Bharti Shahani is the ninth person to have died due to injuries suffered at Travis Scott's Astroworld festival. The family's attorney, James Lassiter, confirmed during a press conference that the 22-year-old Texas A M senior died Wednesday night, via The Associated Press. Lassiter told reporters Shahani was "about to graduate from Texas A M University with high, high grades." She was studying electronics systems engineering. It was reported earlier this week that Shahani was on a ventilator in critical condition with no brain activity after attending the Astroworld concert Friday night at Houston's NRG Park with her sister, Namrata Shahani, and cousin, Mohit Bellani. "Once one person fell, people started toppling like dominos," Bellani told ABC13. "It was like a sinkhole. People were falling on top of each other. There were like layers of bodies on the ground, like two people thick. We were fighting to come up to the top and breathe to stay alive." Bellani and Namrata Shahani also shared that Bharti suffered multiple heart attacks Friday night, with Bellani specifically describing, "I think she lost oxygen for 10 minutes one time and seven minutes at another time. So her brain stem was swollen to like 90 percent almost." Tragic chaos ensued when the crowd of 50,000 began dangerously surging toward the stage, resulting in now nine deaths and leaving hundreds more injured. The remainder of the festival was canceled. The other eight victims were all identified as of Monday: Axel Acosta, 21, Danish Baig, 27, Madison Dubiski, 23, John Hilgert, 14, Jacob E. Jurinek, 20, Franco Patino, 21, Rudy Peña, 23, and Brianna Rodriguez, 16. Scott offered an apology and pledged to cover all funeral expenses. You can watch the heartbreaking press conference below.
The NHL may soon have to step in and take the 3-8-1 Ottawa Senators off the ice for a few days for the good of everyone involved. Ottawa confirmed ahead of Thursday's game against the 7-5-1 Los Angeles Kings that defenseman Nikita Zaitsev was placed in the league's COVID-19 protocol. Zaitsev became the club's ninth player currently unavailable due to coronavirus-related guidelines: Earlier in the day, forward Alex Formenton and goaltender Matt Murray joined forwards Austin Watson, Dylan Gambrell and Connor Brown, defensemen Josh Brown, Victor Mete and Nick Holden, and associate coach Jack Capuano on the COVID-19 list. According to TSN's Darren Dreger, chief medical officers from the NHL and NHL Players' Association are monitoring Ottawa's potential COVID-19 crisis. "All you can do is try to protect yourself as much as possible," Senators coach D.J. Smith said hours before Zaitsev went into the protocol, per The Canadian Press (h/t CBC). "Try to wear a mask, try to distance yourself and stay inside your certain circles. But at this point, it's really tough because your circle is the group that has it." Ottawa is scheduled to host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday evening, but the statuses of any near-future matchups are up in the air pending additional testing.
Tennis greats Serena and Venus Williams served as executive producers on King Richard, but according to Will Smith on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that the sisters would commit to the biographical drama. "It is terrifying when you play a real person that is alive, and you know that they're gonna see it," said Smith, who portrays Serena and Venus' father, Richard Williams, in the film. "It was beautiful. Venus and Serena were really excited about the possibility, and they said that they would potentially be executive producers and they were gonna walk us through the whole process, but they were gonna withhold whether or not they put their names on the film until they saw it." The two-time Oscar nominee continued: "So then I get the call that Venus and Serena are walking into the theater to see the film. And it's the worst two hours ever. It's the worst two hours." Smith noted that "Venus and Serena cried all the way through, and they loved it." The film's official synopsis reads, in part: "Based on the true story that will inspire the world, Warner Bros. Pictures’ King Richard follows the journey of Richard Williams, an undeterred father instrumental in raising two of the most extraordinarily gifted athletes of all time, who will end up changing the sport of tennis forever." Serena Williams visited Jimmy Kimmel Live to discuss how it feels to see her adolescence play out on the big screen, with Smith playing her father: Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and written by Zach Baylin, King Richard will be simultaneously released in theaters and on HBO Max on Nov. 19. Watch the trailer below.
"Squid Game" broke several records for Netflix since its September debut, based at least in part on the Korean drama's violent shock value. But in this case, art is not imitating life. "Squid Game" writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk commented to Variety about on-set safety precautions in light of the loss of Halyna Hutchins, the 42-year-old cinematographer who was killed when Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that was inexplicably loaded while filming indie Western film Rust in late October. "We of course have a prop master, but also in Korea, we’re not really a gun-owning country, so only the police can have and own a gun," Dong-hyuk said. "Because of that, bullets are not really easily as distributed as they are maybe here, so there’s a very low, low possibility of any safety issues happening on set. In in my life, I have never seen a real bullet. I have only seen them in the movies." This Change.org petition created in Hutchins' name to ban the use of real firearms on production sets, which was promoted by Olivia Wilde. More recently, Dwayne Johnson vowed that his production company will no longer use real guns on any film or TV set. Also this week, Dong-hyuk confirmed a second season of "Squid Game" is in the works.
Leonardo DiCaprio's schedule stays full. "In a pre-emptive situation, MGM has secured a deal for the feature film project Jim Jones, with Leonardo DiCaprio in final talks to star as the 1970s religious cult leader who was behind the Jonestown mass suicide on Nov. 18, 1978 that took more than 900 lives," Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro first reported Monday. "The Oscar winner will produce for his Appian Way company alongside Jennifer Davisson." D'Alessandro added: "MGM scooped up the Scott Rosenberg-penned script in what we hear was a seven-figure deal. The Venom scribe will also executive produce Jim Jones." On Tuesday, Entertainment Weekly confirmed DiCaprio's casting. Rosenberg is known for writing High Fidelity, for which he earned a BAFTA nomination, and the Tom Hardy-led Venom blockbuster of 2018. DiCaprio can next be seen in Adam McKay's star-studded sci-fi dramedy Don't Look Up, in select theaters Dec. 10 and on Netflix beginning Dec. 24. Watch the teaser below.
Alec Baldwin has made his Twitter private in the aftermath of the Rust tragedy that left cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead and director Joel Souza injured, but he believes so much in this particular message that he shared it to his public Instagram. "Every film/TV set that uses guns, fake or otherwise, should have a police officer on set, hired by production, to specifically monitor weapons safely," Baldwin wrote. Baldwin fired the prop gun on the set of Rust on Oct. 21 near Sante Fe, New Mexico, that contained a "live round." An affidavit detailed the sequence of events, as relayed by Variety the following week: "Souza, who was also injured in the on-set accident, said that the cast and crew had been assured that Baldwin was handling a 'cold gun,' meaning it had no live rounds. Safety protocols on the set required that the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, checked to make sure that the barrel was empty, with her work double-checked by Rust assistant director Dave Halls before the firearm was handed to the actors. Souza and Hutchins were standing behind the camera to see the angle. Baldwin was sitting on a wooden pew facing south towards the camera and crew, outfitted in Western garb. After noticing a shadow, Souza and Hutchins repositioned their gear and were talking with Baldwin, who was showing them how he planned to pull the gun from his holster when it discharged." Also the following week, a report from People included an unnamed insider saying that there were "a lot of red flags" in reference to safety and how Gutierrez-Reed handled the weapons. Gutierrez-Reed spoke out Oct. 29 through her attorneys. The statement, in part, claimed she "has no idea where the live rounds came from" and placed blame on "the whole production set" as it "became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings" (h/t People). There have been no charges filed, as an investigation by The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office is ongoing. Hutchins, 42, was survived by her husband, Matthew, and nine-year-old son, Andros.
One of Kelly Clarkson's best habits is performing a cover on every episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show in a segment called "Kellyoke." The latest installment featured the three-time Grammy winner covering Ed Sheeran's "Bad Habits": Released in late June, "Bad Habits" served as the lead single of Sheeran's = (Equals). The track peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album arrived Oct. 29 and became Sheeran's fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week. Clarkson and Sheeran crossed paths when he appeared as a "mega mentor" on NBC's The Voice, where Clarkson has been a coach since early 2018.
And just like that, Sarah Jessica Parker is back in the thick of mainstream pop culture discourse. And Just Like That..., of course, is the title of HBO Max's Sex and the City 10-episode limited series revival series that finds Carrie Bradshaw (Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) back in New York City "as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s." While the reboot has an overwhelmingly positive anticipation surrounding it, SPJ addressed in a new Vogue profile the negative backlash associated with her and her costars' appearances: "There’s so much misogynist chatter in response to us that would never. Happen. About. A. Man. ‘Gray hair gray hair gray hair. Does she have gray hair?’ I’m sitting with Andy Cohen, and he has a full head of gray hair, and he’s exquisite. Why is it okay for him? I don’t know what to tell you people! Especially on social media. Everyone has something to say. ‘She has too many wrinkles, she doesn’t have enough wrinkles.’ It almost feels as if people don’t want us to be perfectly okay with where we are, as if they almost enjoy us being pained by who we are today, whether we choose to age naturally and not look perfect, or whether you do something if that makes you feel better. I know what I look like. I have no choice. What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?” Elsewhere in the profile, the two-time Emmy winner shared that she "kept every single solitary thing" of Carrie's from the original SATC series. "I had all of the original stuff in my own storage," she said. "Furniture, clothes, everything, packed according to season and episode and scene." SATC ran for six seasons from 1998 to 2004 on HBO, with two feature-length films to follow in '08 and '10. As for what to expect from And Just Like That..., fans will have to wait until it begins streaming in December. "I'm not going to tell you because I also wouldn’t tell you what I got you for Christmas," Michael Patrick King, the reboot's showrunner, told Vogue. "You can see the package, and it’s gorgeous. Why would I ruin the surprise?" You can see photos from set by following this Instagram account, however, and see the official announcement trailer below.
Kim Cattrall is the new Bob Saget. Sort of. Saget narrated "How I Met Your Mother" as the unseen older version of Ted, played by Josh Radnor, for the duration of the beloved CBS sitcom's nine seasons. According to Deadline, Cattrall has joined Hulu's spinoff series "How I Met Your Father" in a similar capacity. "Cattrall will play the future version of Hilary Duff’s character Sophie, who is telling her son the story of how she met his father, much like Josh Radnor (and Bob Saget’s) Ted Mosby did in the original series. Sophie’s story will transport audiences back to the year 2021 where she and her close-knit group of friends — Jesse (Chris Lowell), Valentina (Francia Raisa), Charlie (Tom Ainsley), Ellen (Tien Tran) and Sid (Suraj Sharma) — are in the midst of figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options." It was announced in April that Hulu had given "How I Met Your Father" a straight-to-series order with Duff attached to star in the leading role. Duff shared glimpses from set in August and early September. As for Cattrall, the five-time Emmy nominee opted not to rejoin her "Sex and the City" costars for their HBO Max limited series reboot "And Just Like That..." — an unsurprising move, to say the least.
Tahj Mowry is very smartly teasing a "Smart Guy" reboot. During a segment of SiriusXM's "Best Worst," the 35-year-old actor detailed the best and worst aspects of rebooting the late '90s series. "I think the best thing is leaving room and creating something new for a new generation to sort of latch onto and begin to love," Mowry said. "And then the worst thing, fans of shows are that in talks to be rebooted, they're very vocal — especially 'Smart Guy' fans! Just creating that, yes, that nostalgic feel but also room for a new generation, even if they hadn't seen the original. Because you don't only want the OG fans to tune in; you want everyone to tune in." Mowry initially confirmed a "Smart Guy" reboot on KTLA 5 Morning News in June. "We're working really hard on it. Fans, just, we gotta be patient. Good things take time. We do have a possible home for it. We have a writer for it, so I've been working hard all quarantine—all these Zoom meetings and talking to the big wigs. So, we're gonna get it done." "Smart Guy "originally aired for three seasons from 1997-99. It centered around Mowry as kid genius T.J. Henderson after he joins his older siblings, Marcus (Jason Weaver) and Yvette (Essence Atkins) in high school. John Marshall Jones and Omar Gooding also starred.
