Category: Entertainment

Best entertainment news in the industry, we break entertainment stories as soon as celebrities post on their social media and do Pakistani drama reviews.

  • ‘I was not targeting anyone particularly’: Kajol provides clarification on ‘educated political leaders’ comment

    ‘I was not targeting anyone particularly’: Kajol provides clarification on ‘educated political leaders’ comment

    Bollywood actress Kajol recently said in an interview to The Quint that people are steeped in traditions, and politicians are uneducated which is why there isn’t a clear viewpoint on how to move forward in India:

    “You have political leaders who do not have an educational system background. I’m sorry but I’m going to go out and say that. I’m being ruled by leaders, so many of them, who do not have that viewpoint, which I think education does give you, at least the chance to look out for a different viewpoint.” 

    While some applauded the DDLJ actress for making a strong case for why its important to have educated leaders, some Twitter users were enraged by her comments and pointed out that Kajol herself was a school dropout.

    Kajol took to Twitter to post a clarification, saying that she was emphasising the importance of education, and was not targeting any politician.

    “I was merely making a point about education and its importance. My intention was not to demean any political leaders, we have some great leaders who are guiding the country on the right path.”

  • ‘He was a gentleman’: Suchitra Krishnamoorthi recalled slapping Shah Rukh Khan multiple times for film scene

    ‘He was a gentleman’: Suchitra Krishnamoorthi recalled slapping Shah Rukh Khan multiple times for film scene

    Among many of Shah Rukh Khan’s most memorable films, ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’ is the one that is a firm fan favourite.

    Suchitra Krishnamoorthi, who played Anna in the film, recently opened up about her experience in working with the actor, revealing that there was a scene where she had to slap him multiple times because they couldn’t get the shot right. Things reached the point that she burst into tears but Khan stood there without saying a word, as reported by Bollywood Hungama.

    The scene takes place after the song ‘Ae Kaash Ke Hum’ when Anna slaps Sunil.

    The actress said that she didn’t get the slap right the first time, and had to slap Khan multiple times to get the right shot. Krishnamoorthi confessed that she began crying because she didn’t want to do it anymore, but Shah Rukh remained professional and kept standing there until the shot was perfected.

    “It took a lot of takes and I started crying because I had to slap Shah Rukh and it was going take after take and finally I started crying because I couldn’t do it any more. Kundan was particular that it should be real, we didn’t use to do play-acting. And Shah Rukh, being the gentleman that he is, didn’t say anything. But I could see he was going backwards,” Krishnamoorthi told Bollywood Hungama.

  • ‘His brain couldn’t take it all’: co-star’s reveal Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy was under immense pressure

    ‘His brain couldn’t take it all’: co-star’s reveal Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy was under immense pressure

    As July 21 draws closer and closer to the Barbie vs Oppenheimer showdown, press interviews from the cast and crew members of both films have given some interesting insights into how the gruelling the process of making a cinematic masterpiece, especially for Cillian Murphy.

    Female lead Emily Blunt revealed to People Magazine that Murphy sat out most of the cast dinners because of the immense pressure the role had placed on him.

    “We were all in the same hotel in the middle of the New Mexican desert. We only had each other. Me and Matt [Damon] were roommates and we were like, ‘Let’s go to have dinner.’”

    “Murphy did not attend because the sheer volume of what he had to take on and shoulder is so monumental,” Blunt said.

    Matt Damon added that the pressure to carry the film was placed entirely on Murphy’s shoulders

    “Of course he didn’t want to come and have dinner with us. He couldn’t. His brain was just too full. You know that when you have those big roles, that responsibility, you feel it’s kind of overwhelming,” he told People.

    Oppenheimer is a true story based around the life of J Robert Oppenheimer and his efforts to make the first atomic bomb. Murphy stars in his first leading role on the big screen with the writer/ director, after working with him previously on the Batman Trilogy and Inception.

    Murphy revealed that Christopher Nolan gave him the opportunity to be the lead in the film through a cold-call offer:

    “He’s so understated and self-deprecating and, in his very English manner, just said, ‘Listen, I’ve written this script, it’s about Oppenheimer. I’d like you to be my Oppenheimer,’” Murphy said while speaking to The Associared Press. “It was a great day… We have this long-standing understanding and trust and shorthand and respect. It felt like the right time to take on a bigger responsibility. And it just so happened that it was a huge one.”

  • Britney Spears assaulted by NBA player’s security guard

    Britney Spears assaulted by NBA player’s security guard

    Pop star Britney Spears has been physically assaulted by a security guard of NBA’s Victor Wembayana at ARIA Hotel where she was dining with her husband Sam Asghari. Sources report that the singer tried to approach the basketball player for a picture, tapping him on the shoulder to catch his attention, when the security guard member shoved her in the face.

    According to US Weekly, the head of the security team later went to Britney and apologised, but the singer’s team has filed a police case against the guard.

    Spears addressed the incident on her Instagram, detailing how she had approached the athlete in the hotel by tapping on his shoulder and was hoping to congratulate him on his success, countering his statement that she grabbed him from behind. She was back handed in the face by his security team. Spears also revealed that she has yet to receive an apology from the athlete:

    “Physical violence is happening too much in this world. Often behind closed doors. I stand with all the victims and my heart foes out to all of you!! I have yet to get a public apology from the player, his security or their organisation. I hope they will…”

    She also slammed Wembayana for laughing away the matter:

    “Watching the player smile and laugh was cruel and demoralizing with the situation that took place. I am 5’3 and he’s 7’4.”

    Spear’s husband, Sam Asghari, took to his Instagram stories to condemn the act of violence on his wife:

    “I am opposed to violence in any form, especially without justification in the defence of yourself or someone else who is unable to defend themselves. Self-defence can be unavoidable, but the defense of any woman, especially my wife, is not debatable. I consider my reaction subdued considering what ocurred, and I hope the man in question learns a lesson and changes his disregard for women.”

  • Kiara Advani learned how to make an unusual dish to win over Sidharth’s mother

    Kiara Advani learned how to make an unusual dish to win over Sidharth’s mother

    Desi mothers-in-law have to be impressed by prospective bahus, and being a Bollywood A-list actress won’t spare you from the ordeal.

    While doing press rounds for promoting her film ‘Satyaprem Ki Katha’, Kiara Advani told Mirchi Puls about how she bonded with her mother-in-law, Sidharth Malhotra’s mother, with the help of an unusual dish.

    Advani, well known for her love of pani-puri, known in Pakistan as gol gappay, said that she learned how to make the dish for the first day she visited Mumbai:

     “Of course. Meri mother-in-law jo hain, unko pani puri itna pasand hai! Woh abhi humare saath reh rahi hain, Mumbai mein aayi hui hain Delhi se. So, on her first day, mujhe pata hai ki unko pani puri kitna pasand hai, I said aaj ghar mein hum pani puri banayenge. Jo maska lagaya… I knew she will love me to another level. She was so happy.”

    Sidharth and Kiara, who starred together in ‘Shershaah’ in 2021, got married in February in a star-studded wedding with celebrities like Karan Johar, Juhi Chawla and Shahid Kapoor in attendance. In a previous interview, Advani spoke about how happy she was in her bride era, and called Sidharth her home:

    “I got married recently, and it was a love marriage. So naturally, I believe in true love. A home is made by two people and I feel incredibly lucky that my partner, the man I have chosen, my husband is also my best friend. He is my everything, my home. Wherever I am, he is my family, my home.”

  • Drop everything now: Taylor Swift releases Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

    Drop everything now: Taylor Swift releases Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

    This night is sparkling as at long last, Taylor Swift finally released her third rerecorded album Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) which also features six previously unreleased songs from the vault tracks.

    “It’s an album I wrote alone about the whims, fantasies, heartaches, dramas and tragedies I lived out as a young woman between 18 and 20. I remember making tracklist after tracklist, obsessing over the right way to tell the story. I had to be ruthless with my choices, and I left behind some songs I am still unfailingly proud of now,” Taylor wrote in a statement announcing the album’s release.

    The rerecorded album follows Fearless and Red as Taylor attempts to take back control of her musical legacy when she was denied the opportunity to own her original masters by her record label Big Machine Records in 2019, a decision she detailed on a Tumblr post as the “worst case scenario” when news spread that the masters were sold to Scooter Braun:

    “This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it. 

    When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”

    The updated album features six previously unreleased songs including  ‘Electric Touch’ featuring Fall Out Boy and ‘Castles Crumbling’ with Paramore’s Hayley Williams. The others ‘From the Vault’ tracks are titled ‘When Emma Falls in Love,’ ‘I Can See You’, ‘Foolish One’, and ‘Timeless’.

    Listen to the album here:

  • Pakistani dramas, stop treating topics like sexual harassment so lightly

    Pakistani dramas, stop treating topics like sexual harassment so lightly

    Ab ye hi reh gaya tha?

    Pakistani dramas have a strict formula. To make sure that a drama turns into a hit. They try not to even think about emphasising the understanding of social issues or for once making a drama that is not about sass bahu jhagray. The problem is that they include scenes like women being abused, exploited, and even flip the narrative by trying to justify that women make up harassment scandals just to entrap men.

    ‘Mujhay Pyaar Hua Tha’ decided to take the cake after showing two cousins getting married, a weird love triangle, father getting paralysed after daughter tries to rebel, now the good-at-heart male lead is getting trapped by another woman, who falsely accuses him of harassing her, because obviously women don’t get sexual harassed or assaulted in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. They just make up stories, right? So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/eliteclownn/status/1675888756648464386?s=20

    In this scene, a woman shows up to Saad’s office, threatening him that she has personal pictures of his wife Maheer (played by Hania Amir) and her ex-lover Areeb (Zaviyaar Nauman Ijaz), which she will leak on social media unless Saad visits her house. When he arrives there, she hands him coffee which she had drugged with something that makes him unconscious. When Saad awakens, the woman calls the police and re-arranges the scene to make it look like she was sexually assaulted, and Saad is arrested and taken away.

    We hope that the makers of ‘Mujhay Pyaar Hua Tha’, its writer and the lead actors understand that sexual harassment is a serious crime, and not a made up fantasy that women endorse just to make money and trap innocent men. If it’s so hard for the lead actors to understand why being well aware about social issues is important when working in dramas, take an example from Mawra Hocane when she revealed that she refused to work in the drama ‘Qisa Meherbano Ka’ which was depicting marital rape, that after discussing this issue with the producer Momina Duraid and the director Iqbal Hussain, they all agreed to re-write the scene and then shot it.

    Twitter users had to condemn Pakistani dramas for once more proving that we could take one step forward, but in exchange we’ll go several steps back.

    “It’s extremely irresponsible to show false rape allegations in countries with rape culture,” one user wrote. “I hope makers realise they are feeding victim complex of Desi men for lukewarm twists.”

  • Shoaib Akhtar secures stay order against filming, release of biopic 

    Shoaib Akhtar secures stay order against filming, release of biopic 

    Former cricketer Shoaib Akhtar took to his Instagram account to announce that he has secured a stay order against the makers of his biopic ‘Rawalpindi Express’. The stay orders will prevent the crew from filming the movie.

    Akhtar warned that any person involved in the production process of the film will be held responsible by authorities:

    “I have issued a stay order against the filming and release of the supposed biopic being made on my life by a certain group of people. I had to do this because they had threatened in writing of continuing filming regardless of the legal termination of the agreement. Any person involved in the project should know that its completely illegal and they will be responsible for any reputational loss.”

    In the legal notice, it was mentioned that anyone associated with the film would be held responsible, and the police will raid any future filming with a court order.

    Previously, Akhtar announced his departure from the film, citing “failure to resolve disagreements amicably and constant contractual violations finally resulted in us cutting ties with them,” after which the former cricketer revealed he completed all legal protocols and revoked the rights to the story of his life.

    Actor Umair Jaswal, who had been selected to portray the cricket star in the project, also announced back in January in an Instagram post that he was stepping away from the film due to “personal and creative reasons”:

    “Due to creative and personal reasons, I have decided to step away from the Shoaib Akhtar biopic project RAWALPINDI EXPRESS. I will no longer be associated with any media or news related to this project.”

  • Feroze Khan thinks the cure to depression is women obeying men

    Feroze Khan thinks the cure to depression is women obeying men

    Feroze Khan is once more going viral on the internet for all the wrong reasons. The actor is now promoting the most absurd ways to help women overcome depression.

    In a viral now-deleted post, a person had asked the actor how she could cure depression about her future, to which Khan responded:

    “Obey your men. Give them your responsibility and sit back and enjoy grapes. I’d do that if I was a woman. Be a queen.”

    Sir, how is this even proper advice? Cure your depression by completely submitting yourself to the men in your life?

    Once more, Feroze jee proves how undefeatable his critical thinking skills are, when a fan questioned him about his misogynist views by reminding him that it was due to the struggles and hard work of his sister, ‘Maula Jatt’ actress Humaima Malick, that Khan was able to achieve such monumental fame, which brings into question why he holds such misogynist views.

    To this Feroze had to respond:

    1 , I’m gonna be loud.
    2, will have no fear.
    3, do you think she would’ve achieved this without my dad and us brothers backing her up ?
    *mic drop*

    Classy behavior, putting down the hard work of your sister just to boost up your ego.

    Twitter users obviously did not have the time or the fortitude to put up with Khan’s misogynist views and were ready to shut him down.

    https://twitter.com/udharmarro/status/1675391704310882304?s=20

  • Riz Ahmed’s ‘Nimona’ hailed by critics as a unique queer fantasy

    Riz Ahmed’s ‘Nimona’ hailed by critics as a unique queer fantasy

    On Friday, Netflix dropped the highly anticipated animated fantasy film ‘Nimona’ which stars Pakistani-British actor Riz Ahmed, Chloe Grace Montez, Eugene Lee Yang as the main leads, and is adapted from the comics of the same name by ‘She-Ra’ creator ND Stevenson.

    Since its release, critics have hailed the film as a gorgeous queer fantasy that calls for acceptance and equality for the LGBTQ+ community, but mostly critics have hailed Ahmed’s and Mortez’s performances, as Entertainment Weekly praised it for the casual queer representation as the main lead Nimona is a gender non-conforming being, and the romantic relationship between two male knights.

    Speaking on the queer representation, Ahmed had said:

    “I understand this is a big win and a big moment representation-wise, and we’re all so proud of that. But I think those moments only feel like real wins when they’re not tokenized, when they are actually there because of the emotional truth of the character. When we are honoring these characters as human, that’s when it feels real, you know?”  

    Writing on the powerful vocal performance by Mortez as Nimona, Polygon hailed her for creating the duality between the rebellious side of the vibrant shape shifter, but also exploring her vulnerable side as an outcast who doesn’t feel like she can belong anywhere.

    Coming on the themes of queer representation, Mashable praised Nimona for being speaking on empowering the queer community:

    “Along with its unique animation and rollicking action sequences, Nimona digs into themes of individuality, identity, and acceptance that aim to speak directly and warmly to the queer community. At a time when LGBTQ rights and spaces continue to come under attack from bigoted legislation(opens in a new tab), Nimona cements itself not just as a great fantasy film, but as an important one as well.”

    Calling it a film that takes aim at the post 9/11 surveillance state, IGN praised Nimona for being “a tender and bold tale about challenging institutions, being a good ally, and the need to live as your true self.”

    Nimona takes place in a science fantasy world where Ballister Boldheart (played by Riz) is the first commoner to be enlisted in the presitigous Institute of Elite Knights, when an accident takes place during the knighting ceremony after which he is forced to flee for his life. Partnered with the rebellious Nimona (voiced by Chloe Grace Montez) a shape-shifter who has a desire to do something evil, they team up to clear his name and investigate the perpetuators behind the accident.