The daily gossip: Al Pacino appears to have a Shrek iPhone case, Britney Spears is pregnant, and more

(Image credit: Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)

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1. Al Pacino appears to have a Shrek iPhone case
2. Britney Spears is having a baby
3. JoJo Siwa 'didn't get an invite' to the Kids' Choice Awards despite being nominated
4. Sam Elliott issues a delayed apology for his 'Power of the Dog' comments
5. Will Ferrell cast in the 'Barbie' movie

published 11 April 2022

1. Al Pacino appears to have a Shrek iPhone case

Say hello to Al Pacino's little friend: Shrek. Jason Momoa shared photos on Instagram from a night out at an art gallery, but he really buried the lede. The very last picture showed Momoa at dinner with a group including Al Pacino and on the table in front of him was an iPhone that eagle-eyed fans noticed was housed in a Shrek-themed case. Variety tracked down the exact case on Amazon, and it's just a haphazard collage of a bunch of images of Shrek (with one tiny Puss in Boots at the top). It seemed safe to assume this was Pacino's phone considering it has wired headphones plugged into it, which the actor has been seen using before — and according to Vulture, Pacino's daughter confirmed to a fan the Shrek phone is, indeed, his. Clearly, Pacino has taken Smash Mouth's advice to heart: it doesn't make sense not to live for fun, or for Shrek.

Britney Spears is having a baby one more time. The pop star announced Monday she's expecting her third child. On Instagram, she said she "lost so much weight to go on my Maui trip only to gain it back," and after wondering "what happened to my stomach," she took a pregnancy test and got her answer. "Uhhhhh well … I am having a baby," she wrote. Spears has two teenage children with her ex Kevin Federline. The news comes after Spears announced her engagement last fall to longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari and after she was officially freed from her conservatorship in November after 13 years. During her infamous court testimony in 2021, Spears alleged she wasn't allowed to have more children under the conservatorship and that her team would allegedly not let her get an IUD removed. "If 2 are in there," Spears wrote of her pregnancy Monday, "I might just [lose] it."

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Folks, we have another Rachel Zegler situation on our hands. JoJo Siwa says she "wasn't invited" to the 2022 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, despite being nominated for Favorite Social Music Star. "I'm not sure why, but I just didn't get an invite," Siwa said on Instagram, adding in the caption, "I don't want anyone to think it was my choice not to go." The situation mirrored Zegler revealing she wasn't invited to the Oscars despite starring in Best Picture nominee West Side Story, meaning we just need one more instance to officially make this a new trend. In Siwa's case, though, it's too late to rectify the situation considering the Kids' Choice Awards already happened on Saturday. On Twitter, Siwa retweeted a fan who called it "sus" that she wasn't invited after she came out as gay last year. Who do we need to slime over this decision?

Sam Elliott certainly took his time before apologizing for those weird The Power of the Dog comments. After going on a rant against the film, Elliott has apologized for his comments that were condemned as homophobic, admitting at a Deadline panel he "wasn't very articulate" while giving his hot take. "I said some things that hurt people," Elliott said. "And I feel terrible about that." On the WTF podcast, Elliott criticized the erstwhile Best Picture frontrunner as a "piece of s--t," taking issue with "all these allusions of homosexuality throughout the f--king movie." He now says he can "only say that I'm sorry" and that the "gay community has been incredible to me my entire career." The apology came well over a month after the original comments, so you'd be forgiven if you've already forgotten what The Power of the Dog even is at this point.

Will Ferrell just joined what might be the weirdest Hollywood project currently in development, as the actor has been cast opposite Margot Robbie in the Barbie movie. The film appears to be trying to recapture some of the magic of The LEGO Movie, which Ferrell also appeared in, though the level of talent involved is pretty staggering. Oscar-nominated Little Women filmmaker Greta Gerwig is directing and co-writing the script alongside Noah Baumbach, the acclaimed director behind films like Marriage Story. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ferrell is believed to be playing "the CEO of a toy company that may or not be Mattel," and there is supposedly a "meta aspect" to the film. Other cast members include Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, and Emma Mackey, with Mackey presumably on board in part because she looks exactly like Robbie and is frequently confused with her. Samara Weaving, call your agent.

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.