Illinois Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer On a recent quiet morning at The Summit, the ultra-exclusive gated community in Los Angeles, a crane was called to deliver olive trees to Sebastian Maniscalco’s house. The Illinois native, known for relatable stand-up about his immigrant parents, and for his onstage physicality and boisterousness, went uncharacteristically silent watching the evergreens drop down on his stunning views of Beverly Hills. He’s used to talking about his much humbler roots. “I like to poke fun or make light of what we see in society and make fun of my own family and my old-world immigrant upbringing. I think I do it in a way where we’re all laughing together,” he tells Variety.

Project 150, which helps high school students with insecure housing. Host Ken Jennings, who perpetuates a mock feud with the champ, told Holzhauer that the other competitors pushed him to the limit.

The ladies of Aespa just made their Cannes Film Festival debut!

Alex Murdaugh‘s legal trouble is far from over!

She is The Voice! Gina Miles has officially been crowned as the NBC singing competition’s season 23 champion.

Jamie Foxx has the continued support of family and friends as he continues his journey to recovery!Foxx's daughter, Corinne Foxx, and one of his good friends, Dave Brown, recently visited the Oscar-winning actor at the physical rehabilitation facility in Chicago, Illinois, where he is recovering. In pics, Corinne, 29, is dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a dark top as she holds onto a cell phone. As for Dave, he is dressed casually in a black T-shirt and dark denim as he exits the facility with a phone in hand.The news of the 55-year-old's hospitalization in Atlanta, Georgia, broke on April 12, when Corinne shared that her dad had suffered an undisclosed «medical complication.» On May 3, Jamie broke his silence via a message on his Instagram Story, thanking his fans for all of their prayers.However, in the weeks that followed, no other information was disclosed about his actual condition or recovery.

Luann de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan are returning to Bravo in a The Real Housewives of New York City spinoff Welcome to Crappie Lake. The cable network dropped the trailer for the reality series that premieres on Sunday, July 9 at 9 p.m. ET. Watch a sneak peek in the video posted above.

will be featured in the upcoming Season 14.The so-called “legacy” cast, which also included the likes of Ramona Singer and Dorinda Medley, remain popular with fans. It was recently announced they would be filming Season 5 of “The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip” together for Peacock.“Welcome to Crappie Lake” is a spin-off series which takes the socialites out of Manhattan to Benton, Ill.

The Simple Life meets  when  alums Luann de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan land in the middle of Illinois.Sonja trades in her townhouse for an extended motel stay alongside her cabaret-loving pal, Lu, in Bravo's new fish-out-of-water comedy, , and ET has your first look! The longtime Bravo-lebs leave the Upper East Side behind for Benton, Illinois, (population ~7,000), a small, Midwest town in need of some help after being hit hard by the pandemic. The ladies' goal is simple: help spruce up the city… but the mayor quickly realizes they might not have the skill set to pull off all the improvements needed.From building a new playground to revitalizing the local theater with a full-on variety show (Paula Abdul cameo included!), and creating connections with locals along the way (even some in the biblical sense...), Luann and Sonja use their ingenuity to help improve the surroundings and rally the town's spirits.

Peter Caranicas Deputy Editor Chicago is about to join the growing list of cities where new soundstage construction will boost the local entertainment economy. The Fields Studios – the city’s first purpose-built and, to date, largest film production complex – will open in the first quarter of 2024. Owned and developed by real estate firm Knickpoint Ventures, the new campus occupies the site of the former warehouse and distribution center for the city’s legendary Marshall Field’s department store and its retailers across the U.S. It includes nine soundstages on two lots totaling 132,000 square feet of stage space and over 350,000 square feet of creative and production offices, plus mill and support space, on over 20 acres in Chicago’s Northwest Side.

It’s tool time all over again.For the next few months, outspoken comedian and “Home Improvement” star Tim Allen is back on the road performing stand-up comedy all over North America.From May 19 through Aug. 19, the conservative performer — who recently got in trouble for flashing his co-star Pamela Anderson on the “Home Improvement” set in the ’90s — will bring his brazen brand of humor to six venues in Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.The 69-year-old comic isn’t afraid to cross the line with his material onstage either.“I tell them ‘There’s a whole lot of s— I’m going to say tonight that you’re going to get pissed at,” he told Hour Detroit.

aespa have announced the Europe, US and Latin America legs of their 2023 ‘SYNK: Hyper Line’ world tour.Today (May 19), aespa revealed that they will be going on a tour of Europe, US and Latin America later this year, as part of their 2023 ‘SYNK: Hyper Line’ world tour. The US leg will kick off in Los Angeles on August 13.Following which, the girl group will plays shows in Dallas, Miami, Chicago and more over the next month, before wrapping things up in New York City on September 5.

A.D. Amorosi It’s good to be Ludacris. Twenty years after his first appearance in the “Fast and Furious” action-adventure franchise, 2003’s “2 Fast 2 Furious,” the Atlanta rapper and actor is set to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same week “Fast X” premieres. Such attention is nothing new to Chris “Ludacris” Bridges. As an artist, he’s sold more than 24 million albums worldwide since he began making music with 1999’s independent “Incognegro.” From there, it was on to a Def Jam contract and mainstream fame with such hits as “Act a Fool” and “Stand Up,” plus collaborations such as his 2004 feature alongside Lil Jon on Usher’s “Yeah!” For a guy who hasn’t made a new album since 2015, the “Dirty South” rapper is jump-starting his schedule with just-booked music gigs in Miami Beach in May, and Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Weekend at the Resorts World Las Vegas in July. Bridges talked with Variety about his start in radio, how Timbaland discovered him, and the way that business school has helped guide him through a long career in the hip-hop game.

A now-teenage girl who has been missing for the last six years has been reunited with her father after an unlikely discovery.

A Netflix documentary has helped to find a girl six years after she went missing, after featuring age progression photos of her. Kayla Unbehaun's story was featured on Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries which then led to a shop owner in North Carolina, USA, recognising her. Kayla was just nine years old when she vanished in 2017 after allegedly being abducted by her mother, Heather Unbehaun.

GoFundMe Page. For five years, Heather and Kayla were off the radar. But in 2022, Netflix's popular "Unsolved Mysteries" revival featured Kayla's abduction, which brought fresh attention to the case and ultimately led to her safe retrieval in Asheville, North Carolina — 700 miles from where she was last seen.Over the weekend, the Asheville Police Department were tipped off to a reported kidnapping at a retail store after a witness "believed she had recognized a woman who kidnapped a child in 2017″ from "well-publicized media." After responding to the store, police identified Heather and Kalya Unbehaun.Heather was booked into jail and will be extradited to Illinois."I'm overjoyed that Kayla is home safe.

Tony Ortega wrote Monday the actress was celebrated for donating this “cumulative” amount to the International Association of Scientologists (IAS), the church’s membership organization.Back in 2019, Cartwright achieved “Diamond Laureate With Honors” status, reflecting that she’d given Scientology about $17.5 million, Ortega said.This new issue of Impact reported that on New Year’s Eve, she received a trophy for reaching “Patron Excalibur With Honors,” suggesting she’s now donated about $21 million in donations to the IAS.Cartwright is also believed to have given a fortune towards the construction of the San Fernando Valley Ideal Org, which opened in 2017.She has been public about being a Scientologist, lobbying state legislators in Illinois in 2011 to allow a children’s version of “The Way to Happiness,” a key text by its founder L. Ron Hubbard, to be used in schools.

Charles Esten can't wait for his  reunion later this year, and it shows!The 57-year-old actor spoke with ET's Rachel Smith on Thursday on the red carpet for the 58th annual ACM Awards, and he's absolutely «thrilled» about getting the band together. Esten will be joined by Clare Bowen, Jonathan Jackson, Sam Palladio for the «Nashville: Reunion Tour.»They're set to open things on Sept. 23 at the Rosemont Theater in Rosemont, Illinois (about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago).

McKinley Franklin editor Larry Poland, the founder of Mastermedia International, died on May 3 in Illinois after suffering a stroke. He was 83. Poland founded Mastermedia to serve as “a trusted voice of faith to the mainstream media leaders.” Mastermedia teams in Hollywood and New York cultivate relationships with industry pioneers through conversation, consulting and support. The organization provides research and consulting on reaching America’s Christian market, working with executives from major networks and movie studios. Poland grew up in Ohio and devoted his life to Christian service through obtaining a higher education, international volunteer service and pursuing consulting with entertainment industry leaders. He graduated from Wheaton College with a Bachelors in sociology, and was a was a previous director of the Agape Movement, an international volunteer service organization under Campus Crusade for Christ, Intl.

“The Real Housewives of Miami” are headed back to Bravo.“RHOM” debuted back in 2011 on the cable network and ran for three seasons. It was revived for a fourth season in 2021 on NBC’s streaming service Peacock.

Bruce Norris’s Downstate and Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt were named this season’s Best Play and Best Foreign Play, respectively, by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle today.

A mini Love Is Blind reunion! Exes Danielle Ruhl and Nick Thompson fueled rumors that they’ve rekindled their romance nearly one year after calling it quits.

The cover of American Football's self-titled 1999 album is an iconic image within the occasionally intersecting communities of emo-rock and suburbia fetishists. Today, the Illinois band announced that the house had been put up for sale last fall, and that they'd recently completed a purchase of the property.

told the Associated Press. “He had a good life.”In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Minow as FCC chief.

American Football have purchased the house that features on their iconic self-titled album artwork.The midwest emo band’s debut LP from 1999 features the illuminated window of a property in Urbana, Illinois, which has since affectionately become known as ‘The American Football House’.In a new statement, the band revealed that, upon finding out that the property was set to be sold and demolished, they decided to purchase it along with their label Polyvinyl and a number of friends and collaborators.“Last fall we received word that 704 W High Street in Urbana might be sold soon,” they wrote on Twitter. “Shortly thereafter American Football, Polyvinyl, Chris Strong, Atiba Jefferson, and Open House Contemporary made a pact: we’d all buy the house together before developers could demolish it and build a condo.”The statement added: “Today, with sincere joy, we are excited to share that we have collectively purchased The American Football House in an effort to preserve its place and legacy within the community that built it.

Whoever killed Jeffrey Epstein — whether it was Epstein himself or not — was pretty clearly determined to keep his stable of clients a secret.

Jerry Springer has been laid to rest in a private ceremony that was held on Sunday, April 30, Springer’s rep tells ET.The private Jewish ceremony was attended by a small group of people and took place in a suburb of Chicago. TMZ was first to report the news and says a tribute is scheduled to take place on May 16 in Cincinnati, Ohio.In a statement issued to ET, Springer's family confirmed that the late broadcast icon died peacefully on Thursday at his home in suburban Chicago, Illinois, surrounded by his family. «Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,» said Jene Galvin, a lifelong friend and spokesperson for the family.

Mom of two! Karlie Kloss and her husband, Joshua Kushner, are expecting their second child, a source confirms to Us Weekly.

Bravo is teasing The Real Housewives of New York City reboot and has revealed its Season 14 premiere date. The new ladies of the Big Apple landed post The Real Housewives of Atlanta starting Sunday, July 16 at 9 p.m. ET. Watch the teaser spot in the video below.

Cheer star Monica Aldama shared her reaction to the news that student Madi Lane is suing her and Navarro College for allegedly concealing a sexual assault.

If you were a fan of his TV show and all the iterations that came out of it, you might be wondering what was Jerry Springer’s net worth?

A 59-year-old man in Illinois was killed earlier this month after reportedly being confronted by a neighbor while using a leaf blower in his driveway.

Navarro College and its head cheerleading coach, Monica Aldama, have been named in a lawsuit for allegedly concealing a sexual assault, Us Weekly can confirm.

Geraldo Rivera is reflecting on the life and legacy of Jerry Springer.Springer died peacefully in his home outside Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday following a battle with a «brief illness.» He was 79. Best known for his long-running tabloid talk show, , which debuted in 1991 and aired in syndication until 2018, Springer was a colleague and friend to many, including Rivera.ET's Kevin Frazier spoke to the Fox News correspondent following the shocking news Thursday, where he looked back on their time on air and shared the positive impact his long-running show had on viewers and the daytime TV community.«It's quite an extraordinary time. Oprah [Winfrey], was kind of the mother hen, then Phil Donahue.

Jerry Springerdied following a «brief illness,» according to his family. The legendary TV host was 79. In a statement issued to ET, Springer's family confirms that the late broadcast icon died peacefully on Thursday at his home in suburban Chicago, Illinois, surrounded by his family. «Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,» said Jene Galvin, a lifelong friend and spokesperson for the family.

More details surrounding Jerry Springer’s passing have been revealed.