Nicki … Katy … Beyoncé … It is 2011 again and I could not be happier! … I for one am still listening to “Cuff It” every moment of every day … This is The Friday Post, Hung Up’s weekly roundup of celebrity mess and miscellanea. If you like this kind of thing, why not subscribe?
While in Vegas last week, Perry danced to “In da Getto” by J. Balvin and Skrillex. Someone handed her a box of pizza. Katy Perry did what Katy Perry is wont to do: she fed her children.
Because I had the good fortune of being in high school during — like, going to my first parties and taking my first horrible sips of Malibu rum — the Teenage Dream era, I am a KatyCat. I don’t think Gen Z can really appreciate how absorbing Perry’s technicolor fantasy was during this time. Perry was everywhere, and wherever she wasn’t, there was the equally-technicolor Nicki Minaj (Perry herself is a Barb — lol), or Perry’s raven-haired twin Zooey Deschanel. Whenever Katy Perry does absolutely anything — misguided heart to hearts with DeRay, misguided pleas to vote, misguided post-Trump election missives — I can only think “Katy” … and usually it’s followed by “No!” but still.
There’s a Katy Perry interview I think of often. And by “often,” I mean at minimum once a week: Upon the release of Smile, Katy Perry, then very pregnant, was interviewed for the Los Angeles Times. “I’m thankful that I’m out of the loop of how intense it is to be red hot for 10 years,” she told Amy Kaufman. “Because I’ve had all the numbers, honey. Still set those records, honey. Talk to me when you’ve done that. Do I need to keep ringing that bell, or can I start ringing others?” The bells she was interested in ringing included: a Vegas residency, an aughts franchise-hero boyfriend, and an album released to middling reviews.
It is actually hard to think of a pop star less suited for our times: Teenage Dream was all puckish optimism and girlish pop. But something about that LA Times interview stuck with me — Perry seemed a little pleased at how left behind she was. It seemed completely right: There is no one like Katy Perry, and she can’t be like anyone else. Other stars can stress, can strike fear, or build; Katy Perry will do every weird, random, wrong thing. Maybe that makes her a popstar exactly suited for our times, then: She is BeReal in human form. She has no choice but to be herself, to throw a slice of pizza into a crowd, to resist every trend, to give into every impulse. I love that video of Perry flinging pizza wildly; it is entirely correct, I have watched it one hundred times. Renaissance has shaken up the pop landscape enough for this to feel exactly right.
What Paying Subscribers Got This Week
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News Briefs
NOT KIM AND PETE BROKE UP LOL. I love Bodies Bodies Bodies viral marketing
Gone Batgirl Gone: Warner Bros. Discovery C.E.O. David Zaslav chose a tax deduction over releasing the movie in theaters. (Variety)
Erasure! HBO Max has been removing shows and movies without fanfare or warning for … weeks?! (Indiewire)
I know Michelle Obama is laughing: Showtime canceled the Viola Davis-saying-coon show First Ladies. (TV Line)
Demi Lovato is using she/her pronouns again. (Buzzfeed)
Kevin Spacey will have to pay nearly $31 million to the makers of House of Cards … see when you do clownery! (Entertainment Weekly)
Internecine New York city media drama … my jaw dropped … (Gakwer)
A headline you have to see because it’s so lol, via the LA Times:
The Maggie Rogers Album … well! To quote my friend Meg: “this album proves nobody needs to go to grad school.”
Kelisgate
Last week, upon the release of Renaissance, Kelis complained about her song “Milkshake” being interpolated on “Energy.” “Pharrell knows better,” she said. “This is a direct hit at me [and] he does this stuff all the time. The reason I’m annoyed is because I know it was on purpose.”
On Tuesday, Beyonce removed the Kelis interpolation from energy. “Tidal and Apple have appeared to have removed an interpolation of Kelis’ song ‘Milkshake’ that appears at the tail end of ‘Energy,’” Rolling Stone reported. “In a brief glitch, Tidal was only playing the isolated vocals of the interpolation, while the rest of the nearly two minute track was silent.” (Sorry … Lol … Jay-Z forgot about Tidal once again I fear.)
Loving Beyoncé is the longest relationship of my life, but come on! Be serious. It doesn’t matter that the interpolation is small, that you can barely hear it, that “Energy” is good. Kelis rightly expressed frustration that her song is being used in a way she did not want. (As Joe Coscarelli points out here, Kelis was upset about this before the song came out. This is about her rights to her own work!)
After Beyoncé removed the word “spaz” from “Heated,” Monica Lewinsky resurfaced a complaint she first made a few years ago about the “He Monica Lewinsky’d all on my gown” lyric from “Partition.” The Hive was upset, but these all feel like reasonable complaints to me.
A Dragging Today!
Now someone who actually does deserve that smoke: the songwriter Diane Warren, behind such hits as Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart” and Pattie LaBelle’s “If You Asked Me To” (and a million other ones, lol, but those are my personal favorites.) After doing a not very close examination of Renaissance’s liner notes, Warren asked how a song could have 24 credited songwriters.
I’m usually willing to give the elderly the benefit of the doubt when it comes to emoji use — they don’t understand the inherent shade or rabid horniness assigned to some. But the question … from a veteran in the music industry … shade is shade.
Super producer The-Dream, credited on 10 of Renaissance's 16 tracks, answered Warren’s query.
Notably, Warren quietly deleted the tweet where she said she’s the only writer on her crusty old ballads. I wonder why! We makin’ music about [redacted] and [redacted] over here…
Birkin Rights
I’m begging yall to get a grip.
If you want to carry a bag that looks like it self-produces grandma candies, that’s your business. If Beyoncé doesn’t, that’s hers!
Martin Scorsese Covering His Eyes
Lady Gaga confirmed her Joker 2 casting. Joker: Folie à Deux — whatever the fuck that means — will be out October 4, 2024.
Joker was toothless Taxi Driver meets defanged King of Comedy. What will Todd Phillips put facedown into his copy machine next? New York, New York or Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore? Lady Gaga as Catherine O’Hara in After Hours would actually be … a bit iconic, I fear.
Let us never forget: “I saw clips of it. I know it. So it’s like, why do I need to? I get it. It’s fine.”
Update: Against my better judgment I googled it.
The Jolie-Pitts
Angelina Jolie is a Spelman mom:
And Brad Pitt is a getting-emailed-the-link-to-the-FAFSA-and-that’s-it dad:
*America … America Has A Problem voice*
In addition to every crazy thing that happened at HBO this week, I missed this item last week: HBO Max dropped the Nicki Minaj documentary. Dropped as in is no longer part of it, not dropped as in “released.” When Minaj announced the project in 2020, she referenced HBO Max; in the doc’s trailer, the streamer wasn’t mentioned.
“It was determined last year that the Nicki Minaj documentary series will not appear on HBO Max,” a rep wrote to Vulture. “We wish Nicki and BRON all the best with their launch plans.”
Sharon!!!!!!
Why lie? Some of these are bars.
Rhyme scheme is out of this dimension.
Funny Girl
I profiled Maria Bakalova for this week’s issue of New York Magazine.
Bodies Bodies Bodies nation, we ride!
Lastly: Kandi Burrus and the ladies of Old Lady Gang hosted a screening of Day Shift with Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco.
Aunt Bertha simply the greatest to ever do it.
That’s all this week! Have a good weekend!
The Maggie Rogers read…..I screamed
My weekend doesn’t begin until this hits my inbox ❤️