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Blink-182 singer and bassist Mark Hoppus shared Wednesday (June 23) that he has cancer and has been undergoing chemotherapy for the last three months.
The 49-year-old musician opened up on social media about the diagnosis and how he’s remaining “hopeful and positive” for a cancer-free future while he still goes through the next few months of treatment.
“For the past three months I’ve been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. I have cancer,” Hoppus wrote. “It sucks and I’m scared, and at the same time I’m blessed with incredible doctors and family and friends to get me through this. I still have months of treatment ahead of me but I’m trying to remain hopeful and positive. Can’t wait to be cancer free and see you all at a concert in the near future. Love to you all.”
At press time, he did not reveal which kind of cancer has or at what stage he was diagnosed.
According to Variety, fans grew concerned about Hoppus’ health when he posted and quickly deleted a photo of himself in what looked like a hospital room on his Instagram Story earlier Wednesday with the caption, “Yes hello. One cancer treatment, please.” After taking down the concerning photo, he shared the official update on his Instagram Story and Twitter.
Britney Spears publicly addressed the court Wednesday (June 23) with an incredibly harrowing account of her controversial conservatorship, and her Hollywood peers came out to voice their continued support for the #FreeBritney movement.
During the hearing in Los Angeles, the 39-year-old superstar revealed some of the extreme expectations placed on her since the conservatorship began in 2008, when her father, Jamie Spears, was given full control over his daughter’s financial and personal affairs. During her public statement, the singer likened her conservatorship to sex trafficking with how much she was being forced to work, how closely she was monitored, and how she’s not allowed to get married or have a baby because of her birth control that she’s not allowed to remove.
“I am not here to be anyone’s slave,” she stated.
The New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears, which was released in February, shed light on the conservatorship and gained a lot of A-list support from Kacey Musgraves, Hayley Williams, Vanessa Carlton, Sam Smith, Hayley Kiyoko, Liz Phair and many more at the time.
See what other artists — including Mariah Carey, Halsey, Brandy and more — have to say in response to Spears’ latest court testimony below.
Among dozens of shocking allegations made by Britney Spears during a Los Angeles Superior Court hearing on Wednesday (June 23), one of the most disturbing was the fact that the pop star said she wants her implanted IUD birth control device removed so she can have more kids and has been told she could not.
“I want to be able to get married and have a baby,” Spears told Judge Brenda Penny during a 20-minute-plus public statement in opposition to the conservatorship she’s been under for the past 13 years. “I was told right now in the conservatorship, I’m not able to get married or have a baby. I have an IUD inside of myself right now so I don’t get pregnant. I wanted to take the IUD out so I could start trying to have another baby. But this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have any more children.”
Spears is the mother of two boys with ex-husband Kevin Federline: 15-year-old Sean Preston and 14-year-old Jayden James. In addition to Federline, Spears was briefly married to a childhood friend named Jason Alexander. She is currently dating actor Sam Asghari.
Late Wednesday, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson released a statement in support of Spears and her freedom to expand her family, saying the organization stands in “solidarity” with the star.
“It is incredibly distressing to hear the trauma that Britney Spears has been through — including the appalling news that she has not been able to remove her own IUD,” the statement reads. “We stand in solidarity with Britney and all women who face reproductive coercion. Your reproductive health is your own — and no one should make decisions about it for you. Every person should have the ability to make their own decisions about their bodies and exercise bodily autonomy.”
The Women’s March also tweeted a statement of support for Spears on Wednesday, writing, “Everyone deserves to be able to make their own choices: for their bodies, for their health, for their lives. We support you, Britney, and all women escaping abusive and controlling situations.”
Following Britney Spears’ explosive public statement against her longtime conservatorship in a Los Angeles Superior Court hearing on Wednesday (June 23), Justin Timberlake took to Twitter to send “absolute support” to his ex-girlfriend.
“After what we saw today, we should all be supporting Britney at this time,” Timberlake tweeted Wednesday. “Regardless of our past, good and bad, and no matter how long ago it was… what’s happening to her is just not right.”
In his three-tweet thread, Timberlake also referenced Spears’ claim that the conservatorship hasn’t allowed her to remove her implanted IUD birth control device in order to have more children.
“No woman should ever be restricted from making decisions about her own body,” he wrote. “No one should EVER be held against their will… or ever have to ask permission to access everything they’ve worked so hard for.”
In his final message, Timberlake said that he and wife Jessica Biel send love and offer their “absolute support” to Spears. “We hope the courts and her family make this right and let her live however she wants to live.”
Timberlake and Spears dated from 1998 to 2002 after initially meeting as kids on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club. The New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears that came out on FX and Hulu in February focused on the star’s controversial conservatorship as well as the imbalanced media treatment of Timberlake and Spears in the wake of their high-profile breakup.
Read Timberlake’s messages below:
Tomorrowland 2021 is no more.
Organizers of the massive dance festival in Boom, Belgium, said Wednesday that they have raised the white flag once and for all after local officials last week denied the festival a permit to hold the two-weekend event, which typically draws up to 75,000 visitors a day over its six days.
“In spite of the detailed plans we have presented, the studies conducted by us and the massive support and recommendations we have received, we have no other option but to postpone the 16th edition of Tomorrowland until next year,” the festival company said in a statement.
Tomorrowland said it reached a breaking point after the mayors of Boom and Rumst — the adjacent cities where the festival takes place — refused to issue a permit on June 17, citing concern about rising cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19 and the complexity of logistics to ensure health and safety checks for the crowd of 400,000 on Aug. 27-29 and Sept. 3-5. The festival cited the absence of “balanced virological advice” for making a new application “pointless at this stage.”
Organizers said they decided to stand down even though the federal and Flemish governments in Belgium had “given the green light” and had published a decree allowing events with up to 75,000 visitors a day to take place starting on Aug. 13.
“Considering our longstanding cooperation with the municipalities, we do not want to engage in a legal battle, and we do not want to appeal the mayors’ decision with the Council of State,” the festival company said.
The decision to cancel the event adds another dance music festival casualty to the COVID-19 pandemic. EDC Las Vegas and Ultra Music Festival Miami have already bowed out of their normal slots, with EDC rescheduling to October and Ultra to March of 2022. Burning Man and Electric Forest have also decided to focus on 2022.
Tomorrowland said it canceled orders on Wednesday with dozens of Belgian suppliers totaling 50 million euros ($60 million), and also cited the blow to tourism in Belgium, where over the two weeks of the festival more than 80% of Brussels and Antwerp hotels are typically occupied by people attending or working at the dance music event.
Tomorrowland’s live summer event is the fourth festival the company has canceled since the start of the pandemic, including two winter festivals and last year’s main summer event. “It is gut-wrenching to cancel a festival for the fourth time,” organizers said. The company will host its second annual pay-per-view virtual livestream event, Tomorrowland: Around the World, on July 16 and 17, featuring headliners Alan Walker, Fedde Le Grand and Kölsch.
If the summer event had gone forward, it would have been a considerably different experience this year. Tomorrowland revealed Wednesday that the 2021 edition would have been open only to Europeans, with about 75% of tickets expected to be sold to Belgians and the rest to Europeans from neighboring countries.
The festival also planned to use “Covid Safety Tickets,” which would limit attendees to those who had been fully vaccinated at least two weeks before, and to only allow Belgians visiting for one day to be able to enter the festival grounds with a negative PCR test (rather than proof of vaccination).
Still on the books for this summer are EXIT Festival’s 20th anniversary event in Serbia on July 8-11 and the four-day Creamfields in the U.K. scheduled for Aug. 27-29. Creamfields is currently outside the window of a one-month extended lockdown in the U.K. — imposed on June 14 after a spike in Delta variant cases — which will delay the return of large live events. Creamfields features a lineup featuring Deadmau5, Above & Beyond and Tiësto.
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