List of All Articles with Tag 'celeb'

The video allegedly included 'selectively edited snippets and debunked videos' from Tristan Tate’s past

X most certainly marks the spot for the world’s most headline-grabbing billionaire. Elon Musk announced on Sunday that he would be giving Twitter a major makeover: changing its name to “X” and doing away with its famous bird logo. He tweeted (or should that be X-ed?): “Soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” And, he said: “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow. To embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It’s all part of his overarching plan to transform X into an “everything app”, much like China’s WeChat, which handles everything from payments to messaging to micro-blogging. Posting a beaming photo of himself with his arms raised in a cross, Musk added: “Not sure what subtle clues gave it away, but I like the letter X.” So where does his love of the letter come from? And where else has he used it? Here, indy100 takes a look at the SpaceX founder’s somewhat unorthodoX obsession. X.com When it comes to letters of the alphabet, X is certainly the most associated with euphemism – anything branded X-rated is bound to raise an eyebrow or two. And this is quite possibly one of the reasons the proud provocateur liked it so much to begin with. According to Ashlee Vance, author of the 2015 biography ‘Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future’, his fascination with the letter began with one of his earliest ventures. Musk, one of the world's richest men, co-founded the online banking service X.com in 1999, but, Vance said, not everyone was enthusiastic about the name. "Everyone tried to talk him out of naming the company that back then because of the sexual innuendos, but he really liked it and stuck with it," he revealed. However, the critics were soon able to breathe a sigh of relief: X.com merged with competitor Confinity Inc., in 2000 and the name was changed to the family-friendly PayPal. And yet, Musk clearly wasn’t able to let go of his brainchild. So, in 2017, he bought the url "X.com" back off PayPal, tweeting that the domain "has great sentimental value,” as NPR notes. Now, if you type “X.com” into your web browser, you will be directed to the Twitter – soon to be X – homepage. SpaceX After making his first fortune with the sale of his tech company Zip2 for $307 million (around £240 million) in 1999, and PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion (around £1.32 billion), the universe was the limit for Musk. The same year he sold PayPal, he founded his space flight company Space Exploration Technologies Corp. However, the name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so it was abbreviated to SpaceX. The Tesla ‘X’ While Musk opted for three alternative consonants in the name of his electric car company (which he started in 2003), he eventually couldn’t resist adding a touch of X. In 2015, the father-of-six unveiled Tesla’s third model: an e-car lovingly named… you guessed it. Tim Higgins, author of ‘Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century’, explained that Musk had cheeky intentions when choosing the names of his models. The idea was that, combined, they would spell out the word “sexy," Higgins said. However, another car company – Ford – threw a spanner in the works thanks to its ownership of the rights to the “E” model. Musk, therefore, had to settle on calling his second model “3” – a "kind of a backwards E," as Higgins pointed out – to semi-achieve his desired acronym. But yes, there are now S, 3, X and Y models of the cars. Baby names In 2020, Musk and his then-partner, Grimes, welcomed a baby boy, calling him X Æ A-12. However, the couple were forced to alter the spelling of the name to X AE A-XII, after being notified that it breached legal conventions. California law dictates that names on birth certificates must employ “the 26 alphabetical letters of the English language,” although apostrophes and dashes are allowed, NME reports. Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, explained via tweet that the X part of her son’s name refers to the “unknown variable” in algebra. Meanwhile, the Æ refers to the “elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)," and the A-12 at the end is apparently a nod to the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft — the couple’s “favourite” plane. Despite all of this, the pair – who are now separated – refer to their child simply as “Little X”, Boucher admitted in an interview with Bloomberg shortly after his birth. Two years later, the then-couple announced that they’d had a baby girl via surrogate, naming her Exa Dark Sideræl. However, earlier this year, Boucher confirmed that they’d changed her name to “Y” – yet again proving that single letters at the bottom of the alphabet really are Musk’s thing. xAI On 12 July this year, the 52-year-old announced the formation of a new company called xAI. It's goal is simple, according to its website: "To understand the true nature of the universe." The new startup, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, has hired a group of top AI researchers who formerly worked at OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Tesla. But we don't know much more about it than that. Musk was a co-founder and early funder of the artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI. However, he's grown increasingly critical of the company as it’s gained global prominence and commercial success with last year’s release of ChatGPT. In April, the billionaire criticised ChatGPT in an interview with Tucker Carlson, telling the then-Fox News host that the chatbot had a liberal bias and that he planned an alternative that would be a “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.” And... voilà xAI. What neXt? It’s time for the renaissance of X.com, but with a grand new purpose. Weeks before forking out the $44 billion (around £34 million) to buy Twitter in October, Musk tweeted that the eye-watering purchase was simply “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app". "He wants to create an app similar to how WeChat is used in China, where it's part of the fabric of day-to-day life,” the billionaire’s biographer Vance explained to NPR. “You use it to communicate, to consume news, to buy things, to pay your rent, to book appointments with your doctor and even to pay fines.” Hinting at the financial difficulties that have plagued Twitter both historically and since Musk’s acquisition, Vance pointed out: "The company clearly needs a new, bigger business if it's to make the type of money that would justify his investment and satisfy his ambition.” Indeed, the world-famous entrepreneur is doing everything he can to build the hype around his company’s new facelift. On Monday (24 July), he retweeted a message from his newly-appointed Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, which read: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square." She continued: “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.” So… why X? Musk suggested that he’d chosen “X” to replace Twitter because he wanted something that “embod[ies] the imperfections in us all that make us unique”. The letter has a number of different spiritual, cultural and mathematical meanings – any, or all, of which may have informed his lifelong fascination with the letter. As Boucher noted in her baby name explanation, X connotes the “unknown variable” in algebra. It is, of course, also the symbol for multiplication, and in linguistics, it’s what’s known a “phonetic chameleon” – meaning that it’s used to replicate a number of different sounds. It is also known as signifying the end of something – or death – think the X in a skull and crossbones emblem or the crosses drawn on the eyes of the dead in cartoons. It also signifies an error or cancellation, or that which is negative, and has long been recognised as an occult symbol for Satan. In other words, it has become the most “nihilistic” of letters, as psychologist Leon F Seltzer pointed out in a piece for Psychology Today. This all goes to suggest that Musk appreciates X’s malleability – how it can be birth and death, cancellation and multiplication, nothing and everything. X.com is dead. Long live X.com. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

'And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,' Elon Musk previously tweeted

As they prepare to go on tour as a five-piece, S Club has revealed their first single in 20 years is titled ‘These are the Days’, which will come with a “moving film story” in tribute to their late bandmate Paul Cattermole.

To throw groupies and obsessed fans off the scent when checking into hotels, Liam Gallagher called himself Lou Cypher during Oasis tours.

Quentin Tarantino wants to give a befitting farewell to the acting career of Bruce Willis, who was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia

Barbie and Oppenheimer did so well at the box office at their opening weekend that Vue International reported its biggest weekend for UK cinema ticket sales since before the pandemic. On Sunday, the cinema chain said a fifth of its customers had bought tickets to see both films in a double bill. More than 2,000 of Vue’s screenings for Barbie were sold out, according to the company. The company said the comedy drama Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, would exceed ticket sales for Super Mario Bros and expected Oppenheimer to become the biggest film of the year. Tim Richards, chief executive and founder of Vue International, said: “Vue saw its highest weekend admissions since Avengers: Endgame in 2019 with the release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, proving that when the movies are there our customers will come to watch them on the big screen. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Barbie is tracking to become the biggest film of 2023 and has a good chance of getting into the Top 10 highest grossing films of all time. “It is an incredibly exciting moment for the industry, and we expect this trend to continue for the coming weeks.” In total, the cinema chain had more than 4,000 sell-out sessions across the country for both films. Meanwhile, Odeon reported on Thursday that more than 200,000 advance tickets had been bought and more than 10,000 guests were expected to see both films during the opening weekend. Universal Pictures said Oppenheimer had made £8.05m in the UK and Ireland since Friday. They said the biopic is on track to have a better opening three days than Nolan’s other blockbusters Dunkirk, Interstellar and Inception. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

'Idiots hate this Jason Aldean song because they hate when we push back against violence,' Ted Nugent said

Owen Wilson was disappointed not to share any scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis in the new Disney movie 'Haunted Mansion'.

Doja Cat is facing a backlash after speaking out about the practice of pop stars’ obsessive fan bases using collective nicknames to describe themselves. Taylor Swift has the "Swifties", Ariana Grande has the "Arianators" and Lady Gaga has the "Little Monsters". And until recently, Doja Cat had the "Kittenz". However, in a now-deleted post on social media platform Threads, the pop star said: “My fans don’t name themselves s***. If you call yourself a ‘kitten’ or f***ing ‘kittenz’ that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house.” The backlash was strong and immediate, in the latest instance of hordes of devoted fans getting just a teensy bit too invested in what musicians say and do. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter One of her fan accounts, The Kittenz Web, said: “Just delete the entire account and rethink everything. It’s never too late.” Another fan on Twitter said: “Imagine telling your fans to get a job when they are the ones that buy your music, merch and concert tickets.” Another asked on Threads if she could tell her fans that she loves them. Doja Cat replied: “I don’t though cuz I don’t even know y’all.” One fan hit back: “And we don’t know you. But we have supported you through thick and thin. Mind you, you’d be nothing without us.” But Doja wasn’t having it. She said: “Nobody forced you. IDK why you’re talking to me like you’re my mother... You sound like a crazy person.” The singer eventually deleted her account on the platform following the backlash. It’s not the first time 27-year-old Doja Cat, whose real name is Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, has been forced to stand up for herself in the face of fanatical social media followers. She was previously accused of blocking people who weighed in on her relationship with Twitch streamer J Cyrus. “I DONT GIVE A F**K WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE,” she wrote on Instagram. “I NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL GIVE A F**K WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT ME OR MY PERSONAL LIFE.” Meanwhile Doja Cat fan pages like Doja HQ, The Kittens Room and Doja Cat News have all deactivated their accounts since the most recent incident. The Grammy award winning musician is expected to release her fourth studio album later this year. According to reports, that will likely steer away from the pop music she has previously released and draw more from hip-hop and R&B. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Cillian Murphy has addressed the sex scenes with Florence Pugh in Oppenheimer, calling them “f***ing powerful” and praising the acting talents of his co-star. Murphy plays the titular role in the Christopher Nolan movie, focusing on the “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer. The actor was asked about the sex scenes between Oppenheimer and his mistress Jean Tatlock, played by Pugh, and he described them as “perfect” and “not gratuitous”. Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Murphy said: “Those scenes were written deliberately. [Director Nolan] knew that those scenes would get the movie the rating that it got.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Murphy went on to say “I think when you see it, it’s so f***ing powerful. And they’re not gratuitous. They’re perfect. And Florence is just amazing.” The actor went on to praise Pugh’s performance, saying: “I think she’s f***ing phenomenal. She has this presence as a person and on screen that is staggering. “The impact she has for the size of the role, it’s quite devastating.” Meanwhile, Oppenheimer has sparked controversy in India over a sex scene referencing the Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita. Oppenheimer’s line “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” is, apparently, true to real life. It also appeared in the Bhagavad Gita when the god Vishnu is trying to persuade Prince Arjuna that he should do his duty and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says the same words. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

IShowSpeed has had a huge impact on the YouTube community with over 18 million followers