Top Entertainment Headlines

Monday, January 26

Good afternoon Wypierdalaj,

Below are the latest entertainment news stories.

TODAY is gearing up for a major milestone as it prepares to honor Al Roker’s 30‑year Al‑iversary on Tuesday. 

The recognition marks three decades of coverage and standout moments from one of morning television’s most familiar figures.

The broadcast celebrations will feature a compilation of Roker’s most memorable moments over the years, along with reflections from TODAY co‑anchor Savannah Guthrie on his legacy and from TODAY news anchor Craig Melvin on his impact on the broadcast, among other highlights.

Ye, the hip-hop artist formerly known as Kanye West, publicly apologized Monday for his history of “reckless” antisemitic comments, attributing his behavior to an undiagnosed brain injury and mental health issues.

In a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal titled “To Those I’ve Hurt,” he said in part: “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people.”

In recent years, Ye has made various antisemitic and racist statements. In a series of posts on X in February, for example, Ye declared he was a Nazi and praised Adolf Hitler.

Geoffrey Mason, who had a five-decade career in sports television and was best known as the coordinating producer for ABC’s coverage of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games hostage crisis, has died. He was 85.

ESPN said Mason died Sunday in Naples, Florida. He died of natural causes, according to his family.

“Geoff was a giant visionary in television, never seeking credit. He preferred leading and mentoring teams, connecting people to projects, and was devoted to people and recovery of all sorts. He was a great teacher and mentor to everyone who came in his orbit,” former ESPN President Steve Bornstein said.

Charli xcx plays herself in “The Moment,” a meta mockumentary about the end of Brat summer and grappling with otherworldly success.

“I was just really interested in telling this story about expectation,” Charli xcx told The Associated Press the day after “The Moment” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

The 33-year-old pop star from Essex has been in the music industry since she was 16, with a career trajectory that she described as anything but straight forward. Then, in 2024, it hit a crescendo with her sixth studio album, “Brat,” which became a pop culture phenomenon. Finally, she said, she felt understood for a moment. And then, just as quickly, it changed.

With a winter storm blanketing a large swath of the country, Hollywood had its quietest weekend of the year at the box office. The Amazon MGM sci-fi thriller “Mercy” dethroned “Avatar: Fire and Ash” from the No. 1 spot with $11.2 million in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Hundreds of theaters were forced to close due to the storm, from Texas to Maine. More than 140 million Americans were under winter storm warnings, depressing moviegoing.

But the weekend was never going to be a blockbuster one, anyway. “Mercy,” a $60 million thriller starring Chris Pratt as a man in a near-future standing trial before an AI judge, was the top new release. It arrived with withering reviews (20% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and an equally poor reception (a “B-” CinemaScore) from audiences.

FameFamed rock climber Alex Honnold masterfully ascended one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers in Taiwan’s capital without a rope.

The climb, which was shown live on Netflix, took a little over an hour and a half.