Digital Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

The Onion has been sold, again. G/O Media has the humor brand to four anonymous investors calling themselves “Global Tetrahedron,” name after one of the site’s own gags.

Candace Cameron Bure is providing some words of wisdom to young actors today. In a recent interview with E! News, Bure touched on the Max docuseries "Quiet on Set," which detailed the negative experiences of young actors working on Nickelodeon shows who alleged they were subjected to a toxic workplace, inappropriate behavior and sexual abuse by adults.

was One Tree Hill star surfaced just six days after news of Harris’ divorce from former teammate went public. Like Harris, Bush had recently split from her own spouse, , leading many on the internet to believe something nefarious transpired. Let’s just say, the phrase “” was thrown around a lot.However, in a first-person account of the entire ordeal for , Bush claimed that while she’s known Harris since 2019, the pair connected romantically while processing their respective breakups in the summer of 2023.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Deadpool and Wolverine” is set to be one of the biggest films of the summer, and fan theories are already flying around the internet regarding what Marvel could have in store for what looks like a bonkers trip across a multiverse populated by characters previously owned by 20th Century Fox and now owned by Disney. Whatever goes down in the sequel, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, prior knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will not be a mandatory requirement in order to enjoy it. That’s according to the film’s director, Shawn Levy.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Anthony Wood, founder and CEO of Roku, had a pay package worth just over $20.2 million in 2023, while Roku’s media boss, Charlie Collier, received $6.8 million in salary. Wood’s compensation last year included salary of $1.2 million, stock awards worth $7.57 million and stock option awards ​valued at $11.43 million.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Pauly Shore wrote on Instagram that he was “up all night crying” after Richard Simmons continued to publicly distance himself from the biopic on his life that Shore is attached to star in. Furthermore, Simmons revealed on his social media platforms that he’s talking to film studios about making his own biopic. “I just read that a man that I don’t know is writing my bio pic starring Pauly Shore,” Simmons posted earlier this week.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Melanie Lynskey recently told People magazine that her husband and fellow actor Jason Ritter has sacrificed his own career in recent years so that hers could flourish. Lynskey has been on a roll lately with an Emmy-nominated and series regular role on Showtime’s “Yellowjackets,” plus acclaimed supporting turns in “The Last of Us,” “Candy” and more. None of this career success would be possible had Ritter not put his own acting career on pause to help raise their five-year-old daughter while Lynskey took acting gigs.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Aaron Sorkin confirmed during a live recording of “The Town” podcast that he is currently working on some kind of sequel to “The Social Network,” David Fincher’s acclaimed 2010 drama about the creation of Facebook that won Sorkin the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. “Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this,” Sorkin said about the social media company’s recent years. “I blame Facebook for January 6.” Sorkin would not answer why he blamed Facebook for Trump supporters storming the U.S.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Robert Downey Jr. elated Marvel fans earlier this month when he told Esquire magazine that he would “happily” return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Tony Stark/Iron Man following his Oscar win for best supporting actor in March.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast, had a compensation package worth $35.47 million in 2023, as he saw his pay rise 11% from the year prior. Roberts, who oversees the cable giant and NBCUniversal, last year had a salary of $2.5 million, stock awards worth $15 million, stock options worth $9.2 million and a $8.55 million cash incentive bonus. In 2022, his compensation totaled about $32.1 million.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The Onion has a new owner: a company called “Global Tetrahedron,” which is a real thing based on a fake entity invented by the satire site more than two decades ago. G/O Media, a private-equity backed firm that has owned The Onion since 2019, sold the site to a new Chicago-based firm called Global Tetrahedron, which is “made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy-based content,” G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said in a memo to staff Thursday. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Ryanair has warned passengers flying to three major holiday destinations that they must print off their boarding passes. The budget airline said that airports in Turkey and Morocco do not allow digital boarding passes downloaded onto mobile phones.

Lexi Carson At Variety’s 2024 Entertainment Marketing Summit, Andrew Wallenstein, president and chief media analyst of Variety Intelligence Platform, sat down with Jana Arbanas, vice chair and Deloitte‘s US Telecom, Media, and Entertainment sector leader, to discuss the background and themes of Deloitte’s annual digital media trends. This year was Deloitte’s 18th year of the Gen Z and Millennial survey. The survey analyzes over 3,500 consumers from ages 14 and up and is then sent back to the United States Census Bureau to obtain a real representative look at consumer behavior.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jessica Lange spoke critically of present-day Hollywood during a recent interview with Vulture, saying “there should be a law against it” when the topic came up about Warner Bros. Discovery axing already-shot movies like “Batgirl” and “Coyote vs. Acme” for tax write-off purposes.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Emily Blunt is staunchly opposed to algorithms making any decisions in Hollywood. Ahead of the release of her summer tentpole “The Fall Guy,” the Oscar nominee joined co-star Ryan Gosling for a Vanity Fair Italy cover story in which she expressed frustration over algorithm-driven decision making.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel received a compensation package worth $83.9 million last year — more than four times his compensation in 2022. Emanuel’s 2023 pay at Endeavor included $4.9 million in salary, a $34.65 million bonus and $43.47 million in stock awards, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director It’s been well over a year since news first broke that Disney was moving forward with “The Princess Diaries 3.” Anne Hathaway can’t reveal any details, but she did assure fans in a recent V magazine interview that development continues on the long-anticipated sequel, and the intention remains to get it off the ground. “We’re in a good place,” Hathaway said. “That’s all I can say.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube keeps eating up more share of the advertising pie: The Google-owned video giant posted $8.1 billion in ad sales for the first quarter of 2024, its highest Q1 total to date. The figure for YouTube ad sales, up 21% year over year, was announced as part of parent company Alphabet’s Q1 earnings. Wall Street analysts expected YouTube’s ad revenue for Q1 to come in at $7.72 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has hired Jill Ratner as their EVP and General Counsel, overseeing all of the studio’s legal functions, compliance and labor relations, SPE music affairs, government/external matters, and corporate social responsibility teams. 

Louis Tomlinson is going live with LIVE!

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has said it still plans to close its helplines despite a previously announced u-turn.

The Cannes Film Festival’s Classics sidebar celebrates 20 years this year with a lineup of films including a 4K restoration of Wim Wenders’s Palme d’Or winning Paris, Texas, and a debut screening of Ron Howard’s 2024 doc Jim Henson Idea Man. 

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Imax fans turned up in droves to see “Dune 2” on the really big screen, helping the company top analyst earnings estimates for the first quarter of 2024. Despite the sandworm bump, it was a tough compare with the year-ago period when Imax benefited from the blockbuster success of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2023 to deliver its highest-grossing Q1 to date.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Ari Emanuel, in his capacity as CEO of TKO Group Holdings — the parent company of UFC and WWE — had a compensation package last year that hit nearly $65 million. TKO granted Emanuel, who also is CEO of Endeavor, a base salary of $911,538, plus a $24 million cash bonus and stock awards worth $40 million in 2023, per a regulatory filing by TKO. All told, the exec’s pay package totaled $64.91 million.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Angelina Jolie‘s scrapped “Cleopatra” movie was part romance epic and part “political thriller with assassinations and sex,” according to the movie’s original screenwriter Brian Helgeland. The Oscar-winning actor was set to play the Egyptian queen in a tentpole for Sony Pictures that once courted director David Fincher to helm. It never got off the ground.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor TikTok could be banned in the U.S. as soon as January 2025. Here’s what the new law means for users of the popular short-form video app.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Social-media powerhouse Meta punched in huge sales growth for the first quarter of 2024, as Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” job cuts last year paid off with net income more than doubling. The company, parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, reported Q1 revenue of $36.46 billion, up 27%, and net income soared 117% to $12.37 billion (or $4.71 per share). The results topped Wall Street expectations.

Naman Ramachandran Billionaire Mukesh Ambani‘s streamer JioCinema is making a play to become India’s top streaming service by introducing cheap premium tier plans. From April 25, the service’s existing INR999 ($12) annual plan for international premium content is being replaced by a monthly plan of INR29 (35 cents) for a single device or INR89 ($1.05) monthly for a family plan that covers four devices. The new plans are branded JioCinema Premium and will be up to 4K streaming quality.

Lina Khan, FTC chair, has become a key voice of the modern progressive viewpoint on antitrust law — and a lightning rod in media and digital circles. One new element in merger reviews that she has championed is to examine a deal’s impact on workers, employment levels and employees’ competitive mobility within a sector. “Over the last decade, we’ve heard mounting concerns about inadequate competition across key markets in the U.S.

A former royal aide’s claims have cast a dark shadow over Meghan Markle’s latest business venture. Samantha Cohen, who was a Buckingham Palace staffer nearly 20 years, confirmed she was questioned during an investigation into claims of bullying made against the Duchess of Sussex. Cohen, who spoke to the Australian newspaper the Herald Sun, left in 2019.

Melania Trump is celebrating Mother’s Day with a special gift. The former First Lady has launched a necklace themed for the occasion, which was listed on sale this past Sunday.Melania and Donald Trump attend a birthday bash in Mar-a-LagoBarron Trump makes rare appearance with his parents over EasterMelania Trump wows at fundraiser; ‘Ready to be First Lady’A post shared by Melania Trump (@melaniatrump)The necklace model is called “Her Love & Gratitude,” and is priced at $245 dollars. The jewelry is customizable, with shoppers able to add in details like their initials, or significant dates.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday issued a final rule banning noncompete clauses in employment contracts in the U.S. But experts in the field said the FTC‘s move will definitely be challenged in court. Under the FTC’s new rule, if it goes into effect, existing noncompete agreements for the “vast majority” of workers will no longer be enforceable.

by way of AI “content creators."Solely digital renderings and not real people, AI-generated influencers have become influencers, brand ambassadors, and digital creators, amassing thousands of dollars in revenue through subscription-based content. Apparently, the next natural step was an AI .Yes, really: Creator platform Fanvue, whose userbase includes both real creators and AI ones, announced the Fanvue World AI Creator Awards (WAICAs), the world’s first ever for AI-generated influencers.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sylvester Stallone revealed on the TMZ special “Arnold & Sly: Rivals, Friends, Icons” (via The Daily Mail) that a near career-ending injury in the lead up to “Rocky II” threatened to end the boxing franchise before its first sequel got off the ground. Stallone was training with bodybuilder Franco Columbu about a month and a half before the “Rocky 2” shoot when he ripped his pec muscle right off the bone. “So, I go down, and it’s maybe only 200 [lbs].

Alec Baldwin is claiming prosecutors inappropriately rescinded a plea offer made months before he was charged for a second time with involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin's legal team revealed the actor received a plea offer from special prosecutors Oct. 5, 2023, according to new court documents obtained by Fox News Digital.The move was made to ensure "that similarly situated defendant's [sic] do not receive disparate treatment," the documents stated.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer recently told People magazine that Bruce Willis was so generous on the set of their 1998 blockbuster “Armageddon” that he gave money away to the crew to make sure people had some “nice extra cash at the end of the week.” Willis headlined the Michael Bay-directed film opposite Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck. “Bruce is such a good guy,” Bruckheimer said. “He was so generous to the crew.