December 1, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Virginia Sherwood/NBC(NEW YORK) — Ice-T is hoping to convince more followers to mask up and take COVID-19 seriously after his father-in-law, 63-year-old Steve Austin, battled the infectious virus and is now permanently on oxygen.  

The Law & Order: SVU star revealed on Twitter that Austin was among the crowd of people who believed the fallacy that masks provide no protection against COVID-19.

“My father-in-law ‘Coco’s dad’ was a serious ‘No Masker’ COVID hit him,” Ice-T explained on Sunday. “Pneumonia in both lungs.. 40 days in ICU close to death.. Now he’s on Oxygen indefinitely.”

The actor also attested that the virus has made Austin “a Believer now” and warned fans via the hashtag, “#COVIDisNotAGame.”

He added in a followup tweet that Austin was “close to death” and slammed those who thought his father-in-law’s health ordeal was made up for attention.

T’s wife, Coco, first alerted fans about her father’s diagnosis over the summer, explaining via Instagram that he was in the ICU after he “developed Covid pneumonia in both lungs, and from there couldn’t breathe and needed to be put on [an] oxygen machine.”

Coco elaborated in a subsequent August update that her father’s lungs were severely damaged by COVID-19 and that he had lost 30 pounds during his month-long hospitalization. 

“He said being in the hospital for a month was like jail.. No windows No visitors and laying in one spot and not being able to walk around was getting to him,” she described. “He also adds you could hear people moan in pain during the night.”

As for why Coco, in tandem with Ice-T, provided an unflinching look at Austin’s COVID-battle, they hope to convince more people that the virus is not a hoax.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

December 1, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Union Station — iStock/4kodiac(LOS ANGELES) — An already overbooked COVID-19 testing site at Los Angeles’ Union Station was briefly shuttered Monday to make way for a film shoot amid a spike in cases there — and after that sparked outrage, nobody seems to know how it happened. 

After news broke that the testing would be halted for the She’s All That remake shoot, in turn canceling over 500 scheduled appointments, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took to Twitter to do damage control. 

“Working with @LAFD, @Curative & @MetroLosAngeles, my team has worked to reopen testing at Union Station on Tuesday,” Garcetti tweeted. “The 504 Angelenos who were scheduled for a test there can visit the kiosk as originally planned or any of the other 14 City sites, where we offer 38K tests daily.”

So how’d it happen?  For its part, a representative for FilmLA, which handles film permitting for the city, claimed to ABC News, “Prior to this issue being brought to our attention, neither FilmLA nor the locations team for the production company had prior knowledge of a COVID-19 testing center operating on-site.”

The rep also noted that their office didn’t know who decided to shut testing down, but “production reps for the film offered to work with station representatives to restore access to the testing site [Tuesday].”

The news that the site had been shut down drew outrage both from residents and the local press, with most placing the blame on Garcetti’s shoulders. The activist group the People’s City Council posted a round-up of negative headlines, calling the situation an “embarrassment” and the mayor unfit to serve in office.

The remake, titled He’s All That, will be a gender-swapped version of the 1999 movie, about a nerdy high school girl who transforms into a hottie, mostly by removing her glasses.

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

December 1, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Peacock(LOS ANGELES) — Following significant backlash, the Saved by the Bell reboot has removed the controversial scenes that poked fun at Selena Gomez’s kidney transplant.  

TMZ is reporting that the Peacock streaming service edited the controversial episode by scrubbing all traces of the kidney jokes that many found offensive.  The updated episode is now streaming.

The now-deleted scenes were featured in the sixth episode of the reboot, where two characters argued over who donated a kidney to the “Wolves” singer.  The teenage girls wrongfully claimed it was either Justin Bieber’s mother or Demi Lovato, neither of whom did. 

The volatile exchange was then followed by a scene that included graffiti that read “Does Selena Gomez even have kidneys?” spray-painted in bold black letters above the hallway lockers.

Gomez, who was diagnosed with lupus — an autoimmune disease — announced in 2017 that her best friend Francia Raisa saved her life by donating her kidney. 

Raisa criticized the Saved by the Bell reboot on Sunday, joining the leagues of fans demanding an apology for mocking Gomez’s personal health struggles.

While fans demanded the Peacock series to apologize, Raisa said the show insulted all organ donors, telling ABC News, “We need people to become donors and I worry that continuing to dismiss them and minimize their contributions will have a negative impact.”

Gomez has yet to personally respond to the controversy.  Instead, she has been using her time promoting her photo shoot for Vogue Mexico and teasing new products coming to her Rare Beauty makeup line.

NBC Universal, Peacock and the show’s executive producers have since apologized, saying, “It was never our intention to make light of Selena’s health. We have been in touch with her team and will be making a donation to her charity, The Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at USC.”

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

December 1, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

L-R – Similce Diesel, Meadow Walker — Michael Kovac/Getty Images for DreamWorks Animation(LOS ANGELES) — It’s been seven years since The Fast and the Furious star Paul Walker unexpectedly died in a car crash at age 40. His daughter, Meadow Walker, took to Instagram yesterday to mark the solemn date and celebrate her dad’s life.

Meadow, who is now 22, shared a sweet photo on Monday of her much younger self cuddled against her father’s chest for a nap.  

“A silly day to remember in sadness,” she noted in the caption. “Today’s a celebration of the love and happiness you brought to the world.”

“Here’s a photo of my best bud & I napping,” she signed off with.

Friends of her family immediately flooded the comment section with memories of the late actor and words of encouragement for the young woman.

Actress and fellow Furious series star Nathalie Emmanuel expressed to Meadow, “We miss him so much. Of all the things he gave to the world……. You are the most beautiful of them all!”

“We love you Meadow! We love you and miss your father everyday,” wrote Tyrese “Uncle Ty” Gibson, another Furious alum. “Prayers love and light to you angel….. I know none of this has been easy especially days like this.”

Paul Walker died on November 30, 2013, when Meadow was just 15.  

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.