Column: Celebs Rumors

Editor’s Note: For months now, Iranian screenwriter and satirist Nicole Najafi has been determinedly raising awareness on social media from her home in New York, posting reportage coming to her direct from Iran as the people push back against the regime, and using her growing platform to explain the situation to the world in simple terms, with the footage to back it up. While women remove their head coverings with heroic defiance and ‘dissenters’ are imprisoned and burned, beaten and murdered, Najafi has, unflinching, covered it all.

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin denounced Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., after years of previously praising him, for planning to step down and accept a position as president of the University of Florida. Rubin denounced Sasse on Wednesday in an op-ed calling him "an affirmative action hire if there ever was one" by Gov.

Editors note: The death of Mahsa Amini earlier this month after being detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab according to official dictates has sparked outrage and protests within the Islamic Republic and around the world, with Global Day of Action for Iran set for Saturday with rallies around the globe (more information below). Currently seen as one of the stars of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Iran-born actress and Amnesty International UK ambassador Nazanin Boniadi reflects on Amini’s tragic death and the potentially pivotal time for her homeland.

Industry Blackout At some point, every person who works in the music industry has to grapple with the fact that its not-all-that-distant past is rooted in racism and financial exploitation. Capitol Records is no exception. The 80 year-old label’s legacy of Black artists includes Nat King Cole, Tina Turner and George Clinton, but its roster has featured few others throughout its history, right up to the present.  In 2022, the label rolled out FN Meka, a digital rapper so offensive in pulling from the worst stereotypes of how appropriators view our culture, that it single-handedly set back the clock on equality.  The controversy was initially called out by Black music executives and notable figures in the hip-hop community and led our advocacy group, Industry Blackout, to issue a statement addressing the matter directly to Capitol Records. Variety itself reported that sources said the company was already in the process of terminating the deal — however, we take issue with that, as we believe it was our supporters and affiliates that sparked the conversation to begin with.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Americana Honors & Awards have always, perhaps more than any other music awards show, rewarded work that is fairly unassailable … which doesn’t always mean that the ceremony has always seized the moment. In 2018, Brandi Carlile’s breakout album and song, “By the Way, I Forgive You” and “The Joke,” both lost in their respective categories to Jason Isbell. Although he was being rewarded for top-flight work and there was nothing remotely shameful about this wins, it had the feeling of an opportunity lost, rubber-stamping the time-tested when a rising star who offered a chance for increased representation was right there in the nominees’ midst. So this year, if the award had gone to Carlile’s excellent “In These Silent Days,” it would have been a perfectly reasonable case of playing catch-up.

Scott Bryan The surreal thing about watching the BBC One coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s death was that we all knew in advance what the coverage was exactly going to be like once the news arrived. The precise wording. The solemn voices. The black ties and repeated library footage. Many of us had read or re-read news stories such as The Guardian’s “London Bridge is Down” in recent days, reports that revealed the intricate and well rehearsed procedure and broadcast announcements for when the Queen dies. It was a procedure that we had also witnessed first-hand, a similar procedure rolled out when the BBC announced the death of her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, the previous year.

A new report released by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative investigates the portrayal of Muslim characters in TV, revealing that not only are Muslims nearly absent from episodic content, but they are still stereotyped in negative ways. The report, titled “Erased or Extremists: The Stereotypical View of Muslims in Popular Episodic Series” comes from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, with support from Academy Award winner Riz Ahmed and his production company Left Handed Films, the Ford Foundation and Pillars Fund. The 2022 study explores quantitative and qualitative aspects of Muslim representation in 200 top-rated television shows from 2018 and 2019 aired in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, ultimately highlighting a disheartening reality. The full report is available here.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor A decade into the streaming revolution, seams are showing and stitches are starting to pop. The recent uproar about HBO Max removing a significant number of series episodes and movies from its platform amounts to Unintended Consequence No. 9,789 for an industry that has been turned inside out by digital disruption. The situation that Warner Bros. Discovery is scrambling to address by lightening the content load should be crystal clear to anyone who has ever worked in retail sales management. Simply put, HBO Max has an inventory problem. The long-tail theory of content that has fueled the streaming business conflicts with the focus on tentpole hits that has traditionally fueled the entertainment economy.

The New York Times. Australia recently imposed new defamation standards that require plaintiffs to prove a publication caused “serious harm” to their reputations while defendants can argue the published pieces are protected by public interest. The piece in question, penned by politics editor Bernard Keane, ran June 29 with the headline, “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor.

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch filed suit against Australian news site Crikey on Tuesday over an opinion column that connected the Murdochs to the siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe news that Anne Heche has been declared legally dead from the injuries she sustained in an Aug. 5 car crash comes as a particularly baleful end to her story. There’s not merely the obvious element of human tragedy for Heche and her family, as well as, it ought to be said, the woman whose house Heche destroyed with her car. But Heche’s final days playing out in a spectacle of tabloid interest and ambiguity around her state of mind comes as an eerie echo of various moments throughout her life in public. Heche was a star dimmed and diminished by the aura of scandal that she couldn’t shake — and one who, despite that, tried unrelentingly to bring the audience into her world.Heche was, first, a gifted performer; she went from being an Emmy-winning soap star to film stardom in the late 1990s and seemed, with lead roles in “Volcano” and “Six Days, Seven Nights” to be locked and loaded for A-list fame, a blonde counterpart to Julianne Moore with a bit more jitter underlying her calm. (A favorite performance of mine of hers at the time is as a White House aide in “Wag the Dog,” amoral but poised, and sparking with ideas that might salvage a doomed presidency.) And though she would go on to other accomplishments on film, TV, and stage, Heche’s story necessarily must include mention of what halted her ascendant career: In 1997, the year of “Volcano” and “Wag the Dog,” Heche began publicly dating Ellen DeGeneres.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorFive years almost to the day after it began, Hollywood’s evangelistic fervor for streaming has been extinguished this week by the “Batgirl” imbroglio. Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to scrap the completed DC Comics film that was bound for HBO Max marks the boldest example of Old Media economic rigor being applied to contemporary content spending. David Zaslav, CEO of the newly reconfigured media conglomerate, didn’t even mask his bewilderment at the decision-making process and optimistic profit projections made by the previous WarnerMedia regime.

Scott Bryan In the words of Davina McCall, “fancy another one”?Shortly before announcing this year’s winners of “Love Island” on Monday night, U.K. broadcaster ITV2 caused goosebumps as they played out the iconic “Big Brother” theme tune while revealing that the iconic reality show is to return for a six-week run in 2023.When you think about it, a “Big Brother” revival makes perfect sense.

Clayton Davis “Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.”A quote by Spanish artist Salvador Dalí feels appropriate when discussing the apprehension about releasing the Will Smith-starrer “Emancipation” this year. With “Killers of the Flower Moon” staying the course for 2023, and Smith posting an apology video for slapping Chris Rock at the 94th Oscars, a path to bowing the Apple Original Film is becoming more clear.There’s never going to be a “perfect” time to release any Smith vehicle in the future — whether it’s in 2022 or a decade from now — nor will the public ever forget his actions of the evening.

Scott Bryan This has been the weirdest week in British television in a long time.In the days leading up to Boris Johnson’s resignation, the number of gaffes and surreal moments captured on live television became almost impossible to track. But in many ways, these moments reflected the surreal mood of the country as the prime minister refused to step down, despite more than 50 government resignations.Take the political coverage from College Green, a public park in Westminster and a popular location for interviews with politicians.

Gloria Allred It is perfectly natural for me to write this. After all, I am one of many who is affected by the decision of four men and one woman in black robes.Before I share my view with you, however, I would like to tell you a little bit about my life.I first came into existence in the body of an American female. I didn’t ask to be born female.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticReading the reviews of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” one would be forgiven for thinking that it must be some madly baroque spectacle of exquisite excess, the sort of thing that makes people roll their eyes — or that makes the eyes of others widen with delight — when they hear the name “Baz Luhrmann.”In The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney writes, “How you feel about Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Elvis’ will depend largely on how you feel about Baz Lurhmann’s brash, glitter-bomb maximalism.” In Rolling Stone, K. Austin Collins calls the film “a brash, overwhelming experience.

Editor’s Note: French filmmaker and screenwriter Audrey Diwan is the director of Venice Golden Lion-winning abortion drama Happening (L’Evénément). Adapted from celebrated French writer Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical novel of the same name, it follows the emotionally harrowing and physically perilous battle of a brilliant literature student to obtain an abortion in 1963, some 12 years before it was made legal in France. The film’s unexpectedly timely U.S. release by IFC Films in May coincided with news via a leaked document that the Supreme Court was on the verge of overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized women’s constitutional right to abortion in the US. This came to pass on Friday (June 24). As abortion clinics begin closing in some U.S. states, Diwan has penned a column for us on a decision that has sent shockwaves across the world. 

Ben Foster Boots stormed into the living room, dust falling though the floorboards onto the Tzigel family. Jews were being exterminated, and my family was hiding in the basement of a sympathetic neighbor. They couldn’t stay long.

Hello and welcome to the June edition of my monthly mortgage tips column.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticWhen “The Umbrella Academy” last aired new episodes, in July 2020, its star occupied a different place in the culture, under a different name.Elliot Page, the Academy Award-nominated performer, is by far the highest-profile member of the show’s cast — all playing a family of superheroes perennially trying to thwart apocalypse. And his public disclosure that he is a trans man in late 2020 presented the series with a conundrum as it looked ahead to a third season.

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior CorrespondentWendy Williams was unlike anyone else on TV. On daytime, you’re supposed to be authentic, but you’re also taught to be polished, read the teleprompter and stay on script.Williams did none of those things. In fact, the talk show host did the exact opposite of what you’d expect a television executive to advise a host to do in 2008, the year her show was being tested for a national run.

Tiffany Red Tiffany Red is a Grammy-winning songwriter and songwriter advocate who has written hits for Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia, Jason Derulo and Zendaya, among others. She is founder and executive director of the 100 Percenters, a 501 c3 organization with the stated goal of advocating “for all music creatives with a focus on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and marginalized creatives.” She has spoken at length about the challenges faced by songwriters; this is her second Juneteenth essay for Variety.I think we can all agree that black culture drives pop culture.

Editor’s Note: On June 22, 2020, veteran editor and Sunwise Media co-founder Ri-Karlo Handy penned a guest column for Deadline on the wide ranging response to his social media call for Black union editors just days beforehand. As Americans took to the streets after the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd to demand an end to institutional violence and racism in numbers unprecedented for decades, Handy turned part of the spotlight on Hollywood. The reaction to his outcry was almost immediate. It was also encouraging from unions, to schools, to studios and every other crevice of Tinseltown. Today, Handy examines what a difference the past two years have made, and what more there is to do as political and cultural sands appear to be shifting again.

Mike Montgomery A piece of legislation known as the Free Artists from Industry Restrictions (FAIR) Act has long divided the music industry in California, with powerful forces on both sides taking positions. If enacted, FAIR would undo a 35-year-old amendment to the state’s historic “seven-year statute” and effectively remove the power of record labels to sue artists for damages if they exit their contracts after seven years without having turned in the number of albums specified in their contracts.

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAs the final minutes of “Hacks” Season 2 ticked by, it was hard to shake the feeling that they just might mark the final minutes of “Hacks,” period. With Deborah (the incomparable Jean Smart) finally tapping in to a more personal and rewarding vein of her comedy to huge success, before pushing Ava (the underrated Hannah Einbinder) out of the nest to forge her own path in Hollywood, the series easily could’ve ended there. Even Deborah’s CEO Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) and agent Jimmy (Paul W.

Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald over the weekend faced criticism for its reporting on the revelation of actress Rebel Wilson’s new romantic relationship. Although the paper’s editor initially defended the outlet’s actions, the offending column has since been removed and its writer has apologized.

he wrote, but he could now see why it was seen as one. Monday’s apology column followed a public backlash to the SMH over its approach to the story. The head of LGBTIQ+ Health Australia said Wilson was put in “an appalling situation” when the Herald contacted her about her new relationship.

Nabil Ayers My life has always revolved around music. My mother is a dancer who played Seals & Crofts and Stevie Wonder records loudly in our apartment as far back as I can remember. My uncle, the jazz saxophonist Alan Braufman, bought me a drum set when I was two-and-a-half years old.

Manori Ravindran International EditorBritish TV executive Jay Hunt was once a formidable voice in the chorus of the U.K. TV industry.

Thursday column about YouTube content creators’ coverage of the Depp/Heard trial, the newspaper issued a correction on Friday. The correction, which also addressed a quote that had been misattributed to Depp’s lawyer Adam Waldman, reads: “A previous version of this story inaccurately attributed to Adam Waldman a quote describing how he contacted some Internet influencers. That quote has been removed.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched Season 4 of “Stranger Things,” now streaming on Netflix.“Stranger Things” isn’t just Netflix’s crown jewel — it’s a document from an era when the streamer’s ambitions looked a lot different. And its creators know it.The series, like the recently concluded “Ozark” and like “The Crown,” which has two seasons remaining in its reign, is made with care and with no small expense.

Geeta Malik In “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” Francie Nolan sat on her fire escape, ate peppermint wafers, spied on her neighbors, and read books. In Aurora, I sat on my roof, ate pretzels, spied on my neighbors, and read “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” I felt seen by Francie Nolan and it surprised me when people were surprised by the fact that I related to her. At a certain point, I understood that people assumed I’d have more in common with the slum kids in “City of Joy” than Francie.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticFor the last 25 years, almost, the group Wilco has been running away from any sort of descriptive tag that has “country” in it, as a suffix or anything else, after Jeff Tweedy’s previous band, Uncle Tupelo, helped kick off the wave of alt-country that continues to be a fixture of modern American music as we know it. Of course, no matter how far they strayed, if you had ears to hear, the influence never really went away.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of ContentNearly a half-century has passed since Elvis left the building, permanently. Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann has just unleashed “Elvis,” his big, bold, nearly three-hour biopic, at Cannes and that Warner Bros. bet appears to have paid off.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticOlivia Rodrigo probably isn’t begging to be compared to Paul McCartney. No one would wish that on a superstar — we can call her that now, right? — who just turned 19 years three months ago.