Browsing Tag

Ben Mulroney

The Search for Naya Rivera Ends in Tragedy

-Awful, awful news: Divers searching the lake Naya Rivera where was reported missing recovered a body around 9:30 a.m. this morning, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. They’ve since confirmed it is the actress, and have ruled out foul play. In the press conference, the sheriff said “her son described being helped onto the boat by Naya. … He told investigators he looked back and saw her disappear under the surface of the water…We believe that she mustered enough energy to get her son back on the boat, but not enough to save herself.”

-Oh god. As if this couldn’t get more tragic, today is the 7th anniversary of Cory Monteith’s passing.

-Speaking of tragic, Kelly Preston died yesterday at 57 following a two-year battle with breast cancer, her husband John Travolta announced. “She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many,” he said in an Instagram post.

Lisa Marie Presley and her family are in mourning after the sudden and tragic death of her 27-year-old son, who died this weekend from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

-In response to the Daily Mail’s report that Jessica Mulroney is having trouble patching up her friendship with Meghan Markle and is considering writing a book about her, Ben Mulroney tweeted “FALSE.” No word if he was referring to their friendship’s status, the book, or both.

Victoria and David Beckham‘s son Brooklyn is engaged to Nicola Peltz.

-One of my favourite new celeb couples is already over: Bill Hader and Rachel Bilson have split.

-Speaking of splits, Darius Rucker, Hootie & the Blowfish singer-turned-country-star, and Beth Leonard are over after 20 years of marriage.

John Legend tweeted some truth today: “Reporters always ask me if more artists should speak out about politics. I always say ummmmmm not necessarily. It ain’t for everybody. If you’re more comfortable just making bops, do that. We need that in our lives too! If you are going to speak out, try to do your homework. Read about it. Talk to activists and organizers and people impacted. Be open to evolution and changing your mind. Be intentional and strategic. And think about the impact of your words on the real lives of real people”

-Within 24 hours, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s Red Table Talk about her “entanglement” with August was viewed over 15 million times on Facebook Watch.

Chance the Rapper is getting heat for tweeting his support of Kanye West‘s presidential bid.

-CBS, which has arguably the most problematic history of all networks, announced new goals for their show’s writers’ rooms: At least 40 percent of staffs must be BIPOC for 2021-2022 shows, and 50 percent by the 2022-2023 season

Ethan Hawke plays Nikola Tesla and Kyle MacLachlan is Thomas Edison in the Telsa trailer.

THR’s Drama Actress Roundtable

Janelle Monae, Jennifer Aniston, Zendaya, Reese Witherspoon, Helena Bonham Carter and Rose Byrne
THR/Ramona Rosales

-This year’s Hollywood Reporter’s TV drama actress roundtable features Janelle Monae, Jennifer Aniston, Zendaya, Reese Witherspoon, Helena Bonham Carter and Rose Byrne. I love how Witherspoon, Aniston and Carter are all going on about how the pandemic has given them time to pause and think about the world and Monae says “For me and my people, for the Black community, this is not an exciting time. This isn’t a time that we get to really reflect. We’re dealing with a lot of trauma.”

Jenny Slate has exited Big Mouth. “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people. Me playing Missy, I was engaging in an act of erasure of Black people.” Your move, Kristen Bell.

Bryan Singer appears to still be preying on boys despite The Atlantic’s explosive expose about him last year. In a new thread, Elijah Daniel details how the disgraced director is still around and allegedly recruiting boys for trips to Hawaii, shifting his focus from aspiring actors to Instagram influencers. Minutes after posting the thread, images of boys with the tag #BryanSinger were scrubbed from Instagram.

Stephen Colbert interviewed John Bolton last night and did not get off his neck. It was glorious. “How did you not know beforehand that [Trump] was just callow? … You’re an international negotiator. How could you be naive? You’ve dealt with the worst people in the world.”

-The Globes’ TV critic John Doyle spilled some tea on Ben Mulroney and his thin skin in today’s paper. He talked about jokingly creating a ‘most annoying Cdn’ poll in 2003. Mulroney, who was hosting Canadian Idol at the time, tied with the guy from the Canadian Tire ads. “All in good fun. Some of the TV personalities on the list thought it was hilarious. One sent me a bouquet of flowers. I didn’t hear from Ben Mulroney directly of course. Oh my, no. I did hear from Senator Marjory LeBreton, the former deputy chief of staff in Brian Mulroney’s government. Her letter to the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher and CEO of this newspaper, also cc’d me, let me know there was umbrage taken at Ben Mulroney being teased in my column…There was certainly a call or two of complaint to the paper’s then Editor-in-Chief from Brian Mulroney.” While Doyle’s bosses were supportive of him, he says his counterpart at The Sun wasn’t so lucky: “Brian Mulroney was then on the board of Quebecor, which owned the Sun, and the Mulroney family complained to the paper’s bosses about the TV critic’s coverage of Ben. The writer was summoned to a meeting and told, ‘Never type the words ‘Ben Mulroney’ again.’ And he didn’t. He couldn’t.”

-Meanwhile, Lainey reiterated and expanded upon the apology she posted on today’s episode of The Social after her old posts were trending online. This is very well done.

Penn Badgley spoke about his You costar Chris D’Elia being accused of sexually harassing and grooming underage girls: “It did affect me deeply. I was very troubled by it. I am very troubled by it. I don’t know Chris. I know that, if there’s anything we need to do in this age, it’s to believe women.”

-Days of Our Lives’ Melissa Reeves has come under fire for her anti-Black Lives Matter stance. As someone who once made a scrapbook for Jack & Jennifer’s wedding in her youth, this is super disappointing.

-Brooklyn Nine-Nine is reportedly scrapping four episodes and starting over to focus more on BLM.

-Really liked this piece on how we think of — and what we want from — famous people is changing.

Roch Voisine was trending in Canada, and I’m so happy that it’s not because he has died… It’s because he’s turned into a stone cold daddy.

Timothee Chalamet and Eiza Gonzalez were spotted vacationing together in Mexico. How is anyone vacationing right now? I have so many questions.

-TIFF has unveiled the first details about this year’s film festival. It’ll be dramatically scaled down (50 features from last year’s 333), will feature some drive-in screenings, and will have a huge online component.

John Boyega responded to that viral marriage proposal.

-Netflix’s new cooking show Crazy Delicious is getting great buzz.

Padma Lakshmi’s Taste the Nation on Hulu is also getting good reviews.

-Eurovision Song Contest, starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams and dropping on Netflix this weekend, is getting mixed reviews. Variety says it’s “a badly shot one-joke movie that sits there and goes thud,” while Vulture calls it “glorious,” the Globe & Mail says “it’s barely a movie at all,” and Vanity Fair calls it “silly and fun.”

-Here’s the trailer for HBO Max’s Expecting Amy, a three-part documentary series following Amy Schumer as she juggles looming parenthood with her stand-up career.

-Here’s the first trailer for J.J. Abrams and Sara BareillesLittle Voice, Apple+’s coming-of-age musical drama.

-I can’t believe The Handmaid’s Tale is still limping along. Here’s the season 4 trailer.

Jessica Chastain is a rogue assassin in trailer for action movie Ava.

Ben Mulroney Takes a Step Back — Sort of

Ben Mulroney stepped down as an anchor from eTalk this morning, following his wife’s racist actions. “I love my wife. However, it is not my place to speak for her and today, together, we are committed to doing the work to both learn and understand more about anti-Black racism as well as learn and understand more about our blind spots.” He added that he hopes eTalk will replace him with a more diverse voice. Interestingly, he will still do red carpet events for eTalk (i.e. – the plum assignments) and stay on as host of CTV’s Your Morning.

-Also, this is from The Sun so take it with a giant grain of salt, but they’re reporting that he was surprised by the lack of support from his coworkers. “Although some coworkers reached out, he was surprised many didn’t bother, despite the fact he’s worked there for 18 years. It was only decided last night he would step down from etalk.”

-In the final hours of Juneteenth 2020, Beyonce surprised the world with a new song called Black Parade. Lyrics include “Trust me, they gon’ need an army / Rubber bullets bouncin’ off me” and “Made a picket sign off your picket fence / Take it as a warning?”

-Variety’s Actors on Actors interviews are taking place over Zoom this year, and first up is Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow. Aniston talks about her character’s breakdown in the last episode of The Morning Show, while Kudrow says she hasn’t rewatched Friends because she’s hoping to sit down with the cast one day and watch it together.

-RIP, director Joel Schumacher. Not only did he give us movies like Lost Boys, St. Elmo’s Fire and two Batman films, he also gifted us with that Vulture interview where he said he’d slept with 20k people, claimed Tommy Lee Jones was an asshole, and said Val Kilmer was psychotic.

-Speaking of Batman, this is wild: Michael Keaton is reportedly in talks to replace Ben Affleck as the DCEU’s Batman, appearing in The Flash movie. I love the idea of Keaton taking up the cowl again, but I’m surprised that the Flashpoint film is going forward following the Erza Miller stuff.

-Accusations of sexual assault by celebs were flying fast and furious on Twitter this weekend. Two users accused Justin Bieber of alleged incidents in 2014 and 2015 and he responded to one of them with 15(!) tweets about why he couldn’t have been there.

-Meanwhile, Riverdale’s Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart are denying accusations of sexual assault that surfaced on Twitter over the weekend.

Ansel Elgort broke his silence on last week’s sexual assault claims on Sunday with an Instagram post, saying the relationship in question was “brief, legal and entirely consensual.” He says he ghosted her, implying that’s why she’s retaliated.

-After last week’s Twitter outcry, five women talked to the Chicago Tribune to detail Chris D’Elia’s alleged sexual improprieties.

-The Golden Globes, hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, just announced a move from Jan 5 to Feb 28, 2021, Oscar’s original airdate.

-This is a great story about how two guys made their short film the top-grossing movie, even though they filmed it entirely on Zoom with a budget of zero dollars, and only screened it once at a single theater.

Brad Pitt surprised a sanitation worker on Harry Connick Jr.’s CBS special.

-Netflix announced that Lucifer will return in August — and they did it with a super horned up video.

-K-pop fans may not have prevented people from going to Trump’s rally, but they did basically make any data the campaign was hoping to use for retargeting junk.

Jon Stewart’s Irresistible, starring Steve Carell and Rose Bryne, is getting bad reviews. One critic tweeted it’s “stupefyingly bad & unfunny.”

-The Hamilton trailer has landed. On Twitter, Lin-Manuel Miranda explained that they dropped two of the show’s three f-words in order to get a Disney+ approved PG-13 rating.