Netflix is being sued… Gwen Stefani announced new album… Lauren Sánchez sued… Oprah Winfrey buys tell-all documentary… and Zach Bryan has deactivated his Twitter (X) account

 

Netflix has a couple of pretty big lawsuits to deal with. The $170M defamation lawsuit over Baby Reindeer is heading to trial next year. Fiona Harvey claims the stalker character is based on her and she’s suing. But even though it says, “This is a true story” at the beginning of Baby Reindeer, series creator Richard Gaad says, “Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey.” Well, that should settle it! Netflix is trying to get the lawsuit dismissed, but if they can’t work it out, a federal just says the trial will start on May 6 of next year. Netflix is also being sued by a man who claims Squid Game is a blatant ripoff of a movie he made and released more than a decade earlier. Soham Shah claims he created the 2009 Indian film Luck, which is about a group of desperate, indebted people enticed to take part in a series of competitive games for the chance to win large sums of money. It’s only after characters start competing that they realize losing any of the challenges means death — and that each death increases the pot left for the remaining contestants. Sound familiar? Soham’s movie was released in theaters around the world in 2009, which is the same year Huang Dong-hyuk claims he wrote Squid Game….

In music news, Gwen Stefani announced her fifth studio album, Bouquet, “will be in full bloom on November 15th.” You can pre-order now on her online store, including a limited edition blue vinyl. The first single, Somebody Else’s will be available at midnight Eastern tonight. And yes, the album includes a collaboration with her husband Blake Shelton called Purple Irises. In other music news, almost 10 years after leaving One Direction, Zayn Malik has announced his first ever solo headlining tour. He’s only hitting 11 cities in the US and the UK, kicking off the US leg in San Francisco on Oct. 23 before rapping up Nov. 2 in NYC. Then he heads across the pond. Presale starts today with the general on sale starting this Saturday at InZayn.com. And finally, one day after it was announced that Cher will be the headline performer at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, it was announced that Tyla will also be performing on the runway. The show takes place on Oct. 15 in Brooklyn.

Good thing she’s engaged to a rich guy who can just make this all go away. Lauren Sanchez’s former yoga instructor is suing her over her new children’s book, A Fly Who Flew to Space. Alanna Zabel claims she was Lauren’s private yoga instructor from 2007-2011, way before she was attached to Jeff Bezos. Over the years, Alanna claims she and Lauren engaged in “oral and written discussions” about Alanna’s idea of a children’s book. In 2022, Alanna says she called Lauren and laid out a “specific” concept for her book, Dharma Kitty Goes to Mars, which is exactly what it sounds like. Alanna claims she also emailed Jeff Bezos about giving proceeds from her book sales to Bezos Earth Fund and Bezos Academy. Did he ever receive it? Alanna claims his personal assistant told her he did. In late 2022, Alanna went ahead and published her book, but in January 2023, Lauren announced she was planning to write her own children’s book……and this month she released A Fly Who Flew to Space. Alanna is livid. She claims Lauren ripped off her idea in retaliation for her resigning as her yoga instructor 13 years ago, and the only reason she quit was because of Lauren’s “continual and outrageous acts of jealousy.” While it is worth noting there have been more than a dozen other children’s books published this year about the main character — insect or otherwise — going to space, Alanna claims Lauren’s book contains over 60% similar content and story. She’s suing for damages and severe emotional harm.

Oprah has a lot of money and she is not afraid to use it. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin MacDonald directed a documentary about Oprah for Apple TV+. Nothing was done behind Oprah’s back. In fact, Apple paid her to do it. Kevin worked with Oprah’s longtime producer on it. But when Oprah saw the finished product, she hated it. She asked Kevin to make some changes. He refused. They argued. He still refused. So Oprah basically wrote a check to Apple buying back her documentary, which will now never see the light of day.

Last night, Zach Bryan hopped on X and posted this hot sports opinion: “eagles > chiefs Kanye > Taylor who’s with me.” Not long after, Zach deactivated his account, but not before he tried to do damage control. He tweeted, “Guys I love Taylor. I was listening to TTPD last night and ‘Thank You Aimee’ came on and I drunkenly tweeted that about Kanye. If anyone took it serious please know I love both artists a lot and think we’re in a really beautiful time of music.” PopCrave reposted Zach’s original tweet, and while he did get a lot of backlash, he also got a lot of support. Among the supportive comments, “Why deactivate. These are correct positions” and “Zach Bryan did nothing wrong, all he said is that he prefers Kanye over Taylor, not even trashing her.” But Zach still feels bad. He posted on his Instagram Story this morning, “For the record guys I wasn’t coming for Taylor the other night,” Bryan wrote via his Instagram Story on Thursday, September 19. “I was drunkenly comparing two records and it came out wrong. I know there’s a lot of stuff that clouds around Ye and I was speaking purely musically. I love Taylor’s music and pray you guys know I’m human and tweet stupid things often.” He also said he’s going to stay off X for a while because it gets him into too much trouble…

 

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