Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’
TV personality Ross Mathews is now a regular on The Drew Barrymore Show, and while on assignment for the hit chat show in a segment that aired Thursday, he had an impromptu reunion with his old boss Jay Leno.
That’s where Jay also revealed he used to babysit Drew.
Ross got his start on camera as one of Leno’s Tonight Show interns, and while he and Barrymore were on the Universal Studios lot interviewing current interns about breaking into showbiz, Ross was surprised by Leno, rolling up in a golf cart.
Leno told the interns, “Ross was my favorite intern. We had a lot of them, but he was the most annoying. That was the fun part,” Entertainment Weekly says.
Later, Ross and Drew hopped into the cart and they reminisced.
During the chat, Jay revealed that once upon a time, he babysat for Barrymore, who is now 49.
“I met Drew when she was 3 years old. I was dating her aunt,” Jay recalled. “She was asked to babysit, and I picked you up and bounced you on my knee,” calling it, “just very funny.”
“How did we never talk about that!?” Drew asked.
He didn’t remember all that much about Drew at the time — “Well, you were a baby! I was the boyfriend of the babysitter. You would come in and sit and you’d make the kid laugh,” he told Drew.
That said, when he saw E.T. a few years later he immediately recognized Drew as “that little girl” he once minded.
Kris Kristofferson, the singer, songwriter and actor whose songs were among the most admired not just in country but music in general, has died, according to a post on his official Facebook. He was 88.
“It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home,” reads the message. “We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”
Kristofferson’s resume was eclectic: Rhodes scholar, U.S. Army veteran, pilot, Golden Gloves boxer and award-winning actor. But it was his famous songs — including “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” — that made him a music legend. No less a luminary than Bob Dylan was once quoted as saying about Kristofferson, “You can look at Nashville pre-Kris and post-Kris, because he changed everything.”
Born Kristoffer Kristofferson in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, on June 22, 1936, he earned a master’s from Oxford, moved to California, joined the Army and became a helicopter pilot — and began writing songs on the side. Inspired by Dylan, he rejected an Army assignment to teach literature at West Point and instead moved to Nashville.
After struggling for several years, and even working as a janitor at the same studio where Johnny Cash and Dylan recorded, Kristofferson got his break when established stars like Tom T. Hall, Ray Price, Roger Miller, Ray Stevens and Cash recorded his songs. Cash’s hit rendition of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” helped it win the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year trophy in 1970, the same year Kristofferson released his debut solo album.
That album featured “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Janis Joplin recorded before her death in October 1970. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 and is now known as her signature song.
In 1971, Kristofferson launched his acting career, and over the years he appeared in films like A Star Is Born, which won him a Golden Globe, and Semi-Tough, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Lone Star and Blade.
In 1985, Kristofferson joined his old pal Johnny Cash in the supergroup The Highwaymen, which also included Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. He also continued his solo career and toured nonstop until 2020. He was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and won multiple Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy.
When Nelson was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, he advocated from the stage for Kristofferson’s induction, as well.
Kristofferson, who dated Joplin and once wed fellow singer Rita Coolidge, is survived by his wife, Lisa, as well as eight children from three marriages and seven grandchildren.
Rashida Jones is remembering her late father, famed music producer Quincy Jones, in the wake of his death.
The Parks and Recreation alum, 48, shared a photo of her and her father from when she was a baby to Instagram on Nov. 7 and recalled a sweet memory from her childhood.
“My dad was nocturnal his whole adult life. He kept ‘jazz hours’ starting in high school and never looked back,” she began. “When I was little, I would wake up in the middle of the night to search for him. Undoubtedly, he would be somewhere in the house, composing (old school, with a pen and sheet music). He would never send me back to bed.”
“He would smile and bring me into his arms while he continued to work…there was no safer place in the world for me,” she continued.
Rashida Jones, who co-directed and co-wrote the 2018 documentary Quincy about her father, called him “a giant,” “an icon,” “a culture shifter” and “a genius,” adding that music and all he created were “a channel for his love.”
“He WAS love. He made everyone he ever met feel loved and seen. That’s his legacy,” she wrote. “I was fortunate enough to experience this love in close proximity. I’ll miss his hugs and kisses and unconditional devotion and advice.”
She added, “Daddy, it is an honor to be your daughter. Your love lives forever.”
Quincy Jones was dad to seven children during his lifetime, sharing Rashida Jones with ex-wife Peggy Lipton. He died Nov. 3 at the age of 91.
Lipton, an actress and singer, died in 2019 at the age of 72.
Netflix is reportedly looking for a little spice: Variety says the streamer is looking to join forces with BuzzFeed to air live installments of First We Feast’s smash chicken wing eating show Hot Ones.
The pop culture website owns the meme-generating hit series, which can be seen on YouTube.
According to the trade, the deal is in the early stages, but it would bring to the streamer a live version of the series that has host Sean Evans taking the Gauntlet of Death hot sauce challenge with various celebrities.
Evans and company have chowed down — and created viral interview moments — with celebrities ranging from Conan O’Brien to Gordon Ramsay to Sydney Sweeney, and made meme stars out of Jennifer Lawrence, Idris Elba and more thanks to their reactions to the spicy stuff.
