Willy Wonka nightmares, Dwayne Johnson's "jabroni" trademark, and more from the week in entertainment

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wants to find whoever made Rebecca Ferguson’s life miserable

While half of the Internet tries to figure out where Kate Middleton is, the other half has become occupied with a new question: what actor screamed at Rebecca Ferguson? The mystery derives from an interview Ferguson gave for Dune: Part Two, where she shared a harrowing tale about an anonymous “absolute idiot of a co-star” who made her life hell on set “back in the day.” Though she did her best not to give this person’s identity away, as soon as the clip hit Twitter/X, everyone immediately began to wonder who the star might be—including her Hercules co-star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Read More

As predicted, And Just Like That… is done with Sara Ramirez

There were rumors earlier this year, but now it’s official: Sara Ramirez will not be returning to Max’s Sex And The City revival And Just Like That… when it returns for a third season in 2025. Ramirez played divisive new character Che Diaz in the show, a stand-up comedian and podcaster who ends up in a relationship with Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda. Over the course of the second season, Che and Miranda’s relationship gradually fell apart and they eventually broke up, with Variety’s sources saying that the character had “reached a natural conclusion”—as if nobody on TV has ever come up with an excuse to justify keeping someone’s ex around. Read More

Willy Wonka Experience actor speaks out about event that left him crying in his car

Remember the name Paul Connell. You’ll almost definitely hear from the 31-year-old comedian again when the inevitable warring documentaries about disastrous Scottish popup Willy’s Chocolate Experience—a.k.a. Fyre Fest for kids—finally come out. Read More

Netflix is betting big on Shane Gillis, since he’s apparently okay now

Appearing on Saturday Night Live can help you become president, but not appearing on SNL apparently has plenty of benefits of its own: Morgan Wallen’s career is much bigger now than it was before he got booted from a musical guest gig for not wearing a mask in public in 2020 (a scandal that was soon overshadowed by a bigger one that everyone also quickly forgot about), and now everything seems to be coming up Shane Gillis. After getting a spot on the SNL cast in 2019 and then losing it four days later when the show decided to Google him, Gillis came back to host the venerable-ish NBC sketch show this weekend—having found new success from the Joe Rogan crowd as a guy who tells it like it is or whatever. Read More

Sucks to be you, Vin Diesel: Dwayne Johnson now owns the copyright on “candy ass”

There’s been a major development in the world of insults, specifically wrestling-themed ones, with Dwayne Johnson taking over the rights to a bunch of his old WWE nicknames and catchphrases—including “candy ass” and “jabroni.” And while this is tied to wrestling (we’ll get to that in a minute), general pop culture fans will be more familiar with the term “candy ass” from the time Johnson used it to describe one of his Fast 8 co-stars way back in 2016. It turned out to be Vin Diesel, teeing up one of the great feuds of modern Hollywood, with Johnson skipping out on F9 entirely and then returning for a cameo in Fast X that seemed entirely motivated by some then-recent box office troubles that had plagued The Rock. Read More

Dan Harmon explains the “rebirth” of Rick And Morty in the season seven finale

The last few years have been taxing even for the universe-hopping, referential labyrinth of Rick And Morty. Following the ousting of the show’s disgraced co-creator, Justin Roiland, the show never missed a beat—even without the person considered the show’s creative engine. It’s almost as if television shows aren’t made by a single creator and that other funny people are just as capable of writing Rick And Morty adventures. Read More

Ariana Grande spent nearly a decade trying to audition for Wicked

Ariana Grande is proving yet again that in her core, she’s really just a millennial theater kid who happened to get famous. Like a million other wide-eyed thespians who grew up watching Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel belt it out at the Tonys, Grande spent years dreaming of riding by bubble herself. Unlike the vast majority of those dreamers, she has the chops to do it. Read More

R.I.P. Charles Dierkop, character actor from Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and The Sting

Charles Dierkop, a prolific character actor who dozens of credits in the ‘60s and ‘70s alone (including appearances in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, The Sting, and as a series regular on Police Woman), has died. This comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says Dierkop’s daughter confirmed that he died this weekend after a “recent heart attack and bout with pneumonia.” Dierkop was 87. Read More

Bradley Cooper is a certified Naked Dad

Cooper revealed that he comes from a lineage of Naked Dads

Vince Staples was starstruck by Snoopy and is down to return to Abbott Elementary

Vince Staples also discusses his new series, The Vince Staples Show, and how music plays a role in it