Heartstopper star Kit Connor came out as bisexual on Monday night, saying he felt he was forced to address his sexuality.
The actor, who portrays bisexual character Nick Nelson on the popular Netflix show, made a rare tweet in which he addressed the topic. He was previously on a hiatus from Twitter, but returned to make the announcement.
“Back for a minute. I’m bi. Congrats for forcing an 18 year old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye,” Connor wrote.
Heartstopper creator and showrunner Alice Osemansent support Connor’s way.
“I truly don’t understand how people can watch Heartstopper and then gleefully spend their time speculating about sexualities and judging based on stereotypes,” Oseman wrote on Twitter. “I hope all those people are embarrassed as F***. Kit you are amazing.”
Joe Locke, who portrays Connor’s boyfriend Charlie Spring on the series, also threw his support behind his costar.
“You owe nothing to anyone. I’m so proud of you my friend,” Locke tweeted.
Heartstopper has been renewed for seasons 2 and 3 on Netflix; season 2 is currently in production.
(HOUSTON) — Takeoff, a member of the hip-hop trio Migos, was shot and killed Tuesday morning in downtown Houston, the rapper’s attorney confirmed to ABC News.
“Along with my firm, I am devastated by the tragic death of Kirshnik Ball, known to his fans as Takeoff,” attorney Drew Findling told ABC News in a statement. “Takeoff was not only a brilliant musical artist with unlimited talent but also a uniquely kind and gentle soul. He will be greatly missed now and always.”
The Grammy-nominated artist, whose real name is Kirshnik Khari Ball, was 28.
Takeoff was attending a private event, along with fellow Migos member Quavo, when the shooting occurred, according to police.
Sgt. Michael Arrington of the Houston Police Department told reporters that officers were called at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday to the 1200 block of San Jacinto, where they found a Black man in his late 20s dead on the scene.
Arrington said police could not confirm the identity of the victim and would have more information after a review by the medical examiner. He did, however, confirm that Takeoff and Quavo were both present when the shooting occurred.
Tributes pour in for slain rapper PnB Rock as gun violence plagues the hip-hop community
The shooting took place at the 810 Billiards & Bowling in downtown Houston. Police said they found multiple shell casings on the third level of the venue.
“We were informed that there was a private party being held at the event last night that ended at approximately 1 a.m. But the party carried over till about 2 a.m. till they were cleared out. That’s when the shooting occurred,” Arrington said.
Police said two other men who were injured in the shooting and were transported to a local hospital.
“There were rappers at the party. We don’t know if they’re involved. It’s still the early process of the investigation,” Arrington said, adding that there were between 40-50 people present when the shooting occurred.
Police urged anyone with information about the shooting to contact the HPD homicide unit at 713-318-3600.
Migos rose to stardom in 2013 with their song “Versace.” The group is known for hits like “Motorsport,” featuring Nicki Minaj and Cardi B. Earlier this week Takeoff and Quavo, who are related, released a video for their song “Messy” off the duo’s newest album, “Only Built for Infinity Links.”
Takeoff’s death is the latest in a string of shootings and killings of prominent rappers in recent years, as well as up-and-coming local artists – from Chicago to New York City – who were shot and killed at a young age during attempted robberies or violence stemming from reported disagreements.
As tributes poured in on social media from fans and fellow artists in the wake of the news, a clip of Takeoff’s appearance on Revolt TV’s “Drink Champs” went viral.
“Of course you were shining before but you were dancing on this one … it was your time,” host N.O.R.E. told Takeoff.
“It’s time to pop it. It’s time to give me my flowers. I don’t want them when I ain’t here,” Takeoff said.
Snoop Dogg calls for ‘peace in hip-hop’ amid string of rapper killings
Hip-hop stars shared tributes and expressed their condolences on social media in the wake of Takeoff’s death.
“We lost a young legend,” Rick Ross tweeted.
“My best friend my bother, I don’t want to believe this I love you so much bro,” Rich the Kid tweeted. “I’m so sorry.”
Chance the Rapper, who shared a photo with Migos from one of his shows in 2013, wrote on Twitter that he is “broken hearted and confused this morning.”
“But I have to say Take is a one of a kind friend that would always acknowledge you, always make sure you was good and would always tell you keep God first. Man I wish I had more times to see u on this earth,” he added.
Meanwhile, Desiigner broke down in tears during an Instagram Live session on Tuesday, saying, “Why do we do this?” He also paid tribute to other rappers who were killed in recent years before declaring that he’s “done” with rap in an Instagram story.
ABC News’ Bonnie McLean and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court has rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s wholesale bid to block a subpoena for testimony before a Georgia grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn 2020 election results in that state.
An unsigned statement appended to the order, however, made clear that Graham does not need to answer questions about conduct protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The 2022 campaign is shaping up to be a historic, decisive moment in American politics.
From our reporters across the country, ABC News brings you all the latest on what the candidates are saying and doing — and what voters want to happen in November’s midterm elections.
For more from ABC News’ team of reporters embedded in battleground states, watch “Power Trip: Those Seeking Power and Those Who Chase Them” on Hulu , with new episodes on Sunday.
Here is the latest from the campaign trail. All times Eastern.
Nov 01, 12:44 PM EDT
Arizona Libertarian Senate candidate drops out of race, throws support to GOP nominee Blake Masters
Arizona’s Libertarian Senate candidate Marc Victor dropped out of the race on Tuesday, putting his support behind Blake Masters, the Republican nominee.
His move, made a week ahead of Election Day, gives Trump-backed Masters a further boost as Victor’s candidacy was forecasted to split off some of the Republican vote in the race to unseat incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly.
Victor told ABC News in a written statement Tuesday that Blake Masters approached him, agreeing to the Libertarian’s offer to both his opponents on “why it was in the interests of freedom, peace, and civility for me to step down and endorse either of them.” Their taped conversation “impressed” the Libertarian, Victor said, prompting him to drop out.
“I publicly offered to meet with either Mark Kelly or Blake Masters to have an unscripted discussion about why it was in the interests of freedom, peace, and civility for me to step down and endorse either of them,” Victor told ABC News.
“Blake Masters availed himself of that opportunity yesterday, and we had a public conversation where I asked him whatever I wanted. I was impressed with Blake Masters and his commitment to being a Live and Let Live Senator from Arizona,” Victor told ABC.
In the [,]() Victor said this decision to drop out one week before Election Day will make some people “very upset” and others “very happy.”
Masters responded to the new support in a campaign press release.
“Marc Victor joins a growing list of Arizonans from across the political spectrum who are fed up with open borders, big government corruption, and rising crime. We are building a broad coalition to defeat the worst Senator in America. This is another major boost of momentum as we consolidate our support against the extreme and radical policies of Mark Kelly and Joe Biden. Live and Let Live,” Masters said.
Victor will still be on the ballot, but any votes cast for him will not be tabulated, according to a spokesperson at the secretary of state’s office.
(TAMPA BAY, Fla.) — Tom Brady is breaking his silence after he and Gisele Bündchen announced they had finalized their divorce after 13 years of marriage.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback was asked about the split on the SiriusXM podcast “Let’s Go! with Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray” on Tuesday.
“Obviously the good news is it’s a very amicable situation and I’m really focused on two things: taking care of my family and certainly my children and, secondly, doing the best job I can to win football games,” Brady said when asked if his personal life could spill over into his professional life on the football field.
“That’s what professionals do — you focus at work when it’s time to work, and then when you come home you focus on the priorities that are at home,” he continued. “All you can do is the best you could do. That’s what I’ll just continue to do as long as I’m working and as long as I’m being a dad.”
Brady was also asked if it was hard to compartmentalize those two priorities in his life, with him noting again that he’s a professional and that he’s dealt with “a lot of challenging situations on and off the field” for his entire career.
“I think the interesting thing for a football player, or an athlete in general, is … I always say we’re not actors. Even though we’re on TV, you know, that is our real self out there,” he said. “We’re trying to do our best.”
“We all have our unique challenges in life. We’re all humans. We do the best we could do,” the seven-time Super Bowl champion said. “I have incredible parents that have always taught me the right way to do things. I want to be a great father to my children and always try to do things the right way as well. And to deal with things in your life that have challenges, you wanna deal with them in the best possible way.”
Brady continued, “So I want to always be able to hold my head high on and off the field, and I’m gonna try to continue to do that for as long as I’m here.”
Brady’s Bucs have stumbled to a 3-5 record and are currently on a three-game losing streak. He has thrown just three touchdowns in those three games combined.
The NFL star and Bündchen, who married in 2009, confirmed on Friday they had finalized their divorce by each sharing separate statements to their respective social media pages.
In both their posts, Brady and Bündchen said they had “gratitude” for their time together and that the decision had been made “amicably.”
They both said their priority was their children. Brady and Bündchen share two children together, 12-year-old Benjamin and 9-year-old Vivian. Brady also has a 15-year-old son, Jack, from his previous relationship with Bridget Moynahan.
Brady called the situation “painful and difficult,” and said he and Bündchen “only wish the best for each other as we pursue whatever new chapters in our lives that are yet to be written.”
Bündchen said, “The decision to end a marriage is never easy but we have grown apart and while it is, of course, difficult to go through something like this, I feel blessed for the time we had together and only wish the best for Tom always.”
Cleanliness may be close to godliness, but for Great British Bake-Off vet Lottie Bedlow, it doesn’t make your cookies any better. “Anyone who bakes and has a clean kitchen at the end of it, in my opinion, you don’t wanna trust these bakers,” she jokes to ABC Audio. “You want people who are throwing stuff around. You want the chaos, you want the drama. Those are the bakers are going to turn out really, really good cakes and cookies.”
That philosophy is also baked into Bedlow’s new book, Baking Imperfect: Crush, Whip and Spread It Like Nobody’s Watching, in which the self-described “trial and error” baker seeks to bring the fun back into the kitchen. “I want to make sure that people feel supported if they feel…maybe not as confident about because of all of these kinds of perfect things they see on Instagram,” Lottie expresses. “This book is…just about making sure that you feel supported and that you remember to laugh at yourself along the way.”
Lottie learned that lesson as a contestant on the hit reality program. “I think the show above all else taught me how to fail and laugh at myself when things go wrong, which they inevitably did,” she says.
Bedlow also shared tips for getting rid of that leftover trick-or-treat booty, noting, “The easiest, easiest thing to do…would be fudge. So you take your condensed milk and your semi-sweet chocolate, melt it together in the microwave, and then you throw in anything else that you have lying around. So that can be Skittles, it could be Oreos, it could be M&Ms. Whatever you want, you throw it all in…a lined tin…and in 3 hours…you’ve got perfect fudge with your favorite candy inside.”
Following The Best Man in 1999 and its sequel in 2013, the franchise has evolved into a streaming series that will premiere in December on Peacock. A third film, The Best Man Wedding, was planned for 2016, however, Malcolm D. Lee, who directed both movies, created the series after finances prevented the film’s production.
“We couldn’t get a movie together with the budget that we really needed, and it was hard to get everybody’s schedules. And so what the series allows us to do is just to allow them to chew more scenery and tell us some unfinished stories,” Lee tells Vibe. “So those are the main things that I think are really good about making it more than just a two-hour movie.”
Morris Chestnut, Terrence Howard, Taye Diggs, Harold Perrineau, Nia Long, Sanaa Lathan, Regina Hall and Melissa De Sousa from The Best Man and The Best Man Holiday have returned for The Final Chapters. Nicole Ari Parker, from Empire, has also joined the all-star cast.
In the trailer which was released this week, writer Harper Stewart, portrayed by Diggs, learns that his book Unfinished Business is being adapted into a film.
In the first film, when football star Lance Sullivan read in the book that his friend Harper had slept with his fiancée Mia Morgan before they were engaged, Lance became so angry, he attacked the writer and nearly threw him off a hotel balcony.
In The Best Man Holiday, the two men ended their feud, and Harper wrote Lance’s biography, God, Family and Football. However, now in The Final Chapters, Harper is worried about how Lance will react to Unfinished Business becoming a movie.
All eight episodes of The Best Man: The Final Chapters are set to premiere December 22.
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday afternoon for a drunk driving crash that injured five people, including one child severely.
Reid, 37, pleaded guilty in September to driving while intoxicated in connection with the Kansas City crash.
Reid was driving his pickup truck near Arrowhead Stadium on Feb. 4, 2021, when he struck two vehicles that had stopped along the side of the highway. He had a blood alcohol content of 0.113 and was driving 84 mph in a 65 mph zone at the time of the incident, according to court documents.
Ariel Young, who was 5 years old at the time, was severely injured in the crash. She suffered “life-threatening injuries” and a “severe traumatic brain injury, a parietal fracture, brain contusions and subdural hematomas,” according to court documents.
Reid, the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, faces up to four years in prison as part of a deal that his victims have spoken out against. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. local time in a Kansas City courthouse.
Prior to taking the guilty plea, Reid faced up to seven years in prison, with a trial expected to begin in September.
During a plea hearing on Sept. 12, Reid apologized for his “huge mistake.”
“I really regret what I did,” he said, according to Kansas City ABC affiliate KMBC.
At one point he turned to Ariel’s family and said, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone that night,” KMBC reported.
When the judge asked the family if they had anything to say, KMBC reported that Ariel’s mother, Felicia Miller, said, “My family and I are opposed to the plea deal. I don’t think he should receive it.”
Tom Porto, the attorney for the five victims in the crash, said in a statement at the time that the victims are “outraged the prosecuting attorney is not seeking the maximum sentence allowable by law.”
Reid was a linebackers coach for the Chiefs at the time of the crash and during the team’s Super Bowl win in February 2020. He was released by the team shortly after the incident.
In November 2021, the Chiefs and Porto announced that the team worked out a plan to help pay for Ariel’s medical care.
Reid has previously served prison time over a driving-related incident.
He pleaded guilty to simple assault and flashing a gun at another driver in a road rage incident in 2007, according to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, court records, and served prison time. While in prison, he also pleaded guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of a controlled substance from a separate incident, according to court documents.
ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
Imagine Dragons and Dave Matthews Band will headline the 2023 Innings Festival Florida, the East Coast spinoff of Arizona’s baseball-themed music festival.
The two-day event will take place March 18-19 in Tampa. The bill also includes Weezer, Marcus Mumford, Grouplove, The Revivalists, Third Eye Blind, The Avett Brothers, The Breeders and Japanese Breakfast.
Like the Arizona festival, Innings Florida coincides with the MLB spring training season and will feature appearances by a number of baseball greats, including John Kruk, Wade Boggs and Goose Gossage.
Tickets go on sale this Thursday, November 3 at 10 a.m. ET. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit InningsFestival.com/florida.
Innings Arizona takes place February 25-26 in Tempe. Green Day and Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder will headline.
(WASHINGTON) — Chief Justice John Roberts has granted a temporary administrative stay of a lower court order as the House Ways and Means Committee attempts to gain access to former President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
The ruling prevents the committee from accessing Trump’s tax returns as the court considers a final decision.
Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block the House Ways and Means Committee from accessing his tax returns.
The committee has requested six years’ worth of Trump’s returns as part of an investigation into IRS audit practices of presidents and vice presidents.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump accused the committee of seeking his taxes under false pretenses.
“The Committee’s purpose in requesting President Trump’s tax returns has nothing to do with funding or staffing issues at the IRS and everything to do with releasing the President’s tax information to the public,” the petition said.
A federal appeals court ruled in August that tax returns should be handed over to the House committee. The committee first sought the returns in 2019.
Trump most recently failed to block the request on Thursday when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down his request to reconsider a unanimous opinion from one of its three-judge panels approving the committee’s access to the documents.
While Trump’s team claims the panel’s bid to obtain the tax returns is purely political, the committee insists the documents are valuable to assess how the Internal Revenue Service performs. presidential audits.
“The law has always been on our side,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement after Thursday’s ruling. “Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We’ve waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”
At the heart of the dispute is a federal tax law mandating that the Treasury Department “shall furnish” tax information requested by the Ways and Means Committee, a law Trump’s lawyers suggest is unconstitutional.
Democrats have been clamoring to get a glimpse of Trump’s tax returns since 2015 when he launched his bid for president and broke decades of precedent by not releasing the documents.
Besides having his personal tax returns sought after, Trump is also facing pressure by criminal probes into his personal business, possession of government documents after leaving office and efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election results.
