Influencers Aren't Going Anywhere
Jealousy is an ugly trait and some of you are hideous...
Hello, hello, hello! I hope everyone is having a fabulous week, as per usual. This is a huge week for the podcast — we’re entering our season two era as this week’s show is our one-year anniversary! (Technically, Friday is the actual one year, but you get the gist)
There’s a statistic that floats around the podcast world about how 70% of podcasts don’t make it past episode 7, and I’m so proud to say that I haven’t missed a single week of the show and even managed to upload three bonus album review episodes on top of the 53 main show episodes. It’s been such a rewarding year, but I have a whole year in review post I’m in the middle of writing, so I’ll spare you (for now 😉)
Let’s get into this week’s episode: Influencers Aren’t Going Anywhere
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
This Week’s Topics:
Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Mike Jeffries, has been arrested for sex trafficking
Taylor Swift brings The Eras Tour to Miami
Shakira cancels arena tour to upgrade to stadiums
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducts Class of 2024
Billboard’s Best Pop Stars of the 21st Century Update
Brianna LaPaglia and Zach Bryan have broken up
Brittany Broski shoved off camera at SWEAT Tour
Influencers at the Eras Tour
SNL parodies TikTokers in “Doomscrolling” Skit
New Music Releases*
Kylie Minogue - Tension II
Rebecca Black - TRUST!
JADE - Fantasy
*Audio only, segment starts at 36:41
Too Pop to Handle Episode 53 Podcast Notes
Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Mike Jeffries, has been arrested for sex trafficking
If you grew up in the early 2000’s, you know that Abercrombie & Fitch was a staple in every single mall. You could smell the cologne from across the mall and knew you were getting close to the store when you started to see the bags that had headless torsos with washboard abs on them - it was every closeted gay boy’s favorite part of the mall (me). Unfortunately, while we were all being suffocated by the excessive cologne and wondering who the hell could actually fit into these clothes, there was some shady shit happening BTS.
Former CEO, Mike Jeffries, was arrested on Tuesday this week along with two of his associates each facing a single count of sex trafficking and 15 counts of interstate prostitution. Yikes! It appears that while we were blindsided by the boys outside the store, they were throwing alleged sex events disguised as “modeling opportunities” in different countries where they would have to give up their cellphones and sign NDA’s before entering. Upon entering they were given alcohol, poppers, condoms, Viagra, and other substances that have nothing to do with male modeling. The investigation has been on-going since last year, a year after Netflix released ‘White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch’ which we thought was a tell-all about what was happening BTS. Turns out there was a lot darker and twisted things to learn.
Taylor Swift brings The Eras Tour to Miami
She’s back in her touring era and there’s a lot to unpack. The weekend was star studded with guests such as Taylor’s BFF Selena Gomez, Tom Brady, Ali Earle, Jason, Donna, and Kylie, Kelce and more. There’s one guest in particular who’s making headlines and that’s founder and owner of Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy. After sharing a video last week of his Daves Eras Jacket that has traveled across the globe, he attended Miami Night 2 and was given a very special gift from the desk of the head Tortured Poet herself.
Ms. Americana also graced the stage in numerous new outfits but the one that’s really causing a commotion is the new reputation bodysuit she debuted (see what I did there) this weekend. For the not chronically online Swifties, trust me when I say this is a big deal. Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine took the stage with Taylor (sans the Machine) all three nights to sing ‘Florida!!!’ together which is such a treat for anyone who decided to travel to the god-forsaken state for these shows.
Wrapping up our Eras Tour Miami recap, it appears she’s keeping the mashup surprise songs for the final leg of the tour and the surprise songs were as followed:
Night One: Tim McGraw x Timeless / This is Me Trying x Daylight
Night Two: Should’ve Said No x I Did Something Bad / loml x White Horse
Night Three: Out of the Woods x All You Had to Do Was Stay / Mirror Ball x Guilty as Sin
Shakira cancels arena tour to upgrade to stadiums
Her hips aren’t the only thing that don’t lie, her numbers don’t either. The “Queen of Latin Music” was to kick off the North American leg of her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour next month but has cancelled the dates due to a high demand. Queen behavior. She’ll now be taking the tour to the next level and performing in stadiums across the US next summer, making it the biggest tour of her career. I love to see women winning.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducts Class of 2024
Congratulations are in order as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has inducted their Class of 2024! The newest members of the crew include Mary J Blige, Jimmy Buffet, Cher, The Dave Mathews Band, Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne, Dionne Warwick, and more. The show opened with Cher and Dua Lipa performing ‘Believe’ together, with Cher later being inducted by Zendaya who was wearing a 2001 Bob Mackie dress (gag) looking stunning as per usual.
We were also reminded how lucky we are to be alive at the same time as Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson as the two American Idol alums honored Foreigner and Dionne Warwick on their big night.
Billboard’s Best Pop Stars of the 21st Century Update
Billboard has been releasing their list of the Best Pop Stars of the 21st Century for the last few months and we’ve recently broken into the top 10. I’ve been covering the list on the podcast since they announced their honorable mentions and Katy Perry as number 25, but here’s where we’re at with the recent update:
16. Jay-Z
15. Miley Cyrus
14. justin timberlake
13. Nicki
12. Eminem
11. Usher
10. Adele
9. Ariana
8. Justin Bieber
I’ve been loving following this list and seeing who makes it and where they’re placed. I’m not sure when the full list will be out, but I’m assuming they’ll have it wrapped by end of year. I’ll keep you guys updated as we countdown the next seven superstars!
Brianna LaPaglia and Zach Bryan have broken up
Country music star Zach Bryan took to his Instagram story on Tuesday to announce that him and his girlfriend, Brianna LaPaglia, have broken up…only one day after they officially called it quits and completely blindsiding Brianna by not telling her he was going to announce it. LOSER behavior.
The podcaster took to her YouTube channel to share that she’d been crying for the past three days and wanted to process this as a human being before it was public. So much for that. It appears that Zach cheated on her which is not his third time cheating on a partner and you know what they say…three strikes, you’re out. I just hope everyone keeps up. the same energy they had for Ariana Grande last year when the (incredibly incorrect) news of her and Ethan Slater broke.
Brittany Broski shoved off camera at SWEAT Tour
If you’re on gay Twitter, I’m sure you saw the 40 year old man shove Brittany Broski off camera to get his 5 seconds of fame during Charli xcx and Troye Sivan’s SWEAT Tour last week in LA. As the internet does, they found out that this menace is not only a thirst monster, but also the Senior Producer/Writer at PEOPLE Magazine. Not a good look LOL.
SNL parodies TikTokers in “TikTok” Doomscrolling Skit
Yes and Mess of the Week
SNL has been ON IT this season. I’ve been so impressed at the skits they’ve been pumping out the last few weeks and this past Saturday was no exception. They poked fun at the way we cannot live without our phones in a “Doomscrolling” skit which featured multiple cast members cosplaying as popular TikTokers such as Bowen Yang as Harry Daniels, Chloe Fineman as Alex Cooper, Keenan Thompson as Keith Lee and more.
TV Recap:
If you didn’t listen to the episode this week, I decided to cut the TV recap because I had already been yapping for over an hour and didn’t want to keep you guys longer than necessary. If I’m being completely honest, RHONY + RHOSLC were both kind of “meh” to me last week so I wasn’t dying to chat about them anyway. But as promised, here are my thoughts!
Real Housewives of New York City, S15 E3
The girls are back in the Hamptons at Erin’s house which is the scene of the “Pringles and Caviar” crime and where Jessell threw a hissy fit because she “looked like a Christmas tree” in the lingerie Jenna Lyons gifted her in season one. The main takeaways from this episode were that Sai and Brynn addressed the drama that went down at Brynn’s party, Raquel and Said had a misunderstanding over text and smoothed it over (or did they?), and Ubah wants NOTHING to do with Brynn. It appears that Ubah and Sai have also deemed “pineapple” as their safe word which I’m very curious to see where this stemmed from and how they came to this being the word that would instantly calm Ubah down in the heat of an argument.
Aside from all that, I just have to say how much I’m loving Raquel being a new addition to this season. She might be one of the coolest people Bravo has ever cast on a show.
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, S5 E5
The episode stars with Lisa realizing she knows Bronwyn’s daughters paternal family and it sparks the conversation of whether or not Gwen wants to have a relationship with her father and his family or not. I have to say, I don’t blame Gwen for not necessarily feeling the need to have a relationship with them after living her life for 18 years without them.
It appears Angie VS Lisa is going to be a main storyline this season as we see both of them continue to comment on each others parenting for the second episode in a row. Personally, I think using children and parenting as a dig at each other is a low blow and wish they would hang this up and just admit that they can’t stand each other.
We also learned that Lisa is allegedly the one behind the account who started the rumors about Whitney upselling jewelry from Alibaba which I honestly don’t believe. I don’t think Lisa has time to be running a fake account or would be spreading things about the other girls after the explosive finale of season 4.
The final tidbit from this episode is Mary coming for Heather and questioning her honesty/body positivity. There’s no denying that Heather has had quite the transformation from season 4 to 5, but who cares? I never understand why people are so fascinated in other people’s weight loss and how they lost the weight. This seemed like a weird angle to come at Heather for, but I’m glad she stood her ground against Mary.