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Pink Villa
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Justin Baldoni's Jane the Virgin Co-star Brett Dier Reacts to Ongoing Blake Lively Feud: 'Hoping Everything...'
Jane the Virgin star Brett Dier has weighed in on former co-star Justin Baldoni's ongoing legal dispute with Blake Lively. In an interview with Fan Mail published on May 22, Dier described the situation as 'really intense.' 'I probably shouldn't say much,' Dier said, 'but I'll say this: I always loved Justin.' He also stated, 'Justin has always been an amazing friend to me. I'm just hoping everything resolves in time.' Dier and Baldoni became close during their time on Jane the Virgin, where Dier played Michael Cordero and Baldoni starred as Rafael Solano. The CW series aired from 2014 to 2019. Although Jane the Virgin ended six years ago, Dier revealed he still stays in contact with many of his former castmates. 'It was a wild ride,' he recalled of the show. While he didn't name anyone specifically, Dier was seen publicly supporting Baldoni in August 2024 when Baldoni's movie It Ends With Us premiered in theaters. Dier attended the screening with Yael Grobglas, who played Petra on the show and Baldoni's on-screen ex-wife. 'Our genius friend @justinbaldoni made a phenomenal film,' Grobglas shared on Instagram. 'I cried an embarrassing amount and tried to hide it but probably failed.' She posted a photo with Dier from the theater, writing, 'I am so proud of you, and I love you, friend !!!!' The movie It Ends With Us, which Justin Baldoni directed and starred in, is now at the center of a legal conflict. In December 2024, Blake Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni. She accused him of creating a hostile work environment and causing her 'severe emotional distress' during filming. Baldoni has denied all the allegations and responded with a USD 400 million lawsuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and her publicist Leslie Sloane. He claimed they tried to destroy his reputation by spreading edited and unverified information. Ryan Reynolds and his legal team have asked the court to dismiss Baldoni's defamation claim. 'The entirety of Mr. Baldoni's case appears to be based on Mr. Reynolds allegedly privately calling Mr. Baldoni a 'predator,'' said Reynolds' attorneys Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson in a March statement to Us Weekly. They added, 'The complaint doesn't allege that Mr. Reynolds did not believe that statement to be true.' Reynolds' team also stated that Baldoni himself has openly spoken about his past of mistreating women and pushing the boundaries of consent. Baldoni's attorney, Bryan Freedman, responded by claiming Reynolds played an active role in the situation, allegedly pushing WME to drop Baldoni and helping orchestrate a campaign to damage Baldoni's career.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Clem Burke's Beat Helped Blondie Conquer the World
Farewell to Clem Burke, one of the all-time great rock & roll drummers. The Blondie legend passed away on Sunday, only 70, from cancer. His exuberant energy was as crucial to the Blondie sound as Debbie Harry's vocals. He combined the chaotic frenzy of his idol Keith Moon with the forward motion of Motown drummers like Benny Benjamin, as his beat took them from CBGBs to conquer the world. 'Clem was not just a drummer,' the band said in an official statement. 'He was the heartbeat of Blondie.' To hear what made Clem Burke unique, all you need to listen to is the first 26 seconds of 'Dreaming,' the band's 1979 hit. The first sound you hear is Burke bashing away, setting the scene for Debbie Harry's entrance. By the time she starts singing, the emotional stakes are already high because there's so much teenage melodrama bursting out of the drums. More from Rolling Stone Pete Best, Original Beatles Drummer, Announces Retirement Drummer Clem Burke, the 'Heartbeat of Blondie,' Dead at 70 Why Hollywood Can't Resist the Beatles Blondie were kicking around the Lower East Side bars before they hooked up with Burke, but he was the element that made them finally click as a band. Before he joined in 1974, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein weren't even sure they wanted to keep trying 'We stepped back and decided whether we were going to continue,' Harry told the Chicago Tribune, 'and Clem showed up, and he was a real star. He could play, and you could tell that it was his life. He was that kid—that rock 'n' roll kid. Then we sort of knuckled down and put it together.' The rock & roll kid was just 18, from Bayonne, New Jersey, but he had no doubts about this band, and he never let them down. Burke powered the band through the frantic new wave rush of classics like 'Hanging on the Telephone' or 'Fan Mail' or 'Rip Her to Shreds,' but he also held down the groove as they dabbled in disco with 'Heart of Glass' and 'Atomic,' rap in 'Rapture,' reggae in 'The Tide Is High.' He could do it all. He was left-handed, but played a right-handed kit because that's the way Ringo did it. He joined the band after their previous rhythm section quit.(Bassist Fred Smith left to join Television.) Everyone figured this band was cooked, but Harry and Stein put an ad in the Village Voice and auditioned 50 applicants. Clem was the last one they heard, but he blew them away. 'He had a charismatic quality,' Harry recalled in the 1981 book Making Tracks. 'He was also the only one who had on fancy shoes.' He had the flash they needed. 'Clem was definitely what we were looking for. His father was a drummer in a society band and he was a show-biz drummer.' That show-biz element was key, because Burke was a drummer with real star power. He was the fashion plate of Blondie, with his impeccably dapper suits and his much-imitated mod haircut. 'I also would put beer and grease in my hair and turn on the oven and stick my head in there,' he told Please Kill Me in 2017. 'I would be spiking my hair out because I didn't have a hair dryer.' You can hear his boyish energy jump out right from the opening seconds of 'X Offender,' the first song on their debut, which he once cited as his favorite performance. He plays along with Harry for the spoken-word intro — a Sixties girl-group trope in the mode of 'My Boyfriend's Back.' But he combines punk mania with Hal Blaine-style pop frills; in the final minute, he speeds up, getting more giddily excited the faster he plays. I don't think I've ever heard 'X-Offender' without immediately craving to hear it again. 'Debbie is definitely a big sister to me,' Burke said. 'She's ten or eleven years older than me.' As the kid brother of the band, he goaded Harry and Stein into writing songs. As she recalled, 'Clem kept telling us we were good, that we had something. I never asked what 'something' was but he got us rehearsing again.' Yet he never saw himself as taking a back seat to the glamorous lead singer. 'I don't like being in the back,' he told Please Kill Me. 'The Beatles were four superstars. New York Dolls were five stars. No, I was never interested in being in the back. Of course, Keith Moon was a big inspiration for me as Ringo was, and they were both rock-star drummers; they were not the drummer in the back. There was no jealousy over Debbie's position, other than I wanted to be famous too, and when you're young and you're trying to be famous, you kind of have a gunslinger attitude. I wanted to be the best drummer.' He thrived in the CBGBs punk scene. In the early days, he recalled, 'There were no t-shirts, there were no punk rockers, and you know, not too many women either. That's what you say. When the girls started showing up – that's when you knew something was starting up.' Burke was a big reason why the girls came, as he fueled Blondie's pop appeal. 'As someone who used to go to Woolworths to buy bin albums by the Shangri-Las and the Ventures, he fell in enthusiastically with our plans to form a pop group that aimed to modernize AM radio sounds,' Harry recalled in Making Tracks. 'Clem never wanted anything else but to be a pop star.' Everybody wanted to play with this guy. Over the years, Burke drummed with everyone from Iggy Pop to Nancy Sinatra, from Pete Townshend to the Eurythmics to Joan Jett. He played with his hero Bob Dylan, on the 1986 album Knocked Out Loaded. He also sat in with his old friends in the Go-Gos, filling in for drummer Gina Schock. As he boasted, 'I was the best-looking guy in the band.' He even joined the Ramones in the summer of 1987 — and famously lasted for two gigs. When their drummer Richie Ramone quit, they called and asked him to join, under the name 'Elvis Ramone.' However, Elvis soon left the building, since Johnny didn't like his madcap drumming style. 'It was very loose, like in Blondie,' Johnny said, 'not as rigid as we need.' (Burke later played the Ramones Beat On Cancer benefit in 2004, on what would have been Johnny's 56th birthday.) Whenever you saw Clem at a gig, you knew you were in the right place. He was renowned as a charmer and a wit. (When the Go-Gos finally got elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, I posted on social media that Gina Schock was now the coolest drummer in the Hall. Clem, inducted in 2006, quipped, 'Sorry Rob, but I don't think so, Ha!') In the Eighties, he formed the Chequered Past with fellow Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison and Sex Pistol guitarist Steve Jones. He played in the International Swingers with another Pistol, Glen Matlock, and the Empty Hearts, with members of the Cars, the Romantics, and the Chesterfield Kings. 'My favorite drummers are Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr and Al Jackson Jr. from Booker T,' Burke told Tidal in 2022. 'There's a time for flash and there's a time to lay down the groove, so you have to find that balance. I try to do that, and I have little trademark things that I do that let people know I'm there.' But nobody ever had trouble hearing when Clem Burke was there — his signature style brightened everything he played on. He was always that irrepressible rock & roll kid, right up to the end. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bravo's 'Southern Charm' Cast Reveals Which Co-Stars They'd Date in Real Life
Iced tea might be a Southern staple, but the cast of Bravo's Southern Charm is serving theirs piping hot. The season 10 cast sat down with InStyle to answer fans' burning questions and, in the process, revealed secrets, shared which of their cast mates they'd dated, and opened up about past relationships. During InStyle's Fan Mail series, Leva Bonaparte, Austen Kroll, Madison LeCroy, Taylor Ann Green, Shep Rose, Venita Aspen, and Craig Conover responded to social media prompts, including one that read, "If you had to date another cast member who would it be 'not including someone you've already dated/are dating?" 'I would date Whitney [Sudler-Smith]," Kroll joked. "Whitney and I would travel around, and Whitney could sleep around on me if he wanted to.' Green chose Bonaparte because "she's safe." 'She's very motherly, she'll take care of you," she explained. "She'll feed you. She'll coddle you and read you stories at night.' As for Bonaparte? 'I guess maybe if I wasn't married, since love is love these days, maybe I'd go after Naomi. Maybe I'd swim in a new pond. She's hot!" The cast's resident style guru, Aspen, named Shep as the one she would date before hilariously changing her mind to Conover because her "mom would accept Craig" more. She also revealed that she doesn't work with a stylist, so she curates all of her scene-stealing looks. "I try really hard not to buy things brand new too often. I'm like, 'Okay, how can I just rework something versus buying something new?'" Elsewhere in the video—which was filmed before Conover's highly publicized split from ex-girlfriend and Summer House star Paige DeSorbo—the Sewing Down South founder revealed that the couple was "just trying to figure stuff out" at the time. "Sometimes on TV you lose all of the connective tissue, and it's been three years of work and understanding each other," Conover said of his then-girlfriend. "We're very different people, but we're very supportive. And, she's brought out a version of myself that I've always dreamed of being, so it's been great.' Conover read another prompt calling him the "hottest man on Bravo" before saying he didn't want that title and credited DeSorbo for being his biggest competition in the hotness department. "That's all new to me. I guess just take the compliment, Craig! Say 'thank you,'" he teased. "I'm going to get brownie points and say Paige is my biggest competition for attractive person." "That puts the target on your back," he added. "You do that, and then everyone's like, 'You're not even that good looking,' and you're like,e 'I didn't say I was!'' For more juicy quotes and behind-the-scenes drama, watch all of Southern Charm's InStyle Fan Mail video, here. Read the original article on InStyle
