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Justin Bieber Hires Adele’s Publicist, Posts Lists of “Values” and Affirmations Including “Rest as Worship” and “Servanthood”

Roger Friedman
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Justin Bieber Hires Adele’s Publicist, Posts Lists of “Values” and Affirmations Including “Rest as Worship” and “Servanthood”

The Curious Case of Justin Bieber continues.

The reluctant, scowling pop star has named Adele’s publicist, Benny Tarantini, in a kind of announcement apropos of nothing.

He’s also listed a set of affirmations, or “values,” as he calls them including “Rest as Worship” and “HEALTH and physical wellness as an act of stewardship.”

These are from a kid who is often red-eyed from smoking lots of pop.

The announcement, from his Bieber Family Office, cites his two upcoming performances next April at Coachella.

Also noted are reviews for his album, “Swag,” deliberately misquoting a New Yorker review omitting the word ‘messy’ from ‘messy improbably masterpiece’ and maybe misunderstanding the essay to be a send up of Bieber.

The reviewer summarizes Bieber succinctly, leaving out the time he wrote “Anne Frank would have been a Belieber” in the guest book at her museum in Amsterdam. “Controversy follows him, as does tabloid coverage of these controversies,” Brady Brickner-Wood wrote, “which often have a paternalistic bent: Is he back on drugs? Has his marriage to the model Hailey Bieber soured? Is he mentally ill? Is he spending enough time with his newborn son? He’s been charged with a D.U.I., acknowledged suicidal ideation, and berated paparazzi for bothering him at the beach.”

Bieber’s “Swag” album, which recently picked up a few Grammy nominations in the lightest year in ten, did not fly off the shelves. Total sales so far are 18,675 in paid downloads. But streaming brought it up to 730,900 largely pushed by sales of the singles, “Daisies” and “Yukon.” Now available as two vinyl discs — for $42.99 — “Swag” has finally entered the physical world, albeit not on CD.

If Coachella happens, there’s always the chance Bieber will announce a tour if not a residency in a place like Las Vegas, where Adele put down roots rather than go from city to city. For someone who is easily knocked off course, that would seem like the right idea for Bieber.

Here are the values of the Bieber Family Office which also includes his lawyer, his quasi-manager, and his wife, Hailey, now a cosmetics tycoon.

We value Rest as Worship.

We value Longevity and a sustainable pace of life.

We value Quality and excellence of production.

We value INNOVATION and moving the human experience forward.

We value HEALTH and physical wellness as an act of stewardship.

We value Sustainability and creating products that serve humanity.

We value Servanthood and making people feel like they can fly.

We value Generosity and graciously giving time, money, and respect to people on our path.

We value Life as a gift and practice daily gratitude for the day that has been given to us.

We value HUMAN beings and believe in their dignity and eternal worth.

“Piper No!” Parker Posey and The White Lotus Cast Have a Lot to Say About Incest, Southern Accents, and “Grey Gardens”

Regina Weinreich
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“Piper No!” Parker Posey and The White Lotus Cast Have a Lot to Say About Incest, Southern Accents, and “Grey Gardens”

The Thailand season of “The White Lotus” never ends.

On Tuesday night, the cast of season 3 of the hit HBO series was seated onstage at the DGA theater in NY following a screening of the fifth episode. Parker Posey, Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, Sam Rockwell, Walton Goggins, Tayme Thapthimthong, Jason Isaacs, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sam Nivola, and Sarah Catherine Hook gathered for a Q&A.

The audience was composed of Guild members, mostly actors.

Dressed in a lacy white gown with black trim evoking a Southern gothic look, Parker Posey revealed how showrunner/director Mike White prepared her for the role as Victoria Ratliff, who became famous for drinking, ignoring reality, and spouting memorable lines like “Piper, no!” with an impeccable Southern accent.

“Think Big Edie from Grey Gardens,” Posey recounted White telling her.

The episode that screened concerned the aforementioned Piper confessing she had conned her family into vacationing at the ultra-luxurious Thailand retreat so she can cajole them into letting her join a Buddhist meditation center. Drama queen mom knows best. Parker, a master at drug-woozy drawls, applied Big Edie parenting wisdom knowing one night in deprivation no matter the spiritual reward is too much for the privileged draws the line at poverty: “You go right ahead.”

SAG members were rapt hearing the ensemble’s take on living at the five-star resort in close quarters with one another in preparation for making a TV family. Leslie Bibb — wearing a baby doll dress — said she helped real life partner Sam Rockwell learn the lines of his super-calibrated monologue while they were on safari. That monologue, deeply troubling to Goggins’ Rick, reveals the actors’ shorthand. Rockwell as Frank admitting to living a very double life was one of the shocks of the season.

 

Hearing that, Jason Isaacs — who played Posey’s self medicating husband in financial peril — had monologue-envy. It’s easier to have lines, but all he does is brood, imagining killing his family and then himself. How did he prepare, he was asked? The actor said he just thought of his own children, who visited the set with their mother, his wife, in Thailand.

Isaacs recalled, “We were planning to go to dinner, and I said, Let’s ask the kids to join us.” His kids’ response? “We’re your kids.”

Sam Nivola called “The White Lotus” acting boot camp. He learned from everybody, he said. His character, Lochlan, stopped the series in an incestuous moment with elder brother Saxon, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger. Meticulous to the end, White insisted the brothers return to the family villa wearing each other’s shorts.

Catching up with young Nivola at the Russian Tea Room after party, where only those with yellow wrist bands were invited, I asked how his parents, actors Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer, reacted to the salacious scene. Sam, just twenty two, was anxious watching with them. “I’m lucky,” he said with diplomacy, “to have grown up in an actor environment.” They took it in.

“The White Lotus” is still in hunt for nominations and awards from SAG, the Critics Choice, and Golden Globes. The episode shown on Tuesday night featured Sam Rockwell’s speech as Frank, and deserves every award it can get.

Watch:

Hollywood Shock: Trade Rag Promotes Antisemitic Rhetoric from “Influencer” Hasan Piker Who Calls Gal Gadot A “Dogsh*t Actress”

Roger Friedman
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Hollywood Shock: Trade Rag Promotes Antisemitic Rhetoric from “Influencer” Hasan Piker Who Calls Gal Gadot A “Dogsh*t Actress”

I’m more than a little shocked tonight, and anyone who read Variety should be, too.

The Hollywood trade has given a platform to noted antisemite influencer Hasan Piker. It’s not just an interview with Tatiana Siegel. There’s also a costly photo shoot for this spewer of hate who says in the interview: “I abhor antisemitism, and I’ve spent my entire professional media career combating it. I just happen to be anti-Israel.”

Why would they do this? They let Piker call Israeli actress Gal Gadot “a dogshit actress”…who “should be banned from the Oscars.”

Piker says “I think she should be banned from the Oscars for being a dogshit actress. I think she has no business being there for the crime of what she has done to not only the DC franchise, but really any movie she’s been a part of. All jokes aside, Gal Gadot serves an important role in normalizing Israel as not a fascist ethno-state, but instead a place where a lot of beautiful women come from. And those beautiful women happen to serve in the IDF, because there’s also this weird sexualization of the forces as well that takes place, and it plays another role in normalizing Israel and its activities and actions, and whitewashing it.”

I’m repeating what Piker said in Variety just to illustrate how shocking and offensive this, and to underline how the trade — owned by Penske Media — felt no constraint about printing it. (I wonder how their Hollywood Reporter editor Maer Roshan, also Israeli, feels about that.)

Piker also claims that “Superman” director and DC Comics movies chief James Gunn made the violent fictional nation of Boravia is a stand-in for Israel. Gunn, of course, denies this vehemently.

He also goes after newly appointed CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss as “everything that I despise about access journalism brown-nosing to institutionally powerful people and a major advocate for Israel as well.”

I’d like to know what Variety’s readership thinks of Siegel’s interview, which is presented as declaration by Piker and not a criticism. Siegel, who is Jewish herself, gives no impression throughout that Piker is to be despised or what he’s saying is just pure hate. Siegel is not alone in her blame her. So is the photographer, someone named Dan Doperalski, who didn’t have any problem styling this POS and making him look a movie star.

Is this the tone the trades are going to take now? Frightening.

Beatles: Trailer for Sean Ono Lennon’s Oscar Winning Animated Film “War is Over” About His Parents’ Music Debuts Today

Roger Friedman
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Beatles: Trailer for Sean Ono Lennon’s Oscar Winning Animated Film “War is Over” About His Parents’ Music Debuts Today

Come back at 1pm.

The trailer for Sean Ono Lennon’s Oscar winning animated film debuts on YouTube. (See at bottom.)

The film, “War Is Over,” about the music of Sean’s parents John Lennon and Yoko Ono, hits YouTube on December 1st.

It’s based on the best ever Christmas song in the rock era, “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” There’s also a children’s book from Penguin Random House.

Co-written by Sean Ono Lennon and 20-year Pixar alumni – writer, director, and animator Dave Mullins (“Up,” “Soul,” “Incredibles 2,” “Cars 2”), directed by Mullins and produced by Brad Booker (“Iron Giant,” “The Book of Life,” “Rumble”), it is Executive Produced by Sean Ono Lennon and Yoko Ono Lennon, with a score composed by 15-time Oscar®-nominee, Thomas Newman.

Sean says: Sean Ono Lennon says: “In 2023, I worked with Dave Mullins and Brad Booker on an animated short film called WAR IS OVER! – about a wartime carrier pigeon delivering messages across the battlefield between two chess-playing soldiers – which I’m delighted to say, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. On 1 December this year we are premiering the film on YouTube and simultaneously raising donations for the charity Warchild – throughout the holiday season. We would be honoured if you would help us spread the word about the film and John & Yoko’s timeless message that ‘War is over if you want it.'”

PS The Beatles broke up in 1970. Paul McCartney is on tour and has just dropped Wings retrospective album and book. The Beatles are dropping a new Anthology set on CD and DVD. Ringo Starr just announced a spring tour of his All Stars. It never ends! Thank goodness!

Hollywood Stars Lining Up for Saudi Arabian Red Sea Film Festival Include Angelina Jolie: Same Criticism as Comedians?

Roger Friedman
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Hollywood Stars Lining Up for Saudi Arabian Red Sea Film Festival Include Angelina Jolie: Same Criticism as Comedians?

It’s only a minute ago that comedians were criticized for attending the recent Riyadh Comedy festival in Saudi Arabia. Top among the critics was Human Rights Watch.

Now Hollywood stars are lining up for the Red Sea Festival in Riyadh. Among them: Angelina Jolie, Paul Dano, Jude Law, Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley.

Oscar winner Sean Baker, who just won his statue for “Anora,” will head up the jury.

Rowan Athale’s “Giant,” which tells the story of British-Yemeni boxing champion Prince Naseem ‘Naz’ Hamed, will be the opening night film. It features Pierce Brosnan and is produced by Sylvester Stallone.

Will any of these stars get the same scrutiny as the comedians? I doubt it. Despite Saudi Arabia chopping American journalist Jamal Khashoggi into little pieces, stars go anywhere there’s a freebie trip and a red carpet.

The Red Sea Festival has been cleverly buying its way into Hollywood, investing in the Cannes Film Festival and other A list gatherings. No one will say no, not even Jolie, who claims to be a human rights activist.

The Hollywood trades are also happy to promote the Red Sea Festival because there’s ad money involved they won’t turn down.

I’ve been writing about the Red Sea Festival for a few years now, but Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights violations hasn’t stopped anyone from getting on the plane or doing business with them.

Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem Sign on to Executive Produce Jordan’s Pro-Palestinian Oscar Entry Film Funded by the Saudis

Saudi Film Festival Corrals Spike Lee to Head Jury Despite Connections to Royal Family: Jamal Khashoggi Forgotten Again

Gwyneth Paltrow Tells Saudi Arabia Crowd She’s Never Seen “Avengers Endgame,” Says She’d Like to Open Biz in Middle East

Sting Bringing His Musical “The Last Ship” to NY’s Metropolitan Opera House After Stops in Paris, Brisbane, Amsterdam

Roger Friedman
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Sting Bringing His Musical “The Last Ship” to NY’s Metropolitan Opera House After Stops in Paris, Brisbane, Amsterdam

Sting is a music man for all seasons.

The rock star of stars opened his Broadway musical, “The Last Ship,” back in October 2014.

Now it will have its first New York revival at the famed Metropolitan Opera House next June for nine performances.

First, the show will tour Europe to Paris and Amsterdam, and to Brisbane, Australia.

Sting will star in the show as Jackie White, the chief of the shipyard in Wallsend, Newcastle, England, the setting for “The Last Ship.”

Included in the large and new cast is longtime Sting pal, Shaggy.

The announcement was just made at the Met, where Sting appeared after canceling two concerts in Florida after picking up a bug. At 74, and in top physical shape, even Sting — whose real name is Gordon Sumner — is human, as it turns out.

At the Met this afternoon, Sting sat center stage, flanked by his concert master and pianist Rob Mathes, and famed guitarist Dominic Miller. It was just them and just us, about two dozen people including press and a couple of lucky fans.

What a pleasure to hear Sting’s butterscotch voice, which hasn’t lost a note, singing unadorned in the Met. He performed a few songs from his Tony winning score including the now classic title song, plus the lovely Richard Rodgers-ish “The Night the Pugilish Learned How to Dance” and the effortlessly melodic “What Say You Meg?”

The new version of “The Last Ship” comes with an all new cast, as I said, with Shaggy playing the Ferryman. Reggae meets Northern England Celtic music. It’s going to be great. There’s also a whole new set although I loved the ship from the Broadway show. I’m told the book has been updated, too.

Sting is sold out around the world with his 3.0 tour, he doesn’t have to perform in “The Last Ship.” But he loves bringing the world of his rough childhood to audiences. He said today, “I didn’t know what would happen to me.” He got a scholarship, launched himself into jazz, and then, of course the world. “I knew,” he said, “I didn’t want to stay in the shipyard.”

Watch: Glen Powell Dances His Way Through One of The Best “Saturday Night Live” Promos Ever: “Don’t tell Lorne”

Roger Friedman
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Watch: Glen Powell Dances His Way Through One of The Best “Saturday Night Live” Promos Ever: “Don’t tell Lorne”

This is one of the best promo’s ever for “SNL.”

Glen Powell dances his way through the studio. The results are, let’s say, smashing.

All to promote “The Running Man,” which opens Friday.

Watch the video to the end.

“Devil Wears Prada 2” Now Wink Wink Marketing as Disney Uses Madonna’s “Vogue” for Teaser, Movie Opens Met Gala Weekend

Roger Friedman
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“Devil Wears Prada 2” Now Wink Wink Marketing as Disney Uses Madonna’s “Vogue” for Teaser, Movie Opens Met Gala Weekend

Coming May 1, 2026, the highly promoted sequel to “The Devil Wears Prada.”

Disney licensed Madonna’s “Vogue” for the teaser trailer in case you don’t know what this movie is about. Very on the nose.

This will be the Wintour of our discontent since the film will open on the Friday before the Monday of Wintour’s Met Ball. No doubt the whole cast will be there. What used to be something provocative has become a marketing plan for everyone involved.

Apparently, Anna Wintour will make a cameo in the film. The first one was about lampooning Wintour as a cruel boss. Now she’s part of the joke. So the whole meaning of this thing is gone.

From the press release: “Almost twenty years after making their iconic turns as Miranda, Andy, Emily and Nigel—Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci return to the fashionable streets of New York City and the sleek offices of Runway Magazine in the eagerly awaited sequel to the 2006 phenomenon that defined a generation.

“The film reunites the original main cast with director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna, and introduces an all-new runway of characters including Kenneth Branagh, Simone Ashley, Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu, Patrick Brammall, Caleb Hearon, Helen J. Shen, Pauline Chalamet, B.J. Novak and Conrad Ricamora. Tracie Thoms and Tibor Feldman also reprise their roles as “Lily” and “Irv” from the first film.”

Adele Will Make Acting Debut in Supporting Role in High Pitched Film About 18th Century Italian Castrati Seeking Revenge

Roger Friedman
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Adele Will Make Acting Debut in Supporting Role in High Pitched Film About 18th Century Italian Castrati Seeking Revenge

Get out your hankies.

Tom Ford, the designer, is directing his third film. Adele will have a supporting role and there are a dozen famous names including Nicholas Hoult and Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Ford is adapting Anne Rice’s 1982 novel called “Cry to Heaven.” No vampires are involved. “Cry to Heaven” takes place in 17th century Venice and it’s about opera. To cite Wikipedia: “it follows the paths of two unlikely collaborators: a Venetian noble and a maestro castrato from Calabria, both trying to succeed in the world of the opera.”

A young boy who is an opera star named Guido is castrated at age 6, but loses his voice at 18 anyway. Meantime, another boy is castrated and becomes a big star. The two eventually become student and teacher. There’s a lot of very high high note singing.

Who does Adele play? Maybe a singing teacher, opera star, or a mother. But the main roles are Hoult and Taylor Johnson, with other supporting turns from Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Paul Bettany, Owen Cooper, and Thaniwe Newton.

It’s an interesting choice for Ford, who had a great success with the restrained “A Single Man” — which starred Firth and Hoult — and followed it up with the wilder “Nocturnal Animals” in 2016.

The only time I can remember a castrati boy featured in a film was Merchant-Ivory’s excellent “A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries.” I have a clear memory of a very young Anthony Roth Costanzo singing at the high pitched premiere party. He was nominated for a Spirit Award. He’s now General Director & President of Opera Philadelphia. According to his bio, he also operatically launched the purple M&M in a national commercial.

Adele will not be able to cuss in this film, but obviously she’ll sing and it will be a big deal. The movie is set for a year from now, which will mark five years since her last album. Love Adele, but Mariah Carey would have had the better range.

Stay tuned…

Watch Jimmy Kimmel’s Tearful Eulogy for Cleto Escobedo III aka “Junior,” Just 59 — And Cleto’s First Appearance on Show

Roger Friedman
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Watch Jimmy Kimmel’s Tearful Eulogy for Cleto Escobedo III aka “Junior,” Just 59 — And Cleto’s First Appearance on Show

Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last night was for his bandleader and childhood best friend, Cleto Escobedo III.

Cleto, of the Cletones, died yesterday morning at age 59. Kimmel didn’t give a cause of death, but at the end of the monologue he thanks long lists of doctors, nurses, and aides. We’ve all been there. Condolences to Jimmy and all the families involved.

Maybe the worst part of the story is that Cleto’s dad, Cleto II, and his mother outlive the musician. They were in the audience last night. Cleto’s dad plays saxophone in the band. All of this tells you the degree of love and loyalty Kimmel has and had. It’s a very tearful story.

Kimmel will be off the rest of the week. This also explains where he was last Thursday when he abruptly shut down the show. The next day was a rerun anyway, giving all of them the weekend to prepare for the inevitable.

It’s worth watching the whole video to hear of this deep friendship, and Cleto’s accomplishments. PS Everyone called him “Junior” even though he was the 3rd of the Escobedo men with that name.

May his memory be a blessing.

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