Britney Spears broke her social media hiatus to share a never-before-seen dance rehearsal video, claiming it was taken shortly before she was involuntarily committed at a mental health facility.
“This is from 4 years ago … three months before my dad sent me to that place,” Britney captioned the Monday Instagram post, which saw her smiling and coaching her all-male group of backup dancers. It is unknown when exactly the video was taken or if Britney was rehearsing for her tour or upcoming Vegas residency.
“No lie … even though I taught this routine I messed up like crazy because there were new dancers that were way bigger than me and I got way too excited,” she continued.
Britney’s comments echo what she told a court in June of last year during a hearing on her conservatorship. She spoke then about being forced to do another Vegas residency after finishing her Piece of Me Tour.
“I was basically directing most of the show,” she said at the time. “I actually did most of the choreography, meaning I taught my dancers my new choreography myself. I take everything I do very seriously. There’s tons of video with me at rehearsals.” It’s unknown whether Monday’s posted clip is one of those videos, but Britney said of her performance: “I wasn’t good. I was great.”
Britney closed her new post by saying that, while she’s still on her social media break, “I guess it’s a good time to REFLECT.”
The girls (and guys) showed up and showed out at Monday night’s Met Gala.
As one of the red carpet co-hosts, Lala Anthony kicked off the evening’s fashion show, modeling a Laquan Smith red satin gown with a bedazzled top portion and long wrap-design train with a slit. She finished the look with a matching burgundy flat-top hat and Louboutin heels.
Anthony was soon joined by Janelle Monáe, who donned a glittery, hooded Ralph Lauren gown she called “gilded glamour from the future.”
Alicia Keys‘ tribute to New York City definitely stole the show. Alongside husband Swizz Beatz, she rocked a shimmery silver tube dress with a custom embellished Ralph Lauren cape, embroidered with the NYC skyline.
Normani and Lori Harvey showed off their tight physiques while sporting all-black looks, one from Christian Siriano, the other by Michael Kors.
Ciara also gave a little body in her Michael Kors gown — a sparkly silver and black dress with a high leg slit that she paired with Jimmy Choo pumps.
Despite the slight wardrobe malfunction of her breast cup size being too small, Nicki Minaj graced the carpet with Burberry’s Riccardo Tisci in a black feather tube dress and leather black cap.
Teyana Taylor and Winnie Harlow both stunned in their purple and white couture gowns by Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen.
Lizzo‘s special guest to the show was her flute, and in addition to the finger waves she rocked in her hair, the singer confidently displayed the hand-embroidered gold and black Thom Browne coat that she says took 22,000 hours to make.
SZA paired her hot pink Vivienne Westwood gown with a giant black hat and her favorite latex thigh-high boots, while Megan Thee Stallion served up body and skin her gold Moschino gown.
While Donatella Versace walked the carpet alongside Cardi B, who wore a gold, strapless chain dress, the Italian fashion brand also dressed Lena Waithe in a two-piece aqua suit, and Gabrielle Union in a silver and white gown — a tribute to the late Diahann Carroll.
Cindy Ord/MG22/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Billie Eilish has been selected to present at the upcoming climate change conference, called “Overheated,” which takes place next month in London.
Billboardreports the Grammy winner and her brother, FINNEAS, have been tapped as headline presenters at the six-day conference, which starts June 10. Billie will be first to speak at the conference and will introduce the schedule of events and keynote speaker, alongside her brother.
Billie’s also set to appear in an upcoming documentary, Overheated, alongside her brother, and singer Yungblud, that will screen at the event.
Her participation in the climate event makes sense, considering Billie has been outspoken about the need for sustainably sourced fashion and food. She recently released a sustainably sourced and recyclable shoe with Nike, and the Gucci dress she wore at the Met Gala was made of upcycled materials. The singer is also a vegan and regularly speaks out on the climate change crisis.
In addition, Billie will already be in the U.K. during the Overheated event, as part of her world tour.
Overheated ticket sales begin with a pre-sale on Wednesday, May 4, at 4 a.m. ET, with general admission opening on Friday, May 6, on the conference’s website.
The conference, which encourages participants to “discuss the climate crisis and their work to make a difference,” will be held at London’s O2 Arena. It place on June 10 and June 12, June 16 and from June 25 through June 26.
After revealing last Thursday that Ozzy had contracted the virus, his wife Sharon told the U.K.’s The Talk Monday that she and their daughter, Kelly, have since tested positive, too. Sharon, who’d been in the U.K. when Ozzy was diagnosed, traveled back to Los Angeles to help care for husband.
“The entire household has it now,” Sharon said.
Sharon adds that she “feel[s] OK,” and generally seems to be in much brighter spirits than when she announced Ozzy’s diagnosis through tears last week. She also shares that Ozzy is “doing much better.”
“His temperature is now back to normal, his coughing has stopped,” Sharon said.
Sharon previously tested positive for COVID-19 in December 2020, and was briefly hospitalized.
Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Garth Brooks‘ concert at Tiger Stadium was a seismic event — literally.
The country superstar recently headlined the massive venue in Baton Rouge, LA that has a capacity of just over 102,000 people. While performing of his hit, “Callin’ Baton Rouge” — which is played at every home game for Louisiana State University’s football team, the Tigers — the sold-out crowd was so loud that their volume registered as a minor earthquake on the university’s seismograph, in what is now being deemed “Garthquake.”
“Nobody gets close to what those people did. I’ve done a lot of shows, that was a once in a lifetime thing for me,” Garth raved during Inside Studio G Monday night. “They hit hard. It wasn’t a concert, it wasn’t a party, it was a title bout. A heavyweight title fight. It was awesome.”
Following the rowdy show in Baton Rouge, Garth returned to Nashville where he performed at the Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony honoring new inductee, Ray Charles, with a performance of “Seven Spanish Angels.”
(WASHINGTON) — With the bombshell leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion indicating a reported majority of conservative justices is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, all eyes were once again on Republican Sen. Susan Collins Tuesday over her support for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
The draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito and not yet final — first reported Monday night by Politico — showed the court is poised to topple the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion across the U.S.
In the draft, dated Feb. 10, Alito wrote, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”
Reporters flocked to Collins’ office on Tuesday morning for her reaction, given she cast a vote pivotal to Kavanaugh’s ascension to the court in 2018.
Collins said at the time that Kavanaugh assured her Roe v. Wade was “settled law.”
“If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office,” Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement Tuesday morning. “Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were more direct, accusing the court’s recently appointed conservative justices of deceiving lawmakers about their views on Roe v. Wade.
“Several of these conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation — all at the expense of tens of millions of women who could soon be stripped of their bodily autonomy and the constitutional rights they’ve relied on for half a century,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement Monday night.
At his Senate confirmation hearings in September 2018, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pushed Kavanaugh on what his then-current position on Roe v. Wade was — in light of a reported 2003 email he wrote as a lawyer in the Bush White House challenging that the landmark decision was the “settled law of the land.”
“As a general proposition I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade,” Kavanaugh told senators.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.: “What would you say your position is today on a woman’s right to choose?”
“As a judge it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court,” he replied. “By ‘it,’ I mean Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, been affirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent.”
At confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch in March 2017, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois pressed him for his views on abortion, using what he wrote in a book he authored on euthanasia. In the book, he wrote that “the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”
“The Supreme Court of the United States has held that Roe v. Wade, that a fetus is not a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment. And the book explains that,” Gorsuch testified.
“Do you accept that?” Durbin asked.
“That’s the law of the land, I accept the law of the land, senator, yes,” Gorsuch answered.
Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, vowed to hold a vote on codifying abortion rights, although the path forward for Democrats on the issue remains limited due to not having enough vote overcome a filibuster.
The House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify abortion rights in September 2021 but the bill has failed to move forward in the Senate.
“A vote on this legislation is not an abstract exercise,” Schumer said. “This is as urgent and real as it gets. We will vote to protect a woman’s right to choose and every American is going to see which side every Senator stands.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican who is a leading abortion rights moderate, excoriated the leak, calling it “absolutely reprehensible,” but added, “If it goes in the direction that this leaked copy has indicated, I will just tell you that it it it rocks my confidence in the court right now.”
The senator batted away questions about whether she would support ending the Senate’s filibuster in order to codify Roe, legislation she has sponsored, but she didn’t rule it out, saying only, “I’m not going to talk about the filibuster.”
Asked directly if previous conservative nominees like Kavanaugh had lied to her when they affirmed that Roe is “settled law,” Murkowski repeated that the draft opinion has “rocked my confidence in the court.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden weighed in Tuesday morning on the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion showing the panel’s conservative majority of justices is poised to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights in America.
“It concerns me a great deal that, after 50 years, we’re going to decide that a woman doesn’t have the right to choose,” Biden told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, en route to Alabama to visit a facility that manufactures Javelin anti-tank missiles. “But even more equally profound is the rationale used — and it would mean that every other decision relating to the notion of privacy is thrown into question.”
“The idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child, based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think goes way overboard,” he said.
Biden called the decision “radical” if it holds, and added, “The codification of Roe makes a lot of sense.”
In an earlier written statement, Biden began with a caveat — lightly acknowledging the unprecedented nature of seeing a draft opinion before the court’s formal ruling — before launching into a three-part defense of Roe v. Wade by his administration.
“We do not know whether this draft is genuine, or whether it reflects the final decision of the Court. With that critical caveat, I want to be clear on three points about the cases before the Supreme Court,” Biden said in a rare statement on an even rarer event.
“First, my administration argued strongly before the Court in defense of Roe v. Wade,” Biden said, referencing oral arguments in December before the justices. “We said that Roe is based on “a long line of precedent recognizing ‘the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty’… against government interference with intensely personal decisions.”
“I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned,” Biden said.
He said his administration was already preparing for the outcome — but called on American voters to elect pro-choice candidates in November and on congressional lawmakers to codify Roe into law.
“Second, shortly after the enactment of Texas law SB 8 and other laws restricting women’s reproductive rights, I directed my Gender Policy Council and White House Counsel’s Office to prepare options for an Administration response to the continued attack on abortion and reproductive rights, under a variety of possible outcomes in the cases pending before the Supreme Court. We will be ready when any ruling is issued,” he continued.
“Third, if the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November,” he said. “At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”
The court has since acknowledged the draft is “authentic” but said it was not a decision of the court and not final.
The document, which Politico said Monday night it obtained from a “person familiar with the court’s proceedings,” is marked “first draft” and dated Feb. 10, 2022 — two months after oral arguments were heard in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, the draft opinion’s author, in a copy posted online.
If Alito’s opinion were to hold, as written, it would dramatically upend abortion rights across America, effectively allowing each state to set its own policy.
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft concludes. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
The stunning leak comes as Tuesday marks the first multi-state contest of the 2022 midterm election season and as several states have already enacted restrictions on abortion rights.
Growing up in rural Kentucky, it should come as no surprise that Carly Pearce‘s fashion sense is countrified.
The “Hide the Wine” singer is a self-professed fan of Western ware, citing fringe, denim and boots among her favorite looks. Many of these types of styles can be seen as she walks the red carpet and in her music videos, particularly the video for “Next Girl,” where she dons a light wash denim Wranger dress, paired with fringe-adorned white boots that look straight out of the 70s.
“Growing up in Kentucky and listening to Patty Loveless, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, I fell in love with not only the songs, but the country Western styles and effortless glamour,” Carly describes to Cowgirl Magazine. “I love to pair signature Western styles like fringe, denim, boots, and all the sparkles with current pieces to create my looks.”
Carly’s also a lover of designer Jeffrey Campbell, revealing that she has a “pretty intense” boot collection that includes snakeskin, cheetah print and glitter boots. In fact, Carly’s wardrobe has grown so much that she’s converted a bedroom in her house into her closet — and she couldn’t be happier with the decision.
“If the shoe looks good, I’m gonna buy it,” she affirms to Glamour.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 03, 10:24 am
Civilians evacuated from plant have arrived safely in Zaporizhzhia: UN
Civilians trapped for weeks inside the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in Mariupol have arrived safely in Zaporizhzhia, according to the United Nations.
“I’m relieved to confirm that the safe passage operation from Mariupol has been successful,” tweeted Osnat Lubrani, the U.N.’s resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine. “The people I travelled with told me heartbreaking stories of the hell they went through. I’m thinking about the people who remain trapped. We will do all we can to assist them.”
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Irina Vereshchuk, said 156 civilians were part of the convoy, organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Many more people remain trapped at the plant. The sprawling industrial site is the last holdout for the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, as Russian forces accelerate their efforts to fully capture city. The Mariupol City Council has previously said there are at least 1,000 people, including Ukrainian troops, on the grounds of the Azovstal plant. Vereshchuk has said that civilians, including women and children, are also sheltering there.
-ABC News’ Zoe Magee and Christine Theodorou
May 03, 9:47 am
‘He’s the main war criminal of the 21st century’: Ukrainian prosecutor on Putin
Ukraine’s lead prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, said Russian President Vladimir Putin should “absolutely” be prosecuted for the war crimes she says occurred in the town of Irpin and surrounding communities.
“He’s the main war criminal of the 21st century,” she said.
“We all know who started this war. And this person is Vladimir Putin,” she said.
Venediktova said the first phase of the war crimes investigation in Irpin has ended. She said investigators found evidence of rape, torture and the use of banned weapons of war in the city.
May 03, 5:32 am
Russia’s military ‘now significantly weaker,’ UK says
Russia’s military is “now significantly weaker, both materially and conceptually,” than it had been prior to its invasion of Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.
“Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions,” the ministry said in an intelligence update. “This will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 03 May 2022
Cyndi Lauper‘s life story is about to get the documentary treatment in the forthcoming film Let the Canary Sing. The movie will explore the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” singer’s rise to fame — and it has her seal of approval.
The movie will be helmed by Emmy-nominated director Alison Ellwood, who will take the audience on a deep dive into Cyndi’s history and accomplishments.
According to a press release, the documentary will explore “how Lauper found her voice growing up in working class Queens, New York, a meteoric rise to stardom following the smashing success of her debut album She’s So Unusual, and the generations she has influenced with her songs, her inimitable ever-evolving punk style, unapologetic feminism and devotion to advocating for others.”
Cyndi has already given her “full participation and support” for the film.
“Like many people, I assumed when Cyndi Lauper burst onto the music scene in the early ’80s, that she was another young star experiencing a meteoric rise to fame and success thanks to MTV,” Ellwood said in a statement. “Her music videos were wild and colorful, her songs like ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun‘ were infectious. But as it turns out, her story is one of hard knocks, hard work and dogged determination. Cyndi wanted her voice not just to be listened to, but a voice to be heard.”
The director continued, “The documentary will be a full portrait of Cyndi Lauper — her ‘True Colors’ shining through.”
The pop legend has sold over 50 million records during her explosive career. Her standout hit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” has been viewed over a billion times on YouTube.
Sony Music Entertainment is financing the film, for which a release date has yet to be announced.
