The Canadian singer has dropped her new single, “Bite Me,” her first release on Travis Barker‘s DTA Records. She’ll give the song it’s late-night TV debut tonight on CBS’ The Late Late Show with James Corden.
On the punk/pop track, Avril comes out swinging, dropping F-bombs and singing, “You should’ve known better, better to f*** with someone like me/ Hey you, forever and ever you’re gonna wish I was your wifey/ Should’ve held on, should’ve treated me right/ I gave you one chance, you don’t get it twice/ Hey you, we’ll be together never, so baby, you can bite me.”
Avril announced recently that she’d signed to the Blink-182 drummer’s label. In a statement, she notes that the first time that she and Barker worked together was 15 years ago, on her album The Best Damn Thing.
“I have really enjoyed watching him develop into the producer that he is today,” she says. “We spent a lot of time writing songs and working on this record together, and signing to his record label, DTA felt like the perfect home for me and my new music.”
Avril continues, “Travis understands my vision as a musician, my creative process as an artist, and my goals at this stage of my career. I am excited to be dropping ‘Bite Me.’ It’s an anthem about knowing your worth, what you deserve, and not giving someone a second chance who doesn’t deserve you.”
Barker, meanwhile, calls Avril is “a true bada** and an icon as a performer, songwriter, and presence,” adding, “I can’t wait for everybody to experience the incredible music she’s about to drop.”
Grillo on the “Lamborghini: The Legend” set — Daniele Venturelli/Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images
Frank Grillo has had a busy couple of months. He’s in theaters and can be seen on demand in the crime thriller Ida Red opposite Oscar winner Melissa Leo, as well as on Disney+ — in animated form — as his MCU character Brock Rumlow/Crossbones in Marvel Studios’ What If…?
The actor recently returned from Italy, where he shot the film Lamborghini: The Legend, in which he portrays the man behind the iconic supercar. He replaced Antonio Banderas in the lead role, and the Bronx, New York-born Grillo tells ABC Audio that he was thrilled to get into the driver’s seat.
“First of all, I am in Italy, all over Italy, playing Ferruccio Lamborghini, with Gabriel Byrne and Mira Sorvino,” Grillo enthuses.
“Bobby Maresco wrote the script. He won the Oscar for Crash and Million Dollar Baby. I was surrounded by Oscars, and then there was me,” he says, smiling. “And, you know, look, to go and do a biopic and play this person and have his family around, it was spectacular. [It] really reinvigorated my appreciation for acting.”
Having the last name Grillo also helped, he maintains. “Brother…listen, I couldn’t fall down and not be in a great restaurant or a great bar, people were taking me everywhere,” he notes. “And, you know, I’m Italian, so it was great!”
As for reprising his MCU role in What If…?, the Purge series veteran says, cracking up, “It was a hoot, man! I got to see myself in a cartoon, and they did a pretty good job. They got the hair [right]! Somehow, I’m a lot taller and younger and better looking, but whatever, man, I’m still in it.”
Luke Bryan‘s mom, LeClaire, is a bona fide social media star in her own right, thanks in part to the fact that she frequently finds herself the butt of the joke in family prank wars.
LeClaire is so popular that Luke’s fans might even have hoped she’d make an appearance at the 2021 CMA Awards, which her superstar son is hosting solo this year. And while his mom won’t be appearing on the big stage this year, Luke says it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“We did have a moment where we were gonna maybe incorporate her. We were gonna have some fun with her, but it didn’t work out,” Luke admits with a giggle. “You never know — if they let me back next year, we might turn it over to Mama.”
In the meantime, Luke knows he’s got some big shoes to fill. There hasn’t been a solo host at the CMA Awards in almost two decades, and for a streak of years, Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood helmed the show. During their tenure as hosts, Brad and Carrie were known not only for their hilarious onstage antics, but also for their frequent costume changes, and Luke says he might try to outdo them in the latter category.
“We’ve tabulated how many times they have done that, and I’m going to one-up them,” he hints. “Whether it’s just a tie here — just nuances — a pocket square here. That’s a wardrobe change.”
The 2021 CMA Awards airs on ABC tonight beginning at 8 p.m. ET.
50 Cent has joined the star-studded Expendables franchise featuring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Dolph Lundgren. Those actors are famous for their many action films, yet Fiddy says for his role in The Expendables 4, he deserves top billing.
“This is my movie. Everybody else just in it,” the rapper/actor, born Curtis Jackson, comments in an Instagram post.
The BMF executive producer posted five photos of himself on the set, including one aiming a rifle, and a few others posing with a tank. “If i was you i would roll with me because i’m not slowing down,” he declares. “If you in the way you getting rolled over.”
The Expendables series, about an elite group of mercenaries, began in 2010, followed by sequels in 2012 and 2014. The Expendables 4 is scheduled to be released in 2022. 50 Cent was originally cast in the first Expendables movie; however, he turned down the role to record his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, which he executive produced with Eminem and Dr. Dre.
As previously reported, Eminem appears in BMF as the notorious FBI informant White Boy Rick. Jackson was furious with Starz for prematurely releasing Sunday’s episode, which he directed, a week early. Last week, following reports that Lionsgate was considering selling Starz, Fiddy commented, “I’m gonna look into buying the Starz network.”
Chris Young and Kane Brown will hit the CMAs stage tonight for a rendition of their number-one song “Famous Friends,” but don’t expect to hear many details about what they’ve got planned for their performance ahead of showtime.
“Nothing. I’m not allowed to say anything at all [about it],” Chris jokes. “I will say that we have not done this particular gimmick for the performance anywhere before, so it’s definitely something new.”
Between the performance and his nominations for “Famous Friends,” Chris is expecting an exciting CMAs week, made even more special because he gets to share it with his friend Kane.
“[It’s] the first time I’ve ever been nominated for Single of the Year, and I get to celebrate those noms with KB,” he adds, going on to reflect on his longtime friendship with his fellow country superstar.
“Kane’s fantastically talented and I love that I’ve been able to get to know him That I knew him before he had the record deal, and was getting the chance to write with him and have some cuts on his records. And then was able to ask him to be a part of mine,” Chris continues. “…Watching this song blow up and become bigger than we ever expected it to has been so much fun.”
The 2021 CMA Awards airs beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC.
(NEW YORK) — More than 22 million infants across the globe didn’t get their first measles vaccine dose last year, according to a joint statement Wednesday from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two-thirds of those children live in just 10 countries: Nigeria, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Angola, the Philippines, Brazil and Afghanistan.
Even in countries with high vaccination rates, anti-vaccine sentiment has led to outbreaks in some communities. In 2019, for example, the United States saw the highest number of preventable measles cases since 1992, according to the CDC.
Measles, one of the most contagious viruses in the world, is “almost entirely preventable” through the two vaccine doses, the WHO and CDC said.
Globally in 2019, 19 million infants missed their first dose; this increase to 22 million marks the biggest jump in two decades, which creates “dangerous conditions for outbreaks,” the organizations warned.
Only 70% of kids received their second dose last year, which is well below the 95% threshold needed to protect communities, the organizations said.
The number of measles cases actually dropped in 2020 to 7.5 million, but Dr. Kate O’Brien, the director of WHO’s department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals, warned in a statement, “evidence suggests we are likely seeing the calm before the storm as the risk of outbreaks continues to grow around the world.”
“It’s critical that countries vaccinate as quickly as possible against COVID-19, but this requires new resources so that it does not come at the cost of essential immunization programs,” O’Brien said. “Routine immunization must be protected and strengthened; otherwise, we risk trading one deadly disease for another.”
Henry Cavill appeared as Superman technically four times, starting with 2013’s Man of Steel, and following it up with both 2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice as well as 2017’s Justice League — which was re-cut and re-released in 2021 as Zack Snyder‘s Justice League.
But the actor tells The Hollywood Reporter he’d love to give it another shot. “The cape’s still in the closet,” he jokes.
The British star of Netflix’s The Witcher feels he felt he was just scratching the surface with the character at the end of Man of Steel, which was far better received critically and than Warner Bros.’ comic movie follow-ups, excepting Snyder’s do-over.
“There is still a lot of storytelling for me to do as a Superman, and I would absolutely love the opportunity,” Cavill reasoned. He cited the ending of Man of Steel, explaining, “The killing of Zod gave a reason for the character never to kill again.”
Cavill revealed, “Superman falling to the ground and screaming afterward — I don’t think that was originally in the script, but I wanted to show the pain he had. I did far more emotional takes they didn’t choose; tears were happening.”
He added, “There’s an opportunity for growth after that, to explore the psyche of Superman as a deep, seemingly invulnerable god-like being but with real feeling on the inside.”
Officially, Cavill’s future as the gravity-defying hero is, well, still up in the air.
A previously unheard song recorded in 1968 that features The Beatles‘ George Harrison and Ringo Starr got its world premiere today and will be released as a charity single on Thursday, BBC News reports.
The tune, “Radhe Shaam,” was written and produced by Indian-born journalist/broadcaster Suresh Joshi and was recently rediscovered at his Birmingham, U.K., home during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The song was premiered at an event Wednesday, held at the Liverpool Beatles Museum attended by about 100 people, and then was played on BBC Radio.
In a Wednesday interview with the BBC, Joshi explained that “Radhe Shaam” was recorded at London’s Trident Studios for the soundtrack of a feature film on which he was working. Joshi said Harrison and Starr turned up at the session while The Beatles were taking a break from recording “Hey Jude,” and the two musicians offered to play on the song, which was sung by Indian classical musician Aashish Khan.
Joshi said that the recording initially was shelved and he’d always hoped to release it eventually, but he never got around to it until it turned up again during the lockdown.
Suresh noted that he was inspired to find the master tape of the recording after telling his friend Deepak Pathak about the song. Liverpool Beatles Museum creator Roag Best, half brother of original Beatles drummer Pete Best, also took part in the interview, and explained that Pathak met Paul McCartney at the museum and told him about the track, and McCartney then helped to facilitate its release.
Roag also revealed that “Radhe Shaam” will be released Thursday, with all proceeds benefiting charity.
You can listen to the interview and the song at BBC.co.uk. The song is played at about the two-hour, 28-minute mark.
Amazon Studios has released the full trailer for its upcoming film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Being the Ricardos. Nicole Kidman plays the famous redhead, and fellow Oscar winner Javier Bardem plays her husband and I Love Lucy co-star/co-producer.
While the first teaser showed Ball supremely confident, and at the top of her game as a TV icon and top producer, the trailer delves into the enormous pressure she was under, not just from television execs, but from fans, the paparazzi and the FBI, the latter of which investigated her when it was revealed she had once registered to vote as a Communist.
There’s also the matter of her marriage to Arnaz, which was picture perfect as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo onscreen, but which in reality became anything but.
Academy Award-winning writer Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed the drama, which also stars another Oscar winner, Whiplash‘s JK Simmons, as well as Veep Emmy winner Tony Hale.
Amazon says the film is set during a critical week of shooting I Love Lucy, when “Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are threatened by shocking personal accusations, a political smear and cultural taboos.”
Being the Ricardos debuts on Amazon Prime on December 21.
(NEW YORK) — Duchess Meghan has responded to a tabloid publisher’s appeal of a privacy case she won earlier this year, saying she is “standing up for what’s right.”
“It’s an arduous process but, again, it’s just me standing up for what’s right,” Meghan said Tuesday at The New York Times DealBook Online Summit. “At a certain point, no matter how difficult it is, you know the difference between right and wrong, you must stand up for what’s right, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Meghan, who now lives in California with her husband, Prince Harry, and their two children, sued Associated Newspapers Ltd., a U.K. tabloid publisher, in 2019 for alleged copyright infringement, misuse of private information and breach of the Data Protection Act over the publication of a handwritten letter she wrote to her now-estranged father, Thomas Markle, in 2018, ahead of her wedding to Harry.
The letter was reproduced by Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, in five articles in February 2019.
Meghan won in a summary judgement earlier this year, but Associated Newspapers has appealed, requesting that the case go to trial and claiming new evidence shows Meghan knew the letter might be made public.
“The fundamental point turns out to be false on the new evidence,” a lawyer for the publishing group said in court Tuesday. “The letter was crafted specifically with the potential of public consumption in mind because the claimant appreciated Mr. Markle might disclose it to the media.”
The new evidence cited by the publishing group is testimony from Harry and Meghan’s former communications secretary Jason Knauf.
Knauf, who reportedly filed a complaint against Meghan in 2018 over her alleged treatment of aides, claims in a witness statement that Meghan “indicated in messages to me that she recognized that it was possible that Mr. Markle would make the letter public.”
“When the Duchess was considering how to handle Mr. Markle’s increasing public interventions – both for concerns about his welfare and also to protect her reputation – she explored options for written communication that might convince him to stop giving interviews, but that could also set the record straight if he gave them to the media,” Knauf said in the statement provided to Associated Newspapers’ lawyers. “The Duchess wanted to make sure that if the letter became public it would assist with setting out her perspective on the problems with her father’s behavior. In the messages on 24 August she said she felt ‘fantastic’ after writing it and added that: ‘And if he leaks it then that’s on his conscious but at least the world will know the truth. Words I could never voice publicly.'”
Knauf also claims Meghan and Harry later authorized specific cooperation in December 2018 with the authors of “Finding Freedom,” a book about her and Prince Harry’s departure from official royal duties. The book was co-authored by Carolyn Durand, a former ABC News producer, and Omid Scobie, currently an ABC News royal contributor.
Knauf cited an email exchange with Prince Harry regarding an upcoming meeting Knauf had with the authors, and provided Harry a list of topics the authors wanted to discuss. He said he expressed to Harry that “being able to say hand on heart that we did not facilitate access will be important” in the email.
According to Knauf, Harry replied, saying: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t have anything to do with it. Equally, you giving the right context and background to them would help get some truths out there. The truth is v much needed and would be appreciated, especially around the Markle/wedding stuff but at the same time we can’t put them directly in touch with her friends.”
Knauf claims Meghan also provided him with a list of background information and bullet points to discuss with the authors, including her happiness about moving to Windsor and her relationship with her father and half-siblings.
Lawyers for Associated Newspapers argued during the original privacy lawsuit case that Meghan was trying to manipulate the narrative around her to be more positive, and that she gave or enabled “them [the authors of Finding Freedom, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand] to be given a great deal of other information about her personal life, in order to set out her own version of events in a way that is favorable to her.”
Meghan’s lawyers categorically refuted those claims at the time and Meghan did so again Wednesday in a new response to the Associated Newspapers’ appeal.
“It is untrue that my husband and I [or either of us] spoke to the authors for the purposes of the Book. Nor did we meet with them ‘in about late 2018,’ far less did we do so at any time to discuss ‘the ways in which [we] would cooperate in the writing of the Book'(as also alleged. I note that this is effectively confirmed by Mr. Knauf at paragraph 18 of his Witness Statement,” she wrote in a 22-page response to Knauf.
Meghan also stated she did not believe the letter was “likely to reach the public domain,” but “merely recognized that this was a possibility given the extraordinary level of media attention and unusual lens we were all under.”
“To be clear, I did not want any of it to be published, and wanted to ensure that the risk of it being manipulated or misleadingly edited was minimized, were it to be exploited,” she said, adding that writing a letter was the only “viable option” for communicating with her father due to the media intrusion into their relationship.
Meghan also said in her response that it was only until Thomas Markle began including the royal family in his media attacks that senior members of the family expressed concern over wanting him to be stopped. She said she was “eager to please” them, and that the situation was putting significant pressure on Harry.
She said she decided to write the letter in accordance with advice she received from two senior family members, who are not named.
