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06 Aug 2023

Beyoncé in D.C.: FedEx Field Issues Shelter-in-Place Order Due to Severe Weather

Beyoncé concertgoers ready for the Renaissance World Tour at FedEx Field Sunday night (Aug. 6) were told to shelter in place ahead of showtime due to lightning in the area.

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Concert organizers at the D.C.-local stadium, located nearby in Maryland, instructed fans to shelter in place around 6:40 p.m. ET.

A statement was posted on FedEx Field’s Twitter/X page: “Due to lightning in the area, we are currently under a shelter in place order. Fans outside of gates and in the parking lots are asked to return to their cars. All fans inside of the stadium are asked to shelter in place under covered concourse areas and ramps until further notice.”

At 8:25 p.m., an “all clear” update was released.

“Fans may return to their seats,” the stadium posted.

The show is Beyoncé’s second date at the venue this weekend.

Local reporters and fans shared video clips of a downpour and people taking cover at the stadium Saturday night.

06 Aug 2023

Taylor Swift Surprises ‘Someone Great’ Director With ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ Performance in Los Angeles

Taylor Swift included Lover standout “Death by a Thousand Cuts” during her surprise songs set at SoFi Stadium Saturday night (Aug. 5). Arguably, no one appreciated Swift’s pick more than director/writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who happened to be at this Eras Tour date in Los Angeles.

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Friends, including actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, captured the moment Kaytin Robinson freaked out upon realizing Swift was playing “Death by a Thousand Cuts” and shared clips on Instagram. It’s the second time the star has performed the song on the Eras Tour, and one of only a handful of songs she’s repeated during her acoustic surprise set. She’s typically only repeated a song if she messed it up the first time around, which she did at an earlier tour stop.

Swift revealed “Death by a Thousand Cuts” was actually inspired by Kaytin Robinson’s romantic comedy Someone Great in 2019.

“I just wrote a song based on something she made, which she made while listening to something I made, which is the most meta thing that’s ever happened to me,” Swift said at the time.

Someone Great, starring Gina Rodriguez and released by Netflix in 2019, tells the story of a couple who ends their relationship after nine years. “It’s a movie about how she has to end this relationship that she didn’t want to end because she’s still in love with the person but they just grew apart and he’s not a jerk,” said Swift. “It’s just sad because it’s just realistic, time passed and now we’re different people and that is the most devastating thing.”

Kaytin Robinson said that Swift’s 1989 album had been there for her “like a best friend with a bottle of tequila and a bear hug” and that she “found the most comfort in ‘Clean,’ a song about rebirth after love lost. It inspired me and Someone Great.”

See the director’s reaction to hearing “Death by a Thousand Cuts” live, plus a clip of Swift’s performance captured by a fan, below. So far Swift has performed three of six concerts scheduled at SoFi Stadium. She’ll return for the next show on Aug. 7.

06 Aug 2023

Fans Choose LE SSERAFIM & Demi Lovato’s ‘Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife’ as This Week’s Favorite New Music

LE SSERAFIM‘s “Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife” featuring Demi Lovato has topped this week’s new music poll.

Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Aug. 4) on Billboard, choosing the collaboration between the K-pop group and pop singer as their favorite new music release of the past week.

“Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife” brought in nearly 46% of the vote, beating out new music by Doja Cat (“Paint the Town Red”), Halle (“Angel”), Usher featuring 21 Savage and Summer Walker (“Good Good”), Grupo Frontera (El Comienzo), and others.

The K-pop group — comprising members Sakura, Kim Chae-won, Huh Yun-jin, Kazuha and Hong Eun-chae — released an English version of the song on Friday (Aug. 4), with the addition of a sultry verse by Lovato. The remix follows the group’s Rina Sawayama collab for the track the week prior.

“I see it written on your face, yeah/ I know you want a little taste, yeah/ You know I’ll put you in your place/ You’re crawling on the floor/ Begging me for more, ooh/ I’m sicker than the flu/ Come put me in the mood/ My body touching you, do you like that?/ Ooh, just watch the way I move,” Lovato belts on the rock-tinged tune.

“Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife” is the second single from LE SSERAFIM’s first studio album, Unforgiven. The song peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Trending Songs chart dated June 3, while the album it’s on peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200.

Lovato, meanwhile, is prepping to release an entire album featuring rocked-out versions of some of her biggest hits. REVAMPED is slated for release on Sept. 15 and it will feature the reimagined guitar-heavy versions of “Sorry,” as well as the previously released “Heart Attack (Rock Version)” and “Cool For the Summer (Rock Version).”

Trailing behind “Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife” on the poll is Doja Cat’s latest release “Paint the Town Red,” which brought in 26% of the vote.

Led by a sample of Dionne Warwick’s classic “Walk on By” to leverage the chorus, Doja knows exactly what her naysayers think of her, and taunts them with their own comments on a bouncy chorus.

“Mm, she the devil/ She a bad lil’ b—-, she a rebel/ She put her foot to the pedal/ It’ll take a whole lot for me to settle,” she sings.

The track is the second look fans have received of her upcoming fourth album after single “Attention.”

See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.

06 Aug 2023

‘Barbie’ Joins $1 Billion Club, Breaks Another Record for Female Directors

Greta Gerwig should be feeling closer to fine these days. In just three weeks in theaters, Barbie is set to sail past $1 billion in global ticket sales, breaking a record for female directors that was previously held by Patty Jenkins, who helmed Wonder Woman.

Barbie, which Gerwig directed and co-wrote, added another $53 million from 4,178 North American locations this weekend according to studio estimates on Sunday (Aug. 6). The Margot Robbie-led and produced film has been comfortably seated in first place for three weeks and it’s hardly finished yet. Warner Bros. said the film will cross $1 billion before the end of the day.

In modern box office history, just 53 movies have made over $1 billion, not accounting for inflation, and Barbie is now the biggest to be directed by one woman, supplanting Wonder Woman’s $821.8 million global total. Three movies that were co-directed by women are still ahead of Barbie, including Frozen ($1.3 billion) and Frozen 2 ($1.45 billion) both co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Captain Marvel ($1.1 billion), co-directed by Anna Boden. But, Barbie has passed Captain Marvel domestically with $459.4 million (versus $426.8 million), thereby claiming the North American record for live-action movies directed by women.

New competition came this weekend in the form of the animated, PG-rated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and the Jason Statham shark sequel, Meg 2: The Trench, both of which were neck-in-neck with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, also in its third weekend, for the second-place spot.

Meg 2 managed to sneak ahead and land in second place. It overcame its abysmal reviews to score a $30 million opening weekend from 3,503 locations. The Warner Bros. release, directed by Ben Wheatley, currently has a 29% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B- CinemaScore from audiences. The thriller was released in 3D, which accounted for 22% of its first weekend business.

Third place went to Oppenheimer, which added $28.7 million from 3,612 locations in North America, bringing its domestic total to $228.6 million. In just three weeks, the J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic starring Cillian Murphy has become the highest grossing R-rated film of the year (ahead of John Wick Chapter 4) and the sixth-biggest of the year overall, surpassing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Oppenheimer also celebrated a landmark, crossing $500 million globally in three weeks. Its worldwide tally is currently $552.9 million, which puts it ahead of Dunkirk, which clocked out with $527 million in 2017, and has become Nolan’s fifth-biggest movie ever. It’s also now among the four top grossing biographies ever (company includes Bohemian Rhapsody, The Passion of the Christ and American Sniper) and the biggest World War II movie of all time.

Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was close behind in fourth place with an estimated $28 million from 3,858 theaters in North America. Since opening on Wednesday, the film, which is riding on excellent reviews (96% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audience scores, has earned $43.1 million.

“This is one of those movies that is a multigenerational joy,” said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution. “I think the enduring popularity of Turtles is showing its true colors. And there hasn’t been an animated film in eight weeks and there won’t be another for eight weeks which is great for us.”

Turtles cost $70 million to produce and features a starry voice cast that includes Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Paul Rudd, Ayo Edebiri and Seth Rogen, who produced and co-wrote the film, which leans into the “teenage” aspect of the turtles.

Barbie, Oppenheimer and even the surprise, anti-trafficking hit Sound of Freedom (now at $163.5 million and ahead of Mission: Impossible 7) have helped fuel a boom at the box office, bringing in many millions more than was expected and helping to offset pains caused by some summer disappointments.

“After The Flash, Indiana Jones and, to a certain extent, Mission: Impossible, people were saying the summer was a disappointment. But it’s not over yet,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “We’re going to have a summer that is going to go out on a high note.”

But the moment of triumph for the industry will likely be short lived if the studios can’t reach an agreement with striking actors and writers soon. The fall release calendar has already gotten slimmer, with some studios pushing films into 2024 instead of trying to promote them without movie stars.

Sony had planned to release its PlayStation-inspired true story Gran Turismo in theaters nationwide next Friday, but will now be rolling it out slowly for two weeks before going wide on Aug. 25. The thinking? If movie stars can’t promote the film, maybe audiences can.

“We have to be realistic,” Dergarabedian said. “We’re on this emotional high of movies doing so well, but we have to temper our enthusiasm and optimism with the fact that the strike is creating a lot of uncertainty. The longer it goes on the more profound the issues become. But the audience has spoken and they love going to the movie theater.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

06 Aug 2023

Elon Musk Says His Cage Fight With Mark Zuckerberg Will Be Streamed on X

Elon Musk says his potential in-person fight with Mark Zuckerberg would be streamed on his social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.

The two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a “cage match” face-off in late June. Zuckerberg is actually trained in mixed martial arts, and the CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta posted about completing his first jiu jitsu tournament earlier this year.

“Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X,” Musk wrote in a post Sunday (Aug. 5) on the platform. “All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.”

Musk said earlier Sunday he was training for the fight by lifting weights.

“Don’t have time to work out, so I just bring them to work,” Musk wrote.

Whether or not Musk and Zuckerberg actually make it to the ring in Las Vegas has yet to be seen — especially as Musk often tweets about action prematurely or without following through. But even if their cage match agreement is all a joke, the banter has gained attention.

It all started when Musk, who owns X, responded to a tweet about Meta preparing to release a new Twitter rival called Threads. He took a dig about the world becoming “exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options” — but then one Twitter user jokingly warned Musk of Zuckerberg’s jiu jitsu training.

“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk wrote.

Representatives of X, Meta and Ultimate Fighting Championship, which owns the venue where the fight might take place, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Musk’s push to stream the video live on X comes as he aims to turn the platform into a “digital town square.” However, his much-publicized Twitter Spaces kickoff event in May with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announcing his run for president struggled with technical glitches and a near half-hour delay.

Musk had said the problems were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event. But even at their highest, the number of listeners listed topped out at around 420,000, far from the millions of viewers that televised presidential announcements attract.

05 Aug 2023

Angus Cloud’s Mother Says Her Late Son ‘Did Not Intend to End His Life’

Angus Cloud‘s mother, Lisa Cloud, has shared a tribute to her late son and says “his last day was a joyful one.”

She posted a note about the 25-year-old Euphoria actor who starred as Fez on her Facebook page Friday (Aug. 4), according to The Hollywood Reporter. The family had announced his death on Monday, noting in a statement, “Angus was open about his battle with mental health and we hope that his passing can be a reminder to others that they are not alone and should not fight this on their own in silence.”

On Friday, the actor’s mother shared another message, writing, “Friends, I want you all to know I appreciate your love for my family at this shattered time. I also want you to know that although my son was in deep grief about his father’s untimely death from mesothelioma, his last day was a joyful one.”

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“He was reorganizing his room and placing items around the house with intent to stay a while in the home he loved,” she said of his last day. “He spoke of his intent to help provide for his sisters at college, and also help his mom emotionally and financially. He did not intend to end his life.”

“When we hugged goodnight we said how much we loved each other and he said he would see me in the morning. I don’t know if or what he may have put in his body after that. I only know that he put his head on the desk where he was working on art project’s, fell asleep and didn’t wake up,” Angus’ mother wrote.

“We may find out that he overdosed accidentally and tragically, but it’s abundantly clear that he did not intend to check out of this world,” she continued, addressing suicide speculation. “His struggles were real. He gave and received so much love and support to and from his tribe. His work in euphoria became a lightning rod for his generation and opened up a conversation about compassion, loyalty, acceptance and love. His head injury 10 years ago miraculously didn’t result in death as it almost always does. He was given 10 bonus years and filled them with creativity and love.”

She added: “Social media posts have suggested his death was intentional. I want you to know that is not the case. To honor his memory, please make random acts of kindness part of your daily life. Bless your hearts.”

Angus was walking down the street in Manhattan when he was discovered and eventually cast as drug dealer Fezco on Euphoria, HBO’s Emmy-winning drama from Sam Levinson. The role turned Cloud into a breakout star, and his storyline was expanded in the show’s second season.

05 Aug 2023

Ne-Yo Questions Best Practice Care for Transgender Youth: ‘I Don’t Understand’

Ne-Yo shared his thoughts on how to parent transgender children and questioned minors’ rights to receive gender-affirming care in a new interview.

The singer, a dad of seven children, spoke for several minutes on the topic during a conversation with Gloria Velez for VladTV.

Ne-Yo prefaced what he was about to say with “I have no issue with LBG — I have no problem with nobody. You love who you love, you do what you do.”

“I just personally come from an era where a man was a man and a woman was a woman,” said Ne-Yo. “And there was two genders, and that’s just how I rocked. You could identify as a goldfish if you feel like, I don’t care. That ain’t my business. It becomes my business when you try to make me play the game with you. I’m not gonna call you a goldfish. But if you wanna be a goldfish, you go be a goldfish. We live in a weird time, man. We do.”

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Later in the chat he added, “I feel like parents have almost forgotten what the role of a parent is. If your little boy comes to you and says, ‘Daddy, I want to be a girl.’ And you just let him rock with that? He’s 5 … If you let this 5-year-old boy decide to eat candy all day, he’s gonna do that. When did it become a good idea to let a 5-year-old, let a 6-year-old, let a 12-year-old make a life-changing decision for themself? When did that happen? I don’t understand.”

“He can’t drive a car yet, but he can decide his sex?” asked Ne-Yo, referring to a child who identifies that their gender is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. A misinformed Velez replied, “And he can cut off his pee pee.”

“I can’t take credit for it,” Ne-Yo said toward the end of the interview clip, “but I heard somebody say one time, if your son comes to you and says, ‘Daddy, I want to be a girl,’ ask your son, ‘Son, what is a girl?’ What is he gonna do? He might want to play with dolls. All right, you want to play with dolls. Play with dolls. But you’re a boy playing with dolls. ‘I want to wear pink.’ Cool, wear pink, but you’re a boy wearing pink.”

The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, all agree that gender-affirming care is not dangerous for trans youth, and in most cases, it’s highly beneficial and life-saving.

When trans youth receive gender-affirming care, that does not typically include the kind of surgical intervention Velez implied in her conversation with Ne-Yo. Both the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health do not recommend surgical intervention before age 18, unless the patient, their doctor and a mental health professional all agree that intervention is necessary.

Gender-affirming care for minors may focus on gender expression, publicly changing pronouns and names, and using puberty blockers, which pause permanent physical change while the patient decides how they want to proceed with their transition. In later teenage years, well-established patients may begin gender-affirming hormone treatment.

Interestingly, in 2018, Ne-Yo voiced LGBTQ+ support. When Amanda Lepore was removed from Travis Scott’s Astroworld album art, TMZ asked Ne-Yo his thoughts on hip-hop embracing the community.

“If rap is not embracing them, that’s the only people that ain’t embracing them,” he replied at the time. “It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, they’re here, they’re not going anywhere. They’re people just like us, and I feel like they deserve the same respect.”   

Ne-Yo released his latest studio album, Self Explanatory, in July 2022.

Watch Ne-Yo’s interview with Velez below.

05 Aug 2023

NYC High School Student Charged With Hate-Motivated Murder in Killing of Dancer O’Shae Sibley

Police have arrested a 17-year-old high school student on a hate-motivated murder charge in the fatal stabbing of a professional dancer during an altercation between two groups of friends at a New York City gas station last weekend.

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Police took the teenager into custody Friday (Aug. 4) in connection with the killing of the 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley, who was gay. Authorities declined to release the defendant’s name.

“Parents lost a child, a child, to something that was clearly a hate crime,” Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, said Saturday during a news conference outside the Brooklyn gas station where Sibley was killed July 29.

The stabbing occurred after the two groups got into a confrontation at one of the gas pumps, where Sibley was dancing with his friends to a Beyoncé song. Authorities said Sibley’s group was being taunted by the other group before the confrontation ended in violence.

Beyoncé would later pay tribute to Sibley on her website.

Security camera video showed the two groups arguing for a few minutes. Both sides had walked away when Sibley and a friend abruptly returned and again confronted one of the young men, who had stayed behind recording on his phone.

In the video, Sibley could be seen following the teen and then lunging at him before the two disappeared out of the camera’s view. A moment later, he walks backward into view, checking his side, and then collapses to the sidewalk.

Lee Soulja Simmons, the executive director for the NYC Center for Black Pride, also spoke at the news conference.

“We wrestle with people within our community constantly facing discrimination — not just because you’re Black but because you represent LGBT” communities, he said.

“The fact that he was doing nothing more but voguing and dancing here, he did not deserve to die in that way,” Simmons said.

One of Sibley’s friends who was there, Otis Pena, said in a Facebook video that Sibley was killed because he was gay, and “because he stood up for his friends.”

One witness, Summy Ullah, said in interviews that the men complained that their behavior offended them as Muslims.

Some leaders of the area’s Muslim community condemned the slaying.

“The weight of this loss is felt deeply, not just by the family and friends of O’Shae, but by all of us who value life, peace and justice,” Soniya Ali, the executive director of the Muslim Community Center, said Saturday.

“As Muslims, we are committed to stand up for justice, even if it means standing against our own selves,” she said. “We unequivocally condemn the unjust murder of O’Shae.”

Sibley performed with the dance company Philadanco in his native Philadelphia and in New York, where he took classes with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey Extension program.

05 Aug 2023

Dirty Heads Back Atop Alternative Airplay Chart With ‘Rescue Me’

Dirty Heads return to No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart for the first time since 2010, as “Rescue Me” jumps from No. 4 to the top of the tally dated Aug. 12.

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It’s the California band’s first ruler since “Lay Me Down,” featuring Rome, crowned the survey for 10 weeks in 2010. “Lay Me Down” also marked the six-piece’s first charted title.

In between “Lay Me Down” and “Rescue Me,” Dirty Heads appeared on Alternative Airplay with 13 entries, paced by a pair of No. 3 peaks via “My Sweet Summer” (2014) and “Life’s Been Good” (2022).

The band went 13 years and two weeks between No. 1s, the second-longest break in the Alternative Airplay chart’s 35-year history. The lengthiest was achieved by The Killers, who went just a bit longer: 13 years and six months between the commands of “When You Were Young” in October 2006 and “Caution” in April 2020.

Concurrently, “Rescue Me” ranks at No. 7 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 3.1 million audience impressions, up 9%, July 28-Aug. 3, according to Luminate. It reached No. 6 on the Aug. 5 list.

“Rescue Me” is on the deluxe edition, released July 14, of Midnight Control, Dirty Heads’ eighth studio album. Released in August 2022, the LP has earned 57,000 equivalent album units to date.

05 Aug 2023

Kendrick Lamar Closes Out Day 2 of Lollapalooza 2023 With Hits-Stacked Setlist

Kendrick Lamar performed in Chicago a year for ago for his Big Steppers Tour. But the last time he performed at Lollapalooza was in 2013. Then, still fresh off his sophomore set, good kid, m.A.A.d. city (2012), a brilliant album that cemented the Compton native as a cultural force with thought-provoking lyrics. Friday (Aug. 4), Lamar — now one of the greatest and influential rappers of his generation — returned to Chicago’s Grant Park to close out day two of the festival.

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As expected, a massive sea of high-energy fans gathered at the T-Mobile stage early on to secure a spot to see the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper up close. As his set time at 8:45 p.m. neared, the area got densely packed with hardly any empty spots around you. Lamar was 15 minutes late but his fans were forgiving. And he made up for lost time kicking off with the big hits (plus he went over 10 minutes over his allotted time). At exactly 9 p.m., “The Heart Part 5” started blasting and seconds later, the man of the hour appeared dressed in blue from head to toe, and a Dodgers-inspired blue cap repping pgLAng, the entertainment company he launched with Dave Free in 2020. He then went on to perform “N95” and “Element,” before officially saying hello to the crowd.

“Is anybody alive right now?” Lamar asked. In return, festivalgoers roared letting him know that they were alive and eager to sing bar for bar with Lamar. “Chitown how are you feeling tonight? Make some noise. It’s a special night in a special city,” the rapper said.

The Grammy-winning artist went on to perform a mesmerizing set — with a group of interpretive dancers in aprons and a live band in tow — which spanned his greatest hits of the past decade-plus, including tunes from his rich body of work such as Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, DAMN., To Pimp A Butterfly and good kid, m.A.A.d. city.

“It’s always special when we come out here. It’s always love. I want to make sure you have a good time from start to finish,” the hip-hop icon told fans. Showcasing his lyrical prowess and vast catalogue, Lamar wound through songs such as “King Kunta,” “Backseat Freestyle,” “Swimming Pools (Drank),” “m.A.A.d. City,” “LOYALTY,” “DNA.,” and “HUMBLE.” and “Count Me Out,” to name a few. He closed with the 2015 anthem “Alright,” and said “Until next time Chicago, I will be back.”

Day two of Lollapalooza also included performances by Sabrina Carpenter, Jessie Reyez, Fred Again.., Thirty Seconds to Mars, Tems, Sudan Archives, and Sueco, among others. The 1975 was also a headliner and in charge of closing out the Bud Light stage.