Twenty years ago Saturday, Mariah Carey’s most maligned and misunderstood album, Glitter, was released. Here’s the story of this project, which is now a cult classic.
Mariah had been planning a movie and soundtrack project called All that Glitters since 1997, but didn’t get a chance to work on it until she signed a new five-album, $100 million contract with Virgin Records in April of 2001.
But on July 19, after the release of the soundtrack’s lead single, “Loverboy,” Mariah made a bizarre appearance on MTV’s Total Request Live, handing out ice cream to fans and stripping off her shirt to reveal a more revealing outfit. “Loverboy” failed to reach number one — which, in Mariah terms, made it a “flop.”
After the TRL incident, Mariah posted a voice note on her website saying she’d like to “take a little break.” On July 26, she was hospitalized for two weeks, citing “extreme exhaustion” and a “physical and emotional breakdown.” Mariah would later reveal in 2018 that it was during this time that she was diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder.
As Mariah became the butt of late-night jokes, the release of Glitter the album was delayed from August 21 to, unfortunately, September 11. When it finally emerged, critics disliked its ‘80s vibe and felt Mariah was overshadowed by the album’s many guest stars, which included rappers Ludacris, Da Brat, Busta Rhymes, Fabolous and others.
Glitter was the lowest-selling album of Mariah’s career to that point — something she would later blame on the 9/11 terrorist attacks — but when the film also flopped at the box office, Virgin Records dropped her.
Flash forward to 2018: Mariah Carey fans launched a #JusticeForGlitter social media campaign, urging people to buy the album. It worked: The album ultimately reached number one on iTunes. A grateful Mariah, then on tour supporting her album, Caution, added a medley of songs from Glitter to her tour set list.
Many music critics subsequently changed their tune, praising Glitter as “brilliant,” “undeniably ahead of its time” and “the perfect ‘80s tribute.”
Carly Pearce is celebrating receiving two CMA Awards nominations this week, but it hasn’t all been good news for the singer. Carly, who was recently honored with an official Carly Pearce Day on September 2, in her hometown of Taylor Mill, KY, had a sign placed at the entrance to the town, which read “Welcome to Taylor Mill, Hometown of Country Music Star, Carly Pearce.”
Unfortunately, the sign was stolen less than a week after it was erected.
“She was nice enough to take pictures with a lot of the police officers that helped protect her that day. Unfortunately, just yesterday morning, somebody had stolen that sign,” Taylor Mill Police Chief Steve Knauf told WKRC TV, adding that someone removed the bolts and took it off of the metal poles where it was attached.
“They purposely put it up high so people could see it but also to deter theft,” he added. “We are thinking it was probably a two-person job.”
Pearce was also given a key to the city, a place she credits with instilling in her a love of country music.
“This is where my love of country music began, and I’m so grateful and proud Taylor Mill, KY is my hometown,” Carly said at the time.
Carly received CMA Awards nominations for both Album of the Year (for 29) and Female Vocalist of the Year.
Glass Animals has released a new song called “I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance).”
“Talking is great, don’t get me wrong,” says frontman Dave Bayley. “But this pandemic has made so many of us look inwards in a way we maybe haven’t before. The uncertainty in the world and the inability to go out and create new memories makes you dig deep into the past. It really fed people’s deepest insecurities and rattled our foundations in so many ways.”
“It felt like we were all put in a pressure cooker, but there was no way to let out the steam,” he continues. “That’s what this track is about — that pressure cooker exposing and expanding so many cracks, but struggling to fill them in and decompress. I want people to switch their devices off, put this song on, close their eyes, and have that release for a moment.”
You can listen to “I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)” now via digital outlets. Its accompanying video, which, fittingly, includes a whole lot of dancing, is streaming now on YouTube.
“I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)” follows Glass Animals’ 2020 album, Dreamland, which includes the singles “Heat Waves” and “Your Love (Déjà Vu).”
Mastodon has announced a new album called Hushed and Grim.
The eighth full-length effort from the Atlanta metallers — and their first since 2017’s Emperor of Sand — will arrive October 29. You can listen to the first single, titled “Pushing the Tides,” now via digital outlets.
Hushed and Grim is also a tribute to Mastodon’s late manager Nick John, who passed away in 2018.
Here’s the Hushed and Grim track list:
“Pain with an Anchor”
“The Crux”
“Sickle and Peace”
“More than I Could Chew”
“The Beast”
“Skeleton of Splendor”
“Teardrinker”
“Pushing the Tides”
“Peace and Tranquility”
“Dagger”
“Had It All”
“Savage Lands”
“Gobblers of Dregs”
“Eyes of Serpents”
“Gigantium”
With the 2021 Met Gala just days away, Zendaya announced that she’ll be sitting out this year’s festivities.
Speaking to Extra from the Venice Film Festival, the 25-year-old fashion icon and actress revealed, “I will unfortunately not be able to attend [the Met Gala] because I’ll be working for Euphoria. I got my time off to come here and do this Venice experience, which has been really, really special.”
Noting that her “fans are going to be very upset with me” because she will not be going, Zendaya expressed, “I wish I could, especially since this fashion icon [Timothée Chalamet] is going to be hosting,” referring to her Dune co-star.
The upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home star has gained a reputation for being one of the best-dressed attendees at the Met, rocking looks such as a Joan of Arc-inspired Versace dress from 2018 and a Tommy Hilfiger illuminated Cinderella gown in 2019. Reflecting on the latter, she quipped, “That one almost took me out, let me tell you.”
Chalamet will be serving as co-chair of Monday night’s Met Gala, along with tennis star Naomi Osaka, singer Billie Eilish and inaugural poet Amanda Gorman.
This year’s theme will highlight an exhibition of the same name, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” which opens September 18 at the Anna Wintour Costume Center, exploring “a modern vocabulary of American fashion.” The 2021 event will also commemorate the Costume Institute’s 75th birthday.
Rolling Stones fans in the U.S. will have an additional chance to see the band on their upcoming 2021 No Filter Tour. The British rock legends have just announced that a second concert at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles has been confirmed for October 14, three days before the previously scheduled show at the venue will take place.
Tickets for the October 14 performance go on sale to the general public on Friday, September 17 at 10 p.m. PT via RollingStones.com.
Pre-sale tickets will be available for people who’ve signed up for the Stones mailing list starting Wednesday, September 15 at 10 a.m. PT. You can sign up for the mailing list at uk-umg.com.
The Rolling Stones’ U.S. tour leg, which now features 13 dates, kicks off September 26 in St. Louis and is mapped out through a November 20 concert in Austin, Texas. The trek will feature lauded session drummer Steve Jordan stepping for the band’s beloved longtime beat keeper Charlie Watts, who died August 24 at age 80. Jordan’s participation was arranged prior to Watts’ unexpected passing.
Meanwhile, in honor of Watts, the band is asking fans to share photos and memories of Charlie and of their favorite pieces of vintage Rolling Stones-related memorabilia, artwork and more, on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #mystonesmerch. The Stones also have been displaying many of the images on a fan wall that you can check out at digital.umusic.com/rollingstones.
Kelly Clarkson‘s daytime talk show will fill the time slot vacated by Ellen DeGeneres‘ when its 19th and final season concludes next year. However, Clarkson is making it clear she doesn’t want to be compared to the talk show legend — or anyone, for that matter.
In a candid conversation with The New York Times, the singer expressed, “No one can take over for Ellen. It’s an iconic show.”
“I’m never going to be Whitney Houston — I’m never going to be Cyndi Lauper, Reba or Trisha [Yearwood] or Mariah [Carey],” Clarkson further declared. “I’m going to be me. I think that’s fine. There’s room for everyone at the table.”
The Kelly Clarkson show, now in its third season, draws an average daily audience of 1.3 million viewers, which currently puts it ahead of Ellen‘s totals. Clarkson credits her hosting chops to her time on American Idol, saying it prepared her to helm something as chaotic as a daytime television talk show.
“We were on TV all the time,” she cracked. “Doing random things — being interviewed, interviewing other people, doing skits.” Those unscripted moments, Kelly says, desensitized her to having a camera in her face and even inspired her be a little bit unpredictable.
“I don’t really feel pressure from that. That can be scary for other people sometimes, like, ‘Oh God, what’s she going to say?'” Clarkson laughed.
However, her biggest hurdle came last year, when she shot her show remotely from her Montana cabin because of the pandemic.
“We were in the middle of nowhere…I’m in snow up to my thighs. And I’m like, well, I have a camera,” she recalled. “I’m trying to be America’s cheerleader. And I never completely broke down about it, but I definitely laughed hysterically at several moments.”
(NEW YORK) — Canadian Leylah Fernandez, 19, an unseeded player who took down defending champ Naomi Osaka, and Emma Raducanu, 18, will face off in the final.
(JACKSON, Miss.) — Mississippi health officials are urging expectant mothers to get vaccinated after a “significant” number of COVID-19 fatalities in pregnant women during the state’s delta surge.
The state health department is investigating eight reports of pregnant women who died from COVID-19 in the past four weeks, all of whom were unvaccinated, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said at the top of a COVID-19 briefing Wednesday.
“We do know that COVID is especially problematic and dangerous for pregnant women,” Dobbs said. “We also know it can be deadly for the baby in the womb.”
Compared to the rate pre-pandemic, the health department has seen a “doubling of the rate of fetal demise, or the death of the baby in the womb after 20 weeks,” Dobbs said. “It’s been a real tragedy.”
The warning comes as a majority of pregnant women nationwide have yet to be vaccinated. About three out of four pregnant women in the U.S. have not yet received a COVID-91 vaccine, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pregnant women are at higher risk for severe illness if they contract COVID-19, including “intensive care unit admission, invasive ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and death,” compared to nonpregnant women, according to the CDC.
As of Monday, at least 147 pregnant women had died from COVID-19 nationwide during the pandemic, according to CDC data.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the professional association for OB-GYNs, recommends that all eligible people, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Last month, the CDC also strengthened its recommendation for vaccination in pregnant women, with Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky saying, “it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people.”
After reporting four COVID-19 fatalities in pregnant women earlier in the pandemic, Mississippi did not have any others again for almost a year, until this past July, state data shows.
“Delta is different, and delta is deadly, and we need to do everything we can to prevent transmission,” Dobbs said.
The health department was still gathering details on the most recent maternal fatalities and the status of the infants, with more information to come next week. It was confirmed that several of the infants were born prematurely, “but are alive,” Dobbs said Wednesday. The health department reported a pediatric death due to COVID-19 on Wednesday, but that was not related to any of the maternal deaths, he said.
Health officials pleaded with pregnant women who had not yet been vaccinated to get the shot, along with the general public. Only 47.6% of Mississippi residents ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated, fourth-lowest in the U.S., compared to 62.5% nationwide, according to CDC data.
“It’s getting easier and easier to find Mississippians that have a story about the tragedy from the delta variant,” Jim Craig, senior deputy and director of health protection for the Mississippi’s health department, said during the briefing. “Don’t let that be a pregnant mom and expectant family.”
(NEW YORK) — Britain’s Prince Andrew and his lawyers have refused multiple attempts to serve the beleaguered royal with notice of a sexual assault lawsuit filed against him last month in New York, according to an attorney for his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, and documents obtained by ABC News.
“Process servers have shown up at his residence, and they have refused to take the summons and refused to let the process servers in to serve,” said David Boies, chairman of New York City-based law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, which represents Giuffre. “He has stopped coming out in public. He has been moving around.”
The 61-year-old British prince was snapped by photographers on Tuesday in a black Range Rover as he was departing Royal Lodge in Windsor, England, the home he shares with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. He was photographed again several hours later arriving at Balmoral Castle, the Scottish estate of his mother, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
“Runaway Prince,” blared a headline in one British tabloid newspaper, The Sun. “Prince Andrew bolts for Balmoral in bid to avoid being served sex assault papers.”
A spokesperson for the prince declined to comment to ABC News on those reports.
The lawsuit by Giuffre, an alleged victim of disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York City jail in 2019, accuses Prince Andrew of engaging in sexual acts with her in 2001. Giuffre alleges the prince sexually assaulted her at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and elsewhere when she was under the age of 18. She contended she did not consent and that the prince knew “she was a sex-trafficking victim,” according to the complaint, which was filed in federal court in Manhattan on Aug. 9.
Prince Andrew, who also holds the title of Duke of York, has long denied Giuffre’s allegations, which first surfaced in court filings nearly seven years ago. The prince told BBC News in a rare interview in 2019 that he had no recollection of ever meeting Giuffre.
“I’ve said consistently and frequently that we never had any sort of sexual contact,” he said in the interview.
An initial hearing in Giuffre’s lawsuit is set for Monday. To date, no lawyer for the prince has appeared on the public record of the case.
Boies told ABC News that he plans to inform the court on Monday that, in addition to attempts to personally serve the prince at his residence, Giuffre’s lawyers have mailed the complaint, emailed several law firms believed to be associated with the prince,and sought the assistance of British court officials — under established protocols for serving foreign citizens with notice of a civil lawsuit in U.S. courts.
“We don’t have to actually physically serve him with a subpoena. All we have to do is follow certain recognized procedures, which we have done,” Boies said. “We will simply tell the court what we have done, and then it’s up to the court.”
A lawyer for Prince Andrew, however, has objected to the methods employed by Giuffre’s legal team, calling their actions “regrettable” and procedurally improper, and questioning whether Giuffre has a valid legal claim against the prince, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.
“[Giuffre’s lawyers] have made several public, indeed well-publicised, attempts at irregular service of these proceedings in this jurisdiction, in at least one case accompanied by a media representative,” Gary Bloxsome, a lawyer with U.K. law firm Blackfords LLP, wrote in a Sept. 6 letter to senior master Barbara Fontaine, a British judicial official.
“These have included attempted personal service of our client at his home, the instruction of a private process server, and attempts to email the proceedings not only to this firm, but to barristers (who are not authorised to conduct litigation) who are known to have acted for the Duke,” he continued. “This is regrettable.”
Bloxsome contends British legal procedures require that a valid request for assistance from U.K. court officials must come from a judicial or diplomatic officer in the United States, not from Giuffre’s lawyers. If the judge overseeing the case makes such a request, Bloxsome wrote in the letter, “then it is likely that our client will be content to agree to a convenient method of alternative service.”
“However, absent being satisfied of some very good reason to do so, our client is highly unlikely to be prepared to agree to any form of alternative service while the approach to service of these proceedings remains irregular and the viability of the claim remains open to doubt,” Bloxsome added.
Although Bloxsome indicated in the letter that his firm is not presently involved in Giuffre’s case, he nonetheless raised questions about the viability of her claims, contending that a confidential 2009 settlement she reached with Epstein in Florida may contain a release of claims against others associated with her allegations against Epstein, potentially including Prince Andrew.
Bloxsome noted that “this settlement may have led last month to the dismissal by consent of similar causes of action Ms. Giuffre had included in her high-profile claim against Alan Dershowitz.”
Three days after Giuffre filed suit against Prince Andrew, she agreed to drop a battery claim from her long-running defamation lawsuit against Dershowitz, the famed criminal defense lawyer who formerly represented Epstein.
The agreement came after Dershowitz asserted that Giuffre’s confidential settlement with Epstein barred her from suing him for alleged battery.
Giuffre’s withdrawal of the battery claim was described in a joint court filing last month by lawyers for Giuffre and Dershowitz as “a compromise” that should not be viewed as an admission by either party of the validity or invalidity of the claims about the settlement agreement.
Giuffre has alleged in court filings that she was sexually abused on multiple occasions by Dershowitz, who was among a group of high-profile lawyers who — years later — represented Epstein during the negotiations that led to his so-called “sweetheart” deal with U.S. federal prosecutors in 2008.
Dershowitz has vigorously denied Giuffre’s allegations and counter-sued her for defamation, vowing to prove in court that she lied about him and other prominent men. On Wednesday, Dershowitz’s attorney sought permission from the judge overseeing his case to allow him to provide Prince Andrew’s lawyers with a copy of Giuffre’s confidential settlement agreement with Epstein. The court has not yet ruled on that request.
Giuffre is represented by a separate law firm, Cooper and Kirk, in her case involving Dershowitz.
Bloxsome argued in the letter that Prince Andrew’s legal team needs to review the confidential settlement before determining how to proceed.
“Once we are able to obtain a copy of the settlement agreement in Florida, which appears to be subject to confidentiality restrictions, we will be able to determine whether Ms. Giuffre has a viable claim,” he wrote. “Obviously until we have made that determination, it is difficult for us to give advice as to whether the Duke should voluntarily accept service.”
Boies said he was unable to comment on the details of Giuffre’s settlement with Epstein, citing its confidentiality. “But what I can say is that there is no evidence that Prince Andrew was intended to be covered by the release. And, indeed, Prince Andrew has never himself asserted that he was intended to be covered by the release,” he said.
Boies argued that whatever the prince’s legal team wrote in the letter to the U.K. official is insignificant unless his lawyers appear in Giuffre’s case in New York.
“I don’t know why they wrote what they wrote,” Boies said. “But unless and until they engage with respect to the complaint that we have filed here in the United States, anything they say is irrelevant.”
Giuffre’s lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and accuses Andrew of sexual assault as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“I am holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me,” Giuffre told ABC News last month in a statement via her lawyers. “The powerful and the rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, but one can reclaim her life by speaking out and demanding justice.”
