Kyndall Cunningham

If you grew up in a Black Christian household in the ’90 and 2000s—or simply one that played gospel records—you know Yolanda Adams is one of the most prolific and influential voices of the genre. Widely considered the Queen of Contemporary Gospel, the 61-year-old Houston native has sustained her silky soprano register throughout her illustrious career, beginning as a member of the Southeast Inspirational Choir at just 13 years old, releasing 13 combined studio and live albums, and remaining a go-to performer for televised tributes and other major events, including Super Bowl LIV where she sang “America the Beautiful.” Her pen […]

Adults love reflecting on the high school experience, whether they were the most popular kid in school or depressed over their acne. Thanks to all those iconic ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s films and TV shows we can’t stop re-quoting, we tend to assume that these four years of raging hormones are the most crucial part of our human development—even more so than our twenties and thirties when you tend to make the most impactful mistakes, have more meaningful romantic encounters, and experience changes in your mental health. Our cultural obsession with high school is both understandable and sometimes weird. It’s […]

Throughout tonight’s Billboard Music Awards, first-time host Diddy made it abundantly clear that the televised show was his production more than anyone else’s, dropping the N-word during his opening monologue, promoting Ciroc, and giving out his own REVOLT Black Excellence Award. He also decided to use his powers as host and executive producer to officially “uncancel” some of the night’s more controversial performers—namely rapper Travis Scott and country singer Morgan Wallen. “We’re uncanceling the canceled,” Diddy said about an hour and a half into the show. “[Brother] Love does not rock like that. I looked at Morgan’s situation. I looked at […]

There’s been a renewed interest in “passing” narratives recently with Rebecca Hall’s 2021 film adaption of Nella Larsen’s Passing and Brit Bennett’s bestselling novel The Vanishing Half, which is currently being developed into a miniseries for HBO Max, as prime examples. Mariah Carey’s revealing memoir The Meaning of Mariah reignited a conversation about her racial ambiguity and how it manifested in her career as a pop and R&B singer. There was also a moment on Twitter at the start of the pandemic when users were perplexed about Rashida Jones starring in the Black Netflix sitcom #BlackAF and accused the biracial actress […]

After a needless detour into some white Upper East Siders’ penthouse last week, we’re finally reunited with Paper Boi on tonight’s Atlanta, as he learns about master recordings from a wise-cracking stranger he meets in Amsterdam and comes face to face with actor and infamous sex-crime vigilante Liam Neeson. More than halfway into a rather disjointed season, you can still feel the writers searching for a throughline in all the random vignettes and parodies they decided to tackle. It’s refreshing then, and maybe a good sign for the small remainder of the season, that “New Jazz,” written by Donald Glover and […]

Almost six months behind schedule, The Real Housewives of Atlanta is finally back on Bravo with all the fun shade, shade, shade, as they call it, and talk about edges you would expect from our favorite Georgia peaches. The stakes have never been higher for the beloved franchise, now in its 14th season. Despite how crucial the show has been to the Real Housewives universe, from creating an entire dictionary of online speech (thank you, NeNe Leakes) to informing how most Housewives look and behave in this current era (we see you trying, Jen Shah!), the series has had a rough […]

So far, Atlanta has had three standalone episodes this season excluding the main cast. This number sounds small (it’s still about 50 percent of what we’ve seen at this point). But on a show that boasts some of the best, most fascinating young actors working today—Brian Tyree Henry, LaKeith Stanfield, Zazie Beetz, and Donald Glover—three entire episodes devoid of their chemistry and magnetism is, frankly, one too many. Which brings us to “Trini 2 De Bone,” tonight’s heavy-handed examination of wealthy white people and the immigrants and/or Black people they hire to raise their children. I think more than any other […]

As the episode description promises, tonight’s Atlanta is sure to make some folks mad, primarily a certain Black Lives Matter activist not so subtly depicted as a non-profit leader who goes by a mononym and unironically wears a Baltic life jacket as a fashion accessory. “White Fashion,” written and directed by Ibra Ake—who also directed Beyonce’s Black Is King—comes for a lot of necks over the course of 30 minutes, from the fashion industry, obviously, to anti-racist book authors to the whitewashed culinary world. At its most keen moments, the episode highlights the perverse symbiosis between social-justice grifters and corporations while […]

I regret a lot of things about the premiere of HBO’s seminal comedy series Girls, which, as of this week, is 10 years old. I regret the near-sighted conversations around the show’s lack of diversity. I regret that certain critics misinterpreted the characters’ narcissism. I regret fatphobic viewers criticizing Lena Dunham’s choice to be nude frequently on the show. I regret Dunham eagerly volunteering to be the poster child for white feminism. I regret that a pretty innocuous, ultimately beautiful show about female relationships will forever go down in history as “polarizing” and “controversial.” I regret not knowing all the particulars […]

What if Merritt Wever had sex with an anthropomorphized duck? What if Betty Gilpin was a real-life Barbie doll? What if Nicole Kidman swallowed photographs? What if Cynthia Erivo was slowly being eaten alive? What if Alison Brie was a mystery-solving ghost? Apple TV+’s new anthology series Roar, which premieres today, takes on the gratuitous task of depicting these bizarre, Black Mirror-esque scenarios, plus more, in an attempt to illuminate the anxieties, systemic hurdles and occasional pleasures of being a woman in patriarchal society. It marks the first project from creative duo Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch since the egregious cancellation […]

When I hop on a call with Leah McSweeney to discuss her new book, I immediately have to ask about a hilarious TikTok that made the rounds on Twitter about a month ago. Staring directly into the camera in the clip, the 39-year-old fashion designer informs us that she’s invited her family to join her on a trip to Jamaica—but with a surprise twist. “They think they’re here for vacation,” she relays in her usual deadpan delivery. “They’re actually here because I’m going to confront them about generational trauma and why I have anxiety and depression issues and how it all […]

At the risk of sounding trite, American awards shows are in their flop era. (Unless, of course, the show is hosted by BET. In that case, it’s probably very entertaining.) Last weekend’s Oscars sucked for plenty of reasons that had nothing to do with Will Smith attacking someone and then giving a discomforting, snot-filled speech. Earlier this year, the Golden Globes were held in a basement somewhere and announced on Twitter, with no hope of returning to network television. The so-rarely relevant VMAs may or may not still happen every year. And the Grammys have spent the past decade handing out […]

About two and a half hours into an already off-kilter show, things at the Oscars got drastically weirder when Best Actor nominee Will Smith slapped presenter Chris Rock across the face for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith. After the comedian made a crack referring to Pinkett Smith as G.I. Jane—the actress currently has a shaved head, like the character Demi Moore plays in the 1997 film of the same name—Smith, according to an uncensored video of the telecast, yelled at Rock to keep “[his] wife’s name out of [his] fucking mouth!” A visibly flabbergasted Rock announced that […]

Garcelle Beauvais has made a habit of keeping it real. On Bravo’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, where she’s been a cast member since 2020, Beauvais adds a much-needed dose of candor to a group that’s often criticized for their phoniness. The actress is also a co-host on Fox’s Emmy-winning daytime talk show The Real, dishing out sharp takes on everything from pop culture to politics. Then there’s Going To Bed with Garcelle, her weekly podcast that explores sex and relationships from a humorous, unfiltered perspective. So it should come as no surprise that Beauvais has an endless supply of opinions […]

Atlanta’s sophomore season (or Robbin’ Season, as it was titled) saw Donald Glover’s Emmy-winning FX comedy push its well-established penchant for genre-bending, satirical humor and avant-garde storytelling to new boundaries. Each episode felt more accurately described as an event, with the hysterical opener “Alligator Man” featuring a career-high performance by Katt Williams—and an actual alligator —as a prime example. “Barbershop” was another gem that riffed off the almost religious devotion Black men have to their barbers. Then there was “Woods,” a well-earned cathartic moment for Al a.k.a Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), whose depression and disillusionment with fame was a thread […]

We all remember when Justin Bieber found Jesus after some run-ins with the law and pissing in a mop bucket back in the early 2010s. Paparazzi photos of the Canadian pop singer strolling around New York and Los Angeles with a jacked, often shirtless Diplo look-alike began to emerge online. It turned out the tattooed fellow wasn’t a security guard or Bieber’s fitness trainer but the senior pastor and co-founder of Hillsong NYC, the Australian megachurch’s first branch in the United States and the latest hotspot for celebrity followers of Christ. Since entering the public consciousness and experiencing influencer-level fame, Carl […]

Most remakes of beloved TV shows invite you to pick them apart and tear them to shreds. But Peacock’s Bel-Air—Morgan Cooper’s modern, dramatic take on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—has seen a different fate, establishing a loyal audience and becoming one of the funniest trending topics on Twitter. In particular, viewers can’t stop talking about Carlton 2.0, played by 23-year-old actor and singer Olly Sholotan. Anyone who watched the original ’90s NBC sitcom remembers Alfonso Ribeiro’s hysterical take on the snobbish yet delightfully dweeby Banks son and, of course, his iconic dance moves. Bel-Air, however, gives Carlton a darker, more antagonistic […]

In the years following Jordan Peele’s breakout hit Get Out, horror films and programs starring and made by Black people have become less of a novelty and more of a box office and streaming staple, given the critical and financial success of the 2017 Oscar-winning flick. But so far, Hollywood’s embrace of similar projects hasn’t produced tremendous results. Whether it’s television shows like the unflinching Them and the ham-fisted Lovecraft Country, poorly conceived films such as Antebellum and Bad Hair, or the undercooked 2021 reboot of Candyman, this onslaught of new material hasn’t exactly lived up to the ample possibilities that […]

The past 72 hours for The Power of the Dog director Jane Campion have been eventful, to say the least. Over a hectic weekend ahead of the Oscars, the New Zealand filmmaker collected a slew of Best Director and Best Picture trophies at the Directors Guild Association Awards, The British Academy Film Association Awards, and last night’s Critics’ Choice Awards. At Saturday’s DGAs, she even earned praise for iconically calling actor Sam Elliott a “B-I-T-C-H” on the red carpet following his sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic critique of her abilities as a non-American filmmaker to direct a Western. Unfortunately, the goodwill she […]

As Netflix continues to mass-produce original movies, it’s become easier to spot the elements and safeguards put in place to guarantee as many eyeballs as possible so the streamer can gleefully announce on Twitter that one of its films broke a new record for viewership (without providing any evidence). Frequent consumers of these films—as opposed to the ones purchased and distributed by Netflix—know they’re relatively short, often clocking in under two hours. The plots are simple and easy to follow. They’re paced so that something eventful is happening at every moment to preserve your attention. There’s hardly any experimenting with sound […]

On Sunday, Euphoria concluded its second season in predictably disappointing and messy fashion. Cal Jacobs makes another appearance despite his storyline being wrapped up twice already. Cassie flies off the handle. Kat is mute. Rue is magically clean and apparently off the hook for the $10,000 she owed Laurie. Elliot plays the guitar. This season finale is a thoroughly choppy and disjointed attempt to find a cohesive narrative in all of season two’s madness. For the most part, it seems to land on the fact that Rue is still grieving her father, as we cut to the same flashback we’ve seen […]

Much of Euphoria Season 2 has been undermined by a lack of structure and general uncertainty about what story it wants to tell. With only one episode left, it’s hard to guess any one conclusion or whether certain plot points will even be addressed in the finale. One thing viewers have been able to look forward to, however, is Lexi’s autobiographical school play and what it will supposedly reveal about who she is beyond an observer of everyone else’s drama. Unfortunately, her production, which takes up the majority of “The Theater And Its Double,” only exposes the overarching defects in Sam […]

I’ve long maintained that the Super Bowl halftime show belongs to women with only a few exceptions. For those of us with no interest in football or have zero stake in the teams represented, an event so stereotypically masculine and thoroughly silly is only made bearable with the knowledge that a pop diva will come swooping in during the middle of the broadcast to perform some of her greatest hits and frolic onstage in a ridiculous leotard. (That and, of course, party snacks). Likewise, this year’s male-heavy Pepsi Super Bowl LVI halftime show, featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, […]

It says a lot about Euphoria’s second season that last week’s episode, primarily focused on the show’s main protagonist and central narrative, oddly felt like a standalone event. So far, this season has largely reveled in the explosive secrets and underlying tension amongst (some of) the show’s supporting cast and has often been more entertaining when doing so than spotlighting Rue’s struggles with sobriety. Even when these moments aren’t executed perfectly—and we still have some plot holes and loose threads hanging around—you can tell that Sam Levinson is having more fun leaning into the series’ more frivolous, soap-y and even comedic […]

Last year’s Malcolm & Marie taught us a few things. One, Sam Levinson is not artistically equipped to produce a bare-bones, dialogue-driven dramatic feature. Two, it’s questionable whether he’s heard two humans argue before. And three, Zendaya is not particularly suited for performances that involve raising her voice above a mutter. Unfortunately, these shortcomings find themselves in this week’s Euphoria, which follows Rue experiencing a tumultuous case of withdrawal. At the start of the episode, our strung-out protagonist finally gets caught after Jules informs Rue’s mother Leslie that she’s been using. The fallout from this revelation is something we’ve seen previously […]

On last weekend’s Saturday Night Live, musical guest Katy Perry gave viewers a glimpse of her current Las Vegas residency Play which, among other frills, features phallic dancing mushrooms and a giant toilet. The Pee Wee’s Playhouse-inspired show, which began in December at the Resorts World Theatre, is an auspicious move for the pop singer whose star has slightly dimmed in the past four years. Her latest record Smile debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200—certainly not a failure but a significant downturn for an artist who dominated the charts in the late 2000s and 2010s. Her commitment to brash […]

On Wednesday, ABC News announced the suspension of The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg following a set of ill-informed remarks she made (and later apologized for) about the Holocaust on Monday. During the show’s “Hot Topics” segment, the panel criticized the recent banning of Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, which depicts the Holocaust, by a Tennessee school board supposedly due to its profanity and nudity. And the conversation ended up demonstrating in real time why the use of Art Spiegelman’s book in academic institutions is so necessary when Goldberg argued that the Holocaust “was not about race” because it involved “two groups […]

I’ve read quite a few complaints that Euphoria’s second season, so far, is a meandering, pointless mess. I can’t say that the series has ever been laser-focused on what it wants to say about modern adolescence. And honestly, I have a better time consuming it as a teenage, R-rated Seinfeld. But the time we spent exploring each character in season one felt more balanced, at least. It’s frustrating that Kat and Maddy are being sidelined in order to give Cal, of all people, some interiority. And that interiority is a bunch of crap. As far as the story goes, Sam Levinson […]

It looks like Justin Timberlake can finally breathe again. Well, sort of. In the two-part conclusion of her A&E documentary Janet Jackson. airing Saturday night, the pop icon ceased speculation that she and the “SexyBack” singer were on bad terms following their infamous 2004 Super Bowl halftime show incident and his subsequent headlining of the concert without her in 2018. In a statement she recorded for the documentary, Jackson said: “Honestly, this whole thing was blown way out of proportion. And of course, it was an accident that should not have happened. But everyone is looking for someone to blame, and […]

Every year, awards season grants film-lovers and people who generally enjoy celebrities an abundance of amusing soundbites, clips, and snafus leading up to the Oscars. So far, Lady Gaga has inundated us with bizarre, questionable facts about her transformation into House of Gucci’s Patrizia Reggiani. Denzel Washington had his own viral “sorry to this man” moment when asked about Snowfall actor Damson Idris during several red carpet interviews. Nicolas Cage spoke about his beef with a horse at a roundtable. Arguably though, no one has enjoyed more virality on their quest for the little golden statuette than Best Actor contender Andrew […]

Last year’s outstanding HBO Max documentary about Tina Turner gave the retired queen of rock ‘n’ roll what will hopefully be the final word on her roller-coaster career and tumultuous marriage to Ike Turner. Almost 30 years younger than Turner and still actively working, Janet Jackson makes similar efforts to set the record straight on public narratives about her illustrious family, tough upbringing, relationships, and individual stardom in the documentary series JANET JACKSON., premiering on Lifetime and A&E this Friday and Saturday. The first of the two episodes, airing tonight, opens with Janet in the back of an SUV, being driven […]

Last week’s episode was a refreshing diversion from Euphoria’s typical structure, beginning in the present as opposed to a cold open depicting someone’s terrible upbringing. But Levinson is as committed to the dubious “trauma plot” as he is to filming male crotches. And there’s hardly a person within this ensemble of thoroughly fucked-up characters more suited for this device than Eric Dane’s Cal Jacobs. Cal’s deeply cliched backstory pretty much writes itself thanks to years of teen programming featuring “the closeted jock” and the wrongheaded societal notion that the worst men are secretly gay. Accordingly, we’re introduced to a teenage Cal […]

When Paige DeSorbo arrived in the Hamptons for Bravo’s Summer House in 2019, the reality series desperately needed some rejuvenation. Two seasons in, the Vanderpump Rules spinoff failed to stick out among the network’s more popular programming. Drama between several of the original cast members had already worn thin. Even Andy Cohen looked like he had better things to do when he hosted the show’s first reunion. But if anyone knows how to give a great makeover, it’s the always-chic DeSorbo. It didn’t take long for the 29-year-old fashion influencer to win over viewers with her impeccable, budget-friendly sense of style […]

Last week’s premiere was a great showcase for Sydney Sweeney, whose Toni Collette-level eye work and ability to emote terror had Twitter demanding her own A24 horror movie. This week, we’re blessed with more Sweeney reaction GIFs as Cassie develops an unhealthy obsession with Nate and stresses over the possibility of Maddy finding out. It turns out that watching Nate having a near-death experience was the worst thing that could happen to this girl right after their hookup, as her feelings for him have gone from drunken lust into “I can fix him” territory. We open on Maddy and Cassie rushing […]

It would be atypical for writer-director Sam Levinson to ease us back into the turbulent world of Euphoria for its second season—although its two off-season specials, focused on Rue and Jules, provided some respite from season one’s mayhem. In an unflinching premiere, we’re greeted with the same, old excessive nudity, drug use and bloodshed, including a moment where a man is shot in the thighs with his penis out during the first two minutes. School is back in session! In typical series fashion, we open with a character’s backstory—this time, Fezco’s. The last time we saw television’s sweetest drug dealer, he […]

Art that speaks to our COVID-stricken state of the world can be a hit or miss, either capturing our isolation in a way that’s empathic and comforting or making our current nightmare feel endless. On his just-released album Dawn FM, The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, along with new BFF Jim Carrey, allows listeners to imagine another stage after the darkness, offering hypnotic, dance-ready tunes to mollify us while we wait. Explaining the album’s radio-structured concept in a recent Billboard interview, Tesfaye imagined listeners “stuck in traffic waiting to reach the light at the end of the tunnel” with a “radio host […]

The joke is in the title. Judge Steve Harvey, the latest venture from America’s most employable host, is not a Kenan Thompson SNL sketch nor a diegetic television show on Atlanta, but, in fact, a real program premiering tonight on ABC that will leave viewers in a fit of laughter but mostly in awe of the former stand-up’s endless branding capabilities. Despite the innate absurdity of the project—mainly in that Harvey is not a judge nor has any legal experience—his entry into the ecosystem of network court shows is an undeniably astute move. For one thing, the last five years has […]

The first season of ABC’s new historical anthology series Women of the Movement, premiering on Jan. 6, sets out to tell the compelling story of educator and activist Mamie Till-Mobley, whose son Emmett Till was brutally murdered at the age of 14 by two white men after being accused of whistling at a white woman in 1955. Folks already familiar with this political flashpoint know of her decision to have Till’s corpse shipped from Mississippi, where he was murdered, to her home in Chicago and hold an open-casket funeral so the world could see his mutilated body. After an all-white jury […]

On Wednesday, director, screenwriter, and producer Adam McKay inserted himself into an ongoing debate on Twitter between critics and more passionate admirers of his latest Netflix film Don’t Look Up, a cautionary tale about our current climate crisis. Presumably in response to film critics who found the movie less than satisfying, he tweeted, “Loving all the heated debate about our movie. But if you don’t have at least a small ember of anxiety about the climate collapsing (or the US teetering) I’m not sure Don’t Look Up makes any sense. It’s like a robot viewing a love story. “WHy ArE thEir […]

As is the nature of film franchise releases, Film Twitter discourse is often painfully cyclical. Likewise, it’s not surprising that the Great Martin Scorsese-Marvel War of 2019 is being rehashed once again on social media. This time, however, it’s thanks to Spiderman: No Way Home star Tom Holland, who gave a belated rebuttal to the Oscar-winning director’s statement that superhero films “aren’t cinema” in an Empire magazine interview a couple of years ago. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter about the latest Spiderman sequel’s Oscar chances in light of its record-breaking box office numbers and critical acclaim, Holland defended the […]

When a breathless Andy Cohen appeared on Today last month to announce the latest Real Housewives installment set in Dubai, fans on social media were less than enthusiastic. Logistical questions arose regarding the city’s legal restrictions on certain social behaviors and whether its purportedly “no-nonsense” culture would meet the needs of Western viewers. Other Twitter users referenced the systematic exploitation of domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates and expressed discomfort in getting to know wealthy individuals from this particular region—as opposed to ones in America who treat their staff or, “servants,” as Ramona Singer would say, with the utmost dignity. […]

You’ve probably heard about the coterie of celebrities—and some less notable figures—that came to be known as Resistance Twitter for their collective disdain of Trump during the 2016 election. It included actors and comedians like George Takei, Debra Messing, Jimmy Kimmel and Chelsea Handler who would routinely dunk on the former reality TV host for his bigoted outbursts, harmful policies, and physical appearance. Among them was—and still is—legendary performer Bette Midler, who was a fiery voice on Twitter prior to 2016 but has been lionized more recently as a voice of the left for criticizing the Trump family and the Republican […]

The last time The Real World aired on primetime cable was in the year of our Lord 2016. The season was subtitled Bad Blood, featured a whopping 14 housemates (and uncountable number of beefs) and received dismal ratings. In an effort to rescue its long-running program from cultural obscurity, MTV signed a deal with Facebook Watch to broadcast the show’s 33rd season, which ultimately felt stilted and algorithmic in its presentation of hot-button political topics in the Trump era. Needless to say, old-school fans were not impressed, and the original show (Paramount+ has since released a successful spin-off) has not returned […]

On Thursday, Paramount+ dropped the second episode of The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles, the reboot of the iconic MTV reality program Real World that reunites former castmates to rehash the most dramatic moments from their seasons and give viewers an update on their post-show lives. The latest episode picked up where the premiere left off, in the middle of a heated discussion between former cast members Tami Roman and David Edwards over one of the most jarring moments documented on television that resulted in Edwards being the first person ever kicked off a reality show. Referred to as “the blanket […]

On Thursday, Paramount+ dropped the second episode of The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles, the reboot of the iconic MTV reality program Real World that reunites former castmates to rehash the most dramatic moments from their seasons and give viewers an update on their post-show lives. The latest episode picked up where the premiere left off, in the middle of a heated discussion between former cast members Tami Roman and David Edwards over one of the most jarring moments documented on television that resulted in Edwards being the first person ever kicked off a reality show. Referred to as “the blanket […]

On Thursday, Paramount+ dropped the second episode of The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles, the reboot of the iconic MTV reality program Real World that reunites former castmates to rehash the most dramatic moments from their seasons and give viewers an update on their post-show lives. The latest episode picked up where the premiere left off, in the middle of a heated discussion between former cast members Tami Roman and David Edwards over one of the most jarring moments documented on television that resulted in Edwards being the first person ever kicked off a reality show. Referred to as “the blanket […]

On Thursday, Paramount+ dropped the second episode of The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles, the reboot of the iconic MTV reality program Real World that reunites former castmates to rehash the most dramatic moments from their seasons and give viewers an update on their post-show lives. The latest episode picked up where the premiere left off, in the middle of a heated discussion between former cast members Tami Roman and David Edwards over one of the most jarring moments documented on television that resulted in Edwards being the first person ever kicked off a reality show. Referred to as “the blanket […]

Few things were more alleviating during our collective year inside than virtual tours through palatial Los Angeles homes, views of sparkling infinity pools overlooking the Hollywood Hills, and Christine Quinn’s reliably garish, glam-goth and highlighter-neon fashion ensembles. That is, of course, if you spent your quarantine bingeing Selling Sunset on Netflix. The Adam DiVello-produced docu-soap, which focuses on the equally glamorous and industrious female agents at luxury real estate brokerage The Oppenheim Group—and their male bosses—became a reality sensation in its second and third seasons that aired in 2020. Season three, in particular, experienced the now-typical reality-TV fate of capturing a […]

At some point in our media-consuming lives, we all partake in what Letterboxd scribes refer to as a “thirst watch.” It’s when you spend several hours of your life watching a film or television show you’d otherwise have no interest in, if not for an actor or actress you find deeply attractive and need to see doing ordinary, scripted things like eating an apple or putting on a shirt or simulating sexual intercourse. The first time I remember having this experience was in high school when my Tumblr feed was inundated with GIFs, fanfiction and ship names from the hit series […]

After weeks of online buzz and cryptic messages from the singer’s social media pages, Taylor Swift finally dropped her highly anticipated Red (Taylor’s Version) on Friday, the second release in a series of album re-recordings in an effort to gain ownership of her catalog. Swift’s revisiting of Red in particular, an Album of the Year nominee and her last dance with country music (before eventually reverting to a more rustic sound on 2020’s Folklore and Evermore), has warranted increased publicity compared to her previous re-recording of Fearless, including some late-night talk show appearances, a musical guest spot on this weekend’s Saturday […]

On Wednesday, wellness mogul Gwyneth Paltrow stopped by Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk to promote her latest Netflix series Sex, Love and goop. Hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Adrienne Banfield-Norris and, briefly, Willow Smith spoke candidly with the Oscar winner about sex and relationships. At one point in the interview, when discussing accountability regarding communication about sex, Smith described having to overcome this particular challenge in her 24-year-long marriage to actor Will Smith. “It’s hard,” Pinkett Smith said. “The thing Will and I talk about a lot is the journey. We started in this at a very young age, you know, 22 […]

After two consecutive years of white, male headliners at the Super Bowl Halftime Show proved to be one too many, the nation’s biggest televised musical event has received a bit of a facelift over the past few years thanks to a partnership with Jay-Z and Roc Nation that, so far, has delivered a much-celebrated collaboration between Shakira and Jennifer Lopez and a slightly more divisive performance by The Weeknd. In 2022, the NFL, Roc Nation and the show’s sponsor Pepsi will continue their agenda of platforming people of color and women with an illustrious, majority-Black lineup featuring legendary hip-hop and R&B […]

Twitter has proven to be an effective tool in propelling faded stars back into the spotlight. It’s in this fashion that Nelly’s career has gained noticeable traction over the past year—thanks to the powerful PR that comes with participating in a Verzuz battle that, by design, elicits praise and recognition on social media for one’s contributions to the culture. However, his sudden re-emergence into the zeitgeist, that includes a new partnership with Burger King and lifetime achievement award from BET, has led many to overlook the numerous allegations of sexual assault that the St. Louis rapper has faced over the past […]

Before Drake aroused the internet with the long-awaited release of his sixth studio album Certified Lover Boy on Friday, he had already polarized—if not perplexed—much of Twitter with its Damien Hirst cover art released days before, featuring rows of pregnant-woman emojis of varying skin tones, hair colors and colored tops against a white background. Responses to the unconventional but not entirely unfamiliar graphic design, reminiscent of the British artist’s signature rainbow-colored spot-painting series, ran from staggered (“he can’t be serious”) to comical (Drake’s head Photoshopped on a child using a coloring book) to hyperbolic (“the worst cover art known to man”). […]

In 2019, tensions between pop stars and journalists reached boiling point. Lizzo was attacking Pitchfork for allowing a non-musician to review her album Cuz I Love You. Justin Bieber accused an E! News host of “bullying” for suggesting that he lip-synced during Ariana Grande’s Coachella set. Grande also chimed in with a remark about bloggers not being “lit inside” that instantly became a meme. Lana Del Rey famously chided NPR music critic Ann Powers for innocuously stating that she had a persona. And although it occurred the following year, I would be remiss not to mention the Alison Roman-Chrissy Teigen squabble […]

Nothing brings Twitter together like the social media antics of one Chrissy Teigen. On Wednesday, the model and Cravings founder took to her Instagram to lament her self-imposed exile from Twitter and reveal that she’s “depressed” following a rehashing of her past online behavior—particularly her bullying of a teenage Courtney Stodden, who attracted media coverage in 2011 for their marriage to 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchinson. In part, Teigen wrote in a lengthy caption: “Iiii don’t really know what to say here…just feels so weird to pretend nothing happened in this online world but feel like utter shit in real life. Going […]

Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photos via Getty Last Friday, British pop star Ed Sheeran released “Bad Habits,” the first single from his forthcoming album Minus. The song, which is on track to debut at No. 1 on the U.K. charts, is a strong contender for this year’s song of the summer. But the earworm has already earned Sheeran familiar accusations of theft. Lyrically and musically the song is nothing special, but “Bad Habits” marks a diversion from the musician’s acoustic-driven, dancehall-inspired repertoire into the ever-popular genre of dance-pop. The simultaneous release of its music video also signaled […]

It’s never been more acceptable to be unabashedly horny online, particularly during a period when everyone’s been waiting to put their hands on each other. So, of course, when photos drop of attractive celebrities getting frisky in public, it feels like Christmas morning on social media. The photos in question this week literally arrived like gifts on an otherwise uneventful Sunday afternoon thanks to the Daily Mail. The news outlet caught Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi, pop singer Rita Ora, and actress Tessa Thompson kissing and cozying up to one another outside of Waititi’s home in Sydney the morning after an all-night […]

Despite the litany of social media controversies involving A-list celebrities targeting journalists, television writers, and non-celebrity users—and the corresponding discourse about these power dynamics—in recent years, celebrities are still wielding their influence in irresponsible ways for the most nonsensical complaints. The latest is an incident involving Demi Lovato and a popular frozen yogurt shop in Los Angeles called The Bigg Chill. After calling out the business on her Instagram on Sunday for displaying and selling sugar-free cookies and other diet food items, the former Disney star is explaining her role in the dramatic saga after receiving backlash online. “I walked into […]

By now, we’re used to members of the Kardashian-Jenner clan floating in and out of the news cycle for various Photoshopping mishaps and accusations that they promote unhealthy body image on social media, from sponsored waist trainers to diet lollipops. But few controversies involving the beauty moguls and their obsession with exhibiting physical perfection at all times have been as baffling as the fallout from an unfiltered photo of Khloé Kardashian that made the rounds this week. The series of events leading up to the reality star and Good American founder addressing the matter in a statement and several Instagram videos […]

“The forces involved here are less visible than gunfire, class property or political crusades, but they are no less powerful,” Raoul Peck posits in his new docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, premiering April 7 on HBO. The critically acclaimed filmmaker is referring to the series of myths that comprise white supremacy, the subject of the four-part series that explores the brutal methods and ideological justifications of Western colonization. In his latest project, Peck reapplies experimental techniques from his 2016 Oscar-nominated documentary about writer and activist James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, to challenge our collective understanding of America as a […]

It’s hardly a shock when mega-famous YouTubers face public scrutiny these days. From Jeffree Star to James Charles to Nikita Dragun to Jake and Logan Paul, the platform’s biggest stars routinely appear in and out of the news cycle for tasteless videos, old, offensive tweets and their own beefs with other YouTubers. The amount of mess these influencers supply on a monthly basis even requires its own subcommunity of drama and tea channels to keep track of it all. For David Dobrik though, who’s mostly side-stepped major scandals and the high-school shenanigans of the platform (aside from the ones in his […]

What’s going on at The Talk? Just a day after CBS announced that its daytime panel show was on hiatus after a controversial exchange between hosts Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood went viral, Osbourne is now being accused by her ex-cohosts and anonymous sources of using racist and homophobic language towards her colleagues and creating a “toxic environment” on set. The drama began on March 9, when former Good Morning Britain host and Twitter provocateur Piers Morgan made insensitive remarks about Meghan Markle following her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey. After stating on ITV’s morning news program that he “didn’t believe […]