Category: Entertainment

Ready to be knocked the f–k out?!

It’s been 25 years since Friday wafted into theaters, featuring a breakout performance by Chris Tucker and turning Ice Cube and his serious-guy vibe into the perfect straight man amid an ensemble of outrageous personalities. 

The comedy was a sleeper hit, earning $28 million at the box office and spawning two sequels. But as watchable as the franchise is, nothing was as funny as the original, a premium blend of R-rated humor and cultural satire—some of it admittedly very ’90s, but plenty of it evergreen.

“For one thing, everybody can be Craig and Smokey,” Ice Cube told Billboard in 2015, in honor of the movie’s 20th anniversary re-release on, naturally, 4/20. “You can always kick it with Craig, the homeboy or homegirl, just kick it all day and trip off your neighborhood. That’s what people do every day. It strikes a chord there.”

He continued, “But also, it’s the day the bully gets his ass whooped. Everyone remembers the day the bully gets his ass whopped. Everybody loved that day. It was like ding-dong, the witch is dead. It’s a thing everybody loves and remembers—so everybody can be Friday. Everybody’s life can be Friday.”

The film also provided a breath of fresh air for a community that, if portrayed onscreen at all, was often painted in the most dire of ways.

“It’s really a slice of life that’s fun,” Ice Cube also said, “but it takes things that are pretty tragic in a lot of ways. You got the ice cream man selling dope, the crackhead dude running up and down the street. You got all these crazy things—you take a gun or you fight with your hands—it lets us laugh at them and takes the pressure off a little bit. I think those are some of the reasons people always gonna love that movie.”

So in honor of the good things like “bye, Felisha” that stick with you, here’s a look at the Friday cast then and now:

But Gray can’t help it if he launched his film career with a cult classic.

“I didn’t think it was any good,” he shared with Deadline years later. “Chris Tucker and Faizon Love watched it, and they didn’t like it. I was so discouraged.”

But seriously, what did they know?

“We tested it and it got a 95,” Gray recalled. “People were laughing in the aisles. Laughing so much that they would laugh over other jokes. Then we knew we had something, but I was so green I got pissed that we were only the No. 2 film at the box office opening weekend. Mind you, it was only in 800 theaters. I called the head of marketing, Chris Pula, and I say, ‘Why are we only on 800 theaters’ and ‘What about this poster?’ and ‘This movie could make $100 million.’ And he cursed me out and basically told me to go f–k myself and he hung up. It’s funny now, because it was such a small movie and the LA Times reported that it became the most profitable film of 1995. I was so naïve.”

Requisite parenting maneuvers aside, “No” isn’t a word Channing Tatum uses all that often. 

Practically the poster boy for the mid-2010s acronym YOLO he would sometimes “shower” by jumping off the balcony of the Beverly Hills home he shared with then-wife Jenna Dewan into their pool. He based an entire, hugely successful film franchise off of his past as an exotic dancer and when asked to shoot a decidedly off-color cameo in Seth Rogen‘s 2013 gross-out comedy, This Is the End, he didn’t hesitate. 

“All he had to say was ‘Danny McBride,’ ‘leash,’ and ‘a Mexican wrestling mask,'” he offered as explanation to GQ in 2014. “It was just the most wrong idea I’d ever heard. ‘You’re Danny McBride’s sex slave, you’re like his gimp.’ And I was like, ‘All right, I’m in.'”

It was the same response he gave to a pal half a decade later when they suggested he move past his December split from singer Jessie J by hopping on Raya, Hollywood’s ultra-exclusive dating app that allows bold faced names to connect to other luminaries. “A friend suggested Raya and he felt like he had nothing to lose by joining,” a source explained to E! News at the time. 

And though the father of 6-year-old Everly reunited with the singer for one last refrain of their year-long romance, now that they’re done for good, the 40-year-old is back to swiping.

Just two years removed from his nearly 9-year marriage with Dewan, 39, she is a happily engaged enamored new mom and the onetime People‘s Sexiest Man Alive is hoping for a little magic of his own as he celebrates this milestone birthday. “He would love to be dating someone and is not shy about it,” said the source. “He wants to have fun again and he doesn’t care if he meets someone online, a set up or just walking down the street.”

So, uh, ladies, the line forms to the left. 

By his own admission, Tatum wasn’t always the one-woman man type. 

In his defense, the Mississippi- and Florida-bred former footballer was fresh out of a lengthy romance when he was cast as the bad boy to Dewan’s privileged modern dancer in 2006’s campy romance Step Up. Just 25, he “was in no way, shape or form looking to get into another relationship,” he explained Howard Stern in 2015. “I was like, ‘OK, now it’s time to play…’ I was gonna go and just live the life that you’d think you would probably live if you’re an actor in Hollywood. And then I ran smack into Jenna.”

His chemistry with the triple threat from Texas, a prom queen and varsity cheerleader who got her start as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson, was naturally off-the-charts, but “it’s not just really the dancing,” he said. “It’s who she is. She really is my counterweight in life.”

He was taken enough with the University of Southern California grad to meet her ultimatum head-on.

“He did this whole thing where he didn’t want to be in a relationship, so I was like, ‘Look, if you want to date other people and be free that’s totally fine,'” she recalled on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2017. “‘But we’re not gonna hang out and watch movies. You’ve got to figure out what you want because I know I want to be in a relationship with you.'”

A few days and several tequila-laced cocktails later, he showed up at her hotel room door wearing underwear, Ugg boots, a sombrero and his heart on his non-existent sleeve. Recalled Dewan, “He’s like, ‘Let’s do this.'”

And just like that, one of America’s sexiest couples was born. For the next decade-plus, the impossibly attractive pair shared the secrets to their solid romance (“I’m a very sensual person, same with Chan. It is just how we’re made up, and it’s a big part of how we connect,” she noted to Health in 2018), built up their power couple status, the slate of Magic Mike, 21 Jump Street and Foxcatcher making Tatum a certified movie star as his wife cornered the TV market with Super Girl and Witches of East End and generally made us all feel super jealous, Everly’s May 2013 arrival the final touch on their picturesque life. 

Life was basically the fairytale he’d described to People a month after their 2009 Malibu vows when he gushed he was “as happy as I possibly can be on the planet right now….It’s pretty much the same as I’ve felt every day since I met her—and that’s just about perfect.”

Until they weren’t. Dewan’s taking umbrage with that descriptor itself—”When people say you guys have such a perfect life, I want to scream and tell them no one’s perfect,”—was the first sign that all wasn’t placid in Beverly Hills. By the time her words were printed in the March 2018 issue of Health, the couple were quietly unraveling their marriage. 

Publicly, they insisted “absolutely nothing has changed about how much we love one another,” but behind the scenes, as Dewan would share in her 2019 book Gracefully You: Finding Beauty and Balance in the Everyday, emotions were less poetic. “The pain hit me like a tumbling avalanche,” she wrote. “I was completely overcome with fear and sadness. It took many moments of sitting alone with my grief to force me into surrendering to my roller coaster of a situation.”

Yet they each managed to reach new heights, Dewan outing her romance with now-fiancé Steve Kazee at a Halloween party mere weeks after Tatum was spotted with Jessie J.

And for more than a year, Tatum seemed to be making beautiful music with the 32-year-old Londoner. A month after an October 2018 photograph launched their flirtation into official couple status “before our relationship was even a thing,” as Jessie put it to The Times of London last June, Tatum was publicly applauding her raw confession about her fertility struggles during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Crowing to fans about how they were able to witness something special, he effectively confirmed their status, his post a first in a long line of public proclamations of affection. 

“The reason we kept it a secret for as long as we could was because we wanted to really enjoy it without it being magnified into something that it wasn’t yet,” Jessie explained on The Dan Wootton Interview podcast in June.

Even though it was clearly something by then, Tatum having made the most of a year off by tagging along to several of her shows, she wasn’t about to declare open season on their coupling. “I decide when I want to talk about it and when I don’t,” she said. “I decide when I want to post about him on Instagram and I don’t. If I do it’s often a naked picture of him because that’s what people want to see.”

A girl who knows her audience, she made him pay off a Jenga game bet by posting a mid-shower snap. And between the R-rated Jenga sessions and public praise (he marked her birthday last year by writing, “You have blessed our eyes, our ears, our hearts and our lives. So thank you for just being you. You are so very special,”) it appeared they’d struck that ideal balance of depth and levity, enough substance to go the distance with a healthy serving of fun. 

“They aren’t thinking too much about making a major commitment,” a source told E! News as they marked their first anniversary. “They aren’t there yet, but they love their life together and what they have. He loves seeing her perform and traveling with her. They have a good thing going.”

Ultimately, though, good was not quite enough. Splitting just before Christmas, they were back on by Valentine’s Day only to end things once more earlier this month. The fun times had them trying their hardest to make the partnership work, one source told E! News, “but the same issues were still popping up.” Eventually, added another, they “realized they were better off as friends.”

Which means it’s back to the drawing board for Tatum, who, for all his frat boy-like antics (in a 2011 GQ profile he boasted about his fondness for startling pals such as Marlon Wayans with a visit he called a “Spontaneous Home Invasion”) is serious when it comes to the business of love. 

Like his relationship with Jessie, his and Dewan’s union had its issues. But, somewhat surprisingly for two working actors who look like that, jealousy was not one of them. 

“The temptation really isn’t, I think, an aspect,” he told Stern in 2015. “And I don’t really know how to describe that, other than if you keep the line taut between you and your lover, the person you devoted your life to, that doesn’t have any room to squeak in.”

Besides, as evidenced by Magic Mike, he’s had his fill of the bachelor life. “I lived a crazy life before [back in his stripper days],” he said. “I’ve had long term relationships, then really crazy play in between, and then a long relationship…

“Once I’ve sort of made the decision [to commit], it doesn’t ever really become a thing.”

As we were saying ladies, the line forms to the left. 

Another week of social distancing, another slew of celebrity hair changes.

In this week’s most surprising transformations, a few stars decided to shake things up, with Maddie Ziegler being inspired by a sunset to change her hair’s hue and a Dancing With the Stars pro trusting his wife to give him a much-needed haircut.

Plus, two stars from TV’s biggest reality TV shows opened up about their health journeys, with one showing off the benefits of the keto lifestyle while the other revealed a 20-pound weight loss after learning she was at risk for some pre-diabetic problems if she didn’t change her diet.

Oh, and a pretty reclusive A-lister decided to join social media as a way to connect with fans while adhering to social distance protocol, posting a rather unusual video message from a cave. 

But the biggest transformation of the week might just belong to YouTube sensation JoJo Siwa, who took to TikTok to show off her shocking makeunder.

Here are the biggest celebrity transformations of the week…

Maluma isn’t letting quarantine keep him from creating and doing to what he loves to do most.

The Colombian singer-songwriter spoke to E! News about what keeps him happy and positive during these anxious times, his charity and how he’s helping his community as well as updates on his new album.

Currently in quarantine in Medellín, Maluma shared that “it’s been very, very rough because we can’t go out from our house.” He added, “Only one person from each family can go out and go out to the grocery store. So literally, man, I’ve been here in my house for almost month.”

Even then, Maluma is counting his blessings. “I’m very lucky I have some grass that I can walk my dogs around [but] I miss going out, I miss my fans, I miss the shows, I miss touring.”

“I’ve been touring for almost 9 years nonstop,” Maluma shared on Friday during HappE! Hour with E!’s Scott Tweedie. “I wasn’t ready for this, but it also feels good to share some time with my mom, my sister, my dogs. It’s always cool to be home with them, but I miss going out and sharing some time with my fans.”

During the interview, the 26-year-old “11PM” singer also shared the weirdest thing he’s done while being quarantined, a special project he just released and what’s making him HappE! right now.

When asked what the weirdest thing he’s done while staying at home, Maluma quipped that “well now, I have to wash dishes.”

Now that he’s cooking more at home with his family, Maluma shared that it’s not really his cup of tea.

“I’m sick of cooking and washing dishes and all of these kind of activities but it also feels good. I used to cook my own meals and I stopped doing this because I’m always on tour and always in a hotel,” he went on. “Going back to these activities… washing the dishes is something new for me.”

But aside from wanting to avoid doing the dishes, Maluma is also preoccupied with continuing to give back to his community in Colombia.  

The “No Se Me Quita” singer is helping out families in Colombia through his charity El Arte de Los Sueños (or The Art of Dreams). He shared, “I’m super excited because we’ve been helping a lot of kids here in Colombia, we are sending a bunch of food for their families and we’ve also been supplying gloves, masks, ventilators to these little hospitals around my hometown here.”

He added, “It’s crazy, they don’t have any gloves. It’s the perfect time to help, just sending a message—a virtual or a digital hug. It helps a lot…”

On Friday, the singer also dropped an acoustic ballad “ADMV” (an abbreviation for “Amor De Mi Vida” which translates to “Love of My Life”) and a music video to accompany it. 

On Instagram, the singer wrote of his latest song and music video, “We’re going through difficult times but I hope that with this song we can feel close to those that are far away from us right now.” 

He tells E! News that he worked on “ADMV” in January during a trip to Jamaica.

“I went to Jamaica with amazing composers but we didn’t know that all of this coronavirus thing was going to happen,” he shared. “I decided to write this beautiful song because I also dream about having a family, getting old and having this partner in my life.”

He went on, “Of course, my career is very important, but I also dream about having a family, but I feel like I was spending so much energy in becoming this big artist and big star that I wanted to be. I also felt like I was forgetting my essence, you know. Just wanted to share my life with someone, giving more love to my mom, my dad, my sister, my family, my animals.”

For Maluma, this song was about reconnecting with the “little kid” inside of him and others that is “in love with family, that’s in love with these simple things.”

Ultimately, he felt it was a “beautiful” time to release this message into the world as many continue to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, what’s making Maluma happy?

“Making music, I always take my guitar with me. I come to the studio. I started writing, I started recording,” Maluma shared. “My producers, they are always sending me beats and rhythms—that is really important to me, to keep working on my new album.”

While he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to release a new body of music, Maluma won’t let that stop him from working on it. He added, “For me, my priority is to keep being super creative.”  

Gigi Hadid is spending her birthday with the ones closest to her heart: Bella Hadid and Zayn Malik. 

The model, who just turned twenty-five on April 23, took to Instagram to share a sweet but short video of herself with her sister Bella and a surprise guest, Zayn. (Insert eye emoji here.)

In the Boomerang video posted on Instagram, Zayn is sandwiched between the two sisters with his hand on Gigi’s waist, as the birthday girl shows off her balloons. 

On Friday, she shared similar pictures of her birthday celebrations on Instagram but Zayn was nowhere to be found in those. 

She also shared with her 52 million Instagram followers that she had the “sweetest day celebrating my 25th birthday with my quarantine family, who made it so special for me, along with all the love I felt from all over the world. Thank you to everyone for the birthday messages, I carried you with me yesterday!!”

While this rare appearance of the former One Direction member may come as a surprise, it’s not the first time he’s made an appearance on Gigi’s Instagram in recent months. 

In March, the model treated fans to some throwback pictures on Instagram and even included a PDA-packed snap with her boyfriend Zayn. 

According to a source, the picture was taken around the time that the couple reconciled following their January 2019 split. “Gigi and Zayn got back together right before the holidays in December,” the insider told E! News. “Zayn has been reaching out to Gigi for the last month and she is giving him another chance.”

“She has always loved him and the break between the two was needed,” the source added. “Zayn has been working on his past music and focusing on his health and is in a really good place currently.”

And let’s not forget that sweet Valentine’s Day post Gigi posted earlier this year.

In February, the model confirmed yet again that their on-again-off-again relationship was back on with a sweet Valentine’s Day tribute. “HEY VALENTINE,” she captioned the picture. “Z on the farm. December 2019.”