In a Hollywood Reporter interview alongside her husband and Plaza Suite on Broadway co-star Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker made a revelation about her relationship with Chris Noth — or rather, their current lack of one.
Noth played Mr. Big, SJP’s love interest, and eventual husband, on Sex and the City and its follow-up, And Just Like That…, but the actor was booted from the series after a pair of women accused him last year of sexual assault. Noth denied the allegations but, although Mr. Big was scripted to die in the SATC sequel series, producers canceled shooting a planned follow-up appearance with his character.
In fact, Parker tells the trade she hasn’t even spoken to Noth since the accusations were leveled against him. “No,” she answered when asked if she’s been in touch.
“I don’t even know if I’m ready to talk about it,” she said of the accusations. The also told The Hollywood Reporter “I wasn’t reacting as a producer” when she and her co-stars/co-producers made a public statement in December of last year about the allegations.
Parker, along with Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon, co-signed a statement that read, “We are deeply saddened to hear the allegations against Chris Noth. We support the women who have come forward and shared their painful experiences. We know it must be a very difficult thing to do and we commend them for it.”
Goodbye ballroom — hello Bachelors and Bachelorettes. ABC confirmed Tuesday that this fall, as Dancing with the Stars moves to Disney+, Bachelor In Paradise will be taking over its time slots, airing on both Monday and Tuesday nights.
Bachelorette season 12 contestant-turned-Bachelor In Paradise mainstay Wells Adams will be returning for the new season, and on the Disney Upfronts red carpet in New York City, he discussed the scheduling change with ABC Audio.
“We’ve always done two nights on Paradise. I guess [it’s] a little bit more pressure, that we’ve got to really do a good job, make a good TV show,” he laughs. “But I’m just excited that’s coming back. It’s such a fun show to film. Yeah, it’s always a blast to watch back, so I’m just glad we’re going back to Paradise.”
Jesse Palmer will host the new season, with Adams returning as the bartender. However, he feels he’s really there not so much to mix margaritas, but to lend an ear to the contestants as they pour out their relationship woes.
“Yeah, I’m a bad bartender. I’m a good therapist. I think that’s my role there,” he laughs.
Adams isn’t using Bachelor In Paradise to look for love for himself, of course: He’s engaged to former Modern Family star Sarah Hyland, and the two are currently trying to plan their wedding, after it was derailed by the pandemic.
(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to unveil proposals Wednesday afternoon to strengthen the state’s gun laws and close “loopholes” in the wake of the deadly Buffalo shooting over the weekend.
The announcement was planned before the weekend shooting, and was delayed by President Joe Biden’s Tuesday visit to Buffalo, Hochul’s hometown.
However, the issue takes on increased urgency as her administration reviews how the 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, legally purchased his weapons and then made modifications that are illegal in New York, already home to some of the nation’s strictest gun laws.
Even before the mass shooting in Buffalo, there was a focus on guns in the state. Illegal gun possession statistics were up last month in the state and country’s largest city, New York City. New York police made 146 more arrests for illegal guns in April 2022 versus April 2021, a 65% increase, according to the NYPD. Shooting incidents, however, did drop 29% in April 2022 versus April 2021.
Proposals already under discussion in the state Capitol include requiring local law enforcement to report recovered weapons to a federal database in a timely manner, and allowing the state to conduct its own background checks.
New requirements could also be put in place for gun dealers, beefing up training for staff and record keeping.
The administration is also looking into the use, or lack thereof, of the state’s red flag laws, which could have identified the Buffalo suspect and kept him from purchasing the gun used to shoot 13 people, killing 10. The prohibition can remove guns from the home of a person identified to be at high risk and keep the person from buying guns for a year.
The suspect was not red-flagged following threats to carry out a shooting at his graduation last June, and he later admitted in a cache of documents that he intentionally avoided the prohibition by downplaying last year’s incident. Following a police investigation, no charges were filed against Gendron, who received a mental health evaluation and counseling after the incident.
Gendron is expected to make his next court appearance on Thursday.
Loki was the most-watched Marvel series on Disney+ to date, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige revealed during Disney’s upfronts on Tuesday, coming in ahead of WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Feige called Loki a “bold swing” and said the “wild ride paid off.” He added that as the first Marvel series on Disney+ to get a second season, production on the sophomore run will start in the next few weeks with star Tom Hiddleston returning, along with season-one cast members Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku and Richard E. Grant. Marvel is owned by Disney, parent company of ABC News…
ABC announced on Tuesday that it’s picked up Celebrity Jeopardy! an all-new game show, airing this fall. The new series welcomes celebrity contestants to compete for a chance to win money for a charity of their choice. A host or potential celebrity contestants have yet to be named. Mayim Bialik emceed Jeopardy! National College Championship over five non-consecutive nights in February and has been sharing hosting duties of the syndicated version of Jeopardy! with Ken Jennings…
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! will make his sixth trip to host Jimmy Kimmel‘s his old stomping ground, Brooklyn, New York, marking its first time broadcasting in the borough since 2019 — before the COVID-19 pandemic put such trips on hold, according to Variety. Kimmel mostly grew up in Las Vegas, but he and his family originally hail from Brooklyn, where he was born and lived until he was 9. Airdates and guests for the “Brooklyn Week” shows for Jimmy Kimmel Live! have yet to be announced…
Saycon Sengbloh second from left; Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
ABC’s reboot of the classic late ’80s-early ’90s sitcom The Wonder Years was renewed for a second season, a week after executive producer and director Fred Savage, star of the original Wonder Years, was dismissed following allegations of inappropriate conduct. But at least one of the show’s stars isn’t worried about that taking the focus off all the good things about the Peabody Award-nominated show.
Saycon Sengbloh, who plays the mother of the show’s main character, Dean Williams — a 12-year-old boy growing up in the late ’60s in Montgomery, Alabama — told ABC Audio that the behind-the-scenes news isn’t a bad thing for The Wonder Years.
“You know, news is news. The show is going to be good no matter what happens,” she said. “And people just have to tune in. And honestly, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
“Whatever puts people’s eyes on the show and makes them come to check it out…I’m welcoming more and more viewers, welcoming more people to come and fall in love with us and to enjoy the family show, enjoy the shenanigans,” she adds. “People just need to come and check it out!”
The new season of The Wonder Years doesn’t have a premiere date yet; instead of returning this fall, it’ll premiere mid-season. An ABC exec told Variety that moving The Wonder Years to mid-season has nothing to do with Savage’s exit.
Jimmy Kimmel has tested positive for COVID-19, again,
Taking to Twitter Tuesday night, the late night talk show host announced, “I’m such a positive person, I tested positive AGAIN.”
“I am feeling fine,” he continued, adding that John Mulaney and Andy Samberg will step in to carry out his hosting duties on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
This is the second time Kimmel has tested positive for COVID-19 this month. Back on May 2, the funnyman quipped, “Our daughter brought us covid (even though we specifically asked her not to).”
“All feeling fine, I am double vaxxed and boosted but the show must not go on,” he wrote.
Kimmel was to emcee a portion of Disney’s Upfront presentation in New York City Tuesday, but because of the positive test, he delivered his traditionally R-rated takedown of the company’s network competition — along with a friendly roast of ABC’s own programming — remotely.
The first trailer for Marvel’s new Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law dropped on Tuesday, following Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige‘s reveal of it at Disney’s upfront presentation in New York City.
The nine-episode comedy series follows Jennifer Walters — played by former Orphan Black Emmy-winner Tatiana Maslany — as she navigates the complicated life of a single, 30-something attorney who specializes in superhuman-oriented legal cases, and also happens to be a green 6-foot-7-inch super-powered hulk.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law also features Mark Ruffalo, reprising his Smart Hulk role from Avengers: Endgame, who attempts to educate his attorney cousin on managing her new powers, although she’d rather be “a normal, anonymous lawyer.”
In the trailer, when a friend tells her, “You could be an Avenger,” Walters quips, “Oh, I’m not a superhero. That is for billionaires and narcissists — and adult orphans, for some reason.”
Feige also announced that Secret Wars would be yet another MCU Disney+ small-screen series, and introduced to the crowd Samuel L. Jackson, who will be reprising his role as Nick Fury, to help promote it.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law premieres August 17 on Disney+.
Marvel is owned by Disney, parent company of ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — The mother of a teen who went missing in 2009 while on spring break is speaking out after authorities announced an arrest in the case.
“I never thought we would get to this place and we’re finally here,” Dawn Pleckan, Drexel’s mother, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “And now I can get Brittanee back and lay to rest.”
In 2009, Drexel vanished while on a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. On Monday, authorities announced at a news conference that Raymond Moody, 62, was arrested and charged with her murder after her remains were found in a wooded area in Georgetown County, South Carolina, last week.
“In the last week, we’ve confirmed that Brittanee lost her life in a tragic way, at the hands of a horrible criminal who was walking our streets,” said FBI special agent in charge Susan Ferensic.
For 13 years, Brittanee’s parents, Pleckan and Chad Drexel, have searched for her.
Pleckan said her daughter wanted to go on the trip but she remembered telling her no because of a lack of parental supervision. Pleckan said she also had a bad hunch.
“She asked me if she could go and I told her no,” Pleckan recalled. “And she asked me why. I said, because I don’t know the kids you’re going with. I don’t — there’s no parental supervision and something’s going to happen.”
Brittanee ended up leaving for the spring break trip to Myrtle Beach on April 22, 2009, despite her mother’s wishes. Three days later, the teen was seen for the last time on a hotel surveillance camera. She was leaving a friend’s room at the Blue Water Resort to walk back to the hotel where she was staying, about a mile-and-a-half walk down the busy Myrtle Beach strip, ABC Rochester station WHAM-TV reported.
She was about halfway to her destination when she disappeared, investigators said, based on surveillance footage from cameras on 11th Avenue and Ocean Boulevard.
Her remains were found less than 3 miles from a motel where Moody had been living at the time of Drexel’s disappearance, Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver said. Authorities allege that Moody buried her body. Authorities did not answer reporters’ questions on how Drexel’s remains were found.
Moody is being held without bond at the Georgetown County jail and is expected to be charged with rape, murder and kidnapping — in addition to a charge of obstruction of justice that he was initially brought in for, said Jimmy Richardson, solicitor for Horry and Georgetown Counties.
In 2012, he had been identified as a person of interest in the disappearance but there was not enough evidence to name him as a suspect, officials said.
Investigators believe Drexel was held against her will and killed.
Pleckan and Chad Drexel have asked for privacy and thanked investigators and volunteers for their work over the past decade.
“This is truly a mother’s worst nightmare,” Pleckan said. “I am mourning my beautiful daughter Brittanee as I have been for 13 years. But today, it’s bittersweet. We are much closer to the closure in the piece that we have been desperately hoping for.”
On Monday, which would have been Brittanee’s 30th birthday according to WHAM, Pleckan said she hopes justice will be served.
“One thing … we’re going to look forward to is to get justice for Brittanee,” she said. “I want people to know out there that Brittanee’s legacy is going to live on.”
Pleckan added, “She had her whole life ahead of her. And this monster took it away from her. I’m glad [Moody] is behind bars so that he can’t hurt anyone else’s child.”
(NEW YORK) — For millions, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant working from home, seeing friends and family less and other changes to life as they knew it.
In many cases, it also meant dealing with the virus either themselves or with a loved one.
Restrictions came and went and widespread vaccination and boosters brought the promise of a return to normalcy, especially as the omicron wave subsided.
But for some, the pandemic has meant one thing — isolation with no end in sight.
Sara Anne Willette, an Iowa resident who has common variable immunodeficiency, said she has spent more than 750 days in lockdown since the pandemic began.
For her, staying inside is a life-or-death decision. Her common variable immunodeficiency means she has low levels of protective antibodies and is constantly at an increased risk of falling seriously sick.
“If there’s anyone in the country who’s suffered the most from lockdown, it’s us because nobody else will do what’s necessary so that we don’t have to live in lockdown,” Willette said.
Before COVID-19, Willette had long been taking the health precautions that were implemented nationwide during the pandemic: She wore masks, avoided busy shopping times and only went out of the house for special occasions.
She fell ill often and easily, whether it was from a day in the office as a data analyst or a big family gathering. So when the pandemic began, she knew she, her husband and her son would have to isolate entirely.
As safety precautions are being abandoned across the country two years later, her husband has been told to go back to work in person. She says their livelihoods — literally and professionally — are now at stake.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed their guidelines for indoor masking in February, with about 90% of Americans no longer advised to wear face coverings inside. The CDC now bases mask recommendations on local levels of COVID-19 cases.
Simultaneously, most states have dropped COVID-related restrictions in recent months. Hawaii became the final state to uphold an indoor mask mandate and many places have dropped mask recommendations for all but the youngest students.
For those who’ve been stuck inside for two years, the change in restrictions has left them wondering: when will their isolation end?
“I’m happy to protect myself, but then the ability to protect ourselves gets taken away,” she said, referring to the CDC’s easing recommendations and a nationwide shift toward “normalcy.”
Tinu Abayomi-Paul, 49, who is immunocompromised due to previous episodes of cancer, said her two-year lockdown was no match for the change in COVID-19 policies. When Texas state-sponsored homeschooling expired, her son went back to a school with no COVID-19 restrictions, she said.
“Seven-hundred fifty-seven days in isolation, I don’t care. I’ll do it for the rest of my life if that’s what’s necessary. But don’t expect me to choose between poverty that leads to death or infection that leads to death,” said Willette. “My only direction is ‘dead.'”
“It’s like the first day they came back, I got sick,” Abayomi-Paul said. “I got way sicker than I’ve been in decades.”
Her son brought back COVID-19 in February and she now has pneumonia months later. The infection also triggered her chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, a type of cancer affecting her white blood cells, which help fight infection, she said, so she’s now re-treating her cancer.
“People will go to marathons and wear ribbons for people with cancer, but a mask is too much to ask. It’s ridiculous,” Abayomi-Paul said.
Charis Hill, 35, who has a systemic inflammatory disease and take immunosuppressive medications, has said they have also been isolating for the past two years from their home in California.
They had to decide whether or not to get a surgery done and if the hospital would be taking the necessary precautions to make them feel safe.
“I had a really upsetting experience with a medical provider who refused to wear her surgical mask correctly,” they said.
They had the surgery done, but not without concern.
“From that point up to the day of surgery, I was not focused on surgery at all but more focused on fighting for my rights as a disabled person of having a safe health environment,” they said.
Fears about the coronavirus continue to ripple among cautious Americans. According to a report by health research organization KFF, even with most local and state restrictions lifted, 59% of people surveyed reported limiting their behaviors, with 42% doing some but not all their pre-pandemic activities.
Seventeen percent said they do very few of their normal activities.
However, 27% say they have essentially returned to life as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic and 14% of respondents have not changed their behavior.
Those who spoke with ABC News urged leaders to continue to recommend or require precautions in public.
For them, a return to normal isn’t possible until COVID-19 subsides and the outside world proves safe for even the most vulnerable.
“We do not do anything. And it’s devastating,” said Dawn Gibson, a Michigan woman with the inflammatory disease ankylosing spondylitis, a condition where the bones in the spine can fuse over time. She said she’s missed work conferences, baby showers, other important life events — all to stay alive and healthy.
“I feel like I live in a parallel universe. And life and culture and society and just everything about being alive is in the other one. I have never felt more forgotten in my life,” she said.
Chris Brown announced Tuesday that his new album, Breezy, will drop June 24.
The R&B singer shared the news, along with the official album artwork — a gray-scale photo of “Breezy” shaved in to the back of his head — in an Instagram post with the caption, “JUNE 24th BREEZY ALBUM.”
In addition to dropping the release date for his upcoming tenth studio album, the 33-year-old seemed to reveal the album’s collaborators.
Taking to Instagram Stories, Chris posted the names of 11 artists — Wizkid, Yung Bleu, Ella Mai, H.E.R., Lil Wayne, Blxst, Anderson .Paak, Jack Harlow, Fivio Foreign, Tory Lanez, and EST Gee. He then followed up the posts with “… [smirk face emoji].”
Breezy will be the first album from Chris in three years. His last album, Indigo, was released in 2019.
