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  • Beyoncé, Jay Z’s anniversary is April 4. Why the date is special

    Beyoncé, Jay Z’s anniversary is April 4. Why the date is special

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    • Beyoncé and Jay-Z are celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary on April 4, 2025.
    • The number four holds special significance for the couple, appearing in their birthdates, wedding date and music.
    • Both Beyoncé and Jay-Z have incorporated the number four into their music, with albums titled “4” and “4:44” respectively.
    • Beyoncé has spoken about the significance of the number four in her life, noting its connection with her husband and even former President Barack Obama.

    Beyoncé and Jay Z celebrate their 18th year of marriage Friday, and their anniversary date, April 4, is no coincidence.

    The power couple chose to get married on the fourth day of the fourth month for a reason. Both Jay and Bey got matching tattoos of the Roman numeral for four — IV — on their ring fingers years ago.

    The matching tattoos aren’t just a stamp of admiration for the number. The “On The Run II” singers actually have special ties and a long history with the number in their personal and professional lives.

    What makes the number four significant to Jay Z and Beyoncé?

    Beyoncé’s was born Sept. 4, and Jay-Z’s birthday is Dec. 4. Meanwhile, Beyoncé’s mom, Tina Knowles, was born on Jan. 4. Jay and Bey eventually tied the knot on April 4, 2008.

    In addition to their April 4 wedding date, Beyoncé titled her fourth studio album “4” in 2011. The same year, Yoncé released her video album “Live at Roseland: Elements of 4” through Columbia Records and her Parkwood Entertainment company. The album includes a concert film, which was shot during Beyoncé’s four-night concert series in New York.

    In the film, she opened up about her personal life, including why it felt destined for her to sing at the inauguration of the first Black president, Barack Obama, in 2009. Beyoncé called the performance one of her biggest accomplishments, pointing out that Obama’s birthday is Aug. 4, similar to her birthday, her mom’s and Jay Z’s. She noted that he was the 44th president.

    She broke down the significance of the number while onstage as she performed different songs from her catalogue. While introducing her song “Put a Ring on It,” she said, “on April 4, 2008 — eight divided by two is four — [Jay-Z] put a ring on it.”

    Jay- Z later named his 13th studio album “4:44” in June 2017.

    Furthermore, Beyoncé and Jay-Z named their first child Blue Ivy Carter. The word “Ivy” refers to the Roman numeral for four, which could’ve been a selling point when choosing their daughter’s name. Additionally, Beyoncé’s former clothing line was titled Ivy Park.

    It’s clear the number four is more than just a coincidence — it’s a cornerstone of their love story. Now and fourever, you might say.

    Follow Caché McClay, the USA TODAY Network’s Beyoncé Knowles-Carter reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @cachemcclay.

  • Check out this Taylor Swift-inspired walking tour in New York CityEntertain This!

    Check out this Taylor Swift-inspired walking tour in New York CityEntertain This!

    Check out this Taylor Swift-inspired walking tour in New York CityEntertain This!

  • George Clooney falters on Broadway

    George Clooney falters on Broadway

    NEW YORK — Well, no one could ever accuse him of burying the lede.

    George Clooney makes his Broadway debut with “Good Night, and Good Luck,” a well-timed warning about the threat of McCarthyism with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. The play, which opened April 3 at the Winter Garden Theatre, is a near-verbatim recreation of Clooney’s six-time Oscar-nominated film, which was released in 2005 as a response of sorts to the Iraq War.

    The actor co-wrote the script with longtime collaborator Grant Heslov and played a supporting role in the movie as CBS News producer Fred Friendly. But here, Clooney has recast himself as journalistic hero Edward R. Murrow, who in the early 1950s defied U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and his efforts to stoke anti-communist hysteria through the media.

    Clooney acquits himself admirably as Murrow, with deep-set eyes and a furrowed brow that draw you in to the show’s long stretches of TV broadcasts, which are projected in black and white onto myriad screens around the stage. He unflappably captures Murrow’s stoic charm and steady cadence, and his direct-to-camera monologues about courage and conviction earn dutiful applause from the starstruck audience.

    The suave A-lister is buttressed by a commendable supporting cast, who make the most of what little they have to work with. Clark Gregg is quietly devastating as downtrodden newscaster Don Hollenbeck, a target of McCarthy’s smear tactics. And “Broad City” mastermind Ilana Glazer is incandescent as the razor-sharp Shirley Wershba, whose hush-hush office romance brings a welcome dose of tenderness to the otherwise dry proceedings.

    Where “Good Night” missteps is in its stage adaptation, or rather, the lack thereof. For anyone who has watched the film recently, it’s striking how little has been done to bring this story into a new medium. Clooney and Heslov’s play is an almost word-for-word duplicate of its big-screen predecessor, with little interest in probing Murrow’s interior life or deepening the relationships between characters. The one discernible new scene – a brief exchange between Murrow and Hollenbeck – is primarily in service of a groanworthy punchline about how all the sane people have moved to Europe. (Clooney, for what it’s worth, primarily lives in France these days.)

    Sure, you could argue that the movie’s script is unassailable, or that any significant expansions to the story would just be putting a hat on a hat. But the cynic in us suspects a lack of imagination; that Clooney and Heslov were merely too precious and hubristic with their original work, knowing that theatergoers would turn out regardless of what they threw up on stage.

    The production is handsomely crafted with elaborate sets by Scott Pask and smartly tailored costumes from Brenda Abbandandolo. Unfortunately, they’re let down by director David Cromer (“The Band’s Visit”), who only fleetingly captures the electricity that makes any good journalism drama tick. Rarely do we ever feel the frenzied rush of bringing a broadcast to air, or the intoxicating mix of panic and suspense as Murrow calmly eviscerates McCarthy on live TV. Instead, most of the behind-the-scenes portions are spent with the cast’s backs to the audience as they stare into monitors. Clooney, meanwhile, is seated catty-corner upstage, his face only fully visible on screens.

    Shows like Jamie Lloyd’s “Sunset Boulevard” have made exceptional use of cameras this season to help enrich and complement the narrative. But the ubiquitous walls of video are a crutch in Cromer’s leaden production, creating a static disconnect between Clooney and the audience in moments that should feel the most urgently personal.

    The play concludes, like the movie, with a grave word of caution from Murrow about how television can be used to teach and illuminate, but only if people choose to use it to those ends. Clooney and Heslov opt to belabor the message here with a flagrant montage about the history of TV, beginning with Lucille Ball and O.J. Simpson and zipping through “The Jerry Springer Show,” 9/11 terror attacks and Elon Musk appearing to do a Nazi salute.

    Clooney’s intentions are completely admirable. At a time when the current administration is suing news networks and banning outlets from the White House press pool, it’s more imperative than ever to not kowtow or fall in line with strong-arming politicians. And yet, “Good Night” only dares to say what we already know, underlined in red ink with umpteen exclamation points.

    There’s something smugly satisfied about the whole exercise, which ultimately talks down to its audience and assumes we can’t connect the dots. “Good Night, and Good Luck” aims to be a hard-hitting story about accountability and checks on power, but all that ever comes through is dead air.

    “Good Night, and Good Luck” is now playing at the Winter Garden Theatre (1634 Broadway) through June 8, 2025.

  • Melinda French Gates’s life and career through the years: PhotosCelebrities

    Melinda French Gates’s life and career through the years: PhotosCelebrities

    Melinda French Gates’s life and career through the years: PhotosCelebrities

  • Bruce Springsteen announces 83-song ‘Tracks II: The Lost Albums’

    Bruce Springsteen announces 83-song ‘Tracks II: The Lost Albums’

    These “Tracks” go deep and far.

    Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” includes seven unreleased albums recorded between 1983-2018 with 83 new songs. The package will be released June 27 on Sony Music.

    The companion “Lost And Found: Selections from The Lost Albums,” featuring 20 highlights from the collection, will be released the same day.

    “‘The Lost Albums’ were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” said Springsteen in a Thursday news release. “I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them. I hope you enjoy them.”

    The music includes “the lo-fi exploration of ‘LA Garage Sessions ’83’ — serving as a crucial link between ‘Nebraska’ and ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ — to the drum loop and synthesizer sounds of ‘Streets of Philadelphia Sessions,’” according to the release.

    The “Tracks II” album “Somewhere North of Nashville” is composed of “country combo”; there’s “richly-woven border tales” on the album “Inyo”; and “orchestra-driven, mid-century noir” on “Twilight Hours.”

    A new single, “Rain in the River,” hypnotic and emotive with distorted guitar and a heavy beat from the album “Perfect World,” was released on Thursday as part of the announcement.

    “The Lost Albums” are available in a limited edition set of nine LPs or seven CDs that includes the original packaging of each unreleased album and a hardcover book bound on a 100-page canvas, which features photos from a few common archives, notes on each lost album by essayist Erik Flannigan and a personal introduction from Springsteen on the project, according to the release.

    Bruce Springsteen: Singer pays tribute to Joe DePugh, ‘Glory Days’ inspiration

    Bruce Springsteen previously teased ‘Tracks II’ album

    The Boss seemingly hinted at the “Tracks II” collection years before he announced the upcoming album.

    “I have a box set of five unreleased albums that are basically post-1988,” said Springsteen to Rolling Stone in 2022. “People look at my work in the ’90s, and they go, ‘The ’90s wasn’t a great decade for Bruce. He was kind of doing this, and he wasn’t in the E Street Band.’ I actually made a lot of music during that period of time. I actually made albums. For one reason or another, the timing wasn’t right or whatever, I didn’t put them out.”

    The first volume of “Tracks” was released in 1998 and included 66 songs, spanning from 1972 to 1998, on four CDs. Diehard fans have long speculated about, discussed and pined for the existence of a “Tracks II” package.

    “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” was compiled by Springsteen during the COVID-19 shutdown, he said, alongside producer Ron Aniello, engineer Rob Lebret and supervising producer Jon Landau at Thrill Hill Recording in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Prices range from $14.98 for the companion CD to $349.98 for the box set in vinyl format.

    Review: Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band still rock, quake and shake after 50 years

    Tracks II: The Lost Albums

    LA Garage Sessions ’83

    1. Follow That Dream
    2. Don’t Back Down On Our Love
    3. Little Girl Like You
    4. Johnny Bye Bye
    5. Sugarland
    6. Seven Tears
    7. Fugitive’s Dream
    8. Black Mountain Ballad
    9. Jim Deer
    10. County Fair
    11. My Hometown
    12. One Love
    13. Don’t Back Down
    14. Richfield Whistle
    15. The Klansman
    16. Unsatisfied Heart
    17. Shut Out The Light
    18. Fugitive’s Dream (Ballad)

    Streets of Philadelphia Sessions

    1. Blind Spot
    2. Maybe I Don’t Know You
    3. Something In The Well
    4. Waiting On The End Of The World
    5. The Little Things
    6. We Fell Down
    7. One Beautiful Morning
    8. Between Heaven and Earth
    9. Secret Garden
    10. The Farewell Party

    Faithless

    1. The Desert (Instrumental)
    2. Where You Goin’, Where You From
    3. Faithless
    4. All God’s Children
    5. A Prayer By The River (Instrumental)
    6. God Sent You
    7. Goin’ To California
    8. The Western Sea (Instrumental)
    9. My Master’s Hand
    10. Let Me Ride
    11. My Master’s Hand (Theme)

    Somewhere North of Nashville

    1. Repo Man
    2. Tiger Rose
    3. Poor Side of Town
    4. Delivery Man
    5. Under A Big Sky
    6. Detail Man
    7. Silver Mountain
    8. Janey Don’t You Lose Heart
    9. You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone
    10. Stand On It
    11. Blue Highway
    12. Somewhere North of Nashville

    Inyo

    1. Inyo
    2. Indian Town
    3. Adelita
    4. The Aztec Dance
    5. The Lost Charro
    6. Our Lady of Monroe
    7. El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)
    8. One False Move
    9. Ciudad Juarez
    10. When I Build My Beautiful House

    Twilight Hours

    1. Sunday Love
    2. Late in the Evening
    3. Two of Us
    4. Lonely Town
    5. September Kisses
    6. Twilight Hours
    7. I’ll Stand By You
    8. High Sierra
    9. Sunliner
    10. Another You
    11. Dinner at Eight
    12. Follow The Sun

    Perfect World

    1. I’m Not Sleeping
    2. Idiot’s Delight
    3. Another Thin Line
    4. The Great Depression
    5. Blind Man
    6. Rain In The River
    7. If I Could Only Be Your Lover
    8. Cutting Knife
    9. You Lifted Me Up
    10. Perfect World
  • First Steps’ reveals its Silver Surfer

    First Steps’ reveals its Silver Surfer

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    LAS VEGAS – Playing one of the coolest comic-book characters ever, Julia Garner shines in all silver and chrome in Marvel’s new “Fantastic Four” flick.

    The CinemaCon crowd got only a few glimpses of Garner’s take on the iconic Silver Surfer – her riding a galactic surfboard is a joy to behold – but it was one of the highlights of Marvel Studios’ presentation, which included new footage from “Thunderbolts*” (in theaters May 2) and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (out July 25).

    The exclusive look at “Fantastic Four” dug deeper into the story than February’s first trailer release. In a retrofuturistic landscape, astronauts Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Susan Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) went to space and came back changed heroes with superpowers – Reed’s super-stretchy, Sue can turn invisible, Johnny’s a human torch and Ben’s now a rock monster known as the Thing. (Though he does like cooking with H.E.R.B.I.E., their robot.)

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    Sue reveals that she’s pregnant, with Johnny telling her she’ll be a great mom but he’s jokingly kind of unsure about Reed as a dad. All four have a close bond and the world loves them, which is when the Silver Surfer, a herald of Galactus, arrives and warns that Earth has been “marked” by her gigantic planet-devouring boss (played by Ralph Ineson).

    The footage didn’t show Galactus in full but did feature the back of his head looking down at the Statue of Liberty, as the Fantastic Four scrambles to deal with this cosmic threat and calm the worried public.

    Thunderbolts ready for battle in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and their own movie

    The FF isn’t wasting any time diving into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe: Pascal, Kirby, Quinn and Moss-Bachrach were among the many actors announced last week – via director’s chairs and a livestream – to be starring in “Avengers: Doomsday.”

    Marvel president Kevin Feige sent a video message to CinemaCon saying that “many, not all” of the cast has been announced and confirmed that the aforementioned quartet as well as the Avengers, Thunderbolts, Wakandans and original X-Men from the 2000s movies will join forces to take on Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.).

    Some of the Thunderbolts made the trip to the convention of theater owners to give a teasing taste of their upcoming movie. The sequence showed Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), USAgent John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) crashing through a building lobby in a van and fighting random bad guys. Then the voice of Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) chimes in and says, “I left the front door open.”

    They go up to see her, and it turns out they’re in what used to be Tony Stark’s Avengers Tower, which Valentina has bought for “the optics.” She originally brought them together so they’d kill each other, but they ended forming a team. And she’s rather irked by their presence: Valentina makes fun of Winter Soldier for not even lasting half a term in Congress (he was running for election in “Captain America: Brave New World”), tells Yelena she looks terrible, calls Walker “junior varsity Captain America” and dismisses Red Guardian altogether.

    Ghost takes a swing at Valentina, but an unseen force stops the punch. You then see that Valentina has a powerful protector coming down some stairs, only from boot level though, so it’s unclear whether it’s Sentry (Lewis Pullman) or another surprise villain.

    Before introducing the clip, “Thunderbolts*” actors pulled a gag where they stumbled into the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace like they had just gotten lost in the casino. “We hope the movie does really well,” Louis-Dreyfus cracked, “so Wyatt Russell can get back the money he lost today.”

  • Jeremy Allen White’s Bruce Springsteen movie debuts first footage

    Jeremy Allen White’s Bruce Springsteen movie debuts first footage

    LAS VEGAS – Bob Dylan just got the biopic treatment. Bruce Springsteen, you’re up.

    Jeremy Allen White came to CinemaCon on Thursday to debut the first look at director Scott Cooper’s “Deliver Me From Nowhere” (in theaters later this year), in which he plays The Boss at a very pivotal moment of his career leading up to his 1982 album “Nebraska.”

    “Incredible, challenging, dream come true,” White said of becoming Springsteen. “I feel really lucky. We all had Bruce’s blessing.”

    The footage that played for theater owners showed Springsteen coming to grips with fame – he’s called a “rock star” when buying a new car and seems unsure about the moniker. The film finds him reconciling his success with traumatic experiences from his childhood and with his father (Stephen Graham), and dealing with his mental health.

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    While “trying to find something real,” Bruce – with tousled hair and guitar – records new songs on a four-track recorder in his bedroom. Meanwhile, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), Springsteen’s longtime friend and manager, is trying to keep the record label off his back. “He’s a repairman,” Landau tells them. “He’s working on repairing the hole in himself. When he’s done with that, he’ll repair the world.”

    “Jon was deeply invested in Bruce as an artist but he was also invested in his friend’s happiness and well-being,” Strong said. “He was the Lewis to Bruce’s Clark, and the journey they’ve been on together is beautiful and unprecedented in the history of music.”

    Springsteen has said he liked what he saw when visiting the set and watching White play him. “Jeremy is such a terrific actor” and he can “sing well,” Springsteen said in December on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio. White has “an interpretation of me that I think the fans will deeply recognize, and he’s just done a great job.”

  • 'Real Housewives' past and present, including Teddi MellencampCelebrities

    'Real Housewives' past and present, including Teddi MellencampCelebrities

    ‘Real Housewives’ past and present, including Teddi MellencampCelebrities

  • ‘Fire and Ash’ first footage unveiled by Zoe Saldaña

    ‘Fire and Ash’ first footage unveiled by Zoe Saldaña

    LAS VEGAS – Humans aren’t the only problem for our Na’vi heroes in the next “Avatar” movie.

    Closing out Disney’s presentation at CinemaCon on Thursday, franchise star (and newly minted Oscar winner) Zoe Saldaña introduced the first 3D footage of “Avatar: Fire & Ash” (in theaters Dec. 19) at the convention of theater owners. Director James Cameron sent a video message from New Zealand, where he’s finishing up the third “Avatar” installment before its holiday release.

    The last film, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” introduced the aquatic Metkayina clan to the film’s mythology, and the sweeping and expansive first footage gave the audience a peek at two more tribes. Saldaña described the Windtraders as a “nomadic air clan” while the Mangkwan clan, aka the “Ash People,” are former Nai’vi who have forsaken the deity Eywa and live amid volcanos.

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    The footage showed the Sully family – including Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Saldaña) – traveling from the oceanic environment where they ended up in “The Way of Water” and taking to the skies in large jellyfish-y air ships. They’re attacked by bandits on winged creatures, and while we don’t really know anything about the plot yet, it’s clear that there’s not a lot of peace these days in Pandora. “We cannot live like this, in hate,” Jake says.

    But trouble comes from a couple of sides for Jake and Co. in “Fire & Ash.” The human invaders as usual are a major threat to Pandora in an existential sense, plus former military guy/Na’vi villain Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is a constant thorn in their sides. And while the Ash People look really cool, they’re quite fearsome when our heroes run afoul of the rage-filled and fiery antagonists.

    “Your goddess has no dominion here,” snarls the Ash People’s leader, Varang (Oona Chaplin).

    Saldaña teased that “Fire & Ash” is “unlike anything audiences have ever seen and exactly what they want.”

  • See Liam Neeson in ‘The Naked Gun’ reboot teaser trailer

    See Liam Neeson in ‘The Naked Gun’ reboot teaser trailer

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    After more than 30 years, “The Naked Gun” film franchise is back in action.

    A teaser trailer for a new reboot dropped at CinemaCon Thursday giving fans of the original police spoof films a first look at Oscar-nominated actor Liam Neeson taking the mantle from the late acting and comedic legend, Leslie Nielsen.

    The 72-year-old “Taken” star is playing Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Nielsen’s titular character, and in the film, he’ll use his “particular set of skills” to lead a police squad and follow in his father’s footsteps, according to Paramount Pictures UK’s description for the teaser.

    In the one-minute trailer, Drebin, disguised as a young girl, strolls into an armed bank robbery in progress before he removes his elaborate costume and takes down the suspects. When asked by a hostage in the bank who he was, Drebin responds, “Frank Drebin Police Squad. The new version.”

    The reboot comes more than three decades after the trilogy consisting of the 1988 original “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!,” the 1991 sequel “The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear” and the 1994 “Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult.”

    The original film, based on the TV series “Police Squad!,” starred Nielsen, who died in 2010; George Kennedy, who died in 2016; and O. J. Simpson, who died last year.

    When does ‘The Naked Gun’ reboot come out?

    “The Naked Gun” reboot is scheduled to be released in theaters nationwide on Friday, August 1, 2025.

    What will be different about ‘The Naked Gun’ reboot?

    Aside from many of the original actors not being in the reboot, “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane is a producer on 2025’s “The Naked Gun,” while former “SNL” writer Akiva Schaffer is serving as director.

    Pamela Anderson, 56, is also set to help Neeson reload the “The Naked Gun” franchise. In a March interview with ComingSoon.net, Neeson admitted to being “slightly nervous” about showing off his comedic chops in “The Naked Gun” after a career focused almost entirely on serious movies like “Schindler’s List,” “Taken” and “The Grey.”

    “But it’s a good script,” Neeson said, per the outlet. “Akiva Schafer from the world of ‘SNL’ is co-writing and he’s the director. So we’ll see. We’re still in the casting process for the other parts, but the script, there’s some very funny laugh-out moments.”

    ‘The Naked Gun’ reboot cast

    The 2025 “Naked Gun” reboot features the following stars:

    • Liam Neeson
    • Paul Walter Hauser
    • Pamela Anderson
    • Kevin Durand
    • Danny Huston
    • Liza Koshy
    • Cody Rhodes
    • David Lengel
    • Busta Rhymes
    • Michael Beasley
    • Wilbur Fitzgerald