Kacey Musgraves bared all in her Saturday Night Live performance.
In the episode hosted by Owen Wilson, the Grammy winning singer shared star-crossed with the world, opening her two-song set with a body- and soul-baring moment poised as she performed “justified” on a stool with a guitar, wearing boots and seemingly nothing else.
The moment was similar to the famous scene in Forrest Gump when Jenny, played by Robin Wright, performs nude with only her guitar covering her.
For “camera roll,” Kacey changed into jeans and a flannel shirt. Sitting at a table alone with rotating images of strangers sitting across from her as she performed, she made her way to the center of the stage barefoot, singing of the “torture” of scrolling through old photos of a past relationship.
This marks the singer’s second SNL appearance following her 2018 debut appearance after the release of Golden Hour.
(NEW YORK) — In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Stephanie Grisham, one of former President Donald Trump’s most senior and longest-serving advisers, said she regrets enabling a culture of dishonesty at the White House.
“You are talking about this cultural culture of casual dishonesty at the White House, so you were, as press secretary, even if you weren’t getting briefings, enabling that culture, weren’t you?” Stephanopoulos asked Grisham on Good Morning America Monday morning.
Grisham, whose new tell-all book “I’ll Take Your Questions Now” is out this week, responded, “Yes, I was. And I’ve reflected on that and I regret that. Especially now when watching him, and so many people, push the false election narrative. I now want to, in whatever way I can, educate the public about the behaviors within the White House because it does look like he’s going to try to run in 2024.”
Stephanopoulos challenged Grisham, who served nearly the entire four-year term in the Trump White House before resigning after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, asking, “but you stayed until the final two weeks … what took you so long?”
“Yes, that’s a fair question and it’s a complicated question,” Grisham responded, adding that she was at first drawn to Trump’s ability to attract large crowds and his support among Republicans. But she said that when she joined the West Wing, she “started to see what it was really like and I regretted that decision immediately.”
The former president has forcefully responded to the latest tell-all book by a former close ally, with Melania Trump’s office saying in a statement, “The author is desperately trying to rehabilitate her tarnished reputation by manipulating and distorting the truth about Mrs. Trump. Ms. Grisham is a deceitful and troubled individual who doesn’t deserve anyone’s trust.”
Grisham, who also told Stephanopoulos it was the former president who told her not to hold briefings during her time in the role, said she is unsure if she could have done more to protect a young female staffer who she writes in her new book Trump had developed a “unusual interest” in and had “behaved inappropriately” toward.
“Should you have done more to protect her?” Stephanopoulos pressed.
Grisham responded, “I don’t know if I could have, there’s, there’s not an HR department at the White House,” before Stephanopoulos pushed back and suggested she could have brought the issue to White House chief of staff.
“I didn’t feel comfortable talking to Mark Meadows,” Grisham responded. “I don’t believe he would have done anything. So I did the best I could, in terms of never letting her be alone with him in the cabin. I tried to keep her off trips as often as I could. I did the best I could, I think, in that environment.”
Another major theme in the book is the former president’s infatuation with world dictators. Grisham recalls how the former president tried to cozy up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin during an overseas trip for the Group of 20 summit in Osaka in 2019.
“How do you explain why the president was so placating of President Putin?” Stephanopoulos asked. Grisham said that, in her opinion, “I got the feeling that he wanted to impress dictators, I think he almost admired how tough they were.”
While other top aides resigned or were forced out, with some even speaking out against Trump while he was still in office, Grisham stood by the president throughout nearly the entirety of the Trump administration’s four-year term, through numerous controversies — and when asked on Monday by Stephanopoulos if it was a mistake to work for President Trump, she quickly replied, “Yes.”
“Why do it?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“I do believe he gave voice to a lot of people who did feel forgotten,” Grisham said. “But I think that many of us, myself included, got into that White House, and got heavy with power and … we didn’t think about serving the country anymore, it was about surviving.”
Billie Eilish has snagged a huge honor: She’ll be headlining the U.K.’s prestigious Glastonbury Festival in 2022.
Not only that, but as the announcement notes, this will be Billie’s first U.K. festival headlining performance, and she’ll also be the “youngest ever solo headliner” at the long-running event, as well as the first female headliner since Adele in 2016. Billie, who turns 20 in December, will take the stage June 24, 2022 to close the festival.
In other Billie Eilish festival news, she appeared at the Austin City Limits festival in Texas over the weekend, where she told fans that she almost canceled her performance due to Texas’ restrictive abortion laws.
In fan-shot video at her Saturday performance, Billie can be heard saying, “When they made that s**t a law, I almost didn’t want to do this show because I wanted to punish this f***ing place for allowing that to happen here.”
“But then I remembered that it’s you guys that are the f***ing victims, and you deserve everything in the world. And we need to tell them to shut the f*** up,” she continued. She then raised her middle finger and invited the crowd to do the same and join her in shouting, “My body, my f***ing choice!”
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 701,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 65.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 04, 10:24 am
NYC public school employees must now be vaccinated
All New York City public school employees must now be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that 95% of full-time employees are now vaccinated, including 96% of teachers and 99% of principals.
“It clearly works,” the mayor said of the mandate, which went into effect at 5 p.m. Friday.
Schools Chancellor Misha Porter said 18,000 new shots were given out since Friday. She said unvaccinated employees can still get their shots and return to work.
Protesting teachers will march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall for a rally Monday afternoon.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 701,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 65% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 04, 9:19 am
NYC public school employees must now be vaccinated
All New York City public school employees must now be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs.
More than 97% of the city’s public school teachers are now vaccinated, according to the United Federation of Teachers.
The union estimated about 1,000 more teachers were vaccinated over the weekend following the 5 p.m. Friday deadline.
Protesting teachers will march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall for a rally Monday afternoon.
Fans of the movie Mean Girls know October 3 is a very important day — the day when Aaron Samuels, played by Jonathan Bennett, asks Lindsay Lohan’s Cady Heron what day it is and she replies, “It’s October 3rd.”
Nearly 20 years since Lohan uttered that now-famous line, fans of the 2004 comedy will wear pink on October 3 to honor the occasion.
Lohan took to Instagram on Sunday to remind her followers what day it was, sharing a screenshot of her and Bennett’s on-screen exchange.
Amanda Seyfried, who played the vapid Karen Smith, celebrated in the comment section by declaring, “YES IT IS.”
Bennett, 40, also joined in on the fun by inviting Lohan to recreate the scene by asking, “What day is it?” The actress happily obliged and shot back, “It’s October 3rd,” along with a crying laughing emoji.
Lacey Chabert, who played Gretchen Weiners, took to her Instagram story on Sunday to remind her fans “You can sit with us” — a reference to another of the movie’s famous lines, when her character yells “You can’t sit with us” to queen bee Regina George, played by Rachel McAdams.
Daniel Franzese, who played Damian in the Tina Fey-penned movie, also saluted the day by sharing several artistic recreations of his famous scene, in which he shouts during an all-girls’ assembly, “She doesn’t even go here!”
“I want to thank all of the fans of this movie that brings so much joy and adventure into my life,” the comedian wrote. “I’m grateful for each of your gasps or screams when you meet me or the tears we shed hearing your stories. Movies are healing. Comedies can especially be.”
Mean Girls opened in theaters in April 2004. It grossed $130 million worldwide and subsequently developed a cult following and even spawned a hit Broadway musical.
(PHILADELPHIA) — An employee at Philadelphia’s Jefferson University Hospital was gunned down, allegedly by a coworker wearing scrubs, before the suspect shot and injured two officers during his capture, authorities said.
The shooting was reported at 12:13 a.m. local time at the hospital’s Gibbon Building, according to an internal law enforcement briefing reviewed by ABC News. No one else at the hospital was hurt.
Philadelphia police said they believe the slain employee was targeted.
Police found the suspect outside a school about 4 miles from the hospital at 1:29 a.m. local time, the briefing said.
The gunman shot at police, striking two officers, before the suspect was injured and taken into custody, according to law enforcement.
One officer was hit in the elbow and the other suffered a graze wound to the face, the briefing said. Both officers are in stable condition, law enforcement said.
The suspect is in the hospital and is expected to survive, Philadelphia police said.
Police searched a box truck the suspect was driving and found a gun, scrub pants and body armor, law enforcement said.
Apparently, those rumors about Harry Styles‘ number-one hit “Watermelon Sugar” having an explicit meaning were true all along.
Harry, who’s currently on the U.S. leg of his Love on Tour trek, introduced his 2020 hit at his Saturday night show at Nashville, TN’s Bridgestone Arena by telling the audience what “this song is about.”
“It doesn’t really matter what it’s about,” Harry told the screaming crowd, according to a video taken by YouTuber Real_Vlogging_Mama, “It’s about… the sweetness of life.”
However, after leading the crowd into a brief singalong of the first verse, Harry did an about-face and confessed, “It’s also about the female orgasm, but that’s totally different, it’s not really relevant.”
The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter following the admission, which resulted in the thousands of fans loudly singing along with Harry when he resumed performing.
Prior to his Saturday night show, the former One Direction member had remained coy about the true meaning behind his hit. In fact, he previously said the title was inspired by a 1968 novel called In Watermelon Sugar, which has also been referenced in a number of other books and songs.
Also, when speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in March 2020, where he was confronted directly about the song’s NSFW meaning, Styles innocently retorted, “Is that what it’s about?” before agreeing it was best to leave it open to interpretation.
Marco Piraccini/Archivio Marco Piraccini/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
Model Emily Ratajkowski claims that Robin Thicke crossed the line when she starred in his 2013 music video, “Blurred Lines.”
The Sunday Times obtained an advanced snippet of the Gone Girl actress’ memoir My Body, where she alleges that during the video shoot, Thicke approached her “from behind” and allegedly grabbed her chest.
“Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind,” the snippet reads. “I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke. He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses.”
Ratajkowski, 30, claims the video’s director, Diane Martel, “yelled out” to ask if she was okay.
Martel corroborated Ratajkowski’s claims when speaking to the Times and said, “I remember the moment that he grabbed her breasts. One in each hand. He was standing behind her.”
Both Martel and Ratajkowski believe Thicke was under the influence, with the director noting, “I don’t think he would have done this had he been sober.”
Martel said Thicke “sheepishly apologized” after she gave him a tongue lashing and she threatened to stop the shoot.
As for Emily, she wanted to continue filming and, in her book, wrote, “I pushed my chin forward and shrugged, avoiding eye contact, feeling the heat of humiliation pump through my body.”
Ratajkowski said Thicke later blocked her on Instagram. “I was nothing more than the hired mannequin [to him],” she said of The Masked Singer judge.
