The daily gossip: August 3, 2020

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1. The Rock is buying the XFL
2. Taylor Swift just pulled off a Billboard feat no artist ever has before
3. Clare Crawley may have just quit The Bachelorette
4. Bella twins give birth to boys one day apart
5. Andrew Lloyd Webber says the Cats movie 'was ridiculous'

published 3 August 2020

1. The Rock is buying the XFL

The Rock has evidently got his eye on becoming the most electrifying man in football. Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, and RedBird Capital are buying the XFL, the football league that WWE CEO Vince McMahon founded. The XFL lasted just one season in 2001 but was revived for a 2020 season that ended early due to the coronavirus pandemic. The XFL filed for bankruptcy, but The Rock is swooping in with plans to create "something special." Sadly, ownership of the league not being handed to The Rock by way of a WrestleMania match against McMahon may go down as one of history's greatest missed opportunities.

After Taylor Swift's fans put on her new album and said it's their favorite, she's breaking a whole bunch of records. Swift's album Folklore, which she made in isolation during the pandemic and surprise-released on July 24, has become her seventh to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart, as well as the best-selling album of 2020. Not only that, but Swift has become the first act with seven separate albums that sold at least 500,000 copies in one week, as well as the "first artist ever to debut at No. 1 on both the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 in the same week," Billboard says. Quite a productive quarantine she's had, wouldn't you say?

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Sickness might push Clare Crawley out of her role as the Bachelorette — love sickness, that is. Rumors are flying that Crawley has left The Bachelorette after allegedly falling in love with contestant Dale Moss just two weeks into production. Moss joined the cast back in March, leading fans to speculate the two have been in contact ever since the COVID-19 pandemic put the show on hold. To salvage the season, previous contestant Tayshia Adams is rumored to be taking Crawley's place, and has reportedly been spotted at the California resort where filming for the season is underway. ABC has yet to confirm whether the switcheroo rumor is legit, but Bachelor spoiler savant Reality Steve said "there is some serious validity to it."

These twins are totally in sync. Former WWE divas and stars of the reality show Total Bellas welcomed baby boys over the weekend, one day apart. They both took to Instagram to announce the arrivals and confirmed everyone is healthy. Nikki Bella gave birth to her first child on July 31, with fiancé Artem Chigvintsev, whom she met on Dancing With The Stars. Her sister, Brie Bella, gave birth to her second child on August 1, with husband Daniel Bryan, also a wrestler. The twins' timely pregnancy journey was featured on Total Bellas, but Brie says it wasn't planned. "We both are shocked. People are going to think we planned it, but you can't really plan pregnancy!"

In these uncertain times, one constant remains: the Cats pile-on continues. Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer of the original Cats musical, had this to say about the 2019 movie in a new interview: "The problem with the film was that [director] Tom Hooper decided that he didn't want anybody involved in it who was involved in the original show. The whole thing was ridiculous." Cats has already become an infamous catastrophe, although one might argue its "problem" had more to do with its CGI characters looking more horrifying than anything Wes Craven could have dreamed up. Then again, maybe Webber's statement that the movie was "ridiculous" is just his way of praising it for being faithful to the source material.

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