Since heartbreaking news of Dr. John’s death swept through New Orleans and the world yesterday, June 6, tributes to the iconic musician have poured in. From social media to newspaper editorials, the late Mac has been a heavy presence on our collective minds in the last 24 hours.
But this is New Orleans, and there is no tribute more fitting than a second line. Today (June 7), a parade and celebration to honor the life and legacy of Dr. John will kick off at 4 p.m. from Kermit Ruffins’ Mother-in-Law Lounge. Ruffins took to Instagram to announce the second line, which will undoubtedly draw countless fans to the historic Treme venue.
Irina Shayk was photographed on Thursday carrying a suitcase and puffy coat out of her house in LA and made her way to the airport. Her getaway comes as news broke that she and Bradley Cooper broke up after four years together.
Shayk, 33, kept a low profile in sunglasses and a beige jumpsuit. Her daughter, Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper, whom she shares with now-ex Cooper, didn’t appear to be traveling with her.
Ahead of their split news, Page Six exclusively reported earlier this week that Cooper and Shayk’s relationship was “hanging by a thread,” with a source adding that neither one was happy.
The “A Star Is Born” actor and Russian supermodel began dating in 2015. She previously dated soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo while Cooper had been linked to Suki Waterhouse.
Granger Smith’s 3-year-old son River’s cause of death has been announced.
River died in a drowning accident at home, Smith’s rep confirmed to People. The 39-year-old country singer and his wife announced the tragic news on social media on Thursday, saying that their family is “devastated and heartbroken.”
They didn’t share River’s cause of death in their announcement but said “he was unable to be revived.”
Morgan Beck, whose 19-month-old daughter Emeline Grier drowned in a pool last June, sent her support and condolences to the Smith family.
On her Instagram Stories Thursday, Beck shared Smith’s photo that announced his son’s death and captioned it, “My heart breaks. Another baby gone too soon.” She then implored parents to protect their children by adding safety measures to their pools and having their kids take swim lessons.
“Understand that almost 70% of drownings occur when your children are not expected to be near the water. When you think they are in the playroom or on the sofa watching tv,” she captioned a picture of Emelie a few months after she passed away. “Always be aware of water and place as many barriers between your child and those bodies of water as possible (locks, door alarms, pool fences).
“None of us are immune to this devastatingly life changing statistic. It can happen so fast and forever change your world.”
Beck, who is married to Bode Miller, also shared footage of her 8-month-old son Easton floating on his back in their pool, which is part of his swim safety program called Infant Swimming Resource’s Self-Rescue.
Nicole Curran, the wife of Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob, said Thursday that she received death threats on social media and even deleted her Instagram account after what some considered a less-than-cheerful reaction from Beyonce to Curran talking with Jay-Z courtside.
A brief clip showed the famous couple courtside during Wednesday night's NBA Finals game at Oracle Arena. In it, Beyonce and Jay-Z are seen smiling and waving, when Curran leans over to talk to Jay-Z. Beyonce's smile goes away as the camera cuts back to the game. The clip went viral on a number of social media sites, with Curran portrayed as upsetting the superstar singer.
Curran said she was asking Jay-Z and Beyonce if they wanted a drink, because the Warriors had invited them to the game. She told ESPN's Ramona Shelburne that Jay-Z asked for a vodka soda, and she leaned over -- into the space near Beyonce, because of the loudness of the crowd -- to ask him if he wanted a lime with it. At that point, Beyonce is seen looking serious, and then down at the floor.
"There was no hostility," Curran told Shelburne. "I was trying to be a good hostess."
She added: "I've never experienced cyber bullying like this. I can't believe our players go through this. That kids go through this."
Curran said that Beyonce and Jay-Z had been guests of hers and the Warriors three or four times in the past without incident.
After 24 hours of tweets, Instagram comments, and an endless stream of bee emojis, Beyoncé's publicist has seemingly stepped in to try and put a stop to the harassment of a woman who spoke to Jay-Z.
Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images
The drama started when a video emerged online of Beyoncé and Jay-Z sitting courtside at the NBA finals on Wednesday. The footage showed a woman, later identified as Nicole Curran, leaning over Beyoncé to talk to Jay.
Nicole Curran is the wife of Joe Lacob, who owns a majority share in the Golden State Warriors, one of the teams playing on the night. According to a tweet from a reporter claiming to have spoken to Nicole, the couple had invited Beyoncé and Jay to watch the game.
The interaction seemed a little awkward without context, and fans even suggested that Beyoncé purposefully nudged Nicole after the conversation.
What ensued was a hate campaign against Nicole as fans discovered her Instagram page and began spamming it with bee emojis. When disabling her Instagram comments did little to mitigate the situation, Nicole then deactivated her social media accounts altogether.
A reporter for ESPN later tweeted, claiming to have spoken with Nicole. According to them, Nicole explained she was confused by the situation as she'd only asked Beyoncé and Jay if they wanted drinks.
After apparently explaining that she'd leaned over Beyoncé to ask Jay if he wanted lime, Nicole went on to express her dismay at the online bullying.
Whilst Beyoncé has yet to comment on the matter, her publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, seemingly referred to the drama on Instagram, telling the BeyHive to stop "spewing hate".
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
Posting a throwback picture to mark the anniversary of Beyoncé and Jay's On The Run II Tour, Yvette said: "I know your love runs deep but that love has to be given to every human. It will bring no joy to the person you love so much if you spew hate in her name."
People immediately thanked Yvette for stepping in, acknowledging that it'd gone way too far.
But other fans wondered if Beyoncé herself would say something about the situation.
BuzzFeed has reached out to representatives of Beyoncé for comment.
Ben Henry is a celebrity reporter for BuzzFeed UK and is based in London.
Arguably, the biggest shockwave in recent Marvel films and series wasn't a snap from a comics villain but a click of Disney CEO Bob Iger's pen. One by one, we've seen the reverberations of Disney's Fox acquisition from last year, mostly in the form of Netflix series wrapping up so that Disney can move full steam(boat Willie) ahead with its own films and streaming service. This week sees an arguably bigger conclusion: the end of the latest X-Men cinematic series.
Dark Phoenix sees the rug getting pulled from under the series' teen-reboot incarnation, which began life in 2011's X-Men: First Class and became an overwhelming mess in 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse. That last entry wrapped a bow on an apparent trilogy, but this week's one-more-time film is a bummer for a surprising reason. Dark Phoenix starts with a glimmer of hope that this central cast could go somewhere interesting if given one more shot. Much of the film plays out like an incredible, self-contained graphic novel, with legitimate surprises, compelling intra-X conflict, and a tighter focus on relationships that the last film lost sight of.
If you're the kind of series fan who can have your wind knocked out by a lousy ending and neatly wrapped bow, Dark Phoenix's best bits may not be good enough. But up until that annoying conclusion, the film does its best to redeem the half of X-Men that never had a Hugh Jackman or Sir Patrick Stewart to lean on—and the result is a pleasant surprise in a crowded superhero-film ecosystem.
X-Women to the rescue
No, this isn't a promo still from a bad virtual reality advertising campaign.
Dark Phoenix's best content revolves around a trio of badass leads: Jean Grey (Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones), Mystique (Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence), and a mysterious newcomer (Academy Award-winner Jessica Chastain). I can point to a single, cringe-worthy line of over-serious dialogue and delivery from each actor listed, which, for a lore-filled series like X-Men, is like shooting four-under-par on a single hole in a golf course.
Turner in particular steps up to the plate to juggle childhood trauma, coming-of-age anger, and endearing vulnerability, all while making sense of her complicated past. The film opens with Jean flashing back to the childhood moment when her life turned upside-down, at which point a certain Dr. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy, Glass) shows up with an interest in her apparent, mutant gifts.
The timeline then fast-forwards to the year 1992, when a core cast of seven familiar heroes (Jean Grey, Mystique, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast, and Quicksilver) blasts off into space to save the day. This focused action sequence sees each hero trot out a superpower with some incredible VFX work applied, particularly the wisp-of-smoke warps that Nightcrawler leaves in his wake, while the inevitable "something's not right" twist plays out with logical rationale for every character involved.
Jean suffers the most intense consequences from this mission, but we also see showdowns among other characters, all clashing with their own interpretations of what life as an American mutant should mean. For some of the cast, the answer is to just be kids—and we get some welcome comic relief as a result, along with a few sequences that balance teenaged melodrama with superhero stakes. The result reminded me of my favorite parts in Spider-Man Homecoming, in which young characters have to contend with the usual coming-of-age trope of new powers versus old insecurities—though Dark Phoenix spreads that responsibility across more characters and, as a result, occasionally feels more like Dawson's butt-kicking Creek.
McAvoy also does well to portray Xavier's sometimes skewed priorities while still making his character likable and respectable—a fact that fuels a particularly interesting showdown between his character and Lawrence's. (Her reminder that "the women are always saving the men around here" may seem cheesy out of context, but in the heat of the film's moment, the line fuels an impressive showdown of X-Men leadership.)
It’s a bird (er, a phoenix), it’s a train
Enlarge/ Still images don't do justice to how cool Nightcrawler's smoke-explosion effects look in action.
20th Century Fox
But the best relationship in Dark Phoenix is between Xavier and Jean, thanks to how their similar mind-reading powers collide at dramatic moments. That's all the more impressive when you consider that for some of their most intense conversations, the actors aren't staring each other down but instead having their conversations thrown against the wall of mind-reading CGI effects. The resulting glob of chopped-and-screwed memories, whizzing and blurring across a theater screen, could have been a dizzying, even obnoxious way to cut corners. Instead, Dark Phoenix's effects team delivers cohesive visual themes to sell these vignettes.
In even better visual news, the film's battle sequences pare down the usual open-sky, zillions-of-lasers paradigm that Marvel Cinematic Universe films have beaten us over the head with for the past five years or so. Focused camera angles stick with a particular point of impact long enough before cutting away to the next hero or conflict. Characters face off in clever ways, usually with each mutant's strength or weakness paired nicely with an ally or foe. And early events make clear that no fight's outcome is predictable, lending more weight and tension to each showdown.
An end-of-film train sequence does a particularly good job of selling the hierarchy of each mutant's strength. Weaker and stronger characters face off in ways that rationally make sense without diluting the tension of what's to come next—and this fact is carried forward by a solid variety of in-the-car and above-the-train camera angles, and major action moments to sell each.
Ultimately, none of this visually arresting stuff matters if we don't care about Jean, a superhero who spends much of the film peeling back onion layers of deception and tragedy. She and Mystique are the focal points, with every major male character failing the reverse version of the Bechdel Test by obsessing over them. The result is both a refreshing gimmick and a masterwork in execution. These two characters push the limits of what the X-Men organization should be, and they both suffer—and nobly carry—great heartbreak along the way, affording viewers the opportunity to attach our own coming-of-age metaphors. (I would argue this is executed well-enough to possibly surpass the best similar stuff in Captain Marvel.)
Without spoiling the whole thing, however, I'll just say that this specific praise all but crumbles once the film ends. Jean, Xavier, and a few other characters end Dark Phoenix with the kind of "nope, there's no sequel coming" tidiness that spits in the face of surviving and living through tragedy—a point that would have been wonderful to leave hanging for one more film in this X-Men universe. Alas. If this were a graphic novel, I'd rip out the final few pages and feel pretty good about having experienced the whole thing, and I urge anyone who likes this fork of the X-Men series to do the same, either at theaters or an eventual home-viewing experience in a few months.
Country singer Granger Smith says that his youngest son, River Kelly Smith, has died after an undisclosed accident. According to multiple reports, the boy drowned in an accident at Smith's home.
In a statement posted Thursday on Instagram, Smith said that after doctors were unable to revive the 3-year-old, the family decided to donate his organs to other children. Smith says that the family was heartbroken, but took solace that River was with God. The family asked that donations be made to Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas.
Smith, who is signed to Broken Bow Records, has released songs "If The Boot Fits," ''Backroad Song" and "Happens Like That." He and his wife, Amber, also have another son and a daughter -- Lincoln, 5, and London, 7, according to ET.
Trending News
ET reports that many country stars rallied around Smith after the news broke. Jason Aldean, Maren Morris, Luke Bryan, Dan + Shay, Kane Brown and many more country superstars and colleagues all expressed their condolences on social media
"I can't imagine what y'all are going thru," Aldean wrote. "Praying for u and ur family brother. We are heartbroken for you guys."
Morris wrote, "I am so, so sorry. Thinking of you and your family at this time," while Bryan wrote, "Many prayers. So sorry."
