Shawn Mendes kicked off his first proper tour since the pandemic began in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night. Wonder: The World Tour comes in support of his most recent album, Wonder, which arrived in 2020.
According to setlist.fm, Shawn’s show is split into three different parts: act I is called Wonder, act II is called Black Cherry and act III is called Vanilla Sky. The encore portion is called Cool Runnings.
Shawn’s set list included plenty of songs from Wonder, including the title track, “Call My Friends,” “305, “Look Up to the Stars,” “Teach Me How to Love” and “Song for No One,” as well as his collaboration with Justin Bieber, “Monster.”
He also performed the hits, of course, from “Stitches” and “If I Can’t Have You” to “Treat You Better,” “Lost In Japan” and even “Señorita,” his duet with ex-girlfriend Camila Cabello. “Message in a Bottle,” a 1979 song by The Police, was a surprise cover. Shawn also performed recent stand-alone singles “It’ll Be Okay” and “When You’re Gone.”
Even Britney Spears has to hit the pause button on social media. The “Toxic” singer opened up to fans about how it affects her self-esteem and mental health.
“Do you know how many times I literally wanted to crawl in a hole and feel like an idiot while looking at social media ???” she shared while posting a video of her, Robert Pattinson and Cade Hudson dancing to Katy Perry‘s “Firework.”
The Grammy winner noted she’s only human and isn’t perfect, even though she will come across posts of women with “hot bodies” that make her feel like she has to be. “I lose my phone 3x a day, can’t find my shades when they are on top of my head … I’m human and I do my best !!! i know I completely suck most of the time but I still try my best.”
Britney also spoke of watching people edit her photos and videos during her conservatorship, so she is “well aware” of what’s happening behind the scenes when she looks at social media posts. She also said she is “leaving the whole system behind.”
Joking that her dancing video is her attempt to “be like Batman,” whom Pattinson plays, Britney noted, “It’s a hard world but we’re all fireworks as @katyperry says … I mean ask Batman if he knows !!!”
(NEW YORK) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the associate of Jeffrey Epstein who lured underage girls into the disgraced financier’s lurid world, was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in federal prison and a $750,000 fine following her December conviction on five criminal counts, including sex trafficking.
Maxwell addressed the court for five minutes and said she empathized with the victims, but she didn’t take responsibility for causing their suffering.
As Maxwell spoke, victims and accusers smirked and raised their eyebrows. At least two broke into tears.
One accuser said seeing Maxwell in ankle chains brought her comfort and felt appropriate.
Maxwell said the statements from victims and accusers were “terribly difficult to hear,” and that it was “difficult to absorb the scale and extent” of their experiences.
To the victims, Maxwell said, “I am sorry for the pain that you experienced,” adding, “I hope my conviction and harsh incarceration” brings some closure.
“It is my sincerest wish to all those in this courtroom … that this day brings this terrible chapter to an end,” she said.
Maxwell also said, “It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein.”
She called Epstein a “manipulative man” who was “cunning,” “controlling” and “fooled all of those in his orbit.”
Maxwell, 60, and Epstein, who died by suicide in jail, “were partners in crime who sexually exploited young girls together,” said New York City federal prosecutors, who had asked the judge for a sentence of at least 30 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Maxwell and Epstein selected their victims carefully and asserted that it was no accident the four accusers who testified — “Jane,” “Kate,” Carolyn and Annie — came from single-mother households. The victims were isolated and plied with gifts, flattery, and promises of career help in what federal prosecutor Alison Moe described as a pattern of grooming and abuse.
“Ghislaine Maxwell played an instrumental role in the horrific sexual abuse of multiple young teenage girls,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “As part of a disturbing agreement with Jeffrey Epstein, Maxwell identified, groomed, and abused multiple victims, while she enjoyed a life of extraordinary luxury and privilege.”
Judge Alison Nathan on Tuesday called Maxwell’s conduct “heinous and predatory” and said, “the damage done to these young girls in incalculable.”
“A very serious and very significant sentence is necessary,” Nathan said.
Nathan took note of Maxwell’s acknowledgment of the courage of the victims and the impact the crimes had on them, saying, “I think that’s important for the victims to hear/”
But Nathan also noted what wasn’t expressed by Maxwell: “An acceptance of responsibility.”
In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the sentence holds her “accountable for perpetrating heinous crimes against children.”
“This sentence sends a strong message that no one is above the law and it is never too late for justice,” Williams said. “We again express our gratitude to Epstein and Maxwell’s victims for their courage in coming forward, in testifying at trial, and in sharing their stories as part of today’s sentencing.”
Maxwell’s lawyer said Sunday that she had been placed on suicide watch while awaiting sentencing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn — even though her attorneys had told the court she was not suicidal and that outside psychologists agreed with that assessment.
Maxwell, who maintains her innocence, accused the government of treating her “as if she were a proxy” for Epstein and asked the judge to impose a sentence well below the maximum 55 years.
“The witnesses at trial testified about Ms. Maxwell’s facilitation of Epstein’s abuse, but Epstein was always the central figure: Epstein was the mastermind, Epstein was the principal abuser, and Epstein orchestrated the crimes for his personal gratification,” defense attorneys said in their sentencing memorandum. “Indeed, had Ghislaine Maxwell never had the profound misfortune of meeting Jeffrey Epstein over 30 years ago, she would not be here.”
The defense also suggested Maxwell was susceptible to Epstein’s influence in part because of her relationship with her father, the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, who the defense said verbally and physically abused her.
“Ghislaine vividly recalls a time when, at age 13, she tacked a poster of a pony on the newly painted wall of her bedroom. Rather than mar the paint with tape, she carefully hammered a thin tack to mount the poster,” the defense memo said. “This outraged her father, who took the hammer and banged on Ghislaine’s dominant hand, leaving it severely bruised and painful for weeks to come.”
Prosecutors called Maxwell’s efforts to deflect blame “absurd.”
“If anything stands out from the defendant’s sentencing submission, it is her complete failure to address her offensive conduct and her utter lack of remorse,” federal prosecutors said in their memo to the judge. “Instead of showing even a hint of acceptance of responsibility, the defendant makes a desperate attempt to cast blame wherever else she can.”
Maxwell’s defense insisted at trial that the government’s case relied on the “erroneous memories” of four accusers who defense attorney Laura Menninger said “inserted” Maxwell into accounts that initially included only Epstein.
“The accusers’ memories … started to shift,” Menninger said. “The truth was manipulated and changed over time.”
The defense also argued that money brought the accusers forward “with their personal injury lawyers right there next to them.” Menninger said each accuser took home millions, “and now they are stuck with the stories they told.”
Prosecutors, whose case included two dozen witnesses, said Maxwell “made the choice to sexually exploit numerous underage girls” as part of a scheme that ran from at least 1994 to 2004. Two women who testified said they were 14 when Epstein began to abuse them, sometimes with Maxwell present or directly involved.
“She personally engaged in sexual abuse when she fondled the breasts of Jane, Annie, and Carolyn. And she used her role as a supposedly respectable, glamorous, older woman to lure these victims into a false sense of security,” prosecutors said.
Defense attorney Bobbi Sternheim said Maxwell intends to appeal her conviction.
ABC Audio has confirmed that the anticipated sequel to the hit reboot Ghostbusters: Afterlife is due in theaters December 20, 2023.
As hinted in the end credits of that film, the live action sequel will return to the original two Ghostbusters films’ original haunting grounds, New York City.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife arrived in theaters in November 2021 after multiple pandemic delays. It was directed and co-written by Jason Reitman, the son of the series’ original director, Ivan Reitman, who died earlier this year.
The Columbia Pictures film, which starred Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace and original Ghostbusters cast members Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts, made around $200 million globally.
Jake Owen is a chart-topping country star, but he almost had an entirely different career.
Growing up in Florida, Jake’s dad, Steve Owen, was a semifinalist in the U.S. Amateur, a golf tournament for amateur players. He passed that passion on to his son, who initially had plans to play professional golf.
“He was a great player and I always felt like as a kid I wanted to fulfill these dreams that my dad never got to fulfill,” he explains to John Rich.
But those dreams were dashed when Jake was injured in a wakeboarding accident that led to surgery on his shoulder and left him unable to play golf while attending Florida State University. After the accident, Jake learned guitar and eventually moved to Nashville, where he became a successful country singer with #1 hits like “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” and “Homemade.”
Jake admits that as a kid, he quit activities a lot and believes his dad may have viewed him as a “quitter.” But he sees it from a new perspective now, telling people not to get discouraged if their interests change.
“I think it’s important for people out there to know that it’s OK to try things and if you don’t enjoy it, move onto something else,” he advises.
Tisha Campbell joined Martin Lawrence and other cast members from his self-titled sitcom for a 30-year anniversary reunion on June 16 on BET+, inspiring many fans to call for a reboot of the ’90s series. However, Campbell doubts the show will have a second life.
The NAACP Image Award winner loved reminiscing with the famed comedian and co-stars Tichina Arnold and Carl Anthony Payne II, however, one key actor was missing, the late Thomas Mikal Ford, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 52.
“Tommy is not with us,” Tisha told Entertainment Tonight. “We would miss him so much. Well never say never, like Martin says, but it’s just too hard to see ourselves without him.”
Campbell, whose extensive acting credits include House Party, Boomerang and School Daze, is now looking forward to next month’s premiere of her new TV series, Uncoupled, co-starring Neil Patrick Harris.
“It’s really a very different show,” she says. “It’s [produced by] Darren Starr, who created Sex and the City, and it’s like a Sex and the City but got a little bit of LGBTQ happening. So it’s a really a beautiful piece. I am very proud of it, and I got to work with some amazing actors — Tony Award winners and Oscar winners — so I am really excited about this show.”
Billie Eilish and her brother, FINNEAS, are among the 397 individuals who’ve been invited this year to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the folks who vote on and award the Oscars. If they accept, they’ll get to vote on who wins Oscars in the future.
The invitees have “distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures,” the Academy notes and are divided into different groups, such as actors, cinematographers, directors, makeup artists, hairstylists and, in Billie and FINNEAS’ case, music.
This year’s class of invitees is 44% women, with 37% belonging to underrepresented ethnic or racial communities; 50% are from countries and territories outside the U.S. Among the invitees are 15 Oscar winners, including Billie and FINNEAS, who won the Best Original Song trophy earlier this year for “No Time to Die,” from the James Bond film of the same name.
Variety reports that if everyone who’s invited accepts, the Academy will have 10,665 members, with 9,665 eligible to vote for the 95th Annual Academy Awards, scheduled for March 21, 2023.
Jon Bon Jovi may be from New Jersey, but he’s been a player in the New York City real estate market for a while. Back in 2015, he sold a six-bedroom penthouse for $34 million. Now, he’s unloaded a four-bedroom Manhattan property for $22 million.
The New York Post reports that Jon listed the West Village home last February for $22 million, so he got his asking price. The buyer is Michael Ovitz, the former president of the Walt Disney Company. The home is a 14th floor unit that Jon bought in 2017 for just under $19 million. It features a 40-foot-long living room, oak floors, floor-to-ceiling windows and a chef’s kitchen with a balcony.
The building itself features a screening room, a gym with a 75-foot pool and a golf simulator, a garden and a reflecting pool.
The Post notes that during the pandemic, Jon purchased a $43 million mansion in Palm Beach. He also owns properties in New York’s ritzy Hamptons.
Earlier this month, Jon popped up onstage with Paul McCartney, wishing the legendary former Beatle a happy 80th birthday during McCartney’s concert at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.
The thriller, which features Mötley Crüe‘s Tommy Lee, Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix and members of Five Finger Death Punch in the cast, will hit the big screen on September 14.
TheRetaliators — which is being produced by Better Noise Films, an offshoot of the Better Noise Music record label — has been in the works since 2019. It officially premiered at London’s FrightFest last summer.
Other musicians who appear in The Retaliators include members of The Hu, Ice Nine Kills and Escape the Fate.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) In the new issue of Men’s Health, Chris Pratt addresses, for the first time, online backlash from a sweet comment he made about his wife and daughter.
As reported, Pratt was flamed for celebrating the birth of Lyla, his first daughter with Katherine Schwarzenegger and his second child after 9-year-old son Jack with ex-wife Anna Faris.
Pratt and Schwarzenegger recently had a second daughter, Eloise.
“I said something like, ‘… I’m so thankful for my wife — she gave me a beautiful, healthy daughter,'” Pratt recalls. “And then a bunch of articles came out and said, ‘That’s so cringeworthy. I can’t believe Chris Pratt would thank her for a healthy daughter when his first child was born premature. That’s such a dig at his ex-wife.'”
The Jurassic World series star said, “That is f***ed up. My son’s gonna read that one day. He’s 9. And it’s etched in digital stone. It really f***ing bothered me, dude. I cried about it …”
“[W]hy are they coming after me?” he asked rhetorically of internet trolls, many of whom also harp on Pratt’s faith.
On that, he adds, “I didn’t know that I would kind of become the face of religion when really I’m not a religious person.”
Pratt explains, “I think there’s a distinction between being religious — adhering to the customs created by man, oftentimes appropriating the awe reserved for who I believe is a very real God — and using it to control people … abuse children, to steal land, to justify hatred …”
The star of Amazon Studio’s upcoming The Terminal List, adds, “The evil that’s in the heart of every single man has glommed on to the back of religion and come along for the ride.”
Pratt also denied a frequent troll topic, tying him to the Hillsong Church, which some accused of having an anti-gay agenda. “I never went to Hillsong,” Pratt says plainly. “I don’t know anyone from that church.”
In the article, Pratt’s friend and Guardians of the Galaxy series director James Gunn adds, “It absolutely infuriates me. Chris is unspeakably kind to people; he goes out of his way to help kids. He’s an especially loving father. And there’s a lot of stuff that people have literally just made up about him — about his politics, about who he is, about what he believes of other people, you know?”
