by tyler | Oct 17, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Alicia Keys has responded to backlash over a recent social media post that some deemed insensitive in light of the war between Israel and Hamas.
In a since-deleted post, the singer and former coach on “The Voice” shared a photo of herself in a green jacket and wrote in the caption, “What would you do if u weren’t afraid of anything???”
“Tell me your truth …I’ve had my eyes on paragliding,” she wrote using “side-eye” emojis and the hashtag, “Monday energy.”
Keys was criticized for using the word “paragliding” given that Hamas terrorists used paragliders in their Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Some also tried to tie her wearing green – the color of the Hamas flag – as a sign of support for the organization.
“The post I shared was COMPLETELY unrelated in any way to the recent devastating loss of innocent lives,” Keys later wrote on her Instagram stories on Monday. “My heart has been breaking …. I pray for and stand for peace.”
Guy Oseary, an Israeli-American, is Keys’ former manager and took to Instagram account to defend her.
“There’s talk of an antisemitic post that my dear friend Alicia Keys had up on her instagram,” he wrote in the caption of a photo of him amd Keys embracing. “I can confirm to anyone in my [Star of David emoji used to represent the Jewish community] community that needs to hear it: it’s NOT true.”
“There was a specific word in her post that our community at this very painful time find very triggering, but it was absolutely not connected in any way,” he added. “I spoke to Alicia and she was horrified to learn what the word implied and immediately took it down. Alicia has always been a fighter for all human rights. I’ve had a front row seat for over a decade of seeing her positive influence in the world. Her humanitarian work reflects her empathy and her heart.”
Keys previously mentioned having an interest in paragliding in a 2021 interview with the popular radio show “The Breakfast Club.”
CNN has reached out to representatives for Keys for additional comment.
by tyler | Oct 17, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Sam Neill is in remission and back to doing what he loves.
The 76-year-old actor shared a health update with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation regarding his non-Hodgkin blood cancer, angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma.
“I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it,” Neill said. ‘It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, the disease “is a subtype of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL)” and “accounts for only 1% to 2% of all non-Hodgkin lymphomas.”
Neill, known for his work in television and films like “Jurassic Park,” said that after three months of chemotherapy, the treatment stopped working. His doctors switched courses to try “a rare anti-cancer drug” and it’s had some success, Neill said.
Receiving doses of the drug every two weeks helped usher him into remission, though the star said doctors have told him that eventually it will cease to be effective.
“I’m prepared for that,” Neill said.
He said he’s “not remotely afraid” of dying and instead finds the idea “annoying” as he has so many things he wishes to do. Instead, he said, it is the idea of retiring which “fills me with horror.”
Neill would rather focus on his garden, his vineyards, his grandchildren and work.
Prior to the actors’ strike, he had been working with Annette Bening on the adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel, “Apples Never Fall.”
by tyler | Oct 17, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Britney Spears is owning her narrative.
In an exclusive interview with People magazine to promote her forthcoming memoir “The Woman in Me,” Spears talked about feeling ready to open up about her life story.
“Over the past 15 years or even at the start of my career, I sat back while people spoke about me and told my story for me,” she told the publication. “After getting out of my conservatorship, I was finally free to tell my story without consequences from the people in charge of my life.”
Spears’ 13-year conservatorship ended in November 2021, giving her back power over her financial and medical decisions.
One of her choices was to write the book. She said it’s been hard to revisit dark moments in her life, including “not getting a moment of peace, the judgments from strangers who don’t even know me, having my freedom stripped away from me by my family and the government [and] losing my passion for the things I love.”
People shared some excerpts from “The Woman in Me.”
Spears, now 41, writes about not feeling like she treated as an adult under her conservatorship.
“I became a robot. But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot,” the excerpt from her book reads. “I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself.”
“The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me.”
Spears also writes of the the “soul-crushing” years when she lacked personal autonomy, writing that she felt “like a shadow of myself.”
“This is what’s hard to explain, how quickly I could vacillate between being a little girl and being a teenager and being a woman, because of the way they had robbed me of my freedom,” Spears writes. “There was no way to behave like an adult, since they wouldn’t treat me like an adult, so I would regress and act like a little girl; but then my adult self would step back in — only my world didn’t allow me to be an adult.”
“The Woman in Me” is due out on Oct. 24.
by tyler | Oct 13, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
“Suits” has been highly rated on Netflix and now a new show is reportedly in the works.
Series creator Aaron Korsh is developing an offshoot of the popular series for NBCUniversal, according to Deadline.
CNN has reached out to representatives for the network to confirm.
“Suits” aired from 2011 to 2019 and starred Patrick J. Adams, Rick Hoffman, Gabriel Macht, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (then Markle), Sarah Rafferty and Gina Torres. Torres then starred in the spinoff “Pearson,” which ran for one season in 2019.
The new show reportedly won’t be a spinoff or a reboot, but rather part of the “Suits” universe.
Korsh shared a Deadline story about the show’s streaming success on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I always thought we were underestimated, but it turns out, even I underestimated #Suits,” he wrote. “It’s good to be the King.”
Many have attributed the renewed popularity of “Suits” to it featuring Meghan before she married Prince Harry.
by tyler | Oct 12, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Glenn Gordon Caron said that while his friend Bruce Willis can no longer communicate in all the same ways, he knows Willis is happy about his show “Moonlighting” finally coming to streaming.
Caron, who was a creator of the show in which Willis starred in during the 1980s, talked to the New York Post about his friend, whom he said he tries to see around once or month or so.
“I know he’s really happy that the show is going to be available for people,” Caron said.
“Moonlighting,” a beloved romantic comedy series starring Willis and Cybil Shepherd as private investigators, is now streaming on Hulu.
“The process [to get ‘Moonlighting’ onto Hulu] has taken quite a while and Bruce’s disease is a progressive disease, so I was able to communicate with him, before the disease rendered him as incommunicative as he is now, about hoping to get the show back in front of people,” Caron said. “I know it means a lot to him.”
It was announced last year that Willis would be stepping away from his career due to cognitive issues. He has since been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which is a progressive brain condition.
Part of the tragedy of Willis’ diagnosis, his friend said, is that “no one who had any more joie de vivre than” Willis.
“He’s not totally verbal; he used to be a voracious reader — he didn’t want anyone to know that — and he’s not reading now. All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce,” Caron said. “When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there, but the joie de vivre is gone.”
by tyler | Oct 12, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Forget about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, she and Beyoncé are the true power pair of the year.
On Wednesday night it was the era of two queens when Beyoncé attended the premiere for Swift’s “Eras Tour” concert film in Los Angeles.
Naturally, the internet went bananas.
Both women have reigned supreme this year with powerhouse concert tours that they are capitalizing on by bringing them to the big screen.
First up is Swift’s, which “due to unprecedented demand” opened with early access shows on Thursday and will have additional showings over the weekend.
Queen Bey, who recently wrapped her “Renaissance Tour” in Kansas City, has announced that her “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” will hit theaters on December 1.
The women have been longtime admirers of each other and, early Thursday, Swift posted a video of the two of them together in a theater with Beyoncé tossing popcorn.
Read more: Can you sing and dance during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour film?
Swift wrote in the caption, “I’m so glad I’ll never know what my life would’ve been like without @beyonce’s influence.”
“The way she’s taught me and every artist out here to break rules and defy industry norms,” Swift wrote. “Her generosity of spirit. Her resilience and versatility. She’s been a guiding light throughout my career and the fact that she showed up tonight was like an actual fairytale.”
Given how often the world pits female superstars against each other, the mutual support of two of music’s biggest stars was a powerful statement.
