Peacock had 23 million views… Richard Simmons back in spotlight… ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ sequel… Sophie Turner drops lawsuit… and Madonna is being sued

Listen to “Showbiz – Jan 19, 2024” on Spreaker.

While ratings for Sunday night’s Critics Choice Awards on The CW were the highest they’ve been in four years, that was not the same case for the Emmys, which aired on Fox. Because of the writers and actors strikes, the Emmys were moved from September to this past Monday night. That put them up against all the playoff games, but the Critics Choice Awards had to deal with the same thing. And their ratings were up 14% from last year, averaging 1.04M viewers. While the Emmys had more viewers, they had their lowest ratings EVER, averaging 4.3M viewers. And when it came to the NFL wildcard playoffs, the Chiefs vs. the Dolphins drew an audience of about 23M. That drew a record number of viewers to Peacock, but it was also the smallest audience of all the games. The Browns vs. the Texans game on Saturday drew 29M viewers for NBC. The Rams vs. the Lions had the second largest audience with almost 36M, but the most watched game was the Cowboys blowing it against the Packers. About 40M of us tuned in for that meltdown.

By @JCalNEO – Peacock was the (nearly) exclusive home of the NFL AFC Wild Card playoff game on Jan. 13, and that event had 23 million people view the match. NBC claims that it was the "largest Internet event ever." #Peacock #AFCWildCard https://t.co/dx7AIbKW1N
— NeowinFeed (@NeowinFeed) January 15, 2024

Pauly Shore is portraying Richard Simmons in two separate projects. First, he’s in a short film called The Court Jester, which debuts tonight at the Sundance Film Festival. In a completely separate project, Pauly is also starring as Richard in a feature-length biopic currently in development. Richard is NOT happy about it. He released a statement on Facebook saying that despite what we may have heard, he never gave his permission for this movie. But the company producing the biopic responded saying, “While we would love to have him involved, we respect his desire to privacy and plan to produce a movie that honors him, celebrates him and tells a dramatic story. We know he is deeply private and we would never want to invade that, however he is an amazing person that changed millions of peoples’ lives, and the effect he has had on the world needs to be recognized.”

Fitness legend Richard Simmons issues rare public statement about a new biopic of his life after it was announced that Pauly Shore would play him in the film, saying "I have never given my permission for this movie." @eriellereshef has more. pic.twitter.com/91kvLw3Pd0
— Good Morning America (@GMA) January 18, 2024

David DeLuise and Jennifer Stone both starred on The Wizards of Waverly Place, which ran on The Disney Channel from 2007 to 2012. Now David and Jennifer are rewatching the series for a podcast called Wizards of Waverly Pod. Almost a year ago, Selena Gomez — who starred in the series as Alex Russo — was their special guest. She told David and Jennifer that the years she spent on the Wizards set were the happiest of her life. And when David — who played her character’s dad — asked Selena, “What has been your biggest mistake so far? And you can’t say a boy’s name.” Selena admitted, “Probably not staying in touch with you guys….I felt ashamed of the decisions I made, and I didn’t want you guys to see me in the state I was in. Because A, you would have told me the truth which terrifies me, and I didn’t want to let you down.” That podcast may have planted the seed for what is happening now. We are getting a Wizards of Waverly Place reboot! Selena and David Henrie — who played her character’s brother Justin — are executive producing the series. Selena will guest star in the pilot and may pop up from time to time. The series will pick up where and adult Justin Russo has left his wizard powers behind, choosing to lead a normal human life with his wife and two sons. But Justin gets a surprise when a powerful young wizard in need of training shows up at his door, forcing Justin to embrace his past to ensure the future of the Wizard World.

Selena Gomez confirms ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ sequel series:

“WE’RE BACK” pic.twitter.com/WGlDrD0nZ1
— Pop Base (@PopBase) January 18, 2024

When Joe Jonas filed for divorce from Sophie Turner, she wanted wanted to take their daughters back to England with her. When Joe refused to hand over their children’s passports, Sophie filed child abduction claims against him. At the time, Joe’s lawyer said, “When language like ‘abduction’ is used, it is misleading at best, and a serious abuse of the legal system at worst.” Joe and Sophie managed to work out a temporary child custody arrangement, which ends this month. Now as they’re gearing up to renegotiate, Sophie has dropped the child abduction claims against Joe.

Sophie Turner drops child abduction lawsuit against Joe Jonas https://t.co/rDX6ESy0mr
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 18, 2024

Madonna is being sued by two men who attended her Celebration tour at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn last month. Michael Fellows and Jonathan Harden were ticked off that she stated the show over two hours late, so they’re suing Madonna, Live Nation, and Barclays Center of “unconscionable, unfair, and/or deceptive trade practices.” They say the show was marketed to begin at 8:30pm, so they made plans accordingly. When Madonna finally decided to grace the stage after 10:30pm, that resulted in the show ending after 1am. Because of that, the lawsuit says the men were “confronted with limited public transportation, limited ride-sharing, and/or increased public and private transportation costs.” The lawsuit went on to say, basically, that people had to get up and go to work or take care of their families the next day, so the ramifications from the extremely late start continued. The men are asking that this be given class action status, so other people affected by Madonna’s tardiness can join them in suing.