Following the fatal shooting Wednesday morning of Jacqueline Avant, wife of legendary music executive Clarence Avant, Tyler Perry is vowing to help find the killer.
Jacqueline was shot and killed during an invasion of the Avant home in Beverly Hills. She was 81.
“I have no idea what kind of sub-human could shoot an 81-year-old woman, and in her own home,” Perrytweeted. “You can rest assured that every available resource will be used to find whoever is responsible for this awful nightmare.”
During a press briefing, Beverly Hills Police Chief Mark G. Stainbrook read a statement from the Avant family, as reported by ABC Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV.
“The entire Avant family wishes to thank everyone for their outpouring of love, support and condolences for Jacqueline Avant,” the statement said. “Jacqueline was an amazing woman, wife, mother, philanthropist, and a 55-year resident of Beverly Hills, who has made an immeasurable positive contribution and impact on the arts community. She will be missed by her family, friends and all of the people she has held throughout her amazing life.”
In addition to Perry, many other celebrities expressed their grief, including NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, and former President Bill Clinton.
“Jackie was the sweetest person you could ever meet. She had a beautiful soul, kind heart, & always had a kind word for everybody,” Johnson wrote.
“Jackie Avant was a wonderful woman, a great partner to Clarence and mother to Alex and Nicole, an active citizen & a dear friend to Hillary and me for 30 years,” Clinton tweeted.
Clarence, 90, and Jacqueline were married for 54 years and have two children. Clarence Avant was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October.
But you can rest assured that every available resource will be used to find whoever is responsible for this awful nightmare. This is tremendously sad. (2/2)
Adam Levine may be sporting what appears to be new ink on his face, but fans can rest assured knowing that tattoo on his temple is 100 percent fake.
ABC Audio reached out to the Maroon 5 singer’s rep to find out if that rose tattoo was legit, who responded, “Nope, not real!”
Adam later took to his Instagram story to personally quell the rumor, and said, “This message is for my mother. I do not have a tattoo on my face. Those that know me know, I am too vain, I’m too f****** vain to get a tattoo on my face.”
The singer then gestured to his body and quipped, “I’ll tattoo the rest of this, but no, the face has gotta stay the same.”
Adam was seen flaunting the face art at a Wednesday night red carpet event with wife Behati Prinsloo. Fans pointed out the flower resembled the Calirosa Tequila brand the “Harder to Breathe” singer recently launched with Behati.
Since Adam is known to get tattoos with special meanings, such as the word “California” across his abdomen to honor his home state, it was believed the new ink was in honor of his new business venture.
The clip features a cartoon Gibbons donning a Santa Claus outfit as he embarks on a snowy adventure to deliver presents in a hot rod that’s been converted into a flying sleigh. Along the way he rocks out on his new Christmas tune with help from a harmonica-playing snowman.
“The animators put me in a hot rod that looks suspiciously like our very own ’34 Ford-based ‘Whiskey Runner’ though they’ve made some few seasonal adjustments,” Billy explains of the video. “There’s considerable snowfall so the wheels are replaced midway by a set of skis and now there’s a pickup bed in the back so gifts can rain down from it. They have me doing a header into a chimney but it’s not clear if I get to to enjoy any cookies and milk for my efforts.”
As previously reported, “Jingle Bell Blues” is 12-bar-blues-infused version of the Christmas classic “Jingle Bells” that’s available now as a digital download and via streaming services. A limited-edition seven-inch vinyl single pressed on red-translucent vinyl will be released on December 10.
The disc, which you can pre-order now at Gibbons’ official online store, comes with an old-school vinyl center hole adapter with “Billy F Gibbons” written on it. The single’s flip side features an etching of a whitewall tire.
Tom Morello has premiered a new solo song called “The Maze” featuring Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.
With soaring vocals from the “Cecilia and the Satellite” singer, “The Maze” is among the poppiest songs in the Rage Against the Machine guitarist’s catalog, though it still boasts an epic guitar solo. You can download “The Maze” now via digital outlets.
“The Maze” will appear on Morello’s upcoming solo album The Atlas Underground Flood, his second release of 2021, following October’s The Atlas Underground Fire. Flood, which will arrive this Friday, December 3, also features guest spots from Metallica‘s Kirk Hammett, Rush‘s Alex Lifeson, Nathaniel Rateliff, X Ambassadors, Barns Courtney, My Morning Jacket‘s Jim James, and Manchester Orchestra.
The equally feature-heavy Fire included collaborations with Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder, Bruce Springsteen, Bring Me the Horizon, Phantogram and grandson.
Seth Rogen wanted to have a good time at Adele‘s One Night Only concert taping — but then he set fire to the blunt.
Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the actor said he “smoked a ton of weed” when pre-gaming for the concert, but that decision blew up in his face.
“We pull up and we see cranes, camera cranes, there’s drones flying around, there’s an entire crew there, and I’m like, ‘Oh no, we are at the filming of a television special,'” Seth recalled. He insisted he had “no idea I was attending the taping” because the invitation advertised it as “a small Adele concert.”
But it just kept getting worse for the Santa Inc. star, who was already kicking himself.
“I’m like, ‘Maybe it’s not that big a television special,’ and then the first person I see is Oprah Winfrey,” he groaned. Then he and wife Lauren Miller were seated “in the front row of the Adele concert.”
“We’re in front-row center. We’re as close as you can fathomably be. I sit down there’s a camera literally pointed at my face,” the comic laughed.
To make matters worse, Seth had better seats than A-listers like Drake and Leonardo DiCaprio. “I could just feel them be insulted that I had such a good seat,” he recalled, and insisted he does not know Adele, so he couldn’t explain why he was in the front row. Neither did Adele’s actual friends, as Seth admitted he felt “Drake’s eyes drilling into the back of my head.”
Unable to “slink into the background” and “sit in the back,” Seth relied on his acting skills to get him through the night, “playing the role of just an undistracted, normal, cool guy trying to enjoy an Adele concert.”
Carrie Underwood launched her Reflection: The Las Vegas Residency earlier this week with a sold-out show at the newly-opened Resorts World Theatre.
She’s the first artist to play the brand-new stage, and her show featured an array of dazzling stage decors and aesthetics, including aerialists, a virtual orchestra and an elaborate, show-closing wall feature. The set list spanned Carrie’s career to date, offering selections of some of the greatest hits from each era of her time as a performer.
Carrie also announced that she’s expanding her residency once again, adding six new dates in May 2022. The new show dates are May 11, 13, 14, 18, 20 and 21, and tickets for those shows go on sale Monday, December 6 at 10 a.m. PST.
“It’s such a special honor to be the first artist to perform on this incredible stage in a brand-new, beautiful, state-of-the-art theatre at such an exciting new destination as Resorts World Las Vegas,” the singer says. “I’m so proud of this show and so happy to finally get to share it with the amazing audiences here in Las Vegas.”
Machine Gun Kelly joined Jimmy Fallon for a round of “Auto-Tune Up” on Wednesday’s episode of NBC’s The Tonight Show.
For the game, the “Bloody Valentine” rocker and the show host took turns turning a “random, boring paragraph” into an “awesome song” by using the Auto-Tune vocal effect. Kelly’s prompts included a post on the Nextdoor app asking neighbors to stop feeding crows, and a Yelp review of an Idaho body piercing shop.
“I feel like that’s mine,” Kelly joked of the Yelp review. “I feel like I’ve for sure gotten by body pieced in Idaho.”
You can watch the segment streaming now on YouTube.
Kelly also stuck around for an interview with Fallon about his upcoming film The Last Son, and his relationship with Megan Fox. Notably, he wore a t-shirt with an image of Fox from her movie Jennifer’s Body.
Ever since Sex and the City fans learned that Kim Cattrall‘s Samantha would not be a part of the HBO Max revival, And Just Like That…, they wondered how the series could go on without her.
However, SATC showrunner Michael PatrickKing tells The Hollywood Reporter, “And Just Like That… was never four [characters].”
“It never was on the radar as four because Kim Cattrall, for whatever reason, didn’t want to play Samantha anymore while we were doing the [third] movie,” King told the magazine.
While a script was created for a third film, Cattrall told producers to count her out. “I can’t. My heart isn’t in it anymore,” the now 65-year-old actress wrote on Instagram in 2017, replying to a user who asked her to “find a way” to make the follow-up to 2010’s Sex and the City 2.
“I’ve moved on. 61 isn’t 53 or 41,” she added.
The movie was ultimately scrapped, and King understood that it was unlikely that any future SATC-related project would ever feature Cattrall.
“I never thought, ‘Oh, there’s a hole I have to fill,’” he said about Cattrall not being on board. “Samantha doesn’t not exist in their lives. [And Just Like That…] was born of these three characters: What’s their life, and who can I bring in to inform it?”
And Just Like That… — starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon — launches with two episodes on December 9, with the next eight being released each subsequent Thursday.
Taylor Swift always does the right thing. After her song “All Too Well” broke the record for the lengthiest track ever to top the Billboard Hot 100, she sent a gift to the guy who’d held the record for the past 50 years: singer/songwriter Don McLean.
McLean, whose 1971 hit “American Pie” ran eight minutes and 36 seconds, was bested by Taylor, with “All Too Well” clocking in at 10:13. McLean tweeted a photo of the flowers and letter that Taylor sent him, and commented, “What a classy artist! Thank you @taylorswift13 for the flowers & note!“
In her letter, Taylor wrote, “Don, I will never forget that I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. Your music has been so important to me. Sending love [from] one writer of LONG SONGS to another. Your fan, Taylor.”
McLean, 76, said in a statement to ABC Audio last month, “Let’s face it, nobody ever wants to lose that #1 spot, but if I had to lose it to somebody, I sure am glad it was another great singer/songwriter such as Taylor.”
Taylor’s 10-minute-plus recording of “All Too Well” is featured as a bonus track on Red (Taylor’s Version), which she released on November 12.
(NEW YORK) — As the U.S. Supreme Court continues to weigh whether to leave Texas’s unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, in place, a new law that also restricts abortion access is going into effect in the state.
Starting Thursday, people in Texas will have a narrower window in which they can receive abortion-inducing medication, including the two most commonly used medications, mifepristone and misoprostol.
Senate Bill 4, or SB4, cuts the window in which physicians are allowed to give the medication from 10 weeks of pregnancy to seven weeks.
The new law also prohibits mailing abortion-inducing drugs, a restriction that contrasts with a federal regulation enacted in April by the Biden administration that temporarily allows the medication to be mailed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Current Texas law already bans providers from administering medication abortion using telemedicine, according to Abigail R.A. Aiken, MD, MPH, PhD, associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and principal investigator with Project SANA, a research project focused on self-managed abortion in the U.S.
“We’ve seen many states be able to open up new models of care where clinic-based providers can now do medication abortion by telemedicine,” said Aiken. “I think Texas is very clear that they don’t want providers here to follow suit and be able to start doing those kinds of new models where you would do a phone consultation with a provider and then have the pills mailed to your house for use at home.”
The bill, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on Sept. 24, also adds new requirements around medication abortions, including an in-person examination by a physician, a mandatory follow-up visit within 14 days and new reporting requirements for providers.
The bill also creates a state jail felony offense for “a person who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly violates provisions relating to abortion-inducing drugs,” but exempts pregnant people on whom a medication abortion is “attempted, induced or performed,” according to the bill summary.
Though SB4 is being enacted in Texas, medication abortion is now a very common method used for abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. In 2019, 42% of all abortions in the U.S. were early medical abortions, meaning medications were taken at nine weeks or earlier after conception, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Medication abortions were first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000. FDA guidelines advise that abortion-inducing pills are safe to use up to 70 days, or 10 weeks, after conception, though evidence shows it can be safe even later in pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
In most cases in a medication abortion, mifepristone is taken first to stop the pregnancy from growing. Then, a second pill, misoprostol, is then taken to empty the uterus.
Of the two medications, mifepristone is more restricted by the FDA. Since 2011, the agency has applied a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy to mifepristone, preventing it from being distributed at pharmacies or delivered by mail like other prescription drugs.
It must be ordered, prescribed and dispensed by a health care provider who meets certain qualifications, and may only be distributed in clinics, medical offices, and hospitals by a certified health care provider, according to FDA guidelines.
The FDA’s rules, combined with state restrictions like the one in Texas, have the effect of not only limiting when, where and how people can get abortions, but also potentially misguiding people on the safety of medication abortion, according to Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a staff physician at Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston.
“What’s important to note is that the medication used in medication abortion has been used in this country for 21 years and it is extremely safe,” said Kumar. “We’ve learned a lot since it was first introduced and can use it in different ways that are more patient-centered, more evidence-informed and really optimizes science and medicine so that patients get the care that they need.”
Speaking of the new law now in effect in Texas, he added, “What Senate Bill 4 is doing is inserting itself squarely into my relationship with my patients and telling me how to practice medicine, and it’s not in the best interest of my patients. It’s actually causing more harm to my patients and it’s taking options away from them.”
Abortion rights advocates say SB4 also has the likelihood of signaling to other states that further restrictions on medication abortion can be put in place.
In South Dakota in September — the same month SB4 was signed into law in Texas — Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, issued an executive order directing the state’s Department of Health to establish rules requiring that abortion-inducing drugs only be prescribed and dispensed by a state-licensed physician after an in-person examination. Noem said she also plans to pass legislation next year that makes “these and other protocols permanent.”
Across the country, more than 30 states require clinicians who administer medication abortion to be physicians, while 19 states require the clinician providing a medication abortion to be physically present when the medication is administered, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
“I think we have to see this is another continuation of the trajectory of trying to really make abortion a right on paper only in the United States,” said Aiken. “It’s another way of placing barriers in the way of people.”
She continued, speaking of restrictive abortion laws in some states, “I think what it’s doing in reality is creating this really uneven picture where you have some states that are moving in the direction of more and more and more accessible care, but the reality in other states is completely the reverse, so we’re looking at that uneven picture where your access really depends on your zip code.”
Both Aiken and Kumar mentioned the affect laws like SB4 in Texas have on the most vulnerable populations.
Around 75% of abortion patients are low-income residents, and nearly 60% of U.S. women of reproductive age live in states where access to abortion is restricted, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
“It has been the case in Texas now for decades that we have seen low-income people and communities of color just bear this disproportionate brunt of negative impacts of these laws,” said Aiken. “So this is an equity issue and it’s a justice issue as well as a health care issue.”
