by tyler | Jun 27, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Chris Noth is pushing back on a report that his former costars are shunning him.
The actor recently posted a screen grab of a headline from a New York Post article titled, “Chris Noth feels ‘iced out’ by ‘Sex and the City’ cast after sexual assault claims: report,” which cited a tabloid story that claimed Sarah Jessica Parker and others had turned away from Noth after he was accused of sexual assault. The tabloid story cited unnamed sources.
“I usually don’t respond to this kind of thing. And I do know that people like drama and gossip,” Noth wrote in the caption of the screen grab on Instagram, adding that the story “is absolute nonsense.”
“Just thought you’d like to know,” he concluded the post.
In 2021, four women accused Noth of sexually assaulting them in the past.
Two of the women, whose names were withheld to protect their privacy, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter at the time about alleged incidents they said occurred in 2004 in Los Angeles and 2015 in New York, respectively.
The women told THR Noth reprising his “Sex and The City” role as Mr. Big in the HBO Max series “And Just Like That…” motivated them to come forward.
A third anonymous woman shared her story with The Daily Beast and singer Lisa Gentile later shared similar allegations during a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred.
The actor, who was not criminally charged in connection with any of the allegations, has denied the women’s claims.
“The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false. These stories could’ve been from 30 years ago or 30 days ago — no always means no — that is a line I did not cross,” Noth said in a statement to CNN at the time. “The encounters were consensual. It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out. I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
Noth was dropped from the series “The Equalizer” following the initial three allegations, and “And Just Like That” stars and executive producers Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, who had also starred with Noth on “Sex and the City,” released a statement via social media addressing them.
“We are deeply saddened to hear the allegations against Chris Noth,” the statement read. “We support the women who have come forward and shared their painful experiences. We know it must be a very difficult thing to do and we commend them for it.”
by tyler | Jun 27, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Ryan Seacrest will take his place as the new host of “Wheel of Fortune” in 2024, Sony Pictures Television, the company that produces the game show, announced on Tuesday in a news release sent to CNN.
Seacrest has signed a multi-year agreement with the show and will also serve as a consulting producer, the release states.
“I’m truly humbled to be stepping into the footsteps of the legendary Pat Sajak. I can say, along with the rest of America, that it’s been a privilege and pure joy to watch Pat and Vanna on our television screens for an unprecedented 40 years, making us smile every night and feel right at home with them,” Seacrest said in a statement Tuesday.
“Pat, I love the way you’ve always celebrated the contestants and made viewers at home feel at ease,” he continued. “I look forward to learning everything I can from you during this transition. Many people probably don’t know this but one of my first jobs was hosting a little game show called Click for Merv Griffin 25 years ago so this is truly a full circle moment for me and I’m grateful to Sony for the opportunity. I can’t wait to continue the tradition of spinning the wheel and working alongside the great Vanna White.”
Sajak announced on June 12 that he’ll be retiring in 2024 after serving as the host of “Wheel” for decades.
“Well, the time has come. I’ve decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last,” Sajak said in a Tweet, adding “It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months. Many thanks to you all. (If nothing else, it’ll keep the clickbait sites busy!).”
Serving as the host of the Emmy-winning game show alongside co-host Vanna White for 40 years, Sajak and White stand as two of the longest-serving hosts of any television program in the game show category.
Seacrest, like Sajak, has a long-celebrated history as a television and radio host.
He’s been the host of ABC’s singing competition show “American Idol” for 21 seasons, and co-hosted the ABC News morning program “Live with Kelly and Ryan” alongside Kelly Ripa. Seacrest has earned several Emmy nominations and two wins for his work.
Additionally, Seacrest is the host and producer of Los Angeles’s top-rated morning radio show for iHeartMedia’s 102.7 KIIS-FM, and has previously appeared on E!’s “Live on the Red Carpet” specials for various award shows. He continues to serve as the host of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” since 2005.
Since Sajak announced his retirement, Seacrest has been speculated as the top candidate to fill the shoes of the beloved host.
Sajak became the host of “Wheel of Fortune” after Chuck Woolery left the series in 1981. He continued his hosting duties as “Wheel” became syndicated in 1983, and has since hosted various spinoff shows including 2021’s “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.” “Wheel of Fortune” first debuted in 1975.
Sajak won a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement award in 2011 and has earned three additional Dayime Emmys for his work hosting “Wheel.”
“Wheel of Fortune” is a game show similar to “Hangman” where contestants spin a wheel to earn money for solving word puzzles, and has been a primetime TV mainstay that airs alongside “Jeopardy.”
by tyler | Jun 26, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Patti LaBelle had to overcome a bit of a snafu during her tribute performance to the late Tina Turner at Sunday’s BET Awards.
The legendary singer performed Turner’s 1989 hit “(Simply) the Best,” but appeared to struggle with some of the lyrics.
“I can’t see the words and I don’t know,” LaBelle sang to the crowd. “I’m trying y’all.”
The audience in the theater clapped and joined LaBelle and her background singers for the chorus to sing, “You’re simply the best!”
Some viewers criticized LaBelle’s flub, while others defended the 79-year-old singer.
“Only Patti LaBelle can sound that good and not only not the words but sing that she doesn’t know the words,” one viewer tweeted.
Actress and producer Holly Robinson Peete retweeted video of an audience member who said her section was blocking a teleprompter, which made it difficult for LaBelle to see the lyrics.
Robinson Peete tweeted, “This Patti slander is wrong.”
A spokesperson for BET confirmed LaBelle’s view was obstructed in a statement to CNN.
“It was an extraordinary privilege to celebrate the life and legacy of Ms. Tina Turner at “BET Awards” 2023,” the statement read. “Having the incomparable Ms. Patti LaBelle on our stage honoring one of her contemporaries was an equal privilege. Due to the crowd’s enthusiasm, the teleprompter was obstructed, obscuring Ms. LaBelle’s view of the lyrics. Nonetheless, we couldn’t be more grateful to Ms. LaBelle for lending her incredible talent to this moment.”
CNN has reached out to representatives for LaBelle for comment.
LaBelle finished strong, saying at the end of her performance, “God bless you, Tina Turner!”
by tyler | Jun 26, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Not only does Jason Biggs not mind being known as “the pie guy,” he loves it.
If by some chance you missed 1999’s “American Pie,” and its sequels, Biggs stars as a sexually frustrated teenager who gets caught in a compromising position with a pie.
Two decades later, the actor recently spoke to CNN about the memorably awkward scene.
“You know, it’s funny, when I first read the script and I read that scene, I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, I would love to get this part,’ and I would love to do that scene,” he laughed. “It would be so funny. How cool if I get to do this? And then I got cast, and again, I was so excited and pretty confident.”
But when the day of the pie scene arrived, Biggs said he briefly felt panicked.
“I had been confident enough to that point, everything pointed to the fact that this was going to be a pretty special film and a wonderful experience,” he recalled. “And then I just had this quick moment of doubt and uncertainty. The morning of filming that scene before we filmed it, I thought, God, what if no one sees this?”
He said he worried about his, well, technique.
“What if they do see it? And it’s like,’Oh, what the heck was he doing?’ Like, what if it goes the wrong way?” he said. “What if it’s not what I think it is? And all this? And I kind of had a freak out, you know, again, I hadn’t really done anything. I mean, I worked before that, but this was gonna be potentially a big thing for me.”
Biggs called his manager for a pep talk. “He said ‘Jason, you go in there and you hump that pie with all you got,’” he said.
“That’s fact. It’s literally what he said. And I said, ‘Okay.’ And I went in there and I did just that. And after the first take, there was a quick pause, and then the whole crew burst out laughing. Everyone, everyone was laughing and then Eugene (Levy) walks in and his reaction and the whole thing came together in such a way,” Biggs said.
The laughter put him at ease, he explained, and he remembered thinking, “This is exactly what I thought and hoped it would be, which is just insanely funny and ridiculous.”
“Again, 25 years later, people still talk about it. So that’s why when people come up to me and talk about it, I’m not annoyed. It’s not ridiculous. It’s like yeah, this is special. So I’m very proud of it,” he said.
Biggs did acknowledge, however, the recognition can sometimes go a little sideways, like when he was recently out in New York with his wife, the writer Jenny Mollen, and their son, and a fan shouted, “You’re the guy that f—ed the pie.’”
“My wife and I in that moment, we were like, shoot, this is how we’re gonna have to explain this whole thing to (our son.) We dodged a bullet. But it’s gonna happen. It’s inevitable. I don’t know when, hopefully, we’ve got a little bit of time,” Biggs said.
Biggs has a good sense of humor, so decided he team up with Edwards Desserts for a campaign about pie lovers.
“I am the pie guy. We joke it’s, I’m America’s biggest pie lover, you know, that’s what makes this partnership so fun,” he said. “We wanted to do something that was, sort of poking fun at the fact that I’ve been the pie guy for 25 years, I love being the pie guy. It’s honestly been a trip. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
by tyler | Jun 22, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Jack Hanna and his family are in the midst of a “long goodbye.”
The former zookeeper, beloved animal expert and television personality is now living with advanced Alzheimer’s disease, which his family spoke about in a story published Wednesday by the Columbus Dispatch.
His disease has progressed to the point he longer recognizes most family members, they shared.
It was announced in 2021 that Hanna was retiring from public life.
“Doctors have diagnosed our dad, Jack Hanna, with dementia, now believed to be Alzheimer’s disease,” Hanna’s family wrote in a statement posted to his verified Twitter account at the time.
“His condition has progressed much faster in the last few months than any of us could have anticipated,” the statement read. “Sadly, Dad is no longer able to participate in public life as he used to, where people all over the world watched, learned and laughed alongside him.”
“Jungle” Jack Hanna and his animals became a staple on late-night and daytime TV, thanks to his many appearances on shows like “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” “Late night with David Letterman” and “Today.”
Those appearances landed Hanna his own shows, including” Animal Adventures,” “Into the Wild” and “Wild Countdown.”
He retired from serving as director and then director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in December 2020 after 42 years.
The new Columbus Dispatch article states that Hanna now spends his time at home in Bigfork, Montana, where he suns on their deck and asks multiple times a day whether his wife Suzi, with whom he’s been with for 54 years, has fed the family dog, Brassy.
There are also moments of frustration familiar to those who are living with dementia, but Suzi Hanna says her husband has not totally left them.
“My husband is still in there somewhere,” his wife is quoted as saying. “There are still those sweet, tender moments — you know, pieces of him that made me and the rest of the world fall in love with him. It’s hard. Real hard some days. But he took care of me all those years, and so it’s my turn to take care of him.”
Hanna’s family said they are sharing their story now because “they want other families to know they are not alone when the struggle with Alzheimer’s feels overwhelming.
“If this helps even one other family, it’s more than worth sharing dad’s story,” Hanna’s eldest daughter, Kathaleen, said. “He spent a lifetime helping everyone he could. He will never know it or understand it, but he is still doing it now.”
“The river, the sun, Brassy, our walks. … That’s what we have left,” Suzi Hanna told the publication. “The Jack people knew isn’t here anymore, but pieces of my husband are. And I’m going to hang onto them for as long as I can.”
by tyler | Jun 22, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Country music duo Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney, known as Dan + Shay, are gearing up to put their music expertise to use.
The Grammy-winners are set to take a seat in a “double red chair” on NBC’s “The Voice” as the first-ever coaching duo to appear on the music competition show’s panel, the network announced on Thursday.
“The Voice” is a singing competition show in which aspiring singers compete to join famous coaches’ teams, going on to be mentored by that coach to move on to the final round.
Dan + Shay will begin their two-for-one coaching role starting in spring 2024 for Season 25. They previously appeared on the show in 2021 as former longtime coach Blake Shelton’s battle advisors.
EGOT winner John Legend along with Reba McEntire and Chance the Rapper – who is returning after he made his coaching debut last season – round out the Season 25 coaching panel.
Legend and McEntire were previously announced as coaches for Season 24 premiering this fall alongside Gwen Stefani and One Direction alum Niall Horan.
Dan + Shay have been popular voices in the country and pop music genres throughout their 10-year history as a group. They’ve won three consecutive Grammy awards for best country duo/group performance, and garnered a fourth nomination in the category for their 2022 track “Glad You Exist.”
Following the release of their latest single “You,” Dan + Shay is gearing up to release new music, which they recently said on their Instagram page is their “best music yet.”
“The Voice” returns with Season 24 this fall on NBC.
