Sports

The Team Behind ‘Framing Britney Spears’ Is Tackling The Janet Jackson Super Bowl Incident

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When the documentary series Framing Britney Spears bowed on HBO back in February, it caused an avalanche of support to come the singer’s way. Long a target of condescending press coverage — not to mention still legally under the control of her domineering father — Spears found the public finally rallying to her side, hoping to correct years of unfair coverage. Now the team behind the doc look to be trying to do for Janet Jackson what they did for Britney.

According to US Weekly, Left/Right TV, who produced the Spears doc, are at work on a movie about the infamous halftime show at Super Bowl XXXVIII, in 2004. That’s the one where a performance by Jackson and Justin Timberlake resulted in a “wardrobe malfunction,” in which the latter ripped off part of her costume, exposing one of her breasts for half a second. The incident led to a massive fallout. The FCC tried, and failed, to fine CBS for over half a billion dollars, while some accused the two of staging it, with Jackson receiving more vitriol than Timberlake.

Neither Jackson nor Timberlake are involved in the movie, though the former is working on a documentary about her own career to coincide with the forthcoming 40th anniversary of her debut album, Janet Jackson. Timberlake, meanwhile, has come under fire over the last couple years, as the public has begun viewing his treatment of both Jackson and Spears, who he once dated, with a more critical eye. Indeed, after Framing Britney Spears debuted, he issued a formal apology to both parties.

“I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually, because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “Because of my ignorance, I didn’t recognize it for all that it was while it was happening in my own life but I do not want to ever benefit from others being pulled down again.”

(Via US Weekly)

LeBron James’ Tweet About Kendrick Lamar Is Giving People Hope That New Music Is On The Way

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Last week marked four years since Kendrick Lamar dropped his last solo album, DAMN. Since then, fans haven’t been entirely deprived of new music from him as the rapper has delivered several guest verses on top of his big role on 2018’s Black Panther soundtrack. Despite this, supporters of the TDE rapper are heavily anticipating a new body of work from him, something they think is coming soon thanks to a tweet from LeBron James.

On Saturday morning, LeBron posted, “Man I miss @kendricklamar ! In dying need of his gift/presence right now.” From the looks of it, the tweet may appear as just an innocent shoutout to the rapper, but some fans think otherwise.

“Lebron the A&R just told us Kendrick is coming with some summer heat I fear,” one person wrote in a tweet. Another user noted what happened the last time LeBron shared a similar tweet. “The last time he did this Kendrick dropped Untitled Unmastered (laughing emoji),” they wrote. “I appreciate what LeBron is doing for the people.”

LeBron’s tweet comes after TDE in-house engineer MixedByAli shared some insight on the rapper’s upcoming album. “I would say, every album that he has dropped since Good Kid has come with a different feeling so just look forward to Kendrick obviously expressing himself in the most creative way -– the most highest of the creative way,” he said. As for whether or not it would drop this year, this is what MixedByAli had to say: “It might, it might, you never know.”

You can read more reactions to LeBron’s tweet below.

The ‘Call Of Duty: Warzone’ Season 3 Trailer Features Everyone From Young Thug To Mookie Betts

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No video game took over in 2020 more than Call of Duty: Warzone, as the free-to-play battle royale became massively popular as it dropped right at the start of pandemic restrictions hitting in March and people finding themselves having to find ways to pass the time at home. A year later and Warzone is still plugging along and entering Season 3, which will see updated maps, weapons, and gear hit after they nuked Verdansk Island to end Season 2.

To celebrate the start of Season 3, the game brought together a number of their biggest celebrity players from the world of sports, music, and entertainment for a ridiculous two-minute trailer that was released on Thursday morning — along with a call to drop in to Verdansk84. The trailer, which you can watch in its absurd entirety above, opens with Young Thug leaping out of a building and grabbing onto a helicopter piloted by Gunna, who then blows up the building that Thug presumably rigged with charges. Jack Harlow, Saweetie, Swae Lee, and others from the music world are featured, along with Dennis Schröder, Jack Grealish, and Mookie Betts from the sports world — with Betts hitting a grenade out of the air with his rifle like a baseball.

In case there were any wonder if Call of Duty was still raking in cash thanks to Warzone, this trailer and all the celebrity cameos should provide the answer, but if it gets people to drop back in, that’s all they care about.

Shaq Hilariously Tried To Explain The Usher Bucks Controversy On ‘Inside The NBA’

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TNT

Earlier this week, Usher found himself trending on Twitter after getting put on blast for throwing fake money with his face on it at a strip club, to the dismay of the dancers. The photos of the “Usher Bucks” as they quickly became known as on social media went viral and caused an awful lot of jokes at Usher’s expense.

The actual story was that Usher had left the bills behind as a gag to promote his upcoming Vegas residency and had indeed been tipping the staff and dancers at the club with actual, legal currency all night. That didn’t stop the jokes, though, and on Thursday night the Usher Bucks scandal made its way to Inside the NBA, where a tweet joking that Charles Barkley’s guarantees are worth about as much as a fake Usher $100. What ensued was some classic Inside banter, with Chuck defending Usher’s honor and then Shaq trying to explain the entire thing as G-rated as he could for the television audience.

Shaq’s use of the “grocery store” in place of strip club was pretty funny and got a good laugh out of the guys, and, honestly, I would much prefer the fellas spend an entire segment trying to explain to Charles Barkley things that went viral on social media each week than, say, debating the merits of big men shooting threes again.

Bad Bunny Stole The Show During His WrestleMania Debut

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Peacock

After months of build and a few physical confrontations with The Miz, fans finally got their first look at rapper, singer, songwriter, and now professional wrestler, Bad Bunny, competing inside a WWE ring at WrestleMania 37.

After Damian Priest teased starting the match, Bad Bunny took the tag and hopped into the ring to square off with Miz. Bunny had his fair share of ups and downs throughout the match, taking the brunt of the beating from Miz and John Morrison, but showed off his fair share of offense before making the hot tag to Priest.

With Priest in the ring, Bunny stole the show, joining his partner to connect on stereo Falcon Arrows before climbing to the top rope and taking out Miz and Morrison on the outside.

Miz dropped Priest with the Skull-Crushing Finale, but Bunny made the save to keep his team in the match. After getting pulled off the apron by Morrison, Bunny laid him out with a Canadian Destroyer. To close out the match, Priest tagged Bunny in, who landed a flying crossbody on Miz to pin the former WWE champion.

It was clear from the opening bell that Bunny had put in a ton of work to get ready for WrestleMania and the match didn’t disappoint. Here’s what Miz told Uproxx earlier this week about Bunny’s work ethic in the build to ‘Mania.

“He loves WWE. He’s a huge, huge fan and he wanted to train. So I guess he’s been training the past couple of months and from what I’ve heard in the locker room, I don’t think any other celebrity has done the work he is doing. He literally came to a WWE ring and trained after winning a Grammy. He went to the Grammy’s, did a performance and then came to WWE ring the next day to train. This guy is dedicated and he’s hardworking.”

WrestleMania 37’s second night takes place on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on Peacock.

LeBron James, Bradley Beal And Many More NBA Players Paid Tribute To DMX After His Passing

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The music world suffered a gigantic loss on Friday morning. After spending several days in the hospital in critical condition, Earl Simmons, known to millions as DMX, died at age 50. DMX suffered a heart attack as a result of an apparent drug overdose on April 2, and a few days later, his manager said that he was in a comatose state and on life support, with his team of doctors performing a series of tests in an attempt to determine what would be best.

As is oftentimes the case when someone as revered as DMX passes away, the news led to plenty of people on social media — including many from the world of music — issuing up prayers and tributes. This also included a number of NBA players, including LeBron James and Bradley Beal, some of whom made it a point to look back on his life and legacy.

Eric Paschall of the Golden State Warriors posted a famous video of DMX at Woodstock ’99, where he performed “Ruff Ryders Anthem” in front of a packed, energetic crowd.

Charlotte Hornets youngster Miles Bridges made it a point to say that “this one hurt” and proclaimed that DMX is one of his favorite rappers.

Lil Wayne Helps Kick Off The New Baseball Season With ‘Ball Game’

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Baseball is back as the MLB began its 2021 season yesterday. The league got some help kicking things off courtesy of Lil Wayne: To help get fans excited for a new year of baseball, the rapper made an original new song called “Ball Game,” which is a take on the classic “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”

The track packs in a bunch of lyrical references to baseball. Wayne begins, “Take me out to the game, yeah / Take me out to the ball park / This a home run, I hit it far-far / Knock it out the park, hit a parked car / Root, root for the home team / It’s a cool game with a warm heart / And some high heat in the sweet spot / It’s a grand slam, it’s a walk off.”

Wayne has a bit of experience on the diamond, as he threw out the first pith at a Miami Marlins game in 2018. Some celebrity first pitches live in infamy, but Wayne’s was fairly innocuous: He one-hopped his throw, but it went right over the plate and was an uneventful moment, which is about as good an outcome as a first pitch thrower can hope for.

All in all, the new song is a far stronger effort than Wayne put in with his recent Burger King promotion.

Check out “Ball Game” above.

Rodney Hood Learned On Saturday That His Childhood Neighbor Hayley Was Paramore’s Hayley Williams

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The world of basketball and the world of music intersect pretty frequently for one reason or another. Our latest example of this came on Saturday afternoon thanks to new Toronto Raptor Rodney Hood, although it had nothing to do with him dropping a mixtape or deciding to produce an album or anything like that.

Back in June, a since-deleted post by our pal Marco Romo of Five Reasons Sports Network caught the attention of Paramore singer Hayley Williams. In it, Williams revealed that her childhood neighbor in Meridian, Mississippi, was named Rodney, helped teach her how to dance, and “may be an nba player now.”

Marco Romo/Twitter
Marco Romo/Twitter

Now, Hood is the only current NBA player from Meridian, and since the only other Rodney in the NBA is from Maryland (Rodney McGruder), we can probably make an assumption here. Anyway, some time passed, and then Hood got traded to the Raptors, where he was asked about this. Dime pal Blake Murphy of The Athletic, who I lovingly say is the NBA reporter most likely to remember that Williams tweet, brought it to Hood’s attention during his first meeting with the media up north.

Hood revealed two things: 1. He did not realize his neighbor grew up to be the lead singer of Paramore and, 2. He can’t dance.

This is now the best story in the NBA. Once bands can begin touring safely again, I sincerely hope Hood and Williams are reunited during a concert in Toronto.

Dwyane Wade Sees Boosie Badazz’s Transphobic Comments About His Daughter As A Teachable Moment

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Last year, Boosie Badazz found himself facing backlash for some insensitive and transphobic comments he made about Dwyane Wade’s transgender daughter. Boosie’s remarks not only led to public scrutiny, but it also ended up getting him banned from his local Planet Fitness. Now, nearly a year later, Wade has directly responded to Boosie’s comments, saying that they were able to spark positive and necessary conversations about trans rights.

Wade recently sat down for a lengthy conversation on the I Am Athlete podcast. Throughout the interview, Wade opened up about the effects of toxic masculinity and the strength his daughter, Zaya, showed in coming out as transgender. Wade said that as soon as his daughter came out, he was committed to learning as much as possible about trans rights so that he could facilitate a happy and healthy life for her. The basketball player also addressed all the transphobic comments that were being thrown around after news broke of his daughter’s identity.

Name-dropping Boosie, Wade said the rapper’s comments were a way of bringing important conversations into the limelight: “Boosie, all the people who’ve got something to say about my kids, I thank you because you allow the conversation to keep going forward. You might not have the answer today, I don’t have all the answers, but we’re growing from all these conversations. I thank everybody for even hating and starting those conversations, because those conversations are starting other conversations that we need to have.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Wade described the moment he knew he needed to educate himself about trans rights in order to support his daughter:

“I’m looking at my child, scared to tell me, and I feel like I’m pretty open at this time. I realized that I need to do better, and I need to do more, and I need to educate myself. So what I did is I picked up the phone and I researched as much as I can because I needed to understand. I sat down with my child and I asked questions, because I didn’t know. It’s not our job and responsibility to tell you who you are. You are going to be who you’re going to be. It’s my job to put you in the best position to reach that goal of who you want to be. Right now, we’re experiencing that with Zaya. Last year, we came out and we spoke to the world that, hey, my 13-year-old came home and said, ‘Dad, this is who I am. I am a transgender child.’ We didn’t come out until she was 12, to the world. But the reason why we came out to the world was because I got tired of trying to hide my child. It came to the point where I said, am I hiding her from it, or I am hiding myself from it?”

Watch Wade’s full interview on the I Am Athlete podcast above.

Ian Eagle Did His Best Megan Thee Stallion Impression While Texas Southern Played In The NCAA Tournament

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For the fifth time in eight years, Texas Southern won the SWAC and qualified for the NCAA Tournament. Still, as a lesser-known school, participating in March Madness means that the university gets a spotlight on a national stage, something that is always really cool, even if the Tigers have danced a few times over the years.

This usually means that schools get a few fun “Do You Know?” segments at one point or another when they play. For the HBCU out of Houston that took on Michigan on Saturday afternoon, this included a pair of their most famous alums getting shouts: Former NFL player and current television personality Michael Strahan, and Grammy Award-winning rapper Megan Thee Stallion.

Ian Eagle was tasked with reading this, and because he is Ian Eagle, he decided to have a little fun with this. When Megan’s name came up, Eagle joked that she passed along a message to the team and proceeded to do an impression that was less than stellar.

Eagle is a pro, and he’ll do a few silly things whenever he’s calling a game in any sport, but I’ll level with you: I did not anticipate him doing any part of “Body.” Just call him Ian Thee Eagle.