Jackson Olson plays the fans as the Savannah Bananas take on the Party Animals at Campanelli Stadium on August 16, 2023 in Brockton, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
Savannah Bananas second baseman and social media personality Jackson Olson is trading the baseball field for the dance floor.
Olson has officially joined Season 35 of Dancing with the Stars as a celebrity contestant, ABC announced during Disney’s Upfront presentation on Tuesday.
The internet creator and baseball star is the latest celebrity revealed for the upcoming season, joining previously announced contestants Maura Higgins of The Traitors and Love Island and Ciara Miller of Summer House.
The full celebrity cast and professional dancer lineup will be announced Sept. 2 exclusively on Good Morning America.
Olson has gained a massive following online through his mix of baseball content, personal storytelling and behind-the-scenes moments from life with the Savannah Bananas, the viral exhibition baseball team known for its entertaining spin on the sport.
Along with sharing baseball insights and highlights from his career as a second baseman, Olson’s content often focuses on relationships, family, food and everyday life experiences.
The Savannah Bananas have become a social media sensation in recent years for their fast-paced and comedic style of baseball, often compared to the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, with Olson emerging as one of the team’s most recognizable personalities.
Dancing with the Stars is coming off a milestone Season 34, which marked the show’s best finale performance in a decade, according to ABC.
The show will air live this fall on ABC and Disney+, with episodes streaming the next day on Hulu.
‘The Boys’ season 5 on Prime Video. (Amazon MGM Studios)
The Boys are back for one final fight. The fifth and final season of the Prime Video series premieres Wednesday, and it follows The Boys’ attempt stop the unchecked power of the egomaniacal Homelander. It’s also building to a big finale that Karl Urban, who plays Boys leader Butcher, promises will be satisfying for fans.
“One hundred percent. We’re actually all super-confident of the fact that the rocket ship has landed in a wonderful way,” Urban tells ABC Audio. “We can’t wait for audiences to see the fun, exciting, action-packed season that we’ve got in store for them and also to experience … heartaches along the way.”
Urban warns, “‘Don’t get attached to … too many characters,” adding that there are “consequences being dealt.”
One positive change this season? Karen Fukuhara’s unstoppable character, Kimiko, regained the power to speak at the end of season 4 and can now fully express her personality. “It was just fun to be able to play a new side of Kimiko that we hadn’t discovered,” she tells ABC Audio.
In the premiere, Homelander is running the country and imprisoning those who oppose him in “freedom camps.” Parallels between the show and the real world are inevitable, but Jensen Ackles, who plays Soldier Boy, insists it wasn’t planned, especially since the show was scripted and shot two years ago.
“The show doesn’t necessarily comment on what’s going on … it’s more showing a reflection of what we all see and then turning it on its head in a wild way,” Ackles explains. “But it’s definitely … wild how reflective and how much of a mirror image, certain aspects of the show are in real life.”
The first two episodes of The Boys are now available. Episodes will drop weekly, with the finale streaming May 20.
Halle Berry stars as Sharon in ‘Crime 101.’ (Merrick Morton)
Halle Berry is a successful insurance broker who doesn’t get the respect she deserves in the new film Crime 101.
Her character, Sharon, finally has enough of the poor treatment. Late in the film she stands up for herself to her boss, telling him exactly how she feels before quitting. Berry opened up to ABC Audio about the many ways she resonated with Sharon and this particular moment in the film.
“I am a woman of a certain age down the path of life, and I have felt very much what Sharon has felt probably since I turned 40, 45,” Berry said. “I started to feel like my industry, that I love so much, was kinda lowkey kinda telling me, ‘We don’t really have a place for you. There are no parts. You’re not young. You’re not quite old enough to be grandma. So there’s no place for you.'”
The Oscar winner said that she “worked so hard to arrive to that place” of success in the industry.
“To feel that I would now be discarded was a painful realization,” Berry said.
Despite this, Berry said she made a conscious choice to not allow that to happen to her.
“There was some point in that period where I said, ‘No, screw this. I will not allow this to happen.’ And I pushed through, and I managed to not allow that to be my story,” Berry said. “I really related to Sharon deciding to stand up for herself.”
Berry feels other women who see the film will similarly relate to Sharon’s story.
“It was a moral question that she had to face, but I think in that moment she chose to do what was best for her and I really respected her for that,” Berry said. “I think women will feel seen, they’ll feel heard, and they will cheer for her.”
Crime 101 is available to watch in theaters everywhere.
