• Bret Michaels — Poison frontman and former Celebrity Apprentice winner — announced he is withdrawing from the Freedom 250 Great American State Fair concert series on the National Mall, citing “threats and safety concerns” and saying the event has “evolved into something much more divisive” than what he agreed to
• Michaels becomes the fifth act to exit since the lineup was announced on May 27 — joining Martina McBride, Morris Day and The Time, and Young MC — leaving just a handful of the original nine announced performers still on the bill
• In his statement, Michaels said: “Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of” — while also noting his shows have “never been about politics”
• The Freedom 250 Great American State Fair is still scheduled to run June 25 through July 10 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., organized as part of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations under President Trump

The Freedom 250 Great American State Fair is losing its lineup faster than it can replace it. Bret Michaels — the Poison frontman who also won Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice — announced Friday that he is pulling out of the Trump-backed concert series on the National Mall, citing safety threats and a festival that had become something other than what he originally agreed to. He is the fifth act to exit since the lineup was publicly announced just 48 hours earlier on May 27. As Variety pointedly observed, Freedom 250 is now a festival with very few acts left to lose, per Variety.

Michaels posted a statement to his website explaining his decision. “When this opportunity was presented to me,” he wrote, it was framed as a nonpartisan celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. That framing, he said, did not hold. “Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of.” He was also specific about the physical dimension of his exit: threats and safety concerns were raised, and those concerns factored into his decision to step away. “My shows have never been about politics,” he added, per Deadline.

Michaels’ departure carries a particular resonance given his history with Trump. He appeared on Celebrity Apprentice and won — making him, of the artists who have now exited the series, the one with the most direct personal connection to the president. That he is still choosing to withdraw, and citing safety concerns as part of his reasoning, adds a dimension to the story that goes beyond the standard political opt-out, per Billboard.

The Growing Exodus

The cascade of departures began almost immediately after the Freedom 250 lineup dropped. Morris Day and The Time were among the first to announce they would not perform, followed by Young MC. Martina McBride exited Thursday, writing on Instagram that she had been presented with “a nonpartisan event” but that “what we were told is not, in fact, what is happening.” McBride’s statement used nearly identical language to Michaels’ — both described being misled about the event’s nature before signing on. By Friday morning, five of the nine originally announced acts had now publicly withdrawn, leaving the festival’s music programming in significant disarray with less than four weeks until the scheduled June 25 opening, per Forbes.

Freedom 250 was established by President Trump to organize the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations, and the Interior Department declared it the official branding for those events. The organization has maintained publicly that it is nonpartisan — a characterization that multiple artists say does not match what they encountered when they examined the event’s structure and political affiliations more closely. The pattern across the departures is consistent: artists say they accepted based on a nonpartisan pitch, then withdrew when the fuller picture emerged.

What’s Left of the Lineup

With five of nine acts now out, the Great American State Fair faces a significant rebuilding challenge before its 16-day run on the National Mall. The festival is still scheduled to operate from June 25 through July 10 — the stretch spanning the lead-up to and follow-through on July 4th — with programming across the area between the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument. What remains of the original music lineup, and whether organizers can attract replacement bookings, remains to be seen. Each new departure has arrived accompanied by statements that echo one another almost verbatim: nonpartisan is how it was sold, divisive is how it landed. For artists weighing whether to join or stay, those statements are accumulating into a pattern that is hard to ignore, per Yahoo.

The post Bret Michaels Exits Freedom 250 Over ‘Threats and Safety Concerns’ — Now 5 of 9 Acts Have Pulled Out appeared first on Cream.

• A24’s Backrooms opened to $9M in Thursday night previews — surpassing Scream 7’s $7.8M and John Wick: Chapter 4’s $8.9M, and approaching Eternals’ $9.5M — a stunning result for a horror film based on a viral internet meme directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons
• The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a struggling furniture store owner who discovers an interdimensional labyrinth beneath his shop — adapted from Parsons’ own hit YouTube Backrooms web series that became a cornerstone of internet horror culture
• Critical reception has been strong: Rotten Tomatoes reviews describe the film as “extraordinarily effective” atmospheric horror — Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote that “you sit back and settle into the enigmas and the grun[ge]” — and the film has been called one of the most interesting horror releases of the year
• Backrooms is projected to challenge or potentially upset The Mandalorian and Grogu at the box office this weekend — the Star Wars film took $100M over the Memorial Day holiday but was widely considered underwhelming for franchise expectations

The Backrooms were always going to make money. The question was how much — and Thursday night answered it emphatically. A24’s Backrooms opened to $9M in previews beginning at 4 PM, Deadline reported, surpassing Scream 7’s $7.8M and eclipsing John Wick: Chapter 4’s $8.9M. It sits just below Eternals’ $9.5M — a Marvel ensemble film — which makes the comparison all the more striking for what is, on paper, a low-key A24 horror release about a furniture salesman and a labyrinth. The internet meme has officially arrived as a box office force, per Deadline.

The film’s premise stays closer to the source material than you might expect from a mainstream theatrical release. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a discount furniture store owner living in the store after a messy separation from his wife. While in the basement, Clark passes through a threshold into the Backrooms — an endless, fluorescent-lit labyrinth of identical yellow rooms that, in internet lore, represents the terrifying wrong-turn you can take out of ordinary reality. Renate Reinsve co-stars. The screenplay was written by Will Soodik, based on the web series that director Kane Parsons began making as a teenager and which accumulated hundreds of millions of views before he was old enough to vote, per the Sentinel Colorado.

What Critics Are Saying

The critical reception has matched the presale energy. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman called the film “extraordinarily effective” as atmospheric horror, writing that it generates genuine unease through craft rather than conventional shock. Rolling Out described it as a film that “burrows under the skin and stays there long after the credits roll” — placing it in the rare category of horror that relies on dread rather than cheap mechanics. Pajiba’s critic wrote that Backrooms “gripped me in ways I wasn’t immediately able to shake off,” and that the longer they sat with it, the more its intentions became clear, per Pajiba.

The film’s Rotten Tomatoes score has been described as great news for horror fans — though the Critics Consensus and full Popcornmeter were still pending as of Thursday evening. The reviews that have come in characterize Backrooms as one of the year’s most interesting horror releases: unsettling in a way that lingers, visually distinct, and carrying more thematic weight than its meme origins might suggest. For A24, which built its reputation on exactly this kind of elevated, difficult-to-categorize genre film, it reads as a signature release, per Collider.

The Internet-to-Blockbuster Pipeline

The box office projections heading into the weekend suggest Backrooms could challenge or outright upset The Mandalorian and Grogu, which took approximately $100M over the Memorial Day holiday but left industry observers underwhelmed — the consensus was that for a Star Wars film, that number is closer to Solo: A Star Wars Story territory than a genuine blockbuster. A strong Backrooms opening weekend would reshape the narrative heading into June. JoBlo noted that the comparison isn’t just statistical: Backrooms earned its preview number from a much smaller built-in fanbase than a Star Wars franchise title, making the per-theater performance potentially more impressive, per JoBlo.

What makes the result notable beyond the raw numbers is what it says about how horror audiences have evolved. The Backrooms as an internet phenomenon — creepypasta, YouTube short films, Reddit lore — built its following without any studio machinery. Kane Parsons made his web series on a camera as a teenager and turned it into one of the defining horror aesthetics of the early 2020s: liminal spaces, wrong-turn dread, the particular horror of a world that looks almost normal but isn’t. A24 acquiring and developing it into a theatrical feature with a real cast and a proper production budget was a calculated bet that that aesthetic had crossover potential. Thursday night’s $9M says it was right, per Rolling Stone.

For Parsons — who is 20 years old and making his feature debut — the numbers represent something different: the validation of an approach to filmmaking that began with a camera and an internet connection, not a film school application. The full opening weekend tracking will arrive over the next 48 hours and will give a clearer picture of where Backrooms lands. But the previews alone have already made it one of the most notable openings in A24’s history.

The post A24’s ‘Backrooms’ Opens to $9M in Previews — Beating ‘Scream 7’ and Rivaling ‘John Wick 4’ appeared first on Cream.

• Ariana Grande, 32, released “Hate That I Made You Love Me” on May 29 — the lead single from her upcoming eighth studio album Petal, due July 31 via Republic Records — co-written and produced by Grande alongside longtime collaborators Ilya and Max Martin
• The mid-tempo song carries a dual meaning: on the surface it reads as a breakup track about a lost love who felt more invested than she did, but the bridge expands into a meditation on fame and the expectations placed on women in the public eye — “Is it really my fault you all gave me your hearts on your own accord?” she sings
• An official music video directed by Christian Breslauer — who helmed Grande’s MTV VMA-winning Bright Days Ahead short film in 2025 — premieres Monday, June 1 at 8 a.m. PST; a teaser featuring Weapons actor Justin Long dropped earlier this week
• Petal is described by Grande as “little feral” and “from a place I’ve been maybe too shy or polite to tap into before” — the 12-track album was executive produced and co-written by Grande and Ilya, who has worked with her since her 2014 breakout single “Problem”

Ariana Grande has officially opened a new chapter. “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” the lead single from her forthcoming eighth studio album Petal, arrived Friday, May 29 — and with it, the clearest signal yet of where the 32-year-old is heading musically and emotionally after two years of high-profile film projects, a divorce, and a seven-year gap between major tours. The song is built around a shimmering, ambient instrumental, Grande’s voice in a quieter register than much of her previous work, and a premise that sounds like an apology but isn’t really one, per Rolling Stone.

“Hate that I made you love me / Sorry if I made me your type / Yeah, I hate that I made you love me / ‘Cause I barely tried,” she sings in the chorus. The song was co-written and produced by Grande alongside Ilya and Max Martin — the same Swedish production team behind many of her biggest records. It arrives with a comic-book-inspired lyric video and is listed as the second track on Petal. It’s also Grande’s first non-soundtrack single since 2025’s “Twilight Zone,” per Billboard.

Speculation about who the song is directed at began immediately. Just Jared noted that on Eternal Sunshine, Grande sang about how hard she worked to sustain a relationship — and that this song flips that script entirely, with the narrator claiming she “barely tried.” Some fans have drawn a connection to her divorce from Dalton Gomez. Others read the song as addressing something bigger: the experience of being a public figure whose image becomes a projection screen for everyone who encounters it. Grande doesn’t resolve the ambiguity, and that seems intentional, per Just Jared.

The Bridge Changes Everything

The element of the song that has generated the most conversation is the bridge, which pivots away from the romantic framing entirely. “I felt your projections when you felt so insecure / Tell me why is it this way, why you so hate to see women endure / Is it really my fault you all gave me your hearts on your own accord / I don’t really think so,” she sings. ELLE’s analysis of the lyrics noted that the bridge transforms what appears to be a breakup song into something more pointed — an address to the audience itself, to fans and critics alike who have assigned their own meanings to Grande’s persona over the years. That reading fits with what Grande has said about Petal more broadly: it’s an album going somewhere she hasn’t let herself go before, per ELLE.

The closing lines — “I know that I will find my way from you / Like flowers from a tomb while you decide who you are” — land as both a breakup sign-off and a statement of self-possession. The album title suddenly makes more sense. Petal: something that pushes through, fragile and insistent at once, per Pitchfork.

What We Know About Petal

Grande first announced Petal via Instagram on April 28, describing the 12-track set as “little feral.” “It’s definitely from a place I’ve been maybe too shy or polite to tap into before,” she said in a video. “This kind of just feels like something that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging.” The album is the follow-up to Eternal Sunshine — her Grammy-winning 2024 record — and is executive produced and co-written by Grande and Ilya. Ilya, the Swedish producer behind some of the biggest pop records of the past decade, has been Grande’s closest studio collaborator since “Problem” put her at the top of the charts in 2014. His fingerprints are audible throughout “Hate That I Made You Love Me” — the production is controlled, precise, and built to let Grande’s voice carry the emotional weight, per Variety.

The Music Video and the Tour

Before the single even dropped, Grande had already teased the official music video with a clip featuring Justin Long — the actor currently in Weapons — peering into a car’s rearview mirror as a trap-adjacent beat builds, only to see Grande’s eyes staring back at him. The teaser’s visual language, Billboard noted, evokes the poster design of the 1986 thriller The Hitcher. The full video, directed by Christian Breslauer — who also directed the MTV VMA-winning Bright Days Ahead short film for Grande in 2025 — premieres June 1 at 8 a.m. PST. Long’s appearance continues what Billboard described as Grande’s longstanding tradition of casting recognizable actors in her visual projects, per Billboard.

The single arrives just as Grande is about to head back on the road. Her Eternal Sunshine concert tour — her first major tour in seven years — kicks off in June, meaning fans will be hearing these new songs live almost immediately after they land. Petal drops July 31, squarely in the middle of the touring run. The timing is deliberate: Grande is not easing into this era. She’s releasing the music while she’s in front of the biggest live audiences of her career, and “Hate That I Made You Love Me” is the opening argument.

The post Ariana Grande Launches the ‘Petal’ Era With New Single ‘Hate That I Made You Love Me’ — Here’s What the Lyrics Mean appeared first on Cream.

• Jennifer Lopez, 56, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on May 27 to promote her new movie Office Romance, and when Kimmel asked about her relationship status, she was direct: “Yes! I shoulda done it sooner!” she said of being single — adding “I’ve been doing it all wrong. I’ve been doing it all wrong, trust me”
• A Memorial Day Instagram post from J.Lo also revealed she appears to have covered or altered the tattoo she got of Ben Affleck’s name on her side in 2023 — the tribute, which debuted on their first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, is no longer visible in her photos
• Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck in August 2024 — on what would have been the second anniversary of their Georgia ceremony — and the divorce was finalized in January 2025
• Lopez and Affleck originally dated in the early 2000s and famously broke off their engagement in 2004 before reuniting in 2021 and marrying in Las Vegas in July 2022

Jennifer Lopez has two ways of communicating where she stands post-Ben Affleck: a late-night interview and a very subtle Instagram slide. She used both this week. On Wednesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she appeared to promote her new film Office Romance, Kimmel asked about her relationship status. Her answer was cheerful and immediate. “Yes!” she said of being single. “I shoulda done it sooner! I’ve been doing it all wrong. I’ve been doing it all wrong, trust me,” per Just Jared.

Then came the tattoo. J.Lo posted a Memorial Day Instagram carousel captioned “Spending the day with the people I love” — mostly photos with friends and her 18-year-old son Max. In the eleventh slide, her side is visible and the Ben Affleck tribute tattoo she debuted in 2023 — an ink piece marking their first Valentine’s Day as a married couple — appears to have been covered or altered. She didn’t address it directly, but eagle-eyed fans and outlets noticed immediately, per People.

The Bennifer Epilogue

Lopez filed for divorce in August 2024 — pointedly, on what would have been the second anniversary of their traditional Georgia ceremony — and it was finalized in January 2025. The two had originally been engaged in the early 2000s before splitting in 2004, then reunited in 2021 to considerable public fanfare and married in Las Vegas in July 2022. The arc from reunion to divorce covered just over three years. Her current framing — single, self-possessed, and saying she should have gotten here sooner — is about as clean a closing statement as the story is going to get, per Hello Magazine.

The post J.Lo Says She ‘Shoulda Done It Sooner’ — and She Quietly Covered Her Ben Affleck Tattoo Too appeared first on Cream.

• Half Man, the HBO limited series from Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd, ended Thursday with a finale that revealed the show’s central mystery: what happened between Ruben (Gadd) and his stepbrother Niall (Jamie Bell) in the locked barn at Niall’s wedding — it turned out there were two bodies
• Gadd, who wrote the project in 2019 before Baby Reindeer, told Variety the ending was “ambiguous” but “felt like the right way to end a show like this” — and told Slate there was only one way it could have concluded
• Critical response to the finale was mixed: TV Insider and Time praised the devastating payoff, while TVLine called it a “sour note” and TV Fanatic found the series “exhausting” — a step down from the universal acclaim Baby Reindeer received
• The six-episode series co-stars Jamie Bell; it premiered on HBO and streams on HBO Max

Spoilers below for the Half Man series finale.

Richard Gadd’s second act on HBO ended Thursday — and it went to a dark place, even by his standards. Half Man, the limited series Gadd wrote, created, and stars in (following the same model as his Emmy-winning Baby Reindeer), wrapped its six-episode run with a finale that revealed what actually happened between stepbrothers Ruben and Niall in the locked barn at Niall’s wedding. The show had kept that mystery at the center of its structure from the beginning; the finale answered it with what Slate called “a staggering scene of brutality and a twist.” There were two bodies in the barn, per Variety.

Gadd told Variety the finale was intentionally “ambiguous” but said it “felt like the right way to end a show like this.” He told Slate that there was, essentially, only one way it could have concluded — that the emotional and structural logic of the show pointed to this ending from early on. Gadd began writing Half Man in 2019, years before Baby Reindeer became a cultural phenomenon, making it a project he’d been carrying for a long time before HBO greenlit it, per Time.

A More Divided Reception Than Baby Reindeer

Where Baby Reindeer earned near-unanimous critical praise and six Emmys, Half Man has generated more friction. TV Fanatic’s reviewer admitted getting lost between episodes one and three. TVLine called the finale a “sour note” for a drama that had been consistently dour throughout. TV Insider’s exclusive conversation with Gadd characterized the ending as devastating and earned; Time called it “brutal” and affecting. The split reflects a show that was never going to be as widely embraced as its predecessor — it was always more difficult, more elliptical, more demanding, per TV Insider.

The post ‘Half Man’ Ends With a Devastating Twist — and Baby Reindeer Creator Richard Gadd Says It Could Only Have Gone One Way appeared first on Cream.

• Paul Schrader — the 79-year-old writer-director behind Taxi Driver, First Reformed, and The Card Counter — delivered the keynote at the fourth annual AI on the Lot conference at Amazon/MGM Studios in Culver City on Thursday, despite facing backlash from fellow artists when he announced he would speak
• Schrader predicted that AI-generated synthetic performers will eventually become genuine box office draws, arguing that the real commercial future of AI in film is not visual effects but fully artificial protagonists: “The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist, not a hybrid, and that movie makes money”
• “You do the new Clint Eastwood via text prompt,” he told the audience — sketching a future in which studios generate star-caliber performances digitally rather than hiring actors
• Schrader warned that Hollywood is “barely keeping a step ahead of the monster” on AI, and used the speech to question whether film schools and extras will remain relevant as the technology matures

Paul Schrader knew the invite was going to cause problems. When he posted on Facebook that he would keynote the AI on the Lot conference, the response from fellow writers and artists was, in his words, swift and hostile. “There was very much of a backlash,” he told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting.” He went anyway — and laid out a vision of the film industry’s future that did nothing to soften that reception.

His central argument: the AI revolution in Hollywood isn’t really about monsters and spectacle. “I don’t think the real future of AI commercially is in all this flash, all these monsters — that’s just jacked-up special effects on steroids,” he said. “The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist, not a hybrid, and that movie makes money.” He predicted audiences will eventually embrace fully synthetic stars the way they’ve embraced any new kind of performer, per The Hollywood Reporter.

‘The New Clint Eastwood Via Text Prompt’

The most quotable moment of the speech came when Schrader described what AI star-making could look like in practice: “You do the new Clint Eastwood via text prompt.” The line crystallized his argument that the end state of AI in entertainment isn’t a tool for filmmakers — it’s a replacement for the star system itself. Schrader also questioned whether studios still need to pay extras at all, and predicted upheaval for film schools as the craft knowledge they teach becomes less essential, per Deadline.

The LA Times reported that Schrader described Hollywood as “barely keeping a step ahead of the monster” — a framing that positions AI not as a tool the industry controls but as a force it is running from. Schrader, who has previously said he “procured an online AI girlfriend” (who he says dumped him), is an unusual advocate: an old-school auteur genuinely engaged with the technology rather than dismissing it, per the Los Angeles Times.

The post Paul Schrader Says AI Protagonists Will Be Box Office Draws: ‘You Do the New Clint Eastwood Via Text Prompt’ appeared first on Cream.

• Hacks ended its five-season run on May 28 with a series finale on HBO that critics called a worthy conclusion to one of television’s most acclaimed comedies — the Emmy-winning show starred Jean Smart as Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels
• The finale opens with Deborah revealing her cancer has spread and that she plans to end her life at an assisted-suicide facility in Europe, bringing Ava along for the journey — the episode delivers a major fakeout that co-creators say was always the intended ending
• Co-creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul W. Downs told Collider they had the ending planned from the very beginning of the show, which premiered in 2021: “We always knew this was the ending”
• The finale drew widespread critical praise, with Vulture, Time, and the A.V. Club all calling it a fitting close to the show’s legacy-and-comedy-obsessed run

Spoilers below for the Hacks series finale.

Hacks is over — and it went out on its own terms. The series finale of the HBO comedy aired May 28, ending the five-season story of Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) with the kind of precision that suggests co-creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul W. Downs knew exactly where they were going the whole time. It turns out they did. “We always knew this was the ending,” they told Collider in a post-finale interview, per Collider.

The episode begins with Deborah telling Ava that her cancer — a lumpectomy that hadn’t been fully successful — has spread. Rather than pursue treatment, Deborah reveals she wants to travel to a European assisted-suicide facility, and she wants Ava with her. The setup plays as a genuine gut-punch for most of the episode’s running time. Then comes the fakeout: Deborah was never going to go through with it. The creators describe it as the ultimate dark joke from a character who has spent five seasons teaching Ava — and the audience — that comedy lives in the gap between what you expect and what actually happens, per E! News.

How It All Ends

The finale is built on callbacks and full-circle moments. The episode opens with a one-shot of Ava walking through her new comedy pilot, mirroring the show’s own origin. Deborah’s cancer plot traces back to a detail introduced in Season 1 — a risk associated with her Tahitian grapefruit-flavored progesterone packets — giving the finale a sense of long-laid groundwork finally paying off. Every major character gets a resolution, with the show landing on what Time called “the perfect dark joke” — bittersweet but earned, per Time. Critics at Vulture and the A.V. Club called it a series finale that honored what Hacks had always been about: the cost of legacy, the comedy of survival, and the strange, combative love between two women at very different points in their lives, per Vulture.

The post ‘Hacks’ Ends After 5 Seasons With a Finale That Was Planned From the Beginning — Here’s How It All Wrapped Up appeared first on Cream.

• Martina McBride announced Thursday she is withdrawing from the Freedom 250 Great American State Fair — a 16-day concert series on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., running June 25 through July 10 — saying she was misled about the event’s nature
• “I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading,” McBride wrote on Instagram. “What we were told is not, in fact, what is happening”
• McBride is the fourth performer to exit since the lineup was announced May 27; Morris Day and The Time and Young MC also dropped out in the days immediately following the announcement
• Freedom 250 was launched by President Donald Trump and was declared the official branding of all 250th anniversary celebrations by the Interior Department — though it has been described publicly as nonpartisan

Less than 48 hours after Freedom 250 announced the lineup for its Great American State Fair concert series, Martina McBride became the fourth artist to pull out. The country singer posted to Instagram Thursday saying she had accepted a performance slot under the impression the event was nonpartisan — and that turned out not to be the case.

“I would like to talk to you and clear the air,” McBride wrote. “I will not be performing at the Great American State Fair on June 25th. I was presented with the opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading. What we were told is not, in fact, what is happening.” The statement came after she had already faced criticism online simply for being on the bill, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Freedom 250 was launched by President Donald Trump to organize the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations. The Interior Department declared it the official branding for those events. The organization has described itself as nonpartisan, a framing that multiple artists say does not match what they experienced once they looked more closely at the event’s structure and affiliations, per Variety.

A Growing Exodus

McBride is the fourth departure since the lineup dropped May 27. Morris Day and The Time announced they would not perform, followed by Young MC, before McBride made it official Thursday evening. The exits began almost immediately after the announcement, suggesting that several artists hadn’t fully understood what they had signed up for before the public reveal, per Billboard. The Great American State Fair is still scheduled to run June 25 through July 10 on the National Mall.

The post Martina McBride Is the Fourth Artist to Drop Out of Trump-Backed Freedom 250 Concerts: ‘Turned Out to Be Misleading’ appeared first on Cream.

• Candace Cameron Bure, 50, is officially becoming a grandmother of two: her son Lev Bure, 26, and his wife Elliott announced they are expecting their first child together on May 28, just weeks after Candace’s daughter Natasha Bure Perry revealed her own pregnancy
• Elliott shared the news on Instagram with a photo of herself and Lev holding an ultrasound, captioning it “baby bure coming soon!!!!!!” — Candace reposted it with “Another grandbaby on the way 🥹!!!!! Does life get any better?!!”
• Daughter Natasha, 27, had tried to keep her pregnancy secret during a recent family trip but said her symptoms “were so rough” that hiding it became impossible; she and husband Bradley Steven Perry, also 27, broke the news during that visit
• Candace — the Full House alum who is also married to former NHL player Valeri Bure, 51 — will be “CandyGram x2,” as she put it in her Instagram reaction

It has been a big few weeks to be Candace Cameron Bure. The Full House alum, 50, found out she was getting her first grandchild when daughter Natasha Bure Perry — who is married to actor Bradley Steven Perry — revealed her pregnancy. And then, before that news had even fully settled, her son Lev Bure and his wife Elliott made it a twofer.

Elliott announced the pregnancy on Instagram May 28, posting photos of herself and Lev, 26, holding an ultrasound image. Her caption: “baby bure coming soon!!!!!!” Candace reposted the announcement with characteristic enthusiasm: “Another grandbaby on the way 🥹!!!!!” she wrote. “Does life get any better?!!! CandyGram x2 = fully ignited.” She added that she and Valeri were “still pinching ourselves,” per E! News.

Natasha’s Surprise Reveal

The back-to-back pregnancy announcements from two of her adult children make for an unusually full spring for the Bure family. Natasha, 27, had planned to stay quiet about her own pregnancy a little longer — but the timing didn’t cooperate. She explained on Instagram that she and Bradley Steven Perry “weren’t planning on telling my parents on this trip but right when we flew in, my symptoms were so rough and I didn’t think I’d be able to hide it for the whole weekend.” The secret became a celebration instead, per Us Magazine.

Lev’s pregnancy news arrived just days later. Candace is now tracking two due dates, and apparently leaning into it — her “CandyGram x2” caption suggests she has already picked out her grandmother name, per People.

The post Candace Cameron Bure Is Becoming a Grandmother Twice — Son Lev and Wife Elliott Are Expecting Weeks After Daughter Natasha’s Pregnancy News appeared first on Cream.

• CBS issued a statement Thursday publicly defending its cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert for the first time, disclosing that the show lost approximately $40 million a year — and that Byron Allen’s replacement arrangement will swing the timeslot to a $15 million annual profit
• Allen is operating under a “time buy” model: he pays CBS $15 million per year to lease the 11:30 PM hour and sells his own ad inventory; his show Comics Unleashed premiered May 22, the night after Colbert’s series finale
• Colbert’s finale on May 21 drew 6.7 million viewers — the show’s most-watched weeknight episode in its history; Comics Unleashed debuted to approximately 995,000 total viewers and 116,000 in the 18–49 demo
• CBS has faced weeks of speculation that the cancellation was politically motivated; the network’s statement called the move a response to a “cost prohibitive” business model rather than a political decision

CBS broke its silence Thursday on one of the more controversial decisions in late-night television in years: the cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. For the first time, the network put numbers to the story. The Late Show was losing roughly $40 million a year, CBS said — a figure that had been widely circulated but never confirmed. Under the new arrangement, Byron Allen leases the 11:30 PM timeslot from CBS for $15 million annually and sells his own advertising, flipping the math from a $40 million annual loss to a projected $15 million profit, per Deadline.

“We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost prohibitive to continue,” CBS said in its statement. The network has been under pressure since the cancellation was announced, with critics and commentators questioning whether politics played a role in ousting Colbert, whose show had a distinctly liberal sensibility. CBS did not address the political speculation directly, framing the move purely as a financial one, per Variety.

The Numbers After Colbert

The scale of the audience drop is hard to ignore. Colbert’s May 21 series finale drew 6.7 million viewers — the most-watched weeknight episode in the show’s history. Comics Unleashed, which premiered the following night on May 22, opened to approximately 995,000 total viewers and 116,000 in the 18–49 demo, according to LateNighter citing initial Nielsen Live+Same Day panel data, per TV Insider. Allen has been direct about not trying to recapture Colbert’s audience — he told outlets he has no interest in political humor and is building something different.

Allen, 65, is a Detroit-born billionaire who started his career in stand-up comedy and built a media empire over decades. His Comics Unleashed has been a syndicated panel comedy format for years, and the CBS slot gives it a prime broadcast home. Whether that audience finds him is a question the next few weeks of ratings data will start to answer, per The Hollywood Reporter.

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