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Rocket Mortgage's spots with Tracy Morgan top 'USA Today''s 33rd annual Super Bowl ad meter

• No Comments • Entertainment News

Quicken Loans/Rocket Mortgage(NEW YORK) — While not as crowded as it usually is, there were plenty of celebrity-stocked ads during this year’s Super Bowl, and this year, USA Today says Rocket Mortgage’s “Pretty Certain” ads with Tracy Morgan, blew away the competition. 

The spots, which also featured Dave Bautista, actress Liza Koshy and NFL star Joey Bosa, took both the first and second slots of the paper’s 33rd annual “Ad Meter” rating the Super Bowl’s commercials. 

According to BusinessWire, voting for the top spots took place on the Ad Meter platform at admeter.usatoday.com starting on Wednesday, Feb. 3, and remained open until Monday, Feb. 8 at 1 a.m. ET. 

Amazon’s “Alexa’s Body” spot, which featured thirst object Michael B. Jordan, ranked third. M&M’s “Come Together” spot with Dan Levy placed fourth, and Toyota’s “Upstream” ad, which featured double-amputee Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long, rounded out the top five.

The two 60-second Rocket Mortgage ads, which highlighted the difference between being “pretty certain” and “pretty sure” about home buying, likely cost the company a fortune: ad rates for the big game ran $5.5 million for a 30-second spot.

Here are the top five Super Bowl ads of 2021, according to USA Today‘s Ad Meter panelists:

1) Rocket Mortgage, “Certain Is Better — Tracy Morgan, Dave Bautista & Liza Koshy”
2) Rocket Mortgage, “Certain Is Better — Tracy Morgan & Joey Bosa” 
3) Amazon, “Alexa’s Body” 
4) M&M’S, “Come Together”
5) Toyota, “Upstream”

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Blake Shelton gets rejected by Gwen Stefani in T-Mobile ad

• No Comments • Country Music News

Emma McIntyre/Getty ImagesIn an alternate universe, Blake Shelton gets rejected by his fiancee Gwen Stefani in a new T-Mobile ad.

The 60-second spot, which debuted during the Super Bowl, reunites Blake with his former The Voice judge Adam Levine, beginning with a faux flashback to Gwen calling Adam over video chat, informing him that she’s finally ready to date.

“I’m sick of L.A. guys,” she declares, explaining that she wants someone who’s potentially from another country, “cultured,” “sensitive” and is “not threatened by a strong, confident woman.”

But due to their poor internet connection, what Adam hears on the other end is “I want someone completely country, uncultured and threatened by a strong, confident woman” — just as Blake is heading back to their table with wings and nachos.

“I have your guy,” Adam chuckles to Gwen.

While Gwen is later waiting at a table at a fancy restaurant waiting for her blind date, she is surprised to see that it’s Blake as he approaches her with his cowboy boots and spurs.

“Did you ride a horse here?” she inquires after playfully rejecting him, to which Blake replies “yeah” in a way that implies it should be obvious. “You need a ride home?” he asks, Gwen tempted by the offer. 

After meeting as judges on The Voice in 2014, the couple got engaged in October. Blake will return to the coaching panel when season 20 of the show premieres on March 1 on NBC. 

By Cillea Houghton
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Women make Super Bowl history as Tampa Bay Bucs beat the Kansas City Chiefs

• No Comments • Sports News

Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesBy KATIE KINDELAN, ABC News

(TAMPA, Fla.) — Three women made history at Sunday’s Super Bowl, which saw a record number of women with on-field roles as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Tampa.

NFL referee Sarah Thomas made history as the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl.

She earned praise from first lady Jill Biden and others on social media who applauded her glass ceiling-shattering achievement.

With the Buccaneers’ 31-9 win over the Chiefs, Bucs’ assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust and assistant strength and conditioning coach Maral Javadifar made history as the first women to be on the coaching staff of a winning Super Bowl team.

Locust and Javadifar were led by Bucs head coach Bruce Arians, the oldest coach to ever win a Super Bowl at 68. He created the most diverse staff in the history of the NFL with three Black coordinators, a Black assistant head coach and two full-time coaches that are female.

The Buccaneers also have several women in leadership positions, including the team’s co-owner Darcie Glazer Kassewitz, who led the Bucs to become the first NFL team to establish a scholarship program benefiting female high school football players.

“There is a global shift that’s happening in sports and it’s amazing,” Javadifar told ABC News’ Kayna Whitworth ahead of the Super Bowl.

Javadifar, the daughter of Iranian immigrants, became a college basketball player who went on to earn a doctorate in physical therapy along with a degree in molecular biology.

Her expertise in body mechanics made her a perfect fit for the Buccaneers, with whom she is coaching her second season.

“We’re not just happy to be here,” she said of the Super Bowl berth. “We’re continuing to prepare to win.”

Locust, a mother of two sons, started playing semi-professional football at age 40 and then, sidelined with an injury, began coaching, working her way up from smaller football leagues to the NFL.

When she coached at the semi-pro level, she began attending coaching symposiums where she was the only woman in a room of 600 men.

In 2018, Locust served as a defensive line coaching intern for the Baltimore Ravens during the team’s training camp.

Locust — who has a nearly four-decade history with Arians, who coached Locust’s ex-husband at Temple University — is also in her second season coaching for the team.

“To me, if there’s going to be any influence, it would be women that are my age saying not what if, but why not,” Locust told Whitworth of her history-making Super Bowl role. “And really taking a second to find out what it is that they feel passionate about.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Despite controversy, Morgan Wallen extends lead on 'Billboard' 200 for fourth consecutive week

• No Comments • Country Music News

Jason Kempin/ACMA2020/Getty Images for ACMEmbattled country artist Morgan Wallen, who suffered an intense falling out after a video surfaced of the singer shouting a racial slur, continues his reign atop the Billboard 200.

The singer, who recently released his sophomore album Dangerous: The Double Album, held onto the number one spot for a fourth consecutive week.  This becomes the first country album to spend four weeks at number one since Shania Twain‘s 2003 album Up! 

Wallen’s album moved an additional 149,000 units, a number that consists of album sales and on-demand streams as his sales of his music dramatically increased amid the controversy.

Billboard reports that sales of the Dangerous album are up 103 percent over the past week.  The publication says the album was streamed 159.76 million times and that he sold an additional 25,000 albums.

While Wallen’s music sales continue to skyrocket, the same cannot be said for the country singer’s professional career.

Last week, the 27-year-old’s recording contract indefinitely suspended by his label, Big Loud Records, and he was dropped by talent agency WME.  In addition, Wallen was removed from CMT airplay, barred from ACM Award eligibility and numerous radio companies dropped his music catalog from airplay. 

While Wallen’s music continues to be available for streaming and download across all major sites, around 30 of the top playlists across Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music have purged his songs from their entries.

Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton and many other country stars have condemned Wallen and racism in country music.

Wallen previously told Good Morning America, “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back.  There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word.”

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Billie Lourd opens up about her pregnancy health scare

• No Comments • Entertainment News

Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA(LOS ANGELES) — Billie Lourd opened up to fans about something they didn’t know about her pregnancy — she had a bit of a health scare.

The Scream Queens alum, who is the daughter of the late Carrie Fisher and granddaughter of the late Debbie Reynolds, opened up in a candid Q&A on her Instagram Stories on Sunday.

When a fan asked about her pregnancy cravings, Lourd explained that she had a major sweet tooth until she was forced to grab healthier food items.

Saying she first craved “Ice Cream” and shared a photo of the Ben & Jerry’s flavor Mint Chocolate Cookie, the actress admitted, “But then I had a lil gestational diabetes scare” and became attached to beets.

“Random I know but that’s pregnancy vibes for ya,” she quipped.

Gestational diabetes affects between 2 to 10 percent of all pregnancies, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  It occurs when an expecting mom cannot produce enough insulin to give her the energy she needs and could result in high blood pressure or a larger baby that has to be delivered via C-section.  Other risks include an earlier birth for the child or the mother developing type 2 diabetes later on.

Lourd also admitted during her Q&A that she hated the first trimester the most “because hormones” before cheerfully adding, “But you get through it and it’s beyond worth every second of weird moods / acne / all that fun jazz when your little human arrives!!!!!!”

Lourd secretly welcomed a child, a son named Kingston, alongside fiance Austen Rydell in September.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.