Latest news with #PunkRock
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Elon Musk Has Been 'Using Drugs Far More Intensely Than Previously Known': Report
The post Elon Musk Has Been 'Using Drugs Far More Intensely Than Previously Known': Report appeared first on Consequence. Elon Musk has made no secret of his fondness for ketamine, but a new report from The New York Times reveals that over the past year, he's been 'using drugs far more intensely than previously known' — to the point where Musk has told people he has experienced bladder issues, a symptom associated with excessive ketamine use. Citing 'people familiar with his activity,' The New York Times reports that the tech mogul has been consuming ketamine sometimes daily, often mixing it with other drugs. His usage allegedly increased as he took on a more active political role—first as a prominent supporter of Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, and later as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—all while managing responsibilities at his various companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter). Musk also allegedly uses Ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, and weight loss drugs, and travels with a daily medication box that holds about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it. In a 2024 interview with Don Lemon, Musk acknowledged that he uses ketamine as a prescribed treatment for negative moods, but denied that he indulged in the drug. 'If you've used too much ketamine, you can't really get work done, and I have a lot of work,' he said. The New York Times article also delves into Musk's ongoing legal disputes and custody battles with several women he shares children with, including Grimes. The singer has been embroiled in a contentious custody settlement over the three children she shares with Musk. According to the report, Grimes believes Musk has violated their agreement to keep their children out of the public eye; Musk is often seen in public with their eldest son, X. She reportedly worries about his safety, as well as the impact of frequent travel and sleep deprivation on his health. Earlier this week, Musk announced that he was stepping back from his role in the Trump administration. Popular Posts Billy Joel Diagnosed with Brain Disorder, Cancels All Upcoming Tour Dates Man Wearing Nazi T-Shirt Gets a Beatdown from Fans at Punk Rock Bowling Fest Freddie Mercury's Alleged Child Revealed in New Biography David Lynch's Personal Archive Going Up for Auction Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence Are Now In-Laws Dave Mustaine: Metallica Stole "Enter Sandman" Riff from Another Band Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Josh Klinghoffer Avoids Jail Time in Vehicular Manslaughter Case
The post Josh Klinghoffer Avoids Jail Time in Vehicular Manslaughter Case appeared first on Consequence. Josh Klinghoffer, former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and current touring member of Pearl Jam, has reached a plea deal that allows him to avoid jail time for a vehicular manslaughter charge stemming from a crash in May 2024. On Wednesday, Klinghoffer appeared in a Alhambra, California, courtroom and pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, according to Rolling Stone. He was sentenced to one year of informal probation and 60 days of community labor. He also must complete a driver safety class and pay restitution. On March 18th, 2024, Josh Klinghoffer struck a 47-year-old pedestrian named Israel Sanchez with his SUV while Sanchez was crossing the street in a marked crosswalk in Alhambra, California. He was transported to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. Ashley Sanchez, the victim's daughter, delivered a victim impact statement during Wednesday's sentencing. 'My father was an extraordinary grandfather to my [children],' she said. 'His absence has left an irreversible void in our lives.' She said Klinghoffer's actions had caused her 'deep and lasting trauma.' Sanchez's family has filed a civil suit against Klinghoffer, alleging that he was using a cell phone at the time of the incident. The next hearing in that case is scheduled for July 1st. Popular Posts Billy Joel Diagnosed with Brain Disorder, Cancels All Upcoming Tour Dates Man Wearing Nazi T-Shirt Gets a Beatdown from Fans at Punk Rock Bowling Fest Freddie Mercury's Alleged Child Revealed in New Biography The 30 Best Action Movie Stars of All Time, Ranked Is The Who's Farewell Tour in Turmoil? David Lynch's Personal Archive Going Up for Auction Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
CBC
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Pup's Stefan Babcock is one of Canada's best songwriters — just don't tell him that
Stefan Babcock of the Canadian punk rock band Pup is his own harshest critic. With the release of the band's fifth and latest studio album, Who Will Look After The Dogs?, Babcock has proven himself to be one of this country's most sophisticated songwriters — and yet he can't take the compliment. "I think I would like to talk about what I'm bad at," Babcock tells Q 's Tom Power in a recent interview before immediately shifting the host's praise back onto his bandmates. "I play with three guys who are way better at music than I am, who are all insanely creative in their own ways, and who can just bring something exciting to songs that are sometimes lacking a spark." WATCH | Official video for Olive Garden: When Babcock initially wrote Pup's new song Olive Garden, he says it was just a "mediocre" acoustic demo until drummer Zack Mykula came up with an idea to make it heavier. "It completely transformed the whole meaning of the song," he says. "Those guys should be given all the credit in the world. Thank God. Thank God for them." On Who Will Look After The Dogs?, Babcock has tapped into his capacity for self-reflection and self-deprecating humour. While writing the album, he says he was going through a difficult time in his personal life as he contended with the end of a long-term relationship. "There's so much humour in the darkness for me," he tells Power. "I think a lot of the songs I write, what I'm doing is looking back on my worst moments from a much better place and trying to find them funny and make fun of myself." So what does Babcock like about his songwriting? "Not much," he says. "I think I'm pretty good at being honest with myself…. One thing I fought for on these songs and this record was let's not overthink these songs. When it feels good, that's when we stop. And that is a really hard thing for any of us to do because we're all over-thinkers. But I'm proud of myself for that — for being able to recognize when a song feels good and is finished." WATCH | Official video for Hallways: Interview with Pup produced by Mitch Pollock.
CNA
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNA
Fan mobs, stalkers and death threats: Singapore Idol's Paul Twohill on dealing with his celebrity status at 17
Despite having only a half-decent voice, 17-year-old Paul Twohill knew one thing was for certain when he stepped onto the Singapore Idol stage all those years ago: fans would go berserk and bellow his name. As a contestant on the second season of the reality singing contest, Mr Twohill's punk rock aura and his trademark Justin Bieber-esque fringe – which covered half his face – made him stand out from the rest of the competition. His prominent braces and dorky quips only served to enhance his likeability. Somehow, nothing he did then could dampen his popularity. Perhaps that's why he always seemed larger than life to 10-year-old me who watched every episode on television with rapt attention. Fast forward 16 years to 2022 and I found myself, then a part-time English tutor in a tuition centre where I was teaching classes, shaking hands with 'Teacher Paul'. I recalled squinting my eyes briefly to take a closer look at "Teacher Paul" who had a deep voice, the vibe of a well-adjusted man and clean-cut trim on his head. Gone were those signature braces, too. I approached him later that day after his students had waved him goodbye because I just had to know: 'Are you … ?' 'Yes I am,' he said with a chuckle. 'I get that a lot.' Mr Twohill's new stage was the front of a classroom and his audience was no longer made up of screaming admirers but mischievous children under 12 who are generally harder to please. For the last seven years, he has been an English teacher in an enrichment centre. Now 36 years old, he moved to Australia in February this year where he is pursuing an 18-month master's degree in applied learning and teaching. We met up at his Singapore home in April for a proper sit-down interview during a university term break, and I found it quite fitting that his four-room flat in Ang Mo Kio was stylish but somewhat jumbled, because conversations with Mr Twohill can often feel that way. Over several video calls before meeting in person, our conversations covered everything from education to politics with his light-hearted stories peppered with some wry humour, interspersed frequently with bursts of passionate debate. That day however, in his home where he lives alone, we were determined to stick to the script. THE SHOCK OF WAKING UP TO OBSESSED FANS When I asked him to describe what it was like being a teenage pop star, Mr Twohill said it was an "incredible experience". 'You had thousands of fans screaming, running up to the Singapore Idol van after filming, people writing your name on vending machines,' he said beaming. He still keeps boxes full of memorabilia and magazine clippings featuring him from 2006 but its main contents are the troves of handwritten letters from fans. He reckons there are hundreds of them. At the peak of his popularity, just walking from one end of Orchard Road to the other would take him two to three hours as he had to stop to sign autographs and take pictures with fans. But the popularity also came with some dicey situations: For every hundred fan letters he received, he would receive a handful of hostile texts and even death threats. Once a man had even lunged to attack him in public. 'I've had phone calls where I apparently made someone pregnant, but I've never met them in my life. There was once I was out in the wee hours of the morning and a guy wanted to beat me up. 'I've also been told by a producer during a road show that a guy ran over and literally tried to stab me and another contestant. I didn't even know, I was busy waving around,' he said. He admitted that there was a lot of social anxiety that came with the attention and that led him to want to stay home "a lot of times". But he quickly pointed out that even being at home was not a surefire way to shield himself from the public eye either. 'I used to live on the second floor and fans used to hang around downstairs,' he said. 'This particular day, I woke up from a nap and there were people in my room! It was a precarious situation … I was only in my boxers.' Some secondary school girls had lied to his aunt that they were his friends and she opened the door to let them in. 'Obviously I covered myself up and politely asked them to exit the room so I could get dressed… I entertained them for a little bit, then asked them to leave because I had schoolwork to do.' It wasn't just starstruck teenagers he drew the attention of either. Mr Twohill said he received just one admission offer from a school in 2006 before his Singapore Idol appearances. In 2007 at the height of his popularity, local polytechnics caught wind that he intended to pursue a diploma in mass communication and offers from all five schools fell onto his lap. Brands aplenty approached him to sign sponsorships and record deals. At one point, he signed a deal with producer John Klass – now of the Gold 905 radio station – and produced a song that was number one on Singapore radio charts for three weeks. 'The possibilities seemed endless,' he recounted. For the teenager who once dreamed of marrying pop icon Britney Spears and becoming a bonafide celebrity, he had gotten almost everything he ever wanted (bar Britney Twohill). The irony? He didn't think he deserved any of it. 'I personally don't think, to this day, that I had the level of talent to justify having that amount of fame. 'In this day and age, you see so many singers who are 17 or 18, and they are really great. 'But it was different back then, your penetration point (to fame) was low and you had to bank on luck – and many other things.' THE DOWNSIDE OF FAME Exactly how and why he became such a popular figure is something Mr Twohill has spent a fair bit of time examining. He had even written an essay in university searching for the answers to these questions. He surmised in that reflection: 'Celebrities and stars are created by the mass media to satisfy the requirement of commercial interests.' While he tried his best to be true to himself, Mr Twohill believed he was ultimately a 'tool' to generate interest for the show. 'I was first presented to the public as an 'emo' punk rocker, styling long hair, punk clothes, with a persona portrayed as goofy, eccentric, and relatively queer,' he said. 'Everything from song choice to my mannerisms in public were, at times, controlled by producers to what they deemed appropriate to further 'market' my image and trademarks.' For instance, when asked to put up an item for a charity auction, his suggestion of auctioning a guitar was waved off in favour of a pair of used boxers – reason being that he had to be more 'humorous' than inspirational. He was also often required to wear specific sponsored clothing to suit this 'style'. But this struggle to be authentic is only half the baggage that comes with being a popular figure. He was also introduced to a world of vice even before he turned 18. Mr Twohill recalled being invited to parties, movie premieres and clubs almost every week, where alcohol and infidelity, he learned, were standard items on the menu of those who were famous personalities. At one of these events, he was even molested by an adult in the fashion industry. It was something he felt at the time he had no choice but to shrug off and move on from, he said. He also picked up drinking at an early age to try and overcome his anxieties and to socialise better – a skill he felt was required of a pop star. 'For most people, it's difficult enough to handle the social dynamics when they enter secondary school – and this was on another level. 'I was 17. I was still studying. I had to learn the way the industry works and how to navigate around it. In gist, I felt it was a very accelerated social learning process.' That pressure to conform to a curated persona has stuck with him to this day. 'Even right now as I'm on camera, I have this tendency to want to be goofy. But I'm not really like that. I'm actually quite intense,' he said. 'I don't bring this side of me out often because I feel like it can be intimidating. It's easier to navigate social situations when I'm just taking it more lightly, and usually a joke helps. 'If anything, I was goofy (on stage) because at my core, I want to make people happy.' THE MAKING OF TEACHER PAUL In one of our earlier conversations, Mr Twohill was quick to bring up the concept of 'ikigai' – a Japanese concept that roughly translates to a person's reason to live. He cites his own 'ikigai' as the reason for why life has taken him from the noise of entertainment to relative quietude of education. Since graduating from RMIT University Singapore where he studied mass communications in 2014, he dipped his toes in different industries but continued his job as a part-time host on Click Network which he joined in 2007. Though his infectious personality in several web series like 'Chick vs Dick' and 'Wonder Boys' helped its YouTube channel reach a million subscribers, he walked away from that world in 2017 when he decided to become a teacher. 'I just didn't think the content was always appropriate for children,' he said. 'And I didn't want what I'd done in the past to bleed into how I'd be perceived in this new career.' But does it still? I asked. I had recognised him back in 2022 after all. He smirked: 'Sometimes the parents show my old videos to their kids, and then the kids come in and tease me. 'But they still keep sending their kids to me. And that to me is the ultimate validation that I did something right back then.' It was there, during his seven-year stint as a teacher at Jan & Elly English Language School, where he said he found not just his purpose, but his peace. He tells me with conviction that he intends to continue teaching upon graduation from his Master's programme next year. 'I remember asking myself, if I was going to die tomorrow, what is the one thing that would fulfill all the different elements of what I want to pursue in my life – and that was teaching. 'I've always wanted to bring joy to people and impart good things to people. It's fulfilling to inspire young minds, and not to mention that in my quest for knowledge as a teacher, I also get to learn,' he said. Just then, I paused for a brief moment to ponder about the polarity between his public persona and the introspective man sitting next to me. That thought was swiftly broken by a quip and a grin. 'And then of course there's bribery,' he exclaimed. 'I get to give the kids Pokémon cards, and they'll say 'Wah, this teacher is the best teacher.'' As we wrapped up the interview, I realised that his seemingly "jumbled" persona was just two versions of Mr Twohill living simultaneously within a vessel, with either appearing when fitting to live out his life mission of making others happy. In one breath, he could recount wild, absurd stories from his heyday. In the next, he would speak with conviction about pedagogy and how to make learning joyful. Harkening back to his time as a Singapore Idol star, I asked him about the most memorable placard a fan made for him and his answer was more than apropos. 'Who needs one hill when you've got two?'
