NBA's first openly gay player Jason Collins marries partner Brunson Green
Former NBA star Jason Collins has married partner Brunson Green.
Collins became the NBA's first openly gay player when he came out in 2013 in an open letter published by Sports Illustrated.
The 46-year-old's basketball career spanned 13 seasons and six teams and included two trips to the NBA finals with the New Jersey Nets in 2002 and 2003.
Green, 57, is a Hollywood movie producer and earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination for the movie 'The Help'. The couple even had one of the stars at their wedding.
Octavia Spencer posted a picture of the happy couple walking down the aisle, captioning it: 'Welcome to the family @jasoncollins_98. You've chosen well, and so has he! Love you, B!'.
Her co-star, Viola Davis, added: 'Aaaaahh!!!! Congratulations' with a series of love heart emojis.
Collins and Green have been together since 2014, not long after he announced his retirement from the NBA.
They reportedly got engaged in 2023 at the Los Angeles Lakers Pride Night.
When Collins first came out, he also became the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport.
'When I was younger, I dated women,' he wrote at the time. 'I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her.
'I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue.'
As well as playing for the Nets, Collins represented the Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards.
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The Independent
31 minutes ago
- The Independent
What to Stream: Nintendo's Switch 2, Addison Rae album, 'Presence' and Ariana Madix returns to Fiji
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The Guardian
35 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘I'm in pain from smiling so much': JoJo Siwa on surviving Mickey Rourke and finding love on Celebrity Big Brother
A week before JoJo Siwa entered the Celebrity Big Brother house, she had a presentiment about it. 'Something feels different,' she told her mother (and manager) Jessalynn. 'I don't think I'm gonna win, but I think I'm gonna change.' Siwa's initial hunch was that the transformation would be in her career, she says. 'Little did I know it was going to change my personal life so much. By a landslide, it is the best thing that's ever happened to me.' Siwa may be only 22, but it's still quite the statement. As the breakout talent of the American reality TV series Dance Moms, she was arguably the biggest child star of the 2010s, at 11 years old instantly memorable for her larger-than-life personality and equally outsized hair bow. By the time she turned 15, in 2018, Siwa was a cross-platform tween sensation, with 5 million YouTube subscribers (now 12 million), a Nickelodeon deal, a burgeoning pop career and a staggeringly successful hair accessory business. When, at 17, Siwa came out by lip-syncing to Lady Gaga's Born This Way on TikTok, Elton John phoned to congratulate her. He continues to send her birthday messages and Christmas cards, Siwa confirms: 'We love Sir Elton!' She has now spent 12 years in the public eye, more than half her life – a fact that Siwa herself still seems to be wrapping her head around. 'It's been a decade of learning, you know what I mean? It's really all I know.' She radiates a warm, solid professionalism somewhat at odds with her routinely outre getups (today a Burberry polo shirt, denim Bermuda shorts and diamante-studded, slicked-back ponytail). At times Siwa could pass for a California member of Congress, with her steady eye contact, deep tan and hypnotically white veneers (a recent investment, reportedly costing $50,000). But when her attention drifts to her nails or her buzzing phone, or she's blushing over being 'head over heels' with her new beau, she seems much younger than her years. 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Rourke was given a warning, and apologised to Siwa on-screen for his 'short fuse' – but she says it was negated by his subsequent comments in private. 'He mentioned to me that he knew what he was doing, that he tried to get under my skin and wanted to offend me, all this shit. That's what made me super upset – that was really hard to take.' But Siwa does not believe Rourke should have been removed sooner, as some viewers called for. 'I wanted to give him a chance, and I think production could see that as well,' she says. 'Think about where we got to go from there: we got to have laughs with him [and] beautiful conversations about inclusion, and what you can and can't say.' Those interactions gave Siwa closure, she says, 'Like, 'Oh, he doesn't hate me; he's a very hurt man.'' But Rourke was less invested in teachable moments; he later left the show after what ITV called 'further use of inappropriate language' and 'unacceptable behaviour' towards other contestants. Had she ever experienced such flagrant homophobia before? 'Not to that level, and not in person like that. It was definitely a first – but I was lucky. I had a lot of support in that house.' Which brings us to the silver lining of the saga: Chris Hughes – or 'sweet Christopher', as Siwa calls him now. The ex-Love Islander stood up to Rourke for Siwa, whom he had only just met, and comforted her. The intensity of the altercation, magnified by the Big Brother fishbowl, seemed to fast-track them to BFF status, surprising fellow housemates as much as audiences. Siwa says she and Hughes had to reckon with the suggestion they were playing to the cameras before they were even out of the house. It gave them the opportunity to clarify with each other: 'No, this is a very genuine connection – we're not faking a thing.' Their obvious chemistry was complicated, however, by Siwa's being in a relationship (with 27-year-old Australian actor Kath Ebbs, who identifies as non-binary) and identifying as a lesbian (and, before that, gay and pansexual). When Siwa mused aloud on Big Brother that she felt more 'queer' than lesbian, then broke up with Ebbs soon after production wrapped, tabloid speculation about the nature of her relationship with Hughes ramped up. In their first joint interview, on This Morning, both insisted on their 'platonic soulmate' connection. After daily are-they-aren't-they coverage and some awkward TV interviews I expect Siwa to shut the subject down. But she understands the interest, she says. 'People can see our chemistry, and they got to see it develop.' Does it bother her? 'I think everyone's just curious, and I can't blame them.' We have circled around the question long enough. I have to ask: is it platonic or romantic? Siwa is silent for a long time, staring down at the floor – but even with her body angled away from me, I can see she is smiling from ear to ear. 'I am,' she agrees, when I point it out, 'because we … we … we have …' She exhales noisily, ums and aahs some more. After a full 20 seconds, she says: 'It's not platonic any more, and it's been a beautiful development, a beautiful connection, and I'm absolutely head over heels for him and he's the same way.' It's hard not to feel happy for her: she seems utterly smitten, the hearts-for-eyes emoji in human form. Anyone who suggests their relationship is 'a PR stunt' is only telling on themselves, Siwa says. 'Clearly, you've never been around us. I won't ever speak for him, but for me personally, the happiness in my life just radiates off of me right now. Literally yesterday, I was massaging my cheeks; I've never [before] been in pain from smiling so much.' Siwa was born Joelle Joanie Siwa, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Jessalynn, a dance instructor, and Tom, a chiropractor. She has an older brother, Jayden, who briefly dabbled in vlogging, but Siwa was the star in the making – and Jessalynn made it her 'mission in life' (as she later put it, on Dance Moms) to make it happen. In 2013, aged nine, Siwa was cast from an open call for Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition. She placed fifth in the reality show, but her star power – and Jessalynn's tenacity – saw her picked up for two seasons of Dance Moms from 2015. Young Siwa was often singled out as loud and over the top, despite the show's high bar for both; even her coach, the famously harsh Abby Lee Miller, described her as 'obnoxious; sometimes rude' in the same breath as praising her stage presence and drive to succeed. For the producers who discovered her, Siwa was raw talent, reality TV gold. They would reportedly gather to watch her interviews as they were being taped, not wanting to miss a minute of what they called 'the JoJo show'. 'I did love it – that's just who I was,' says Siwa. 'It was the best time in my life. I would give anything to go back to it.' Was she aware of the production around her, the narrative being built? 'I was aware that we were making a TV show, but it was never like 'here's the plan'. I've never been told what to do, or how to be, or what to say, ever.' Other people's experiences of reality TV are different, Siwa acknowledges; but 'for me, it was 100% real'. After two seasons of Dance Moms, Siwa moved the JoJo show to YouTube, devising, shooting and editing all her videos herself. The workload was more brutal than TV, in the absence of child labour protection, but the payoff was higher. These days Siwa is nostalgic for that earlier, prospective era of what's now established as 'content creation'. 'It was so hard to be successful at, but it was unreal fun.' In 2016, she released her first single, Boomerang, which went platinum; she signed with Nickelodeon the following year. Her first world tour, in 2019, sold out more than 100 venues, including the O2 Arena in London. She loved performing, and her career, and never felt forced, Siwa says, but she was aware of the pressure and responsibility. She recalls a moment on that tour, when her stage manager told her: 'You can do the show without anybody; we can't do the show without you … But do not abuse that power.' Another 16-year-old could hear that and run amok, Siwa agrees. 'That's why I am where I am now, because I don't have that blood in my body.' Even as a child herself, she could 'understand why child stars go crazy, because it's really, really hard', she says. 'I think the hardest thing was feeling like you weren't in control of yourself.' By age 15, 'I was running a billion-dollar business. That's something that should never be on a 15-year-old's shoulders – but at the time, it was my normal.' As of 2019, she'd sold 90m hair bows, 'and that was just the bows', Siwa says. 'Anything I did got turned into a doll.' She is embarrassed to give the retail sales figures for her slime kit, 'because it's ridiculous even to think about'. Hundreds of thousands of dollars? 'More. More.' The profits didn't go straight into her bank account, Siwa hastens to add – but she did gain access to a fortune. Jessalynn, as the quintessential 'stage mom', has often been accused of pushing Siwa and robbing her of a childhood – but, Siwa points out, Jessalynn was also working for her. She had the option of cutting Jessalynn off when she turned 18; instead, Siwa insists (somewhat morbidly) that when Jessalynn dies, it will be the end of her career. 'We don't have a normal mother-daughter relationship – but I couldn't do it without her.' She did have a phase of envying her friends' 'more nurturing' parents, Siwa admits, and feeling wistful for what she missed out on: 'Stupid little things like high-school football games, high school …' She would have liked to have gone to medical school: 'It's crazy to me that it's now a more realistic option for me to build and own a hospital.' That sense of her unlived life played out last year, in what Siwa self-effacingly describes as her 'bad girl phase'. After turning 21, she trialled an edgier, more in-your-face image with Kiss-inspired makeup, defiant clapbacks to 'the haters' and drinking alcohol on stage. As child-star rebellions go, it was restrained, even perfunctory; Siwa, too, felt as if she was going through the motions. 'I was laughing about it today, what my makeup looked like – like, 'Dear God, if I could go back in time …' It wasn't authentic.' Even the Fireball shot she downed on stage was actually apple juice and Diet Coke, she says. 'I think I just wanted to be so far away from being a child star, and I look back at that like, 'You're an idiot – being a child star was so fun.' I love what I do, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.' Now Siwa is seeking to channel that carefree freedom with her new single Bulletproof: a sugary yet distortion-heavy spin on Frère Jacques, and an instant earworm. Previously, Siwa says, she released songs she 'didn't fully connect with', believing that they'd be hits; with Bulletproof, 'It just feels right – it doesn't matter the success level of it.' She is similarly uninterested in justifying her present happiness. Her ex, Ebbs, has been vocal since the break-up, but Siwa says she's 'choosing peace' and not to engage with any takes or opinions. 'I've read 50 articles in the last week about me that are not true, that say, 'Sources close to JoJo …' You're never gonna know the full truth – and I can't be bothered to fill anybody in.' She will confirm, however, that 'queer' best 'encompasses how I am, and who I am' – but reserves her right to remain fluid. 'There's a lot of different sexual identities. I think there's nothing more beautiful than somebody discovering themselves.' At 22, it's inevitable, too. The pushback to Siwa's shifting identity (including feelings of betrayal from some in the LGBTQ+ community) seems consistent with the time-honoured resistance to child stars changing their image. 'I do live this very, very big public life that has so many eyeballs on it, and it can get really hard to navigate,' Siwa says. 'But I'm also living a human life. You can't help who you love.' Whether it can be put down to her lifetime in the spotlight or the protective shield of new love (or, indeed, her shiny new teeth), Siwa gives off an armoured quality, like nothing can touch her. She is the happiest she's been in years, she confirms. 'Ever since Big Brother, genuinely. Even my family is like, 'What happened in there?'' She describes lying in bed with Hughes, scrolling on their phones; this morning, she woke up to him singing one of her songs. 'You know when you're alone, how you feel? You are your true, raw self. I've obviously felt like that before, but never around one single person.' As a kid, Siwa says, she didn't distinguish between her public and private selves, on camera and off: 'It was very much one straight-up path.' She even learned to 'look really happy, and fake it really well, and there's something else going on inside'. Now, she says, 'It's the first time in my life that it feels like I'm switched off.' JoJo Siwa's single Bulletproof is out now
Daily Mail
37 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Anna Kendrick stuns at 85th Annual Peabody Awards after Another Simple Favor tensions with Blake Lively
Anna Kendrick looked ravishing on Sunday as she attended the 85th Annual Peabody Awards in Los Angeles. The 39-year-old Another Simple Favor star — who is rumored to have feuded with co-star Blake Lively during filming — arrived in a strapless magenta gown. The cleavage-baring number featured a deep neckline that dipped and gathered in the middle. The longtime actress kept the rest of her look simple, styling her blonde-highlighted locks in a center part and ironing them straight. She coordinated her makeup with her dress, subtly flaunting a berry-pink shade of eyeshadow on her lids. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. During their press tour in April, there was speculation of a clash between Anna and Blake, amid the latter's ongoing legal battle against It Ends With Us co-star/director Justin Baldoni. Fans initially suspected there was bad blood among the actresses earlier this year. One point of contention was said to be over billing for their movie. It was also claimed that Kendrick was upset Lively's legal ordeal with Baldoni had overshadowed their film. Fans' concerns were stoked when Anna and Blake appeared at SXSW in Texas in March. When asked in a video shared by ET what it means to be working with Blake again, Kendrick replied elusively while signing autographs, answering, 'Oh, you know...' A source previously told E! News, 'There is no drama. They are not enemies. They are coworkers, friends and get along well.' It was added that the two Hollywood vets 'looked forward to promoting the movie along with the rest of the cast.' Another Simple Favor director Paul Feig also weighed in on the purported drama, writing on X in January, according to E!, 'This is total BS. Sorry. Don't believe anything you read on social media these days.' The 54-year-old Your Friends & Neighbors actor posed for a portrait inside the Beverly Wilshire Jon Hamm looked spiffy in a textured dark gray suit with a patterned shirt and tie at Sunday's event. The 54-year-old Your Friends & Neighbors actor posed for a portrait inside the Beverly Wilshire. Peabody award winners were announced on May 1, and Netflix led with six awards — four in the documentary category and two in entertainment, per The Hollywood Reporter. Jeffrey Jones said in a press release at the time, 'The winners of the 85th annual Peabody Awards encompass a wide range of contemporary and historical issues, including the war in Gaza, rural healthcare, a focus on disabilities, authoritarianism and sexual violence. 'Whether enlightening audiences on global issues or bringing a smile and sense of community through thoughtful entertainment, these works deserve to be recognized and celebrated.' Comedian and actor Roy Wood Jr. hosted the ceremony, which was held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Also at the high-profile function was actress and producer Kerry Washington. The 48-year-old Bronx-raised star looked beautiful while hitting the red carpet in a sheer, dark blue, off-the-shoulder top and fringed white skirt. She wore her dark hair in a center part and a taut, long braid. Kerry posed for photos with 38-year-old Jurnee Smollett, who looked fantastic in a long, strapless white dress. The angelic look was complemented by a thick, silver-toned necklace and she wore her long brunette locks tousled. Amy Poehler was among the attendees, and she looked phenomenal as she stepped out in a snug-fitting short-sleeved black dress. The 53-year-old comedic actress' hips were accentuated with the look's wraparound skirt, which was gathered by a gold accoutrement. She flashed her megawatt smile while showing off a glowy face of natural-looking makeup. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was arranged in a side part and soft waves that framed her face. Yvonne Orji, 41, arrived in a long, yellow, pleated frock with a matching golden-blonde bob hairstyle. She flashed a pristine white pedicure as she stepped out in a pair of open-toe brown heels. The actress posed alongside the evening's 46-year-old host, who was clad in a green, velvet jacket and bow tie, white shirt, and dark gray trousers. His look was rounded out with a pair of black dress shoes. After completing hosting duties the star took to Instagram Stories to give followers a glimpse into his mindset before a gig. 'That feeling in your gut never f****n leaves right before going on stage,' he wrote. Also appearing at the glitzy gathering was actress Uzo Aduba, 44. The 44-year-old Orange Is the New Black sensation looked outstanding in a figure-hugging purple dress. The look boasted a structured bodice that wrapped across her chest with a low-cut neckline. Her dark hair was styled in a deep side part and soft ringlets that tumbled over her shoulder. Baby Reindeer sensation Richard Gadd, 36, looked handsome in a dark blue suit with a black shirt and shoes. Legendary performer and songwriter Linda Perry, 60, arrived in her signature style — a tall, wide-brimmed hat, black outfit and boots. Mandy Moore looked terrific in a stylish, coordinating ivory tank blouse and skirt from Adam Lippes. The 41-year-old This Is Us alum complemented the chic look with a matching satin handbag and shoes in a gorgeous aqua hue. She looked typically beautiful in a full face of matte makeup complete with a berry-toned lipstick. Her lustrous shoulder-length locks were flawlessly styled straight with a center part and the front pieces slicked behind her ears. After turning heads on the red carpet she took the stage as a presenter. On Sunday she shared a behind-the-scenes look at her ensemble and wrote to Instagram followers, 'Quick trip home to see the fam and present at the @peabodyawards.'
