He shared the news during an episode of The Nick Cannon Show this morning.
Nick Cannon is going to be a father again. Acknowledging that speculation broke out over the weekend when photos surfaced of him and Bre Tiesi at what appeared to be the model's baby shower, Nick formally confirmed this morning they're expecting a child.
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The comedian and television presenter shared the news while delivering the opening segment of his eponymous daytime talk series, The Nick Cannon Show. He began by reading a handful of tweets where people joked about his large family before verifying what recent reports suggested.
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Nick and Bre are due to welcome a son some time later this year, he said, noting that he's in a "great space" as they prepare for the baby's arrival. The little one is Bre's first and Nick's eighth child.
Questions about another possible addition to Nick's family started to circulate on Saturday, following an initial article published by TMZ that included photos of him and Bre at a "gender reveal" celebration in Malibu.
Gilbert Carrasquillo / Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images via Getty Images
Nick spoke extensively about fatherhood during episodes of The Nick Cannon Show that aired near the end of last year. His 5-month-old son, Zen, whose mother is Alyssa Scott, died in December after battling a form of brain cancer.
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Congratulations to Nick and Bre. We're wishing them all the best.
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The controversy is different, in many ways, from the other conflicts between online stars and the companies that give them a platform.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
A popular internet personality, beloved by millions for his irreverent, anti-establishment commentary, becomes the subject of a heated backlash after critics accuse him of promoting dangerous misinformation.
The controversy engulfs the creator’s biggest platform, which has rules prohibiting dangerous misinformation and now faces pressure to enforce them against one of its highest-profile users.
Hoping to ride out the storm, the platform’s chief executive publishes a blog post about the importance of free speech, declining to punish the rule-breaker but promising to introduce new features that will promote higher-quality information.
Still, the backlash intensifies. Civil rights groups organize a boycott. Advertisers pull their campaigns. A hashtag trends. The platform’s employees threaten to walk out. Days later, the chief executive is forced to choose between barring a popular creator — and face the fury of his fans — or being seen as a hypocrite and an enabler of dangerous behavior.
If this scenario sounds familiar, it’s because a version of it has occurred on every major internet media platform over the last half decade. Facebook and Alex Jones, Twitter and Donald Trump, YouTube and PewDiePie, Netflix and Dave Chappelle: Every major platform has found itself trapped, at some point, between this particular rock and a hard place.
Now, it’s Spotify’s turn. The audio giant has faced calls for weeks to take action against Joe Rogan, the mega-popular podcast host, after Mr. Rogan was accused of promoting Covid-19 misinformation on his show, including hosting a guest who had been barred by Twitter for spreading false information about Covid-19 vaccines. This month, a group of hundreds of medical experts urged Spotify to crack down on Covid-19 misinformation, saying Mr. Rogan had a “concerning history” of promoting falsehoods about the virus.
So far, the backlash cycle is hitting most of the usual notes. Critics have compared snippets of Mr. Rogan’s interviews with Spotify’s stated rules, which prohibit material “that promotes dangerous false or dangerous deceptive content about Covid-19.” Two folk-rock legends, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, led the boycott, pulling their catalogs from Spotify last week in protest of the platform’s decision to support Mr. Rogan. Brené Brown, another popular host, soon followed, saying she would not release new episodes of her Spotify-exclusive podcast “until further notice.”
Daniel Ek, Spotify’s chief executive, published the requisite blog post on Sunday, defending the company’s commitment to free expression and saying that “it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor.” And while Spotify declined to take action against Mr. Rogan, it committed to putting advisory warnings on podcast episodes about Covid-19, and directing listeners to a hub filled with authoritative health information.
Despite its surface similarities, Mr. Rogan’s Spotify standoff is different from most other clashes between creators and tech platforms in a few key ways.
For one, Spotify isn’t merely one of many apps that distribute Mr. Rogan’s podcast. The streaming service paid more than $100 million for exclusive rights to “The Joe Rogan Experience” in 2020, making him the headline act for its growing podcast division. Critics say that deal, along with the aggressive way Spotify has promoted Mr. Rogan’s show inside its app, gives the company more responsibility for his show than others it carries.
Another difference is who wields the leverage in this conflict. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are ad-supported businesses; if advertisers disagree with moderation decisions, they can threaten to inflict financial damage by pulling their campaigns. (Whether these boycotts actually accomplish anything is another question.)
Spotify, by contrast, makes most of its money from subscriptions, so it’s unlikely to suffer financially from its handling of Mr. Rogan unless there’s a wave of account cancellations. And given how few Netflix subscribers appear to have canceled their subscriptions during last year’s dust-up with Mr. Chappelle, Spotify can probably breathe easy on this front for now.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell circa 1970. Both artists pulled their catalogs from Spotify last week in protest of the platform’s support of Mr. Rogan.Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images
But Spotify has a different constituency to worry about: stars. A leading music streaming service like Spotify needs to have popular hits in its library, which means that, in theory, musicians with enough firepower could force change simply by threatening to remove their albums. (As a viral tweet last week put it: “Taylor Swift could end Joe Rogan with a single tweet at Spotify.”) In practice, it’s a bit more complicated than that, in part because record labels, not musicians, generally control streaming rights. But it’s still possible that if Mr. Young’s and Ms. Mitchell’s moves inspire more top musicians and/or labels to pull their songs from Spotify, it could become a real business risk for the company.
A third difference is Mr. Rogan himself. Unlike Mr. Jones and other firebrands, he is primarily an interviewer, and most of the uproar has been in response to things his guests have said. That gives him a more plausible excuse for entertaining fringe views, although critics have pointed out that Mr. Rogan’s own statements about Covid-19 have also been full of dubious information.
So, how will Mr. Rogan’s backlash cycle end? It’s hard to say.
One possibility is that it will end like those of Mr. Jones and Mr. Trump, whose behavior was so outrageous (and who continued to flagrantly violate the rule even after being called out) that Twitter and Facebook had no real choice but to shut them down permanently.
Mr. Rogan could double down on Covid-19 misinformation, daring Spotify to de-platform him and casting himself as a “victim of the woke mob,” censored for speaking too many uncomfortable truths. He could wriggle out of his Spotify deal and head back to YouTube and to the other platforms that used to carry his show. (He could even go to a right-wing social network like Gettr or Parler, but I’m guessing he’d prefer an audience.)
Or he could do what PewDiePie, the popular YouTube creator whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, did after he was accused of making antisemitic comments. After briefly becoming a hero to right-wing reactionaries, Mr. Kjellberg apologized for his behavior, cleaned up his channel and eventually worked his way back into the platform’s good graces.
Mr. Rogan could quietly capitulate, protecting his Spotify deal and backing away from the Covid-skeptical fringe in a way that doesn’t cost him his reputation as an anti-establishment contrarian. (This outcome looked like the likeliest one on Sunday night, when Mr. Rogan posted a 10-minute Instagram video apologizing for his “out of control” show and pledging to invite more mainstream experts on to discuss the pandemic.)
Daniel Ek, Spotify’s chief executive, published a blog post Sunday saying that “it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor.”Lucas Jackson/Reuters
A third option is that the whole controversy could simply fizzle out, like last year’s imbroglio with Mr. Chappelle and Netflix, which began after the comedian was accused of making transphobic remarks during a special and ended, days later, with no real consequences for anyone. But this outcome doesn’t seem likely, given that boycotts have already begun and appear to be snowballing.
The relationship between media personalities and the networks that air their work has always been fraught. But it has gotten messier in recent years, as growth-hungry tech companies have begun to pay top stars directly for their content. These deals have made them more like the radio and TV stations of old — picking popular acts, paying handsomely for their work, assuming greater responsibility for their output — and less like the neutral platforms they once claimed to be.
The relationships between the companies and their users is changing, too. Users of these services have learned, by observing dozens of backlash cycles over the past several years, that a sufficient amount of pressure can get a tech company to do almost anything. They understand that the companies’ rules are fuzzy and improvisational, and that what chief executives mostly want — no matter what high-minded principles they profess to hold — is for people to stop yelling at them. They also know that if a company won’t take action based on listener complaints alone, there are other ways to turn up the heat.
Spotify may think it’s gotten past the worst of the Rogan backlash. But we know from recent history that what looks like the end of a content moderation controversy is often just the warm-up act.
Shortly after Spotify announced that it would add a 'content advisory' to COVID-19 podcast episodes, Joe Rogan has issued his own response to the controversy. In a video uploaded to Instagram, he apologized to Spotify for the backlash that saw Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and other artists remove their music from the platform. He also defended his his decision to book controversial guests, while promising to "balance things out" with differing opinions.
"Some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I’m literally having them in real time, but I do my best and they’re just conversations, and I think that’s also the appeal of the show," he said in the video. "It’s one of the things that makes it interesting. So I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time, and I’m very sorry that this is happening to them and that they’re taking so much from it."
Two of his most controversial guests, Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone, made multiple unproven claims related to COVID-19. Malone, for example, falsely claimed that "mass formation psychosis" is what led people to believe that vaccines are effective against COVID-19. That episode in particular led a group of over 1,000 doctors, nurses, scientists and educators to send an open letter to Spotify demanding that it create a misinformation policy.
In his video, Rogan said that those guests are "highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished people, and they have an opinion that is different from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is." He also disputed the episodes being labeled "misinformation," saying that many of their opinions are shared by mainstream listeners.
Rogan has also drawn criticism for spreading COVID-19 misinformation himself. He has said that hospitals are financially motivated to record COVID as the cause of death, and has promoted the anti-parasitic treatment ivermectin as a means of treating COVID symptoms — something that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has called "dangerous."
"’I'm not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I’m just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them," he said. "Do I get things wrong? Absolutely. I get things wrong, but I try to correct them whenever I get something wrong. I’m interested in finding out what the truth is, and I’m interested in having interesting conversations with people that have differing opinions. I’m not interested in only talking to people that have one perspective."
Rogan said he agrees with Spotify's plan to apply advisory labels to episodes related to COVID-19, and promised to have experts with differing opinions following controversial guests. "I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view," he said.
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W. Kamau Bell opens "We Need to Talk About Cosby," his tour de force documentary series by identifying with a predicament shared by millions. "I am a child of Bill Cosby," he says.
Anyone born in the 1970s or '80s knows exactly what he means since, in a very real way, Cosby raised several generations of Americans. Generation X and older Millennials absorbed "Picture Pages" and spent Saturday mornings with "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids." For our parents, "I Spy" may have been a must-watch when they were younger, and many of the same folks sat down with their children to enjoy "The Cosby Show."
How many of us laughed along to his comedy albums? They were clean, funny and appropriate for all ages. "Dad is great! Give us the chocolate cake!" That's one I remember.
Or maybe you've heard his Spanish Fly bit. It's famous. That's the one where he transfixes the audience with tales of dosing women's drinks to make them more sexually pliant. Cosby had a long bit about Spanish Fly on his eighth comedy album "It's True! It's True!" He jokes about in his book "Childhood" and was still giggling about it years later on "Larry King Live."
Long after we've digested that and watched suggestive outtakes from "The Cosby Show" where his character Cliff Huxtable brags about how aroused people get by his special barbecue sauce, we hear from Dr. Barbara Ziv, a forensic psychiatrist who served as a blind expert for the district attorney prosecuting Cosby in 2018.
Ziv says that she too grew up knowing Cosby as America's Dad. But the man she says she saw in that Pennsylvania courtroom wore the same smirk as other sexual predators she's encountered throughout her career.
Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by 60 women, and was found guilty by a Pennsylvania jury of sexually assaulting and drugging one of them, Andrea Constand in that 2018 trial. A Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned that conviction on a legal technicality in 2021, after Cosby served fewer than three years of his original three-to-10-year sentence.
But this is not the reason people find it so uncomfortable to discuss their feelings about the comedian. Nor is the difficulty solely due to Cosby's historical contributions to Hollywood and African Americans, including breaking barriers for Black performers and advocating for improved educational opportunities for Black children.
Indeed, it is because Cosby did, and is, all these things – and that's something too many of us can't quite wrap their heads around.
This applies to so many. Boomers, Generation X and Millennials connected with Cosby through his many TV shows and movies. But it has a special relevance to Black folks, the people he championed in his early career and betrayed later in his life, as captured in the famous "pound cake" diatribe he spewed at a 2004 event for the NAACP.
Cosby's angry perpetuation of respectability politics validated stereotypes about the Black working class that conservatives are fond of using to create legislation that makes life harder for the poorest and most vulnerable in our nation. And yet – here's that conflict again – he wasn't saying anything lots of us hadn't heard from our elders.
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"We Need to Talk About Cosby" is personal for Bell insofar as he is the one willing to put himself out there, along with a handful of fellow performers, academics and journalists, to pick apart the mess of emotions hardwired into our psyche regarding this man. In a number of interviews Bell has acknowledged how risky this is for him and his career. Cosby still has pull in some quarters, along with a substantial slice of the public who believes his claims of innocence.
Knowing this further substantiates the value of this documentary as a tool for people to have this conversation with clear eyes and cool heads, necessary conditions when it comes to reckoning with our discordant notions surrounding the man.
As I have previously written, Cosby is alleged to have sexually assaulted and raped women dating back to 1965, during the same time he was establishing himself as a top comedian claiming the moral authority to police the language of other comics, including Eddie Murphy.
Careful cultivation of his celebrity, his image and his power over more than half a century ensured that white America would see him as non-threatening and wholesome, and children would grow up to view him as friend and father figure. "We Need to Talk About Cosby" concisely links these sides in each episode, commencing with the start of Cosby's career and taking us through to a frustrating present when his overturned conviction has left so many of us raw, incensed and disillusioned.
The miracle of the four-hour piece, however, is that it never feels heavy or depressing. Bell has a gift for finding a way to present the most unconscionable topics and subjects in a way that feels inviting, relating to the audience in a way that involves us in the conversation.
The director foregrounds the testimony of survivors, taking great care to give them the space and consideration to tell their stories in addition to soliciting their viewers on Cosby's place in history. He's also careful to build a story structure that operates partially as a history lesson and in part as a safe bubble for subjects to release their catharsis.
This is especially powerful in the case of those who have personal stories about Cosby whether related to his worst crimes or simply examples of power abuses, such as when he tried to get Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill fired for daring to contradict him in a newspaper opinion piece.
As potent as it is to take in the subjects' body language during these sequences, recording their reactions to questionable scenes in "The Cosby Show" or outtakes from his classic acts is even more effective owing to the varied reactions. One clip that elicits a comment from Ziv that implies Bell may be reaching makes a survivor start to nervously sweat at the sight of it.
Appropriately enough in 2014 another Black male comedian, Hannibal Burress, kicked loose the stone that burst open the dam keeping dozens of women quiet. But it is just as telling that neither Burress, nor Murphy or any other stratospherically famous Black comedy performer appears to lend their thoughts on the man. This isn't to say "We Need To Talk About Cosby" is lacking for familiar names and faces; among the subjects who agreed to talk are former cast members from "The Cosby Show," author and professor Tressie McMillan Cottom, sports journalist Jemele Hill and Kierna Mayo, who was the Ebony editor-in-chief responsible for its controversial shattered glass cover published in November 2015.
Filmmaker Nonie Robinson also explains how she chose to cut her interview footage of Cosby from her documentary on Black stuntmen "Breaking Bones, Breaking Barriers" even though Cosby was responsible for getting Hollywood's first Black stuntman hired. All of them expressed individualized takes on what Cosby meant to them in addition to helping us grapple with his impact on society.
As for the absence of comedy superstars the upside of this is that the underappreciated comic Godfrey, who does an impeccable Cosby impression, gets ample screen time to share his thoughts, earning legitimate laughter at some turns in the process. A viewer has to appreciate how challenging it is to walk that line in circumstances like this while still honoring the severity of wrongdoing committed against the survivors. That Bell strikes and maintains that balance proves the skill and care he's taken with this tough topic.
Plainly one of the reasons he's able to pull it off is his awareness that Cosby still means something – to him and to many other people who refuse to understand that an overturned conviction does not exonerate the man. Bell's documentary reminds us that this challenge confronting who Cosby is to us, and the eternal challenge asking whether we can separate the art from the artist, is compounded by the fact that we're also doing this in our homes, and in one-on-one conversations with people we love.
This is the reason that the series starts with a montage of folks offering a lot of audible, heaving, full body sighs, all in reaction to a simple question: Who is Bill Cosby . . . now?
This film offers many answers, each extraordinary in their means of meeting others to ease our way into a painful, thorny field we'd rather not cross, but that Bell makes us less fearful to travel.
"We Need to Talk About Cosby" premieres at 10 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 30 on Showtime. Watch a trailer for it below, via YouTube.
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TEEN Mom Farrah Abraham has been plagued by "suicidal thoughts" and is "afraid to go out in public" following her assault arrest.
The MTV star, 30, was alleged to have slapped a security guard earlier this month, at Grandmaster Records in Hollywood, before she counter-claimed she was "assaulted by club staff."
Teen Mom Farrah Abraham has opened up on her 'suicidal thoughts' following her assault arrest this monthCredit: Farrah Abraham/Instagram
The mom of one was alleged to have slapped a member of staff at Grandmaster Records in HollywoodCredit: Instagram @farrahabraham
Following the fracas mom of one Farrah has today confessed to TMZ she is "moving out" of California for the meantime.
To hammer home her words, she was seen packing her belongings into a U-Haul.
After telling of her poor mental health she added to the gossip website that she now has "no bodily function on her upper right side" and is undergoing physical therapy, after images from the event saw her lying face-down on the floor.
Farrah then confessed she hoped she would not need surgery for her injuries.
TMZ reported that Farrah was arrested after she allegedly "slapped a security guard."
She had been at the venue partying with a friend.
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One day later, she shared video of herself on the ground in the midst of the altercation.
The Teen Mom OG alum was on her stomach in the clip, with a security guard holding her arms back and pushing her leg down.
Farrah attempted to move her body as the security guard restrained her through out the incident.
She captioned the post: "Never again."
In another slide, Farrah tagged the venue. She added: "What a horrible dining experience being battered and assaulted by your staff.
"Such and unsafe, disturbing environment."
Farrah continued slamming the venue in a follow up post, writing: "The staff yet again attack a paying customer and hold me against my will and hurt me.
"The only 1 out of 3, woman abuse must stop."
Farrah alleged that the staff "should be in jail."
In another clip, a security guard could be seen struggling to keep Farrah on the ground.
She recalled the incident as "scary," adding that she is "tired of people harassing me, holding me down, hurting me and lying about me and selling things to TMZ."
Farrah was adamant that photos and videos from the incident were "evidence" of the staffs wrongdoings.
She posted a closeup of her arm, over which she wrote: "Bruised and beaten at dinner."
FARRAH'S CLAIMS
Farrah hasn't held back from sharing her side of the story online.
She posted the video of her arrest on Instagram, writing: "I'm putting a restraining order on @antonelloparloto who made this dinner reservation and conspired and attack on myself with the staff at @grandmaster_recorders as it was a 'private persons arrest' complete setup.
"I've had a very traumatizing year and I don't deserve to be attacked, bruised, men on me, and battered.
"As a single mother to be harassed, battered, and conspired against as a paying customer @grandmaster_recorders should fire their management, and security for all contributing to attacking 1 person out of 3 people."
She thanked Hollywood police for "rescuing" her, adding: "I realize it's no longer safe for woman to go out to eat in their own neighborhoods.
"I look forward to my law degree and I look forward to court. Justice will be served as always."
THE ARREST
A witness to Farrah's arrest told TMZ that someone in the club allegedly assaulted them, noting that the person was described as a Farrah "hater."
The former reality star grew angry, and was asked to leave the club.
She refused to leave and then allegedly slapped the security guard involved.
A source told the outlet that cops weren't called immediately, though paramedics were.
Once they arrived, someone presumed to be Farrah grew aggressive and police were contacted for backup.
The outlet alleged that a citizens arrest was made.
It's assumed the arrest was made by the security guard, though that remains unconfirmed.
Farrah was taken into custody and released shortly after.
Farrah, 30, then alleged staff had assaulted her and has since told TMZ she is having physical therapyCredit: Instagram @farrahabraham
Farrah was spotted packing her belongings in a U-Haul as she told how she was leaving CaliforniaCredit: MTV
The MTV star admitted the fracas had left her 'afraid to go out alone'Credit: Instagram
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
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Neil Young gives fans a free four-month subscription to Amazon Music after removing his music from Spotify over Joe Rogan's COVID misinformation: Multiple artists have begun pulling their songs while Harry and Meghan have expressed 'concerns'
Neil Young, 76, is encouraging listeners to tune into his work on Amazon after he cut ties with Spotify over its popular - and controversial - podcaster Joe Rogan
'Amazon has been leading the pack in bringing hi-res audio to the masses,' he said while offering new subscribers four months free
'It's a great place to enjoy my entire catalogue in the highest quality available
Other musicians have joined in on the boycott, including Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren
Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle is also calling on Spotify to can Rogan
Folk-rock legend Neil Young is offering listeners a free four-month subscription to Amazon's streaming service amid a fallout with Spotify, which he's boycotting in protest of its controversial anti-vaccine podcaster Joe Rogan.
Young, 76, plugged Amazon Music to his 76,000 Twitter followers Friday, saying 'all new listeners will get four months free.'
'Amazon has been leading the pack in bringing hi-res audio to the masses, and it's a great place to enjoy my entire catalogue in the highest quality available,' he said in a message on his website.
Young last week threatened to remove his music from Spotify unless it fired Rogan, who's been accused by critics of pushing 'anti-vax misinformation' on his podcast.
Other musicians have joined in on the boycott, including Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren.
Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle are also calling on Spotify to fire Rogan. The couple, who signed a $25 million deal with the streaming service, have since April been expressing 'concerns' over Rogan's commentary, a spokeswoman told CNN.
Grammy-winning artist Neil Young is inviting fans to join him on Amazon, where he's offering a free four-month subscription, after he boycotted Spotify for spreading 'vaccine misinformation'. He's pictured performing in East Troy, Wisconsin on September 21, 2019
He put out a call for fans to listen to his legendary work on Amazon Prime Music, saying it 'has been leading the pack in bringing hi-res audio to the masses'
But the formerly royal couple have not split with the firm, instead saying they were 'committed to continuing our work together' as it addressed their issues.
'We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis,' the spokeswoman said.
'We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does.'
Young - whose hits include Heart of Gold and Rockin' in the Free World - is a 27-time Grammy nominee and two-time winner who last week gave Spotify an ultimatum to either fire Rogan or remove his catalogue.
'They can have Rogan or Young,' he wrote in an open letter to his manager and record label. 'Not both.'
Spotify acquired The Joe Rogan Experience podcast in 2020, reportedly for more than $100 million
Other musicians have joined in on the boycott, including Joni Mitchell (right) and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren (left)
Who is Joe Rogan and what are his controversial views?
Joe Rogan is a US comedian and UFC commentator who has gained a huge following with his Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, launched in 2009.
The podcast features interviews with high profile celebrities and episodes regularly receive millions of views and listeners, making it one of the most popular podcasts in the world.
Rogan often shares his own opinions on the show, but this has landed the host in controversy
During a three-hour and six-minute interview on the now-viral episode #1757 of The Joe Rogan Experience, Malone compared the US to Nazi Germany and said today's society was suffering from a 'mass formation psychosis' over the use of vaccines.
He also claimed to be part of the team that invented the mRNA technology used in the Covid-19 jab and said pharmaceutical companies administering vaccines have 'financial conflicts of interest'.
Last April he discouraged young people from getting the vaccine, saying in a conversation with comedian Dave Smith: 'If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, "Should I get vaccinated?" I’ll go no.'
Rogan has also promoted taking ivermectin, despite no evidence proving it works to treat Covid
Young, 76, hit out at the streaming platform, which offers 72 albums of his work, for 'spreading fake information about vaccines.'
Spotify acquired The Joe Rogan Experience podcast in 2020, reportedly for more than $100 million.
Spotify agreed to remove his music days after he issued the ultimatum, but the streaming platform contended that it has played a role in curbing Covid misinformation.
'We have detailed content policies in place and we've removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic,' a spokesperson told Variety.
'We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.'
Young wasn't the first one to call Spotify out on enabling Rogan's controversial content.
Earlier this month, hundreds of doctors and scientists signed an open letter to Spotify accusing Rogan of pushing 'anti-vax misinformation' on his podcast - with one branding him a 'menace to public health'.
Lofgren - who has played the guitar for Springsteen, Young, and others - became the latest musician to take his solo work off the streaming service.
He wrote in Young's newsletter that he was joining his bandmate in 'standing with hundreds of health care professionals, scientists, doctors and nurses' in criticizing Spotify over its role in 'promoting lies and misinformation' regarding Covid.
His announcement came as Spotify faces an exodus of talent with podcaster Brené Brown 'pausing' her channel and Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl also rumored to be leaving the platform.
Amazon Prime Music, which includes 2 million songs, is included with its Prime subscription.
Its Amazon Music Unlimited platform includes 75 million songs and podcasts at a cost of $7.99 per month and up.
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Howard Hesseman, a prolific character actor who became a beloved TV mainstay through his roles on sitcoms “WKRP in Cincinnati” and “Head of the Class,” died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Los Angeles of complications from colon surgery he had undergone last summer. He was 81 years old.
Hesseman’s death was confirmed to Variety by his longtime rep Robbie Kass.
“Howard was a groundbreaking talent and lifelong friend whose kindness and generosity was equaled by his influence and admiration to generations of actors and improvisational comedy throughout the world,” Kass stated.
Born in Lebanon, Ore. on Feb. 27, 1940, Hesseman became a counter-culture figure as he ascended into the world of entertainment in the late 1960’s. In 1965, he joined the improvisational comedy troupe The Committee in San Francisco, serving as a performing member for 10 years. Hesseman continued his start in entertainment as a radio DJ, broadcasting under the name “Don Study” and began to appear in small guest roles on “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Dragnet 1967,” “Soap” and “Sanford and Son.”
Hesseman found his most iconic role playing radio DJ Dr. Johnny Fever on the CBS sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Hesseman earned two Emmy nominations for his performance on the series, which ran from 1978 to 1982. Hesseman was also well-known for his starring role as Charlie Moore on ABC’s “Head of the Class” and his performance as Sam Royer on “One Day at a Time.” Hesseman joined the CBS sitcom as a main cast member for its ninth and final season.
Hesseman’s career in television continued until very recently, with credits including “The Rockford Files,” “Laverne and Shirley,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and numerous “Saturday Night Live” hosting gigs. Additionally, Hesseman had guest starred on “Fresh Off the Boat,” “Chicago Med,” “Mike & Molly,” “Psych,” “House” and had recurring roles on “Boston Legal” and “That 70’s Show.”
Beyond television, Hesseman also appeared across several films over his five-decade-spanning career, with credits including “Salvation Boulevard,” “Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment,” “About Schmidt,” “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Gridlock’d,” “Wild Oats,” “The Rocker,” “All About Steve” and Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II.”
Beyond entertainment, Hesseman enjoyed swimming and gardening in his spare time — “although not simultaneously,” reads Kass’ statement on his death.
Article From & Read More ( Howard Hesseman, Prolific Character Actor and Star of ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ Dies at 81 - Variety )
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Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake in 2004Photo: JEFF HAYNES/AFP
The “wardrobe malfunction” from the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show, when Justin Timberlake ripped off a part of Janet Jackson’s outfit at the end of a song and kicked off an enormous controversy, has hung around as a part of pop culture ever since… though you wouldn’t know it if you only followed Justin Timberlake’s career. He’s gone nowhere but up, more or less, all without ever really acknowledging that Jackson faced pretty much all of the blame for an incident that was definitely more his fault than her fault, so it seemed like an opportunity to make things somewhat right when Timberlake was given a chance to solo headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2018—but Jackson didn’t make an appearance, even when Timberlake referenced the very incident that got her in trouble.
But, according to an appearance from Jackson herself during Lifetime’s two-part Janet Jackson documentary series (via The Hollywood Reporter), she actually turned down an offer to join Timberlake at the Super Bowl in 2018. She says his team asked if she’d be interested in performing with him during the show, and while she admits that it would’ve been nice to get on the stage, it would just be “stretching out the past” and “reliving something that happened over 10 years ago.”
As it turns out, Jackson has moved past what happened in 2004, saying it was “blown way out of proportion” and that, while it “was an accident” that “should not have happened,” there’s no need to keep looking for someone to blame. She says she and Timberlake are “very good friends” and they’ve “moved on.”
Jackson also revealed how Timberlake reacted right after the Super Bowl, saying they “talked once” and he said he wasn’t sure if he should make a statement, to which she said that she didn’t want him to have to deal with “any drama,” adding, “If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything.” Of course, Timberlake should’ve recognized that that doesn’t literally mean “don’t say anything,” so one could argue that it’s still fair to point out that his lack of a response did nothing but benefit him and lay all of the blame on her, but that would be defying her request for everyone to stop searching for someone to blame.
This is also the second documentary project to hit TV in the last few months, with The New York Times’Malfunction: The Dressing Down Of Janet Jackson (which she did not participate in) airing in November.
Article From & Read More ( Janet Jackson says she told Justin Timberlake not to comment on the "wardrobe malfunction" - The A.V. Club )
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