Viral

Usher Goes Viral After Reportedly Giving A Stripper Fake Dollar Bills With His Face On Them

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As of this post, Usher is the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter in the US, but not for a good reason: He stands accused of giving a stripper fake dollar bills with his face on them (as opposed to real money).

A Las Vegas-based dancer who performs under the name Pisces shared an image of three distinct Usher-themed dollar bills, in denominations of $1, $20, and $100. The bills promote Usher: The Vegas Experience, his upcoming residency that is set to launch in July, and were clearly designed to look like real money. Pisces asked a question on her Instagram Story, writing, “Ladies what would you do if you danced all night for usher and he threw this??” She added in another post (a screenshot from her private personal account), “& the money does not have a trade in value what so ever! Lmao don’t y’all think he should be blasted on social media for this sh*t?”

A friend of Pisces shared Pisces’ personal page posts and added, “My GF posted this !!! I’ve never seen this level of f*ckery!!!! exactly why we stay away from celebs most of the time they suck!!!!!!!! cheap asf. So disrespectful, this is foul! Working so hard to get nothing in return! This is a joke!! Their job is to entertain, take your cheap ass back home!!!!!”

Usher has offered what may be a response to the controversy (or at least shared a post that seems relevant to the situation): Last night, he shared a photo of himself wearing a bucket hat made of actual $1 bills.

Usher has indeed been getting “blasted on social media,” as Pisces attested he should. Check out some Twitter reactions to Usher’s alleged antics below, along with screenshots of the posts from Pisces and her friend.

@beel0ove/Instagram
@beel0ove/Instagram
@msgoodvibez/Instagram

The Guy Who Found Shrimp In His Cinnamon Toast Crunch Was Once A Rapper Named Hot Karl

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Whenever the internet latches onto a strange moment, it tends to get even stranger as more details emerge (and more racist, i.e. the “milkshake duck” effect, but thankfully, this isn’t about that). Case in point, the man who kidnapped the internet’s attention yesterday by tweeting about a bizarre discovery in his breakfast cereal turned out to have a truly fascinating past as a battle rapper — one that resulted in plenty of success outside of the music industry.

Jensen Karp, aka Hot Karl, may not be a household name to most, but in the LA battle rap scene — and in certain Hollywood television production circles — he’s kind of an underground legend. As Hot Karl, he was signed to Ice-T’s Rhyme Syndicate at just 11 years old, he entered Power 106’s Roll Call freestyle competition and held the title for 45 weeks while in college, and he signed to Interscope Records in the early 2000s, recording a debut with features from DJ Quik, Kanye West, Redman, and more which was never released. He wrote a memoir about it and shares his hip-hop knowledge as part of a trivia game. Oh, and he paid Chance The Rapper $5,000 to shoot a music video back in 2013.

Those experiences served him well in Hollywood, where after several gigs writing for WWE and VH1 and a truly fated radio hosting gig, he became executive producer of the short-lived celebrity rap battle show Drop The Mic, which famously featured battles between The Muppets’ Kermit and Miss Piggy, Randall Park and James Van Der Beek, and more, and helped launch the career of the white half of Blimes And Gab.

Users on Twitter were delighted to learn this info, but the “Hot Karl” trend was quickly taken over by teen fans of a gaming YouTuber named Karl Jacobs, who is apparently bad at taking selfies. I kid, teen girls, please do not murder me or perform witchcraft at me.

Karl Marx, the famed German philosopher who laid the groundwork for the modern conception of socialism, also got roped into the fun.

Knowing Karp, he’s likely enjoying all the shenanigans his tweets have caused because he’s a pretty funny guy, but hopefully, this thing doesn’t flatten his hard-won legacy down to just being “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shrimp Guy” or “Danielle Fishel’s husband.” Oh yeah, that’s right: He’s also married to Boy Meets World‘s Topanga. I guess you could say he’s the real winner here.

Check out the reactions to “Hot Karl”‘s unlikely comeback above.

Tucker Carlson Is So Worried That ‘WAP’ Will ‘Hurt Our Children’ That He Played Nearly The Entire Grammys Performance

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FOX NEWS

Instead of responding to John Oliver calling him a “performatively outraged wedge salad,” Tucker Carlson returned to one of his favorite subjects during Monday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight: “WAP” (it does not stand for “white angry pundit”). He’s just concerned for the children! Carlson first covered the Billboard-topping Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion single back in August, calling it “garbage” and “crap,” but he railed against it again following the Grammys. This time, he tied it back to “cancel culture.”

After showing a clip from the Grammys performance, Carlson sneered, “No more Dumbo. It’s too filthy. We get that instead.” (I’m not sure the issue with Dumbo is that it’s “filthy”…) After bring in Candace Owens, he added, “It is hard not to conclude that they are actively trying to degrade our culture and hurt our children.” Owens, who has a history with Cardi B, agreed with Carlson, calling “what we were looking at last night… a lesbian sex scene being simulated on television, and this is considered feminist.”

“I agree with you 100 percent in the assessment that this feels more sinister. This is starting to me to seem like it’s not even left or right, it’s not a political issue. This seems like an attack on American values, American traditions, and you’re actually actively trying to make children aspire to things that are grotesque,” Owens said, adding: “We are celebrating perversity in America.”

The best part of the segment, outside of Owens’ faux outage over Mr. Potato Head, is that despite the conservative commenters calling “WAP” the “destruction of American values,” footage from Cardi and Megan’s performance played over and over again. It’s objectively very funny to see Carlson’s befuddled face next to this:

Carlson summed up his thesis with: “Totally degrading. And the same people who make it will lecture you about ‘you hate women’ or something. Who hates women, really?” You can watch the segment here.

(Via the Daily Beast)

Elton John Blasts The Catholic Church For Being Against Gay Marriage While Simultaneously Raking In Cash From Its Investment In ‘Rocketman’

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Elton John warned that he would “hit someone” if Phoebe Bridgers didn’t win a Grammy, and now it appears that “someone” was the Holy See. The musician and biopic-haver very publicly called out the Catholic Church on Monday in a tweet that included some expertly-crafted screenshots that detailed the relationship the church has with his own life.

Namely, John is mad that the Catholic Church is staunchly against gay marriage but is more than willing to profit off of his story by investing in Rocketman, the 2019 film based on his life.

“How can the Vatican refuse to bless gay marriages because they ‘are sin’, yet happily make a profit from investing millions in ‘Rocketman’ – a film which celebrates my finding happiness from my marriage to David??” John wrote in the tweet, which included the #hypocrisy hashtag.

The screenshots in the tweet show headlines from representative stories on the topic, starting with a decree from Monday that reaffirmed the Church’s stance against gay marriage. That was apparently enough for John to remind the Vatican that its finances are, well, complicated. And as the Daily Beast reported, and John pointed out via screenshot, that includes funding the film Rocketman.

But the most curious item on the report to come out so far is a $4.5 million expenditure recorded in February of this year related to finance for the 2019 films Men in Black: International and Elton John’s rather steamy biopic Rocketman, which portrays the entertainer’s drug problems and is the first studio movie to portray gay sex between men in an authentic way.

While investing in mainstream entertainment is hardly sinful, the great contradiction is that the Catholic Church preaches to the devout that homosexuality is a sin.

You could argue, if you really wanted to stretch yourself here, that the church is also supporting extraterrestrial life. But unlike Men in Black, Rocketman was very much based on real life and a very real gay love story. And the connection John is making here is clear: gay marriage is more than okay for the church as long as it’s part of an investment that makes them a bunch of money to continue saying gay marriage is not morally okay.

The Daily Beast story is from 2019, so this has been public knowledge for a while now, but John is highlighting again today because of the re-affirmation of the stance against gay marriage. He has pretty clearly had it with the Church’s ongoing position on an issue that’s very important to him. John fittingly tagged @VaticanNews in the tweet, so hopefully, the Roman city will get the memo that he’s not happy.

Kanye West Reportedly Thinks His Failed Presidential Run ‘Cost Him His Marriage’ To Kim Kardashian

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On Friday, news arrived that Kim Kardashian reportedly filed for divorce from Kanye West. According to a “court source” that spoke to Variety, the paperwork for the divorce was filed the same day that news arrived. The official filing comes after months of rumors that their seven-year marriage was close to coming to an end and in the paperwork, the split was described “as amicable as a divorce can be.” Now, a source close to People reports that Kanye West is blaming his 2020 run for president as the breakpoint in his marriage with Kim Kardashian.

“He’s in that place of ‘if only,’” the source says. “‘If only I had done this, if only I hadn’t done that.’ He’s processing things.” They added, “He thinks that the Presidential run was the straw that broke the camel’s back… Before that, there was hope. After that, none. It cost him his marriage.” The publication reports that their marriage began to spiral last summer during the rapper’s social media outbursts. Things between West and Kardashian would only worsen after his controversial South Carolina rally. There, he revealed Kardashian considered an abortion in 2012 for their eldest daughter, North.

A source told People that Kardashian was “shocked that Kanye spoke about North at the rally” and “furious that he shared something so private.” Last July, Kanye said a divorce between himself and Kardashian would happen soon while suggesting something occurred between her and Meek Mill. He later apologized for the accusation.

Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.