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Sunday, July 31, 2022
Ne-Yo's Wife Airs Out His Alleged Cheating Four Months After Renewing Their Vows - HipHopDX
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.”
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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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Saturday, July 30, 2022
Brock Lesnar drives a tractor to the ring: SummerSlam 2022 (WWE Network Exclusive) - WWE
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‘The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’ Creators Sued by Netflix for Infringement - Variety
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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Friday, July 29, 2022
With ‘Not Okay,’ Zoey Deutch Seals Her Status as Hollywood’s Unexpected Queen of Scammers - IndieWire
[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.”
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.
The film opens with a tongue-in-cheek content warning advising viewers that the film contains “flashing lights, themes of trauma, and an unlikable female protagonist.” Though the characterization of Danni as unlikable was reinforced by audience feedback during test screenings, Deutch doesn’t see her that way.
“Not Okay”
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“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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Shakira Prosecutors Call for 8-Year Prison Sentence Over Alleged Tax Fraud in Spain - Rolling Stone
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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Beyoncé Unveils ‘Renaissance,’ the First of Three New Projects - The New York Times
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.
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