The daily gossip: Doja Cat claims she's rage quitting music, Hayden Panettiere was in a 'huge melee' outside a bar, and more

Today's top entertainment and celebrity news

Doja Cat
(Image credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Fanatics)

1. Doja Cat claims she's rage quitting music

Have you ever been so fed up with Twitter that you rage quit your entire career? Doja Cat claimed to be doing just that after catching heat from her fans. The rapper was scheduled to perform in Paraguay this week at a concert that ended up being canceled due to a storm. But fans in Paraguay went after her for supposedly not greeting them at her hotel and then failing to make "A F--KING POST ASKING IF WE'RE OKAY," as one person put it very calmly. But Doja Cat said on Twitter she was "not sorry" in response to a person labeling her "public enemy #1," and then declared, "I f--kin quit i can't wait to f--king disappear and i don't need you to believe in me anymore. Everything is dead to me, music is dead." She also changed her Twitter display name to "i quit" and wrote, "This s--t ain't for me so I'm out. Y'all take care." Despite all this, TMZ reports she'll still perform in Brazil tonight and is "looking forward to it." Yeah, sounds like it!

TMZ

2. Hayden Panettiere was in a 'huge melee' outside a bar

Hayden Panettiere and her on-again-off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson were involved in a fight outside a bar in Los Angeles on Thursday night, and TMZ has the footage. Video showed the Heroes star and Hickerson getting into a physical altercation with a group of people outside Sunset Marquis, and TMZ wrote that they looked like "tag-team partners" while in the "huge melee." A representative for Panettiere told People that while inside the restaurant, Hickerson, "who happened to be with Hayden," made a "comment to an individual about leaving the waitress a poor tip." That person and their group "began badgering and shoving Brian," the representative claimed, adding, "Brian was attacked by the group, as was Hayden, who in her best effort tried to diffuse the situation." According to TMZ, one of the people claimed Hickerson spit on them. In the video, Panettiere can be heard yelling, "Brian, jail!" — presumably concerned because Hickerson is currently on probation for alleged domestic abuse against her.

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3. J.K. Rowling would prefer not to be associated with Vladimir Putin

At what point in your years-long social media crusade do you start to wonder if you've taken it too far? Maybe when Vladimir Putin is publicly defending you. On Friday, the Russian president, currently an international pariah for invading Ukraine, took time during a speech to defend J.K. Rowling, claiming they're both victims of cancel culture. "They canceled Joanne Rowling recently, the children's author," Putin said. "Her books are published all over the world. Just because she didn't satisfy the demands of gender rights." He was referring, of course, to Rowling facing criticism for her years of anti-trans tweets, though she definitely hasn't been canceled considering she's still working on the Fantastic Beast movies. Either way, she wasn't quick to embrace Putin's defense, tweeting, "Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics." Once again, our deepest sympathies are with the Fantastic Beasts press team right about now.

The Week The Hollywood Reporter

4. Olivia Rodrigo reads journal entry about getting her driver's license

Prepare for some deja vu. Disney+ debuted the new Olivia Rodrigo documentary driving home 2 u on Friday, which goes behind the making of her hit album Sour. At one point, she explains the inspiration for the hit song "Drivers License" by reading her actual journal entry from July 13, 2020 — the day she really did get her driver's license. "I got my driver's license today, a very highly anticipated achievement," she wrote. "All my relatives called to congratulate me. I realized part of the reason I wanted to get my license so bad was because of ... this boy." (Rodrigo appeared to say "this boy" in place of his actual name.) "I always felt bad about being too young to be able to drive over to see him ... I always thought he should be with a girl who had those liberties." Rodrigo recalls (correctly) thinking the song might resonate because it "really captured devastation." She also says whenever she would listen to the demo while driving, "my stomach would drop" — and not because she knew she had to parallel park soon.

Billboard Insider

5. A James Bond competition show is in the works at Amazon

Well, that didn't take long. Just one week after Amazon closed its acquisition of MGM, the studio behind the James Bond movies, a Bond TV series is in the works at Prime Video — and it's … a competition show? According to Variety, Amazon has greenlit 007's Road to a Million, which will be an eight-part competition series in which contestants go on a "global adventure" to win £1 million. It will apparently involve "passing physical obstacles" and answering "questions hidden in different locations around the world." Filming will take place at locations featured in the series, and casting is now underway. Though the news comes immediately after Amazon became Bond's new home, the report does say that it was actually in the works for about four years — and Variety notes it's a separate thing from "any shows that are yet to come out of the pact." Ominous!

Variety

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan is a staff writer at The Week. A graduate of Hofstra University with a degree in journalism, he also writes about horror films for Bloody Disgusting and has previously contributed to The Cheat Sheet, Heavy, WhatCulture, and more. He lives in New York City surrounded by Star Wars posters.