Month: April 2022

As the defamation lawsuit between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard continues to unravel in court, Heard has found herself facing a boatload of backlash on social media. Adding to the fire, Heard has recently been called out for allegedly paying less than half of her pledged donation to charity.

In a pre-recorded deposition played for the court on Thursday (April 28), Terence Dougherty, the ACLU’s COO, claimed Heard has paid less than half of her pledged donation of $3.5 million to the American Civil Liberties Union. Dougherty testified the ACLU received $350,000 from Heard directly in 2016, followed by a $100,000 check from Depp, given on Heard’s behalf, as well as a total of $850,000 from donor-advised funds at Fidelity and Vanguard. 

Following the former couple’s divorce settlement at the beginning of 2017, Depp coughed up $7 million to Heard, in which she promised to donated half to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, and the other half to ACLU. However, Dougherty claims the non-profit organization has only received a total of $1.3 million from these four donations in Heard’s name. 

Paul Morigi/Getty Images

Dougherty also claims the $500k payment from a donor-advised fund at Fidelity, was actually set up by Elon Musk, Heard’s ex-boyfriend who she briefly dated after her split from Depp.

Though these claims couldn’t be confirmed, Dougherty said Musk had emailed the ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, back in 2016, informing him Heard would pay the $3.5 million over a 10-year period. Yet, 2019 was the last year the ACLU received a donation from Heard after learning “she was having financial difficulties.” 

He also says that once Heard had pledged the donation to the charities, she never signed the pledge form the ACLU prepared. Finally, he claimed that the actress told the ACLU not to issue a press release relating to her donation. 

[via]

Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi are beloved by basketball fans. Their tragic passing in 2020 came as a complete shock to the world, and since that time, they have received numerous tributes in their honor. Nike has been among those to honor their legacy, especially through sneakers. Now, Nike and the Bryant estate are working together again, and it has led to a new colorway of the Nike Kobe 6 Protro.

The offering is called “Mambacita Sweet 16,” and it features a black and white upper with snakeskin textures. This shoe has numerous references to Kobe and Gigi, especially on the back heel. Gigi’s number is also featured on the sides, which brings the look of the sneaker all together.

This sneaker will be dropping on Sunday, May 1st which just so happens to be Gigi’s birthday. She would have been turning 16, and this sneaker will be released in homage to her. As for the release, Nike is giving exclusive access by “prioritizing members who have put the Mamba Mentality to work on the court and fans who have followed Kobe and Gigi’s journey from the beginning.” Needless to say, you need to have bought Kobe sneakers in the past to have a shot at these. As for the proceeds, they will all be going to the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation.

Image via Nike

Image via Nike

Image via Nike

Image via Nike

Travis Scott’s legal team is speaking out in his defence following the arrival of a new documentary depicting the events that took place at last November’s deadly Astroworld Festival. The film, titled Concert Crush: The Travis Scott Festival Tragedy, has been dubbed a “propaganda piece” by the rapper’s lawyers.

Director Charlie Minn made it clear that he didn’t intend for his movie to be “a hit piece against Travis,” but rather, he wanted to recount “the devastation from that day.” Clearly, Scott’s team isn’t buying it.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

As TMZ reports, the father of two’s camp called the project a “farce financed by and containing content from members of the plaintiff’s legal teams, who, weeks after a tragedy, sought to exploit and benefit financially from it, with the clear goals of making money and swaying future juries and public opinion.”

The outlet has pointed out that attorney Ricardo Ramos (who represents multiple plaintiffs involved in Astroworld cases) has been listed as a producer on Concert Crush, and some plaintiffs themselves are also included in the film.

@astroverse007 This is truly heartbreaking 💔 #fyp#astroworld#astroworldfest#houston#travisscott#rip#heartbreaking♬ original sound – Astroverse007

Scott’s team further slammed Minn’s work, calling it “a profit play and a publicity stunt,” also mentioning that the documentary has received “no support from the film industry, no distribution.” On top of that, they accused the director of being known as a “trauma pornographer.”

In the past, the filmmaker has been publicly critical of the “90210” rapper telling the Houston Press, “I think he’d be a lot more nervous if he didn’t know the mayor and police chief. The police had all the authority to stop things, and the show should have been stopped by the third song. It was a dangerous, evil joke.”

While concertgoers who made it out of the fateful event continue to tell their stories, Scott seems to be ready to put the past behind him and get back on with his career as it was recently announced that he’ll be headlining Primavera Sound later this year – read more about that here, and let us know if you plan to check out the Concert Crush documentary below.

[Via]

Kyrie Irving came after the media yesterday in a rant that was posted to Twitter. After being eliminated in a sweep by the Boston Celtics, Kyrie was feeling a bit defensive, especially since many have been calling his skills and his commitment to basketball into question. With that being said, Kyrie made the claim that the media makes billions of dollars off of his name and that they are hell-bent on slandering him.

“When I see my name or my brothers/sisters names getting spun through the media, I refer to all my research about who they are. Their job is to CONTROL PUBLIC PERCEPTION, all while profiting off discussing, discrediting, and disrespecting people’s lives for entertainment,” Irving wrote. “I send shots at the puppet masters, not the puppets. All puppets do is run around society, trying to gain popularity and state opinions. What a life! My name is worth billions to these media corporations. My brothers and sisters who deal with this know exactly what I mean.”

On First Take yesterday, Stephen A. Smith said that he would be coming for Kyrie. The show was covering the NFL Draft that day so they decided not to go in-depth on the whole issue. Today, however, Smith delivered an impressive rant in which he called Irving “delusional.”

“We are witnessing one of the most delusional athletes in American history,” Smith said. “He is lost. He is so big on telling everybody else they’re lost. Kyrie is also slick. Because he’s trying to get away with something I’m not going to allow him to get away from.

“You can try to paint this issue, Kyrie, into anything you want. What it comes down to and what everybody is focusing on is you don’t want to show up for work. You want to do what you want to do, when you want to do it, how you want to do it, while you’ve got your hand out for somebody else’s money. And then when you get called on it, we’re the peons. We’re the ones who are puppets. So before you excoriated us. Now you are pitying us. Because what you want to do is highlight the puppet masters who you are worth billions to. You’re not worth billions, bro. Millions, yes. Billions, no. That’s delusional. You gave that up years ago.”

These are some pretty harsh words, however, Smith has always gone this hard at Kyrie. At this point, it is just something fans should come to expect from Stephen A.

Let us know what you thought of the rant, in the comments down below.

After what felt like an eternity, Future finally came through with a new album this week. I Never Liked You is 16 songs in length with collaborations alongside the biggest stars in hip-hop, including Drake and Kanye. Needless to say, fans are loving the project as a whole but it seems that Fewtch has more heat he’s preparing to unleash.

Paras Griffin/Getty Images 

Future’s close friend and collaborator Young Scooter may have let the cat out of the bag when it comes to the deluxe edition of the rapper’s new album. After showing support for the release on Instagram, a fan quickly noted how Scooter and Future need to drop some new music together. Shortly after, Scooter indicated that it would be arriving on Monday with the deluxe edition of the album.

Rumors began floating around this week that Future was preparing to come through with a double whammy of projects as he did with Future and HNDRXX in 2017. There’s no confirmation to the rumor but if true, that means that there’ll be a flood of new music from Future to ride out to this summer, in addition to the deluxe that Scooter suggested would arrive at the top of next week.

Regardless, the latest from Future is an excellent step forward in his artistic evolution from High Off Life, which many felt was rather underwhelming at the time.

Let us know your favorite track off of I Never Liked You below.