Pat Carroll, the gregarious Emmy-winning comedienne who was a television mainstay for decades before segueing to a voiceover career that included portraying the villainous sea witch Ursula in The Little Mermaid, has died. She was 95.
Carroll died Saturday of pneumonia at her home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, her daughter Kerry Karsian told The Hollywood Reporter.
Carroll’s perky personality, screwball wit and impeccable timing made her a great second banana, and Red Buttons, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, Steve Allen and Charley Weaver were among those who called upon her to make their programs funnier. Her antics on Caesar’s Hour earned her an Emmy in 1957, and she was nominated for her work on the classic variety show the following year.
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In a 2013 interview with KliphNesteroff, Carroll compared Howard Morris, Carl Reiner and Sid Caesar on Caesar’s Hour to the Chicago Cubs’ legendary double-play combination of Tinkers to Evers to Chance.
“I learned so much about comedy from watching those three work together. It was unfailing,” Carroll said. “They worked together for so long that they had that innate sense of each other’s timing. It was impossible for them to fumble. We did two shows every Saturday night because one was for the West Coast and one was for the East Coast. If they totally abhorred a sketch they did, those three would sit in Sid’s dressing room with the writers and write a brand new sketch. Yes, amazing.”
For the next two decades, the bubbly blonde always seemed to pop up on TV.
Carroll played Bunny Halper, the high-spirited wife of nightclub owner Charley Halper (Sid Melton), on three seasons of The Danny Thomas Show in the early ‘60s; was Hope Stinson, who shared ownership of a newspaper with Ted Knight’s character, on the last season (1986-87) of Too Close for Comfort; and appeared opposite Suzanne Somers on the 1987-89 series She’s the Sheriff.
Carroll stood out as a cranky patient who shared a hospital room with Mary Richards (the latter was there to have her tonsils taken out) on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1971, and she portrayed Lily Feeney, the mother of Cindy Williams’ character, on a 1976 installment of Laverne & Shirley.
Her TV credits also included Cinderella, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, Love, American Style, My Three Sons, Police Woman, Busting Loose, The Love Boat, Trapper John, M.D., Evening Shade, Designing Women and ER.
Carroll also was a game show favorite. To Tell the Truth, The Match Game, I’ve Got a Secret, Password All-Stars, You Don’t Say and The $10,000 Pyramid — you name it, she played it.
And she played Doris Day’s matchmaking sister in With Six You Get Eggroll (1968).
Carroll’s throaty laugh and spirited intonations made her a natural for animation work.
She first slipped into the recording booth in 1966 for the animated series The Super 6. But it was during the ‘80s that her voiceover career skyrocketed; she could be heard on the cartoons Yogi’s Treasure Hunt, Galaxy High School, Foofur, Pound Puppies and Superman.
Undoubtedly, her most memorable character was Ursula for the 1989 Disney feature The Little Mermaid. It would prove to be one of her favorite roles. “It was a lifelong ambition of mine to do a Disney film,” she told author Allan Neuwirth in Makin‘ Toons: Inside the Most Popular Animated TV Shows and Movies. “So, I was theirs hook, line and sinker.”
Carroll’s enthusiasm made the octopus-like character uniquely her own and Ursula would become one of Disney’s most memorable villains. However, she landed the part only after an arduous search by the studio.
Little Mermaid producer and lyricist Howard Ashman was a big fan of TV’s Dynasty and envisioned Ursula as a Joan Collins-type. And who better to play her than Collins herself? Alas, her agent quickly nixed the idea.
Writer-directors Ron Clements and John Musker saw Ursula more like a bellowing aquatic version of Bea Arthur, but her agent took offense when the script likened the actress to a witch — and passed. Roseanne, Heart’s Nancy Wilson and Nancy Marchand of The Sopranos fame then reportedly read for the role, but none was quite right.
Charlotte Rae and Elaine Stritch auditioned, but Rae didn’t have the vocal range for Ursula’s signature tune, “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” and Stritch couldn’t deliver the song the way Ashman wanted.
Carroll, though, immediately understood Ashman’s approach. The key was a recording that he had made of him singing the song. Once Carroll heard and saw that, the rest was easy.
“He gave me that performance! Come on, I’m honest enough to say that,” she said in Makin‘ Toons. “I got the whole attitude from him … his shoulders would twitch in a certain way, and his eyes would go a certain way … I got more about that character from Howard singing that song than from anything else.”
Carroll won the part and went on to voice the character in several video games and a 1993 Little Mermaid CBS series. (She also provided the voice for Morgana in the 2000 direct-to-video release The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea.)
Patricia Ann Carroll was born on May 5, 1927, in Shreveport, Louisiana. When she was 5, she and her family moved to Los Angeles. At age 20, she served as a Civilian Actress Technician for the army, writing, producing and directing all-soldier productions. She graduated from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. in 1949.
Carroll’s first professional appearance had come in 1947 alongside Gloria Swanson in a regional stock production of A Goose for a Gander. This led to more stock company roles, and she also sharpened her comic chops by performing in nightclubs and resorts.
Carroll’s off-Broadway debut came in 1950 in Come What May. Shortly after, she began landing television work on Goodyear Television Playhouse, The Red Buttons Show and The Saturday Night Revue.
Carroll first starred on Broadway in 1955 in the musical revue Catch a Star! written by Danny and Neil Simon. The performance earned her a Tony nomination. Decades later, Carroll received rave reviews for her off-Broadway, one-woman show Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein: A One-Character Play.
In his 1979 review for The New York Times, Walter Kerr wrote: “Miss Carroll, working from a text prepared by Marty Martin, gives us the bizarre, close-cropped, richly robed woman who could be — and once was — mistaken for a bishop with a zest that is awesome … I don’t know precisely how Miss Carroll is able to do it, but she manages — without any effort at all — to make us share Gertrude Stein’s attitude toward herself.”
The actress received a Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of the author; she beat out fellow nominees Moore, Susan Sarandon, Phyllis Frelich and Blythe Danner for the honor.
Carroll was married to Lee Karsian from 1955 until their divorce in 1976, and they had three children: Tara, an actress; daughter Kerry, a casting director; and son Sean (he died on the same date as his mom 13 years ago).
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Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed communications officer Uhura on the original “Star Trek” series, died Saturday night in Silver City, N.M. She was 89 years old.
Nichols’ death was confirmed by Gilbert Bell, her talent manager and business partner of 15 years.
Nichols shared one of the first interracial kisses in television history on “Star Trek.” That moment, with her co-star William Shatner, was a courageous move on the part of her, “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and NBC considering the climate at the time, but the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” which aired in 1968, was written to give all involved an out: Uhura and Captain Kirk did not choose to kiss but were instead made to do so involuntarily by aliens with the ability to control the movements of humans. Nevertheless, it was a landmark moment.
There had been a couple of interracial kisses on American television before. A year earlier on “Movin’ With Nancy,” Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Nancy Sinatra on the cheek in what appeared to be a spontaneous gesture but was in fact carefully planned. The Uhura-Kirk kiss was likely the first televised white/African American lip-to-lip kiss.
But Uhura, whose name comes from a Swahili word meaning “freedom,” was essential beyond the interracial kiss: A capable officer who could man other stations on the bridge when the need arose, she was one of the first African American women to be featured in a non-menial role on television.
Nichols played Lt. Uhura on the original series, voiced her on “Star Trek: The Animated Series” and played Uhura in the first six “Star Trek” films. Uhura was promoted to lieutenant commander in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and to full commander in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
Nichols mulled leaving “Star Trek” after the first season to pursue a career on Broadway, but the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was a fan of the series and understood the importance of her character in opening doors for other African Americans on television, personally persuaded her to stay on the show, she told astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in an interview for the Archive of American Television.
Whoopi Goldberg, who later played Guinan on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” has described Uhura as a role model, recalling that she was astounded and excited to see a black woman character on television who was not a maid.
Nichols and Shatner remembered the shooting of the famous kiss very differently. In “Star Trek Memories,” Shatner said NBC insisted that the actors’ lips never actually touch (though they appear to). But in Nichols’ 1994 autobiography “Beyond Uhura,” the actress insisted that the kiss was in fact real. Nervous about audience reaction, the network insisted that alternate takes be shot with and without a kiss, but Nichols and Shatner deliberately flubbed every one of the latter so NBC would be forced to air what appeared to be a kiss (whether their lips actually touched or not).
Both the “Star Trek” and “Movin’ With Nancy” moments drew some negative reactions, though Nichols recalled that the fan mail was overwhelmingly positive and supportive.
NASA later employed Nichols in an effort to encourage women and African Americans to become astronauts. NASA Astronaut Group 8, selected in 1978, included the first women and ethnic minorities to be recruited, including three who were Black. Dr. Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, cited “Star Trek” as an influence in her decision to join the space agency.
Nichols remained a supporter of the space program for decades.
In 1991, Nichols became the first African American woman to have her handprints immortalized at the TCL Chinese Theatre. The ceremony also included other members of the original “Star Trek” cast.
Born Grace Nichols in Robbins, Ill. on Dec. 28, 1932, Nichols began her show business career at age 16 singing with Duke Ellington in a ballet she created for one of his compositions. Later, she sang with his band.
She studied in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Her break came with an appearance in Oscar Brown’s high-profile but ill-fated 1961 musical “Kicks and Co.,” in which she played campus queen Hazel Sharpe, who’s tempted by the devil and Orgy Magazine to become “Orgy Maiden of the Month.” The play closed after its brief Chicago tryout, but Nichols attracted the attention of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, who booked her at his Chicago Playboy Club.
Nichols also appeared in the role of Carmen for a Chicago stock company production of “Carmen Jones” and performed in a New York production of “Porgy and Bess,” making her feature debut in an uncredited role as a dancer in an adaptation of that work in 1959. (Later she would display her singing talents on occasion on “Star Trek.”)
While working in Chicago, Nichols was twice nominated for that city’s theatrical Sarah Siddons Award for best actress. The first came for “Kicks and Co.,” while the second was for her performance in Jean Genet’s “The Blacks.”
She had small roles in the films “Made in Paris,” “Mr. Buddwing” and the Sandra Dee vehicle “Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding!” before she was cast on “Star Trek.”
During the early ’60s, before “Star Trek,” Nichols had an affair with Gene Roddenberry that lasted several years, according to her autobiography. The affair ended when Roddenberry realized he was in love with Majel Hudec, whom he married. When Roddenberry’s health was failing decades later, Nichols co-wrote a song for him, entitled “Gene,” that she sang at his funeral.
In January 1967, Nichols was featured on the cover of Ebony magazine, which published two feature articles on her within five years.
In the early ’70s, the actress made a few guest appearances on TV and appeared in the 1974 Blaxploitation film “Truck Turner” starring Isaac Hayes. She appeared in a supporting role in a 1983 TV adaptation of “Antony and Cleopatra” that also featured her “Star Trek” co-star Walter Koenig. She starred with Maxwell Caulfield and Talia Balsam in the 1986 horror sci-fi feature “The Supernaturals.”
Later, Nichols began to do voice work, lending her talent to the animated series “Gargoyles” and “Spider-Man.” She also voiced herself on “Futurama.”
The actress played the mother of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s lead character in 2002’s “Snow Dogs” and Miss Mable in the 2005 Ice Cube comedy “Are We There Yet?”
In 2007, Nichols recurred on the second season of the NBC drama “Heroes” as Nana Dawson, matriarch of a New Orleans family devastated by Hurricane Katrina who cares for her orphaned grandchildren and great-nephew, Micah Sanders (series regular Noah Gray-Cabey). The following year she appeared in the films “Tru Loved” and “The Torturer.”
Nichols suffered a stroke in 2015 and was diagnosed with dementia in 2018, touching off a conservatorship dispute between her manager Bell and her son as well as a friend.
Nichols was married and divorced twice. She is survived by her son, Kyle Johnson.
Ne-Yo and his wife Crystal Smith renewed their wedding vows in April, but it appears their reconciliation was short-lived. On Saturday night (July 30), Smith shared an Instagram post alleging her famous husband is still cheating on her and now she’s finally ready to walk away from the relationship.
“8 years of lies and deception,” she began. “8 years of unknowingly sharing my life and husband with numerous of women who sell their bodies to him unprotected… every last one of them! To say I’m heartbroken and disgusted is an understatement. To ask me to stay and accept it is absolutely insane. The mentality of a narcissist.
“I will no longer lie to the public or pretend that this is something it isn’t. I choose me, I choose my happiness and health and my respect.”
Ne-Yo and Smith exchanged vows in 2016 during an oceanside ceremony about an hour outside of Los Angeles. They had three children together — Roman Alexander-Raj, Shaffer Chimere Jr. and Isabella Rose — which she says is the only good thing to come out of their union.
“I gained 3 beautiful children out of this but nothing else but wasted years and heartache,” she continued in her post. “I ask that you all please stop sending me videos or information of him cheating because what he does is no longer my concern. I am not a victim.
“I’m choosing to stand tall with my head held high. If someone can’t love you the way you deserve then it’s up to you to love yourself. With no hate in my heart I wish him nothing but the best.”
The couple hit a rough patch in February 2020 and announced they were divorcing in February 2020. The news came as a complete shock to Smith, but they wound up reconciling four months later. Speaking to the talk in June 2020, Ne-Yo revealed COVID-19 lockdowns with saving their marriage.
“The whole quarantine thing was kind of a blessing,” Ne-Yo said at the time. “Before the quarantine happened, we were definitely talking divorce, and the quarantine forced us to sit still, block out the noise from the world — you know the world can get very, very loud, and we tend to let the world’s opinion mean more in certain situations than it should.”
He added, “We’re actually stronger now than we were before. Now we feel like we can really talk to each other.”
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The team behind an unofficial “Bridgerton” musical is being sued for infringement by Netflix in a Washington, D.C. U.S. District Court.
Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, the songwriting team behind the project, initially developed the musical on social media. The duo went on to score the No. 1 slot on iTunes U.S. pop charts and even won a Grammy this year in the category of best musical theater album.
Netflix alleges that it made “repeated objections” against the team as they planned to mount a live stage show of the project. “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album Live in Concert” performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. earlier this week, selling out the venue with ticket prices that ranged up to $149.
The stage show reportedly featured more than a dozen songs that involved exactly copied dialogue, character traits, expression and other elements from “Bridgerton.”
The streamer alleges that “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album Live in Concert” misrepresented to audiences that it used the “Bridgerton” trademark “with permission.” Netflix also objects to an allegedly planned line of merchandise and the production’s upcoming tour dates.
Representatives for Barlow & Bear were not immediately available for comment on the lawsuit.
“Netflix supports fan-generated content, but Barlow & Bear have taken this many steps further, seeking to create multiple revenue streams for themselves without formal permission to utilize the ‘Bridgerton’ IP,” Netflix wrote in a statement. “We’ve tried hard to work with Barlow & Bear, and they have refused to cooperate. The creators, cast, writers and crew have poured their hearts and souls into ‘Bridgerton’ and we’re taking action to protect their rights.”
“There is so much joy in seeing audiences fall in love with ‘Bridgerton’ and watching the creative ways they express their fandom,” Shonda Rhimes, creator of the “Bridgerton” series, said. “What started as a fun celebration by Barlow & Bear on social media has turned into the blatant taking of intellectual property solely for Barlow & Bear’s financial benefit. This property was created by Julia Quinn and brought to life on screen through the hard work of countless individuals. Just as Barlow & Bear would not allow others to appropriate their IP for profit, Netflix cannot stand by and allow Barlow & Bear to do the same with ‘Bridgerton.'”
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[Editor’s note: The following story contains light spoilers for “Not Okay.”]
Though filmmaker Quinn Shephard starred in her 2017 feature directorial debut “Blame,” Shephard opted to stay behind the camera for her sophomore outing, the internet satire “Not Okay.” And she couldn’t have asked for a better proxy than star Zoey Deutch, a fearless performer with a bubbly presence that belies the complexity of the characters she often plays. The “Set It Up” star was immediately impressed with Shephard’s script, which offered her a new twist on the kind of “fascinating character” she loves to play.
“Quinn is a very gifted writer. I was struck by how brave [her screenplay] was and how impressively tight it was. There were no loose ends. You read a script like that and it’s really hard to not want to play a part like that. Danni Sanders is a fascinating character,” Deutch said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “I was really excited that Quinn wanted to invite me in to the process of producing it alongside her and being her partner in crime.”
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As Shephard told IndieWire, Deutch was always her first choice for the part, and she was extremely impressed by Deutch’s desire to get honest with such a prickly character. Other people, Shephard said, weren’t nearly as brave when it came to the film or its leading part, but Deutch was comfortable from the start. And why not? She’s made an art of it already.
As a lonely young woman caught up in a lie that spins out of her control, the part of Danni is oddly similar to Deutch’s role in “The Politician,” Ryan Murphy’s high school political comedy, in which she played a fake cancer patient, or the scam-centric feature “Buffaloed,” which cast her as a debt-collecting hustler. Though a very different project than the campy Netflix series or the black comedy, “Not Okay” also finds dark humor in over-the-top characters dealing with trauma.
“I’m much more interested and focused on relatability,” she said. “She’s in a constant state of being uncomfortable, because she just doesn’t know how to say or do the right thing. And she has no friends and yes, she doesn’t have friends because she’s privileged and unpleasant to be around. I’m not saying she’s a victim, but I am saying she’s lonely and misguided. … She’s the smoke, not the fire. She’s a product of her environment.”
When Danni’s plan to invent a writer’s retreat in Paris that she will “attend” by way of posting all kind of fake social posts quickly spirals into her “surviving” a horrible event, she suddenly becomes internet famous overnight. Initially, Danni’s scheme is inspired by her desire to interest Dylan O’Brien’s influencer Colin, but when Paris is the site of a tragic terrorist attack, Danni feels forced to pretend as if she was there, she survived it, and she’s got plenty to say about it.
As her follower count ticks up into the multiple thousands, Colin suddenly takes notice, just like everybody else in her life. Though the film can be read as a scathing critique of social media and internet fame, Deutch sees that as a vehicle to explore something deeper.
“The movie’s about a girl who is desperately seeking approval and attention from this boy, and it unravels because of that. Yes, she wants more followers, and yes, she wants to be famous. But that really comes secondary to her desire for connection and lack thereof,” Deutch said.
The film is broken down into eight chapters, dividing the ditzy grifter story into satisfying bite-sized chunks. Without giving too much away, the final chapter title promises that Danni will not get a “redemption arc.” According to Deutch, Shephard shot at least two different endings before landing on the film’s eventual conclusion, which shows some growth for the character without letting her off the hook.
Filmmaker Quinn Shephard and actress Zoey Deutch on the set of “Not Okay”
“She never says ‘sorry’ once, the entire movie, about anything, not even in passing, that is not a word in her lexicon. And of course a lot of women have the opposite problem, right? They’re constantly saying ‘sorry,’ all the time apologizing for things that they shouldn’t be. Danni’s the total opposite. She never says ‘sorry,'” said Deutch. “It’s actually very funny, while we were shooting, I would sometimes say ‘sorry’ in passing, and we would have to be like, ‘Nope, Danni never says sorry!'”
In the final scene, Danni attends a performance by Rowan (Mia Isaac), a young activist she befriended under false pretenses. Though it still doesn’t contain the word “sorry,” she comes prepared with an apology on her phone.
“But the problem with this apology is it was never going to be for Rowan, it was going to be for Danni,” Deutch said. “It was going to be an act of selfishness to continue to try to insert herself in this poor girl’s life. And Rowan’s so much better off without her. And that was the growth in realizing, back the fuck off. And that ending felt much more powerful than some of the others.”
A Searchlight Pictures release, “Not Okay” is now streaming on Hulu.
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Spanish prosecutors want Shakira behind bars. On Friday, the prosecutors in her ongoing criminal tax fraud case told the court that the Colombian superstar should face an eight-year and two-month sentence if she’s convicted of tax fraud. Along with the lengthy prison stay, prosecutors also urged for a heft 20 million euro fine.
Shakira is being charged with failing to pay the government $14.5 million euros in taxes between the years 2012 and 2014. After being offered a plea deal earlier this year, Shakira instead opted to move forward with a trial. A date has not yet been set.
A statement sent to BBC by Shakira’s publicist said the singer is “fully confident of her innocence” and called the case a “violation of her rights.”
The tax fraud charges — which date back to 2018 — stem from the allegation that Shakira spent more than half the year of each year in Spain between 2012 and 2014. According to Spain’s tax law, anyone residing in the country for over six months is considered a resident and therefore must pay taxes. Shakira, however, claims she did not live most of the year in Spain during that time, though she did purchase a house in Barcelona in May 2012, according to documents viewed by Reuters.
Since the tax fraud allegations were made in 2018, Shakira has said that she paid the 17.2 million euros she owed the Spanish government, per Reuters.
Gerard Piqué, Shakira’s ex-husband, faced a 2 million euro fine in 2019 for evading taxes between 2008 and 2010.
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The pop star’s seventh solo album is “Act I” of work born during the pandemic, a time she “found to be the most creative,” she said in a statement.
The new Beyoncé album has officially arrived. In a rare breach of the pop queen’s carefully choreographed release plans, an unauthorized version of “Renaissance,” the singer’s seventh solo studio LP and the first part of a teased trilogy, leaked two days early online.
Beyoncé acknowledged the hitch in a statement upon the album’s wide release on streaming services at midnight on Friday. “So, the album leaked, and you all actually waited until the proper release time so you all can enjoy it together,” she wrote to her dedicated fans. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she added, thanking her followers “for your love and protection.”
The debut of “Renaissance” followed a marketing rollout that, for Beyoncé, was oddly conventional. After years of ripping up the standard playbook for releasing new music — eschewing early radio singles and interviews for surprise drops and elaborate multimedia spectacles — Beyoncé spent six weeks beating the promotional drum. She announced the album more than a month ahead of time, did an interview with British Vogue, put out the single “Break My Soul,” revealed a track list and finally began posting on TikTok.
Yet on Wednesday, about 36 hours before the appointed release time, high-quality copies of the album’s 16 tracks appeared online, spreading across social media even as Beyoncé’s most vigilant fans encouraged one another to hold out (and to tattletale on the bootleggers). “I appreciate you for calling out anyone that was trying to sneak into the club early,” Beyoncé wrote in her statement on social media as the album was released.
Sleuthing observers speculated that the tracks may have come from copies of the CD that were being sold in some European stores early. In a perverse way, the old-fashioned leak of a blockbuster album seemed to fit the throwback theme of “Renaissance,” which throbs with the sound of dance music from across the decades.
Referencing disco, funk, house, techno, bounce and more, the generally upbeat songs draw from a wide array of writers and producers, with some tracks crediting more than dozen people. In addition to reliable Beyoncé collaborators like The-Dream, Pharrell Williams, Hit-Boy and Drake, experimental songs like “Energy” and “All Up In Your Mind” also feature electronic producers including Skrillex, BloodPop and A.G. Cook of PC Music among their eclectic personnel.
The samples and interpolations run the gamut as well, from the regional and esoteric to the indelible: “America Has a Problem” pulls from the Atlanta bass pioneer Kilo, while “Summer Renaissance,” the closing song, includes an interpolation of Donna Summer’s 1977 electro-disco classic “I Feel Love.” On “Move,” a feature from the cultural chameleon Grace Jones is paired with the rising Afrobeats star Tems; elsewhere, Beyoncé links the sounds of traditional Black music genres like soul and R&B with subcultures like ballroom vogueing.
“I’m one of one/I’m number one/I’m the only one,” she intones on “Alien Superstar.” “Don’t even waste your time trying to compete with me/no one else in this world can think like me.”
In an explanatory statement posted to Instagram last month that Beyoncé expanded on her website on Thursday, she said “Renaissance” was part of a “three act project” she recorded during the pandemic. She called the album, which she refers to as “Act I,” “a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world.”
Adding that she hoped the dance floor-focused tracks would inspire listeners to “release the wiggle,” she added: “My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgment. A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. A place to scream, release, feel freedom.”
Beyoncé also cited her late “Uncle Jonny,” whose battle with H.I.V. the singer has spoken about before, as an influence for the music and its historical ties to the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
“He was my godmother and the first person to expose me to a lot of the music and culture that serve as an inspiration for this album,” she wrote. “Thank you to all of the pioneers who originate culture, to all of the fallen angels whose contributions have gone unrecognized for far too long.”
Since “Lemonade” (2016), her last solo studio LP and accompanying film, Beyoncé has tided fans over with a number of ambitious in-between projects.
In 2018, she performed as one of the headliners at the Coachella festival, where her show paid tribute to the marching band tradition of historically Black colleges and universities, and was widely hailed as a triumph — one that “reoriented her music, sidelining its connections to pop and framing it squarely in a lineage of Southern Black musical traditions,” as The New York Times critic Jon Caramanica wrote. The performance was later turned into a Netflix special and an album, both titled “Homecoming.”
Also in 2018, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, her husband, released a joint album, “Everything Is Love,” credited to the Carters. And in June 2020, at the height of national protests in wake of George Floyd’s murder, she released a song, “Black Parade,” with lines like “Put your fist up in the air, show Black love.”
“Black Parade” took the Grammy Award the next year for best R&B performance, one of four prizes that night that brought Beyoncé’s career haul to 28 — more than any other woman. This year, Beyoncé was nominated at the Academy Awards for best original song for “Be Alive,” from the film “King Richard,” a biopic about the father of Venus and Serena Williams.
How the early leak will affect the commercial prospects of “Renaissance” remains unclear. Years ago, the unauthorized release of music in advance could have devastating consequences for an album. But that danger has been mitigated by the shift to streaming.
And Beyoncé, like most other artists today, took advance orders for physical copies of her album, which will count on the charts as soon as they are shipped — usually the week of release. On Beyoncé’s website, the four boxed sets of “Renaissance” and its limited-edition vinyl version are sold out.
Prosecutors in Spain said they would ask a court to sentence Colombian pop star Shakira to eight years and two months in prison, if she is convicted.
MADRID -- Prosecutors in Spain said Friday they would ask a court to sentence Colombian pop star Shakira to eight years and two months in prison, if she is convicted in her expected trial for alleged tax fraud.
Shakira, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, is charged with failing to pay the Spanish government 14.5 million euros ($15 million) in taxes between 2012 and 2014. The prosecutors said they would also seek a fine of 24 million euros ($24 million).
The indictment details six charges against Shakira. The singer this week rejected a settlement deal offered by prosecutors, opting to go to trial instead. A trial date has yet to be set.
Her publicists in London said in a statement Friday that Shakira "has always cooperated and abided by the law, demonstrating impeccable conduct as an individual and a taxpayer." The publicists accused the Spanish Tax Agency of violating her rights.
Shakira's Spanish public relations team said earlier this week that the artist has deposited the amount she is said to owe, including 3 million euros in interest.
Prosecutors in Barcelona have alleged the Grammy winner spent more than half of each year between 2012 and 2014 in Spain and should have paid taxes in the country.
Shakira recently ended an 11-year-long relationship with FC Barcelona star Gerard Piqué, with whom she has two children. The family used to live in Barcelona.
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Country singer Amy Grant was rushed to Vanderbilt Hospital hospital in Nashville, Tennessee on Wednesday after she fell off her bicycle.
The 61-year-old crooner spent the night in the hospital and is now in 'stable condition,' according to the musician's rep who spoke with People.
The wife of 65-year-old singer Vince Gill suffered from cuts and abrasions from the accident. She was wearing a helmet during the fall.
The beauty was enjoying a bicycle ride in Nashville with a friend when the fall occurred.
She is doing fine, her rep said, but the musician stayed overnight in the hospital only as a precaution, it was shared.
Grant is best known for the songs Baby Baby, Could I Have This Dance, This Is My Father's World and El Shaddai.
She began her career in contemporary Christian music before crossing over to pop music in the 1980s and 1990s.
It has been a bumpy few years for the star.
In June 2020 she had open-heart surgery to take care of a rare condition she was born with: PAPVR (partial anomalous pulmonary venous return).
'I think women tend to put their health on the back burner,' the singer told Good Morning America in 2021.
'It's more like, "Oh my children, my grandchildren, my work, my spouse." All of those things and we need the gift of each other.
'So even if you go, "Oh, I got nothing on the radar,' just get somebody else to check it out."'
In December Grant will be honored in Washington DC at the Kennedy Center Honors.
'Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine ever receiving this prestigious Kennedy Center Honors,' said the musician this week when she was named as one of the honorees alongside George Clooney and U2.
'Through the years, I've watched so many of my heroes serenaded by colleagues and fellow artists, always moved by the ability of music and film to bring us together and to see the best in each other.'
Grant continued, 'I cannot wait to celebrate with my fellow honorees, friends, and family. Thank you for widening the circle to include all of us.'
PHILADELPHIA — A Baltimore family is suing a Sesame Street-themed amusement park for $25 million over claims of racial discrimination, alleging multiple costumed characters ignored a 5-year-old Black girl during a meet-and-greet event last month.
The lawsuit comes in the wake of a video, shared widely on social media, showing two other Black girls apparently being snubbed by a costumed employee during a parade at the park in Langhorne, outside Philadelphia. Sesame Place apologized in a statement and promised more training for its employees after the video went viral earlier this month.
The suit, which seeks class action status, was filed in a federal court in Philadelphia against SeaWorld Parks, the owner of the Sesame Place, for “pervasive and appalling race discrimination.”
The lawsuit alleges four employees dressed as Sesame Street characters ignored Quinton Burns, his daughter Kennedi Burns and other Black guests during the meet-and-greet on June 18. The lawsuit says “SeaWorld’s performers readily engaged with numerous similarly situated white customers.”
The 5-year-old girl’s family is asking for $25 million in their lawsuit alleging racial discrimination.Shutterstock
During a press conference held Wednesday, one of the family’s attorneys, Malcolm Ruff, called for transparency from SeaWorld and for the company to compensate the Burns family. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
This summer, Sydney Sweeney experienced her first glimpse of millennial burnout. At 24, the actress is by definition a member of Gen Z, but this feels like a technicality given the amount of life experience she has. The panic attacks began in June, fast and furious events that convinced her brain she was probably dying. “I was losing my shit,” she says.
She went home to the Pacific Northwest for two weeks of family-mandated phone-free time, grounding herself in the region’s fresh air, “hiking and skiing and doing what I truly love.” The regimen worked in the immediate sense — though, she adds, “I still can’t get my mind to shut up, and I don’t sleep” — and helped her realize that her punishing schedule of back-to-back film and TV projects was working against her. It’s a hard lesson to accept, given the amount of pressure Sweeney feels to maximize this pivotal moment in her career — and the way the very same anxiety often will convince her that the momentum could stop at any time.
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Sydney Sweeney
We’re having breakfast in New York, three days after the Emmy nominations were announced; she scored nods for both Euphoria (supporting actress in a drama) and The White Lotus (supporting actress in a limited series). She has just flown down from Boston to New York, where she’s spending several months in production for Marvel’s Madame Web movie, with very little publicly known about her character. I’ve been asking her about her time in the New England city in hopes of gleaning something — anything — about the highly secretive Spider-Man offshoot.
“I’m a very open person,” she says. “I love to talk about everything,” noting the fact that it eats at her that she can’t open up about Madame Web. I eventually learn that she’s preparing for the role with fight training, movement training and something called Reformacore Pilates, and that she was drawn to the film because she “liked the personal struggles that the character goes through.” She spends a lot of time talking about the cross-country road trip she took — with her mother and her rescue dog, Tank — to get to Boston and how she much prefers that city’s slower pace to New York’s frenetic nature. Here on the rooftop of Sweeney’s favorite Manhattan hotel, though, we’re insulated from the chaos of midtown.
The venue is different than the places one would expect to find burgeoning A-listers — the Sunset Tower it is not — but she’s become friends with the staff and even good-natured ribbing from friends and family hasn’t persuaded her to decamp for fancier pastures. Her loyalty proves to be valuable currency when, later, endless boxes full of designer fashion for this shoot start arriving at the happily accommodating front desk at record pace.
Over the course of her short career, she’s had to learn how to make herself at home pretty much anywhere. White Lotus introduced a certain Eloise at the Plaza energy into her life: The HBO miniseries, a darkly satirical examination of white privilege at an upscale Hawaiian resort, was shot on location at the Four Seasons in Maui during the throes of the pandemic. The sequestration was a COVID-protocol necessity but lent itself greatly to the project, giving the cast — fellow Emmy nominees Connie Britton (who plays her mother), Murray Bartlett, Jake Lacy, Steve Zahn, Jennifer Coolidge, Alexandra Daddario and Natasha Rothwell — a chance to immediately bond via what Sweeney describes as an idyllic routine of celebrating each day’s wrap with a sunset swim. Britton mentions during a phone call that she and Sweeney actually met for the first time in the pool at the Four Seasons. “To be honest, the shoot was more fun for the cast than for me,” show creator Mike White says with a laugh when asked to corroborate the set environment. “I would look out from my balcony while working and see them having drinks. But it gave everyone a camaraderie and depth of relationship that, particularly with Connie and Sydney, we could exploit for the show.”
Sydney Sweeney was photographed July 15 at 1896 Studios and Stages in Brooklyn. Fendi top, Fred Leighton jewelry.
It also was Sweeney’s first time at an exclusive resort, giving her a front-row seat to a class divide that she’s still grappling with: balancing her lower-middle-class upbringing and the wealth-filled spaces she finds herself in now. For much of the shoot, she had the run of the place, getting to know the staff well enough to pop in to the kitchen and grab food from the refrigerator. “We were all friends, and [the resort] felt like a house that belonged to all of us,” she says. “Then toward the end, they opened up the resort to guests, and it became clear I did not belong [among the clientele]. I would go to breakfast in my sweatshirt and pajama shorts and get the most disgusting glares from the guests that I dared to show up like that.”
White describes the introduction of the real world into the cast and crew’s COVID bubble as “almost traumatic” but ultimately powerful in the way it served the narrative: “Suddenly we’re watching employees, our family, get bossed around — it added to the meta feeling of the show reflecting life.”
Euphoria, with its rampant drug use and unflinching sexual politics, sets fire to everything one thought a high school drama could or should be — it’s also HBO’s most-watched show after Game of Thrones. Sweeney was initially told that Euphoria‘s casting director didn’t think she was right for the role of Cassie — a sweet, popular girl whose insecurities and daddy issues drive her into the arms of boys at school — and that she shouldn’t bother coming in to audition. Her agent — she’s been with the same reps at Paradigm for her entire career— had other clients who’d gone in to read for the part and was willing to pass Sweeney the script. She eventually put herself on tape, reading with her mom, and sent it to the Euphoria team. They booked her directly. (“No hate to the casting director,” she adds. “I love her now.”)
Sweeney is frank about what she went through — and what she says she’s still going through — to make it in this business. “The rejection you get while you’re trying to learn to be yourself is insane,” she says. “It’s insane how adults look at you.” Even with two Emmy noms, she says her sense of being a Hollywood outsider remains. “I had no idea getting into this industry how many people have connections. I started from ground zero, and I know how fucking hard it is. Now I see how someone can just walk in a door, and I’m like, ‘I worked my fucking ass off for 10 years for this.’ ”
Sweeney spent her childhood in a small town near Spokane on the Washington-Idaho border, an experience she describes as simultaneously idyllic and wholesome, bordering on chaste. She was deeply committed to her education at a pastoral private school; she took multiple languages and was her high school valedictorian. Unlike the hedonistic characters on Euphoria, she never went to a party, opting to study and then be on call for the inevitable 3 a.m. phone call from friends requesting a ride home. Her parents were strict — she recalls having to sneak episodes of the Shailene Woodley-starring ABC Family sitcom The Secret Life of the American Teenager — but she never rebelled. To this day, her drink of choice is water, and over breakfast she tells me she’s never even tried coffee. “If I’m celebrating, or it’s a very rare occasion, I’ll have a Shirley Temple,” she says.
Money was limited at home — financial aid helped pay for private school and college — but never an urgent problem until the family moved to L.A. when Sweeney was 13 to facilitate her acting dreams. She can’t pinpoint where or when that itch started, describing it more as an emerging “idea in my head, a goal, of who I wanted to become.” Sweeney’s parents gave up their house and life in Spokane, but the extreme cost of L.A. living priced them out of the real estate market and into a motel: “We lived in one room. My mom and I shared a bed and my dad and little brother shared a couch.” Sweeney was relatively unaware of their financial hardships until her parents’ relationship started falling apart, a combination she says of losing their home and savings and the strain of the disapproval of their life moves by family and friends back in Washington. She kept auditioning throughout her teens, taking “really shitty projects” for little pay (sometimes $100 a day), hoping it would be enough to keep her parents’ faith and maybe even make the family whole again. “I thought that if I made enough money, I’d be able to buy my parents’ house back and that I’d be able to put my parents back together,” she says. “But when I turned 18, I only had $800 to my name. My parents weren’t back together and there was nothing I could do to help.”
Sydney Sweeney was photographed July 15 at 1896 Studios and Stages in Brooklyn. Styling by Molly Dickson Gucci look with hat, Fred Leighton jewelry, Christian Siriano skirt (hanging).
****
Sweeney says that SharpObjects, Marti Noxon’s 2018 HBO miniseries based on the novel of the same name, was her first truly successful audition. She read with the director, the late Jean-Marc Vallée, and it felt “amazing.” She booked a role as Alice, a patient at a mental health facility whose death haunts star Amy Adams. It would be her first of several dramas on the premium cable network as well as the first of many jobs alongside established actresses, including Elisabeth Moss on The Handmaid’s Tale. Sweeney remembers Adams for her advice about balancing a successful acting career and her desire to have a family — in March, reports surfaced that Sweeney was engaged to restaurateur Jonathan Davino after she was photographed with an engagement ring; she declines to comment on her relationship status and doesn’t wear a ring to the interview. “I want to have a family, I’ve always wanted to be a young mom, and I’m worried about how this industry puts stigmas on young women who have children and looks at them in a different light,” she says. “I was worried that, if I don’t work, there is no money and no support for kids I would have.”
Adams assured her it could be done, but the insecurities over her financial health and the momentum of her career remain years later. There’s no longer a pressure to say yes to every offer, and she’s learned not only to negotiate her salary but to revel in the process of standing up for herself, yet she’s filling her schedule with as many movies and series as she can pack in. “If I wanted to take a six-month break, I don’t have income to cover that,” she says. “I don’t have someone supporting me, I don’t have anyone I can turn to, to pay my bills or call for help.” Surely HBO paychecks afford a lifestyle immune from rising gas prices? “They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals,” Sweeney notes. “The established stars still get paid, but I have to give 5 percent to my lawyer, 10 percent to my agents, 3 percent or something like that to my business manager. I have to pay my publicist every month, and that’s more than my mortgage.” It’s not that she wants people to feel badly for her, but she is adamant that the luxuries of the job not gloss over the realities of the business. To stay relevant as a young actress, particularly one so deeply entrenched in and reliant on the internet generation, requires investment. There’s a lot of press to do, and the associated costs — styling, tailoring, hair and makeup, travel — aren’t always covered by a network. She says this is what motivated her pivot into brand deals, taking gigs as a Miu Miu ambassador and starring in an Armani beauty campaign: “If I just acted, I wouldn’t be able to afford my life in L.A. I take deals because I have to.”
After five years of constant work, she was able to buy a home in Los Angeles — something that’s still deeply out of reach for many of the city’s residents — and almost instantaneously the location leaked onto real estate blogs. She was scrolling through TikTok one day and discovered a trend in which college students (the house is near one of the city’s universities) drive past her front door and try to get a picture. Paparazzi have been camped out, ignoring personal pleas from her mother to pack up and leave. I mention the Kardashians, ensconced in their gated communities far outside the city, and she deadpans that she maxed out with this home purchase; there’s nothing left for a gate. “I couldn’t believe I was even able to buy a house,” she says. “I want to be able to stay there.”
Sydney Sweeney was photographed July 15 at 1896 Studios and Stages in Brooklyn. Fendi look with shoes, Fred Leighton jewelry, Piers Atkinson headpiece.
***
“The first time I saw her transform into this petulant child [on The White Lotus], I was shocked,” says Britton. “But she’s also so funny. We were exploring these vitriolic relationships while we had the time of our lives.” In the audition process, White was taken by Sweeney’s decision to play Olivia Mossbacher with an air of intimidation rather than the straightly funny approach other actresses took. “And then she’s obviously nothing like that as a person, so that all felt really exciting,” he says. “She’s very likable and charming, but then you put her in front of a camera and — I don’t want to sound like some Old Hollywood freak — but she has these powers. Certain actors have a certain kind of magic, and she is definitely one of them.”
Due to network scheduling, The Handmaid’s Tale made it to air before Sharp Objects, marking it as her onscreen introduction for many viewers. She played Eden, a teenaged handmaid assigned to an arranged marriage with Max Minghella’s Nick in the second season. It was a supporting but impactful role. It became the first time she was recognized in public with frequency, often by women who felt compelled to tell her they hate her character: “I think most people wanted Elisabeth’s [Moss] and Max’s characters to be together, and Eden disrupted that.”
Sweeney in The Handmaid’s Tale as Nick’s young wife, Eden, the role that first got her noticed in public, often by women who’d tell her how much they hated her character.
Handmaid’s Tale was nominated for 20 Emmys that year, with the entire cast in attendance. This year’s telecast, which NBC is set to air Sept. 12, Sweeney’s 25th birthday, will mark her return. Zendaya was the only Euphoria castmember to receive a nod, for the show’s first season, and Sweeney says her own nom came as a surprise: “Of course I was hoping for Euphoria because I’m so proud of my character and I put a lot into it, but I didn’t think I was going to get it because of the other actresses who gave such incredible performances this year.”
Francesca Orsi, head of drama and executive vp programming at HBO, calls the double nomination a thrilling moment for the network: “Sydney has an incredible ability to create unforgettable, breakout performances, and with Cassie and Olivia, she brought such versatility to her portrayal of these two very different young women.”
The show’s second season, for which she is nominated, focuses on the burgeoning addiction of Zendaya’s Rue while also pitting Maddie (Alexa Demie) against Cassie as Sweeney’s character self-destructs with her best friend’s ex-boyfriend (Jacob Elordi’s Nate). Sam Levinson, who has near total creative control over the show (he’s the creator, director and sole staff writer), called Sweeney during the hiatus between the first and second seasons. “He read me that first scene where Cassie and Nate go into the bathroom,” she says of the ill-fated couple’s first secret hookup. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, Sam, you’re a madman.’ ” The plot twist paid off, spurring one of the constantly memed series’ most viral images (of Cassie hiding in the bathtub, face struck with fear) and laying the groundwork for her eventual snot-ridden breakdown monologue (“I have never, ever been happier!”) that felt like the star’s clear Emmy submission. “I feel really bad for Cassie; she’s losing herself so much,” Sweeney says of her character. “But I thrive doing that shit. People talk about how heavy this season is, but I love it.”
Sydney Sweeney was photographed July 15 at 1896 Studios and Stages in Brooklyn. Area headpiece.
There also have been reports about the way Levinson handles the making of the show: Guest stars like Minka Kelly have given interviews about initial drafts of scripts they felt were overly sexual, there were rumors of actress Barbie Ferreira feuding with the creator, and HBO was forced to issue a statement in response to concerns over long working hours, saying the set was in “full compliance with all safety guidelines and guild protocols.” Levinson declined to participate in this story, and Sweeney declines to discuss this element of the show in much detail, noting, “I fully trust in the filmmakers that I work with, and I’m always so excited for whatever Sam writes.” She adds that she forgets a lot of the minutiae of her shows and what it’s like behind the scenes: “It’s as if it’s someone else’s life.” This could be an evasion, but at the photo shoot a few hours after our breakfast, I see her lose herself so completely, I’m almost willing to buy it. When the cameras click on, Sweeney gets so laser focused, it’s almost like she’s dissociating. She tells me that, in photo shoots and on red carpets, she’ll even create a persona for herself, a way to calm her nerves and add a layer of armor between who she really is and who the job requires her to be. (The version you see in the cover photo is “Daphne.”)
“People forget that I’m playing a character, they think, ‘Oh, she gets naked onscreen, she’s a sex symbol,’ ” she says, referring to her many nude scenes in Euphoria. “And I can’t get past that. I have no problems with those scenes, and I won’t stop doing them, but I wish there was an easier way to have an open conversation about what we’re assuming about actors in the industry.”
Left: Sweeney (with Brittany O’Grady, right) in HBO’s The White Lotus. Right: The actress on the cable network’s Euphoria. She received Emmy nominations for both shows.
She’s trying to put a bit of that power back into her own hands with the launch of her production company, Fifty-Fifty Films. The first project on the slate is an adaptation of Jessica Goodman’s 2020 YA novel They Wish They Were Us; it’s set as a limited series at HBO Max under the new title The Player’s Table. It’s a murder mystery that takes place at an elite East Coast private school, and Goodman describes it as a story about a young woman (Sweeney) grappling with class dynamics and sexual politics and trying to find agency in her life. “When we met, it was immediately obvious to me that Sydney was very savvy, that she was very self-aware about the way she is viewed in the world and that she wanted to take charge of her own career,” says Goodman. “People underestimate young women in all industries, but especially in media and entertainment. She is such a force and really knows how to get things done in a way that might surprise people who only watch her on TV.”
As Sweeney starts to transition into the next phase of her career, she’s thinking a lot about her professional values. One of the most disconcerting things she’s noticed about the industry is the way it fails to facilitate loyalty — whether to yourself and your beliefs or to the people around you. “It’s built to try to make you backstab people,” she says. “It’s insane. My agent is my best teammate, and I’ll have her forever.” But, she adds, “I see how people are like, ‘We support each other’ — and I’m like, ‘No. You fucking don’t.’ ” I ask her whether she has people to commiserate with. No. Not the other girls from Euphoria? “We don’t really talk about that kind of stuff,” she says.
While fame has expanded her awareness of the way the world works, it’s having a chilling effect on her personal life. “I can feel my bubble of who I can talk to and share intimate things with and have relationships shrinking, shrinking, shrinking,” she says, explaining that she experiences it as a loss of control. “You’ll write about this and people won’t believe what I say. And that’s really, really hard.”
This story first appeared in the July 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Sydney Sweeney was photographed July 15 at 1896 Studios and Stages in Brooklyn. Area dress, headpiece and necklace, Giuseppe Zanotti boots.
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