Steve Schirripa is best known for starring in gritty crime dramas, but every once in a while he likes to relax the same way Us does: with a Hallmark movie.
The Blue Bloods alum, 67, is excited to make his Hallmark Channel debut in Sisterhood, Inc., which debuts Saturday, February 22.
“I never did a Hallmark movie,” Schirripa exclusively told Us Weekly while discussing his partnership with Freshpet. “It was, believe it or not, a bucket list thing. How many guys could go from The Sopranos to Hallmark? But I made the jump and I was very happy and I had a wonderful time.”
The actor, who played Detective Anthony Abetemarco on Blue Bloods and Bobby Baccala on The Sopranos, said that the family-friendly vibe of Hallmark was a nice change of pace after years of working on heavier projects.
“I really had a good time, I hope to do more,” he explained. “It was very nice, no arguing, no killing, no nothing. Even on Blue Bloods, which I loved, I must have killed four or five people. I killed more people as a cop than I did as a mobster.”
Steve Schirripa as Anthony Abetemarco in ‘Blue Bloods.’Craig Blankenhorn/CBS
Schirripa went on to note that he’s “watched my share” of Hallmark movies. “It’s just a nice vibe,” he added. “Sometimes you’re not in a great mood, you don’t want to watch anything heavy. If I want to watch bad stuff, I put the news on. Sometimes you just want to watch something nice.”
Fans of Schirripa know that he’s a softie at heart despite his TV mobster past, frequently posing on social media with his dachshund, Willie (who also has his own Instagram account).
“We make people happy, and that’s what I like,” he told Us. “He makes me happy. He’s like our son. We have two grown daughters that are out of the house. Our kids think we’re nuts. I say, ‘Willie’s your brother. Be nice.’”
Schirripa’s partnership with Freshpet came about after the actor had already been feeding Willie the natural dog food for two years. When the brand approached him about starring in a commercial, he didn’t hesitate to say yes — but Willie’s fans were quick to notice that the dachshund doesn’t appear in the ad.
Steve Schirripa and Willie.Us Weekly
“Willie was on set and he gave his approval. We had professional dogs,” Schirripa explained. “He chose to sit this one out. But he did make his TV debut on Blue Bloods. He was in an episode of Blue Bloods this past season, the last season, so that was good. … He left [the ad] to the big boys, you know what I mean?”
The ad also offered some novelty for Schirripa, who got to play the mob boss for once rather than the loyal capo.
“My character on The Sopranos was this soft guy, sensitive guy, and here I was a tough guy,” he told Us. “And it’s funny, but I got a text from David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, who said, ‘I didn’t know you could play a tough guy,’ which was really a compliment.”
Schirripa and Willie’s next collaboration will come in May when they team up to host Sopranos Night with Minor League Baseball’s Somerset Patriots — 1,000 lucky guests will receive a Schirripa bobblehead that also features Willie.
As Schirripa correctly put it: “That’s a collector’s item!”
Sisterhood, Inc. premieres on Hallmark Channel Saturday, February 22, at 8 p.m. ET.
“It’s not something you’ll always feel like you’re getting right, but you will get better every day,”Roberts told Violet Grey in March 2021 about motherhood. “When in doubt, just love your child and yourself.”
The twosome, who split in January 2022, had designated Hedlund’s Country Strong costar Tim McGrawas Rhodes’ godfather.
“He’s somebody that I admire and respect, not only as an amazing father and an amazing husband [but as an] amazing musician and amazing actor,”Hedlund said during a Kelly Clarkson Show appearance in February 2021. “I’ve known him for a long time.”
Keep scrolling to see Roberts and Hedlund’s sweetest family moments:
The couple celebrated their baby boy's first birthday with a rodeo-themed party. "Happy Birthday Rodeo!" Roberts wrote via Instagram in December 2021. "Frosting in my hair and @thebeatbuds stuck in my head. Loved every second of it ❤️ I love you Rhodes."
“Happy Mother’s Day to the loves of my life Roadie and mama @kellygrace1010 ❤️,” the Aquamarine star wrote via Instagram in May 2022. “Rhodes thank you for making me a mom and mama thank you for teaching me how to be one!! & being the best Mims we could ask for 💐💫.”
“[Y]ou’re never too old to be a flower girl and never too young to be a ring bearer 💍 🌸,” the Adult World actress captioned an August 2022 photo of herself in a pink floral dress holding her little one. The pair were in attendance for Roberts’ pal Charlotte Rose’s wedding.
“The Most Beautiful Trip Around The Sun I’ve Ever Had! Complete. ❤️🙏,” the Tulsa King actor wrote via Instagram on his birthday in September 2024 after celebrating with Rhodes.
“Happy 4th Birthday to my dearest Rhodes! My ‘where the roses grow.’ My heart,” Hedlund captioned a series of Instagram photos in October 2024 in honor of his son’s special day. “Here’s to our new year of endless journeys!!!”
Sabrina Carpenter teamed up with Dolly Parton for a country-tinged take on “Please Please Please” — complete with a new music video that seemingly references Carpenter’s ex Barry Keoghan.
Carpenter, 25, enlisted Parton, 79, for the duet, released on Friday, February 14, a.k.a. Valentine’s Day, as part of the Short n’ Sweet deluxe edition. The new video seems to be a direct sequel to last year’s original, which famously starred Keoghan, 32, as Carpenter’s love interest. (The duo were dating in real life at the time but split in December 2024 after nearly one year together.)
In the new clip, Parton and Carpenter are out for a drive in a pickup truck, but it soon becomes clear that this isn’t your average jaunt — they’ve got a big bag of cash in the back and a shovel. When they hear a police siren somewhere behind them, they start to get nervous, but the cruiser passes without incident.
At the end of the video, viewers learn why they were so nervous: they’ve also got a body back there, and he’s wearing the same outfit that Keoghan was in the original “Please Please Please” visual. His head is covered by a burlap sack, muffling his cries, and while he’s got enough energy left to kick his chained-up feet, that shovel hints he may not be long for the aboveground world.
The first “Please Please Please” video ended with Carpenter tying up Keoghan, whose character failed to live up to her pleas in the lyrics: “I heard that you’re an actor, so act like a stand-up guy / Whatever devil’s inside you, don’t let him out tonight.”
Carpenter hasn’t publicly addressed her split from Keoghan, but she’s been very vocal about her collaboration with Parton.
“Dolly and me singing in a pickup truck!!!!!! I am so honored to have one of my biggest idols on a song that means so much to me,” the newly minted Grammy winner wrote via Instagram on Friday. “Love you forever @dollyparton.”
In a behind-the-scenes video Parton shared via Instagram, the two singers shared a hug and marveled at their similarly petite heights. “Turns out, two things can be short and sweet ,” Parton quipped in the caption.
The country legend also joked that she’d have to make “Please Please Please” a little bit more PG-13 for her audience. (In the final version of the duet, the line “Don’t embarrass me, motherf—er” becomes “Don’t embarrass me like the others.”)
“You and your dirty words,” Parton teased Carpenter. “I can’t say those words!”
Ahead of the Wednesday, February 12, premiere, Us caught new contestants Bat, Yorkie and Honey Pot gallivanting around Los Angeles. Fans will have to wait and see who’s under the masks, but there are some big hints in these snaps.
In one image, Bat and Yorkie duke it out in the alley behind SUR, a landmark-worthy location that Vanderpump Rules fans know as well as their own homes. Could one of these mystery masks be someone like former SURver Katie Maloney, or perhaps Lisa Vanderpump herself?
Then there’s Honey Pot, who was snapped hanging out at the legendary comedy club Laugh Factory. Could this be an iconic comedian like Eddie Murphy, who performed there in the early days of his career?
Answers will be revealed in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, keep scrolling for more clues about Bat, Yorkie and Honey Pot:
Yorkie’s shopping spree at Vanderpump Dogs could be a hint to their identity. Could this be Vanderpump, noted dog lover and founder of Hollywood’s premiere pooch emporium?
Paris Hilton isn’t a Housewife herself (although her mom, Kathy Hilton, appears on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), but she is famously a fan of canines. Perhaps she’s under the Yorkie mask, waiting to show off her vocal chops. “Stars Are Blind” fans, this could be your moment!
RHOBH viewers will recall the moment Dorit Kemsley adopted — and later gave up — a pup from Vanderpump Dogs. Maybe this location is a nod to one of the most famous feuds in Housewives history.
Maybe the SUR connection is all a red herring and this is a famous West Hollywood personality who’s actually not connected to the VPR universe, like The Hills alum Heidi Montag. She is, after all, a singer!
Villa Blanca’s where you take your wife, but SUR is where you take your Bat. Maybe this isn’t a VPR star but someone who feuded with one, like Brandi Glanville, who famously clashed with Scheana Shay over her affair with Eddie Cibrian.
Honey Pot, seen here stopping by the Laugh Factory for a show, is one of the founding fathers of modern comedy. Could this be legendary comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who voiced a bee in Bee Movie?
You can’t talk about American comedy without mentioning Saturday Night Live, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Could this be Murphy, an SNL alum who performed at the Laugh Factory in the early days of his career?
The final book in Brynne Weaver’s mega popular Ruinous Love trilogy is out now, but the author hasn’t ruled out the possibility of revisiting the world of the Kane brothers in the future.
“I never say no to anything,” Weaver exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the Tuesday, February 11, release of Scythe & Sparrow. “In some cases I think their stories are wrapped up, but in others I could see a spinoff novella or something like that. I definitely left the door open to exploring that in the future.”
Scythe & Sparrow wraps up the dark romance trilogy that began with 2023’s Butcher & Blackbird and last year’s Leather & Lark. The novel’s main characters, Fionn Kane and Rose Evans, made cameo appearances in the first two books, but Scythe & Sparrow finally reveals how they met — and gives readers a deeper understanding of what helped mold the Kane brothers.
Like the first two Ruinous Love books, Scythe & Sparrow features plenty of murder, but the difference here is that Rose is not exactly a criminal mastermind on par with her counterparts Sloane and Lark.
“I felt like when I was writing the first book that she was a little bit chaotic, and I thought it would be a fun, different kind of take on this serial killer theme that I was doing if she just wasn’t very good at it,” Weaver told Us of Rose. “She really tries hard, she puts her whole self into it. It just doesn’t always pan out the way that she hoped.”
Brynne Weaver.Us Weekly
Fionn, meanwhile, isn’t quite as hypermasculine as his siblings, Rowan and Lachlan — he works out a lot, but he’s also part of a crocheting club.
“With his two older brothers, they’ve played a significant role in really getting him to have this sort of perfect life,” Weaver explained. “He’s tried really hard to exceed expectations. He’s also brokenhearted, so he’s run away to Nebraska. He’s kind of been hiding a little bit. So I wanted to give him the chance to really come out of his shell, and Rose was the perfect opportunity to have that happen for him.”
While Rose and Fionn aren’t quite as adept at hiding the (not metaphorical) bodies as other Ruinous Love characters, they’re not lacking in the chemistry department — and the book boasts plenty of those steamy scenes that Weaver’s fans have come to expect. Some authors find it difficult to choreograph those moments on the page or plot out elaborate fights, but Weaver’s biggest challenges lie elsewhere.
“Those are always my two favorite things to write,” the author said of scenes involving sex or violence. “Sometimes it’s more of the interconnection between those scenes where you’re exploring the more heavy emotional topics, and I want to get those right. So, it takes a lot more thinking time to process those chapters, but the murder scenes and the spicy scenes are, like, no problem.”
As fans finally get their hands on Scythe & Sparrow, Weaver is looking forward to the next chapter in her writing career — she’s already handed in the manuscript for the first book in a new series and is currently hard at work on the second. She can’t share any further details, but hinted that eagle-eyed Scythe & Sparrow readers might find a clue about what’s next.
“I can’t really give too much away, but there is maybe a little bit of a window into what might be coming at the end of this book,” she teased. “So it is another dark rom-com series but also a bit more thriller-y.”
She’s also participating in the development of Butcher & Blackbird for the big screen. No casting announcements have been made, but Weaver is feeling good about where things are going.
“Sometimes you’re having these conversations with producers or in this case the director as well and thinking like, ‘Oh, I’m talking to this director’ — that’s a little bit wild to get your head around at first,” she told Us. “It’s rolling along pretty quickly. We have a screenwriter now and she’s already been working on the script. We’ve got a few people in play, not actors yet, but a few other key people who are starting to get involved now, and I’ve been really brought into all the steps of the process which has been wonderful. I really want to see where they take it and how they interpret it, but I’m getting to have my say as well, so for me it’s a perfect balance.”
She also has a couple ideas about who could play Rowan and Sloane.
“I have a few that I could see doing it,” she said. “I think Nicholas Hoult could potentially play a really good Rowan, but I think it’s very much dependent on the chemistry between the leads. I love Amber Midthunder, who was in Prey, which is another favorite movie. I thought she was fantastic, but I really think it comes down to that chemistry aspect. So, I guess we’ll see when we get there.”
Armie Hammer denied being a cannibal on a new podcast, but he admitted to participating in a hunting ritual that involved taking a bite out of an animal’s heart.
Speaking on the Tuesday, February 11, episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast,” Hammer, 38, responded to rumors that he’d once cut the heart out of an animal and eaten it while it was “still warm.” The actor said he did take a bite but denied having eaten the whole thing.
“You take a bite out of the heart, and you’ve got all your buddies around you, they’re goading you on,” Hammer said. “It’s sort of like an almost overly charged male rite of passage when you go hunting for your first time. Everyone that I know who went hunting for their first time had to do something similar.”
He went on to note that taking the bite was “not for the purpose of any cannibalism or any sexual gratification.”
The Call Me by Your Name actor’s Hollywood career effectively ended in 2021 after he was accused of rape by an ex. At the time, various unverified direct messages detailing vivid sexual fantasies — including cannibalism — were attributed to him. He vehemently denied the rape allegations and said his sexual encounters were consensual. A Los Angeles police department investigation into the claims was closed in May 2023, and the actor was not charged.
Speaking to Theroux, Hammer claimed that nothing he ever did was against the law, even if some of his actions made people uncomfortable.
“I left a lot of people in that wake very angry at me for my behavior. … A—— behavior. There’s no way around that,” he said. “Does it make me a d—? Absolutely. Like, I have no problem admitting that. I was a d—. That’s not illegal.”
Last month, Hammer spoke about his fall from grace on the “Your Mom’s House” podcast and pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as one reason his scandal got so much attention.
“COVID was going on, people were locked in their apartment, people were miserable,” he said. “There was all this s— going on. The world seemed like it was falling apart. And people were deeply unhappy with their own lives. And then this salacious story comes around where this actor wants to murder and eat people, and all of a sudden everyone’s like, ‘Oh, this is so much more fun to focus on than the fact I can’t leave my living room.’ Everyone was like, ‘Let’s dogpile on this story.’”
In the same interview, Hammer claimed he was having trouble managing his squeaky clean Hollywood image. When the allegations broke, he was married to Elizabeth Chambers, with whom he shares daughter Harper, 10, and son Ford, 8.
“I think somewhere deep down, subconsciously, I wanted to get caught. I so did not relate to the image of me that was out there in the public. Like, ‘Look at them, they’re like the Ralph Lauren family. They’ve got the perfect life, and the perfect house, and the perfect kids,’” Hammer explained. “I was like, ‘I feel like a f—ing alien.’ I was ‘liking’ rope bondage pictures on my Twitter. It was like I was dog-whistling to it, if you will, and wanting to get caught. People would be like, ‘I don’t think he knows his Twitter likes are public.’ I saw that and I was like, ‘I know.’”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Kendrick Lamar brought his now Grammy-winning trolling of Drake to the biggest stage imaginable at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
After months of speculation about his setlist, Lamar, 37, included “Not Like Us” in his performance, meaning that more than 73,000 fans got to scream along as he rapped, “And it’s probably A minor.”
Lamar teased a snippet of the song early in the show, jokingly asking whether he should perform “their favorite song.” After the track’s intro began, however, he pivoted to a different song, leaving viewers to wonder whether “Not Like Us” had been omitted from the setlist. (Prior to the halftime show, rumors circulated that Lamar wouldn’t be allowed to perform the song.)
Later in the set, however, Lamar delivered, launching into “Not Like Us” as Serena Williams danced on stage. While he didn’t say the word “pedophile” in the famous line, “Certified lover boy, certified pedophile,” he did include, “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.”
Lamar’s set also featured tracks from his latest album, GNX, including “Squabble Up” and “Luther.” SZA joined him for the latter song as well as “All the Stars” from the Black Panther soundtrack.
Since Lamar was announced as the halftime show performer in September 2024, fans have wondered whether he would include “Not Like Us” in his set. Released in May of last year, the song is full of blistering digs at Drake, 38. The two rappers have traded barbs off and on for more than a decade, but their feud hit a fever pitch last spring when they exchanged a series of diss tracks.
Chris Graythen/Getty Images
While both musicians released several songs about the other, many observers declared Lamar as the winner of the feud, given both the lyrical content and popularity of “Not Like Us.” The No. 1 hit memorably accused Drake of pedophilia in lines like “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young” and “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.”
Drake denied the pedophilia accusations in “The Heart Part 6,” but the track did little to stop the virality of “Not Like Us,” which has soundtracked everything from sporting events to the Democratic National Convention.
After Lamar was announced as the halftime show headliner, reports circulated that Drake had sent his rival a cease-and-desist to stop him from performing “Not Like Us” at the Super Bowl, but a rep for the Canadian-born artist later denied it. “The rumors are completely false,” a rep for Drake told Us Weekly in October 2024.
One month later, Drake filed a legal complaint alleging that Lamar’s record label, Universal Music Group (which is also his own record label), conspired with Spotify to artificially inflate the popularity of “Not Like Us.” UMG vehemently denied the allegations, as did Spotify.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Drake later withdrew the complaint but filed a federal lawsuit against UMG in January, accusing the label of defamation and harassment, claiming that the company “chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”
UMG again denied his allegations, telling Us in a statement: “Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist — let alone Drake — is illogical. We have invested massively in his music and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success. Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings about other artists. He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music.”
The statement continued: “We have not and do not engage in defamation — against any individual. At the same time, we will vigorously defend this litigation to protect our people and our reputation, as well as any artist who might directly or indirectly become a frivolous litigation target for having done nothing more than write a song.”
Earlier this month at the Grammys, “Not Like Us” swept all five categories in which it was nominated: Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song and Best Music Video.
SZA may not be involved in the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, but she does have a history with her friend’s rival.
The “Kill Bill” singer, 35, is set to take the stage with Lamar, 37, at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday, February 9, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. While the pair have collaborated numerous times throughout their career, most recently on Lamar’s 2024 album, GNX, SZA has also worked with Drake, 38 — and briefly dated him.
Lamar, meanwhile, has a long history with Drake that stretches back to 2013. While the pair have traded lyrical jabs for years, their rivalry became global news in 2024 when they exchanged a series of vicious diss tracks. The battle culminated with the release of Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” in which the Pulitzer Prize winner accused Drake of pedophilia. (Drake denied the allegations in his song “The Heart Part 6.”)
Keep scrolling for a breakdown of SZA and Drake’s history:
In 2020, Drake revealed in the song “Mr. Right Now” that he and SZA had briefly dated a decade prior. “Yeah, said she wanna f— to some SZA, wait / ‘Cause I used to date SZA back in ’08,” he rapped.
SZA then confirmed via Twitter (now X) that she dated Drake but claimed he got the timeline wrong.
“So It was actually 2009 lol … in this case a year of poetic rap license mattered lol,” she wrote. “I think he jus innocently rhymed 08 w wait. Anybody who really knows me and was around during this time can confirm … it’s all love all peace.”
In another tweet, she added, “I just didn’t want anybody thinking anything underage or creepy was happening. Completely innocent. Lifetimes ago.”
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Coachella
Still ‘Cool’
During an interview with Audacy, SZA said that Drake gave her a heads-up before the release of “Mr. Right Now.”
“We’re cool, we’ve always been cool. It’s never been weird. It’s never come completely out of the blue,” she said in December 2022. “Anytime he’s ever mentioned me, it’s always been positive. He’s never said anything negative about me. I’m grateful for that and I think highly of him, and I think it’s really weird that as all these years went past, I am an artist now and I wasn’t then and he’s King Drake.”
She also compared the rapper to an iconic Mean Girls character, saying, “I feel like Drake has a Regina George quality to him where it’s just kind of like, ‘Have you or anyone you know been personally victimized?’ He’s like a cool kid, you know. When you’re the popular kid in school, it’s entertaining. It’s entertaining, but you sometimes are taking losses in the midst of that entertainment. The honesty, I respect that. But I definitely laughed real hard … I cackled.”
More than a decade after their fling, SZA and Drake collaborated for the first time on the track “Slime You Out” from his album For All the Dogs. Drake introduced SZA on the song with the lines, “And my slime right here, she got some bars for y’all n—-s / So I’ma fall back and let SZA talk her s— for a minute.”
A ‘Childish’ Romance
SZA opened up about her relationship with Drake in an interview with Rolling Stone and admitted it was never serious. “We were really young,” she said in October 2023. “It wasn’t hot and heavy or anything. It was like youth vibes. It was so childish.”
Sharon Van Etten is an old hand in the recording studio, but for her latest album, she tried an entirely different approach: jamming.
The idea came to Van Etten, 43, while she and her band were rehearsing for their first tour after the coronavirus pandemic. “By the time we worked through all the songs, I just felt a little tired of myself and I knew that I needed a break from hearing myself,” she exclusively told Us Weekly. “And so I asked the band if we could take a break, and then when we reconvened, could we just jam? And everyone laughed at me ’cause I hate that word and I don’t even like saying it even in this context, but I’ve never really done that. And I felt like we were developing such a sound that I wanted to explore it without having all these predetermined songs to it.”
Two of the songs that came out of that jam — “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)” and “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)” — ended up on Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, which dropped Friday, February 7. The album is technically Van Etten’s seventh, but it’s the first where she’s been credited alongside her band.
“I was very inspired by that [jam session] and I knew that was gonna be the next step for me creatively and personally,” she explained. “Just to learn how to let go of my process and trust the band and incorporate them and show them a bit more love.”
Devin Oktar Yalkin
In the studio, that meant that Van Etten “wasn’t playing as much” as she would have been if she’d been writing alone.
“I was guiding, and we were guiding each other,” she recalled. “As I would hear a line that someone was working on, I would say, ‘OK, this is the thing.’ I would point to that and communicate that this is the center of the song right now. … It was more like the sonic trust fall of letting go and letting other people help you.”
Fans have already gotten to experience the fruits of that collaborative process themselves, as Van Etten has been introducing The Attachment Theory via her newsletter. In turn, the band members — Jorge Balbi, Devra Hoff and Teeny Lieberson — have been sharing playlists of songs that inspired the record. Last month, for example, Lieberson shared a “mixtape” of songs that she described as a “safe haven.” (Her picks included tracks by ESG, Haruomi Hosono, Doechii, Cocteau Twins and more.)
Susu Laroche
Van Etten cited The Cure as one of the biggest influences for the album, as she and the band happened to see them perform in L.A. while they were still writing songs.
“I feel like we all have this general anxiety right now and this angst,” she said. “And I love everything I’ve made in the past. I’m proud of most of it. I know I’m a little late in life to have a band, but I’m so ready. And I’m very inspired by the styles and the sounds that we’re making together. It’s a collective sound that inspired me just by leaning into each other’s zones sonically and overall feeling very angsty.”
The Cure was just one of many U.K. artists that became a touchstone for the album, which was recorded at The Church Studios in London. The studio was formerly owned by Eurythmics member Dave Stewart, and it’s where he and Annie Lennox recorded their 1983 album, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).
Susu Laroche
“In general, the palette was Joy Division, The Cure, Siouxsie [Sioux], PJ [Harvey], Portishead,” Van Etten told Us. “I’m sure not a lot that would surprise people, but there’s some Nine Inch Nails in there, so not all U.K. — also some ’90s influences. Like, ‘Live Forever’ is very Nine Inch Nails to me, but mixed with a bit of Neu! That’s just very generally.”
“Live Forever” is one of Van Etten’s favorite songs on the album, though she’s quick to note “they’re all like my children and I love them differently.” That track, however, sticks out because of how much fun she has singing it.
“As a singer, the arc of the song and the complexity of where it ends up, it’s the most exciting to me,” she explained. “I know it’s not the most immediate, but it’s very satisfying to hear everybody playing where all the little parts and changes come in, and I feel like I give nods to my influences without ripping them too heartily. It’s really fun to perform when I can nail it. That’ll be a really difficult one [to play] live. But I’m up for the challenge.”
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is out now. The band’s North American tour kicks off April 24 in Atlanta. Tickets are available here.
Kanye West and Bianca CensoriMatt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Kanye West’s wife, Bianca Censori, made a splash at the 2025 Grammys with her uber-naked dress — but she’s not in any legal hot water over her risqué fashion choice.
TMZ reported on Monday, February 3, that Censori, 30, won’t face any legal consequences for her look because no one at the event raised any issue with it. The Los Angeles Police Department told the outlet that no one at the Sunday, February 2, awards show contacted authorities with complaints, so because it’s a private event, they have no reason to step in.
Censori, who walked the red carpet with West, 47, arrived in an ankle-length fur coat but soon removed it to reveal a completely sheer mesh minidress that left nothing to the imagination. Rumors then circulated that the couple were asked to leave the event, but an insider told Us Weekly that wasn’t the case.
They departed “on their own accord” after posing for photos, the source said on Sunday, adding, “They just got in their car and left.”
West was nominated for Best Rap Song at Sunday’s ceremony for his song “Carnival” with Ty Dolla $ign, but they lost to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
Kanye West and Bianca CensoriJon Kopaloff/WireImage
The rapper and Censori went public with their romance in January 2023 following West’s split from ex-wife Kim Kardashian. West and Kardashian, 44, share four kids: daughters North, 11, and Chicago, 7, and son Saint, 9, and Psalm, 5.
After West and Censori’s viral appearance at the Grammys, an insider exclusively told Us that the duo always planned to cause a sensation.
“It’s all Kanye, there’s no outside influence. [And] Bianca likes the attention,” the source explained. “Good or bad, they love it. They love the buzz.”
According to the insider, West “designed” the moment and was the brains behind the “concept” of the outfit.
“He is a master of publicity stunts. He knows how to stay in the game,” the source added, noting that West “knows what to do” when it comes to his vision. “He’s a master. He directs the ship and makes sure everyone knows that.”
Censori’s outfits have consistently raised eyebrows since she began dating West, who is often the mastermind behind her looks.
“It’s an element of control for Kanye,” a second insider exclusively told Us in spring 2024, noting that West has been pouring more energy into dressing Censori since he was dropped from his major fashion partnerships in 2022 because of his antisemitic comments.
“Kanye’s very frustrated he can’t get his artwork out there, so [Bianca] is his runway and stage,” the second source added. “He’s trying to create a power couple image.”
Shania TwainEmma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Shania Twain has done it all, but her latest project allowed her to add something very unexpected to her resume: voice of a dancing tongue.
The country superstar, 59, lent her unmistakable vocals to Coffee Mate’s new Super Bowl ad for Cold Foam Creamer, which features Twain singing the brand’s “Gimme Cold Foam” jingle.
“It’s just a really great bop and it sticks in your head,” Twain exclusively told Us of the track. “It’s one of those crazy, definitely can’t-get-it-outta-your-head type of songs, so I already knew that that was a winner. Putting the visual and the music together got me in a real character spirit. I’m like, ‘OK, right now in my mind, while I’m singing the song, I am a dancing tongue.’”
As for how the flirtatious, disembodied tongue plays into all of this, Twain explained it like this: “I think there’s a little bit of a naughty joy in adding a topping because it feels indulgent, it’s creamy and tasty and it’s the extra to your coffee that makes it special. It’s like giving yourself a treat, and so in that sense it’s that there’s something coy about it.”
The dancing tongue voiced by Twain.Coffee Mate
Recording “Gimme Cold Foam” actually marked the first time Twain had worked on new music in a while, and the experience inspired her to get back in the studio. (Her last album, Queen of Me, dropped in 2023.)
“It was fun doing the Cold Foam ad because that’s the latest song I’ve recorded, and it gave me the itch,” she explained. “It’s like, ‘OK, yeah, I’m ready to get in there and start recording new music.’”
The Grammy winner has spent much of her time lately in Las Vegas for her Come on Over residency at Planet Hollywood Resort Resort & Casino, but when that wraps up later this month, she’s planning to focus on her new music. She’s also heading out on the road this summer for a string of outdoor dates across the United States and her native Canada.
“And then I’m ending my live stage chapter for a little while, while I start my new chapter of making an album,” she told Us.
While Twain’s Super Bowl participation this year is limited to her ad, she’s no stranger to the big game, having headlined the halftime show in 2003 with No Doubt. Kendrick Lamar landed the gig this year, but Twain joked that she’d perform “Gimme Cold Foam” if she’d gotten the job instead — and noted she’s “excited” to see what Lamar, 37, cooks up.
“I don’t think [fans] realize the scale of what has to go on behind the scenes, getting the stage and the artist on the field, because that field has to be super protected,” she told Us. “It’s an epic effort and it’s gotta happen in a very, very, very short period of time. People are watching that but not realizing it’s going on, which I guess is part of the art of it. All of a sudden this performance is happening and it’s some megastar up there doing their favorite songs. It’s ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ — it’s quite magical.”
Blake Lively and Justin BaldoniJose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Justin Baldoni’s legal battle with It Ends With Us costar Blake Lively is allegedly leaving its mark on the actor.
During a pretrial hearing on Monday, February 3, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said his “clients are devastated financially and emotionally” because of the situation. (Freedman is also representing It Ends With Us producers Jamey Heath and Steve Sarowitz, their production company Wayfarer Studios and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel.)
“Not to sound like a 4-year-old fighting a 4-year-old with ‘they started it,’ but in these kinds of cases, once someone says something it becomes fact: There’s no way to fight against it,” Freedman added on Monday, per People.
Lively’s lawyer Michael Gottlieb used similar language to describe her reaction to the case, telling the judge that the alleged “retaliation campaign” by Baldoni’s team has been “devastating” for the Gossip Girl alum, according to CNN.
Monday marked the first hearing in the case, which is set to go to trial on March 9, 2026. During the hearing, Judge Lewis J. Liman warned both parties that he has the power to move up the trial date if the complaints continue to be “litigated in the press.”
Justin Baldoni’s lead counsel, Bryan Freedman.CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
After Monday’s proceeding, both Lively and Baldoni’s attorneys said they were happy with how things went.
“We are pleased with the result of today’s hearing and eager to move forward immediately with discovery in this case,” reps for Lively, 37, told Us in a statement. “The Court granted our request that all attorneys in the matter actually follow the rule of law and not make any statements that could prejudice a jury. This case deals with serious allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation. We will hold the defendants accountable, and we are confident that once all the evidence is submitted in this matter, Ms. Lively will prevail.”
Baldoni’s team, meanwhile, told Us, “Our clients are devastated and want to move the case along as quickly as possible. We just couldn’t be more pleased with how the case was handled today, how it was managed. We’re going to move as quickly as we possibly can and prove our innocence, in a world where sometimes people judge you before they give you a chance. And we’re going to change that.”
Blake Lively and Justin BaldoniCourtesy Sony Pictures Ent.
Months after rumors swirled of a rift between Lively and Baldoni on the set of It Ends With Us, the actress filed a lawsuit against her director in December 2024 accusing him of sexual harassment and creating an unsafe work environment. Baldoni, 41, has denied her allegations.
Baldoni and other plaintiffs went on to sue The New York Times, who broke the story, that same month. A spokesperson for the newspaper told Us at the time that the outlet is planning to “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
Last month, Baldoni’s studio also filed a separate lawsuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and her publicist, Leslie Sloane, seeking $400 million in damages.
In response to the lawsuit, Lively’s legal team said in a statement, “Their response to sexual harassment allegations: she wanted it, it’s her fault. Their justification for why this happened to her: look what she was wearing. In short, while the victim focuses on the abuse, the abuser focuses on the victim. The strategy of attacking the woman is desperate, it does not refute the evidence in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and it will fail.”
Sean Combs.Kevin Mazur/VF22/WireImage for Vanity Fair
Since Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested in September 2024, multiple documentaries — two in total as of January 2025 — have detailed the allegations against the rapper.
The first, Peacock’s Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, started streaming on January 14. The 90-minute film included interviews with the mogul’s childhood friends and former employees as well as Sara Rivers, who appeared on his MTV series Making the Band.
“That’s my little bro,” Tim Patterson, who grew up with Diddy in New York, said in the movie. “I know Sean, not Diddy, not Daddy Love. I don’t know those people, I don’t know them, I swear I don’t know them, I never met those people.”
Weeks later, Investigation Discovery released The Fall of Diddy, a five-part docuseries produced in collaboration with Rolling Stone. In one episode, Diddy’s ex-girlfriend Kat Pasion alleged that she had a nonconsensual encounter with him during their relationship, circa 2021.
Bryan Bedder/CP/Getty Images for CP
“His whole tone, everything changed,” she claimed. “I just don’t wanna go into detail of it. … I didn’t even recognize him. And I knew I was never gonna see him and I never wanted to remember or repeat what happened.”
In response to Pasion’s allegation and others in both documentaries, a rep for Diddy told Us Weekly: “As we’ve said before, Mr. Combs cannot respond to every new publicity stunt, even in response to claims that are facially ridiculous. Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that the accusations against Mr. Combs are pure fiction.”
Diddy is currently in jail awaiting trial after his September 2024 arrest on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied all the allegations against him and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Keep scrolling for a breakdown of the biggest revelations from the documentaries about Diddy:
Diddy’s Childhood
PEACOCK
Both docs included interviews with people who knew Diddy during his youth in Mount Vernon, New York. According to Patterson, Diddy may have inherited his interest in wild parties from his mother, Janice Combs.
“Sean’s house, our house, there was always things going on. On the weekend, you partied in the house, and we did that a lot,” Patterson claimed in Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy. “He was around all types of alcohol, he was around reefer smoke, he was around drug addicts, around lesbians, around homosexuals, he was around pimps and pushers, that was just who was in our house. … At night, it wouldn’t be a thing to mistakenly walk into one of the bedrooms and you got a couple in there butt naked. That’s what we were privy to. This is what we were fed. Was it desensitizing us? I’m sure it was. Were we aware of it? No. That was just Saturday night.”
Patterson also alleged that Janice was hard on Diddy as a kid. “I’m sure everything from Janice’s way of raising him was coming from love,” he said in The Fall of Diddy. “But there were times that I would see Janice’s personality go from hot to cold, and he had to be on the receiving end of a hot night or a cold night. Janice didn’t take no s—, none at all. She ruled with an iron fist. … And she didn’t let him get away with nothing. Nothing. And that’s how it was in Sean’s house. If he did something wrong, he’d get his ass beat. Simple as that.”
An anonymous woman who claimed to have attended Howard University with Diddy in the late 1980s alleged that she once saw him physically abuse a girlfriend on campus. At the time, the woman was looking out the window of her dorm room.
“We heard someone yelling and screaming so we pushed up the window just enough to get a little idea of what was going on,” the woman alleged in The Fall of Diddy. “We saw that it was Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, a fellow student, and he was screaming, ‘Get your ass downstairs, come downstairs right now.’ And he had taken his belt off and he was whipping the wall, mad, angry.”
When the subject of Diddy’s alleged tirade met him outside, the interviewee claimed she saw him hit the woman. “He started beating on her, whipping her with that belt, and she’s taking it,” she claimed. “So we’re yelling, ‘Get off of her, stop hitting on her, leave her alone.’ He’s yelling back, ‘Mind your business, mind your f—ing business.’ But we’re yelling back, ‘Get off of her, leave her the f— alone.’ He pushes her back into the doorway of the dorm. We don’t know what’s going on in that space, we can’t see.”
‘Vibe’ Cover Story
Scott Gries/ImageDirect
In The Fall of Diddy, former Vibe editor Danyel Smith alleged that Diddy threatened her after she refused to let him preview a 1997 magazine cover he’d done for the outlet. “I told him again we don’t show the covers, we don’t share the story,” she explained. “I told him that I wouldn’t be making an exception. And he said that he would see me dead in a trunk if I did not show it to him. I said to him, ‘You need to take that back.’”
Smith went on to claim that “two tough guys” came to the Vibe office looking for her at one point. “In order for my safety and in order for the magazine pages to remain intact, I was shuttled from office to office until the coast was clear and waited outside standing on the corner with the proofs, the pages of the magazine, that were being prepared to go to print,” she said. “And then my managing editor came down and got the pages from me and put me in a cab to Brooklyn. But the thing is, sitting right here right now, I have no memory of any of that happening. When our research chief was telling me this story, I was just like, ‘I don’t remember.’ … And she said, ‘Of course you don’t — you blacked it out, you were terrified.’”
Wardel Fenderson, who previously worked as a driver for Diddy, claimed that he saw the rapper holding a gun after the 1999 nightclub shooting in NYC that resulted in the conviction of Moses “Shyne” Barrow.
“Mr. Combs got in the vehicle, and I happened, at one point, to glance over my shoulder, and I noticed him holding a black handgun,” Fenderson alleged in The Fall of Diddy. “No words were exchanged, we made eye contact, he said nothing, I said nothing. And I proceeded en route to Club New York.”
Fenderson claimed that Diddy later threw the gun out the window and offered him $50,000 to take the one that his bodyguard Anthony “Wolf” Jones was holding. He then testified in the trial. “Yes, I was nervous about cooperating but I had to,” Fenderson said. “You have to stand up for what’s right in this world. (Diddy and Jones were both acquitted on charges of bribery and illegal possession of handguns.)
New ‘Making the Band’ Allegations
PEACOCK
In Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, Rivers — who was part of Da Band on Making the Band 2 from 2002 to 2004 — said she didn’t want to be around the mogul unless cameras were present.
“He touched me [in] a place that he shouldn’t have. That was inappropriate,” Rivers alleged. “I felt intimidated. I felt like, ‘Oh, my God, what the heck happened just now?’”
When asked for comment on Rivers’ claims, Diddy’s team issued the following statement: “This documentary recycles and perpetuates the same lies and conspiracy theories that have been slung against Mr. Combs for months. It is disappointing to see NBC and Peacock rolling in the same mud as unethical tabloid reporters. By providing a platform for proven liars and opportunists to make false criminal accusations, the documentary is irresponsible journalism of the worst kind.”
D. Woods, meanwhile, shared her story in The Fall of Diddy, claiming that her former boss said “the most degrading things” to her during her time in Danity Kane. She also claimed her former bandmate Aubrey O’Day told her Diddy sent her “very inappropriate pictures.”
“I saw a lot of things that he would email her, very sexual in nature, very just overtly pornographic things that he wanted to do to her,” Woods alleged. “She was just kind of like, ‘What do I do?’ I remember telling her, ‘Girl, put that in a folder, send it to your mama, save that.’”
When asked about Woods’ allegations, Diddy’s team issued the following statement to Us: “These documentaries are rushing to cash in on the media circus surrounding Mr. Combs. The producers failed to provide sufficient time or details for his representatives to address unsubstantiated claims, many from unidentified participants whose allegations lack context. By withholding this information, they made it impossible for Mr. Combs to present facts to counter these fabricated accusations.”
Al B. Sure, who was in a relationship with Kim Porter before she met Diddy, spoke out about the producer in Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, alleging that the rapper never adopted his and Porter’s son, Quincy. Diddy has long maintained that he adopted Quincy, now 33, as a toddler after he began dating Porter, who died in 2018 at age 47.
“There’s no adoption. None,” Sure alleged in the film. “And if you haven’t noticed, [Quincy’s] name is still Brown. People thought I was absent and things of that nature.”
Sure went on to repeat his belief that Porter did not die of natural causes. As the documentary noted, medical professionals have found no evidence that Porter died of unnatural causes. Her children, meanwhile, said in 2024 that they accept the official cause of her death.
“Our lives were shattered when we lost our mother. She was our world, and nothing has been the same since she passed,” Quincy, Christian, Jessie and D’lila said in a joint statement in September 2024. “While it has been incredibly difficult to reconcile how she could be taken from us too soon, the cause of her death has long been established. There was no foul play. Grief is a lifelong process, and we ask that everyone respect our request for peace as we continue to cope with her loss every day.”
In The Fall of Diddy, the Vibe editor, Smith, claimed that she once saw Diddy verbally abuse Porter during a night out with friends. “I’ve seen him act around Kim in ways that were just awful and very mean,” Smith alleged. “It was not a cool situation at all. He just started hollering at her that she should be at home, not out. And then he grabbed her handbag and literally turned it upside down he just emptied it out in front of everybody. I was so in shock.”
Phil Pines, a former executive assistant for Diddy, detailed allegations about so-called “wild king nights” that happened while he worked for him between 2019 and 2021. Pines claimed that he had to procure supplies for these parties as part of his job.
“We usually had a laundry list of items that included lights, alcohol, marijuana, ketamine, molly,” Pines alleged in The Fall of Diddy. “Baby oil and Astroglide were very important, candles, incense, Apple TVs, electronics, computers, iPads. Obviously, there [were] male libido supplements, stuff like that. Those requests started to become more frequent, they started to occur on a daily basis. There was a requirement we had to keep those things stocked.”
In Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, an anonymous former employee claimed that his boss preferred red lighting for parties. “Any time where the studio or any rooms is [lit] red, it’s red because he feels like [that’s] the frequency for f—ing and making love and sex,” the former employee alleged.
Working for Diddy
Peacock
Pines claimed that he had to provide “emergency cleanup” after wild king nights. “That means that he destroyed the hotel room,” he alleged. “That was, for me, probably one of the hardest things to do. When you get there and you see the wreckage, you see the stains, you see the bodily fluids, you see the used condoms, you see the baby oil, half-used Astroglide oozing down the sides of the bottle and you have to pick it up. Broken glass, urine, blood. It wasn’t uncommon for there to be stains on furniture, stains on sheets that we needed to remove.”
He added: “It’s a little triggering for me because the smell of baby oil is just something that I don’t ever want to have to smell again. I kid you not, you could slip because there was baby oil all over the floor. There would be baby oil surrounding the bathtub and there would be a bathtub full of water, and you would reach down there to unplug and you feel the baby oil was in the tub.”
Pines further alleged that he once witnessed Diddy kicking a woman. Another time, he claimed he had to take a woman home after a party and believed her to be in distress. “I don’t know what took place,” Pines said. “All I can say is that when I brought her down to the car she was shaking. Physically shaking. She didn’t look like how she looked the night before. She said something to the effect of, ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’”
In response to Pines’ claims, Diddy’s team directed Us to a previous statement issued after Pines filed a lawsuit against the rapper in December 2024: “No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Fortunately, a fair and impartial judicial process exists to find the truth, and Mr. Combs is confident he will prevail in court.”
Jourdan Cha’taun, who worked as a personal chef for Diddy in the 2000s, said that she began “having constant anxiety attacks and heart palpitations” while in his employ. “I was diagnosed with stress-induced alopecia,” she recalled. “My hair started to fall out. And then I saw a cardiologist who said that my body couldn’t handle the stress levels. He said to me, ‘If you keep this job any longer than a year, you’ll be dead.’”
Cha’taun alleged that Diddy became “enraged” with her and shoved her after she told him she wanted to quit. “I went flying outside of the doorway and I ended up on my elbows and my butt,” she claimed. “I’m telling the office, ‘I’m gonna sue this motherf—er.’ They understood that I was upset but they were like, ‘If you sue him, your career is over. You will be blackballed. He does have the power to do that and he will do that.’ Puff scared me, so I kept quiet about things that I knew because I was afraid that something might happen to me.”
Feeling Pressured
In The Fall of Diddy and his lawsuit against the rapper, Pines claimed that his former boss once pressured him into having sex with a guest at a party.
“I think my life changed a lot on that day and I’ve never really recovered from it,” Pines alleged. “This particular incident, he’d been drinking all day. … He’s out of his mind at this point. You could tell. Again, he’s in rare form, as we would call that. Rare form. I remember hearing the words, ‘Prove your loyalty to me, king.’”
Pines claimed that Diddy then gave him “a quick massage like a coach would give a player that’s about to enter the game” before handing him a condom and directing him to a guest who was on the couch.
“I froze before it took place, didn’t know what was really happening,” Pines said. “In the moment, it just felt like, ‘What? Is this fun for him? Is this a test? Is this for entertainment? Does he know that he’s actually doing this? Is he that gone?’ I didn’t know what to do. She gave me the consent, like, ‘Yeah,’ nodded her head. And I performed for a little bit. And then I ran out of there as soon as I didn’t see him in my sight anymore.”
Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy is now streaming on Peacock. The Fall of Diddy is available on Max.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know are experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
Bruno Mars may not have any gambling debts — but he does have jokes.
The Grammy winner, 39, made a joke about his rumored financial problems while celebrating a new career milestone on Tuesday, January 28.
“KEEP STREAMING! I’ll be out of debt in no time,” Mars wrote via his Instagram Story alongside a post announcing that he recently became the first artist in Spotify history to reach 150 million monthly listeners.
The post, which also included a dancing man emoji, was soundtracked by Silk Sonic’s “777,” which features lyrics like, “I’m ’bout to buy Las Vegas after this roll.”
Mars was referencing the persistent rumor that he is in severe gambling debt to MGM, the company that hosts his Vegas residencies. Last year, a report claimed that Mars owed $50 million to the corporation and was continuing to play Vegas shows in order to work off his debts. MGM, however, vehemently denied the rumor.
“We’re proud of our relationship with Bruno Mars, one of the world’s most thrilling and dynamic performers,” a spokesperson from MGM Grand said in a statement at the time. “From his shows at Dolby Live at Park MGM to the new Pinky Ring lounge at Bellagio, Bruno’s brand of entertainment attracts visitors from around the globe.”
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
The rep continued: “MGM and Bruno’s partnership is longstanding and rooted in mutual respect. Any speculation otherwise is completely false; he has no debt with MGM. Together, we are excited to continue creating unforgettable experiences for our guests.”
Mars, meanwhile, quipped about the speculation during one of his shows. “Ever since those articles came out about me owing the casino money you stopped picking up my calls,” he joked while speaking into a prop phone in September 2024. “It’s me, baby — I got money.”
One month prior, Mars teased that he didn’t want to outright deny the rumors because he likes the extra cachet it gives him.
“I love the lore that I am a Las Vegas lounge singer in debt to the mob,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in June 2024. “I can work with that.”
Mars recently announced a new string of dates at the Park MGM kicking off on May 21 and running through June 2. He also just released “Fat Juicy & Wet,” a raunchy collaboration with rapper Sexxy Red. He currently holds the No. 1 and No. 3 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 thanks to “Die With a Smile” with Lady Gaga and “APT.” with Blackpink’s Rosé, respectively.
Phil Pines, a former assistant for Sean “Diddy” Combs, is speaking out about his time working for the rapper — and alleging that he witnessed some damning incidents during his two years of employment.
Pines detailed his time with Diddy, 55, in the finale of Investigation Discovery’s The Fall of Diddy docuseries, which aired on Tuesday, January 28. Pines previously worked as an executive assistant for the mogul from December 2019 and December 2021.
“Look, there’s partying and then there’s partying,” Pines alleged. “There [were] guests that would frequently come over and participate in these intimate situations. Sometimes you would see new faces. Sometimes you’d see new faces come in and you wouldn’t see them again.”
Pines noted that he “wasn’t in these rooms while these things were happening,” but claimed he once interacted with a woman who he claims didn’t seem alright following her alleged encounter with Diddy.
Investigation Discovery
“I remember a time when Diddy told me to come up and grab one of his guest’s bags, take her down to the car and drive her to her hotel,” Pines alleged. “I don’t know what took place. All I can say is that when I brought her down to the car, she was shaking. Physically shaking. She didn’t look like how she looked the night before. She said something to the effect of, ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’”
Pines also described a separate incident in which he allegedly witnessed Diddy kicking a woman who’d been a guest at his Florida home.
“I absolutely witnessed violence, yes,” he claimed. “Things were getting a little heated. They were being very argumentative. He cursed at her — ‘I told you I was crazy.’ Kicked her. She fell to the ground, kicked her again.”
According to Pines, Diddy allegedly told the woman to take off a hoodie she had borrowed from him, leaving her topless. In response, Pines said he took his own jacket off and gave it to the woman before sending her home in an Uber.
Pines previously outlined these and other allegations against Diddy in a lawsuit filed last month. In response to the docuseries, Diddy’s legal team directed Us Weekly to the same statement they gave regarding the suit: “No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Fortunately, a fair and impartial judicial process exists to find the truth, and Mr. Combs is confident he will prevail in court.”
Diddy is currently in jail awaiting trial following his September 2024 arrest on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied all the allegations against him and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
All episodes of The Fall of Diddy are now available to stream on Max and Discovery+.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Phil Pines, a former assistant for Sean “Diddy” Combs, opened up about his alleged experiences with the rapper in the new Investigation Discovery docuseries The Fall of Diddy.
Pines spoke for the first time on camera during the show’s fifth episode, which premiered on Tuesday, January 28.
“The reason I wanted to tell my story was to make sure that Sean Combs and people like him can’t do these kinds of things to anybody else,” Pines told journalist Mara S. Campo. “It’s hard to come here and sit down with you and talk about these situations, because he was somebody that I looked up to.”
Pines, who worked as an executive assistant for Diddy from December 2019 to December 2021, filed a lawsuit against the mogul last month. Diddy’s legal team addressed the filing in a statement to Us at the time, saying: “No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Fortunately, a fair and impartial judicial process exists to find the truth, and Mr. Combs is confident he will prevail in court.”
Pines repeated many of his claims in The Fall of Diddy, including the allegation that he had to clean up hotel rooms after so-called “wild king nights.” (Pines claimed that he knew Diddy’s parties only as wild king nights and did not hear the term “freak off” until he’d left his employment.)
According to Pines, he would be told via text message that he needed to come to a room and provide “emergency cleanup.” After Campo asked what that phrase meant, Pines elaborated.
Rebecca Sapp/WireImage for The Recording Academy
“That means that he destroyed the hotel room,” he alleged. “That was, for me, probably one of the hardest things to do. When you get there and you see the wreckage, you see the stains, you see the bodily fluids, you see the used condoms, you see the baby oil, half-used Astroglide oozing down the sides of the bottle — and you have to pick it up. Broken glass, urine, blood. It wasn’t uncommon for there to be stains on furniture, stains on sheets that we needed to remove. One can only imagine what was actually happening. It’s disgusting.”
Pines went on to say that he now has a visceral reaction to baby oil following his years working for Diddy, 55.
“It’s a little triggering for me because the smell of baby oil is just something that I don’t ever want to have to smell again,” he explained. “I kid you not, you could slip because there was baby oil all over the floor. There would be baby oil surrounding the bathtub and there would be a bathtub full of water, and you would reach down there to unplug and you feel the baby oil was in the tub.”
Investigation Discovery
After Diddy’s homes were raided in March 2024, investigators later said they “seized various ‘Freak Off’ supplies, including narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.” Following Diddy’s September 2024 indictment, which included the baby oil detail, his lawyer Marc Agnifilo said his client “buys in bulk.”
“I mean, he has a big house,” Agnifilo told TMZ at the time. “I think they have Costcos in every place where he has a home.”
Later in the interview, Pines claimed that his former boss once pressured him to participate in a wild king night by having sex with a female guest.
“I think my life changed a lot on that day and I’ve never really recovered from it,” Pines told Campo. “This particular incident, he’d been drinking all day. … He’s out of his mind at this point. You could tell. Again, he’s in rare form, as we would call that. Rare form. I remember hearing the words, ‘Prove your loyalty to me, king.’”
Pines alleged that Diddy then gave him “a quick massage like a coach would give a player that’s about to enter the game” before handing him a condom and directing him to a guest who was on the couch.
“I froze before it took place, didn’t know what was really happening,” Pines said. “In the moment, it just felt like, ‘What? Is this fun for him? Is this a test? Is this for entertainment? Does he know that he’s actually doing this? Is he that gone?’ I didn’t know what to do. She gave me the consent, like, ‘Yeah,’ nodded her head. And I performed for a little bit. And then I ran out of there as soon as I didn’t see him in my sight anymore.”
When asked why he didn’t tell Diddy no, Pines claimed that he was worried about the repercussions if he pushed back.
“I heard about previous employees getting physically assaulted,” he alleged. “I saw how angry and upset he could get from the most simple thing. And I just thought to myself, ‘If I don’t do this, I don’t know what’s gonna happen.’”
Investigation Discovery
Following the incident, Pines said he “had a great sense of remorse” but didn’t initially tell anyone what had happened. “I wanted to tell somebody, but there was so much at stake,” he recalled. “I knew if I had said anything that a kind of bomb would just explode. I hid that from everybody, including my significant other, my family, other employees.”
Diddy’s legal team responded to the docuseries’ claims in a statement to producers, saying, “Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone. … We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Fortunately, a fair and impartial judicial process exists to find the truth, and Mr. Combs is confident he will prevail in court.”
Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs split in 2013, but they’ve remained committed to amicably coparenting their son, Walker.
The exes welcomed Walker in 2009, six years after tying the knot. The former couple met in 1995 while starring together in the original Broadway production of Rent, later reprising their roles in the 2005 film adaptation.
While their romance didn’t last, Diggs has said that he’s proud of the legacy he and Menzel left on Rent, which became one of the longest-running shows in Broadway history. “[Idina] made history in that show and continues to make history with her singing and whatnot,” he said on The Drew Barrymore Show in January 2021. “And to know that I was right there, I loved sharing that with my son. Like, Daddy was there when the world first listened to her.”
Menzel went on to wed Aaron Lohr in 2017. In her 2022 documentary, Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?, the singer revealed she had given up on having another child after undergoing multiple rounds of IVF.
“I didn’t think I wanted to have a baby, but then Aaron has been the most amazing man to my son — who has a wonderful dad — but has found a way to have his own incredible relationship with Walker,” she shared.
Keep scrolling for Diggs and Menzel’s quotes about parenting Walker:
"Hopefully he’ll grow up in an environment where he won’t think much of it and it will be very commonplace," Menzel told Pride Source when asked what she would say if her son came out as LGTBQ+. "And yet, if for some reason that discussion did arise, Taye and I would say, 'If we were to have a son or daughter who were gay, they wouldn’t meet any resistance with us.' ... In our house, in our family and with our friends, he already is in the company of — and loved by — all sorts of people. [Taye and I] have very supportive parents and so it’s more the outside world that tends to put some stigma on it, even in this day and age. I think it’s just about raising a son that’s going to be mixed race and how to tackle that and what that means — even religiously and spirituality, we have a lot of stuff ahead of us. I want to be really clear and defined so that it’s not confusing."
Diggs told Us that he and his ex-wife "trust each other" when it comes to raising Walker. “I mean, it’s not even about trust," he explained. "We both love our son so much, that the best way to raise him is to provide him with whatever we can — healthy foods. ... We wanna do right by our kid."
“I’m the last person to give advice, but I think you can’t go wrong when you just put the kid first,” the Empire alum told Us. “Put the kid first and it really prioritizes all the other bull.”
Walker's feelings about Frozen hadn't changed by the time the sequel premiered in 2019, but he was happy to attend the film's premiere with his mom. ”He was very territorial and so the next day I said, ‘Honey, I’m just curious, you were holding mommy’s hand a lot?’" Menzel recalled during an interview with Ryan Seacrest. "And he said, ‘Well, I was a little overwhelmed and also I wanted people to know that you’re my mommy because they were all acting like they knew you.' And he turned to me in the premiere and was like, ‘Badass.’”
Menzel admitted that she felt some anxiety about turning 50, but her son helped her keep it in check. "He says, 'Mom, don't look in the mirror and worry about how you look. You're beautiful,'" she told Glamour. "I'm learning as a parent that you really have to walk the walk and talk the talk because that's what kids really see. They're so insightful."
After releasing his children's book, Why?: A Conversation about Race, Diggs explained that Walker was helpful throughout his writing and publishing process. “Before I showed him the book, we actually had a few conversations about what was going on in society with Black Lives Matter, so that's kind of what prompted the book,” the Best Man star said during an interview with Tamron Hall. “After I wrote [the book], I just wanted him to give his blessing because with him, he can tell if I'm trying to fish and ...if I'm trying to fish he's not going to give me what he thinks I need. But I just said, ‘What do you think?’ and he said, ‘It was good, Dad. It’s really, really cool. It was really, really deep.’”
Diggs revealed that he suffered from insomnia shortly after Walker was born, which he then self-medicated using alcohol. "What hit me harder was when it began affecting my relationship with my son. I just wasn't in control of how I wanted to be with him," he told Best Life. "There was time that he wanted to spend with me ... and I just couldn't fake it. ... That just didn't sit well with me."
When asked whether Walker planned to follow in his and Menzel’s showbiz footsteps, Diggs exclusively told Us, “I’m trying to let him make those decisions. He’s got a beautiful voice. He’s hilarious. He’s very good-looking. He can do all the things that I can do even better.”
At the time, Diggs noted that Walker was more focused on sports than music, sharing, “He’s found basketball and he’s dedicated to that and we’re just doing everything we can to support him.”
Diggs exclusively told Us that being a dad to Walker helped him work through the rough parts of his and Menzel’s split. “As you could imagine, when a couple splits you’re caught up in your own feelings,” he shared. “But I was thinking of Walker and that helped take me out of my own head. And it gave me a place to focus the energy. And then once we started, then it was working and we just stayed on that track. We’re proud of ourselves.”
He also said that one of the “most rewarding” things he’s experienced as a dad is getting to have “adult conversations” with his son. “[Walker] has a mind that works and can challenge me, and that’s amazing when you help create a little being, and now they’re in conversations with you.”
Unlike lots of kids around the globe, Diggs said that Walker was not the biggest fan of Menzel’s hit animated film Frozen. “He got sick of [it] pretty quickly, [as] you can imagine,” he joked to Us, noting that Walker preferred other Disney films such as Coco, The Princess and the Frog and Pocahontas. “We still watch them, and he just now is realizing a lot of the brilliance of Disney,” he said. “They’ll make story lines accessible to their children and the adults alike so that adults don’t get sick of the stories.”
Menzel told Today.com that she is “very proud” of her and Diggs’ coparenting relationship. “We really don’t believe in putting a child in the middle of anything and forcing them to have to choose in any way, and we never speak poorly of the other. I’m really proud of us for putting him first,” she explained.
She also revealed that Walker is homeschooled so that he can split time between her and Diggs’ respective homes in New York and California. “I can’t be away from him for more than a couple weeks,” she quipped. “I’m too controlling.”
She went on to gush about her then 15-year-old son, stating, “He’s my guy. And he’s a very soulful, intuitive kid. He’s the best thing [that’s] ever happened to me, really.”
Michael Polansky and Lady GagaKarwai Tang/WireImage
Lady Gaga’s fiancé, Michael Polansky, is engaged to one of the most famous women in the world, but he’s taking it in stride.
The tech entrepreneur, 41, opened up about his relationship in Elle’s February cover story on the pop star, published on Tuesday, January 28.
“Accepting that you won’t have the privacy others might have was the hardest part,” Polansky explained. “But Stefani’s comfort with it and patience with me has been amazing. Our relationship is probably a lot like everyone else’s. We just have to figure out how to do some of it in public. That makes it even more important for us to have strong friendships and close family relationships. We find normalcy where we can.”
Gaga (whose real name is Stefani Germanotta) echoed her fiancé’s sentiments, saying that the couple love to spend nights at their Los Angeles home with friends and family. “We make pasta together; we roast things,” she said. “We also really like making simple dishes with Michael’s mom, who lives nearby.”
The Grammy winner, 38, connected with Polansky through her own mom, Cynthia Germanotta, who set the pair up after she met Polansky at a charity event over five years ago. “I’ve met your future husband,” Cynthia famously told her daughter.
Gray Sorrenti/ELLE
Gaga confirmed her engagement to Polansky in July 2024. The duo were first linked in late 2019 and quarantined together during the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020.
Polansky served as an executive producer on Gaga’s seventh studio album, Mayhem, which she officially announced on Monday, January 27. Mayhem is set for release on Friday, March 7.
“This album was so much fun to watch her make,” Polansky told Elle. “She recorded it right down the street from our house, so we could easily walk back and forth from the studio. I spent a lot of time with her, bringing my laptop to work while she was there. What surprised me most was how fast she is. I couldn’t believe how quickly a song would take shape. Within five minutes, 80 percent of the song would have come from nothing.”
While Gaga is gearing up for the next chapter of her career, she’s also thinking about starting a family with Polansky, telling the outlet that she thinks of her future as being about “me and Michael and our kids.”
She added that she and Polansky have already discussed how they’d like to raise any children they have.
“That’s something Michael and I have talked about a lot — allowing our kids to be their own people,” she recalled. “It’s such an intense thing for kids coming into the world. And they’re told how to think and what to believe in and how to eat … I just kind of want to let my kids find out who they are.”
Christina Haack is getting real about what it’s like to film her new HGTV show, The Flip Off, following her split from ex Josh Hall.
“It’s so much easier without somebody else bothering me,” the interior designer, 41, said during the Tuesday, January 28, episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show. “I mean, I don’t have to ask approval from anyone, no one’s weighing me down.”
When host Jennifer Hudson asked whether Haack feels that she has a “disadvantage” without Hall by her side, she replied, “No, I think I have an advantage.”
The Flip Off stars Haack, her ex-husband Tarek El Moussa and his wife, Heather Rae El Moussa. Hall was originally set to appear alongside Haack on the house-flipping competition show, but those plans changed after their July 2024 breakup. He appears in the first episode of the series, which debuts Wednesday, January 29, but Haack filmed later episodes without him.
Josh Hall and Christina Hall attend the World Premiere of “Barbie” at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on July 09, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
After the sneak peek dropped online, Hall wrote via Instagram, “TFW you can’t get enough ratings with celebrity designers so you manufactured drama with me, a nobody. @hgtv, you’ve changed.”
In response, Haack replied via her own Instagram Story, “Manufactured?! Pretty sure no one at Hgtv told you to be rude to me. … That was all natural.”
In an exclusive Us Weekly cover story earlier this month, Haack claimed that Hall “was very hard to film with” during the brief time he was on the show. “He didn’t get it,” she added. “He’d always get upset with me, like, ‘Oh, my gosh, you did this’ or ‘You did that.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m making a TV show.’ Ultimately, it was better that he left after episode one because the show would’ve sucked.”
She also confirmed that she never thought about calling off the show because of her split from Hall. (The original premise was that the two couples would compete against each other.)
Heather Rae El Moussa, Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack appear with Jennifer Hudson on “The Jennifer Hudson Show” airing January 28, 2025 in Burbank, California.Chris Haston/WBTV via Getty Images
“This isn’t Josh’s show. No one’s going to miss that he’s not in it,” Haack said. “Josh is not a TV host, he’s not a house flipper, he’s not a designer. He was just my husband in it. With Tarek, we built everything together, and I still have respect for him. I have no respect for Josh.”
Haack revealed on Friday, January 24, that she legally restored her maiden name after previously using “Hall” during her third marriage. “Identifying as only married twice,” she quipped via Instagram. “Time to update the Wikipedia.”
Cardi B has never been afraid to push the envelope when it comes to style — and that’s even more true now that she’s debuted her latest body piercing.
“Soooo …….i got my butt crack pierced ,” the rapper, 32, revealed in an X post on Monday, January 27.
When another X user demanded photo proof that the piercing in question happened, Cardi was happy to oblige.
“Do I lie?” she quipped in a second post, which included a blurry photo of her backside, now decorated with two diamond studs.
This is not the first time Cardi has committed herself to unusual (and potentially painful) body modifications. In 2020, she unveiled a new back tattoo that took over 60 hours to complete.
Courtesy of Cardi B/X
“Okay guys! Soooo here it is! It took me several months but I’m finally finished,” she wrote via Instagram in May 2020, sharing a photo of the body art. “This is my back tattoo! It goes from the top of my back to the middle of my thigh.”
The artist who did the tattoo, Jamie Schene, noted at the time that he completed the tattoo in 10 different cities. “It was an awesome project and a crazy experience,” he wrote via Instagram at the time. “Thanks for the dedication, strength, and hospitality.”
In 2023, Cardi showed off her new Monroe piercing, so named because it resembles Marilyn Monroe’s famous beauty mark. “Cardi B came by the shop and got some piercings from me the other day!” piercer Harrison McCall captioned an Instagram photo of the piercing, which sits slightly above Cardi’s lip. “We did an awesome Monroe piercing and some cool ear stuff as well. Thanks for the trust!”
Cardi returned to McCall last year for a few more earrings, showing off the work in a TikTok video. “I came in for one thing,” she joked in the clip. “Look what Harrison did!”