Music

Lawyers for Nirvana have responded to Spencer Elden‘s latest filing in the ongoing lawsuit over the Nevermind cover, Rolling Stone reports.

In documents obtained by the magazine, Nirvana’s legal team calls Elden’s complaint, which was amended in January for the second time following the original lawsuit’s filing in August 2021, “strike three.”

“This case must end,” the motion reads.

As previously reported, Elden’s suit alleged that the artwork for Nirvana’s Nevermind constituted child pornography. The now-iconic cover features a photo of Elden, then a four-month-old baby, swimming naked underwater while reaching for a dollar bill.

Surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, as well as the late Kurt Cobain and his widow, Courtney Love, were among the defendants named in the suit.

In November 2021, Elden filed his first amended complaint with additional allegations, including that cover photographer Kirk Weddle, another named defendant, also took photos of Elden “dressed up and depicted as Hugh Hefner,” the notorious founder of Playboy.

The next month, Nirvana filed to dismiss Elden’s case, declaring not only that his claims were “not serious” and “absurd,” but that the statute of limitations on his allegations had expired. A judge then granted Nirvana’s request this past January, but allowed for Elden to amend and refile his suit, which he did just before the deadline last month.

Nirvana’s lawyers now argue “the time has run” on Elden’s suit, and request dismissal with prejudice, meaning he could no longer refile.

“Elden’s decision to not sue these defendants for the past 30 years, despite his decades-long knowledge of their same and unvaried conduct, is dispositive of his claim,” the motion reads. “It is as simple as that.”

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At the end of his Amazon documentary Justin Bieber: Our World, which was filmed in 2020, Justin tells his wife Hailey that one of his intentions for 2021 is for them to have a baby — or at least start trying.  Hailey seemed surprised at the notion then, and now, she says that probably won’t happen for “the next couple of years.”

Covering WSJ. Magazine‘s Spring Women’s Fashion Issue, Hailey talks about her new skin-care brand, Rhode, as well as her relationship with Justin, and the pressure that she feels everyone seems to be putting on them to start having children.

“There’s this thing that happens for women when you get married. Everybody always assumes it’s: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby. Well, what about all the things I want to accomplish in my business?” Hailey notes.

“I think I had it ingrained in my head that I was going to want to have kids right away and I was going to want to have kids super, super young,” she adds. “Then I turned 25 and I’m like, ‘I’m still super, super young!’”

So what’s her timetable?  Hailey says, “I think ideally in the next couple of years we would try. But there’s a reason they call it try, right? You don’t know how long that process is ever going to take. Definitely no kids this year; that would be a little bit hectic, I think.”

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A baby is on the way for Da Brat and her fiancée, Jesseca Dupart!

Taking to Instagram on Monday, the rapper shared snapshots of her embracing Dupart from behind and making a heart with her hands over her wife-to-be’s stomach. 

“We are EXTENDING the family,” she wrote. 

This will be the first child for Da Brat, 47, while Dupart, 39, has three children from previous relationships. 

The baby announcement comes just days before the two are set to tie the knot later this month. They revealed the wedding date of February 22 by showing off a picture of the date “2.22.22” tattooed on Da Brat’s back. 

“TWOSDAY 2•22•22,” she captioned the pic, followed by the bride, chapel, and wedding ring emojis and the hashtags #BRATlovesJUDY #weddingdate.

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The NFL has announced its pregame entertainment lineup for the Super Bowl on February 13.

Zedd will be the “official pregame DJ” for the event, providing the music during player warmups. Meanwhile, Grammy-nominated country star Mickey Guyton will sing the national anthem, and R&B singer Jhené Aiko will perform “America the Beautiful.”

In addition, gospel stars Mary Mary will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — sometimes called the Black national anthem — accompanied by the L.A. Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles.

As Variety notes, the lineup illustrates the NFL’s attempts to be more diverse in its entertainment choices, an initiative it announced in 2019.

As previously reported, the halftime entertainment for Super Bowl LVI will include Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar.  The game, featuring the Bengals taking on the Rams, will take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. It’ll air on NBC and Telemundo and stream live on Peacock.

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As celebrities begin to hop on the NFT bandwagon, Kanye West made it clear he won’t be joining — at least not anytime soon.

On Monday, the Donda rapper took to social media to issue a PSA to those asking him to make NFTs, which stands for non-fungible tokens and is a digital asset that belongs to the buyer alone. 

“STOP ASKING ME TO DO NFT’s I’M NOT FINNA CO-SIGN … FOR NOW I’M NOT ON THAT WAVE I MAKE MUSIC AND PRODUCTS IN THE REAL WORLD,” he captioned an Instagram post. 

The post itself contained a letter which read, “My focus is on building real products in the real world real food real clothes real shelter do not ask me to do a f****** NFT.”

He signed the note “Ye” and added, “Ask me later.” So maybe the Yeezy founder will eventually hop on the NFT train, just not right now.

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Last week, Ella Mai released her first new single since 2020, “DFMU,” from her upcoming second solo album. The Grammy winner recorded songs for the project with the legendary artist/producer Pharrell Williams, as well as with her favorite rapper, J. Cole.

The British artist says she’s looking forward to working again with the “Happy” singer.

“I definitely hope in the future that we can get back in and make some more stuff, because he’s super fun to work with, and super down-to-earth,” Ella tells Billboard. 

The 27-year-old artist also bonded with Cole, and said she enjoyed sharing her experience attending his 2013 What Dreams May Come Tour in London.

“I cut college class that day and I stood outside. I was 19th in line. I know, because they give you this wristband — so you can leave but you still get your spot. It was freezing cold, but I didn’t care, and I was super front row,” Mai recalled. “I was telling him all my stories. But also as a person, Cole is very inspirational. It’s amazing to be around somebody who is what they portray [to be].”

She says recording with Williams and Cole in the same week was magical.

“I thought this was everything I ever dreamed of. Working with people that inspire me — and it’s weird when I think [about how] people I’m super fans of, are fans of me as well. It’s still a weird feeling for me and I think it always will be,” the “Boo’d Up” singer commented. “I’m just super appreciative that I’m even able to be in these rooms and experience everyone else’s process, as well as putting my process in there too. That was an amazing week for me.”

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Remember when Sarah McLachlan made us all cry with those ASPCA commercials?  Remember how she spoofed them for a Super Bowl ad in 2014?  Well, she’s doing it again, in a new commercial created by fellow Canadian Ryan Reynolds’ digital marketing company Maximum Effort.

In the spot, Sarah says — in her best “won’t you please help?” voice —  “Every day, 70% of all online shopping carts are abandoned at the checkout page…victims of a cruel and exhausting checkout process.”  Cue forlorn images of actual shopping carts filled with items, sitting out alone in the wilderness.

Sarah explains that when most people try to buy stuff online, the checkout process is so complicated — what with entering addresses, credit card numbers and CVV numbers — that they just forget the whole thing and leave the stuff in their online cart.

The solution? Bolt.com, a company that offers a one-click shopping experience, no matter which website you go to. You enter your information once, and that’s it.

The spot ends with a guy singing, “Go to Bolt.com…come on, we got Sarah f***ing McLachlan!”

In recognition of Sarah’s special talent for drawing attention to pitiful, abandoned things, Bolt has made a $50,000 donation to the ASPCA and in addition, it’s launched Bolt.com/carts, where you can buy “Rescue Cart“ merch.  Every item is under a dollar using discount code “ABANDONEDCARTS,” and for each item purchased, Bolt will donate $10 to the ASPCA, up to an additional $50,000.

This isn’t the first time Sarah and Ryan Reynolds have teamed up for an ad — sort of. In 2018, in an spot for his Aviation brand of gin, Reynolds claimed that “every bottle of Aviation is ordained by the Unitarian Church of Fresno, California and then…serenaded with the healing music of Sarah McLachlan.”

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As Blink-182‘s Mark Hoppus continues to recover from a difficult year of chemotherapy to combat cancer, he’s rediscovered a briefly forgotten joy of his life: songwriting.

In a recent tweet, Hoppus writes, “Just want to say that I’m very grateful to be back in the mindset of ‘Oh! That’s a cool idea for a song lyric, I should write that down.'”

“I haven’t felt that in eight months,” he adds, alongside a “prayer hands” emoji.

Hoppus revealed his cancer diagnosis in June 2021, sharing that he’d been undergoing chemotherapy for the previous three months. Last September, he announced he was “cancer free.”

Blink-182 had been working on new music ahead Hoppus’ diagnosis — they released the topical song “Quarantine” in August 2020. The trio’s most recent album is 2019’s Nine.

Hoppus played his first post-cancer performance last October during band mate Travis Barker‘s Halloween streaming event.

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