club terms.” “The quarterback — he’s like the DJ,” she says, wearing sunglasses while sitting on a conference room table. “He controls the vibe. Bad quarterback, bad vibe.”
“The defensive lineman is sort of like a bouncer, I suppose — you have to get past him if you want to score,” she continues. “The tight end? No translation needed, babe.”
Watch Charli XCX and Martha Stewart’s Super Bowl ad teasers below.
Perplexity AI has presented a new proposal to TikTok’s parent company that would allow the U.S. government to own up to 50% of a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The proposal, submitted last week, is a revision of a prior plan the artificial intelligence startup had presented to TikTok’s parent ByteDance on Jan. 18, a day before the law that bans TikTok went into effect.
The first proposal, which ByteDance hasn’t responded to, sought to create a new structure that would merge San Francisco-based Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business and include investments from other investors.
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The new proposal would allow the U.S. government to own up to half of that new structure once it makes an initial public offering of at least $300 billion, said the person, who was not authorized to speak about the proposal. The person said Perplexity’s proposal was revised based off of feedback from the Trump administration.
If the plan is successful, the shares owned by the government would not have voting power, the person said. The government also would not get a seat on the new company’s board.
ByteDance and TikTok did not immediately responded to a request for comment.
Under the plan, ByteDance would not have to completely cut ties with TikTok, a favorable outcome for its investors. But it would have to allow a “full U.S. board control,” the person said.
Under the proposal, the China-based tech company would contribute TikTok’s U.S. business without the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app, according to a document seen by the Associated Press. In exchange, ByteDance’s existing investors will get equity in the new structure that emerges.
The proposal seems to mirror a strategy Steven Mnuchin, treasury secretary during Trump’s first term, discussed Sunday on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures — that a new investor in TikTok could simply “dilute down” the Chinese ownership and satisfy the law. Mnuchin has previously expressed interest in investing in the company.
“But the technology needs to be disconnected from China,” he added. “It needs to be disconnected from ByteDance. There’s absolutely no way that China would ever let us have something like that in China.”
The Perplexity proposal comes as several investors are expressing interest in TikTok. President Donald Trump said late Saturday that he expects a deal will be made in as soon as 30 days.
On a flight from Las Vegas to Miami on Air Force One, Trump also said he hadn’t discussed a deal with Larry Ellison, CEO of software maker Oracle, despite a report that Oracle, along with outside investors, was considering taking over TikTok’s global operation.
“Numerous people are talking to me. Very substantial people,” Trump said. “We have a lot of interest in it, and the United States will be a big beneficiary. … I’d only do it if the United States benefits.”
Under a bipartisan law passed last year, TikTok was to be banned in the United States by Jan. 19 if it did not cut ties with ByteDance. The Supreme Court upheld the law, but Trump then issued an executive order to halt enforcement of the law for 75 days.
Trump, on Air Force One, noted that Ellison lives “right down the road” from his Mar-a-Lago estate, but added, “I never spoke to Larry about TikTok. I’ve spoken to many people about TikTok and there’s great interest in TikTok.”
TikTok briefly shut down in the U.S. a week ago, but went back online after Trump said he would postpone the ban. Trump had unsuccessfully attempted a U.S. ban of the platform during his first term. But he has since reversed his position and has credited the platform with helping him win more young voters during last year’s presidential election.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew attended Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20, along with some other tech leaders who’ve been forging friendlier ties with the new administration.
Congress voted to ban TikTok in the U.S. out of concern that TikTok’s ownership structure represented a security risk. The Biden administration argued in court for months that it was too much of a risk to allow a Chinese company to control the algorithm that fuels what people see on the app. Officials also raised concerns about user data collected on the platform.
However, to date, the U.S. hasn’t provided public evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or allowing them to tinker with its algorithm.