The daily gossip: Bebe Rexha hit in the face with phone during concert, Samuel L. Jackson slams 'incel dudes' who hate Brie Larson, and more

1. Bebe Rexha hit in the face with phone during concert

It may not have been the best night of her life, but she's feelin' alright. Bebe Rexha was hit in the face by a phone during a concert in New York City on Sunday, a video shared on Twitter showed. A 27-year-old male was arrested and charged with assault after a preliminary investigation determined he "intentionally" threw the phone at Rexha, the NYPD confirmed to The Week. The singer was taken to a hospital in stable condition. According to Rolling Stone, the suspect, Nicolas Malvagna from New Jersey, allegedly said he was trying to hit Rexha with the phone "because it would be funny." Rexha showed her black eye on TikTok but assured fans she's "okay," singing "I'm good, yeah, I'm feelin' alright" from her song "I'm Good (Blue)." She also said on Instagram that "although the show ended in an unfortunate way it was still an amazing show in my hometown," and she's headed to Philadelphia next, as "the tour must go on!!!"

TikTok

2. Samuel L. Jackson slams 'these incel dudes' who hate Brie Larson

Samuel L. Jackson double-dares you to troll Brie Larson on Twitter one more time. In a Rolling Stone interview, the actor praised his "Captain Marvel" co-star, who has faced a barrage of sexist attacks since joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "She's not going to let any of that stuff destroy her," Jackson said. "These incel dudes who hate strong women, or the fact that she's a feminist who has an opinion and expressed it? Everybody wants people to be who they want them to be. She is who she is, and she's genuinely that." Jackson recalled how he and Larson bonded because they both had "not the most wonderful experience" making "Kong: Skull Island" and then worked together on her movie "Unicorn Store," leading him to encourage her to join the MCU. "Brie's a stronger person than people give her credit for," he said. Surely, YouTube will react to these comments in a calm and mature manner.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Rolling Stone

3. Zendaya enters a love triangle with Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor in 'Challengers' trailer

Zendaya is ready to serve. MGM has dropped the first trailer for "Challengers," a new sports movie that looks like Luca Guadagnino's apology for making us grimace through all that cannibalism in "Bones and All." Zendaya stars as a tennis player named Tashi Duncan, who Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor) are both interested in. This leads to a love triangle, and the trailer gets steamy as we see Tashi make out with both of them in a hotel room. After an injury, she marries Art and becomes his coach, and while he's on a losing streak, he has to face off against Patrick. It's a real battle of the sexy. "Maybe you're disturbed by the fact that she could have been into someone like me," Patrick tells Art in the trailer, while Zendaya at one point quips, "I'm taking such good care of my little white boys." Could that be game, set, match on the 2024 Best Actress Oscar race?

MGM

4. Kesha reveals she 'almost died in January' after freezing her eggs

Kesha is opening up about her health after a terrifying near-death experience. "I almost died in January," the singer revealed in an interview with Self. She explained she froze her eggs last year, as she wanted more time to think about "what it meant to have a child in the world today without feeling rushed or distracted," as Self describes. But weeks later, Kesha found herself too weak to walk following a New Year's Eve show. So she went to the hospital and learned she developed a complication from the procedure, partially due to her weakened immune system; she was diagnosed with common variable immunodeficiency in 2022. She was subsequently hospitalized in Miami for nine days. "I finally feel recovered, but it took a couple months," Kesha said. "It was horrifying." The singer added that with the fertility procedure, she was "taking my reproductive health into my own hands," and she stands "by everyone doing that and [honoring] your body."

Self

5. Christopher Nolan agrees 'Oppenheimer' is 'kind of a horror movie'

In a challenging moviegoing environment, Christopher Nolan knows how to get butts in seats: with the promise that his latest film will wreck your entire day. The director teased "Oppenheimer," his new movie about "father of the atomic bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer, in an interview with WIRED, describing it as an "intense experience." Nolan noted that after watching it, a filmmaker told him it's "kind of a horror movie," and he doesn't "disagree." He said he was "relieved to be finished" with the film and even warned the interviewer, who noted she has been emotionally "raw" following the death of her husband, that she "might have to wait a long time before" she watches it. Some people leave the movie "absolutely devastated" to the point that "they can't speak," according to Nolan, though to be fair, that could just be because they were daydreaming about watching "Barbie."

WIRED