Marlow Stern

For elder millennials like me, Sean Paul will forever hold a special place in our hearts (feet?). The Jamaican reggae/dancehall artist’s sophomore album Dutty Rock dropped my senior year of high school, and its infectious hits “Get Busy,” “Like Glue,” “Gimme the Light,” and “Baby Boy”—the latter with a little-known artist named Beyoncé—provided the soundtrack to house parties, spring break, prom, and our final summer before college. While my clubbing days are mostly behind me, Paul, who will turn 50 in January, is showing few signs of slowing down. We’re huddled together in a van outside his Manhattan hotel, and Paul, […]

After a brief—albeit hilarious—riff on the Eurovision Song Contest, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver dedicated the top of his show Sunday evening to Alabama, whose governor, Kay Ivey, passed a “transgender youth ban,” making it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for doctors to provide medication to transgender people under the age of 19. “That is absolutely appalling,” remarked Oliver. “Nobody should ever be facing criminal punishment for providing health care to young people.” Ivey, a 77-year-old Republican woman, made transphobia a cornerstone of her re-election campaign, running a series of ads in which she proclaimed that […]

On Tuesday night, Jimmy Kimmel returned for his second late-night show since his COVID hiatus, and the comedian still sounded a bit hoarse—but that didn’t stop him from going after Tesla CEO and edgelord Elon Musk. “Speaking of babies, Elon Musk says that if his deal to buy Twitter goes through, he will reverse the ban on our infant former president, Donald Trump,” explained Kimmel. Indeed, during remarks at Financial Times’ Future of the Car conference, Musk explained his reasoning thusly: “Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts… I do […]

Late Tuesday night, Dave Chappelle was attacked onstage at the Hollywood Bowl. The assailant, armed with a plastic replica gun containing a knife, tackled the stand-up comedy legend—who quickly recovered, and then had his security team and entourage stomp the trespasser down. (The man was later charged with four misdemeanors.) The show, part of the inaugural Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival, ended a historic run for Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl, and of course came in the wake of Chris Rock getting slapped onstage at the Oscars by Will Smith over a joke about his wife. Chappelle’s good pal Kevin […]

On Wednesday night, following a Closer Look segment exploring conservatives’ decades-long mission to destroy women’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy by overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision granting women the freedom to choose whether or not to have an abortion sans government interference, Seth Meyers welcomed comedian Amy Schumer onto his Late Night show. When Meyers asked Schumer how she was doing, the comedian and actress didn’t mince words. “I mean, I’m fucking depressed,” she said. “Just that we’re losing all of our rights.” Schumer, wearing a “hands off our bodies” pin, said she’d recently attended a rally […]

In the wake of Hollywood A-lister Will Smith marching onstage during the Academy Awards and slapping the piss out of presenter Chris Rock over a joke about his wife, comedians across the country expressed worry that it could embolden others to do the same. On Tuesday night, during Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy performance at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, a man rushed onstage and tackled the comic mid-performance before being subdued—and stomped down—by security guards. The actor Jamie Foxx also helped restrain the trespasser. Then Chappelle, seemingly OK, continued on with the show, reportedly joking that the assailant “was a trans man”—a […]

After a one-week absence, John Oliver returned to the Last Week Tonight desk on Sunday and dedicated a big chunk of his latest episode to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who’s running for re-election. Though Villanueva ran as a Democratic reformer—the first Democrat to be elected LA County Sheriff in 138 years—during his tenure he not only has moved to the right but also has been asked to resign by the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission over a perceived lack of accountability. “His re-election bid this year has been overshadowed by claims in the L.A. Times that he directed a cover-up […]

On Thursday evening, Late Night host Seth Meyers moved his attention from Ivanka Trump’s Jan. 6 coup texts to ones that came in the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection from Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman who believes that Jews control the weather with a space laser, that wearing a protective mask in Congress is tantamount to the Holocaust, and who recently said she reported Jimmy Kimmel to the Capitol Police over a joke (but liberals are the real snowflakes). “It seems like virtually the entirety of the Trump administration and his closest allies in Congress were involved in some way, […]

When Gabriella Major was 2 years old, she and her family were rounded up and held captive in a newly established ghetto in Debrecen, Hungary. The year was 1944, and the Nazis had just invaded. After several months fighting off starvation and disease, they were placed in cattle cars headed toward Auschwitz—only to be diverted. “By some miracle, we didn’t wind up in Auschwitz,” Major says. “Twenty-eight members of my family were murdered in Auschwitz. We wound up in a concentration camp in Austria near Vienna called Strasshof.” Strasshof was a forced labor camp that subjected prisoners to “vicious” treatment, including […]

On Wednesday night, Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on a “funny scenario” developing in Ohio’s GOP Senate race, where rabid Trump supporter (and guy who likes palling around with QAnon nutjobs) Josh Mandel is running against J.D. Vance, a former critic of Trump’s who wrote a book that was adapted into one of the worst movies in recent memory. Mandel received the endorsement of Club for Growth, a powerful conservative organization (with its own Super PAC) that sounds an awful lot like a hair-growth product and was very critical of Trump during the 2016 election—and endorsed Ted Cruz—before supporting his re-election bid […]

This week, Piers Morgan—one of Trump’s biggest sycophants, as well as a disgraced journalist and misogynist—aired a promo for an “explosive” sit-down interview between the two that saw Trump allegedly walk off after being pressed on his 2020 presidential election lies. The promo footage for an interview that absolutely no one asked for has caused a bit of a stir in Trumpville, with the former president and reality-show host, who once also featured Morgan as a guest judge on The Celebrity Apprentice, alleging that he did not walk out of the sit-down and has audio to prove it. “Trump squatted down […]

One of the most vocal backers of Florida’s homophobic “Don’t Say Gay” bill—as well as conservatives’ subsequent smearing of Disney for reversing their position on it—is Republican Senator Ted Cruz, an apparent admirer of stepmom porn who’s never found a cauldron of culture-war nonsense he didn’t want to dunk his head in. “Texas Senator Ted Cruz whined about Disney’s opposition to Florida’s recent ban on discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, referred to by critics as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, by painting this incredibly disturbing image that we now all have to live with,” […]

The big news Tuesday concerned Netflix, whose disappointing first quarter earnings report revealed that the streaming giant had lost over 200,000 subscribers—the first time it reported a subscriber loss in the last 10 years. (Netflix had previously estimated that it would gain 2.5 million subscribers in Q1; meanwhile, the suspension of its service in Russia cost it 700,000 subscribers.) Netflix’s disappointing earnings report caused its stock price to tumble about 23 percent—and one person who appeared to celebrate the news was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth of over $260 billion. Responding to a report […]

On Sunday evening’s edition of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver kicked off the show by addressing Trump’s recent endorsement of snake-oil salesman Dr. Oz, who aggressively pushed hydroxychloroquine as a COVID treatment during the pandemic, in the Pennsylvania Senate race. “You know, when you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll. That means people like you. But he’s a great guy,” Trump said of Oz. “Wow. I hadn’t heard that voice in a while and, to be honest, I really haven’t missed it. The first growl in that clip was like hearing the sound of a cranking lawn mower […]

For his latest segment exposing card-carrying members of the MAGA cult, The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper ventured to this year’s CPAC in Orlando, Florida, where former President Donald Trump still appeared to have conservatives in a stranglehold. At the conference, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claimed the election was “stolen”; MyPillow conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell had a meltdown after being asked a simple question by a reporter; and Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “genius” for invading Ukraine. But Klepper was more interested in those who worship the former reality-show host. “I like how he’s funny,” one younger-looking fellow in […]

This week, the celebrated comedian Gilbert Gottfried passed away at the age of 67. The Brooklyn native was known for his booming, grating voice and fearless brand of comedy, as well as his brief stint on SNL, voicing the parrot Iago in Aladdin, playing the shady adoption agent in the Problem Child movies, voicing the Aflac duck, and performing stand-up. Gottfried’s most renowned stand-up set occurred during the Friar’s Club roast of Hugh Hefner in New York City on Sept. 29, 2001, weeks after the 9/11 attacks. At the roast, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, Gottfried told a 9/11 joke: “I have […]

Recently, Tesla CEO and aspiring edgelord Elon Musk purchased a 9.2% stake in Twitter after complaining about the social media platform’s “censorship” policies. Musk, who boasts 81.5 million followers on the social media site at time of writing, then became the largest single shareholder of Twitter—a site where he’d infamously branded a heroic diver a “pedo,” threatened Tesla workers against unionizing, and posted a transphobic meme following reports that his ex, Grimes, was dating trans whistleblower Chelsea Manning. On Tuesday night, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah—who, like Musk, hails from South Africa (though his family didn’t own an emerald mine)—weighed in […]

Last week, Jimmy Kimmel teed off on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—who believes that the Jews control the weather with a space laser and compared wearing a mask during the pandemic to the Holocaust—for reporting him to the Capitol police over a joke made at her expense. (The joke: “Where is Will Smith when you really need him?”) The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host revisited the hullabaloo on Monday night’s show. “Meanwhile, I had a whole thing with Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Temple of Dumb this weekend,” Kimmel explained. “You may have heard: The congress-monster is not happy about a comment […]

“This was a big week for OAN—although not in a good way,” offered John Oliver during Sunday evening’s edition of Last Week Tonight. Yes, DirecTV finally agreed to drop the right-wing propaganda network One America News Network this week despite pleas for the satellite cable provider to keep it from Republican attorney generals and senators. And DirecTV is owned by AT&T, which recently sold their interest in Oliver’s parent company WarnerMedia following their merger with Discovery. “Just so you know, the provider that he’s referring to there is DirecTV, which is a subsidiary of a parent company that I will not […]

The other night, Jimmy Kimmel joked, “Where is Will Smith when you really need him?” after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) branded anyone who supported Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as “pro-pedophile.” MTG, who loves calling liberals “snowflakes,” then said she’d reported the late-night host to the @CapitolPolice over the dumb joke, as one does. On Thursday night, Kimmel responded to MTG allegedly reporting him to the D.C. police over a joke. “What a day—I have to tell you. What a night and what a day. I have the weirdest life. I really do. Once again, I find myself […]

On Wednesday night, comedian Amy Schumer entered the Clubhouse on Watch What Happens Live for a spirited chat about all things Amy (and Bravo, naturally). And host Andy Cohen began, of course, by asking the Oscars co-host how she felt about Will Smith being allowed to stay and accept his Best Actor Academy Award after slapping the crap out of Chris Rock onstage. “I’ll just say: I was backstage, and I knew I had to go out… and it really felt like the Situation Room of comedy,” she explained. “We were all just watching the monitor, and then he won… Everyone […]

This week, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who is still reportedly under investigation in a sex-trafficking case, got into a bizarre altercation with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a House hearing. During the heated exchange, the GOP congressman rather baselessly accused the U.S. military of being subpar because it spends too much time on “wokeism” and “critical race theory,” and of continuing “to embrace socialism,” while Austin fired back that Gaetz appeared to be “embarrassed for his country,” reiterating that, “This is the most capable, most combat critical force in the world.” On Wednesday evening, Late Night host Seth Meyers came after […]

These are truly busy times for Mayim Bialik. Upon arriving at a Midtown Manhattan hotel for our interview—squeezed between a pair of morning-show appearances—her publicist informs me that she’s just awoken from a half-hour nap on a small couch in the lobby. “The hotel probably isn’t very happy with me,” offers Bialik with a light smile. The former Blossom and Big Bang Theory actress is currently starring in the Fox sitcom Call Me Kat, running the podcast Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, co-hosting a little program called Jeopardy!, and promoting As They Made Us, a feature film she produced and directed during the […]

On Sunday night, the 64th annual Grammy Awards were broadcast live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. And, aside from the Louis C.K. of it all—as well as a rather puzzling Album of the Year choice in Jon Batiste’s We Are (albeit in keeping with the Grammys’ history of having its finger removed from the pulse)—things went down pretty smoothly. Olivia Rodrigo took home Best New Artist, as predicted; Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” won Record of the Year, leading to the coolest reaction of the night from Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak; and sister-brother duo Billie […]

On Sunday, John Oliver opened the latest edition of his must-see show Last Week Tonight by teeing off on Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn, an accused serial sexual predator who delights in vacationing at Hitler’s holiday retreat (or “the Führer,” as Cawthorn called him on Instagram). This week, wearing a backward baseball cap and T-shirt with “Warrior Poet” emblazoned across the chest, Cawthorn dubiously claimed during a podcast interview, “The sexual perversion that goes on in Washington—I mean, being kind of a young guy in Washington… I look at a lot of these people, a lot of them I’ve looked up to […]

On Sunday night, the 64th annual Grammy Awards were broadcast live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. During the pre-show portion, national treasure Levar Burton cautioned attendees to “remain in your seats and keep your hands to yourselves”—a clear nod to Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock seen ‘round the world. Then, proving once again that so-called “cancel culture” is nothing more than an accountability myth, admitted (and seemingly unrepentant) serial sexual harasser Louis C.K. took home the Grammy for Best Comedy Album. One day after Saturday Night Live aired a number of bits taking on the slap, […]

“This is, suffice it to say, one of the weirdest political scandals in recent memory,” said Late Night host Seth Meyers at the top of Thursday evening’s “A Closer Look” segment. Meyers was, of course, referring to how Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) “casually accused his colleagues of inviting him to orgies and doing cocaine.” Wearing a backward baseball cap and T-shirt with the words “Warrior Poet” emblazoned across the chest, Cawthorn said during an interview, “The sexual perversion that goes on in Washington—I mean, being kind of a young guy in Washington… I look at a lot of these people, a […]

This week, CBS News announced it had hired Mick Mulvaney, who served as the budget director and chief of staff under former President Trump, as its newest contributor. “Recently, my network has gotten a lot of criticism—much of it from itself—because CBS News has hired the ex-president’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to ‘provide political analysis across the network’s broadcasts and platforms,’” explained Mulvaney’s network-mate, Stephen Colbert, on Thursday night’s Late Show. The late-night host then stared directly into the camera and exclaimed, “What the fuck?!” Many have objected to Mulvaney’s cushy CBS News gig given that during his Trump […]

Over the past few nights, Jimmy Kimmel—a former Oscars host—has repeatedly weighed in on the slap seen ’round the world during his late-night monologues. First, he upbraided Will Smith for initially laughing at Chris Rock’s joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head (she suffers from alopecia) before storming the stage and giving the presenter a big ol’ smack. Then Kimmel mocked Fox News’ baseless theory that the whole incident was staged. Round three came Wednesday evening, as a dubious claim surfaced from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that it had asked Smith to leave following the […]

“We’re brothers in the same struggle,” explains John Leguizamo. I’m speaking with Leguizamo, the Emmy and Tony Award-winning Encanto star, and Al Madrigal, stand-up comic, ex-Daily Show correspondent, and actor in the upcoming Morbius, about their new comic books about Latino superheroes. The two celebrated comedians from opposite ends of the country—Leguizamo is Colombian and grew up in Queens; Madrigal is Mexican-Italian and was raised in San Francisco’s Sunset District—became so frustrated with the lack of Latino representation in the comic-book world that they made their own. Leguizamo reunited with Spawn’s Todd McFarlane for PhenomX, featuring Max Gomez, who’s given superpowers […]

Wednesday marked the third day of questioning for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson—and the third day of astonishingly ugly attacks from Republican lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. These shameless stooges have repeatedly tried to brand the highly decorated federal judge, who would make history as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, as soft on child pornography. (It’s really just cheap chum to the GOP’s conspiracy-minded, QAnon-obsessed base.) “She has said that the fact that she was even nominated shows how far we’ve come as a country, and so some of the Republican senators on the committee have […]

There was, it seems, a constellation of corpulent weirdos encircling Sarma Melngailis, subject of the wildly popular Netflix true crime docuseries Bad Vegan. Melngailis, the striking owner of New York City’s trailblazing vegan raw food restaurant Pure Food and Wine and its offshoot One Lucky Duck, first attracted the attention of the actor Alec Baldwin, who became a regular at Pure both for the food and, by his own admission, to “stare” at her. This was in 2010 and 2011. “My understanding of her relationship with Alec Baldwin was that he was a regular customer at the restaurant, and like a […]

“I love when people go, ‘I went to sleep, and my manager called me in the morning to break the news…’ No you did not, you fucking little liar!” exclaims Diane Warren. The legendary songwriter behind hits like Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time,” Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me,” Brandy’s “Have You Ever,” Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart,” and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” recently received her 13th Oscar nomination for the song “Somehow You Do” from the film Four Good Days, about a mother (Glenn Close) trying like mad to get her addict daughter (Mila […]

One day after taking shots at Lara Trump’s “big new lips,” Jimmy Kimmel aimed his ire at Russian despot Vladimir Putin’s presumably enhanced appearance. On Thursday night, the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host dedicated much of his monologue to riffing on the seizure of Russian oligarchs’ yachts and other assets, as well as how a number of companies are refusing to do business with Russia—thanks, of course, to Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, where he’s committed a number of war crimes, including bombing hospitals and residential areas and killing many civilians. “Even pharmaceutical companies have stopped shipping non-essential drugs to Russia—including Abbvie, […]

After Donald Trump praised Russian despot Vladimir Putin’s mobilization of troops along the Ukrainian border and subsequent invasion of Ukraine, someone apparently got in his ear this week and convinced the former reality TV host to change his tune, saying, “I think Putin has changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.” “At least he still has Kim Jong Un, I guess,” cracked Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night show Wednesday evening. Then the comedian went after Trump surrogate Lara Trump—“whose credentials when it comes to politics are ‘I married Eric,’” cracked Kimmel—who’s been making the media […]

“I’ve been feeling real brave!” exclaims Alison Brie. The actress is currently filming Freelance in the Colombian jungle—an action-comedy that sees her intrepid journalist and the retired special forces operator (John Cena) acting as her security attempt to survive a military coup. Dodging “new obstacles on set, like poisonous snails, scorpions and fire ants” sounds considerably less glamorous than the making of Spin Me Round, her scenic new film that made its premiere at this year’s SXSW. Amber (Brie) is the manager of the Bakersfield outpost of Italian restaurant chain Tuscan Grove (think: Olive Garden). She is closed-off to the world, […]

On Thursday night, the almighty Desus & Mero returned for the Season 4 premiere of their criminally underrated Showtime series. The two funniest dudes in late night kicked things off by clowning Desus on his recent “famous friends” vacation in Iceland, where he was caught partying with actress Anna Kendrick and “personally increased the diversity of Iceland by 20 percent” (his words). Eventually, the pair got around to “white goss”—in the form of Elon Musk and Grimes’ “secret” second child, which was revealed in a bonkers interview with Vanity Fair. The Tesla CEO/edgelord and musician/self-admitted “class traitor” welcomed a sister to […]

When elder millennials and Gen Xers discovered recently that Forever 21, the teen-targeting fast-fashion emporium, was hawking Korn band tees, they lost their collective marbles. How could this be? Do these kids even know what “A.D.I.D.A.S.” stands for? How old are we?! As it turns out, the nu metal band has attracted a dedicated following among the Gen Z TikTok set; the hashtag #korn has garnered more than 700 million views alone on the video-centric social network, and viral clips regularly crop up set to their angsty songs exploring youthful rebellion and childhood trauma. “Fuck yeah they are!” exclaims lead singer […]

President Biden announced yesterday that the U.S. would ban all Russian energy imports—another move in response to Putin’s deadly, civilian-targeting war on Ukraine—which brought out all the usual conservative trolls from under their respective bridges. But first, Late Night host Seth Meyers felt it was “a good time to pause and acknowledge how insane it is that we continue to buy oil from brutal regimes like Russia and Saudi Arabia.” (A good point by Seth, and you can also add Venezuela to that list.) Despite the Biden administration outpacing Trump’s in issuing permits to allow oil drilling on federal land, oil […]

Since his return from a lengthy hiatus, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver has expertly dismantled the right-wing hysteria over critical race theory and told former president George W. Bush to “shut the fuck up” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Sunday night’s edition of his HBO show, he paid tribute to the brave people of Ukraine for fighting off Russia’s morally reprehensible military assault. “Ukraine citizens have continued to show incredible signs of resistance, proving that they truly are the ‘fuck around and find out’ country of Eastern Europe,” said Oliver. He then thew to a CNN interview with a Ukrainian […]

After a packed cold open featuring Putin apologists Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Trump and Steven Seagal raising money for Russian oligarchs as part of the “Fox News Ukrainian Invasion Celebration Spectacular,” this week’s SNL Weekend Update brought on cast member Kate McKinnon, who is openly gay, to address Florida’s deeply homophobic “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The legislation, which recently passed Florida’s House of Representatives, would ban “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in the state’s primary schools. The bill, championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, will now head to the GOP-controlled Senate where it is expected to pass. “I’m […]

Last week, Saturday Night Live opened with a plea for peace courtesy of the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York. The choir sang “Prayer for Ukraine, a poignant religious anthem, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Things went a bit—okay, a lot—differently this week. Rather than a solemn tribute, SNL opened with the “Fox News Ukrainian Invasion Celebration Spectacular,” a televised event broadcasting live from Trump’s tony country club Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Florida. The special was hosted by none other than Fox News bigots Laura Ingraham (played by Kate McKinnon) and Tucker Carlson (Alex Moffat). “Now, Laura, […]

Since late-night shows tape earlier in the day, only The Late Show with Stephen Colbert—which was broadcasting live—had a chance to weigh in on Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday evening. And so, Jimmy Kimmel gave his two cents on Wednesday night’s edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, first mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for jumping up excitedly while the president was discussing burn pits in Iraq, before pivoting to the two biggest clowns of the evening: Republican congresswomen (and professional trolls) Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. “That wasn’t even the most awkward moment of the night,” Kimmel said […]

On Tuesday evening, Rolling Loud unveiled its star-studded lineup. The hotly anticipated music festival, taking place July 22-24 at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida, will boast headliners Ye, Future, and Kendrick Lamar, as well as rising stars Lil Baby, Baby Keem, Gunna, and Saweetie. But one name in particular is sure to make waves (and not in a good way). Yes, DaBaby is scheduled to perform at Rolling Loud on Saturday, July 23rd. If you recall, the North Carolina-raised rapper received widespread condemnation for going on a homophobic rant at last year’s Rolling Loud, seemingly out of nowhere. “If […]

During last week’s Season 9 premiere of his hit HBO series Last Week Tonight, John Oliver delivered a blistering takedown of the right-wing panic over critical race theory—which conservatives have redefined to mean any conversation about race that they’re uncomfortable having and appears to be a smoke screen used to push their broader agenda: school choice. Sunday night’s edition of the Emmy-winning show saw Oliver set his sights on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “As we are all now painfully aware, Vladimir Putin, Russian president and World War III edgelord, began an assault on the second-largest country in Europe this week, […]

One day after dragging Fox News blowhard—and frozen dinner heir—Tucker Carlson for singing Putin’s praises the day before Putin ordered a Russian invasion of Ukraine, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel returned to his show on Thursday and set his sights on another admirer of the diminutive dictator, Donald J. Trump. “You know, it’s hard to do a comedy show when there’s a war going on, but we are here while more than 6,000 miles away, women and children are fleeing Ukraine,” Kimmel began his monologue. “Men, age 18-60, are required to stay and fight and Russian forces continue their unprovoked attack—an attack […]

Shortly after Jimmy Kimmel went off on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson for defending Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on the eve of his country’s invasion of Ukraine, Seth Meyers dedicated a sizeable chunk of his Late Night to Trump’s praise of Putin the day before the military offensive. “The entire world is aghast and horrified,” said Meyers of the imminent Russian invasion, as the show was recorded Wednesday afternoon. “The only people who could possibly think this is a good move are those unemployed fringe weirdos who go on small-time radio shows. You know, like this guy.” With that, he threw to […]

John Kasich is the straight-talking, stone-faced ex-governor of Ohio (and presidential candidate) known for breaking with the GOP to denounce Donald Trump. Jordan Klepper is a sarcastic, fresh-faced comic known for his tense stand-offs with conspiracy theorists and MAGA cultists on The Daily Show. On paper, they seem the strangest of bedfellows, but the 69-year-old conservative and 42-year-old lefty have a lot more in common than you think. “We’re not trying to be didactic about ‘This is how we’re trying to get on the same page, people,’” offers Klepper. “I think we just get on the same page about things and […]

Last week, the news broke that Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and actress Shailene Woodley had called off their engagement after nearly a year together. “It was an amicable split; it just wasn’t working,” a source told People. “They’re very different people with busy careers and there were obstacles that they couldn’t surmount. They will remain friendly; there’s no bad blood and no drama. It just didn’t work out for them.” Well, on Monday night Rodgers appeared to confirm that he and the Big Little Lies actress remain on relatively good terms, sharing a post to Instagram dedicated to her […]

Pornographic justice. That’s how actress Katia Pascariu describes the show-stopping finale of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, a Romanian sex satire that not only ranks among the finest films of the past year but boasts the most satisfying ending of any movie in recent memory. Directed by Radu Jude, the film—which is now available on-demand—follows Emi (Pascariu), a history teacher at a prestigious Romanian school. Emi is generally well-regarded by her students and the community—that is, until her husband uploads a sex tape featuring the two of them to an adult fetish site, which is then mirrored on Pornhub and […]

Last fall, both the U.S. and Canada lifted vaccination requirements for long-haul truckers in order to combat a series of supply-chain disruptions. Those restrictions were put back in place last month, and ever since, Canadian anti-vaxxers have formed a convoy in protest of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, shutting down roads and harming businesses. The so-called “Freedom Convoy” has become a political flashpoint, given that many of the protesters have no ties to trucking, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance. It’s been praised by culture war-obsessed right-wing troll-politicians in the U.S. like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and […]

On Wednesday night, Jimmy Kimmel took aim at Trump’s new social media platform. “Donald Trump, you know, is not on Twitter—he’s banned from Twitter—but little Don Jr. is on Twitter, and yesterday, he gave his followers a sneak peek at daddy’s new social media project,” said Kimmel. As you probably know, the former reality-TV host turned president was booted off Twitter after he violated the platform’s terms of service on a number of occasions. Twitter did so in order to “prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that [his tweets] were highly likely […]

On Monday night, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen welcomed one of its host’s best friends, actress Sarah Jessica Parker, to discuss all things And Just Like That… And right off the bat, Cohen asked Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw about how the show handled the absence of Kim Cattrall’s Samantha following a very public off-screen feud between the two stars—via a series of text messages between Carrie and Samantha. “I can take no credit to how we handled it except that I got to convey those messages, since they’re not really spoken,” said Parker. “But it is Michael […]

For some reason, Larry David, the comedy legend behind Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm—and a man worth north of $400 million—decided to star in a pricey crypto commercial that aired on Super Bowl Sunday. The ad was for FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, and sees David popping up in various historical episodes across the years, dismissing a variety of inventions, from the wheel to the Walkman. After poo-pooing many of history’s greatest inventions, someone pitches him on investing in cryptocurrency only to have David, once again, casually dismiss it. “Nah, I don’t think so,” he replies. “And I’m never wrong about this […]

During Super Bowl LVI’s halftime show extravaganza, featuring the likes of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent, rapper Eminem took a knee in solidarity with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The move by Eminem came after he performed “Lose Yourself” in front of the sold-out crowd at the LA Rams’ SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. If you recall, Kaepernick led a series of protests meant to highlight the injustice of police brutality against Black Americans that involved players kneeling during games as the national anthem played. He was subsequently pushed out of the league […]

Last weekend, pop superstar Billie Eilish put a stop to her concert when a female fan appeared unwell. Apparently, the young woman was having trouble breathing, prompting Eilish to secure her an inhaler and make sure she was better before continuing. “I wait for people to be okay before I keep going,” Eilish said to cheers from the crowd. The incident prompted TMZ—and a bunch of other publications—to frame this as a dig toward Travis Scott, who did not stop his performance at his Astroworld Festival on Nov. 5 of last year when things spun out of control, despite loud pleas […]

The past two years in the life of Anders Danielsen Lie have been hectic, to say the least. A doctor by trade, he’s been splitting his week between a COVID-19 vaccination center in his native Oslo—one he helped establish—and working as a general practitioner. In his spare time, he is an international movie star, walking red carpets in Cannes and New York City in support of two of the year’s finest films. “It’s very hard to combine being a doctor and an actor, but it feels good to have a foot in reality,” he tells me. “I feel that I know […]

One of the most glaring examples of the pitiable state of our union occurred yesterday, when Rudy Giuliani—a soulless vampire who once married his cousin, tried to subvert democracy, and was caught on camera by Borat grabbing his junk in front of what he thought was a young female reporter—was revealed to be an upcoming contestant on The Masked Singer, a reality show where washed-up celebs sing in animal costumes and an anti-vaxxer, the guy sued into oblivion over his rapey anthem, that funny fella from The Hangover, and Nicole Scherzinger guess who it is. “Speaking of garbage, you know the […]

On Wednesday night, Jimmy Kimmel devoted a large chunk of his late-night monologue to former President Donald Trump’s off-the-rails interview with Newsmax, a network that is being sued for big money over its continued promotion of bogus election-fraud claims. During the sit-down, Trump floated a bizarre, fact-free conspiracy: that Nancy Pelosi was somehow to blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection, though it was a group of Trump supporters—at his behest—that stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. “Our crazy ex-president is busy blaming everyone but himself for what happened Jan. 6. Last night, I […]

Bill Murray looks upset. How many more of these do we have? the comedy legend snaps to someone off camera. He then rolls his eyes and mutters, Oh lord. I’m not exactly sure what preceded my Zoom interview with Murray and Jan Vogler, the distinguished classical cellist, to discuss their new documentary New Worlds: The Cradle of Civilization, but whatever it is has brought me face to face with what Dan Aykroyd once coined “The Murricane.” When I ask the duo how they’re doing, Murray is silent. Vogler bravely fills the void by stammering, “We are… um… yeah,” in his unmistakable […]

In January of 2020, the hit HBO series Euphoria held an open casting call for a trio of new Season 2 characters. One of them was Ami, who was described thusly: “Drug addict. Stripper. Hates her boyfriend. Talks shit. Can’t read a room. Can make a bad situation worse.” A number of people, including the rapper Azealia Banks, sent in taped auditions for the part. Little did they know that the show’s creator, Sam Levinson, already had someone in mind. Adult actress Chloe Cherry was back home in Pennsylvania visiting her family when she received an email out of the blue […]

America’s conservative right is currently infested with a number of people pushing dangerous and offensively ignorant COVID-19 misinformation—from Fox News’ Jesse Waters (who urged his viewers to “go in for the kill shot” against Dr. Anthony Fauci) and Tucker Carlson (comparing vaccine mandates to “Nazi experiments”) to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who felt that having to wear a mask on the House floor was akin to what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust. Enter Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, Republican vice presidential candidate, and person who once performed “Baby Got Back” on The Masked Singer. “Sarah Palin—you […]

On Wednesday night, Jimmy Kimmel celebrated the 19th anniversary of his late-night program Jimmy Kimmel Live! by roasting former President Donald Trump. “We learned today that Trump might be in the rough money-wise. According to a new story by Forbes—and you’re not gonna believe this—he may have exaggerated his wealth,” he said during his monologue. As Kimmel explained, “In 2020, Forbes estimated that Trump had about $93 million in cash, which is interesting because as recently as 2015, he told Forbes he had $793 million in cash—which is probably just a rounding error of $700 million.” (Trump’s sharp decline in cash […]

In case you missed it, podcast host Joe Rogan, a man who used to pressure people into scarfing down bull testicles on TV, and Jordan Peterson, a Canadian men’s rights activist who nearly died from scarfing down too much red meat, recently weighed in on what it means to be Black—as millionaire white men are wont to do. Peterson, addressing the time the writer Michael Eric Dyson labeled him a “mean, mad white man” for “whining” about how much of a victim he was despite his millions and large platform, said that it’s “a lie” to call him white because he’s […]

Over the weekend, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the world’s leading (translation: most dangerous) anti-vax conspiracy theorist, was one of many kooky speakers railing against COVID vaccines and mandates at a “Defeat the Mandates” rally in Washington, D.C. “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you can hide in the attic like Anne Frank did,” said Kennedy Jr. “Today the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run, none of us can hide.” The outrageous comparison was immediately condemned by a Twitter account belonging to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Place and […]

No artist can hype up a project like Kanye West, and the buzz around Jeen-yuhs, a docuseries chronicling Ye’s rise from the streets of Chicago to global icon, was deafening. Over two decades in the making, Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah’s diaristic, fly-on-the-wall portrait of West was scooped up by Netflix for $30 million—only to have their subject, rather cheekily, demand final cut (or “be in charge of my own image”) prior to its Feb. 16 debut on the streamer. Despite his protestations, the three-part film premiered Sunday night during the virtual 2022 Sundance Film Festival, granting viewers a peek […]

On Thursday night, Jimmy Kimmel gleefully ran down the significant legal problems facing former President Donald Trump during his monologue. “The legal woes for Trump are piling up,” said Kimmel. “The attorney general in New York says she has evidence that the Trump Organization engaged in a pattern of deception, and today we learned that the DA in Fulton County, Georgia, has requested a special grand jury to look into his post-election shenanigans there. On top of that, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the special committee that’s looking into the insurrection to review 700 pages of documents Trump wanted […]

Jonathan Lisco is no stranger to television hits, having overseen the critically-acclaimed dramas Southland, Halt and Catch Fire, and Animal Kingdom. But no series of his has hit the zeitgeist quite like Yellowjackets, whose admirers have gone down the fan-theory rabbit hole in ways not seen since True Detective or Lost. “It sort of crept up on us,” he says with a grin. The Showtime show tells the grisly tale of a high school girls’ soccer team (the titular Yellowjackets) whose plane crash-lands deep in the Canadian mountains in 1996. The surviving young women, an assistant coach, and the head coach’s […]

Sammi Hanratty had just lost out on yet another part—this time, for the Showtime series Your Honor. So, she recorded a video. With tears streaming down her face, she looked directly into the camera and addressed her future self: “Hey, future me, we were up for another role and we didn’t get it…” “People just see the ups, but they don’t see all the rejection and the struggling to get the next job,” says Hanratty. The 26-year-old knows a thing or twenty about rejection. She’s been acting since the age of six, popping up in mostly direct-to-video films or brief arcs […]

After going out in a blaze of infamy, from allegations of racism (owing to a grand total of zero Black voting members in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the bizarre outfit comprised of star-fucking quasi-film writers that doles out the trophies) to bribery (voters being treated to a luxury vacation in the City of Love for Netflix’s Emily in Paris, resulting in a number of nominations for the show), the 79th Golden Globe Awards was a decidedly toned-down affair. Given the award show’s banishment from longtime home NBC, and its failure to secure a new broadcaster, this year’s Globes were tweeted […]

Over the past week, Kanye West has flooded the tabloids with breathless reports of his newfound romance with actress Julia Fox. The two first became entangled on New Year’s Eve, with the billionaire artist and entrepreneur inviting the Uncut Gems star to his last-minute bash that night in Miami, followed by a New Year’s Day dinner at hotspot Carbone. Then, West invited Fox to see Jeremy O. Harris’ acclaimed Slave Play in New York City, along with another stop at Carbone, wherein West—who brought a photographer along to document all their dates—staged an impromptu photo shoot of his 31-year-old paramour, much […]

On Tuesday night, the inimitable Cher called in to MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell after she’d complimented the show’s host for his fundraising on behalf of K.I.N.D. (Kids In Need of Desks), a charity that provides desks for Malawi students. Thus far, O’Donnell and his viewers have helped raise $32,838,605 for K.I.N.D. since 2010. Cher admitted to being a longtime viewer of The Last Word and praised the show’s “herculean” effort in raising money for Malawi students, given that Cher herself is also involved in a number of charitable endeavors, including Free the Wild, an international charity that attempts […]

Jim Gaffigan would like everyone to know that he was not drunk on the night of Aug. 27, 2020. He was just mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. That evening, during the Republican National Convention, the stand-up comic and actor fired off a series of tweets branding then-President Donald Trump “a liar and a criminal,” “a fascist who has no belief in law,” and asked, “How many women has he raped?” He also wrote that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were “snobs” who’d never “done a real days work in their lives.” The Twitter thread immediately went […]

2021 was a nightmare. Like a flaming bag of shit inside a dumpster fire—or sleep paralysis as Jay Leno does stand-up. One of the few bright spots in our COVID-infested hellscape was the movies, offering a precious respite from all the doom and gloom. There were so many good movies released this past year, in fact, that some of the best went overlooked. Although Omicron has thrown a wrench in our movie theater-going plans for now, let’s hope this wave will pass by soon, and when it does there will be an embarrassment of riches waiting in store at the cinema. […]

Four minutes into 2022, and about 10 minutes before Miley Cyrus suffered a wardrobe malfunction over on NBC, Andy Cohen unleashed an incredible, very drunken 45-second rant against outgoing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The Bravo exec and his buddy Anderson Cooper were in the midst of co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special live from Manhattan’s Times Square when, after taking a shot of tequila, Cohen went in on the deeply disliked ex-mayor. “Watching Mayor de Blasio do his victory-lap dance after four years of the crappiest term as the mayor of New York!” exclaimed Cohen, as Cooper begged […]

Ever since Kathy Griffin was unceremoniously banished from CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage after posing with a papier-mâché version of Trump’s bloody, decapitated head—remember when the Trump family claimed that Barron thought it was his dad’s real head?—there’s been a gaping void in the NYE TV arena. In Crip-walked Miley Cyrus and Pete Davidson, co-hosting the first annual “Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party” on NBC. “Miley called me and asked, ‘What are you doing on New Year’s? I’m throwing a party, you want to help me host it?” said Davidson to the crowd. “And I just looked across the table at […]

It’s been a bad year for movies. I’ve heard this refrain countless times from friends and family, trapped in their homes over these agonizing months with only streaming and on-demand options to quench their cinema thirst. And they’ve got a point—sort of. Film distributors have been unreasonably intransigent during the pandemic, refusing to release their awards-courting offerings on streaming or pay-per-view platforms despite COVID cases reaching record highs. Want to see Paul Thomas Anderson’s instant-classic Licorice Pizza, Steven Spielberg’s dazzling West Side Story remake or why Lady Gaga watched panther videos to prep for House of Gucci? Sorry! That’d require you […]

It is no secret that the Oscars are decided upon by a coastal cabal of predominantly old white men who dictate their emails. That’s why male vets, attractive young women, and sentimentalist fare like Green Book keep taking home the gold. The Academy that votes on the Oscars is also comprised of those in Hollywood, who are total suckers for self-worship. In the last decade alone, three films celebrating Tinseltown have won Best Picture—including Argo, wherein an aging Hollywood producer joins forces with the CIA to rescue diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis. One industry that Hollywood has always viewed with […]

Following a COVID outbreak among their cast, Saturday Night Live staged a makeshift show this week featuring a mix of sketches recorded earlier in the week with host Paul Rudd and all-time classics. It began with Tom Hanks, Tina Fey and Kenan Thompson inducting Rudd into the illustrious Five-Timers Club—one started by Hanks, the first five-time SNL host. After an odd mix of new and very old Christmas-themed sketches, former head writer Fey and current one Michael Che sat down in chairs on stage for a stripped-down version of “Weekend Update” in front of a crowd of Hanks, Thompson, and Rudd […]

The situation at 30 Rock’s Studio 8H was a fluid one fraught with uncertainty. Around 3 p.m. Saturday, the New York Post reported that there had been a COVID outbreak of sorts among the Saturday Night Live cast, with “a set insider” telling the paper “that ‘four actors’ have tested positive for coronavirus—and ‘three others’ have called out because they are now ‘fearful’ about coming to NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Center, where the weekly sketch show is filmed in Midtown.” SNL subsequently announced that there would be “no live audience” and the sketch-comedy show would be operating with “a limited […]

On Thursday night, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah took aim at a particularly absurd example of anti-mask protest. “While we are being reminded about just how serious this pandemic is, there are still some people who are taking it just a little more lightly,” announced Noah. He then introduced a man named Adam Jenne from Cape Coral—yes, in Florida—who decided to mask up on a recent United Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport by wearing red thong underwear on his head (women’s to boot). He was subsequently kicked off the plane and banned from future United Airlines flights. In a […]

“Starting today, another new state mask mandate is in effect,” explained Jimmy Kimmel on his show Wednesday night. “In New York and a number of cities, you have to show proof of vaccination to get into bars or restaurants—and that led an angry group of protesters in Queens to have a sit-in at the Cheesecake Factory.” Yes, six people were arrested after a large group of people staged a “sit-in” at the Cheesecake Factory in New York’s Queens Center Mall, rushing the host stand, refusing to show proof of vaccination, and sitting down at tables while chanting. The NYPD soon arrived […]

Sure, there’s certainly plenty to look forward to in the coming year, but 2021 has been an impressive one for movies—and many of the best films are either now playing in theaters or landing in the next few weeks. There’s auteur Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age dramedy Licorice Pizza, which explores the follies of youth with a tender touch; Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, boasting Joaquin Phoenix’s most heartfelt turn yet as a middle-age radio journalist tasked with caring for his estranged 9-year-old nephew; Flee, an animated documentary about a gay Afghan refugee’s traumatic voyage to the West; and Red Rocket, a laceratingly […]

This past week, world’s richest man Elon Musk debuted a new hairstyle that sits somewhere between Gary Oldman’s Zorg from The Fifth Element and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. “Oh, damn! Elon Musk said, ‘Yo, let me go get the Richard Spencer,’” exclaimed Mero on Sunday night’s edition of Desus & Mero. Not to be outdone, his co-host, Desus, added, “He spent all his Dogecoin on one toupee. He got too much money—he can get better hair than that!” The rowdy comics then showed their audience an image of the back of Musk’s head, which somehow proved even less flattering than the front. […]

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch has claimed that banning most legal abortions would “empower” women to re-enter the workforce while raising children. It would help them “achieve [their] dreams and goals” by being able to both work and have children, she said, adding that “maternity leave and even paternity leave are commonplace” and “men and women are sharing responsibilities in the home better than ever before.” Fitch further argued that the economy of Mississippi is so robust that women no longer need the right to choose. The reality, of course, is that the United States is one of only six countries […]

The Monday night edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live! saw the late-night host take aim at Republicans’ bizarre conspiracy-mongering over the Omicron variant, a new COVID variant that, according to the World Health Organization, “has several mutations that may have an impact on how it behaves, for example, on how easily it spreads or the severity of illness it causes,” though epidemiological studies are “still underway” to determine how dangerous of a threat it will pose. Out of caution, the U.S. has implemented travel restrictions against eight countries where Omicron has spread most rapidly: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, […]

On Thanksgiving Eve, Stephen Colbert dedicated a chunk of his Late Show monologue to a certain tax-avoiding billionaire, Elon Musk—by all accounts the richest man in the world. “For some reason, there’s always lots of billionaire news,” offered Colbert. “I’ll give you the latest in tonight’s installment of my long-running segment: ‘Rich people, they’re just not like us. Us pay taxes.’” With that, Colbert dug in, addressing Musk’s little Twitter feud with Bernie Sanders over the Vermont senator’s suggestion that Musk pay his fair share in taxes. “First up: SpaceX founder Elon Musk… has been a little prickly ever since Democrats […]

While former president Donald Trump is in the midst of a deeply embarrassing press tour for his exorbitantly priced picture book, his former fixer Michael Cohen—who famously paid hush money to alleged Trump mistress/porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign—has emerged from house arrest to spoil things. “Speaking of former president’s cronies, we’ve got some news from his ex-fixer… Michael Cohen,” announced Stephen Colbert on The Late Show Tuesday night. “Cohen got off of house arrest just yesterday, and his first stop was CNN.” Colbert then threw to a clip of Cohen on CNN saying, “I do want to […]

Following a cold open wherein Cecily Strong’s Jeanine Pirro celebrated the Kyle Rittenhouse’s not guilty verdict with his chummy judge, Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” gave their two cents. “On Friday, Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty in the murder of two men during a Black Lives Matter protest. So, hopefully he got all that shooting out of his system before he becomes a cop,” joked Che. “Protests are being held all around the country in response to the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse—which is brave, because Rittenhouse just got off of shooting protesters. I don’t know… maybe don’t tempt him?” he […]

Saturday Night Live kicked off this week’s cold open with Fox News’ Justice with Judge Jeanine, featuring the inimitable Cecily Strong as the unhinged pundit/Trump acolyte Jeanine Pirro. And the first item on the menu was the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, where the 18-year-old was acquitted on all charges after using an illegal gun to kill two people in a different state during a Black Lives Matter protest for Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. “Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges. That lovable scamp was put through a nightmare […]

On Friday night, Bill Maher dedicated a portion of the Season 19 finale episode of his hit HBO series Real Time to one of the week’s biggest news stories: Taylor Swift’s updated 10-minute rendition of “All Too Well,” a fan-favorite song off her acclaimed album Red. The song, for the uninitiated, is inspired by the singer-songwriter’s two-month-long relationship with the actor Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010, when Swift was 20 and Gyllenhaal nine years her senior. In it, Swift alleges that Gyllenhaal committed a number of offenses, including being cold to her (and refusing her hand) at a dinner party, owning a […]

On Sunday evening’s season finale episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver devoted much of the top of the show to Jenna Ryan, a real estate broker from Texas who flew to Washington, D.C., in a private jet to participate in the Jan. 6 insurrection. She ended up livestreaming some of the Capitol riot, including her entering the building and posing proudly next to some broken windows. On March 26, Ryan boasted on Twitter, “Definitely not going to jail. Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail. Sorry to rain […]

In recent days, Kanye West—or “Ye,” as he wishes to be called now—has been making the rounds with Larry Hoover Jr., the activist son of Larry Hoover, a Chicago gangland figure. Hoover is currently serving a life sentence at a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, for ordering a 1973 murder and then, according to feds, running a criminal enterprise from behind bars. Hoover Jr., who appears on Ye’s recent album Donda, is pleading for a sentence break for his father under the First Step Act—though a federal judge denied him over the summer. On Friday night, Ye and Hoover Jr. appeared […]

Last Thanksgiving weekend, close to 420,000 households across the U.S. gathered around their televisions (or computer screens) to watch Happiest Season, setting a record for the best movie debut in Hulu history. Directed by Clea DuVall, the holiday film tells the tale of Abby Holland (Kristen Stewart) and Harper Caldwell (Mackenzie Davis), a lesbian couple who’ve been dating for a year and are very much in love. Since Abby’s parents passed away, Harper invites her to spend Christmas with her family in Pittsburgh—and Abby plans to pop the question while she’s there. There’s just one pretty big problem: Harper lied to […]

On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel gleefully took aim at one of his favorite targets: Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas who bent the knee to Trump after he accused Cruz’s father of killing JFK and called his wife ugly. You see, Cruz, who also helped spread the Big Lie that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and tried to escape to the Four Seasons in Cancun when his home state was in the midst of a deadly weather crisis, has been angry-tweeting at the Sesame Street character Big Bird for tweeting that he’d been vaccinated. “Speaking of blowhards picking […]

On Sunday night’s edition of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver took aim at the Democrats for getting clobbered in this past week’s elections. “The Democrats had a rough time in Tuesday’s election. They lost the governor’s race in Virginia and nearly lost the governorship of New Jersey. But perhaps the clearest sign of just how much voters have turned on them was this,” explained Oliver before throwing to a clip of Republican Edward Durr. The truck driver with no political experience won a Senate seat in the state of New Jersey over Democratic incumbent Steve Sweeney, the president of the […]

Late Thursday night, musician and entrepreneur Kanye West—or “Ye,” as he would like to be called now—conducted his first talk since his split from wife Kim Kardashian, joining rapper Noreaga and DJ EFN for a chat on Drink Champs, a podcast that also airs on Diddy’s Revolt. West seemed to be in good spirits, sipping on Hennessy and Hibiki, and even sparking up a joint. When asked whether he’d ever appear on Verzuz, he joked, “Oh, absolutely—but I would need about like four people to go against me at one time.” And, when pressed on whether he’d knock out Drake on […]

On Wednesday night, Late Night host Seth Meyers took aim at the Beltway insiders “ludicrously blaming progressives for the results” in Virginia, where Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost to Trumpian Republican Glenn Youngkin in the gubernatorial election. Youngkin, a Carlyle Group private-equity guy worth an estimated $440 million, made a name for himself by opposing mask and vaccine mandates, questioning the 2020 presidential election results in calling for an audit of Virginia voting machines, opposing abortion, supporting transphobia, and misrepresenting the presence of critical race theory in Virginia schools. Youngkin also managed to attract more moderates by distancing himself a bit from […]

Police officers—and their unions—have been pushing back against vaccine mandates and resorting to rather diva-like tactics to voice their opposition instead of, you know, getting a shot that will help protect themselves and their fellow people from a deadly coronavirus that has killed about 5 million people worldwide and 736,000 people in the U.S. alone. So John Oliver weighed in on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, first cutting to footage of Robert Lamay, a Washington state trooper who decided to film a video of himself in his squad car resigning over the mandate. “This is the last time you’ll hear me in […]

On Sunday night, the 22nd annual New Yorker Festival closed out with a virtual talk between Jon Stewart and New Yorker editor David Remnick. The former Daily Show host discussed a variety of topics, including his new—and decidedly more serious—Apple TV+ talk show, The Problem With Jon Stewart, a Trump 2024 run (“he’s got a very good chance”), and how he spent his time after leaving the trailblazing Comedy Central program he fronted for 16 years. “For me personally, the way I experienced life was fuller,” Stewart said of his departure. “I had spent so much time singularly focused on The […]