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You get to experience a lot of cool stuff when your dad is one of the biggest pop stars in the world. But Nicole Richie proved on Tuesday night (April 9) that the stars are not always just like us after all. Not even close.

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Chatting with Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show in an appearance to promote her starring role in the remake of the 1991 comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, avowed animal lover Richie ran down the list of her current and former favorite pets, including her new cat Lavender Bumblebee. The feline, of course, joins Nicole’s other favorite kitty, Tiger Lily Sprinkle Winks, who, she noted was initially “very upset” when LB came into the picture.

Richie also recalled her many trips to a pet store in L.A. with childhood bestie and reality TV co-star Paris Hilton to buy pet rats. “I don’t know why, I actually hate rats now,” she said of her expansive rat pack, all of whom were named after Beverly Hills 90210 characters. “So I don’t know why we were into them, but we were.” After rogue rat Tori Spelling ended up on her mom’s face one morning, the rats were out and Nicole moved on to her next obsession: Las Vegas-sourced ferrets.

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That was far from the wildest animal tale she told, though.

“Yes, Prince got me my first dog,” Richie told Fallon about the pooch the enigmatic late pop icon gave her when she was four. “I remember because the dog’s name was God. I did not name the dog, obviously.”

Richie said she was used to interactions with superstars on a regular basis from attending her dad Lionel Richie’s concerts as a kid, though she typically kept to the backstage area. “The first time that I went in the audience — I remember this so clearly — one of the Pointer Sisters was there,” Richie said, adding that the singer in question had a cute Yorkie with a pink bow in its hair at the gig. “She’s the one who brought me out into the audience for the first time.” Fallon then shared a recent video of Nicole and sister Sofia in the crowd at one of their dad’s shows losing their minds along with everyone else in the crowd.

Richie stars alongside June Squibb, Jermaine Fowler and Gus Kenworthy in the Babysitter reboot due out on Friday (April 12).

Watch Richie on The Tonight Show below.

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Ryan Gosling has been a star for more than three decades. And, judging by the way he absolutely crushed it during the mega song-and-dance performance of his spotlight Barbie song “I’m Just Ken” at the Oscars earlier this year you’d think the 43-year-old triple-threat lives in a zone where nerves are never an issue.
But in the first promo for his third stint as host of Saturday Night Live this weekend (April 13), Gosling is as jangled as a 12-year-old asking his first crush out to the movies. It’s all a put-on, of course. But in the endearing video, Gosling practices how he’s going to introduce himself to the night’s musical guest, country singer Chris Stapleton, and he just can’t seem to get it right.

Wearing a Stapleton T-shirt, Gosling works up his nerve to knock on the singer’s dressing room door as he rehearses his best meet cool lines for the “Tennessee Whiskey” singer. “Mr. Stapleton, big fan, love your music,” Gosling says as he grips a head shot of Stapleton and a black marker. “Nah, it’s stupid.”

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Trying out a more casual approach, Gosling whips his phone out of his back pocket and gets in selfie position as he says, “Yo Chris! One for the ‘gram?” That one also fell flat, so Gosling opts for a more formal, Shakespearean take, intoning, “Master Stapleton, ’tis I, Sir Gosling. That’s cool,” he says.

But when Gosling finally works up the confidence to open the door, he walks into a darkened room to find Stapleton’s perfectly lit, signature straw cowboy hat sitting majestically on a mannequin head. The image is so overwhelming that Gosling drops his marker and photo in awe as he struts toward the hat, thinks better of it, then plops it on his head contentedly as Stapleton’s “White Horse” blasts out.

Gosling will hit screens on Friday (April 12) in the action comedy The Fall Guy, in which he stars as aging choreographer Colt Seavers in the film loosely based on the 1980s TV series about stunt performers that starred Lee Majors. The actor made a surprise appearance on SNL last weekend during Kristen Wiig’s fifth hosting turn, presenting the beloved former SNL star with her five-timers hosting jacket.

Check out Gosling’s promo below.

During her visit to the Tamron Hall Show on Wednesday, Memphis MC GloRilla reflected on her mind-blowing visit to the White House in March, where she met President Biden and VP Kamala Harris. But host Hall had one more special moment to share during the segment, when she played a video from Glo’s dad, who […]

You may not have known it — because he never winds up in any of her squad pics — but comic/actor Jerrod Carmichael is besties with Taylor Swift. The star of the new HBO series the Jerrod Michael Reality Show told Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night (March 20) that Swift is basically his “best friend.”
The admission came after Kimmel put up a picture of Carmichael hanging with Swift in a box in Buffalo, New York during a Jan. 21 Kansas City Chiefs victory over the Buffalo Bills to advance to the AFC Championship on their way to winning Super Bowl LVIII. In the snap, Swift is, of course, fully decked out in red and white KC gear, while Carmichael is rocking a fuzzy coat over a red jersey.

“Taylor Swift’s my best friend,” Carmichael doubled-down, lamenting that he should have asked the singer to be part of his sometimes intense new HBO series, which he described as a mixture of traditional reality mixed with very frank discussions with his family about his personal life. “Like I’m not her best friend, but she’s my best friend,” Carmichael quadrupled down.

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“Can you think of a better friend to have than Taylor Swift?” Carmichael wondered. “I called my former best friend and I was like, ‘You’re out! You never invited me on a jet to your game.’ Taylor’s my best… no, she’s very smart and interesting.” Carmichael said Swift called and asked him to the game, and, not for nothing, the comedian said the singer also definitely “knows more about football” than he does.

When Kimmel wondered, given her deep knowledge of the Xs and Os, if Carmichael asked Swift questions about football, Jerrod said, “yeah, yeah, I’m the girlfriend in that situation.” Anticipating the raft of headlines (such as the one above) screaming “Jerrod Carmichael Says Taylor Swift Is His Best Friend,” Carmichael lamented that he would probably not even get first mention in most stories given the singer’s status.

“Actually, I won’t even get top-billing! It’ll say: ‘Taylor Swift: Jerrod Carmichael’s Best Friend?’ Don’t do that to me, it’s gotta be something else,” he joked. “I do love her though.” The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show debuts on March 29.

Check out Carmichael describing his best friendship with Swift below (starts around the 9:10 mark).

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When Road House actor Lukas Gage married celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton on a whim in Las Vegas six weeks after their first official red carpet appearance together last spring it seemed like a whirlwind love story. But now Gage is in apology mode to the A-listers who helped the couple tie the knot after the […]

Trigger warning: the following story contains descriptions of sexual assault.
Former Drake & Josh star Drake Bell details his alleged sexual abuse at the hands of his former childhood dialogue coach Brian Peck in the new Investigation Discovery docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the four-part show dives into the toxic work environment at Nickelodeon on sets run by Dan Schneider, who created such hit programs as Drake & Josh, The Amanda Show, Zoey 101, iCarly, Victorious and Sam & Cat, iconic kids’ programs that launched the careers of such superstars as Ariana Grande, Amanda Bynes, Kenan Thompson, Victoria Justice and more.

In the series, Bell shares the details of his alleged abuse by Peck — who was convicted of sexually assaulting a Nickelodeon child actor in 2004 — for the first time, including allegations of abuse, sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crew and alleged predatory behavior at the network. The series will premiere over two nights on ID on March 17 and 18.

In the third episode, Bell graphically recounts the alleged grooming and sexual abuse he suffered at Peck’s hands when he was 14- and 15-years-old. The series reveals that when Peck was accused of molesting a child in 2003 and later convicted of a lewd act against a child and oral copulation of a person under 16 — resulting in a 16-month sentence and registration as a sex offender — it was then-15-year-old All That and The Amanda Show star Bell who was at the center of the criminal case and conviction.

Bell describes waking up on Peck’s couch one morning to the dialogue coach “sexually assaulting me. I froze and was in complete shock,” he says. “I had no idea what to do or how to react.” The series reportedly claims that Peck manipulated Bell’s mother and other adults to allow him “free rein” with the minor,” with Bell describing the abuse getting “worse and worse and worse and… worse, and I was just trapped and I had no way out.”

According to People, Bell, now 37, says he became close to Peck because they had “a lot of the same interests,” which he now realizes was “a bit calculated” on the part of his adult coach, who would often invite Bell to his house for acting lessons.

The abuse stopped after the mother of Bell’s then girlfriend asked why Peck wouldn’t stop calling the young actor that Bell began therapy, though at the time he was not yet ready to share his secret. “Then I realized it was so calculated. You (Peck) moved all the pieces into place. The whole thing was mental manipulation,” Bell said of the behavior by the dialogue coach, who appeared on screen as the character “Pickle Boy.”

People reported that Peck later became Bell’s manager, which caused a rift between the actor and his father, who was concerned about Peck accompanying Bell on auditions an hour away from where the young actor lived with his mother, sometimes necessitating overnight stays at Peck’s home.

Bell finally went to the police in 2003 and told his mother about the abuse, which included a “brutal” interview with two detectives in which Bell had to call Peck to get the coach to admit his guilt on a tapped phone line.

Soon after, Bell says, Schneider phoned him asking if the case was tied to the young actor. Feeling close to the boss, Bell says he confirmed the case was about him, at which point Schneider allegedly responded, “‘You don’t need to talk anymore about it. That’s all I needed to hear. Are you okay? Do you need anything from me? Anything you need.” Bell, who would then go on to topline his Drake & Josh series, says he doesn’t recall any other Nickelodeon executive reaching out to him at the time. Bell, who says his life was upended by the abuse, says in the series he began drinking and using drugs in the aftermath and in 2021 pleaded guilty to two charges tied to his online interactions with an underage fan; he was sentenced to two years’ probation and community service.

“Now that Drake Bell has disclosed his identity as the plaintiff in the 2004 case, we are dismayed and saddened to learn of the trauma he has endured, and we commend and support the strength required to come forward,” Nickelodeon said in a statement to THR.

The series claims that kid actors were made to wear suggestive costumes and take part in inappropriate sketches with pornographic undertones. All That actor Leon Frierson recalls playing a superhero character called Captain Big Nose in tights and underwear, with a prosthetic nose and matching noses on his shoulders.

“You can’t help but notice that it looks like penises and testicles on my shoulders,” he says, noting that one sketch included Captain Big Nose unleashing a giant sneeze caused by his allergy to asteroids, resulting in a messy goo on the face of a young woman. “The joke in that sketch is effectively a cum shot joke. It’s a cum shot joke for children,” culture writer Schaachi Koul says in the first episode. “Looking back, it’s very strange. Frankly, it was just uncomfortable. In the moment, I thought this is what we got to do to stay on the show, to stay in the cast and stay in the good graces of people that were higher up,” says Frierson, who also discusses that being close to “kingmaker” Schneider could mean an extra level of success for the young actors. “It was important to be on his good side, and he made it known who was on his good side,” he says.

The Amanda Show actress Raquel Lee Bolleau — who appeared on the show when she was 12-years-old — says that “you wanted Dan to like you, because otherwise he was mean to you,” describing the time Schneider allegedly “flipped out” when he thought a birthday cake on set for Bolleau was too big. “Dan yelled a lot. Dan was like a tornado. He’d show up and you’d say, what just happened? Dan showed up. The set wouldn’t feel the same when he’d leave, because everyone was on their toes, scared,” Bolleau says of the showrunner who others describe as tormenting, humiliating and yelling on set.

That theme is a recurring one in the series, in which the young actors say they feared that if they spoke up for themselves, or their parents did, they would never work again.

“Working for Dan was like being in an abusive relationship,” Christy Stratton, one of only two women writers on The Amanda Show, says in the docuseries. Stratton and the other female writer on the show, Jenny Kilgen, reportedly had to split a normal staff writer salary to get hired, with Stratton recalling that Schneider told her, “he didn’t think women were funny” and Kilgen adding, “He [Schneider] challenged us to name a funny female writer, and he said this to the writers in the writers room.”

Kilgen also says that Schneider allegedly had pornography on his computer screen and told her he’d put one of her sketches in the show in return for a massage. “He always presented it like a joke, and he’d be laughing while he said it. But you always felt like disagreeing with Dan, or standing up for yourself, could get you fired,” Kilgen says, recalling that one day in the writer’s room Schneider asked her to lean across her desk and simulate being sodomized.

The series claims that Schneider’s alleged abusive on-set behavior didn’t stop until after the rise of the #MeToo movement, with Nickelodeon eventually splitting with Schneider after “years of whispers and rumors.” That move came after a 2014 internal investigation about toxic conditions on the set of the Grande/Jennette McCurdy show Sam & Kat resulted in hands-on boss Schneider no longer interacting with the series cast while being sequestered in his office. Schneider — whose shows were moneymakers for the network — created two more series, Game Shakers and Henry Danger before being the subject of a second internal investigation by Nickelodeon, which cleared him of any “hint of sexual misconduct,” but which paved the way for his leave-taking in 2018.

“Everything that happened on the shows I ran was carefully scrutinized by dozens of involved adults. All stories, dialogue, costumes, and makeup were fully approved by network executives on two coasts,” Schneider said in a statement to THR about the series. “A standards and practices group read and ultimately approved every script, and programming executives reviewed and approved all episodes. In addition, every day on set, there were always parents and caregivers and their friends watching us rehearse and film.”

In a statement about the series’ allegations of misconduct, Nickelodeon said, “Though we cannot corroborate or negate allegations of behaviors from productions decades ago, Nickelodeon as a matter of policy investigates all formal complaints as part of our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace environment free of harassment or other kinds of inappropriate conduct. Our highest priorities are the well-being and best interests not just of our employees, casts and crew, but of all children, and we have adopted numerous safeguards over the years to help ensure we are living up to our own high standards and the expectations of our audience.”

Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.

Kelly Clarkson is headed to Paris this summer. The singer and daytime talker announced on Tuesday night (March 12) that she will be joining NFL hall of famer Peyton Manning and veteran NBC sportscaster Mike Tirico as hosts of the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
“You know, Peyton hosted the Country Music Awards, Kelly’s one of the greatest of all time, so the three of us are going to do an album,” Tirico joked to Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon in introducing the three-headed hosting crew for the first time.

“I’m so glad we can say it. We’ve been holding this forever,” Clarkson said about the exciting news that the trio will anchor the live coverage of the kick-off to the summer spectacular that will air on NBC and Peacock at noon ET on July 26 and find more than 10,000 athletes parading through the heart of the French capital. The hosts brought along examples of the gold medals that will be handed out at both the Olympics and Paralympics, each of which has a tiny piece of the Eiffel Tower embedded in them.

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“The opening ceremony is going to be so different and unique. Down the Seine, down the river with the athletes on a boat, so it’s not the stadium where they walk in,” said four-time opening ceremony host Tirico, who was also asked which athletes or teams fans should be looking out for. “It will incorporate Paris. And the games are going to be amazing as you know, swimming, gymnastics … Simon Biles, Katie Ledecky, Team USA in track and field could be incredibly strong, the Dream Team, the U.S. soccer team, the women’s basketball team.”

Fallon asked each host what they might win a gold medal for, with two-time NFL champ Manning jumping in with a most unexpected skill: event planning. “It’s kind of my true calling,” Manning said. Tirico weighed in with his skill, which is being an expert packer and travel-planner, while Clarkson said she is “not like that at all,” and hates planning vacations. If, however, you need help building something out of LEGO, she’s your lady. “I am the Simone Biles of LEGOs,” she said. “I am incredible at LEGOs.”

The gold medal trio were back after a break for a game of “Olympictionary,” with Clarkson up first in the game with Olympics-inspired clues. You should watch for yourself, but suffice it to say that Clarkson clearly need to bone up on her badminton knowledge given her very NSFW drawing that made teammate Fallon’s cheeks as red as a rooster’s waddle.

Watch Clarkson’s announcement and her not-ready-for-prime-time game show clue below.

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Getting through the Blind Auditions on season 25 of The Voice is enough of a boost. But on Monday night (March 11), New Orleans native and mega-Swiftie Zoe Levert got double-gifted when she got a last-minute chair turn from coach John Legend. Levert, 20, scored a slot on Team Legend with her confident take on […]

Saturday Night Live‘s Bowen Yang dropped by Late Night With Seth Meyers on Monday night (March 11) to deconstruct his hilarious Moulin Rogue spoof with Ariana Grande on this weekend’s SNL. “That was very fun,” Yang said of the bit with his Wicked co-star in which they imagined what the movie musical would have been like if director Baz Luhrmann had been able to grab the rights to some other popular songs.

“No play, she’s a real friend,” Yang said, adding that someone had asked him backstage if he was intimidated to sing with the pop diva. “I was like, ‘it never occurred to me’… that I was singing with her and that I should be intimidated. She’s so disarmingly wonderful and great and it was just so fun to do it,” he said.

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Yang also told a hilarious performing skills origin story about how as a kid he used to haunt the Dance, Dance Revolution game on display at his local Best Buy, which was, naturally, situated next to the Costco at Park Meadows Mall in suburban Colorado. The game was set up in the middle of the store and Yang said he’d compete with the staff to see who had the slickest, fastest feet.

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“And all these, like, 25-year-old goths were shaking in their boots when this 14-year-old Asian kid would walk into the store and everyone would scurry,” Yang said. “Because I was about to hand their asses to them dancing to Kylie Minogue!” The SNL breakout star said he would go every week and by the third month he had developed his well-deserved DDR ass-kicking reputation.

It was such a formative experience that Yang said he thinks he could play the Super Bowl halftime show, because, like his DDR clinics, he’s used to having an audience behind him. “Because it’s a 360 stage and I’m performing to the people behind me,” Yang boasted.

Yang also talked about his instant classic “Bowen Straight” sketch from two weeks ago in which the out comedian made out with host Sydney Sweeney and actress Gina Gershon. “I gotta tell you guys something. You know when you have a head injury and you can’t see colors quite right?” Yang said. “I feel like I got hit in the head by these two women and I’m still a little straight… I understand why Austin Butler talked like Elvis for a while after the movie. I think for a couple more weeks I’m still straight… ladies get in there!”

The first part of the Wicked musical will open in theaters on Nov. 27.

Check out Yang talking about Grande and DDR on the Late Night below.

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Looking late night ready in a pin-striped white jacket, black pants and crisp white shirt, Justin Timberlake pinch-hit for 2024 Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night (March 11), subbing in for the late night host’s monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! The multi-hyphenate singer who returned later to perform he debut of his upbeat new […]