Jimmie Allen experienced a full-circle moment during a recent tour stop.
Jimmie brought his headlining Down Home Tour to Universal Studios Florida, and it conjured up a special memory. In a lengthy Instagram post, the singer shares that in 2013, he attended a Matchbox Twenty show as a fan at that very same venue, five years before he signed his record deal in Nashville. Sitting in the audience, he experienced a strange phenomenon he remembers to this day.
“There was something special about that night. I was in audience but moments through the show it felt like I was on stage looking into the face of the crowd through the eyes of matchbox20,” the country singer details. “9 years later my band and I are standing on the same stage hoping to bring joy to the crowd at @universalorlando the same way MB20 did for me and the fellow fans that night in 2013.”
Jimmie accompanied the post with a video of him performing his breakthrough hit, “Best Shot,” saying the concert was “beyond magical.”
The singer continues on the Down Home Tour through May 13 where it wraps in Norfolk, VA.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Two days after the very shocking “slap heard all around the world” at the Oscars, actress Jada Pinkett Smith posted a note on social media.
“This is the season for healing and I’m here for it,” reads the message shared in a Tuesday morning Instagram note.
While the caption-less post didn’t directly address Sunday night’s incident, it’s the first time the 50-year-old actress has spoken publicly since her husband, Will Smith, slapped comedian Chris Rock in the face for a joke he made during the Academy Awards telecast about Pinkett’s shaved head. Pinkett’s message also comes a day after Smith apologized to Rock and the Academy for storming the stage, smacking Rock and then twice yelling at him, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f****** mouth.”
“Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive,” Smith said on Instagram Monday. “My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.” Pinkett-Smith has publicly stated she shaved her head after developing alopecia, which causes hair loss.
Addressing Rock, Smith wrote, “I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be…”
The intense Oscars broadcast moment was viewed by millions — 15.36, to be exact — including Smith’s mother, Carolyn Smith who, in an exclusive interview with ABC affiliate WPVI in Philadelphia, said it was the “first time I’ve ever seen him go off.”
“He is a very even, people person…I’ve never seen him do that,” Carolyn said.
After the outburst, Smith went on to accept the Best Actor award for King Richard.
On Monday, the Academy said they are launching a “formal review” of the incident.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign from the nation’s highest court as a growing number of Democrats demand he recuse himself from some cases following revelations that his wife urged then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the 2020 election results.
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called on Democrats to explore impeachment if he doesn’t step down — noting that Thomas was the lone dissenting vote on the court earlier this year to block the Jan. 6 committee from obtaining Trump White House records.
“Clarence Thomas should resign. If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment,” she wrote in a tweet Monday morning.
“Congress must understand that a failure to hold Clarence Thomas accountable sends a loud, dangerous signal to the full Court – Kavanaugh, Barrett, & the rest – that his acts are fair game,” she added. “This is a tipping point. Inaction is a decision to erode and further delegitimize SCOTUS.”
The call from Oscaio-Cortez comes on the heels of two dozen other congressional Democrats sending a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Thomas on Monday evening requesting the justice recuse himself in all cases related to Jan. 6 and the 2020 election. The letter, spearheaded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., also asks Roberts to create a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court by April 28, “that includes (1) enforceable provisions to ensure that the Justices comply with this Code and (2) a requirement that all Justices issue written recusal decisions.”
While it’s unlikely that Thomas would resign or Democrats would have enough support to impeach him, calls from Ocasio-Cortez and other high-profile Democrats could pressure more to pressure party leaders to take up the issue ahead of the midterms.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., meanwhile, defended Thomas’ ability to rule fairly on Friday during a press conference at a House GOP retreat.
“I think Justice Thomas could make his decisions like he’s made…every other time. It’s his decision based upon law,” McCarthy said.
On Monday, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also called on Thomas to recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases, telling reporters it would be “for the good of the court” and added that the committee might take action after Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the situation “a textbook case for” recusal in an interview with This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an interview on Sunday.
Sources familiar with text messages sent from Virginia “Ginni” Thomas to Meadows, which were obtained by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, confirmed their authenticity to ABC News. The content of the messages was first reported by The Washington Post and CBS News.
“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Thomas wrote to Meadows on Nov. 10 after the election was officially called for Joe Biden. “You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
“Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs,” Meadows wrote. “Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, John Santucci and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A second round of booster shots was authorized for everyone over the age of 50 by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, kicking off the regulatory process for shots to likely be available in pharmacies sometime this week.
Everyone 12 and older is already eligible for a booster shot five months after their initial vaccine series, if they received an mRNA vaccine like Pfizer or Moderna, or two months after getting the J&J vaccine.
But for those over 50, determined to be a vulnerable age group, officials have decided that the data on waning immunity justifies making another shot available for people who are four months after their first boost.
The decision now moves over to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to give instructions on how to implement the authorization.
She is expected to announce that fourth shots should be made available to anyone over 50 who wants one, but not to outright recommend it, leaving the decision up to individuals and their doctors. Shots could then be administered within the week.
So far there is limited U.S. data on second boosters. But data from Israel indicates that an additional booster shot can give a temporary bump in protection, reducing the risk of dying for adults over 60.
Several countries, including Israel, Chile and Sweden, have begun offering fourth COVID-19 doses to older adults and other at-risk groups.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, has said he expects that additional boosters would “reconstitute” people back to the maximal level of antibodies, rather than boost people higher than their previous immune responses from any of the earlier shots.
But he said that the body’s B cell and T cell response, which have more of an effect on the duration of immunity, may incrementally be increased with each additional boost.
And while Tuesday’s announcement only applies to older Americans, a decision for the rest of the population will soon be underway.
The FDA will convene a panel of vaccine experts on April 6 to discuss the plan. The experts will talk about the efficacy of booster shots and the potential need for a variant-specific booster instead of continual booster shots designed for the initial strain of COVID-19.
A decision would likely be made later this summer or fall.
Older people who get a booster this spring would also likely be advised to get another boost in the fall, alongside the general population, if that’s the recommendation, said an official familiar with the booster discussions.
But boosting too frequently could cause fatigue, a dilemma that many public health experts are weighing.
“We’re going to have to learn to live with mild disease at some point,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ABC News. Frequent boosting “is not a reasonable thing to do, and it’s not something most people will do anyway.”
Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla has also acknowledged the impracticality of people rigorously staying up to date with shots every few months.
“We can’t have vaccines every five, six months,” said Bourla, speaking on CNBC. But until they have new-and-improved boosters ready to go, Pfizer and Moderna executives argue fourth doses will be needed by at least some older Americans soon.
Of course, the vast majority of Americans have yet to get even a first booster shot. Of the nearly 90 million fully vaccinated Americans, about half got their shots more than five months ago but still haven’t gotten a booster shot.
Among seniors 65 and over, uptake has been a bigger success. About two-thirds of seniors have gotten their first booster shot so far.
Britney Spears turned heads on Instagram when she appeared to referenceher ex, Justin Timberlake, in a since-deleted post that painted him in a bad light.
Britney said mother Lynne Spears and sister Jamie Lynn Spears, about whom she’s spoken out previously, aren’t the only people she says are guilty of using her for “FAME and ATTENTION.” Britney also seemingly put Justin on blast, writing, “Your ex did the same thing … he served with his first album using your name claiming you did him dirty !!!!”
Justin sparked rumors Britney cheated on him, thus dooming their fairytale romance, by using a lookalike in the music video for his heartbreak hit “Cry Me a River.” The former NSYNC singer previously apologized to Britney after fans became upset when his post-breakup actions were revisited for the Framing Britney Spears documentary.
While Britney’s latest post was removed, she referenced another ex in another post — Kevin Federline. She shared a drawing his 19-year-old daughter, Kori, drew and said the teen’s talent “makes me feel so stupid.”
“I think she was 12 when she did this … I’ve kept it all this time … she did it by hand no tracing,” Britney raved. “I respect people who can draw like this … My son can do the same thing … I mean wow … wow !!!!”
Kori’s mother, Shar Jackson, reacted to the shoutout and commented, “So crazy you posted this now because she’s working on a new one for you.” Shar shares a 17-year-old son, Kaleb, with Federline.
In an exclusive interview with Variety, Mick Jagger discusses working on “Strange Game,” the theme song to the new Apple TV+ espionage series Slow Horses, which premieres this Friday, April 1.
As announced earlier today, Jagger co-wrote and sings the tune, and the Rolling Stones frontman tells Variety that before getting involved in the project, he’d already read and was a fan of author Mike Herron‘s book series on which the show is based.
“I knew the vibe really well, so as soon as [composer Daniel Pemberton] sent the track to me, I just dashed off a few pages of notes of what I thought it was about,” Mick explains. “It came very, very quickly, which is always a good sign.”
Pemberton, an Oscar-nominated composer who co-wrote “Strange Game” and composed Slow Horses‘ score, says his collaboration with Jagger took place via Zoom, text and email starting in December 2021.
“I played him the track on guitar,” Pemberton reveals. “I’m not even a good guitarist. That was very weird, playing guitar for Mick Jagger on the Zoom line.”
Jagger says he then recorded his ideas on his iPhone and sent the track back to Pemberton, who loved it.
Mick adds, “And then we had to do a bit of crafting, trying to get a chorus…and trying to get the verses from the point of view of the main character.”
That character is Jackson Lamb, portrayed by Gary Oldman, who’s the head of a branch of the U.K. counter-intelligence agency MI5 that’s populated by failed agents hoping to redeem themselves.
“It’s quite irreverent, but the Gary Oldman character is irreverent,” Jagger notes. “It’s also slightly eerie, so it combines those two things. You don’t want to make it too serious.”
While it went unnoticed by some in the wake of the “slap heard ’round the world,” some fans of Kirsten Dunst took issue with an Oscars moment in which co-host Amy Schumer referred to the nominated actress as a “seat filler.”
The bit had Schumer pulling Dunst from her seat and sitting in it next to The Power of the Dog nominee Jesse Plemons.
“You know that’s my wife, Amy,” Plemmons protested.
“You’re married to that seat filler?” Schumer said. “Oh, that’s weird.”
Dunst stans can relax, however: Schumer responded to the online backlash with an Instagram post explaining, “That was a choreographed bit she was in on,” adding, “Wouldn’t disrespect that queen like that.”
Plemons and Dunst were apparently so convincing — hey, they were both Oscar-nominated for the same film, after all — that fans cried foul.
“what kristen dunst should’ve done to amy schumer,” one Tweeter noted, with footage of Will Smith‘s slap of Chris Rock.
(NORTH BAY VILLAGE, Fla.) — Joao “Julia” da Silva, a 23-year-old trans woman, has been missing since Thursday, March 24, when she was last seen by family members leaving her residence in North Bay Village, Florida.
Authorities say da Silva frequents the Miami, Miami Beach, and Wilton Manors LGBTQ communities. She was last seen in newly uncovered video surveillance at a gas station on Monday night in the South Miami area near Homestead.
“With this video footage, what concerns us is that she did appear disoriented,” said Paul Battaglia, the LGBT liaison officer at the North Bay Village Police Department. “She also did appear alone, which is unusual for her.”
She was wearing a black tank top, skirt, and pearl necklace with curly hair when she was last seen.
Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violence, according to a study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
The department says they are taking the heightened risks against this population into account.
“We understand the statistics. They’re are at a higher probability for violence, self-harm,” Battaglia said. “So we did ask those pertinent questions at the initial intake. She does not suffer from any previous mental health history, no depression, no self-harm, because that’s very important to us.”
The investigation is ongoing. If anyone has information on Da Silva’s whereabouts, the North Bay Village Police Department urges them to reach out.
“That’s all we want, to make sure she is okay,” her best friend, Tatiana, told ABC-affiliate WPLG. They also reported that da Silva’s mother is flying in from Japan to help in the search.
Jungkook has tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the final member of BTS to contract the virus. J-Hope, V, RM, Jin, Jimin and Suga all previously tested positive for COVID-19.
NME obtained a statement from the band’s label, BigHit Music, that confirmed Jungkook’s diagnosis. The singer had tested negative for the virus when departing South Korea for Las Vegas on March 27. Jungkook then began experiencing discomfort in his throat and took a PCR and rapid test that returned positive results.
According to the statement, “Jungkook has been currently under self-quarantine and treatment, following the guidelines of health authorities in the United States. He is not exhibiting any symptoms other than a mild sore throat, and we will attentively monitor his health during the quarantine.”
It’s unknown if Jungkook will miss Sunday’s Grammy Awards. BTS is not only nominated for an award, but they are slated to perform, as well.
In addition, it is unclear if Jungkook’s illness means he will miss the sold-out Permission to Dance On Stage — Las Vegas concert series that runs April 8 to April 16. BigHit says his participation for both events “will be determined by the local COVID-19 regulations.”
“We would like to extend our sincerest apologies to our fans for causing you concern despite our effort to take all necessary measures for our artists’ health prior to and throughout the schedule in the United States,” the statement continued.
Jungkook also took to his Instagram stories on Tuesday and told fans in Korean that he is doing okay and that his symptoms are mild.
Kelsea Ballerini is getting real about mental health.
The singer took to Instagram for a “therapy appreciation post,” sharing her experience of how talking things out in a safe space has helped her process her emotions.
“My brain is currently a mix of the little kid version of me that is freaking out how cool life is and sees silver linings in rain clouds and the practical adult that is terrified because what goes up must come down and life always proves it,” she expresses in the post, alongside a photo of herself softly smiling in the sun. “The tug of war keeps me from being present. From feeling it all. That’s what i’m workin on right now.”
The “Half of My Hometown” singer concludes the post with a note of encouragement, checking in on her fans while reminding them that “your mental health matters.”
Kelsea hasn’t been shy about her mental health issues in the past, sharing that she has anxiety and has been in therapy off and on throughout her life.
