In a chat on the Club Shay Shay podcast, Marlon Wayans went off on Harvey Weinstein and his “evil, ugly brother Bob,” who were producers on the Wayans family’s Scary Movie franchise via their Miramax company.
Further, he suggested to host Shannon Sharpe that Weinstein’s downfall — and eventual imprisonment on sex charges — was “God’s revenge.”
The horror spoof franchise started with 2000’s original Scary Movie, for which they were given a “crappy deal” by the company.
“We opened at $42 million,” noting it was the biggest opening for “any” comedy at the time, not just “for a Black director,” which is how it was spun.
He said his director brother Keenan Ivory Wayans said, “No, no, no, don’t you try to marginalize me … with that label … there’s no such a thing as ‘Black success,’ just success.”
After the “huge” first film, “We got a good deal for the second one,” but then “Miramax did what they did.”
What the studio did was “stole” the franchise from the Wayans family, he says.
“I always say they didn’t just rape and molest women, they raped n***** too and molested us with them deals,” Marlon said. “They were terrible people.”
“They took it from us,” he insisted, and they paid for it at the box office. “You can’t do Wayans s*** without the Wayans. You can try, but … [what] we do is special. We have 200 years of comedy between me, Shawn and Keenan. Damon, Kim. We have a lot of years of excellence of what we do.”
Ultimately, Marlon adds, “God comes for you. All the toxic things you did to me and my family, you took the franchise from us. Vengeance is mine.”
“Sometimes you ain’t gotta do nothing because God’s gonna do it all — God’s revenge,” Marlon says.
Sure, Selena Gomez is a world-famous actress and singer, but it’s her makeup line that has made her a billionaire.
Bloombergreports that the star of Only Murders In the Building is one of the country’s youngest self-made female billionaires. According to the publication’s Billionaires Index, she’s worth $1.3 billion, and most of that — $1.1 billion — comes from Rare Beauty Brands Inc., her 5-year-old makeup brand.
Selena isn’t the first pop star to become a billionaire based on a makeup line: Rihanna hit that milestone in 2021 thanks to her line, Fenty Beauty.
Selena’s other income comes from brand partnerships, acting, music sales, streaming and her interest in her mental health start-up company, Wondermind, according to Bloomberg. Her past multimillion-dollar brand partnerships include Coach, Louis Vuitton and Puma SE. And she makes at least $6 million per season from Only Murders.
Stacy Jones, founder and CEO of LA-based branding company Hollywood Branded, tells Bloomberg Selena is “a multifaceted businesswoman with diverse income streams contributing to her impressive net worth.”
Brent Saunders, the CEO of Bausch + Lomb Corp, and an investor in Wondermind, tells Bloomberg that in Selena, “You’ve got a real role model of how a celebrity can use their influence and expertise to both do good and create good business.”
Netflix’s new series The Perfect Couple is a dark tale indeed, but its title sequence sees its cast, including Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber and Dakota Fanning, in a flash mob-style dance, set to Meghan Trainor‘s “Criminals.”
It was the brainchild of director Susanne Bier, but Variety has discovered that most of the cast was so opposed to it they started a text chain on WhatsApp that Schreiber called a “mutiny.”
The show centers on a wealthy family whose plans for a glamorous Nantucket wedding by the beach runs aground when a body washes up onshore, exposing the fam’s dark secrets.
Kidman admitted to the trade that she was initially opposed to the opening, because she didn’t think her matriarch character Greer would dance. “I felt like Greer would watch.”
That said, she was happy about it in the end. “I danced as Greer. I think it’s great and I’m so glad they got us all to do it. ‘Cause there’s some joy in it.”
Schreiber, who plays Kidman’s husband, was all in. “I wasn’t in that [text] chain. The entire cast had a mutiny about this idea except for me, I was already in my trailer practicing the dance moves.”
He added, “I just like dancing and I was kinda disappointed when it came out that I’m not in it more because I thought I did it really well.”
Bier explained she felt viewers needed a pick-me-up from the “gloomy” times we’re living in. “I felt I wanted to do something which had a lot of life and a lot of fun. And I wanted to see all the characters having fun.”
Fox has announced exactly when Anthony Anderson, Taye Diggs, James Van Der Beek, Dancing with the Stars‘ Bruno Tonioli, Chris Jones of the Kansas City Chiefs and Teen Wolf‘s Tyler Posey will be going The Full Monty: the evening of Monday, Dec. 9.
As reported in May, the sextet will be bearing it all on The Real Full Monty to raise awareness for prostate, testicular and colorectal cancer testing and research.
The network strips it all down: “During the two-hour special, Anderson will lead Diggs, Jones, Posey, Tonioli and Van Der Beek as they train and rehearse for the most revealing performance of their careers, culminating with a big strip-tease dance … in front of a live audience.”
The action will be choreographed by Mandy Moore, veteran of Fox’s So You Think you Can Dance, the Oscar-winning La La Land and Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour.
The network continues, “Leading up to the final disrobing, the men will expand their limits, test their modesty and strengthen their bond with a series of rehearsals and experiences, both private and public, designed to build confidence and remove them far from their comfort zone and forge a brotherhood.”
“Along the way, each of the celebrities will share their personal stories of how cancer has impacted their lives,” the producers concluded.
Back when the special was announced in May, Anderson noted, “Don’t die of embarrassment. Get checked!”
He added, “I am honored to lead the charge of rallying these fearless men to bare it all, in order to provoke, inspire and in this case, beg you to get screened for cancer. That’s our goal … so what are you waiting for!?”
The Real Full Monty will air Dec. 9 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET on Fox.
The 26-year-old physician assistant, whose journey to finding love on the show ended with a heartbreaking finale, thanked fans for their support all season and shared how she is “still healing” from her experience.
“Thank you for opening your hearts to my story,” she said in an Instagram post on Thursday. “Being the first Asian American bachelorette has been a healing experience for me and I couldn’t be happier to watch my community come alive.”
“No matter where you are in your search for your identity, please remember you are worthy and you are exactly who you need to be,” she added.
During the After the Final Rose special on Tuesday, Tran revealed that Devin Strader, the man she’d proposed to on the Bachelorette finale back in May, had called off their engagement about a month ago.
Tran also came face-to-face with Strader in front of the live studio audience during the episode and confronted him about why after ending their engagement he went on to follow a former contestant on the previous season of The Bachelor, Maria Georgas, on Instagram.
In her post, which featured photos from the finale and her proposal to Strader, Tran said that her heart is “heavy grieving,” but that she has to “make room for forgiveness.”
“While emotions were high on stage, at the end of the day, I will always have love for the person I fell in love with and I am choosing to wish him the best in his journey of life and will always root for him,” she said.
She also acknowledged the “universal experience” of heartbreak, adding, “It is easier to have loved and lost to have never loved at all.”
(WASHINGTON) — Republican calls are mounting for sharper focus by former President Donald Trump on inflation and immigration, worried that his penchant for personal attacks and scattered stances on social issues could serve as distractions in his quest to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris.
In key down-ballot races, however, Republicans are still fighting on the culture-war battlefields.
Red- and purple-state Republican Senate challengers are leaning on issues such as transgender rights and “wokeism” to define battle-hardened Democratic incumbents as too liberal and chip away at longstanding brands among their electorates.
The dynamic serves as a recognition that while Trump needs to win over swing voters in purple states, a Republican Senate majority hinges on GOP strongholds like Montana and Ohio, where boiling the race down to a conservative-versus-liberal matchup allows those states’ partisan bents to take over.
“If you’re running against a Democrat who’s running underneath Trump [on the ballot] in a state where Trump’s going to win overwhelmingly, then you have every reason to try to drive a shirts-and-skins election,” said GOP strategist Scott Jennings. “Get everybody into their corners, don’t let them think that ticket splitting is a good idea or something they should even consider.”
Republicans are bullish on their opportunities to unseat Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. They’re also hoping to expand a future majority by winning seats in purple states such as Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and they’re not just relying on kitchen-table issues to do it.
Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP Senate super PAC, released ads in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania Tuesday knocking Democratic incumbents there for what they said was support for allowing “biological men” to compete in “women’s sports.”
Tim Sheehy, the Republican nominee to take on Tester, also knocked Democrats in his opening ad over “drag queen story time on our military bases” and said he was running “to get this woke crap out of our military.” At his speech at this summer’s Republican convention, Sheehy started his speech by saying, “My name is Tim Sheehy. Those are also my pronouns.”
And Bernie Moreno, the GOP nominee in Ohio, wrote on his website that he’s running in part to “end wokeness and cancel culture,” and a supportive super PAC had hammered one primary opponent as being untrustworthy for being a “champion for trans equality.”
The tactics are all part of a strategy to tear down in-state images of Democratic candidates — Tester and Brown in particular — as bipartisan dealmakers and instead remake them as nothing more than run-of-the-mill liberals in states where the overall partisan makeup makes such labels untenable. And if they’re successful Republican candidates, can just ride on Trump’s lengthy red-state coattails.
“It’s code for liberal,” one GOP strategist working on Senate races said of the recent ads. “It’s less about the actual trans issue itself and more about what their support for that issue actually says about their overall worldview.”
“Ohio and Montana are the inverse of almost every swing state Senate race of the last three cycles. And what I mean by that is, it’s not a question of, can Republicans reach beyond the Trump base to win over voters who didn’t support Trump? Neither Tim Sheehy nor Bernie Moreno needs a single voter to vote for them who isn’t already voting for Trump,” the person added.
Multiple Republican strategists boasted of poll numbers they’d seen of the popularity of GOP stances on transgender issues. A second operative working on Senate races said it was the “better testing and often the best testing message in surveys” they’d seen, and Brad Todd, another GOP strategist, said two campaign’s he’s working on are planning on releasing ads of their own on the topic.
And for Republican candidates like Sheehy, Moreno and Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania, all of whom can’t compete with the name recognition of their multi-term Democratic opponents, social issues offer an avenue to signaling alignment with voters looking to learn more about them.
“You do have to check some boxes with some voters so that they cross that threshold of, ‘Well, is this even someone that is culturally aligned with me enough to consider?’ And that issue right there for a lot of more culturally conservative voters is one that definitely pops,” Jennings said.
The moves mark a stark contrast with the conventional wisdom in the presidential race, where Republicans are pushing Trump to focus on the economy and border security and leave aside issues such as transgender athletes, gender-affirming care for minors and his scattershot stances on some women’s reproductive rights matters. Still, some references to culture-war issues could prove advantageous, according to Republican strategists.
“I do think [in the presidential race], voters look to it more as a wrong track/right track on the economy. They see the president as the person steering the ship of economic state and in charge of sovereignty,” Todd said. “I think because those issues are so closely tied to the president and Republicans have an advantage on both of them, that’s why you don’t see as much discussed there. But they would be fair game.”
To be certain, Republicans are not hinging their Senate prospects solely on red meat, telling ABC News that it’s just one piece of the puzzle and that burnishing their own credentials on kitchen table issues is also critical.
“The type of people could vote for Donald Trump and Jon Tester, Donald Trump and Sherrod Brown, we know those people exist. They’re going to start to say, ‘OK, I get it. Tester is Biden, Brown is Biden. So, what do you got for me? What’s my alternative? Give me something,'” said a third GOP strategist working on Senate races. “You just can’t be generic Republican versus a liberal, because that’s been tried, and that clearly doesn’t work against Tester and Brown.”
Still, the person added, “you got to have more than one arrow in your quiver, and that’s the cultural stuff. There’s a place for it in these races.”
Some Democrats swatted away concerns that Republicans’ messaging was as potent as they claimed.
“Does anyone base their vote on this issue? How many people has this actually happened to?” Democratic strategist and former Senate aide Jon Reinish asked of transgender rights issues. “I’m expecting it is slim to probably none.”
But other Democrats told ABC News that transgender rights and other culture war topics could be potent in red states and made sense as a strategy where simply keeping GOP voters in line could deliver Republican victories — and with them, likely the Senate majority.
“Those are just redder states where I think the culture war stuff just gets more traction and playing to your base can get you over 50%,” one Democratic pollster said. “So, it does not surprise me at all to take that tact in these redder states.”
(SAN FRANCISCO) — San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said it’s a “miracle” rookie Ricky Pearsall is recovering days after the team said the player was shot in the chest during an attempted robbery.
“He’s the toughest person I know, just going through a situation like that,” Shanahan told reporters on Thursday, speaking out for the first time on the incident. “We always felt this way watching him on the football field and things like that, but kind of to watch how he handled that situation and watch how he’s been every day since, it shows how special the guy is.”
Pearsall, 23, was seen at practice on Thursday, standing on the field in street clothes holding a football and watching the wide receiver drills, as the team prepared for Monday night’s season opener against the New York Jets.
The athlete “sustained a bullet wound to his chest” during an attempted robbery on Saturday in San Francisco’s Union Square, the San Francisco 49ers said in a statement. He was released from the hospital on Sunday and is expected to make a full recovery.
On Monday, the National Football League added the player to the reserve/non-football injury list, meaning he will miss at least four games of the season, according to ESPN.
Shanahan said the team has been focusing on giving Pearsall space to physically and mentally recover from the ordeal, though he’s eager to get back to playing.
“I think each day the mental part becomes more a big deal, you know, the adrenaline and just surviving that,” the coach said. “Ricky’s saying stuff … like, I still think I could play versus the Jets.”
“It’s just like, dude, what are you talking about?” Shanahan continued.
On the recovery, Shanahan said Pearsall “wants to go a week or so without trying to work up a sweat” and then will start rehab.
A 17-year-old suspect arrested in connection with the shooting was charged Tuesday with attempted murder, assault with a semi-automatic firearm and attempted second-degree robbery, prosecutors said.
The teen, whose name has not been released, was arraigned at the Youth Guidance Center in San Francisco on Wednesday. Following the court appearance, his attorney told reporters the teen — a senior at Tracy High School — is “very sorry genuinely that this did happen, as is his family.”
“I can say on their behalf, as well as on my own behalf, that our thoughts go out to the Pearsall family and Mr. Pearsall himself,” the attorney, Deputy Public Defender Bob Dunlap, said. “So there’s genuine, genuine remorse in that regard.”
The teen is in custody and will be detained awaiting a trial date.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told reporters Tuesday that her office hasn’t made a determination yet on whether it would request a hearing before a judge to decide whether the teen will be tried as an adult.
Dunlap said he hopes the case does not transfer to adult court, saying his client “certainly should be treated as a juvenile. He is a juvenile.”
(NEW YORK) — For the second year in a row, summer in the Northern Hemisphere ranked as the warmest on record with extreme heat bringing persistent, dangerously hot conditions across several continents, according to a new report by Copernicus, the European Union’s Climate Change Service.
Summer 2024 (June through August) was the warmest summer on record for the Northern Hemisphere, beating the previous record set in 2023 by .66 degrees Celsius, or 1.19 degrees Fahrenheit, the report found. The Northern Hemisphere’s top 10 warmest summers on record have all occurred within the past 10 years, according to Copernicus.
Last month also registered as the joint-warmest August on record globally, tying the value observed in 2023, the report, released Thursday, found.
As the planet continues to set new global temperature records, parts of the West Coast continue to experience record-breaking heat. While much of the region typically experiences the warmest temperatures of the year on average during the month of September, the current round of hot weather impacting millions is reaching dangerous levels.
Extreme last-season heat is impacting major cities up and down the West Coast. Heat alerts were in effect across parts of six western states, from Arizona to Washington on Wednesday, including more than 65 million Americans. Several major cities could see records challenged in the coming days.
This latest round of extreme heat comes as major cities in the West such as Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, experienced their hottest summers on record, according to the National Weather Service.
“The temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said in a statement.
Researchers at Copernicus said that it remains likely that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record, beating out the new record set just last year. The year-to-date global average temperature anomaly through the end of August currently ranks .23 degrees Celsius, or .41 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than the same period in 2023.
The average anomaly for the remaining months of this year would need to drop by at least .30 degrees Celsius, or .54 degrees Fahrenheit, for 2024 not to be warmer than 2023. This has never happened in the organization’s ERA5 dataset.
The last time Earth recorded a cooler-than-average year was in 1976, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization (NOAA).
August 2024 ended up tied with August 2023 as the warmest August on record globally, registering an average surface air temperature of 16.82 degrees Celsius, or 62.28 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the report. This is .71 degrees Celsius, or 1.28 degrees Fahrenheit, above the 1991-2020 average for the month.
The global average temperature over the past twelve months, September 2023 through August 2024, was 1.64 degrees Celsius, or 2.95 degrees Fahrenheit above the pre-industrial average, the report found.
The Paris Agreement goals aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.
Scientists say that it is important to note that exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius warming threshold temporarily is not seen as a failure under the Paris Agreement since the agreement looks at the climate average over multiple decades. However, short-term breaches of the threshold are an important signal that those higher averages are likely to happen in the next decade if emissions aren’t reduced significantly.
Global daily sea surface temperatures across most of the world’s oceans remain well above average. The average global sea surface temperature for August 2024, between the latitudes of 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north, was 69.64 degrees Fahrenheit, the second-highest value on record for the month and just slightly below the record value set last year, the report found.
Persistent marine heatwaves are keeping sea surface temperatures at near-record levels across parts of the globe, including the Atlantic Basin. These unusually warm conditions were one of the primary factors that led NOAA to forecast a very active Atlantic hurricane season this year.
While the season got off to an impressive start with storms like record-breaking Hurricane Beryl and weeks of above-average activity earlier in the summer, the Atlantic Basin is now seeing a stretch of remarkably quiet conditions with the peak of the season just days away.
The past three weeks in the Atlantic Basin have been notably quiet with no named storm formations since Ernesto on Aug. 12.
However, toward the middle of September, large-scale environmental conditions look to become more favorable for tropical cyclone activity. This is particularly concerning for forecasters tracking the tropics because as many of the factors that have been inhibiting tropical activity begin to ease, any potential systems that begin to develop will have an ample supply of fuel to not only form but potentially go under rapid intensification.
Antarctic sea ice extent dipped to its second-lowest value on record for the month of August, 7% below average. Arctic sea ice extent was 17% below average for the month, ranking as the fourth lowest value on record and noticeably lower than the August values observed in the previous three years, according to Copernicus.
