Jack Harlow Honored With His Own Day in Louisville Hometown

Jack Harlow is entering the new year with a new honor.

On Monday, the Grammy-nominated artist revealed that Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer named Dec. 28 Jack Harlow Day in the rapper’s Kentucky hometown.

Harlow shared the news by posting a photo of his honorary plaque on Instagram. With a fun reference to his 2020 Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit “Whats Poppin,” the plate reads, “For answering, once and for all, that what’s poppin’ is Louisville when it comes to talent that makes it bigger than big, but doesn’t forget the ‘home’ in hometown or homegrown. The rapper’s way with words and beats has earned him untold fans, chart-topping releases and an ability to give back in meaningful ways, and he does.”

The honorary plaque concludes, “Our city is excited and proud to observe December 28, 2021, as Jack Harlow Day in Louisville.”

The heartwarming honor comes about two weeks after Harlow teamed up with fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken and its parent company Yum! Brands to donate a joint $250,000 to the American Red Cross. The donation was in support of those impacted by a deadly tornado that reportedly killed at least 74 victims in Kentucky’s western region on Dec. 10 and 11.

At the time, Harlow had also announced his new partnership with KFC. He said in a statement, “Growing up, I always dreamed of being that guy who would put Kentucky on the map in the music scene. But to team up with an iconic national staple like KFC, the biggest brand to come out of Kentucky, is truly an honor. I’m looking forward to all the amazing things we’re about to do together.”

The hitmaker is nominated for the 2022 Grammy for best melodic rap performance for his feature on Lil Nas X‘s Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Industry Baby.”

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Cardi B Blasts Homophobes: ‘You Just Ugly’

Cardi B continues to be a gay ally. In the early morning hours of Tuesday (Jan. 4), the superstar took aim at homophobia on Twitter.

“Every bad bi— have a gay best friend or gay best friend cousin ……If you homophobic you just ugly,” she tweeted.

While Cardi didn’t clarify what inspired her declaration — and it’s also worth noting that relegating gay men to the “gay best friend” stereotype should’ve stopped somewhere in the early 2000s — she has a long history of ardent support for the LGBTQ+ community, most recently helping to officiate a same-sex wedding alongside Raven-Symoné in an October episode of her Facebook Messenger video series Cardi Tries…

Her homophobe-slamming tweet also follows her recent thoughts on phony friends (“I knew the bi— was fake, but I still trust her cause I’m a idiot”) and encouraging her 21 million followers to “Take a risk this year.”

Meanwhile, the “Up” rapper remains hard at work on a full-length follow-up to her 2018 debut album Invasion of Privacy, which she previously revealed in an Instagram message to fans that she’s aiming to release in 2022.

In the last few weeks, Cardi’s also been busy celebrating the holidays as well as Offset’s birthday. The rapper got a pit bull puppy named Walk for Christmas while she gifted her husband a check for $2 million to ring in his 30th. She also unveiled her new NYC-inspired collection with Reebok while her “Wild Side” collab with Normani closed out the year atop Billboard‘s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.

Check out Cardi’s tweet against homophobia below.

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Golden Globes to Take Place Without Celebs, Press or Audience in Attendance

The 79th Golden Globe Awards, set for Sunday, will highlight the philanthropic efforts of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — which The Hollywood Reporter has previously written about — with winners announced intermittently throughout a 90-minute gathering at the Beverly Hilton, the HFPA revealed on Tuesday.

There will be no red carpet and no celebrities, non-HFPA members of the press or audience members in attendance — a reflection of both the grave COVID situation and the fact that the HFPA is currently personae non gratae with many in Hollywood.

It remains unclear if or how people not in the room will be able to watch the ceremony if they desire to do so — a live stream is a possibility, but there are presumably legal hurdles to broadcasting something as “the Golden Globe Awards” without the participation of NBC, which owns the broadcasting rights to the Golden Globe Awards.

And NBC is decidedly not participating in this year’s Globes, part of the fallout of last February’s Los Angeles Times exposé about the HFPA’s conduct and demographic makeup. The resulting uproar led many Hollywood constituencies to boycott the HFPA and prompted NBC, their longtime broadcasting partner for the Globes, to decline to air a Globes ceremony in 2022.

In whatever form this year’s gathering occurs, HFPA grantees and Kyle Bowser, svp NAACP Hollywood Bureau, will discuss their work with the organization throughout the ceremony.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

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Omarion Reminds Fans He’s an ‘Artist, Not a Variant’

Omarion sent season’s greetings to his fans in a series of PSAs that reminded them he’s not to be confused with the latest Omicron variant of COVID-19.

During Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest on Dec. 31, Omarion sat down and set the record straight. “I am an artist, not a variant,” he said to the camera sternly in the first clip that he posted to his personal TikTok page. “So please be aware if you just so happen to run into me on the street, you don’t have to isolate for five days nor do you have to have a negative test result in order to dance to my music. So please be safe, be healthy, happy new year!”

Omarion echoed the CDC’s updated isolation guidelines, which advise those who have tested positive for COVID-19 to isolate for five days if they are asymptomatic or if their symptoms are going away, while being without a fever for 24 hours. But that’s not the case when it comes to the Grammy-nominated R&B singer and former frontman of B2K.

“While it’s important not to touch me and keep your distance, ’cause you know that’s how it’s post to be, you don’t need a negative test to dance to my music,” he reiterated in a second video, while referencing his Neptunes-produced 2005 single “Touch” and 2014 Jhene Aiko- and Chris Brown-assisted smash “Post to Be.” A new TikTok trend has emerged where users have been pretending to test positive for “Omarion” and later dance to these songs.

In a third video, the 37-year-old crooner pretended to read out a letter from his lawyers to further clear up the confusion: “I, Omarion, am a musician and entertainer (you knew that), not a viral variant.” He later addressed the DMs he’s received online and encouraged viewers to not be “disrespectful” toward him.

Omarion is, just as he said, an artist with five solo studio albums (not including the three he released with B2K) — two of which hit No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 (2005’s O and 2007’s 21) and nine Billboard Hot 100 hits, including the top 10 record “Let Me Hold You” with Bow Wow (peaked at No. 4) and B2K’s No. 1 hit “Bump, Bump, Bump,” featuring Diddy. Omarion received one 2006 Grammy nomination for best contemporary R&B album with O. 

Watch Omarion’s PSAs below.

@omarion##omarion ##omnicron ##happynewyear♬ original sound – Omarion

@omarion##omarion ##happynewyear♬ Touch – Omarion

@omarionJust in case you didn’t get the message. @NYRE 🙏🏾😁✨. Omarion not omicron♬ Mutual (feat. Wale) – Omarion

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Jared Leto’s ‘Morbius’ Pushed to Spring Amid Omicron Surge

Morbius is on the move.

The movie, starring Jared Leto, has set a new release date of April 1 amid the omicron surge. It had been set to open in theaters on Jan. 28.

The Sony and Marvel film had already been delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January, Sony announced that the film would move from October 2021 to early 2022.

Morbius stars Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, a scientist who suffered from a rare blood disease and turned himself into a living vampire during an attempt to cure himself.

Adria Arjona, Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson and Jared Harris also star in the film, which is directed by Daniel Espinosa.

Michael Keaton, who played The Vulture in Sony and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming, also appears in some capacity in the film, apparently reprising his role.

The first trailer for Morbius suggested for the first time that Sony Pictures’ Universe of Marvel Characters is connected to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, not only by the inclusion of Keaton, but also by street signs calling Spider-Man a murderer.

The Morbius news comes as Sony and Marvel celebrate the blockbuster performance of Spider-Man: Far From Home.

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.

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