Advertisement

Did You Hear ...? Bill O’Reilly gets fired, Coachella kicks off and more from the week in entertainment

Bill O'Reilly's image adorns News Corp.'s New York City headquarters Wednesday.
(Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Share

A cable-news star crashed to Earth, a music festival flourished, a tent-pole franchise delivered the goods, new music went back into a vault unheard, and two princes and a pop star got real about mental illness. Here’s all that news and more from this week in entertainment.

Bill O’Reilly enters the no-job zone

Turns out Fox News’ culturally influential ratings leader was not too big to fail. Exiting under the specter of a sexual-harassment scandal, O’Reilly said it was “tremendously disheartening” to lose his “The O’Reilly Factor” gig over “completely unfounded claims.” Still, it’s not as if he walked away empty-handed. There wasn’t a clear consensus on the right about what the departure would mean for conservative media, but on the left, celebrities had no sympathy. One “gasbag,” however, made an effort to say thank you.

Who needs Beyoncé? Coachella’s first weekend kills it

Lady Gaga kept it low-key as a Coachella headliner.
(Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)
Advertisement

The first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has done its thing and boy did it look good doing it. (Seriously, people, the outfits! The cocktails and snacks! The drones!) Yeah, we have our 10-best list of performances, but in a nutshell, Kendrick Lamar went for substance over style, Lady Gaga was awesome (until she wasn’t) and Hans Zimmer gave the crowd something new to rock about. Wait, Beyoncé who? The party is continuing this weekend, and you can read all about it.

New music from Prince! Well, almost ...

Prince fans might want it, but they can’t have it — at least for now. A Minnesota judge blocked a six-song EP of previously unreleased music from the Purple One, who died a year ago this week and was notoriously protective of his copyrights. However, the title single, “Deliverance,” is still for sale. We’ll let the lawyer explain that one. Another thing that was released? Court records shedding light on the “narcotic medications” investigators found at Paisley Park after Prince overdosed.

‘Fate of the Furious’ conquers the world

L.A. Times film critic Justin Chang and film writer Jen Yamato talk fast and furiously about what works and what doesn’t in’Fate of the Furious’ and the idea of family in the record-breaking franchise. (Warning: spoiler revealed halfway into video.)

With a little help from China, “The Fate of the Furious,” the eighth installment in the Vin Diesel-and-friends saga, set a global weekend box-office record and prompted one Universal distribution exec to declare, “All the stars aligned.” (Between us, our reviewer wasn’t nuts about the movie, but we won’t tell if you don’t.) Though that one plot twist might’ve bothered some fans, the $4-billion franchise fueled by family and diversity still has a lot of gas left in its tank.

So much for that stiff upper lip, Prince Harry

In an unexpectedly candid Telegraph podcast about mental health, royal rebel Prince Harry went into detail Sunday about being emotionally messed up for nearly 20 years after the 1997 death of his mom, Princess Diana. Then Prince William got on FaceTime with Lady Gaga to discuss her struggles with mental illness. It’s all part of Heads Together, a royal effort to get people talking openly about mental-health issues.

Serena Williams announced she's pregnant.
(William West / AFP/Getty Images)
Advertisement

Domestic Goods — and Bads: Serena Williams is pregnant, expecting a child with her fiancé, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. ... La La Anthony and Carmelo Anthony have separated nearly seven years after getting married.

Trumped: Bruce Springsteen lent his voice to a new song protesting President Trump’s immigration policies and so-called alternative facts, written by buddy Joe Grushecky and recorded with the Houserockers.

R.I.P.: Bruce Langhorne, the folk musician who inspired Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” died at 78.... Sylvia Moy, a Motown songwriter who wrote hits for Stevie Wonder, died at 78. ... Clifton James, the swaggering Southern sheriff in two James Bond movies, died at 96. ... Allan Holdsworth, an electric-guitar innovator, died at 70.

Did You Hear…? is your guide to a week’s worth of entertainment news in a nutshell. It appears Saturdays on latimes.com.

cdz@latimes.com

@theCDZ

Advertisement
Advertisement