Category: 5. Entertainment

Chris Pratt shared details on gaining weight and his relationship with food as his career progressed.

Pratt, who had a dramatic physical transformation for his leading role in Guardians of the Galaxy, once played the role of a loveable goofball Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation.

In a recent podcast interview on Bill Maher’s Club Random, Pratt talked about how the comedy sitcom came along during a “season of my life where I was drinking and eating a lot.”

He noted that before he landed on Andy’s role, he had also stopped working out and as a result, the employment opportunities began to dry up.

When he joined the drama, Pratt said he’d “never seen myself look so fat,” but that he was the “funniest I think I’ve ever been.” As a result, he set out to gain more weight for the role.

Revealing how he pushed his body to the limits of gaining weight, the father of four recalled, “I went to the showrunner, Mike Schur, and I said, ‘Two things. One, I’m getting fat. Two, I want to get much fatter.”

“And he goes, ‘Great.’ And so I just pushed it. I was like, ‘How fat can I get?’ It became like a challenge. I was, like, eating four burgers at mealtime,” he continued. “I was really impressing everybody and I was really diving into this super indulgent season in my life.”

The Terminal List actor shared that while at times it use to feel “the best” thing ever to eat whatever he wants, while on the other hand he also use to feel “terrible” after a while.

Now, after playing Peter Quill, also known as Star-Lord, in seven live action films and one television special within Marvel Cinematic Universe, the actor says that eating has now become “boring” and compared mealtime to “stopping at the gas station” and putting the bare minimum in the tank.

Currently, Pratt is also rumoured to star in Avengers: Doomsday, which is slated for release on December 16, 2026.

Meghan Markle’s much-awaited second season of With Love, Meghan is set to return tomorrow, August 26. 

With just one day to go, the Duchess of Sussex gave fans a sneak peek of the first episode by sharing a clip. 

The Suits star appeared excited ahead of the Netflix release as she posted a video, featuring Tan France, the British-American fashion designer and entrepreneur. 

The short clip offers a glimpse of the celebrity guest in conversation with Prince Harry’s wife, who was seen sprinkling flower sprinkles from her brand, As Ever onto French toasts. 

‘What was that you just added? asked the 42-year-old TV star, to which Meghan replied, ‘Flower sprinkles. I love them.’ 

Captioning the clip, the mother of two wrote, ‘Season 2 will have you like. With Love, Meghan returns tomorrow on @netflix.’ 

Earlier, the Duchess of Sussex had announced the show’s return on Instagram while also teasing her ongoing collaboration with Netflix, with several new projects already in the pipeline. 

The teaser also highlighted her on-screen wardrobe, featuring luxurious pieces from Carolina Herrera, Veronica Beard, Heidi Merrick and more. 

This comes amid reports that Meghan and Prince Harry are also planning a documentary on Princess Diana, expected to be released in 2027 to mark the 30th anniversary of her death.

Tramell Tillman, who has secured an Emmy nomination for his breakout role in Severance, has revealed he once dreamt of becoming an orthopaedic surgeon.

While conversing with PEOPLE magazine, the 40-year-old American actor opened up about his acting career, admitting that he never thought cementing his place in the acting world was possible for him.

Articulating his thoughts, Tillman, who rose to fame for depicting Seth Milchick in the Apple TV+ show Severance, explained, “When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I had the courage to utter that and was told I’d never make it.”

“And in order to make it in life, I needed to go in science, technology, engineering, math. So, I looked at the sciences. I said, ‘I’m really fascinated with the bone structure. Why don’t I become an orthopedic surgeon?’”

“So, I was studying that even in high school — still performing on the side — but my main focus was the sciences. And then I went to Xavier University, which was number one, and may still be number one, for sending African-Americans to med school,” he recalled.

One day the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning star had a realization that altered his life when he was attending a chemistry lab class.

He shared, “I was bored to tears. I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ There were so many people around me who were so enthralled with this and enjoyed it, and I’m like, ‘This is boring.’ And I was really inspired by those that had that zeal for this thing, and looking at my family and the choices that they made and other people around me, and if I had the opportunity to go pursue my dreams, I wanted to do it.”

Tillman took a while to decide to switch his career and try his luck in acting, “but I eventually got there. But I had to go from job to career, to career to job, in order to find out that it was always there.”

Now, the Sweethearts actor credits his unwavering dedication and the right “timing” that played a pivotal role in stamping his position in Hollywood for which he “had to be ready.”

Published on: August 26, 2025 12:08 AM

Bianca Censori is reportedly securing her financial future while standing by her husband Kanye “Ye” West, even as speculation about their marriage intensifies.

According to RadarOnline, the Australian architect allegedly earns $250,000 for each public stunt orchestrated by the rapper, many of which feature her in provocative outfits that generate viral headlines.

Sources claim Censori has already amassed around $10 million from these appearances, a sum she is said to be saving in case of a potential divorce. Insiders reportedly describe her arrangement with West as a form of “financial domination,” with Censori willing to endure his eccentric requests in exchange for stability.

The reports come as West faces growing financial struggles, prompting him to place several of his properties on the market. His Malibu mansion, purchased in 2021 for $57.3 million, was recently relisted for $34.9 million after stalled renovations. In addition, his Calabasas ranch, once tied to his Donda Academy, has been listed for about $2 million, while his burned San Francisco church is also up for sale.

Meanwhile, rumors about strain in West and Censori’s marriage continue to circulate. Earlier this year, speculation about a split emerged following their controversial Grammy Awards appearance and backlash to West’s reported sale of swastika-themed merchandise. Despite this, representatives for the couple have denied separation claims.

Censori recently sparked further discussion with an Instagram photoshoot featuring her inside a giant transparent bubble. While some fans praised her creativity, others questioned if the imagery symbolized her marriage to West and whether life with the rapper has become suffocating.

West and Censori have not publicly addressed the latest reports.

Quite often auteurs don’t lose sleep over whether their movie will connect with a greater audience or not. It’s always about what they want to say to the world at that given point in time. You’re either along for the ride, or you’re not.

Darren Aronofsky has built his canon on a string of edgy yet eerily grounded features, i.e., Black Swan (which just had an Imax rerelease this past weekend, grossing $850,000), The Wrestler, Mother! .. the list goes on. These have been audacious swings, and in the case of Mother! was polarizing with a rare F CinemaScore.

But don’t think that the audience is never on Aronofsky’s mind.

“(Filmmaker) Stuart Rosenberg, my mentor, use to have a sign on his desk, ‘Where is my audience now?’ I think that it’s super important for a filmmaker to constantly be making a film for your audience,” says the director, whose Austin Butler-starring comedy caper Caught Stealing, opens over the Labor Day box office weekend. “That’s our artform, it’s not for a vacuum, it’s not for an audience of one, it’s for an audience of hopefully millions, if not bigger than that. It’s so expensive to make movies.”

While critics have looked to thread a motif through Aronofsky’s work, the director’s response to that is: “I’ve always tried to challenge myself with new things whenever I can. I guess Madonna is a big influence where you just try to reinvent yourself every time, and be truthful to the story that you have to tell and try to figure out a new kind of film grammar, and try to surprise people.”

“I have noticed over the years, people kind of connect [his movies] and see themes that go through them, but there’s no conscious overlord thinking through this. It’s more like, ‘Oh, that’s a cool story. I think that sounds like a lot of fun. Let’s go for it.’ “

We talk with Aronofsky on this edition of the Crew Call podcast about his adoration for adapting Charlie Huston’s 2004 novel about a bartender/former high school baseball prodigy who becomes embroiled with myriad crime gangs and the cops in 1990s New York City in their pursuit of his punk neighbor’s multimillion-dollar loot. We also converse about why he selected Butler to star, the Black Swan Imax rerelease and its resonance, and more.

Listen to our conversation with the Oscar-nominated filmmaker below.

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the surprise Season 7 finale of “Game Changer,” “Samalamadingdong,” which released Monday on Dropout.

Last fall, Dropout CEO and “Game Changer” host Sam Reich got change-gamered when he was thrown into a surprise episode of his own game show. Today, that episode launched on Dropout as the surprise Season 7 finale, following the official end of the most recent “Game Changer” season Aug. 11.

Titled “Samalamadingdong” (more on that later), the surprise Episode 11 was the work of longtime “Game Changer” loser Brennan Lee Mulligan and a slew of other Dropout characters, Reich’s close friends and family, and even this Variety reporter herself, who all came together to give Reich a taste of his own mystery game medicine.

The stunt was shot Nov. 5 (the day of the 2024 U.S. presidential election) at a castle-style mansion in the Hollywood Hills (complete with drawbridge) and required one key component to work: Reich’s ego.

The Dropout team set up a fake interview with Variety after Season 7 of “Game Changer” had completed production, and Reich suited up and came to the Dropout set for it.

“From the get-go, we needed to figure out a way to get Sam Reich out of the house, and we needed to get him pinned down somewhere that we could spring the trap on him,” Mulligan said earlier this month in a legitimate interview with Variety alongside Reich. “And the degree of instant unanimity in the council of people working on this show that went, ‘If there’s something related to Variety or an interview about “Game Changer,” Sam will be there for as long as he is asked.’ What is the thing that we can do that he will show up, get him into the “Game Changer” suit, get into the microphone? It was a short list.”

Reich added: “Totally taking advantage of me as a press hog and the fact I didn’t see this coming when my calendar had nothing on it.”

Mulligan says many ideas were tossed around for what the episode would be, but the premise the team ultimately landed on was a concept that combined Reich’s love of the Michael Douglas movie “The Game” with Mulligan’s passion for live-action roleplaying (LARP). It turned out to involve Reich’s kidnapping, a castle set, Mulligan in a role that was a mix between “Saw’s” Jigsaw and the mythical Minotaur, and many intricate puzzles Reich needed to solve, all of which involved past seasons of “Game Changer” and included many previous contestants.

Soon after the episode was shot, Reich had to begin figuring out when and how it was going to release, as the entirety of Season 7 had already been plotted out and produced. After fans thought there was an alternate reality game tied to “Game Changer” Season 6 and were wrong, Reich and the Dropout thought it would be “very funny” to do an ARG (and deny it) this season. Reich worked with the company Pillowfight to design and implement the ARG, which included web games released throughout the season, as well as Jacob Wysocki’s CD phone number from the episode “One Year Later.”

According to Dropout, while fans didn’t discover the ARG until the end of the season, it only took them 48 hours to solve it.

As recently as Monday at 1 p.m. ET, Reich was still insisting the episode didn’t exist. He went on a pre-planned Instagram Live, drawing a crowd of approximately 15,000 viewers, to continue the bit before finally revealing the truth and announcing the episode was real and would be released at 1:30 p.m.

Now that he has had to admit the episode exists and its title, “Samalamadingdong,” does have meaning, does he regret choosing that as the title in the middle of filming?

“I mean yes, every regret about that. But again, the spirit of this episode is that like I’ve been gotten, so I have to be very wary of my usual perfectionism, and instead let the improv land wherever it lands,” Reich said. “I’m always working overtime to justify the decisions of my improvisers on stage, even if that means, like, taking a bullshit visual effect that came up in the moment and spending thousands and thousands of dollars on buttholes — so if I’m giving myself that same treatment, then I’m taking ‘Samalamadingdong’ very seriously. And horrible as that is, me dropping the sword in front of Brennan and it just going, ‘Samalamadingdong,’ justifies it for me.”

Don’t worry, Reich did actually get an interview with Variety when all was said and done that day (and again, several months later for this story). You can read the Nov. 5 conversation that took place immediately after production wrapped on the episode below.

How you doing?

I do think this has given me new empathy for what “Game Changer” contestants go through. It’s scary and delightful. It feels like skydiving, like a release of control.

Do I, a journalist, play a convincing journalist?

If you tell me your entire relationship with Variety is a bit then, honestly, at this point, I would believe it, but I would be upset.

Do you forgive me personally?

Absolutely.

Do you still trust me as a journalist and Variety as a reputable media source?

I do.

OK, these are all on the record now.

At the end of the day, this is my love language, and it’s the way that I express love for my cast. And so people doing it to me, how could I interpret it any other way? But that is love, for me.

How many of those $50,000 in FYC Emmys funds that you revealed during the lie-detector test in the episode did you give to Variety?

That’s a really good question. I feel like a few. I think it was ballpark that number.

Did you have any suspicions at all before today that something weird was happening?

No, I mean, there came a moment when Brennan was first revealed to me, I thought, “Oh, this is a really fun bit for Variety.” Then when Grant and Rekha appeared, I thought, “Oh, wait a second.” And when I was led into the van, I thought, “Oh no.” And that’s when the math started to happen, and I went, “Elaine didn’t have a walk this morning? And Elaine gave me a big thing of turmeric tea — why for a little press thing? No.” Pieces have come together since then. It’s kind of like a “Memento” moment.

How much information have you already been given about how long this took to put together?

I’ve been told that Brennan has been wanting to do this for a few seasons now, and that Elaine (Carroll, Reich’s wife) knew about it from August on.

I was told six months was the length of practical planning. So do you trust your wife?

Yes, I trust my wife to always do what’s best for the bit, which sometimes means deceiving me.

Brennan said he’s enjoying the fact you will have to edit all of this into an episode.

That’s the real prank. The real prank is that all of this footage is gonna end up on my lap.

How much do you think this cost?

This looked expensive. I did, apparently, smash a $6,000 vase, which is not true. I’m gonna guess between $100,000 and $200,000?

So someone signed off on that, and it wasn’t you. Books have been cooked. There were different codes being used.

I just do want to emphasize my company, my show, no permission.

So how will you retaliate? Are you already forming plans?

There were things that I decided not to do this season because I felt like they were too unconscionable, which now I floated right to the top of my list for Season 8.

You give the cast a one to four chili pepper scale for how far they want to go with what they feel comfortable doing on a “Game Changer” episode. What would you call this for yourself?

I would say two and a half chili peppers, and I’m only deducting a half a chili pepper because it was so much fun. And because Brennan let me win.

What was the hardest puzzle throughout the day for you?

By far the vases. That was brutal. And the moment I failed, and they were like, “Good, we can move on in the story,” I was like, “Oh, tell me that I’m going to fail a beat or two earlier and I would have done this more efficiently.” I can fail efficiently, if that’s the goal.

What was the best bit from the day?

I thought the three-headed Cerberus, from a sheer humor perspective, I thought that was brilliant. I think my favorite game design or puzzle design of the whole day was the P keyboard? The P keyboard was really well designed.

Did you know if you hadn’t gotten the name of Nico’s band correct, you would have been put in the stocks and pied in the face?

Yeah, Elaine did tell me that. She also told me that people didn’t think I knew the name of Nico’s band, which is wild, because I follow Nico’s band and I’m a big fan. When it comes to my love for Nico and Ash, you cannot underestimate me.

When and why did you write a rap about “Beowulf”?

Yes, that was fifth grade. We were studying “Beowulf” in class, and I think we had some sort of assignment where we had to recap the story of “Beowulf” in our own way. And so I opened up the rhyming dictionary and went to town.

And you remember all of this from fifth grade?

I do. So my teacher really liked the rap and then had us perform it for the class, it was like me and a group of friends. And then she liked it so much that she had us perform it in front of the entire school in Washington, D.C. So I had some practice, and then over the years, I’ve busted it out.

Will you be mad if this ends up being the “Game Changer” episode that wins an Emmy and you did not plan any of it?

If Brennan gets an Emmy for “Game Changer,” and I don’t, that sword’s gonna be real.

How do you top this? What do you do when you have control again of “Game Changer” for Season 8?

I keep saying this, but like every season, we say, how are we going to top this next season? And every season we say, that’s next season’s problem. And so far, that strategy has not failed us. As we sit in a castle, I know you might ask, are we at risk of flying too close to the sun at a certain point? I don’t think the wax wings have melted yet.

I feel so much more inspiration than anxiety. It’s funny to work amidst other hyper-creative people, there is this space race between us, where I feel impressed by their creativity, sometimes intimidated by it, but it only pushes me farther — even if by that I mean revenge.

Last one for you: was this a fun way to spend Election Day?

It really was. I’m glad to have already voted, it would have been a horribly anxiety ridden day otherwise. I’m glad to say it was only horribly anxiety ridden in a completely different way.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

The “KPop Demon Hunters” soundtrack continues to hunt down more slots in the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100. As of the newly revealed weekly chart, four songs from the album are now in the top 10, simultaneously — the first time that has happened for any soundtrack album in the history of the Hot 100.

“Golden” remains at No. 1 for a second week, after finally having pushed out Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” last week. It is joined again in the top 10 by “Your Idol,” which repeats at No. 4, and “Soda Pop,” which moves up five spots to No. 5. The fresh addition to the top 10 that allowed the soundtrack to make history with four top 10 slots is “How It’s Done,” which got a four-spot boost to land at No. 10 this week.

There are four previous examples of a soundtrack generating four top 10 songs in the Hot 100, but none of them had all four of those songs landing that high concurrently. The last time any soundtrack had four or more top 10 hits, according to Billboard, was three decades ago, when “Waiting to Exhale” had five in 1995-96 … bot those five tunes were not all in the top 10 concurrently, the way the current hits from “Demon Hunters” are.

Billboard also notes that the last time a soundtrack had three songs in the top 5 at once was when “Saturday Night Fever” did that in 1978.

Most industry observers would say that, by most measures, “Golden” has been the most popular song in the country for more than just two weeks. But it was held back for a while in the No. 2 slot because its success was primarily due to streaming and it was getting very little radio play (a la the “We Don’t Care About Bruno” phenomenon). But even as streaming continues to see small week-over-week growth, radio is coming on board in a bigger way. This week, airplay for “Golden” was up an impressive 39%, to 16.2 million radio airplay audience impressions.

There’s still a major imbalance between streaming and radio play for “Golden.” Billboard reports that the smash is No. 1 on the streaming songs chart for a fifth straight week, while, even with the 39% radio increase, it’s still only No. 42 on the radio songs chart. But even a modicum of airplay may be enough to keep “Golden” atop the Hot 100, given its streaming indomitability.

In fact, its strength may only increase on next week’s charts, which could reflect additional interest generated by theatrical sing-along screenings of “KPop Demon Hunters” that took the Netflix movie to No. 1 at the box office this past weekend.

(Looking at the Spotify charts, there’s certainly no slowdown in sight; the soundtrack currently occupies the top seven slots on the daily U.S. chart.)

The No. 2 song continues to be Warren’s “Ordinary.” That position for the former charttopper was bolstered by the ballad holding steady at radio with 73.8 million audience impressions, more than four times as many as “Golden” picked up for the week.

Repeating in the No. 3 spot is Morgan Wallen’s “What I Want,” featuring Tate McRae. Ravyn Lenae’s “Love Me Not” drops one position to No. 6. Teddy Swims’ perennial “Lose Control” holds on again at No. 7. Justin Bieber’s “Daisies” and Wallen’s “Just in Case” are at Nos. 8-9 on the Hot 100.

On the Billboard 200 albums chart, Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” is No. 1 for a 12th non-consecutive week.

That’s a blockbuster that even “KPop Demon Hunters” has a problem hunting down, for all of its hit. The soundtrack remains at No. 2, where it has spent five non-consecutive weeks. How close are they? Wallen’s album had 121,000 equivalent album units for the week, while “KPop” had 108,000.

The highest-debuting album is Conan Gray’s “Wishbone” at No. 3, his best achievement on the chart to date.

The other big action on the album chart came from two 2024 albums experiencing big boosts. Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” reentered the top 10 of the Billboard 200 at No. 6 due to a one-year anniversary special vinyl edition hitting the market. Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” jumped eight spots to No. 10, presumably just on the strength of news about a follow-up album being on the way.