“I was only interested in doing this role if he was a multifaceted character,” he tells the New York Post.
The current third season of Cobra Kai, which launched earlier this month, delves into Kreese’s backstory, which includes a rough childhood and a traumatic experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War.
Regarding his character, a Vietnam veteran who preaches “no mercy” to his students, the 74-year-old actor says, “I don’t see him as a villain.”
Karate Kid fans seem to be warming up to the character as well.
“People don’t really hate my character, especially now they have a fuller understanding of what made him the way he is.”
Warner Music NashvilleBlake Shelton’s upbeat anthem to the kind of love that makes you feel like a million bucks — no matter your circumstances — is officially headed to country radio.
“I heard ‘Minimum Wage’ over a year ago and connected with it immediately,” Blake says of the song’s origins. “It’s the timeless truth that you don’t need a lot of money or possessions, you just need love.”
He debuted the song early this year, but quickly received some blowback from listeners who perceived the song’s message as tone deaf, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when many are struggling financially.
Still, Blake has defended his song. “At first I thought, ‘Wow, I guess I’ve just missed something here.’ And the more I read into this, the more I realized this was really not real. Whatever this backlash is is just four or five people that probably don’t know anything about country music,” he told CMT this week.
“They clearly hadn’t heard the song or read the lyrics,” Blake added. “If they had, they couldn’t feel this way about the song.”
Though he’s making quite a bit more than “Minimum Wage” at this point, Blake says the song makes him think back to his early days.
“I have a lot of great memories playing dive bars in Nashville and then driving back to Oklahoma to play a gig,” he recalls. “I gravitate toward songs that feel like the stories of where I’ve been and where I am currently in my life, and I’ve got a lot of happiness and joy in my life these days.”
When he debuted the song, Blake introduced it as a message of love to his fiancée, Gwen Stefani.
Paul Archuleta/FilmMagicBy CARSON BLACKWELDER, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Shawn Johnson is pregnant with her second child with husband Andrew East, the couple announced Friday.
“Here we go again,” the Olympic gold medalist captioned an Instagram post featuring a series of photos in which she shows off her baby bump with her family.
In the first snap, she shares a romantic kiss with East. The second is a sweet shot of their 1-year-old daughter, Drew Hazel, and the third is a family portrait of the three of them together.
The couple also shared a video to YouTube about their big news — including how Johnson told East she was pregnant, them both guessing it’s a boy, and that the baby’s due date is summer 2021.
Johnson also opened up about how conflicted she feels after having experienced a pregnancy loss back in 2017.
“I think every time I get a pregnancy test positive after the miscarriage, I try to numb myself and be like, ‘OK, here’s the situation: You’re pregnant, we don’t know how it’s going to end,'” she said. “I don’t celebrate it, which is kind of sad. I get very excited, but I also get very daunted by the situation.”
East — who said he wants to have “as many kids as possible” — then recalled how he tested positive for COVID-19 just days after finding out Johnson was pregnant.
“We were in this time of celebration and we wanted to tell her parents and our friends, but then I ended up having to self-isolate,” he said, calling it “not the ideal situation.”
Johnson ended the video with a message of support to other families on the journey to have children.
“If you are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, if you’re trying to adopt, if you’re in the process of expanding your family or recently suffering from a loss, we are praying for you. All those beautiful babies out there, all those rainbow babies, all those babies in heaven,” she said. “We love you guys.”
(WASHINGTON) — Jacob Chansley, the horned helmet-wearing, painted face Capitol rioter is set for a detention hearing this afternoon in Arizona federal court, and prosecutors are requesting a judge keep him in government custody pending trial — using some of their bluntest words yet in court to describe last week’s assault on the U.S. Capitol as a “violent insurrection.”
“Chansley is an active participant in — and has made himself the most prominent symbol of — a violent insurrection that attempted to overthrow the United States Government on January 6, 2021,” prosecutors wrote in a brief to the judge. “Chansley has expressed interest in returning to Washington, D.C. for President-Elect Biden’s inauguration and has the ability to do so if the Court releases him. No conditions can reasonably assure his appearance as required, nor ensure the safety of the community.”
Chansley is the rioter seen roaming through the halls of Congress last week wearing horns, a coyote tail headdress, face paint and a wielding a 6-foot spear.
Prosecutors describe Chansley as both a clear flight risk and a mentally unstable individual, partly due to his leadership in the QAnon movement — which they bluntly describe in the brief as a “dangerous extremist group.”
“Chansley has also previously espoused identifying and then “hanging” “traitors” within the United States government,” prosecutors say. “Despite the riot on January 6, Chansley has stated his intent to return to Washington for President-Elect Biden’s inauguration, and his repeated and demonstrated unwillingness to conform to societal rules suggests a pending criminal case will not stop him.”
The brief also notes that Chansley’s employment status contributes to his flight risk — citing his ability to “sporadically” earn money by showing up at protests and riots with other QAnon followers around the country.
“Chansley is a high-profile leader and the self-professed shaman of QAnon, giving him the ability to raise large sums of money for travel (and other activities) quickly through non-traditional means,” the brief says.
Prosecutors also point to recent reports of possible violence at the Capitol leading up to the inauguration, and note that in his interview with the FBI before his arrest, Chansley told agents he’d “still go, you better believe it.”
“U.S. Capitol Police report that Chansley was among the first inside the Capitol,” the brief says. “He made his way into the halls of the Senate and the Senate Chamber within minutes of the rioters breaching the building. At this juncture in our Nation’s history, it is hard to imagine a greater risk to our democracy and community than the armed revolution of which Chansley has made himself the symbol.”
“He loved Trump, every word. He listened to him. He felt like he was answering the call of our president,” Chansley’s attorney Al Watkins told CNN in an interview Thursday. “My client wasn’t violent. He didn’t cross over any police lines. He didn’t assault anyone.” Watkins said Chansley also hopes for a presidential pardon.
During his court appearance on Jan. 11, Chansley’s court-appointed attorney, Gerald Williams, told the judge that Chansley has been unable to eat since he was arrested, The Associated Press reported. He said his client has a restricted diet, though it was unclear to Williams whether Chansley’s food issues were related to health concerns or religious reasons.
The judge ordered Williams to work with the U.S. Marshals Service to address the issue.
Chansley’s mother, Martha Chansley, told reporters outside the courthouse that her son needs an organic diet, The Arizona Republic reported.
“He gets very sick if he doesn’t eat organic food,” she said. “He needs to eat.”
So far, approximately 80 cases have been charged in federal court and 34 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, the Department of Justice said Thursday. Additionally, the FBI has opened approximately 200 subject case files and received roughly 140,000 digital media tips from the public.
Chansley’s detention hearing before Magistrate Judge Deborah Fine is set for Friday 4:30 p.m. ET via teleconference.
ABC News’ Ivan Pereira and Meredith Ferrell contributed to this report.
ABC/Image Group LA“I Hope” singer Gabby Barrett will be a first-time mom “any day now,” according to her Instagram account, but the former American Idol finalist says she’s already thinking about baby number two.
“We’re ready to add on to our family and get some babies in there,” she tells People. “I definitely want to have more than one in the future, for sure.”
Twenty-year-old Gabby, who’s expecting a baby girl, says “I always wanted to be a mom. It was something that was always ingrained in me from a very young age. I remember being in high school and I would always pray about my future spouse and my future kids.”
“I just can’t wait to see what she looks like. It’s insane to me that we are literally right around the corner from this; that she’s coming very soon,” she adds.
Until then, Gabby will have to deal with the downsides of pregnancy.
“I can’t do normal things that I want to do. I get so tired so quickly,” she laments. “I want to clean the house and make sure everything’s so clean, but it’s so hard to bend down and it’s hard to roll over when you sleep.”
Luckily, her husband and fellow American Idol alum Cade Foehner is around to help out.
“He’s just been very nice. He rubs my feet every single night. He’s been extra, extra thoughtful,” Gabby gushes, adding, “He’s just been very patient about [my mood swings] and very understanding.”
“I hope she gets Cade’s hair, not mine,” Gabby adds, laughing. “He has much nicer hair than I do.”
CURTIS BONDS BAKER/NETFLIX © 2020(NEW YORK) — Actor Martin Kove, who reprises his role as villainous karate instructor John Kreese in Netflix’s Karate Kid reboot Cobra Kai, says he had to be “persuaded” to accept the role.
