Jeff Bridges is reflecting on his recent health battles with cancer and COVID-19.
The True Grit actor, 72, announced in 2020 that he’d been diagnosed with lymphoma. In March 2021, while undergoing chemotherapy treatments, he contracted COVID-19.
“The chemo wipes out your immune system and when COVID hit me, I had nothing to fight it,” Bridges told E! News. “I was just really at death’s door a couple of times there.”
“I remember the doctors saying to me, ‘Jeff, you gotta fight,'” he recalled. He said he thought he was “in surrender mode” but was able to change his mindset thanks to his medical team, trainers and family who “brought me back.”
The Old Man star shared in September 2021 that he’s in remission.
Having survived both cancer and COVID-19, Bridges said he is prioritizing his wife, Susan, whom he married in 1977 and calls “the love of my life,” as well as their three daughters and their three grandchildren.
“So often things are right on our nose that we don’t appreciate,” he said. “But it turns out there are many positive sides in my life that came out of that experience.”
Bridges just began appearing in commercials touting monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19, which he said helped him.
Strumming a guitar as he walks through the woods, he declares, “I love being alive, man!”
Ozzy Osbourne has premiered the first episode of his new behind-the-scenes series documenting the making of his new solo album, Patient Number 9.
The six-and-a-half-minute video is titled “When Ozzy Calls” and features interviews with a selection of the many guests that contribute to Patient Number 9, including Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, producer and guitarist Andrew Watt and Ozzy’s wife, Sharon Osbourne.
You can watch “When Ozzy Calls” streaming now on YouTube. The second episode debuts next Friday, September 23, followed by the third and final installment on September 30.
Patient Number 9 is out now. It also includes contributions from Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for MTV/Paramount Global
BLACKPINK released their music video for “Shut Down,” the latest single off their newly released album, BORN PINK. The group was clear about one thing in the song, rapping: “It’s not a comeback since we never left.”
The feisty music video sees the group — comprised of Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa — asserting their dominance by sitting on a blinged-out tank and running through a city filled with BLACKPINK signs.
BORN PINK dropped Friday. To celebrate its release, Los Angeles is now home to the BORN PINK: The Pop-Up Experience, which runs all weekend long. Fans can visit the site at 8175 Melrose Avenue until Sunday at 6 p.m. PT.
BLACKPINK’s new pop-up experience is in partnership with Spotify, which revealed the group broke a new record on their site. After releasing the track “Pink Venom” last month, the song became this year’s most-streamed single by a female act.
It’s been nearly two years since BLACKPINK released an album. They released their debut studio work, The Album, in October 2020.
Lisa chatted with CR Fashion Book about the new album and how the band maps out their new phases in music. Billboardobtained an advance copy of the spread, which airs as part of the mag’s fall/winter edition.
“Before our comebacks, we always get into lengthy conversations about what we can do to improve,” Lisa said. “We try to bring out the best outcomes by discussing our thoughts on music videos, outfits, choreography, and even the littlest details such as hair colors.”
Lisa opened up about the two-year wait for the new album and revealed she has kept herself pretty busy in the meantime. She said she’s been working to “improve myself as an artist” by working in music, photography and fashion.
After threatening to end his partnership with Gap in a recent social media tirade, Kanye West has now made it official.
His attorney, Nicholas Gravante Jr., notified Gap on Thursday that the YEEZY company is terminating their partnership. West accused Gap of breaking their agreement by not releasing apparel or opening planned retail stores, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Ye stated that his contract required the company to sell 40 percent of his YEEZY line in stores during the second half of 2021 and open five YEEZY retail locations by July 31, 2023.
The 24-time Grammy winner previously issued Gap an ultimatum in a since-deleted Instagram video, which accused the company of stealing his designs.
“You have to really give me the position to be Ye and let me do what I’m thinking, or I have to do the thinking somewhere else,” West said in the clip. He added that he has plans to “open YEEZY stores worldwide,” starting in Atlanta.
Pentatonix‘s Scott Hoying unleashed his first solo single on Friday called “Mars.”
The Grammy winner infuses his signature, soaring vocals into a song that contains deeply personal lyrics about his journey of self-discovery and finding love.
“The song ‘Mars’ is very special to me, it’s not only a song I’m very proud of but also releasing it is such a symbol of all the self work I’ve done over the years,” Scott said in a statement. “It’s a song I wrote from such an honest place about the love of my life and how much he impacted me as a person.”
He continued, “I’ve always dreamed of releasing solo music, but for a multitude of different reasons I never did. This year has been really special and transformative for me so it felt like the right time to go for it.”
In addition to a new single, Scott released its official music video that was shot in Joshua Tree National Park. He picked the location because, while he couldn’t actually film the video on Mars, the barren landscape of the national landmark was enough to capture the red planet’s allure.
The single is available to download and stream now.
(NEW YORK) — A hotter-than-expected inflation report this week pummeled the stock market and punctured hopes of relief for strained households.
New government data showed that prices rose slightly in August, worsening the cost woes for consumers as the Federal Reserve readies to decide on another interest rate hike next week.
While prices are rising in nearly every sector, some products have experienced more significant price spikes than others.
At the grocery store, for instance, price leaps vary considerably. The price of eggs is up nearly 40% from where it stood last August; while the price for margarine trails close behind, having jumped 38% over that time, according to the consumer price index released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The price of pork chops, however, rose little more than 5% since last August; and the price of tomatoes even inched downward over that period.
“We’re getting to a point where a lot of things are coming back into balance now,” Omar Sharif, founder and president of research firm Inflation Insights, told ABC News.
Still, many prices continue to climb sharply, since businesses face a host of heightened costs tied to supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and distribution costs, he said.
“We haven’t been in a situation in a long time where the entire cost structure of operating your business has gone up at the same time,” Sharif said. “Given the inflationary environment, it’s a lot easier to pass these costs along to your consumers.”
Here’s what you need to know about which prices are going up the most and why:
Airfare and travel-related expenses
Those who took a flight over the summer know that airfare prices have skyrocketed. Airline fares have jumped 33% since last August, which far outpaces the overall year-over-year inflation rate of 8.3%.
The steep increase in prices owes to the release of pent up demand from the pandemic, when people across the globe isolated in their homes and forwent travel. That leap in demand has collided with a shrunken supply, Sharif said, noting a pilot shortage this year that has reduced the flight capacity of airlines to roughly 80%.
“Post-omicron bookings this year have skyrocketed,” he said. “It’s one thing if you don’t have enough baggage handlers. It’s another if you don’t have enough pilots.”
Travelers have received some small relief, however. Between July and August, the pace of prices for airfare actually fell by about 4.5%.
Still, other prices in transportation and transportation-related goods have risen sharply over the past year. The cost of public transportation is up more than 20% since last August; and the price of tires over that time rose nearly 14%.
Gas and diesel fuel
Energy price hikes continue to dramatically outpace the overall inflation rate. The CPI’s energy index, a general measure of energy prices, rose almost 24% since last August.
Despite a sustained drop in gas prices over recent months, the cost of gas remains about 25% higher than it was a year ago.
The cost at the pump for diesel fuel has worsened even further over the last year. A category of prices called “other motor fuels” — which includes diesel and alternatives like ethanol — skyrocketed 53% since last August.
Diesel prices are especially important because they push prices upward in industries across the economy that rely on diesel trucks for the distribution of their products, said Sharif.
“It’s costly to move stuff across the country,” he said.
Gas prices have fallen in recent months amid a drop in demand from the summer peak and a decline in crude oil prices.
But the price of gas remains elevated due in part to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a widespread industry exit from Russia that has pushed millions of barrels of oil off the market.
Meanwhile, a longstanding oil supply shortage endures from a pandemic-induced production slowdown that hasn’t caught up with the bounce back in demand as people have returned to many of their pre-pandemic activities.
Eggs, flour and coffee
It doesn’t take a sleuth at the grocery store to find sky-high prices. But some sticker shocks delivers a stronger blow than others.
As mentioned, the prices of eggs and margarine have risen dramatically. The costs of other breakfast items have also spiked. The price of roasted coffee is up almost 19% over a year prior; while the price of milk has jumped 17% over that time.
The price of flour, meanwhile, has leapt a staggering 23% since last August, sending prices up for desserts and other baked goods.
The cost increases don’t stop at products meant to be consumed by human beings. The price of pet food has gone up 13% since a year ago.
Scotty McCreery is adding some new songs — and a new vinyl version — to his September 2021 album, Same Truck. The deluxe version of the project will arrive on vinyl, digital and CD this November.
Ahead of the release, Scotty dropped “Nothin’ Right,” which is one of six new tracks featured on the album. The new song — which Scotty co-wrote — is a twangy, relaxation anthem that the singer says gets a great response when he plays it in his live shows.
“We had more songs I loved ready for the original release of Same Truck than we could put on that album, so I am pumped that Triple Tigers asked me to do a deluxe edition where I could add six mor songs,” the singer explains.
“We’ve also had a lot of requests for a vinyl version of Same Truck over the last year,” he adds, “so I’m excited we can offer that option as well.”
The deluxe version of Same Truck comes out November 18, but it’s available to pre-order and pre-save now.
Bush has premiered a new song called “Heavy Is the Ocean,” a track off the band’s upcoming album, The Art of Survival.
In a statement, frontman Gavin Rossdale says that “Heavy Is the Ocean” “sets the tone and the gravitas” for The Art of Survival as the record’s opener.
“I love the power of the ocean,” Rossdale shares. “It’s mesmerizing to me. It feeds your soul. The song uses the imagery I love.”
“At this point, I’m chained at the zoo of rock!” he adds. “So, I was like, ‘F*** it, I’m going to turn that puppy up.’ This one definitely represents The Art of Survival.”
You can listen to “Heavy Is the Ocean” now via digital outlets.
The Art ofSurvival, the follow-up to 2020’s The Kingdom, will be released October 7. It also includes the previously released single “More than Machines.”
Bush is currently on tour alongside Alice in Chains and Breaking Benjamin. The outing concludes October 8 in Mansfield, Massachusetts.
The second season of HBO’s absurdist comedy Los Espookys kicks off Friday. The show, produced by and co-starring SNL veteran Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, and Julio Torres, is primarily in Spanish but quickly found a mainstream audience.
That said, it’s a little hard to describe, even for its creators. “I mean, the basic [pitch] is like sort of like, ‘Four friends put together a group that are hired to fool people,'” Armisen tells ABC Audio, admitting that falls short.
“I know, it feels so hard to distill,” Fabrega agrees.
“That’s why the elevator pitch would need, like, an emergency stop and like, ‘Okay, I need a few minutes to describe this,'” she says with a laugh.
The basic premise is sort of like if the Scooby-Doo gang pulled off hauntings instead of solving them, but the comedy quickly built its own madcap world.
“The show just kept evolving and evolving…and it just got more and more absurd because that’s our shared sensibility,” Torres explains.
For Armisen, who is partially of Peruvian descent, producing the show gave him a unique opportunity to bring a different comedic voice to a mainstream American audience.
“It was mostly about just wanting to see a culture in a part of Latin American culture that we don’t see very often, which is something a little more fantastical…,” he explains. “That was the thing that was a sort of launching pad. But from there, it just became something…much deeper.”
Fabrega agrees, adding she’s happy the show is restarting during Hispanic Heritage Month. “It is really fun to kind of show…like a different take of Latinx representation,” she says. “…I think it’s very freeing to show like, yeah, there’s all different sort of walks of life under the enormous umbrella that is ‘Latinx.'”
Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s live album and documentary film focusing on a previously unheard and unseen 1970 concert at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall both got their release today.
The album, titled At the Royal Albert Hall, is available on CD, cassette, 180-gram vinyl and digital formats.
The film, Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, premiered today on Netflix. As previously reported, the movie, which is and is narrated by Jeff Bridges, includes footage of CCR’s entire April 14, 1970, concert at the Royal Albert Hall. It also features archival interviews with all four Creedence members, scenes of the band touring Europe in 1970 and a look at the group’s history.
“Of the live performances that we have recorded, that was the best performance,” CCR drummer Doug “Cosmo” Clifford tells ABC Audio of the Royal Albert Hall show.
Clifford says he got a kick out of watching footage of the gig, noting that the movie is Creedence’s first and only concert film.
“It’s really a funny thing. I know that’s us and I know that’s me on the drums … but when I look at it, it’s like it’s another band,” Cosmo says. “You know, I’m watching somebody else pound away on the stage.”
Regarding Bridges’ participation in the film, Clifford says, “I’m a big fan of his, for sure … I can’t think of a better narrator than Jeff.”
Meanwhile, the Travelin’ Band film will be available on Blu-ray as part of a super deluxe At the Royal Albert Hall box set that will be released November 14. The package also will feature CD and two-LP vinyl versions of the album, a bonus CD containing music that’s featured in the movie, a booklet and more.
Here’s the album’s full track list:
“Born on the Bayou”
“Green River”
“Tombstone Shadow”
“Travelin’ Band”
“Fortunate Son”
“Commotion”
“Midnight Special”
“Bad Moon Rising”
“Proud Mary”
“The Night Time Is the Right Time”
“Good Golly Miss Molly”
“Keep On Chooglin'”
