Celine Dionis pushing back the remaining North American dates on her Courage World Tour.
The shows, which had previously been rescheduled to August and September of this year, will now be postponed to March and April of 2022 due to continued COVID-19 concerns.
“I know how frustrating it is for my fans, with all the postponements that have taken place these past 18 months,” Celine says in a statement. “My team and I are still concerned about everyone’s safety this summer even though the situation has dramatically improved.”
“We all feel 100% comfortable that things will be very safe next spring, and I want my fans to feel the same way, without any worries,” she adds. “I hope everyone understands.”
The rescheduled dates kick off March 9 in Denver, CO, and wrap April 22 in Washington, D.C.
Tickets purchased for the original 2020 and 2021 tour dates will be honored for the rescheduled 2022 dates.
Rich Fury/Getty Images for Coachella for Def Jam Recordings
Summer Walker has finally revealed the face of her daughter, Princess Bubblegum.
On Wednesday, the Over It singer shared four adorable photos of her four-month-old on Instagram, with the caption, “Baby bubbles.”
One image shows the infant smiling in a Burberry dress and lying on a changing table with a pacifier in her mouth. In other photos, Princess is seen wearing hand mittens and sleeping with a stuffed unicorn.
Princess’ father, producer London On Da Track, shared a similar photo of Princess on his Instagram with two snake emojis and a green heart in the caption.
Summer Walker and London On Da Track have been on-and-off for years and welcomed their daughter in late March. In May, the singer said she would not share photos of Princess due to fans criticizing her daughter’s physical appearance in a now-deleted photo on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Walker shared a sexy photo of herself in a bra and panties on her Instagram page, @galactawhore. In the caption, she reworked the lyrics from Aaliyah‘s song, “Try Again.”
“Dust ya self off & try his friend or whatever Aaliyah said,” Walker wrote.
Journey‘s classic seventh studio album, 1981’s Escape, has just been certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales and equivalent units of 10 million copies in the U.S.
Escape, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this Saturday, July 17, is the band’s only album to top the Billboard 200. It yielded some of Journey’s most enduring hits, including the anthem “Don’t Stop Believin’,” plus “Open Arms” and “Who’s Crying Now,” as well as the classic-rock-radio staple “Stone in Love.”
Impressively, “Don’t Stop Believin'” has amassed more than a billion streams on Spotify alone.
“This is such a truly gratifying achievement for all the work we did together,” declares guitarist Neal Schon. “Congratulations to all.”
Adds keyboardist Jonathan Cain, “On behalf of all that helped to make our album Escape a Diamond award achievement, we say thank you. To our fans, to our bandmates who took part in recording this album, to our label, to all in radio and finally to the distributors who believed in this music; we are deeply humbled and honored to accept this prestigious award.”
Escape becomes Journey’s second RIAA Diamond-certified album, following the band’s 1988 Greatest Hits compilation, which has sold over 15 million copies or album equivalent units.
Journey recently released a brand-new song, “The Way We Used to Be,” the group’s first new music since 2011, and its first with its three recently added members — bassist Randy Jackson, drummer Narada Michael Walden and keyboardist Jason Derlatka. Jackson previously was a member of Journey during the mid-1980s.
Meanwhile, the band has several concerts on its 2021 itinerary, including a July 31 performance at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago and a July 29 Lollapalooza “Aftershow” event at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom.
Iliza Shlesinger‘s new movie, Good on Paper, is not only based on her real-life dating horror story — it’s also a commentary on women being vilified for having standards.
In the Netflix comedy, Iliza’s character, Andrea Singer, meets a seemingly decent man that she’s neither physically nor sexually attracted to, but she succumbs to the pressure to “give him a chance.” She learns soon after their relationship is built on a web of his lies.
Shlesinger tells ABC Audio that society frowns upon women who turn down prospective suitors.
“It’s easy to vilify women because our voices have been so underrepresented… It’s easy to make us into the enemy,” she said. “Women are supposed to be grateful and we’re supposed to just like whatever we’re given.”
Shlesinger continued, “Only in our society do we say to women, ‘Give him a chance, he’s nice to you.’ You never hear a mother say to her son, ‘Give this hideous girl a chance. I know you find her repulsive, but if you could just put your mouth on hers…’ It’s a power dynamic.”
The stand-up comic also delved into why women are sometimes deemed “picky.”
“It’s code for — God forbid — a woman knows what she wants. It’s just an attempt to make women doubt themselves,” Shlesinger expressed, noting that cultural mentality emphasizes the so-called “societal shelf-life women are told that they have.”
Good on Paper is a prime example of Shlesinger’s comedy, which tackles hot-button relationship issues while conducting “some real sociological digging.”
“I believe whatever you go through, you can make fun of,” she explained. “It all comes from an analytical place. But, more importantly, it comes from a funny place because — if it’s not funny, it’s just a TED talk.”
Fellow artists are continuing to speak out in support of Britney Spears, following the pop star’s latest conservatorship hearing on Wednesday.
Backstreet Boys’AJ McLean is among those offering up his “thoughts and prayers.” During an appearance on Sirius XM’s Andy Cohen Live, the singer detailed his most recent heartbreaking encounter with the star. He says the two live close to each other and he often sees Britney at a cupcake shop they both frequent.
“The last time I saw her, it broke my heart,” AJ said. “Last time I saw her, she was with a gentleman. I’m assuming it was security or maybe a driver.”
“Went in, she was there, she looked right at me and I was like, ‘Hey, it’s AJ,'” he recalled. “And she just kind of had this glass face. Like, she just didn’t know who was there. It took her a minute. And then she realized it was me, and we hugged and we talked for a brief moment, but I could just see that this wasn’t her. Like, I’m not looking at the person I knew from years and years ago.”
AJ slammed the conservatorship, calling it “asinine,” “insane” and “completely brutal,” and declared himself “100 percent Team Britney.”
Ariana Grande also showed her support in a comment on Britney’s latest Instagram post. “YOU ARE SO VERY LOVED AND SUPPORTED,” she wrote.
Zendaya was only a few months old when the first Space Jam movie, starring Michael Jordan, hit theaters in 1996. That said, a lot has changed since the Looney Tunes dribbled across the court — with fans seemingly being the most divided over Lola Bunny’s sporty redesign in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
Lola traded in the crop top she wore in the first film for a basketball jersey, with movie execs saying they didn’t want to sexualize the cartoon character. While the move was applauded by some fans, others were outraged.
Zendaya, who voices Lola in the new film, tells Entertainment Weekly that when she was first offered to play Lola, she “didn’t know” people would be upset over the character’s updated look.
“I didn’t know it was going to be as much of a focus as it was,” she laughed. “But I understand, because she’s a lovable character. She’s very important, so I get it.”
Zendaya, 24, who said she grew up watching the original film because of her family’s love of basketball, explained that Lola’s character resonated with her because of what she stood for, and not because of what she looked like.
“I’ve always appreciated Lola because she’s the only girl on the team, kind of holding it down for the ladies — and she’s also an incredible player,” the Euphoria star expressed. “I think in this reimagining of who she is, it just leans into that a little bit more, the fact that she’s got these skills and she’s an MVP.”
Space Jam: New Legacy — also starring LeBron James, Don Cheadle and, of course, the rest of the Looney Tunes squad — hits theaters on Friday.
(NEW YORK) — Blue Origin revealed Thursday that the fourth member of its first crewed flight will be the youngest person ever to fly to space.
Oliver Daemen, 18, will join Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos (Jeff’s brother) and 82-year-old Wally Funk on a spaceflight set to launch next Tuesday from west Texas. Funk, a pioneering pilot who dreamed of being an astronaut in the 1960s, will become the oldest person to travel to space.
Blue Origin auctioned the final seat on its inaugural crewed flight for a whopping $28 million.
In a surprise announcement Thursday, however, the company said the anonymous auction winner will not be able to join the historic spaceflight due to “scheduling conflicts.” The bidder, who seeks to remain anonymous, will join a future mission, the company said.
Daemen will now earn the tile of the first paying customer to board the space tourism firm’s New Shepard spacecraft. The company did not reveal how much Daemen paid for his seat.
“This marks the beginning of commercial operations for New Shepard, and Oliver represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space,” Bob Smith, the CEO of Blue Origin, said in a statement Thursday.
Daemen, who graduated from high school in 2020, has been besotted by space travel since he was four. He will attend the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands starting this September, and is set to study “physics and innovation management,” Blue Origin said.
The inaugural crewed flight for Blue Origin is scheduled for July 20. In total, the flight is only about 11 minutes, and approximately four minutes will be spent above the so-called Karman line that is defined as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
It comes on the heels of a brief, successful spaceflight from Sir Richard Branson’s firm Virgin Galactic last weekend. The back-to-back missions are seen as ushering in a new era of space tourism that has been propelled by an emerging, billionaire-backed commercial space industry.
If you feel the need to Power Up with alcohol, AC/DC‘s got you covered.
The band has teamed with the high-end collectible company KnuckleBonz and the CaliCraft Brewing Company to introduce two new beers: AC/DC PWR UP Juicy IPA and AC/DC TNT Double IPA. They’ll be coming to select retail outlets in mid-September, but you can pre-order them now; depending on where you live, direct-to-consumer shipping starts July 26.
The 6.6% ABV PWR UP Juicy IPA is inspired by AC/DC’s most recent album, and features “massive flavors of bright passionfruit, ripe peaches, and juicy mandarin.” The TNT Double IPA is 8.2% ABV, and is described as “big and bold,” with flavors of “fresh cut grapefruit, sweet mango, and fresh pine.”
If you happen to be in California, there is a series of release events for the beers on July 23, 24 and 25 at the CaliCraft Brewing Company at 2700 Mitchell Dr. in Walnut Creek, CA.
CaliCraft says that AC/DC had final approval over all the details of the beer, including the designs on the cans, and these two brews are the first in what will be a series of AC/DC-branded beers.
(MIAMI) — Two men were found dead at the former Versace mansion in Miami just one day before the 24th anniversary of the death of fashion designer Gianni Versace there.
A member of the housekeeping staff at The Villa Casa Casuarina found the two men in a room Wednesday afternoon, and police and fire rescue arrived on scene around 1:30 p.m.
The victims were identified as Adam Rashap, 31, of New Jersey, and Alexander Gross, 30, of Pennsylvania, according to police.
Both had gunshot wounds to the head, and a preliminary investigation points to the incident being an “apparent double suicide,” Ernesto Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the Miami Beach Police Department, told ABC News.
The scene was contained to the hotel room, and detectives have launched a full investigation, Miami Beach police said in a statement on Wednesday.
The hotel did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Versace, the iconic Italian fashion designer, purchased the mansion in 1992, and today the Spanish-style villa operates as a restaurant and boutique hotel.
Thursday marks the 24th anniversary of Versace’s death. He was returning home to the mansion on his usual morning walk from the nearby News Cafe when he was shot in the head on the front steps of the home by Andrew Cunanan.
Cunanan went on a violent killing spree in which he killed four other men before targeting Versace, investigators said at the time. He died by suicide eight days after Versace’s shooting.
(NEW YORK) — Approximately 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Haiti on Wednesday, meaning it no longer was the only country in the Americas without any. But vaccine hesitancy, to say nothing of the recent violence and political unrest, could delay distribution for weeks.
Both U.S. and Haiti military forces helped UNICEF transport the doses in a mostly clandestine effort necessitated by the surrounding violence. The Moderna vaccines, which will be stored in hundreds of solar-power refrigerators throughout Haiti, were donated by the U.S. government through COVAX and delivered to Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital.
Though grateful, UNICEF representatives said they’ll require many more — and not just in Haiti.
“We hope this first donation of doses will be followed by others,” UNICEF said in a statement. “More donations from well-supplied countries will be needed for Haiti and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to reach those most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.”
Distribution is expected to start later this week as local health authorities and aid groups are battling vaccine misinformation that’s apparently spreading throughout the country.
Only 22% of all Haitians said they would get vaccinated, according to preliminary results of a UNICEF-supported study conducted by the University of Haiti in June. There’s also the ongoing gang violence and political uncertainty following the assassination of Haiti’s president.
Violence in June among armed groups escalated in several areas of Port-Au-Prince during a spike of COVID-19 cases. Over 15,000 women and children have been forced to flee their homes.
“Rising insecurity and clashes between gangs,” a UNICEF spokesperson said, “have seriously hindered humanitarian operations in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.”
