Shannon Sharpe to "step aside" from ESPN amid sexual assault lawsuit / SNL50 to end with Walton Goggins and Scarlett Johansson / Bill Maher upset with Larry David
PLUS: The Conners was contractually forbidden from showing Roseanne Barr's Roseanne Conner in its series finale.
Shannon Sharpe to "step aside temporarily" from ESPN amid $50 million sexual assault and battery lawsuit
In a statement posted on X today, the First Take regular and Pro Football Hall of Famer wrote that in wake of the lawsuit filed against him last Sunday, "I am eliciting to step aside temporarily from my ESPN duties. I will be devoting my time to my family, and responding and dealing with these false and disruptive allegations set against me. I plan to return to ESPN at the start of the NFL preseason. I sincerely appreciate the overwhelming and ongoing support I have received from my family, friends and colleagues." ESPN said in a statement: "This is a serious situation, and we agree with Shannon’s decision to step away." On Sunday, an anonymous Nevada woman filed a $50 million civil lawsuit against Sharpe, accusing him of turning their consensual relationship into a violent one, in which he recorded their sexual encounters and threatened her. Sharpe's attorney has called the lawsuit a shakedown. Sharpe's decision today comes as ESPN has been criticized for staying silent all week while keeping Sharpe on air amid the heinous allegations. Former SportsCenter anchors Sage Steele and Ashley Brewer-Kaminsky blasted ESPN, accusing the network of hypocrisy. "ESPN did not re-up contracts to women with conservative views or silenced them while Shannon has had multiple questionable actions involving women," tweeted Steele. "Just putting that out there.”
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Fox Sports and Shannon Sharpe settled a lawsuit involving a physical incident with a female production assistant when he worked at FS1: "ESPN contributor Shannon Sharpe announced Thursday he is stepping away from the network as he faces a $50 million lawsuit on allegations that he raped a woman whom he was in a relationship with. While he contends with that suit, additional incidents from his past have come to light," reports Front Office Sports' Ryan Glasspiegel. "Before Sharpe’s time at ESPN, when he was the cohost of FS1’s Undisputed, he was accused of choking a female production assistant in the workplace, two sources with knowledge of the incident tell Front Office Sports. One source said Sharpe and Fox settled with the accuser for several hundred thousand dollars. There was no lawsuit filed against Sharpe in the incident." A rep for Sharpe told FOS, “There was no incident of choking involving Shannon on the FS1 set. On one occasion, he and a few colleagues were involved in some light physical interaction in a playful context. Fox Sports later chose to resolve the matter privately. For further details, we recommend contacting Fox directly.” Glasspiegel adds: "A Fox Sports spokesperson declined to comment prior to the statement from Sharpe’s camp and could not immediately be reached for follow-up."
The Conners was contractually forbidden from showing Roseanne Barr's Roseanne Conner in its series finale
Barr's iconic Roseanne character was noticeably absent from a flashback montage of Roseanne characters in last night’s Conners finale. (Roseanne and The Conners star Michael Fishman was also absent.) "It was contractual," explained executive producer Dave Caplan to Deadline. Showrunner Bruce Helford added: "She was very gracious in allowing us to continue the show because she had a say in that. When she realized it would be putting 300 people out of work when the initial reboot was canceled, she gracefully allowed us to continue without her. It really was about these people. This show was really about the lives of these other people in the family, the Conners, and we wanted to focus on them."
Bill Maher calls Larry David's "My Dinner with Adolf" essay roasting his dinner with Trump an "insult" to the Jews who died in the Holocaust
Appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Maher noted that he and the former Curb Your Enthusiasm star are longtime friends. “I mean, this wasn’t my favorite moment of our friendship, but, you know, look, I don’t want to get too much into that, but I think the minute you play the Hitler card, you’ve lost the argument,” Maher said, per Mediaite. "I must say, you know come on, man, Hitler? Nazis? Nobody has been harder about and more prescient, I must say, about Donald Trump than me. I don’t need to be lectured on who Donald Trump is. Just the fact that I met him in person didn’t change that. And the fact I reported honestly is not a sin either. To use the Hitler thing, first of all, I just think it’s kind of insulting to six million dead Jews. You know, like, that should kind of be in its own place in history."
Walton Goggins to host SNL after "The White Potus" controversy — Scarlett Johansson to host the Season 50 finale
The White Lotus star Goggins will make his SNL-hosting debut on May 10 with musical guest Arcade Fire. He'll host four weeks after "The White Potus" sketch that caused controversy for making fun of his on-screen love interest Amy Lou Wood's teeth. Johansson, the wife of SNL "Weekend Update" co-anchor Colin Jost, will host for the seventh time on May 17, closing out Saturday Night Live's 50th season with musical guest Bad Bunny.
Paramount in talks with the FCC to limit diversity initiatives to gain Skydance merger approval
According to The Wall Street Journal, "one action under discussion between the agency and Paramount is a commitment that the company continues to abstain from particular corporate diversity initiatives, the people said. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has urged telecom and media companies to limit their diversity, equity and inclusion policies as a precondition for the agency to consider mergers and acquisitions. The Paramount-Skydance deal has been under FCC review for months with few signs of progress. Carr has said that a third-party news-distortion complaint related to the way 60 Minutes edited a Kamala Harris interview last year could factor into his agency’s review of Paramount’s deal. The FCC has authority over the Paramount-Skydance deal because it would involve the transfer of broadcast television licenses held by CBS."
Estranged Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan will work "feet away from each other," leaving ABC staffers on edge
Ripa and Strahan co-hosted Live from 2012 to 2016, when ABC hired him away to co-host Good Morning America, which angered Ripa. Nearly a decade later, Ripa and Strahan will work under the same roof with Good Morning America moving to the Times Square studio that Live recently moved into. “They will be feet away from each other — he will be able to smell her perfume,” an ABC insider tells the New York Post. “The staff is on tenterhooks. These two do not speak.”
Golden Globes sets a later date for 2026
Nikki Glaser will return as host of the Globes on CBS on Jan. 11, 2026, which is farther from New Year's Day than this year's ceremony, which took place on Jan. 5. The Globes ceremony is moving from its traditional home on the first Sunday of the new year to the second Sunday. ALSO: Nikki Glaser admits her Globes Benny Blanco joke was "pretty mean."
Fox sets summer premiere dates for MasterChef, The Snake and more
Fox's summer slate also includes the return of Bob's Burgers and Family Guy.
Apple TV+ greenlights Conclave Oscar winner Peter Straughan's Berlin Noir TV adaptation from producer Tom Hanks
Straughan, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for Conclave and who previously co-wrote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, will adapt Philip Kerr’s popular Berlin Noir books, with Hanks aboard as an executive producer. "The untitled drama is based on Kerr’s final book Metropolis, which told the iconic detective’s origin story," per Deadline. "Set in 1928, Metropolis follows newly promoted police officer Gunther in the intimidating elite Berlin Murder Squad, investigating what seems to be a serial killer targeting victims on the fringes of society. Gunther’s Berlin is described as a 'city of unprecedented freedom and dizzying turbulence, the Nazis a distant nightmare waiting in the wings.'"
Pedro Pascal accuses HBO colleague J.K. Rowling of "heinous loser behavior" over her anti-trans stance
The Last of Us star, who has a transgender sister, responded to an Instagram video from activist Tariq Ra’ouf detailing the Harry Potter author's role in financing an anti-trans group who successfully lobbied the Supreme Court to rule that transgender women should not be recognized as women under Britain’s Equality Act last week. “Awful disgusting SH*T is exactly right,” Pascal wrote in the comments. “Heinous LOSER behavior.” Pascal's comment comes as he's departing The Last of Us on HBO, which is adapting Rowling's Harry Potter book series as a TV series.
President Trump slams Fox News and Rupert Murdoch over a poll showing him with low approval ratings
“Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so,” Trump wrote this morning in a post on his Truth Social platform. “This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years.”
Randall Park to guest on AMC Silicon Valley drama The Audacity, which has also cast Thailey Roberge and Ava Marie Telek
Park is set for a key guest role as the qualm-free CFO of a data mining operation in Jonathan Glatzer’s The Audacity.
RuPaul's Drag Race alum Jiggly Caliente had her leg amputated over a "severe infection"
"Due to a severe infection, she was hospitalized and, as a result, has undergone the loss of most of her right leg," the family of Caliente, whose real name is Bianca Castro, wrote on Instagram. "Her recovery will be extensive." The illness has forced Caliente to drop out as judge on RuPaul's Drag Race Philippines.
Bowen Yang stuns The View by calling Vice President JD Vance a "pope killer"
“I mean he’s… Look, the guy’s a pope killer," Yang said while discussing his reluctance to play Vance on SNL, per Decider. Yang was referring to the vice president's visit with Pope Francis the day before the pope’s death on Monday. “I just thought there would be better people for it… It was my imposter syndrome. I was like, ‘There are better people for this,'” Yang said of his portrayal. “But, listen, I worked with an accent coach. I had to get it between Ohio and Appalachia with the accent, it’s hard. It’s very subtle.”
John Mulaney roasts Neil deGrasse Tyson on Everybody’s Live: "Don’t make that guy your front-facing dude"
According to Cracked, Mulaney took on the famed astrophysicist on last night’s show, saying: “Do you want to be less vulnerable, science? Get better messengers. The people they push out there like Bill Nye, and that — don’t get me started on that Neil deGrasse Tyson. He was rude to me once on a podcast, so it’s kinda personal. But, then again, everything’s personal. I just, I don’t know.” It's unclear what Tyson did to Mulaney, who appeared on the astrophysicist's StarTalk Live! podcast in 2022.
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John Mulaney criticized for his joke about the deaths of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa
Rita Moreno bowed out as an Everybody’s Live guest Wednesday because she’s “on the mend” after a minor health incident — she was replaced by Tina Fey
Jamie Lee Curtis and Blumhouse to lead Darkly TV series adaptation
Marisha Pessl’s bestselling novel Darkly, released last November, is set to become a TV series executive produced by Curtis. In the novel, "Arcadia 'Dia' Gannon has been obsessed with Louisiana Veda, the game designer whose obsessive creations and company, Darkly, have gained a cultlike following," per Deadline. "Dia is shocked when she’s chosen for a highly coveted internship, along with six other teenagers from around the world. Why her? Dia has never won anything in her life."
Fox hires former ESPN college football analyst Robert Griffin III
The Heisman-winning Griffin will replace Brock Huard as Fox’s No. 2 college football analyst.
Lulu Roman, Hee Haw comedian and gospel singer, dies at 78
Roman, who died Wednesday, was a regular part of Hee Haw, appearing in 168 episodes. "Roman appeared on the first episode of CBS’ Hee Haw in June 1969 and on the last one, with the show in syndication, in June 1993," Mike Barnes writes in her Hollywood Reporter obituary. "During its impressive run, she reinvented herself as a gospel singer, and she would release more than a dozen albums, perform in concert and record with the likes of Dolly Parton."
Love, Death, and Robots Vol. 4 trailer teases a cast that includes John Boyega, John Oliver, MrBeast, Kevin Hart and Niecy Nash
The adult animated anthology series returns May 15.
Paramount+ unveils the trailer for Criminal Minds: Evolution’s third season, featuring Zach Gilford
Gilford will reprise his role as Elias Voit, the notorious Sicarius Killer, on Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3, or the 18th season of Criminal Minds overall. Criminal Minds: Evolution returns May 8.
Watch the trailer for the Jeffrey Dean Morgan-hosted NBC reality competition Destination X
Premiering May 27, Destination X will feature 10 strangers coming together to travel to unknown locations around Europe with a chance to win $250,000 if they can answer the question: “Where the ‘X’ are we?”
Netflix's A Deadly American Marriage trailer promises to tell "a real-life tale of love and betrayal"
Premiering May 19, the documentary will delve into Irish widower Jason Corbett's brutal death at the hands of his second wife and her former FBI agent dad.