Ej Panaligan Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EJ Panaligan editor In light of recent sexual misconduct accusations against Arcade Fire lead singer Win Butler, the band’s current opener Feist has announced she is exiting the tour on Thursday. “To stay on tour would symbolize I was either defending or ignoring the harm caused by Win Butler, and to leave would imply I was the judge and jury,” Feist wrote in an Instagram post, detailing her decision to leave the tour. “I was never here to stand for or with Arcade Fire — I was here to stand on my own two feet on a stage, a place I’ve grown to feel I belong and I’ve earned as my own. I play for my band, my crew, their loved ones and all of our families and the people who pay their hard-earned money to share space in the collective synergy that is a show. The ebb and flow of my successes, failures and other decisions affect all of our livelihoods and I recognize how lucky I am to be able to travel the world singing songs about my life, my thoughts and experiences and have that be my career. I’ve never taken that for granted.”

EJ Panaligan editor Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson have teamed up once again — this time to throw cyber criminals against walls. The two stars appear in a new cybersecurity awareness PSA from Amazon as a part of the company’s protect and connect program, which aims to teach Internet users how to protect themselves from phishing and other cybersecurity threats. The PSA features Jordan and Thompson saving unsuspecting internet users from sketchy internet schemes. The PSA comes as a follow up on Amazon’s commitments at the White House Cybersecurity Summit in 2021. “Being part of this PSA was an opportunity to work with Tessa again, one of my mentors — Paul Hunter, and to support the Amazon family to get this message out that cyber security and your privacy is really important,” Jordan said. “Nobody wants their information stolen. As much as you can protect your information, and your family and friends, you should do that.”   

EJ Panaligan editor Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian politician who served as the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, has died at the age of 91, according to the Associated Press. The Central Clinical Hospital in Russia provided a statement to Russian news organizations that Gorbachev died after suffering from an undisclosed, long-term illness. Gorbachev served as the leader of the Soviet Union during its demise in 1991. He resigned on Christmas of that year after spending the last few months in office watching different republics declare independence. His initiatives and reforms led to the end of the Cold War but resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

EJ Panaligan editor The HBO documentary series “The Vow,” from filmmakers Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer will return for its second installment on October 17. The network shared a teaser for “The Vow Part Two” — a six-part continuation of the series, which became a sensation — with new episodes airing on subsequent Mondays. The series follows the story of the NXIVM organization, and the second installment will be set against the backdrop of the federal trial of against Keith Raniere. It will offer looks into Raniere’s innermost circle, including NXIVM co-founder Nancy Salzman, who wasn’t interviewed for “The Vow,” but has been for this second installment. According to its logline, “The docuseries will chronicle the legal and emotional journeys of the group’s founders, supporters and defectors, as new evidence comes to light in a case at the forefront of the national spotlight.”

EJ Panaligan editor The 2022 MTV VMA awards are underway at the Prudential Center in New Jersey, and awards will be handed out shortly in categories like video of the year, song of the year and best new artist. In addition to the awards, host Nicki Minaj will be honored during the show with the Video Vanguard Award, while the Global Icon Award will be given to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Nominees throughout the categories include Madonna, who is the most-awarded artist in VMAs history with 20 wins, Beyoncé, Harry Styles, Bad Bunny, Adele and more. Performers for tonight’s show include Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Blackpink, Bad Bunny, Anitta, Jack Harlow, Kane Brown and more.

EJ Panaligan editor To drive tune-in and engagement for Sunday’s Video Music Awards telecast, MTV is turning to TikTok, Roblox and other social platforms to get the conversation started and keep it going after the Moon Man statuettes are handed out. The VMAs are the “social media Super Bowl” for MTV and the team behind the VMAs has done more extensive work than ever before in the social realm in an effort to pull out all the stops for this year’s bash, according to Tyler Hissey, senior VP of digital marketing for Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios. Social media chatter about the VMAs is up 121% from where it at the same point in 2021. Online voting for the event is up 10%.

EJ Panaligan editor Stars of Netflix’s “Me Time,” including Kevin Hart, Mark Wahlberg and Regina Hall gathered at the Fox Theater in Westwood on Tuesday to celebrate the John Hamburg-directed buddy comedy’s red carpet premiere. “I was able to just go to work and have fun every day,” Wahlberg told Variety. “John created an amazing environment for everybody, not just myself, Kevin and Regina, but for everybody to be at their creative best and try things.” The comedy follows Kevin Hart’s Sonny Fisher, a stay-at-home dad who decides to take some personal time away for himself by reconnecting with Wahlberg’s Huck for a weekend birthday trip.

EJ Panaligan editor Joe E. Tata, the character actor best known for playing Nat Bussichio in the popular teen drama series “Beverly Hills, 90210,” died on Wednesday, his daughter Kelly announced on their GoFundMe page. He was 85. He had long been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, having been officially diagnosed in 2018 according to Kelly’s GoFundMe fundraiser. “The remaining funds raised from this campaign will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association,” she wrote. “90210” star Ian Ziering posted on Instagram a heartfelt account of his experiences working with Tata.

EJ Panaligan editor Doing a rare one-off show Tuesday night at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, hip-hop star Vince Staples shared his thoughts on Capitol Records’ controversial AI rapper FN Meka, who was officially declared dropped from the company earlier in the day after the project came under fire due to accusations of racial stereotyping. “You seen that little AI rapper moonwalking and saying [the N-word]? It’s over with,” he jokingly said. “In a couple years, we’re all gonna be AIs — they’re gonna get rid of me.” That hardly seemed likely to be the case any decade soon, as the Long Beach rapper took center stage to perform a 90-minute retrospective set that took fans on a musical walk in the park, playing hits from his entire discography to date, as well as sharing some of the stories behind the material.

EJ Panaligan editor Gerald Potterton, an animator and filmmaker whose most notable works include “Heavy Metal” and the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” film, died on Aug. 23, the National Film Board of Canada announced on Wednesday. He was 91. He died at the Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital in Cowansville, Quebec, where he lived for most of his life. His most prominent work was directing the 1981 animated cult classic “Heavy Metal,” an anthology film of different science fiction and fantasy stories surrounding a force that is described as “the sum of all evils.” He also worked as an animator on the Beatles’ 1968 musical comedy “Yellow Submarine,” which became lauded as a work that broadened the general population’s interest in animation.

EJ Panaligan editor Sophie Allison, better known as Soccer Mommy in the music world, has always been fascinated with mixing beauty and ugliness in her songwriting. On Aug. 22, Allison sat down with Los Angeles Times pop music critic Mikael Wood at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles for an extensive conversation about how this method plays into her latest studio album, “Sometimes, Forever,” before playing a stripped-back guitar set of songs from the record. “Mixing things like love and all of these romantic feelings with harsher ideas, I think that’s come out in both my lyrics and the way that the production has gone,” Allison said during the conversation. “When I was 17 recording stuff in my bedroom, I don’t think it was going that way, but as I started doing albums, I got to play with that more.”

EJ Panaligan editor“She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” star Tatiana Maslany says late experimental pop musician Sophie inspired her work as the green-skinned superhero.“Musically, Sophie just lives in this place that I always want to live in, but there’s a poppiness and femininity combined with these clashing industrial sounds,” Maslany tells Variety about the parallels between Sophie’s music and playing the dual role of Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk. “Her music video ‘Faceshopping’ was all about skin, commodification of body and being separated into different parts, and that all felt thematically and spiritually connected.”The Grammy-nominated producer and musician died at 34 years old in January 2021 due to a climbing accident in Greece.