Not-So-Golden Gerry & Bachelor Finale, Young Thug + A$AP Rocky Trials, Year of Taylor Swift & Elon Barks Back

WOOF, today's episode is a rollercoaster and we thank pop culture icons for that. This week host Maddy McClain is raspier and loopier than ever, thanks to sickness. But pop culture stops for no one.

Hollywood's newest couple is confirmed & has something to do none other than Selena Gomez. Then we break down The Hollywood Reporter article that changes the older gentleman from next door narrative from the Bachelor...or does it? A Golden Bachelor finale recap is in store so buckle up.

Then, we cover Young Thug's long-awaited trial and the oh-so-creative defense his lawyer is constructing that set TikTok off on a new trend. Followed by an update on A$AP Rocky.

Lastly, we talk about the latest Taylor Swift in-depth interview in Time Magazine after being declared Time's 2023 Person of the Year. To absolutely no one's surprise.

As always, enjoy homies!

Sources mentioned / used:
- The Golden Bachelor's Not-So-Golden Past (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Time's 2023 Person of the Year - Taylor Swift (Time Magazine)
- Young Thug's RICO Trial (The New York Times)
- Viral Young Thug Trial (Fox News)
- A$AP Rocky & Attorney Joe Tacopina Sued for Defamation (Rolling Stone)

Transcript

Hello homies, it is I, your pop culture sherpa, Maddy McClain, back at it again. Welcome to another episode of Easily Entertained. We are a bit off schedule this week because, if you can't tell by my  sexy raspy voice, uh, I had way too much fun celebrating one of my absolute best friend's wedding. She's a whole ass wifey, y'all.

Um, yeah, sorry about that last sentence. Um, it was so much fun and, um,  She gave me the honor of speaking at her wedding, and I don't know if you can tell by the sheer fact that I have a podcast, but, um, I, I do like talking, so that was hopefully a good choice, hopefully I did her right. Um, but as soon as the festivities were over, and thank God,  um, my body waited until then, my body then fought me, and now I have whatever I have, um, but it took me out this week.

I, it's like a, nowadays I feel like it's just a cold, flu, COVID trifecta. Season, you know what I'm saying? And I fell victim, although  I tested negative for all three, so honestly, unclear. But, um, I went to one of those urgent clinics, you know? To me, those urgent care clinics feel like a, like a healthcare industry's version of a casino.

Okay, stay with me here. You can go to any hotel on the Vegas Strip. Nearly. A random Cherokee casino, or the Ritz Carlton in Paris. I don't know if they have a casino or not. But, um, if anybody wants to show me,  I would love to go with you, um, on your dime. Anyways, all to say,  go in anywhere to a major hotel that has a casino. 

You'd have no idea  the difference. They all pretty much look the same.  You know, they all end up looking and accomplishing the same thing. You've got like the the level up urgent care Or I forget what it was called like next level and then you got anyways, it's all the same shit and uh, In and out honey, you sneak into the middle of a casino snap a pic Sneak into an urgent care clinic, snap a pic of the room they put you in, and ask someone to guess where you are, and um, they'll be guessing all day, so.

You know, anyways, so I'm at this healthcare casino urgent clinic, or whatever,  got myself a Z Pack,  and I'll tell you what. That Z Pack is bussin honey.  Um, yeah, they pretty much sent me home with a smorgasbord of meds. Um, so I'm kind of feeling, like, somewhat outside of my own body a little bit. So fair warning to this week's podcast.

Um, we're a little bit loopy doopy, okay? But also not. Kind of, like, cracked out a bit. It's a weird feeling, but we're on the up and up. Our health is coming back, and we'll be okay.  Lots of shit has gone down in the meantime, and don't worry. I still stayed on top of that pop culture shindiggery. All for you, baby, all for you.

Um, so we'll start with some pop culture news nugs you need to know.  We'll cover the Golden Bachelor finale, including the Hollywood Reporter  Exposé. I'm stuttering and really having a difficult time calling it an exposé, because honestly, it basically just describes Gary as being a man and having audacity as a man.

Which, you know, we all knew he had it in him, right? He's a boomer after all, so  Love you boomer listeners. Um Anyways, so we'll talk a wee bit about that and kind of the little drama that this article is  Brushed up swept up. No, that's the opposite of what I want to say. Silly me. I'm a silly goose  Anyways, again, I tell you loopy.

I'm on medications prescribed and we have two other popular rappers that are finding themselves in legal hot water including young thug and ASAP Rocky and young thugs  Trial is undergoing is undergoing. Oh my god. This is gonna be a mess to edit. I'm sorry Maybe I just won't you'll get to live with it  Anyways young thugs trial is happening as we speak so you could actually watch that live on long crime if you're a psychopath like me  But I haven't done it for this trial.

However, I will tell you I've kept up with the news and if you haven't seen  Honestly, the hilarious tidbits that come out, um, that are Young Thug's defense team's, um,  kind of arguments is actually hysterical, so stay tuned for that. And God save A$ AP Rocky, we cannot have him behind bars. It's simply no. No, no, no.

No, no, no, no. No. Let's all manifest that to  happen. Or not happen, rather.  Plus a few new new things in the ether in terms of new music that's out that you should definitely listen to. Here's a hot hint, Happy Pink Friday 2.  Anyways, then we'll finish it all out with a little bit of Taylor Swift's Time Person of the Year Award and her in depth article that she did with Time Magazine and some of the Highlights of that interview because she doesn't really do too many of these  despite her constantly being in the news and such because she is the person of the year, but yeah, so it's very interesting and It makes me love her even more, you know, she's just great.

So if you hate Taylor Swift or you're sick of hearing about her  Well, uh, I invite you  to, uh, you know what? Let's have, let's have Elon Musk tell you what to do.  F yourself. 

F yourself.  Is that clear? Go f yourself.  Musk said this to a crowd of people at the 2023 Dealbook Summit in New York where he was basically scoffing at the advertisers. for boycotting X or Twitter because of the anti semitic posts that he amplified there. So he said something along the lines of, quote, if somebody's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, go F yourself.

Don't advertise. I have no problem being hated. Hate away.  And we all know that about Maasai. He has no problem being I'm going to be talking about the post that was deemed anti Semitic and has apologized. And he said, I'm sorry for that post. It was foolish of me of the 30, 000. It might be literally the worst and dumbest post I've ever done.

And I've tried my best to clarify six ways from Sunday, but you know, at least I think it'll be obvious that in fact, I'm far from being an anti Semitic. Supposedly advertising revenue has fallen about 50 percent since. 

And I also don't know how long we're going to be continually saying X the app, commonly, formerly known as Twitter for, because it's clearly not working. It's clearly not working. But, um,  yeah, I don't think X, formerly known as Twitter, will be around that much longer. But, uh, you know, you gotta give it to the man.

It's pretty hilarious to see him, like, just ignore all social, kind of, cues and, um, norms and such, and just tell them to F themselves. But anyways Now that we've covered that, I think it's time to dive into the real, the meat, the juicy tenderloin of this episode. So, let's dig on in to the pop culture news nuggets. 

Starting with arguably one of the more exciting news nuggets being that our girl Selena Gomez has confirmed that she has been in a relationship and is dating Benny Blanco. A huge producer behind a bajillion million songs that, uh, that you all know and love, um, for the last six months. This was, she'd been off of social media as Selena does. 

And actually confirmed this, that they're dating from some other pop culture news Instagram, writing facts. So, confirmed by the gal herself.  And, you know,  at first glance you might think, Heh,  she seems a wee bit out of his league.  Aesthetically, but I'll tell you what. He's very cool. I love him. If you ever watched Dave Lil Dicky's kind of  a little bit of an autobiography But fictionalized TV show on FX if you have not it's so good one of my very favorite TV shows It kind of covers Lil Dicky's  His childhood and how he became Lil Dicky that we know and love and making it through Hollywood and Benny Blanco is often in it and Benny Blanco has worked with people from Justin Bieber  Quet,  Selena herself Um, Brandon Urie, Tayo Cruz, Britney Spears, Wiz Khalifa, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, Lana Del Rey, Miguel, Halsey, literally name them, he's worked with them, um, and he's been around as producing,  probably close to tens of, Um, billboard Hot 100 songs, but our girl Selena's dating Taylor is dating.

You know what? For us millennials, it's great to see our pop culture icons happy. So that is your news number one. Um, Selena seems happy, I guess, from what is shown to us, and, um, I'm all for it. I'm all for it. Benny Blanco is also a really funny dude. Um, he has a cooking show. Actually, called Silly Little Cooking Show or something like that on YouTube.

And, um, guess he shares that with Selena, too. So, I bet they're cooking up some hot shit in there.  Anyways, 

the Golden Bachelor finale was last week, so I would say spoiler alert, but for me, fucking People Magazine didn't do that on the day of the finale, and totally spoiled it for me before I had the chance to watch it. The day of. Like.  Where is our manners?  And I hadn't I had avoided any of the spoilers, you know You've got reality Steve who knows seems to know nearly everything on reality shows And will typically give away who the winners are So if you're looking for that if you're that kind of person, that's how you can find that information But, um, I did not, and I was pissed.

I was super pissed, but I digress.  This latest season gave completely new life to the Batch Nation franchise. So much so, that according to The Hollywood Reporter, the premiere earned the highest multi platform rating for the Bachelor franchise since 2021, with a combined 13. 9 million viewers. It also set a streaming record as ABC's most watched episode of an unscripted series ever, on Hulu, after 35 days of viewing, according to ABC.

So, even the data And that is behind that. In that this new spin off was something that The Bachelor so desperately needed. And it's interesting. I'm going to be doing a deep dive episode on this later. But just kind of the history of reality TV  in The role that it plays and how obviously in the name it's based on reality But the one understanding that we all have about reality tv shows is like it's not real You know, everything is not totally real.

There are attempts from producers that are talking in  contestants or I guess just regular old people in the shows, just in their ear about what so and so said and to bring this up and you, you know, Real Housewives dinners and trips. You all know what the, the main drama will be, you know? So that's interesting and there was actually an article put out about this recently that I have read.

So be on the lookout for that exciting episode, but I digress. With that being said. The Golden Bachelor truly brought it back up, you know, to the OG days. But before we get to Gary's final rose in that episode and the contents of said finale,  right before the episode aired last week, a Hollywood reporter article came out seemingly in an attempt to shatter the pedestal, the nation had put 72-year-old Gary Turner upon. 

It was referred to as an expose,  I beg to differ.  It is something that is contrary to the narrative that The Bachelor and Gary himself were kind of spouting out in the promoting and during the season. But like, if we were all cast on reality TV for everyone to see, there probably would be a few things.

It's creatively reframed, so to speak, about our lives. You know what I'm saying? So I can't put it past him. And also part of me is like, what are we doing here? You know, let's leave the man alone. He's happy. He's now, you know, he has a lady in his life and he's 72. Like do we really need to like shit talk Gary?

But we do because it's It's, it's reality TV. So  essentially what the expose  really went on to say, first of all, in the sub headline use the word septuagenarian.  That's right. I'll say it again. Septuagenarian. Do you know what? the fuck that means? Because I don't either. Um, first of all, just found it kind of comical that, um, Hollywood Reporter, of all publishers, chose to use this word and flex on us with their vocabulary, um, grasp, but, uh, the rest of the article had no use of any wild words.

But before we go crazy, I'll tell you what it means. Septuagenarian. Simply means, just someone between the ages of 70 and 79 years old, so.  Yeah, anyways, but after this expose, peeps are turning on old Gary Turner.  Gary turning around, I don't know, I was trying to make that witty, but, the meds, okay, the meds.

Um, after his past was revealed to be a little bit different. So, essentially what this story, Is is to back it up a little bit. The story that we're given by the Bachelor in promoting the show is that Gary hadn't dated in 45 years, given his late wife Tony had died in 2017 due to an unexpected infection.

Um, but  all of that kind of was proved to be a lie. So to speak, by this Hollywood Reporter article as they speak with an ex of his who they're calling, quote, Carolyn,  um, describing their three year relationship in which they also live together for a portion. So,  I don't know, this article seems like Chomping at the bit, like, super excited to be dishing this stuff.

And look, I'll be the first to say that I love a juicy scoop, right? A good story. That's what we're doing right here, you and me. We're telling good stories, especially involving people you wouldn't expect or celebrities, you know? Like, this wouldn't be happening if we didn't have the juicy goss that we get.

We're human. We love it. Remember, we love a good bit of schadenfreude.  You know? But, um, it just, it seems a little weak, and they did release this right before the finale, so I suppose later on, after having watched the finale,  I kind of believe and can totally see this going down somewhat. Uh, so essentially, Carolyn, who the authors of this article give her this name as she wanted to protect her identity, said that they met. 

a month after Well they had already met in a previous career. So Gary They've said he's a restaurateur, but really that stopped back in 1985.  After he sold his chain of um It's like a burger restaurant and then eventually he did retire early, but after that he kind of picked up some other jobs here and there, like installing hot tubs and, um, working as kind of like a medic, not a medic, not a medic as like a repair man, um, for this mental health facility where he then met Carolyn who worked there as kind of like an administrative, um, staffer and assistant.

So they meet there.  Prior and had a good, I guess, working relationship. She's 13 years his junior Um, and a month after his late wife Tony died He reaches out to Carolyn and asked her out to dinner basically  as well as helping him with his ex Not ex wife his late wife's clothes to sell them to dress for success a charity  I don't know.

I mean if I was Carolyn I would have  Don't you, you, you see what's happening here, right? She went to, uh, her, like, visitation or whatever. So anyways, already a little hairy, but they started dating only a month after Tony passed away. And I guess everyone deals with grief differently, but I think we can all agree that that's a little soon, right?

For somebody, like, uh, uh, an abrupt death? I don't know.  So, I'll just leave that there for you to make your decision on how you feel about that. But then they go on to date for three years. She moved in a year later, um, as he lived in Indiana in a big lake house. And the details of the breakup are a little  It, it doesn't paint him out to look very good.

So this is kind of where it gets, it gets questionable. Um, I'm reading this from the article.  But Carolyn's big long lake ideal with Gary was about to end. She was packing for Gary's high school reunion set to take place in October 2019.  He said, quote, I'm not taking you to the reunion looking like that, Carolyn recalls him saying as he pointed to her body.

She'd put on 10 pounds from stress, she says, but certainly wasn't fat. The disinvitation led to the breakup. Gary told Carolyn to be out by January 1st, 2020. He volunteered to cover the cost of her U Haul as long as she paid the vendor and he reimbursed her. Which also in the article says that after they'd been dating for a few months, Gary then said made Carolyn pay rent and also had her, like, go half and half on dinners and dates, but he would pay the full bill and she would pay him, like,  Under, afterwards, so he looked like the big man? 

This is sound, I, I don't know. I don't know. Anyways, we continue. 

Gary arrived home that night and, as Carolyn recalls, accused her of using the ball as an excuse to prolong her stay and suggested that she was planning to sue him for causing the injury. In the end, she says he refused to allow Carolyn to stay in their love nest during the final week of the two weeks notice she was required to give her boss before leaving her job because she had moved like five hours away. 

He told her to go to a hotel.  It was the dead of winter, blah de blah blah. And she might have been any one of the Roseless Golden Bachelorettes told by a suddenly somber Jesse Palmer to, quote, take a minute and gather your things. I really wish this would have worked out, she remembers him telling her.

Call me when you get to your hotel so I admit, I know you made it safe.  Hoy. So, The Hollywood Reporter, like, does their due diligence and such and has confirmed that they read some of these texts and, and can prove that they did, in fact, have a relationship.  And, like, the career thing is just dumb. Like, who cares, you know, really?

Like, we're splitting hairs here. They're using LinkedIn as a reference and all this shit. Like, I don't really care that he wasn't, like, a lifelong restaurateur. Like, who It doesn't really affect anything that is fishy that he claims to have never have dated since his late wife. He was like, Oh, it's been 45 years. 

And he was like, painted out to be this sweet little old man, you know, but  let's, let's get to the facts here because at the finale, at this point, he's told both Leslie and Teresa, his final two, that he loves them and that he's the one. We've seen many, many a bachelor go through this very moment and it never turns out pretty.

So if there's one thing we've learned, it's  Yeah, you can fall in love no matter what age you are, but you can also be a dickhead too, no matter what age you are. So,  that's sweet. Um,  that was the article that came out, and they never really addressed it. Later on in some post, you know, finale interviews and media that he and his winner are doing, um,  he Just kind of weakly brushes it off and says, you know, I would rather not focus on that.

And I did have, you know, everyone's definition of a relationship is different and da da da da da.  Ah, sounds like something, uh, many women have heard before,  but back to the finale. So we already, we already know that it's not going to go super smoothly, but both Leslie and Teresa meet Gary's daughters and granddaughters who all look uncannily similar.

And things seem to go really well with both of the women. It's when Leslie is leaving after meeting his family that things get super awkward and weird and it's written all over Gary's face. He's like, I don't know, he reminds me of Kermit the Frog. Just his mannerisms too, like the, uh, uh, uh, in his voice, obviously.

Um, he gets even weirder. And just kind of, like, tries to get out of the interaction, and they have one final date, of course, with, with each, uh, Leslie and Teresa before he makes the final decision in the proposal, so he will see her again. And it gets even more weird at the evening portion of their date after Leslie meets his family. 

Um, so much so that Leslie says, I love you very, very much, to which Gary responds, That's such a special sentiment.  So, feels like a breakup and yet he doesn't end it. Leslie. And he asks if there's something that he wants to tell her, kind of wants to get him there, but he doesn't, until eventually he has, he leaves, and the next time that he would, you know, theoretically see her is at the platform where he would either propose or not and break up, but thankfully he got his shit together and he came back into the room and essentially tells her her.

That he is quote  going the other direction of choosing Teresa And it's a really heartbreaking really raw moment where obviously Leslie's really sad and upset But first says so everything you told me the other night was a complete and utter lie And it doesn't sound like she was that off base with that after  he has told her to her face that he loves her and that she's the one.

We saw that part, but she alludes to a lot of other things that we never end up finding out what exactly is said on their overnight date that had happened the week prior and um, Um,  You know, it gets even, it just gets really emotional and really sad and says this is how her romantic life always goes. In which Gary responds with, to reassure her, No, don't think that.

And, this is great, she says, Gary, no offense, I can think whatever the fuck I want. Boom, mic drop, we love her. And,  you know, of course, more tears, tears, tears. And, Gary says, this is the kind of, quote of the episode as he's bawling to Jesse Palmer, he took a real good girl and broke her heart and says the only time he's ever felt worse than this is when his wife passed and this is a goddamn close second is quote from Gary. 

So then we're taken back to the live tell all audience with Leslie looking hot as fuck. Remember she dated Prince back in the day like, hello.  I really think it was when Gary realized that Teresa's loaded. That shit changed. I don't know. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. So  Leslie reveals that she had even already written her vows after their one on one date, which is even more heart wrenching after feeling confident that she was, quote, his girl.

And let me tell you, the eye rolls and the looks between the ladies that were already let go by Gary is  iconic and hilarious. Um, but then the vibe quickly changes as we're ushered into the proposal  upon which Gary intentionally misleads Teresa, like as a joke. You know, he gives his spiel and says, You're not the right person for me to live with. 

You're the person I can't live without. And um, Then Teresa thinks that's oh, that's just so funny and they kiss and they look actually genuinely happy and They come back to the live tell all studio where they're just beaming and truly do look super happy  and Jesse gifts them a honeymoon in Italy because their live golden wedding will be aired on The Bachelor or a B, C on January 4th.

So  you know, the Bachelor knows how to real, really milk that money. Cow honey. You know what I'm saying?  So that's the end of Golden Bachelor. I think season one, I believe there will be more. The people want what they want and uh, so do the investors. They want that money.  And speaking of money, we go to one of my favorites.

We're talking about the trial that has been long awaited. for Young Thug or Jeffrey Lamar Williams as he's facing RICO charges. Essentially, RICO is an abbreviation for a  I guess set of laws, um, to design to dismantle organized crime groups like the mafia at the time. And it allows prosecutors to group kind of seemingly unrelated  acts of violence or law breaking criminal conspiracy or whatever to support the point that whatever is operating as this organization that's actually carrying out crimes, um, is all related. 

So they don't need to necessarily approve that young thug.  He's involved and aware of each and every single  violation or crime that's come out of YSL, or Young Slime Life, which is the record label that he's created. Well, it really is Young Stoner Life, but the gang itself is known as Young Slime.  Um, and it's very detailed, there's so many different intricacies about this. 

Lawsuit, so I won't try and break it all down for you because low key very confusing but I'll give you the  Feels weird calling them highlights, but I'll give you the overview of the situation here There were as many as 28 other defendants alongside young thug that were facing these Uh, lawsuits and allegations, but a ton have either already pled guilty and or already facing or serving their life sentence.

Um, and the defense is using this is calling them essentially snitches and that. And that Young Thug is not the head of this group, but rather people were taking advantage of him. The case does center on a murder of Donovan Thomas Jr. Back in 2015 in a drive by shooting. Um, and the two rappers that were, have already faced charges that carried out the murder.

Um, we're driving a rented car that Young Thug had rented. Um, a silver Infiniti Q50 sedan and basically paid for them to take him out is the  is the prosecutor's, uh, story and what they are charging him with. Among others, basically a ton of other, you know, gang related offenses and firearms and drugs that they found in his home.

And Youngthug's already been in jail for  So there are over a year now, something along the lines of over 500 days. And so this trial has been,  has been pushed out for a very long time for a lot of kind of crazy reasons and just random reasons. There were upwards of 700 witnesses that they were going to call on.

They whittled that down apparently to 400 potential witnesses. And that means that they, the prosecutors or lawyers can pull on anyone from this one of 400, but there's likely not going to be that many. However, it's estimated that this trial could take a year in and of itself, which is freaking wild.

It's a 95 page indictment against YSL, which is both the gang, supposed gang, and the um,  The record label, which is actually under Warner Music Group.  But, uh, yeah, there was even a, a supposed relationship between a court deputy and a defendant, uh, that messed up the proceedings. As well as, um, a potential juror who was late 30 page essay.

Um, and a tardy lawyer supposedly had to buy everyone lunch from a famous Atlanta strip club is where they ended up buying that lunch from,  um, for also being late because the,  the judge in the case didn't want to continue to delay things. So that's, um,  That's crazy. Um, but where it really gets, uh, hilarious and truly takes on the humor of simply existing in this world is so a lot of what the prosecution is bringing in includes some of young thug's own music and is lyrics, right?

Um, and well, his name is Young Thug, so what did his lawyer.  What did his lawyer say? I'll tell you what his lawyer said.  This is his argument. Quote, he insisted everybody call him Young Thug and that fit into the appearance of the gangster rap. But most people think about a thug as a criminal. But to Jeffrey, aka Young Thug, thug had a different meaning. 

Thug meant something very personal. If you could ever make it as a musical artist and help his family, himself, and as many others out of this endless cycle of hopelessness, he would be. Truly humble under God. That's what thug means  So  Thug actually means truly humble under God.  I mean  the lawyer is lawyering that we cannot deny  It gets even better that young thugs one of his biggest songs called push and pee actually means Pushing positivity.

Ah, so of course the internet is having a great time with that as everybody's listening to Pushing Positivity by Truly Humble Under God. Um.  Stay tuned. It just gets better. Um, I mean, obviously we're still dealing with an actual case and that in and of itself, you know, it's not like it's obviously serious, but we're, um, we're on easily entertained podcast.

Okay. So you can get your long crime from long crime, but I will talk about long crime. That's confusing of me to even say, but I just really wanted to share that with you. And I can go into more depth onto this. Uh, trial, if you would like, but, um, it gets pretty legal word salad, you know what I mean? 

The legal word salad does continue  as ASAP Rocky's legal battles have been ongoing since the later part of 2021. Um, by the way, ASAP Rocky's actual name is Rakeem Mayers. Myers, or Keem Myers. I  guess we're going with Myers. Um, you, you decide. M A Y E R S Myers, Mayers. Mayers. Anyways, ASAP Rocky.  There was another ASAP Mob member, Tyrell Efron, who is also known as ASAP Relly. 

ASAP Raleigh is alleging that Rocky shot him with a semi automatic firearm during a fight in Hollywood in November of 2021 and ASAP Rocky has continually denied this and the trial has not yet been concluded. Asap happened and he's, and ASAP Rocky's currently out on 550 grand bond while welcoming his second child with Rihanna.

So that's no bueno, but that in and of itself is a trial that is awaiting its time. Meanwhile, during this time leading up to the trial, ASAP Rocky's attorney, Joe Takapina, who has also represented former President Trump in his lawsuits with Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll, has kind of gone out and supposedly painted Efron, or A$ AP Relly, the one who's claiming that A$ AP Rocky shot him as a jealous and embittered former associate and simply, quote, trying to get money from Rocky.

So now A$ AP Relly is pissed at Rocky's lawyer and is hitting a second lawsuit against Rocky and the lawyer  for defamation. And who did he hire for this separate defamation suit? None other than Camille Vasquez, who represented Johnny Depp in his lawsuit against Amber Heard.  So, if you didn't know, now you know, that celebrities also share attorneys, so that's fun.

Um, yeah.  Both are awaiting litigation, essentially, and A$ AP Rocky is denying all of this and claims that it was another guy that got messed up in the fight and who did it. You know, we'll see, but it's pretty clear that this kind of  backdrop of rap is causing a lot of problems, you know?  But that's really where I'm gonna leave that at there, because that's not a place for me to get involved. 

Anyways! What else we got? We got Taylor Swift in a quick veer to the right. Um, Taylor Swift was nominated Times Person of the Year of 2023, as one can imagine. And the whole in depth article is really interesting and really good to read. And of course, Taylor had a lot of good shit to say. Um, she opens up about the Kim and Kanye debacle.

Which, if you do not recall, was essentially what led up to Taylor Swift's Reputation album. Because the world was super fucking mean to her after this kind of falsely, kind of fabricated video came out, um, in which Kanye calls Taylor Swift and asks if he can  Reference her in his song. It's like I made that bitch famous He didn't  really I don't know.

This is after he also Had interrupted her after she was given an award to say that Beyonce deserved it and like stole the mic, you know that moment and It  really sent her down a spiral when they later Kim released this video being like Taylor knew When in reality she didn't know that  He was gonna be like calling her a bitch and stuff and and saying all anyways and the video was kind of misleading so the public really turned on her back then and she kind of apparently went to a foreign country and spent some time there and really holed up because she did not like the Limelight and the way people were treating her at the time And, of course, it's no surprise that  she has been the person of the year.

You can't scroll any social media timeline without seeing her. She has caused economic booms wherever she goes. The Eras tour was all anyone could talk about. And the show and her performance itself is undeniably impressive. The show spans over 180 minutes, including 40 plus songs from at least nine albums.

She said there are 16 costume changes, pyrotechnics, an optical illusion in which she appears to dive into the stage and swim, and not one but two, quote, cottagecore worlds which feature an abundance of moss.  And I'm reading this straight from the interview because I find this interesting. In the past, Swift jokes, she toured, quote, like a frat guy.

This time, she began training six months ahead of the first show. Every day I would run fast on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud. She said, fast for fast songs and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs. Her gym, Dog Pound, created a program for her incorporating strength conditioning and weights.

Then I had three months of dance training because I wanted to get it in my bones. I wanted to be so over rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans and not lose my train of thought. She worked with choreographer Mandy Moore, recommended by her friend Emma Stone, who worked with Moore on La La Land. 

And um, I mean, can you imagine that?  So  she also stopped drinking because she said doing that show with the hangover, I don't want to know that world and I don't blame her. I can do hardly anything when hungover, much less run around and dance and sing and play with the crowd and be present. So,  the interview goes on and, and it really is interesting.

It's a deep dive into kind of her whole experience this year. And, um, working with Barbie as kind of, the whole year was a, was a little bit of a ode to women. And I'm here for it. And, of course, couldn't leave you without a little bit of a quote on her relationship with Travis Kelsey, in which she says, This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell.

She says, We started hanging out right after.  And pretty quickly we got to know each other. By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. I think some people thought that that was our first date at that game. We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.  The larger point for her is that there's nothing to hide.

When you say a relationship is public, that means I'm going to see him do what he loves. We're showing up for each other. Other people are there and we don't care, she says. The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you're seeing someone. And we're just proud of each other. 

And you know what, Taylor? So are we.  Well, I think that's about all, my blessed throat, uh, and voice can handle for today.  Thank you so much for listening. I have and do appreciate all of your kind words of support and I love that you are getting something out of this. So if you are,  please, please, please do me a favor and leave a review.

Rate this baby preferably five stars.  on Apple Podcasts and keep sharing, share with your friends, your family, anybody that you think would be interested and enjoy this kind of shit.  Well, as always, it has been a time and a half and we're in Christmas season now, homies. Best,  best time of the year. So you know what?

Enjoy yourself. Okay. Drink some peppermint schnapps. It's good for you. And, um, I'll talk to you soon. Okay. Love you. Bye.