The title is apt, because the album features Meghan “taking back” the sound she first introduced on her debut album, Title. She tells Rolling Stone, “It’s like Title 2.0. It’s my old school. It’s true to myself in all the weird genres that I go to, but also modern with my doo-wop in there.”
She adds, “The lyrics are stronger than ever, and it’s still a party.”
Meghan also tells Rolling Stone that the title refers to her “taking back” her power, because, “During the pandemic, I lost that…I just felt like everything I ever achieved is all gone…it crippled me a little bit with my confidence.” But she says when people started telling her her new music was her best yet, she started to feel better about it, and herself.
The first single and video, “Bad For Me,” are out Friday and feature Teddy Swims. The album also includes Dominican singer Natti Natasha and legendary Cuban artist Arturo Sandoval on the song “Mama Wanna Mambo.”
And while Meghan says there are lots of songs on the album inspired by the fact that she’s now a mom, she adds that she also wrote songs about “loving myself for me because I need them the most.”
Meghan explains that after she gave birth, she had to “learn how to love my body with all this new s**t” — stretch marks and a C-section scar. She reveals, “I didn’t feel sexy ever. I didn’t want to make love to my mans because I was like ‘Ew, gross.'”
But now, she says, “My body is amazing. I worked really…hard on my body. I’ve never felt better, more confident, happier and healthier.”
Dolly Parton’s Dollywood theme park launched its Smoky Mountain Summer Celebration last weekend, including the fan-favorite Gazillion Bubble Show.
But this year, the show features something new: A fantasy segment that offers a tribute to Dolly and her childhood in the Smoky Mountains.
For those who aren’t familiar with Dolly’s upbringing, she was one of 12 kids growing up in the rural wilds of Tennessee. Though the family was poor, it was filled with music: Dolly’s mother played guitar and sang, and a young Dolly first started singing in church. She started performing at just 10 years old and made her Grand Ole Opry debut only three years later.
Dolly’s childhood in the Smokys has inspired several of her most popular songs, including her classic single “Coat of Many Colors.”
Dollywood’s Gazillion Bubble Show is back this year for the first time since 2017. For more details on the Smoky Mountain Summer Celebration and to plan your visit, visit the theme park’s website.
Chris Brown is giving fans a glimpse into his new album, Breezy, revealing the official track list on Wednesday.
Taking to Instagram Stories, the Grammy-winning artist revealed that his upcoming tenth studio album will have a total of 24 songs and a star-studded list of features. Among those joining Brown on the album are Lil Durk, Bryson Tiller, Lil Wayne, Jack Harlow, Lil Baby, Tory Lanez, Blxst and more.
In a follow-up IG Story, Brown also shared a snapshot of some additional tracks that he plans to feature on a deluxe version of Breezy. Alongside a picture that showed the names of nine songs, he wrote, “BREEZY Deluxe… For the fans who wanted more music Trust me.”
“Wheels Fall Off” feat. Capella Grey and Lil Durk
“CAB” feat. Fivio Foreign
“Pitch Black”
“Possessive” feat. Yung Bleu and Lil Wayne
“Addicted” feat. Lil Baby
“Call Me Every Day” feat. Wizkid
“Closure” feat. H.E.R.
“Need You Right Here” feat. Bryson Tiller
“Sex Memories” feat. Ella Mai
“Hmhmm” feat. Est GEE
“Psychic” feat. Jack Harlow
“Show It” feat. Blxst
“Sleep at Night”
“Passing Time”
“WE (Warm Embrace)”
“Forbidden”
“Bad Then A” feat. Tory Lanez
“Survive the Night”
“Dream”
“Slide”
“Harder”
“On Some New Shit”
“Luckiest Man”
“Iffy”
(CAMBRIDGE, England) — Prince William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, visited a museum in Cambridge, England, Thursday to view their first official joint portrait.
“It’s quite big,” William said upon seeing the portrait of himself and his wife, which was painted by award-winning British portrait artist Jamie Coreth.
William and Kate, both 40, viewed the portrait during a visit to the University of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum.
The portrait of the Cambridges will be on display to the public at the museum for the next three years, and will then travel to other local galleries as well as the National Portrait Gallery in London.
While at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Cambridges’ portrait will be used “as a means of encouraging children and young people of all backgrounds from across the county to take an interest in art in all its forms,” according to Kensington Palace.
In the portrait, William is wearing a dark suit and blue tie, while Kate is wearing an emerald green dress by The Vampire’s Wife.
The dress appears to be the same one Kate wore to an evening reception at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin in 2020.
The new portrait of the Cambridges was commissioned last year by the Cambridgeshire Royal Portrait Fund as a gift to Cambridgeshire, a county in eastern England.
Coreth, the portrait artist, described the painting as a “gift for the people of Cambridgeshire.”
“It has been the most extraordinary privilege of my life to be chosen to paint this picture,” Coreth said in a statement. “I wanted to show Their Royal Highnesses in a manner where they appeared both relaxed and approachable, as well as elegant and dignified.”
He continued, “As it is the first portrait to depict them together, and specifically during their time as The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, I wanted the image to evoke a feeling of balance between their public and private lives. The piece was commissioned as a gift for the people of Cambridgeshire, and I hope they will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed creating it.”
(BUDAPEST, Hungary) — American swimmer Anita Alvarez is breathing a sigh of relief on Thursday after her coach dramatically rescued her when the athlete fainted and sank to the bottom of the swimming pool in the middle of her routine on Wednesday night.
The dramatic scenes unfolded at the World Aquatic Championships in Budapest, Hungary, while Alvarez, 25, was competing in the final of the women’s solo free event and suddenly lost consciousness, causing her to sink to the bottom of the competition pool.
Andrea Fuentes, Alvarez’s coach, immediately dove into the water and was able to pull Alvarez to the surface before the swimmer was taken off for medical treatment on a stretcher as the rest of Team USA, who were watching the competition inside the arena, looked on clearly shaken by the event.
Fuentes, speaking exclusively to Good Morning America on Thursday, explained what was going through her mind during the ordeal.
“When you finish, you really want to breathe because you hold your breath for a long time and the first thing you want to do is breathe,” Fuentes said. “And I thought she was going down, so I was like, immediately, [I] knew that something was happening so I went as fast as I could. And I reach her and grab her to the surface and tried to calm her down and make her breathe.”
Fuentes began administering CPR until medics and the team doctor were able to take over.
“Anita is okay,” Fuentes said in a statement after the terrifying incident. “The doctors checked all vitals and everything is normal: heart rate, oxygen, sugar levels, blood pressure, etc… all is okay.”
Fuentes continued: “We sometimes forget that this happens in other high-endurance sports. Marathon, cycling, cross country… we all have seen images where some athletes don’t make it to the finish line and others help them to get there. Our sport is no different than others, just in a pool, we push through limits and sometimes we find them.”
Even after having to be rescued, Alvarez still managed to finish the competition in seventh place with a final score of 87.6333.
Alvarez suffered through a similar event at the FINA Olympic Games Artistic Swimming Qualification Tournament in Barcelona in June 2021 when she fainted while competing and Fuentes came to her immediate aid in the pool again on that occasion.
For now, however, a decision on whether or not Alvarez will continue on in this year’s competition has yet to be made.
“Anita feels good now and the doctors also say she is okay,” concluded Fuentes. “Tomorrow she will rest all day and will decide with the doctor if she can swim free team finals or not. Thank you for all of your well wishes for Anita.”
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Jussie Smollett “went where the love is” for a very friendly interview with the SiriusXM show Sway in the Morning, where he again maintained his innocence in the hate crime hoax for which he was convicted and spent six days in jail.
The former Empire star was convicted of staging the attack by paying two Nigerian men to pretend to be racist Donald Trump supporters and rough him up in Chicago in January 2019, including putting a noose around his neck.
When he was sentenced earlier this year, Cook County Judge James Linn excoriated Smollett, calling him a “charlatan” who “denigrated” actual hate crime victims.
“If I had done this, I’d be a piece of s***. And I don’t think that’s really questionable,” Smollett insisted to Sway in the interview. “I know I didn’t do this.”
“If I had done something like this, it would mean that I stuck my fist in the pain of black African Americans in this country for over 400 years,” the actor added. “It would mean that I stuck my fist in the fears of the LGBTQ community all over the world. I am not that motherf*****. Never have been. Don’t need to be.”
Smollett said his six-day stay behind bars let him “reset and regain clarity,” through fasting.
“Lord knows I wanted to get out. I was in a f***ing psych ward,” he noted.
Smollett said ultimately, “…everybody inside was very kind and when I left [jail], I thanked them all…you just showed me respect I’m grateful for.'”
Jussie also addressed some of those in the entertainment industry who took shots at him, like Dave Chappelle, whose “Juicy Smollett” bit became an instant classic.
“I’ve seen him since, and that’s all I’ll say,” Smollett declared.
Euphoria star Hunter Schafer has been tapped to star alongside Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler in Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, according to Variety. Schafer will play Tigris Snow, the cousin and confidante of Blythe’s Coriolanus Snow. The film, per the studio takes place “years before 18-year-old Coriolanus would become the tyrannical President of Panem.” He’s alarmed to be assigned to mentor Zegler’s Lucy Gray Baird. But after Lucy Gray grabs Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to “turn the odds in their favor,” leading to a “race against time to survive,” ultimately revealing who is a songbird, and who is a snake.” The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is due in theaters on Nov. 17, 2023…
Peacock’s Craig Robinson-led comedy is Killing It. The streaming service has picked up the series for a second season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Killing It, which reunites Robinson with his Brooklyn Nine-Nine showrunner Dan Goor, follows “one man’s quest to achieve the American dream — and hunt really big snakes,” per Peacock. The cast of Killing It also includes Claudia O’Doherty, Rell Battle, Scott MacArthur, Stephanie Nogueras, Wyatt Walter and Jet Miller…
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday announced that Oscar-winning actress and CODA star Marlee Matlin is one of its newly elected members of the Board of Governors for the 2022-2023 year, along with cinematographer Dion Beebe, director Jason Reitman, producer Jason Blum, casting director Richard Hicks and others, according to Variety. Each of the Academy’s 17 branches are represented by three governors who may serve up to two three-year terms — consecutive or non-consecutive — followed by a two-year hiatus, after which eligibility renews for up to two additional terms for a lifetime maximum of 12 years. Matlin will represent the Actors Branch…
(ST. MICHAEL, Minn.) — A 30-hour standoff involving Wright County sheriff’s deputies and a suspect carrying a rifle came to end when authorities stormed the home in St. Michael, Minnesota, on Wednesday night.
The standoff began after the sheriff’s office received a complaint that a man and woman were verbally arguing and the man was carrying a rifle.
The sheriff’s office said it received the gun complaint at 12:37 a.m. on Tuesday regarding a domestic situation. The residence then remained under surveillance until emergency response units arrived at approximately 2:50 p.m. on Tuesday. Authorities were on the scene into Wednesday night, according to the sheriff’s office.
Police identified the suspect as 39-year-old Brandon Gardas. He has active arrest warrants for domestic assault and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to the sheriff’s office.
The standoff came to an end at approximately 8:30 p.m. Wednesday after law enforcement entered Gardas’ home. Officers shot Gardas upon entering the residence, police said.
He was airlifted to an area hospital and his condition is unknown. No police officers were injured.
Gardas fired several rounds at law enforcement during the standoff, authorities said.
Police said the area surrounding the home will remain secured for investigative purposes and asked the public to stay away from that area. Earlier Wednesday, police had told people in the immediate vicinity of the home to evacuate due to the “volatile nature” of the incident and said they rerouted several roads in the area for public safety.
(WASHINGTON) — Yellowstone National Park reopened three of its five entrances to visitors on Wednesday after unprecedented flooding closed the park on June 13 and reshaped many of its rivers, canyons and roads.
The south loop’s Cody, West Yellowstone and Grand Teton/Jackson entrances opened at 8 a.m. on Wednesday. The Madison, Old Faithful, Grant Village, Lake Village, Canyon Village and Norris areas of the park will again become accessible to visitors.
The park’s northern region, including Lamar Valley and Mammoth Hot Springs, will remain closed until at least early July, park officials said.
Many of the park’s famous wildlife-viewing areas will also be unavailable to visitors returning to the south loop region of the park.
Main routes into the Montana tourist towns of Gardiner, Red Lodge and Cooke City continue to be closed off.
A statement from the National Park Service said that park staff have engaged over 1,000 business owners, park partners, commercial operators and residents in the surrounding gateway communities to help create a plan for how to manage summer visitation while the park’s north loop remains closed.
“It is impossible to reopen only one loop in the summer without implementing some type of system to manage visitation,” the park’s superintendent, Cam Sholly, said in a statement.
The park has subsequently instituted an interim visitor access plan, coined the Alternating License Plate System (ALPS), to balance the demand for visitor access, park resource protection and economic interests of the local communities.
Park officials said the plan was suggested by those from gateway communities during a major public engagement with the park last week. They added that the National Park Service will actively monitor the new system while also building a new reservation system that can be implemented if needed.
According to ALPS, visitation will essentially be monitored based on a vehicle’s license plate.
For public vehicle entry, it will not matter if the last numerical digit on the plate is odd or even. For all others, entrance will be granted based on the odd and even numbered days of the calendar month, so that odd-numbered ending license plates will be able to enter on odd days and vice versa for those ending in even numbers.
For vehicles with personalized license plates that only contain letters, entry will be granted along with odd-numbered ending plates. Vehicles with a combination of letters and numbers that end in a letter will be granted entry on even-numbered days.
Park officials have stated that under this new plan, entrance station staff will turn away vehicles that do not follow the odd-even structure.
There are some exceptions. For one, current commercial use operators with active commercial use permits can enter on any day, including those with commercial tours and stock groups. Commercial motor coaches will also be permitted to enter regardless of their license plate makeup.
Visitors who have proof of overnight reservations in the park’s hotels, campgrounds and backcountry reservations may also be permitted entry regardless of the day’s number status. Essential services such as mail, employees and contractors will be able to enter any day as well.
Regardless of license plates, motorcycle groups will only be permitted into the park on even days.
The ALPS plan is temporary, as the park braces for its summer season while managing its partial-capacity status.
Sholly said that as repairs continue across the park, park officials will work to reopen new sections throughout the summer.
“It is critical for visitors to stay informed about this interim system as we evaluate its effectiveness. They should plan ahead and be patient with us as we are still managing significant recovery while moving into this operational phase,” Sholly said.
(ATLANTA) — Extreme heat is forcing the Atlanta Zoo to close its gates early on Wednesday and Thursday.
The heat index — what temperature it feels like — is forecast to skyrocket Wednesday to 100 degrees in Atlanta.
Some animals who call the Atlanta Zoo home may be brought inside earlier in the day than usual because of the high temperatures, said Rachel Davis, the zoo’s director of communications. Animals also have access to shade or water features like water-mist fans, she said.
“The Animal Care Teams carefully monitor and check in on all animal habitats at multiple times throughout the day,” Davis told ABC News via email. Some “are native to tropical environments in Africa or southeast Asia. Others, like giant pandas, which are native to cool, high-altitude forests in China, would already, just by virtue of the season, be spending time in their indoor dayroom habitats, which are kept in the 60s Fahrenheit year-round.”
Some zoo residents even get to indulge in frozen treats!
“These vary among species and their diets — for example, for gorillas it might be frozen fruit juice,” Davis said.
The zoo said its last entry time for Wednesday and Thursday will be 12:30 to 1 p.m, with normal hours expected to resume Friday.
