Newly-minted EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson will be “lighting up daytime” starting September 12.
J Hud’s new eponymous chat show will launch in 95% of American TV markets and will be executive produced by Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show vets Mary Connelly, Andy Lassner and Corey Palent.
Warner Bros. Unscripted Television and Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution revealed a smiling promotional pic of the star against a sequined backdrop with the words “Lighting Up Daytime!” above her.
The show will air on Fox TV stations and other station groups nationwide.
American Idol veteran Hudson official rose to the rare EGOT rank — Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winner — last Sunday, when the hit Broadway show she co-produced, A Strange Loop, snagged a Best Musical trophy.
A juror in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial said in an interview that aired Thursday on Good Morning America that when the actress cried during her testimony, the jury saw only “crocodile tears.”
“It didn’t come across as believable,” he said. “It seemed like she was able to flip the switch on her emotions. She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. It didn’t seem natural.”
Depp, he said, “just seemed a little more real in terms of how he responded to questions.”
The juror, one of seven during the six-week trial, spoke exclusively to GMA and is the only juror on record to speak publicly about the case. He asked to have his name not used for this report.
In early June, a jury in Fairfax, Virginia awarded Depp more than $10 million in damages; Heard received $2 million in her countersuit.
The catalyst for defamation countersuits was a 2018 op-ed Heard wrote in The Washington Post in which she said she “became a public figure representing domestic abuse.” Depp argued that the article suggested she was victimized by him, although she never identified him by name.
Besides how she acted on the stand, several other factors led the jury to believe Heard was not credible, the juror said.
The jury concluded the stars, “were both abusive to each other,” but Heard’s team failed to prove Depp’s abuse was physical.
“They had their husband-wife arguments…But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying,” he said.
The juror also denied the jury was swayed by outside forces, as Heard subsequently alleged.
He and “at least” three others did not have Twitter accounts. The juror also said that no one on the jury was starstruck, and their individual celebrity never played a factor in their decision. “None of us were really fans of either one of them,” he said.
Check out the full interview on Good Morning America‘s website.
Halestorm frontwoman Lzzy Hale is speaking out on being “unapologetically bisexual” in an Instagram post celebrating Pride Month.
“I understood there was something different about me from an early age,” Hale writes. “Growing up in a semi Christian household, all of the things I was feeling were inherently wrong. So I hid my bisexuality for a long time.”
She continues, “It was through being in a band, getting out of organized religion, finding my tribe and trudging through the dark murky waters of my life that I was then able to be truly comfortable owning all the things that make me…Me.”
Hale says that she’s now “Navigating within my own spectrum of this tremendous rainbow that we are all a part of.”
“What I hope to pass onto you, whether you are in a state of pride or still riding the high seas…is that by being your true self, embracing what makes you stand out to others, and owning your weird…these things ultimately become your superpowers,” Hale writes. “Your true self is precious, no one can take it from you unless you let them. Wield it like a secret weapon.”
“As far as I know…we only get one time around this ride,” she concludes. “So live and breathe every single part of you. The good, the bad, the colorful and the queer. Rock on motherf***ers! I celebrate you!”
Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit filmmaker Taika Waititi‘s patience didn’t go to infinity and beyond during a recent chat with a UK morning show promoting the Disney/Pixar film Lightyear.
The filmmaker, who voices a main part in the movie, was seated next to lead Chris Evans when This Morning‘s co-host Phillip Schofield tried slipping in a final question about Taika’s rumored engagement to “Finish Line” singer and The Voice judge, Rita Ora.
“Well, we’ve congratulated Chris on his birthday,” Schofield began, though the filmmaker was already ready for the nervously-asked follow-up: “… so Taika, are there wedding bells?”
In response, a smiling Taika said, “Oh, you’re breaking up!” and tossed away his earpiece, miming the remaining moments of the interview, as Evans laughed hysterically.
Schofield offered — though Taika couldn’t hear him — “Regardless, she’s gorgeous, we love her here, she’s always a great guest and congratulations!”
The pair have been romantically linked since 2021.
Lightyear hits theaters Friday. Taika’s next Marvel Studios film, Thor: Love and Thunder, opens July 8.
(WASHINGTON) — Chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters Thursday that the Jan. 6 committee will “soon” invite Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and an avid Trump supporter, to speak with the panel.
“We think it’s time that we would, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee,” Thompson said in the wake of revelations about emails that sources said she exchanged with right-wing lawyer John Eastman, a former clerk to Justice Thomas.
The committee has said Eastman was the mastermind behind the legal scheme to fraudulently overturn the election, in part by pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject some states’ legitimate electoral votes on Jan. 6 when Congress met to certify the election results.
Thompson didn’t give any details about public or private testimony and when the committee would make a formal invitation.
An aide to Jan. 6 committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney said she agrees it is time to formally ask Ginni Thomas to speak with the committee.
It is still unclear when the committee would ask Thomas to come and in what form they would request to speak with her.
ABC News has reached out to her lawyer for comment.
Sources confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that the committee has come into possession of emails between Eastman and Ginni Thomas.
The existence of the emails was first reported by the Washington Post.
It’s unclear what the communications between Eastman and Ginni Thomas say, but Eastman has fought the committee’s document requests in court.
A federal judge has ruled twice that he must turn some of these documents over and the committee has just recently begun receiving the second tranche of them.
Investigators are discussing next steps and deciding how much of a focus they should put on Thomas and her communications with people like Eastman and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows during its public hearings.
Mickey Guyton shared the stage with Black Pumas for an episode of CMT Crossroads last night, with the two acts teaming up for renditions of Mickey’s “Lay It On Me” and “Black Like Me,” plus duet versions of songs off the Pumas’ 2019 debut album.
The country star tells People that the performance revealed a different side to her songs, especially when lead vocalist Eric Burton lent his voice to the lyrics.
“They’re roots, blues and folk, and to hear him interpret it, you can hear the soul in the music,” Mickey explains. “I always knew I had soul, but to hear it come from somebody else, you can hear it in my music more, which is really cool.”
It wasn’t the first time Mickey and the Pumas had teamed up: They also performed together at this year’s CMT Music Awards. Mickey’s been a fan of the duo for a while now, and she says that it was her husband, Grant, who turned her on to their music.
“He was just listening to them all the time,” she recounts. “So we started listening to the whole catalog, and I just grew to love them, too.”
Another of the songs they performed together during the Crossroads episode was “Better Than You Left Me,” Mickey’s 2015 debut single.
Seether has premiered the video for the band’s song “What Would You Do?”
The eerie clip finds a group of people trying to escape from a mysterious creature, perhaps a metaphor for frontman Shaun Morgan‘s lyrics about addiction.
You can watch the “What Would You Do?” video streaming now on YouTube.
“What Would You Do?” first appeared on Seether’s 2021 EP Wasteland — The Purgatory, a companion to the band’s 2020 album, Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum. It’ll also be included on the upcoming deluxe version of Si Vis Pacem, due out July 1.
Remember the Free iTunes Song of the Week? In the days before streaming, Apple would make one song a week available as a free download, and often, they became hits. Fifteen years ago today, the iTunes Free Song of the Week was a song that never hit number one but still ended up launching an award-winning career: “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles.
Ironically, Sara wrote the song after becoming frustrated with her record label, who kept on telling her they needed her to write a commercial hit. Speaking to Glamour, Sara said, “I felt invisible and unimportant and manipulated and all the things.”
“This song was my little stubborn ‘f**k you’…but [it] ended up opening all these doors for me,” she noted.
“Love Song” didn’t enter the Billboard Hot 100 until several months later, but after Sara and the song appeared in an ad for the music streaming service Rhapsody, it shot up the charts, eventually peaking at number four and spending 19 weeks in the top 10.
“Love Song” also earned Sara her first Grammy nominations, for Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, on its way to selling four million copies.
While “Love Song” remains Sara’s biggest hit, it set her up for a career that’s taken some unexpected turns. In addition to being nominated for multiple Grammys — with one win — she’s also been nominated for Emmy awards for both acting and writing music for TV, not to mention multiple Tony Awards, including several for the Broadway musical she co-wrote and occasionally starred in: Waitress.
Today, Sara is starring in the second season of her Peacock comedy, Girls5Eva, for which she occasionally writes music, and is also appearing on Broadway in a revival of the musical Into the Woods.
The “Video Games” artist’s dreamy vocals turn the track into a song that would definitely feel at home on any of her records as she sings lyrics including, “Whatever happened to the girl I knew/In the wasteland come up short and end up on the news.”
You can listen to the cover now via digital outlets.
The original “Buddy’s Rendezvous” appears on Father John Misty’s new album, Chloë and the Next 20th Century, which was released in April.
Del Rey, meanwhile, has been working on new music to follow her two 2021 albums, Chemtrails Over the Country Club and Blue Banisters. In a recent interview with W Magazine, Del Rey described the upcoming material as “angry” and “very conversational.”
(NEW YORK) — The pain at the pump is getting worse and has motorists asking, is there any relief in sight?
The average nationwide price of a gallon of gas surpassed an all-time high of $5 last week, according to GasBuddy. In California, the state with the highest average gas price, drivers are paying an eye-popping $6.43 per gallon, AAA data showed.
The price surge owes to the fundamental economic principle of supply and demand, experts told ABC News. Summer travel has sent Americans to the pump at a time when the global market is experiencing a shortage of crude oil supply after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which pushed millions of barrels of oil off the market.
And the current crisis exacerbates a supply crunch that has endured from a pandemic-induced production slowdown that hasn’t caught up with the renewed surge in demand, the experts said.
The sky-high prices with no relief in sight have set off sharp disagreement among public officials over what should be done in response. Republican members of Congress have faulted President Joe Biden for the price increases, citing what they’ve described as his “war on American energy.” At the same time, Biden has blamed the price surge on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, repeatedly calling it “Putin’s price hike.”
Government policy cannot meaningfully relieve the price increases in the short term, besides an additional release of oil from the strategic reserve or a gas tax holiday, each of which would likely reduce just a fraction of the cost, experts told ABC News. But steps taken now could help foster decreases over the long term and insulate the market from future disruptions, they added.
“There are not the overnight kind of solutions,” said Stewart Glickman, an energy analyst for CFRA Research. “In the longer term, they might make a difference.”
Here are some potential policy solutions to the gas price crisis and whether the experts think they would work.
Releasing more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
In March, the U.S. announced a commitment to release about 1 million barrels per day from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, over the ensuing six months — a move that aimed to alleviate some of the supply shortage and blunt price increases. The decision came alongside similar announcements from some U.S. allies.
The release of oil from the U.S. SPR is offering slight relief for the rise in the price of gasoline, some experts told ABC News. “The price of oil would be even higher without those stockpiles being used,” said Pavel Molchanov, a senior energy analyst at Raymond James.
If the U.S. decided to release even more oil from its reserves, the move could marginally slow the rise in gas prices even further, the experts said. But the Biden administration should think twice about expanding its release of reserve oil because it could drain the 700 million-barrel stockpile, enough to release 1 million barrels per day for nearly two years, Molchanov said.
“We need to be responsible about it,” Molchanov said. “We cannot use all of those stockpiles in one fell swoop.”
Encouraging domestic oil production
On Wednesday, Biden sent a letter to major oil refinery companies calling on them to take “immediate actions” to increase output. The letter accused the companies of taking advantage of the market environment to reap profits while Americans struggle to afford gas, and it mentioned the possibility of Biden invoking the Defense Production Act, which requires companies to produce goods deemed necessary for national security.
Glickman, the energy analyst at CFRA, said the move from Biden is unlikely to increase supply and lower gas prices, since the domestic industry is already operating at as high as 96% capacity. The refineries cannot add capacity in a short period of time, Glickman added.
Biden is “missing the point a little,” Glickman said. “These are industrial systems that move like battleships, not dinghies.”
U.S. oil refinery capacity stands 1 million barrels per day lower than pre-pandemic levels because several refineries have been closed or converted since early 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Refinery inputs for the second and third quarter of this year will average 16.7 million barrels per day, the agency said.
One approach to incentivizing an increase in U.S. production includes a potential tax on oil company profits. But such a move wouldn’t remove the impediments to greater oil production capacity, Glickman said.
“Whether you do something like taxing the industry or not, it isn’t going to change how much capacity you bring back,” he said.
Some Republican members of Congress have criticized Biden for drilling permit restrictions and the shuttering of the Keystone XL Pipeline last year. But oil production in the U.S. last year was nearly identical to that seen over the final year of the Trump administration, in 2020, and greater than the amount produced in 2017 or 2018, according to data from the EIA.
U.S. oil production increased throughout the years of the Trump administration until a sharp, pandemic-induced drop that began in 2020, according to EIA data.
Loosening restrictions on oil drilling would yield long-term gains in oil supply, said James Coleman, an energy policy expert at the conservative-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute.
“If you were to reform those, it would take a while to have an impact on oil and gas markets,” Coleman said. “On the other hand, if you’re in a hole, maybe the first step is to stop digging.”
Overall, increased U.S. oil production would help reduce gas prices over the next five or 10 years, and protect the industry from future supply shocks, the experts said. However, some experts noted that the sector’s reluctance to aggressively expand production owes to fiscal discipline imposed by shareholders as well as the continued rise of renewable energy. “We know the energy transition is coming at some point,” said Glickman, the CFRA analyst.
Gas tax holiday
A handful of states — led by both Democratic and Republican governors — have suspended their gas taxes as a means of delivering some financial relief for drivers. But the moves only reduce costs by a fraction of the price. In New York State, for instance, Gov. Kathy Hochul this month suspended a roughly 16-cent-per gallon tax. With the average price of a gallon of gas in New York standing at $5, according to AAA, the tax relief amounts to a 3.2% cost reduction.
The federal government could move forward and suspend its gas tax, which amounts to 18.4 cents per gallon. But such a move would also reduce the cost of a $5 gallon of gas by less than 5%. Still, consumers would likely prefer some relief to no relief.
But suspending the gas tax would take away a key policy tool for discouraging the use of gasoline for other purposes, and it would remove a funding source targeted specifically for infrastructure, Adam Hersh, senior economist at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told ABC News.
“The gas tax plays a role in disincentivizing the use of gasoline for other energy sources and transportation methods, as well as being tied to funding sources for infrastructure investment,” he said.
