Pop

It seems safe to assume that not everyone mentioned in Britney Spears‘ The Woman in Me memoir is going to rush out to check the index for their name. But one person who seems pleased with how they are portrayed in the tell-all memoir from the pop princess is her ex-husband Sam Asghari.

TMZ talked to the model/actor this week following the book’s release and he was reportedly elated, telling the gossip outlet that he was “freaking proud” of his former wife for putting her life on display in the book, saying, “That made me smile, to be honest… I hope she takes over the world.”

He had reason to feel good based on an excerpt from the book published by People, in which Spears wrote that she has “an appreciation for how stable he is,” noting that she also loves that Asghari “doesn’t drink. He’s a gift from God.” Asghari, 29, filed for divorce from Spears in August after 14 months of marriage. With the book dropping two months after the divorce filing, the end of the couple’s marriage is not covered in the book that takes readers from Spears’ early career as a child actress/singer through the restrictive 13-year conservatorship that she was freed from in November 2021.

Britney also had nice words for Asghari for helping her dial up the courage to fight for her freedom from the conservatorship, writing “I look up to him — his consistency with working out and being a good man and being healthy and taking care of me and helping me learn we can take care of each other.

The Woman in Me also takes on the singer’s 55-hour marriage to childhood friend Jason Alexander — Spears said she was “just honestly very drunk” during the impromptu Vegas nuptials — and her fling with actor Colin Farrell. Of the latter, she wrote, “We wound up having a two-week brawl … Brawl is the only word for it — we were all over each other, grappling so passionately it was like we were in a street fight.”

It also tackles her romance with Justin Timberlake, which lasted from 1999-2002, until JT allegedly called it quits via a break-up text. She said the breakup left her “devastated… I could barely speak for months,” coming as it did after she said she got an abortion because Timberlake wasn’t ready for fatherhood; she also admitted to cheating on Justin with choreographer Wade Robson in the book after finding out about the “Cry Me a River” singer’s alleged affairs with other women.

In an Instagram post on Thursday — the day of the book’s release — Spears posted on Instagram about the memoir’s success and thanked her fans for their support. She said it was already “the highest selling celebrity memoir in history” on its first day on shelves. “And it’s only day 1 !!!” she added. “Thank you to the fans who have been so supportive !!! Love you all ? !!!” According to Amazon.com, The Woman in Me is the No. 1 on its list of most read and sold non-fiction books.

Jack Black never met a shirt he couldn’t shed. The Tenacious D frontman and comedic whirlwind was bare-chested again on Wednesday night (Oct. 25), but this time it was for a good cause. Black stripped down to his colorful boxers (and matching socks) during the all-star Give Back-ular Spectacular fundraiser at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles to raise money for SAG-AFTRA members affected by the actors strike, which has now dragged on for more than 100 days.

After doing some light crowd work — Black asked a guy up front where he was from and he said “L.A.” — the comedian asked the crowd what they wanted to hear. Rejecting the first suggestion (“can’t do that one, we’re in a strike”), Black seemed to cotton to a second one. “I know that one! Everyone knows that f—ing song!”

Black then ripped into Taylor Swift‘s “Anti-Hero,” tip-toeing and high-kicking his way through the “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me” chorus, before digging into, well, a series of nonsense scatty phrases because he clearly didn’t know any of the other lyrics.

The event to raise money for an emergency relief fund for union and non-union members in Hollywood affected by the ongoing strike was also slated to feature appearances from Jason Alexander, Rachel Bloom, Bryan Cranston, Lil Dicky, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Dax Shepard, Lily Tomlin and The Bear star Jeremy Allen White, among others.

Weeks after Hollywood writers reached an agreement with the studios, representatives for the actors were said to be cautiously optimistic about revived talks on Friday (Oct. 27) between the actors guild and studios.

Watch a video of the moment below.

Swifties, rejoice! 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is finally here.

The re-recorded version of Swift’s fifth studio album dropped at midnight Friday (Oct. 27), exactly nine years to the day after the original 1989 was released in 2014. The revamped set features newly recorded editions of all 13 original songs plus three bonus tracks: “Wonderland,” “New Romantics” and “You Are In Love.”

Plus, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) followed suit with all three of Swift’s prior “Versions” with the addition of several previously unreleased “Vault” songs, written by the pop star long ago but ultimately scrapped from her albums’ tracklists. Her latest release features “Vault” tracks “Is It Over Now?,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Say Don’t Go,” “Suburban Legends” and “Slut!”

Leading up to the new project, Swift teased lyrics from a handful of “Vault” songs, posting pictures on her Instagram Stories of handwritten lines of poetry. “I broke my own heart ’cause you were too polite to do it,” read a note from Thursday (Oct. 26).

The arrival of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) means that Swift has just two more albums to re-record: her 2006 self-titled debut and 2017’s Reputation, the last album she released under Big Machine Records. In 2021, she dropped Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), and in July of this year, she released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).

Swift first unveiled the news that 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was on its way at an August Eras Tour show, after which she took to social media to share with the rest of the world. “The 1989 album changed my life in countless ways,” she wrote at the time. “To be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record I’ve ever done because the 5 From The Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind.”

Stream 1989 (Taylor’s Version) below:

Oops … she did it again! Britney Spears left little to the imagination in a new photo she shared to Instagram on Thursday (Oct. 26).

In the risqué image, the pop star stands nude on the beach, casting a glance over her left shoulder and revealing her behind as a photographer — whose shadow is seen in the sand behind her — snaps the NSFW shot.

Spears left the image uncaptioned, and also turned off comments on the post.

In the Grammy winner’s revealing memoir that arrived on Tuesday, she explains why she likes to share nude photos of herself on social media. “I know that a lot of people don’t understand why I love taking pictures of myself naked or in new dresses,” she writes. “But I think if they’d been photographed by other people thousands of times, prodded and posed for other people’s approval, they’d understand that I get a lot of joy from posting the way I feel sexy and taking my own picture.”

One of the memoir’s biggest revelations came when the “Toxic” singer revealed that she had an abortion while dating fellow pop star Justin Timberlake. “Abortion was something I never could have imagined choosing for myself, but given the circumstances, that is what we did,” she writes, describing the process as “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced.”

Thanks to the highly publicized release of The Woman in Me, Spears saw her catalog jump 21% in streaming the week prior to the book’s debut, earning 8.89 million official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate.

Check out Britney’s latest Instagram post here.