Month: October 2021

Last week, an accidental gun discharge on the set of the Western Rust resulted in the death of one of its crew members. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed when star Alec Baldwin unwittingly fired a prop gun he didn’t know was loaded. (Its director, Joel Souza, was also wounded.) Since then, one startling revelation after another about what caused the incident has emerged. Throughout, Baldwin has been cooperative with police and investigators. And now he’s talking to reporters.

As per Deadline, the actor and his wife, Hilaria, agreed to speak to a journalist as they drove through Manchester, Vermont, far from the Santa Fe set of Rust.

“A woman died,” Baldwin said. “She was my friend. She was my friend. The day I arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting, I took her to dinner with Joel, the director. We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened.”

Baldwin couldn’t go into details, saying he was instructed “not to talk about the investigation.” What he could say was that he was “eagerly awaiting for the sheriff’s department’ to release their findings,” and that he “talks to the cops every day.”

Hilaria repeated had to remind her husband not to go into “details,” and when asked about his meeting with Hutchins’ widower, Matthew Hutchins, he simply said he “wouldn’t know how to characterize” their discussion, but did say he was “overwhelmed with grief.”

What Baldwin did say was that what happened was a “one in a trillion” accident. “How many bullets have been fired in films and tv shows in the last 75 years?” he said. “This is America. Probably billions. And nearly all of them without incident.” He did, however, call for new safety measures on film sets.

The conversation only lasted four minutes, and Baldwin said he did it “out of courtesy.”

Among the revelations about what happened on the set of Rust leading up to the tragic shooting was that there had been an air of “complacency” towards safety issues, as well as questions about certain crew members, including its armorer and assistant director.

On the heels of losing his bantamweight crown due to a controversial disqualification against Aljamain Sterling, Petr Yan is once again holding UFC gold. Yan (16-2) had no problem dispatching Cory Sandhagen (14-4) by unanimous decision to claim the UFC bantamweight interim title at UFC 267 from Fight Island in Abu Dhabi.

Yan had trouble with Sandhagen’s range early on, peppering the former champ with combinations up top. Yan began to eat away with body shots through the first and second, and set up connections up top late in the second round. Yan continued his advantage through the third and fourth, chipping away at Sandhagen with massive shots. Every punch was powerful and by the fifth, Sandhagen

Before his loss to Sterling, Yan handed devastating knockouts to UFC legends Uriah Faber and Jose Aldo in back-to-back tilts. Sandhagen entered his showdown with Yan following a five-round decision loss to T.J. Dillashaw back in July. Before that bout, Sandhagen earned quality wins over Frankie Edgar and Marlon Moraes.

With the win firmly in his rearview, Yan can now turn his attention to Sterling, the reigning bantamweight champion. Sterling, who earned his shot at UFC gold following five consecutive wins, including a submission in June 2020 over Corey Sandhagen, has been clear that he’s ready to unify the belts in 2022 after his return from neck surgery.

All the rumors are true: When it comes to Halloween costumes, few come to play the way Lizzo does. The pop star decided to go as a beloved internet character this year, donning full Baby Yoda aka Grogu garb for a look that has fans of the Disney+ Star Wars television series The Mandalorian absolutely losing their minds. Appearing at a Spotify Halloween party in LA (where was my invite??), as well as several other locations, the rapper posted photos and videos of her costume all over social media with playful captions:

Of course, celebrity Halloween costumes have become an ever popular form of content during the social media era, and a chance for us to see how the most powerful and popular among us can flex their creativity. So many celebrities only do it for the ‘gram though, and don’t take their costumes out into the real world. As you can see above, this is not the case for Lizzo, who remains realer than ever even on the spookiest holiday of the year. Just like she stands up to bullying and always congratulates her peers on their success, Lizzo is the queen of Halloween, too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t have more costumes coming this weekend.

The Jan. 6 committee is still investigating into what caused a legion of Trump supporters to overtake the Capitol building, with little help from Trump himself. Perhaps it was Trump himself? With some help from staffers and die-hards? Just spit-balling here. The former president himself has tried to point the finger elsewhere. And a new report from The Washington Post reveals that one of his more dastardly advisers tried to pin the blame on someone else — a certain person who said supporters wanted to hang.

The Post unearthed an email sent from attorney John C. Eastman to Greg Jacob, the former vice president’s chief counsel, while Pence was hiding from the mob that wanted him dead.

“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman wrote.

The email was featured in a draft opinion article Jacob had written about Trump’s legal team, Eastman among them. Jacob told The Post that, by sending the email at the peak of the Capitol siege, Eastman had “displayed a shocking lack of awareness of how those practical implications were playing out in real time.”

If Eastman’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he’s the author of the infamous “Eastman memo,” which outlined how Pence could overturn the election results and generally create chaos. (He didn’t, thanks in part to Dan Quayle.) The memo was penned in late 2020 but wasn’t made public until this fall. But it’s clear that there’s still plenty more damning evidence about the lead-up to one of the darkest days in history en route.

(Via The Post)

After a long four years, the beloved psych-rock outfit The War On Drugs has released a new album. Though Adam Granduciel teased some clips from the record late last year, it took until summer of 2021 for news about the band’s new project to surface. Back in July, they shared the new track, “Living Proof,” along with news that their next full-length release, I Don’t Live Here Anymore, would be out at the end of October. On Tuesday, the band shared “Change” as the final single before the album itself came out yesterday. Now that fans have had about a day to live with the album, more outpouring of acclaim looks to be on the way, once again.

But since live shows have been a much trickier subject over the last two years than usual, a couple of live performances of songs off the record are a more treasured moment. Today, the band played three of the brand new tunes on CBS This Morning, including the album closer “Occasional Rain,” “Old Skin,” and their latest single, “Change.” Check out clips of those performances above and below, and look out for a career-spanning piece encompassing both the new record and the band’s entire oeuvre dropping on Uproxx very soon.

Back in 2017, Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti were as thick as thieves. The two young rappers share a similar style and appeared to be friends in the industry, teasing a joint mixtape and eventually connecting several times in the next year. Though a joint tour was canceled due to Uzi’s need for “focus,” all seemed well between the two upstart, punk rap prodigies… that was, until rumors of beef between the two began to swirl after some online back and forths.

Last spring, Uzi trolled Carti’s new single “@ Meh” as “just meh,” and later continued to to troll Playboi by asking him about his release date, which had been moved a few times. But whatever was going on between these two internet pranksters seems to be all good IRL. At Rolling Loud in New York this past weekend, Carti brought Uzi out as a guest during his set, and the pair performed together. Let’s hope that means their collaborative mixtape is back on track, and maybe even that tour, and we can expect joint new music from both them and Megan Thee Stallion and Bree Runway in the next few weeks and months. Hey, 2021 is far from over and there’s always plenty of room for new rap. Check out some clips of the pair performing together below.

The Los Angeles Lakers played host to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night, and despite a competitive game, LeBron James’ current team beat his old team, 113-101. Part of the reason the Cavs were able to put up such a good fight was the performance from rookie big man Evan Mobley, who continues to impress during his first few games in the NBA.

Mobley scored a team-high 23 points on 10-for-16 shooting with six rebounds, three assists, and two steals in 36 minutes of work. The performance received praise from James after the game, although he doesn’t seem surprised by how good Mobley is, in large part because he is not the first member of his family to go up against him.

Mobley was a standout at Rancho Christian School in Temecula, Calif. during his high school career, as he parlayed his success there into being a five-star recruit and the No. 3 player in his recruiting class. On a few occasions, Rancho Christian took on Sierra Canyon, the Los Angeles-area high school that features Bronny James.

It is unclear if LeBron and Bronny sat down in the lead-up to the game so dad could get a scouting report from his son, but I suppose it could have been helpful.

It’s been known for a while that former president Donald J. Trump has been blocking, via dubious legal methods and with unlikely success, a wide array of documents from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 failed insurrection. After all, he clearly has nothing to hide, and he’s clearly not in big trouble. On Saturday, it was revealed what he doesn’t want anyone seeing.

As per The New York Times, the National Archives issued a court filing that revealed he has sought to block a whopping 770 pages of documents. Of those, 46 pages pertain to files from former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former senior adviser Stephen Miller, and former deputy counsel Patrick Philbin.

Trump, who’s also busy with his shady social media service, also doesn’t want anyone on the committee seeing his White House Daily Diary, which maps out his daily activities — where he went, who he called, who he briefed, etc. — during the fateful day.

But there’s more:

Finally, Mr. Trump asserted executive privilege over 68 additional pages, including a draft proclamation honoring the Capitol Police and two officers who died after the riot, Brian D. Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, as well as related emails; a memo about a potential lawsuit against several states that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in the November election; an email chain from a state official regarding election-related issues; and talking points on alleged election irregularities in one Michigan county.

That, however, barely scratches the surface. The vast majority of them are about another aspect of the day a large number of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol building in an attempt to stop the certification of the election he lost:

Mr. Trump has also asserted executive privilege over 656 pages that include proposed talking points for Kayleigh McEnany, his former press secretary; a handwritten note concerning Jan. 6; a draft text of a presidential speech for the “Save America” rally that preceded the mob attack; and a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity, the filing states.

Trump’s lawyers have claimed that these documents must be blocked due to executive privilege, which grants a president confidentiality. The only problem: He’s no longer president, because he lost re-election to a candidate American voters vastly preferred over him. Nevertheless, this will set off a legal battle that could delay or even harpoon the committee. But it wouldn’t be the first time Trump has used frivolous lawsuits to keep the wolves at bay.

(Via NYT)

For the first time since the Cleveland Cavaliers visited Barack Obama in 2016, the reigning NBA champions are headed to the White House. According to Tim Bontemps of ESPN, the Milwaukee Bucks will head to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to visit Joe Biden next month after the practice was put on a temporary hold during Donald Trump’s time as President of the United States.

The Bucks will be in D.C. on Sunday, Nov. 7 to take on the Washington Wizards. They’ll follow that up with a day off before heading up to Philadelphia to take on the 76ers, and while they have time to kill in the nation’s capital, the team will make a pit stop to see Biden before making the trip up I-95.

Milwaukee is not, however, the first team since 2016 to make a plan to visit the White House. While no one wanted to go there while Trump held the presidency — there was a famous back-and-forth during his first year in office where Steph Curry the Warriors would not visit, only for Trump to respond by pulling the team’s invitation — the Los Angeles Lakers made plans last year to celebrate the championship they won during the NBA’s Orlando Bubble with Biden. Due to issues that popped up regarding the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols and other scheduling issues, that plan fell through.

After the release of her surprise (ish) new mixtape, Something For Thee Hotties, the ever generous Megan Thee Stallion took to Twitter to do a Q&A with some of her fans. Well, she might not have known that one fan, UK breakout star Bree Runway, was going to have a slightly different question for her. Dutifully using the hashtag for the Q&A, Runway let Meg know she has a song in mind that the Hot Girl rapper would be perfect for. “#somethingfortheehotties MEG! Would you collab we bree runway? she has a song with u in mind,” Bree tweeted.

Now, it seems like these two were already on good terms, but shooting your shot on Twitter can always be a tricky thing. Luckily, things turned out just fine for Bree when Megan gave her emphatic answer: “OF COURSE.”

Considering the respective firepower these two women each wield in the booth, this collab is going to be one for the books. And maybe we can even get it in time for the holidays, so girls around the world have something to rage to when family drama gets a little hot?

For her part, Bree also woke up this morning still pinching herself: