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On Friday night (Dec. 2), Britney Spears raised eyebrows among her fans when she posted a loving tribute to her estranged sister Jamie Lynn Spears, with whom she’s been in a public war of words for a year.
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The Instagram post, shared on Britney’s 41st birthday, included two pics of Jamie Lynn — one of her holding a guitar and one of her posing in a kitchen — and gave photo credit to the younger Spears sister in the caption.
“It’s my b-day but you’re my heart so I’m thinking about you,” the caption reads. “Congratulations on being so brave, inspiring, and showing guts and glory in your show !!! You ain’t alone … if anybody knows what that feels like … I get it. My baby sister !!! I love you !!!”
The show the caption is likely referencing is the celebrity reality competition series Special Forces: The Ultimate Test, which premieres next month on Fox and features the younger Spears and other familiar faces competing in the same challenges used in the military’s special forces selection process.
The Spears sisters have been publicly estranged for the past year, with Britney calling out the release of Jamie Lynn’s tell-all memoir Things I Should Have Said and bringing up other grievances in lengthy Instagram captions. “Please please stop with these crazy lies for the Hollywood books !!!” Britney wrote in one such post back in January.
Britney’s fans aren’t convinced that the new Instagram post signals a truce for the feuding siblings. In fact, they’re more convinced that the elder Spears isn’t in charge of her own Instagram account. Billboard has reached out to a rep for Britney Spears to confirm that Britney is behind the new post.
See Britney’s new post and some of the confused fan reaction below.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL BRITNEY IS RUNNING HER INSTAGRAM ANYMORE #freebritney— Sailor Mars (@DanceDee) December 3, 2022
not jamie lynn spears hacking britney’s instagram😭— pl4yboy (@wh0r3vatic) December 3, 2022
Whoever is running the Instagram of Britney Spears right now needs to knock it off…they really are doing bizarre work over there right now. #FreeBritneyIG— Ernest Owens (@MrErnestOwens) December 3, 2022
Is Dua Lipa getting ready to release a single with another veteran rock musician? Signs point to… maybe. On Saturday (Nov. 26), the “Levitating” singer shared a photo of her posing in the studio next to the Rolling Stones‘ frontman Mick Jagger.
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“Sweeeet weeeek,” the pop star captioned a carousel of pictures of her smiling with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, including one with a pair of Polaroids of the two sitting atop a music studio’s soundboard controls.
Neither Lipa nor Jagger gave a definitive statement as to what the photos together indicate, but fans in the comments section of the pop star’s post were buzzing with excitement over what the images could mean. “OMG Mick and you in a studio my body is shaking,” one fan wrote underneath the studio pics, while another added, “MICK JAGGER???? Oh we’re getting HITS.” Other fans speculated that it means Lipa’s follow up to Future Nostalgia is nearing, with one Instagram user simply asking her “DL3 when.”
If Lipa’s pictures with Jagger results in a collaboration, it won’t be the first time she has teamed up with a veteran musician for a song. The “Levitating” singer most notably worked with Elton John for their “Cold Heart” collaboration. The PNAU remix version was a big success for the pair, spending an entire calendar year on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at No. 7, as well as 36 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.
See Lipa’s photos with Mick Jagger on Instagram below.
Travis Barker is officially 47! To celebrate, Barker’s wife Kourtney Kardashian took to Instagram on Monday (Nov. 14) to share a series of intimate photos to her feed, wishing the rocker a very special day.
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“I am beyond grateful for the day you were born. Happy birthday to the husband of my dreams, my soulmate @travisbarker you have changed my life forever,” she captioned the series of snaps, which featured her in a black corset top and matching underwear while her husband wore a white tank and sparkling black fringe pants.
The Blink-182 drummer hopped in the comments and replied, “My soulmate, I love you forever” with a simple red heart emoji.
The Poosh founder was not the only one in her family to wish Barker a happy birthday — her sisters Kim and Khloé both posted well wishes to the rock star via their Instagram Stories on Monday.
Kim shared a photo of her with the Barkers enjoying time at the beach together and captioned the Story post, “Happy birthday Trav!!!!! I hope you are celebrating and doing something you will never forget!” Meanwhile, Khloé wished Barker a happy birthday along with snaps of him with Kourtney from their wedding. “I wish you a lifetime of love with my Kourt. Thank you for all the love and happiness you share with us all,” the Good American founder wrote, adding in later Story posts, “The beginning of many more years of love and blessings” and “Cheers to the best dad out there.”
Even the drummer’s mother-in-law couldn’t help but chime in on the birthday love. Kris Jenner shared a series of family photos to her Instagram account with a very kind message attached.
“Happy birthday to my son in law @travisbarker,” she wrote. “You are the most amazing dad, stepdad, husband, uncle, son, and friend! You are so kind, thoughtful, generous, creative, talented, and I’m so happy to have you as part of our family! You make @kourtneykardash so happy and I love you and appreciate you and hope you have the most amazing day ever!!!”
See Kourtney Kardashian and Kris Jenner’s birthday posts to Travis Barker below.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, reported $27.7 billion in second-quarter revenue, down 4 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, continuing a trend of ad-supported tech companies feeling the pain of a tougher macroeconomic environment and renewed competition from competitors like TikTok.
However, the company beat Wall Street expectations for revenue. The company had previously forecast revenue of $26 billion–28.5 billion for the quarter, so it met its own guidance.
Going forward, however, things look tough. The company forecast Q4 revenue of $30-32.5 billion, below Wall Street expectations, sending its share price lower after hours.
Meta net income fell by 52 percent to $4.4 billion, while its daily active user base rose by 4 percent to 2.93 billion.
The company is in the midst of a strategic pivot toward the “metaverse,” which it seems to define as being driven by virtual reality and augmented reality. However, its early efforts in the space remain niche, even as it has committed billions of dollars toward investing in the space.
In its Q3 earnings report, the company said it was making “significant changes across the board to operate more efficiently,” including shrinking some teams and keeping others flat, so that it is “investing headcount growth only in our highest priorities.”
Those priorities will include developing its AI discovery engine, its ads and business messaging platforms, and its future investment in the metaverse.
In the near-term, the company expects savings as it “rationalizes” its office footprint.
The AI discovery engine is particularly relevant to Meta’s TikTok competitor Reels, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg says is stealing time spent from the other app. Reels is now a $3 billion annual run rate business, he added.
When the discovery engine is built out, the company will be able to “recommend photos, text, links, communities, short and long form videos, alongside posts from family and friends,” Zuckerberg said, differentiating it from TikTok.
“While we face near term challenges on revenue, the fundamentals are there for a return to stronger revenue growth,” Zuckerberg added in a statement. “We’re approaching 2023 with a focus on prioritization and efficiency that will help us navigate the current environment and emerge an even stronger company.”
Still, on the company’s earnings call, Zuckerberg also projected some optimism, telling analysts that “our product trends look better from what I see than what some of the commentary suggests.”
On Facebook specifically, the number of people using it each day is the highest it has ever been,” he added, noting that it now has nearly 2 billion users, and that WhatsApp’s fastest-growing region is now North America.
Meta’s quarterly report follows similarly disappointing results from Snap and Alphabet, which have also been feeling the pinch of the advertising environment. Snap cut about 20% of its staff last quarter, and saw its losses widen, as it seeks to restructure. It did, however, see double digit user growth.
Alphabet, the owner of YouTube and Google, also missed expectations, with YouTube revenue falling year-over-year for the first time since it was broken out by the company.
This article was originally published on THR.com.
Miley Cyrus has settled a copyright lawsuit a month after she was sued for posting a paparazzi photo of herself to Instagram, according to court documents filed Wednesday (Oct. 18) and obtained by Billboard.
In the original complaint, filed on Sept. 12 in Los Angeles federal court, photographer Robert Barbera claimed that Cyrus reposted his 2020 image of her without a license or permission to do so. In the snap, the “Midnight Sky” singer is seen waving to fans as she exits a building.
In his complaint, Barbera claimed Cyrus has an “immense presence” due to her millions of followers on Instagram, and that posting the image “crippled if not destroyed” his ability to make money licensing it.
According to court documents, the lawsuit was subsequently dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning Barbera cannot refile the same claim again in that court.
The lawsuit against Cyrus is not the first Barbera has filed. The New York-based photographer previously filed copyright complaints against Ariana Grande in May 2019 and January 2020, and Justin Bieber in October 2019, though both cases were later settled on confidential terms. Earlier this summer, he filed another lawsuit against Dua Lipa that at the time of publication is still pending in court.
Though these cases may seem unfair, the law is on the side of photographers like Barbera, as they own the copyrights to the images that they take — and using those photos without a license constitutes infringement. Simply appearing in an image does not give a celebrity co-ownership of it, nor does it give them a right to repost it for free.
Had the court found that Cyrus had infringed Barbera’s copyright, the singer could have faced damages totaling as much as $150,000. For that reason, most celebrities accused of infringement by photographers opt to settle out of court, likely for a smaller sum, in order to avoid the time and expense that come with continued litigation. Though the terms of these settlement deals are nearly always private, for a single photo, amounts likely range in the tens of thousands of dollars.
