The Year of the Slap: Pop culture moments in 2022
Taylor Swift was up. Elon Musk was in, out, and in. Tom Cruise was back. BTS stepped aside, and so did Serena Williams, and Tom Brady too — oops, scratch that.
But the slap? The slap was everywhere.
Our annual, totally selective journey through a year in pop culture:
JANUARY
It's GOLDEN GLOBES time. But is a Globes with no telecast, boozy celebs or red carpet a Globes at all? The embattled Hollywood Foreign Press Association, reeling from stunning failures over diversity, holds a private event and plans a comeback next year. Hey, remember the original wardrobe malfunction? Well, JANET JACKSON says she and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE have moved on, and so should we. The New York Times buys Wordle, and we're all thinking in five-letter words (though W-O-R-D-L-E is six, just saying.) Meanwhile, it's a month of loss, heading off a year of loss: pioneering Black actor, director and activist SIDNEY POITIER dies at 94.
FEBRUARY
What would a year in pop culture be without BRITNEY? Just months after her liberation from her restrictive conservatorship, Spears is reported to have signed a mammoth book deal, but at year's end we're still waiting for news. RIHANNA is pregnant! TOM BRADY retires! (Stay tuned, on that one.) TAYLOR watch: JAKE GYLLENHAAL speaks out, saying he really has nothing to do with that song, that it's about an artist's relationship with her fans — but fans shouldn't be cyberbullying, either.
MARCH
Quick, who wins Oscars this month? Well, “CODA” does, a feel-good drama with a largely deaf cast, and TROY KOTSUR becomes the first deaf actor to win an acting Oscar. Alas, all anyone can talk about is — you know. SMITH, who wins the best actor award not long after slapping Rock over a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, won't truly address the issue until the end of the year, so keep reading. KARDASHIAN watch: Kim K is declared legally single again in her ongoing divorce with YE, the rapper formerly known as KANYE WEST. And BRADY, retired for 40 days, says, “Never mind!”
APRIL
It's GRAMMY time, and JON BATISTE wins big, taking five statuettes. The musician's huge year will later include performing at the first state dinner of the Biden administration, for French President Emmanuel Macron. The next day Macron will meet with MUSK (thanks for the segue, Monsieur le President) who begins his acquisition of TWITTER this month, leading to untold – and still unfolding – changes at the social media giant.
MAY
So imagine you're sipping cocktails at the MET GALA and a musician comes sauntering through, playing the melodica — of course it's BATISTE, because the Met Gala's that kind of crazy party. The biggest splash of the night, though, is KARDASHIAN, on the arm of boyfriend PETE DAVIDSON, wearing the same sequined, skin tight gown MARILYN MONROE wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to JFK in 1962. In movies, “Top Gun: Maverick” opens, the highest-grossing domestic debut in CRUISE'S career, and his first to surpass $100 million on opening weekend. HARRY STYLES fans rejoice! His album, “Harry's House,” is here. JUNE
Stunning news for the global fanbase of BTS as the K-pop supergroup announces it's taking a break to focus on members' solo projects. On the legal front, a Virginia jury hands DEPP a victory in his very messy libel case over allegations of domestic abuse, finding that former wife HEARD defamed him in a 2018 op-ed. On a happier note, Britney gets married….
JULY
Only one wedding, Britney? BENNIFER has two! Maybe what happens usually stays in Vegas, but not when you have 227 million followers on Instagram. With a winking reference to being a “Sadie” (married lady) JENNIFER LOPEZ directs fans to her newsletter where she shares pics of her quickie wedding to BEN AFFLECK. “Love is beautiful,” she writes. “And it turns out love is patient.” Speaking of patience, fans of BEYONCÉ are rewarded for theirs, with the release of her long-awaited seventh studio album, “Renaissance,” her first solo album in six years.
AUGUST
So, we were saying …. Bennifer's second wedding , on Affleck's compound in Georgia, is bigger and fancier. One wedding, one split: KARDASHIAN and DAVIDSON are no longer. In other summer news, the world remembers Princess Diana, whose shocking death in a car crash happened 25 years ago, and whose life is being rehashed for a new generation in the current season of “The Crown." And only days later, that same Netflix series will pause production briefly as a mark of respect for Queen Elizabeth II as Britain — and the world — mourn the beloved monarch, who dies at age 96 after more than 70 years on the throne.
SEPTEMBER
Mounting political intrigue in Europe, and by that we mean … did spit fly at the Venice premiere of “Don't Worry Darling”? Either way the movie, directed by OLIVIA
The Other Brain
Hey y'all! Thanks for joining again! This week, I'm going to touch on the (overactive) brain again. But this time, it won't only include my own. Go ahead, read on!
As many of us know, the society we're living in now is so extremely different than the society our grandparents and great grandparents lived in. Now, it's more than common for the wife to hold a full time job as well as the husband. Back then, wives were expected to exist on a different level.
With that in mind, it's no wonder why our brains are so overactive! I personally feel like I don't have a lot of time to just sit and think. I totally get it now when my mom would say, “I'm tired of talking.” Sometimes, I don't want to talk, especially when it's repeating something to my children that didn't listen the first time. (Yeah…that will be another article/column/blog….whatever it is!) When I'm talking, there's no time for thinking! *Lightbulb goes off* This is why my brain goes 90 miles an hour when I lie down at night in silence! Or that thought I have about work in my “dreams” that suddenly awakens me and forces me to send a “Note to self” email so I'll remember it the next morning.
Now, onto the other brain, outside of my own. WILDE and starring her boyfriend
My dad had a massive stroke on September 1, 2022 (alleged spitter STYLES),
while on a fishing boat on Lake Fork near Sulphur is saddled – or blessed? – with
Springs with my brother. Just a little history: my more than its share of extracurricular
dad hasn't been in the best of health for awhile. You drama. At the EMMYS,
name it, he's probably had it. Diabetes, cancer, Afib, behold SHERYL LEE RALPH, kidney failure….you get my point. So when I who wins for “Abbott Elementary”
received the call about him having a stroke, I was and schools the crowd on the
unsure how to react. I waited on the next call for an power of dreams and self-belief.
update from my brother.
“This is what believing looks
“Angela,” my brother said, “Dad had a massive like,” she says. You know what
stroke and they need his medication list ASAP.” As else believing looks like? Rachel
the day went on in somewhat of a blur, they decided Berry from “Glee” – aka LEA MICHELE
to airlift him to a hospital in nearby Tyler, Texas – at last getting to play
because he had a clot on his brain. As you could expect, Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” on I jumped on Facebook and asked for thoughts Broadway. In sports, with four
and prayers. The weather changed and they were rueful words that resonate with
unable to fly him, so they took him by ambulance. working moms everywhere,
After they arrived in Tyler to do the operation, the SERENA WILLIAMS says she's
next report I received went something like this, stepping aside from tennis, because:
“The clot dissolved itself.” God is good, y'all. “Something's got to give.”
After reports and phone calls and visits to Tyler, OCTOBER
six hours away, we were unsure of the outcome. The second HARVEY WEINSTEIN
One doctor said that the stroke being on the left trial opens in Los Angeles.
side of his brain, which affects the right side of your ADIDAS drops YE, part of a
body, had paralyzed his whole right side. We went cascade of companies that will
from happy times to extremely difficult times, and sever ties with the rapper over
heartbreaking times when he wouldn't recognize his an- tisemitic and other
us. Dad spent 25 days in the hospital in Tyler and t r o u - bling comments.
then moved into an inpatient rehabilitation facility The MUSK era begins at TWITTER
a few blocks away. There, he spent another three as the world's richest man
weeks. Maaaaaan, I just thought my brain was in carries a sink into the office, to
overdrive before!
“let that sink in.” HEIDI KLUM'S
When I say the brain is a funny thing, I mean, this Halloween costume is a slimy,
organ that we all rely on for survival, is a FUNNY glistening rain worm. But before
thing. According to another doctor, it's a miracle the month worms away from
that he survived. Did I mention that my dad also us, let's cede it to SWIFT for
has a meningioma (small tumor) on his brain? I'm dropping her new album, “Midnights”
telling y'all, he's had it all. Between the month and (Spotify's most-streamed
a half that we watched my dad's stroke “journey,” album in a single day), then adding
we couldn't help but wonder, what’s the final outcome? seven bonus tracks, then becoming Apparently, it takes up to a year to get to a the first artist to occupy
“new normal.” all top 10 slots on the Billboard
My dad's brain has done a complete 360 since our Hot 100 chart. Let THAT sink
hardest days of watching him in the hospital and in! P.S. Celebrity divorce watch:
wondering what his future will look like. As of today, BRADY and wife GISELE BUNDCHEN my dad is residing in our local veterans' home. split.
He went from not recognizing who his own children were, to being able to tell the nurse to call me because Did we say LAST month was his ipad won't play a movie. He went from the Taylor Swift month? Well now,
doctor saying he'd never eat orally again to pulling millions of eager fans crowd a
his own feeding tube out of his stomach because it presale for her much-awaited
annoyed him (and he'd been eating orally for about Eras Tour, resulting in crashes
3 weeks). From the doctor saying that his whole and endless waits. Ticketmaster
right side is paralyzed to him getting rid of the cancels the general sale, citing
wheelchair and racing down the hallway with his insufficient stock. Multiple state
newfound friend and their walkers. He went from attorneys general announce investigations.
being so confused, irritated and impulsive that the Takeaway: People
hospital told us he'd possibly have to be admitted want Taylor Swift tickets. At
into the state hospital, to knowing exactly what he the multiplex, they also want
wants, when he wants it and physically showing us, their Wakanda. "Black Panther:
with both sides of his body!
Wakanda Forever” meets the
The only thing that the brain and stroke took from double challenge of following up
my dad was his speech and full independence. He is one of the biggest blockbusters
healthier now than he was prior to the stroke. He in history and losing its biggest
isn't in as much pain as he was, or at least that part star. of his brain doesn't send signals. I could go into all the details of what the stroke does when it affects Love ‘em or hate 'em, here come
the entire left side of the body, but instead, I'll just HARRY and MEGHAN again,
ask you to consider the health of your brain. I'm with a Netflix “documentary”
asking you all to be aware of the risk factors that being watched very, very closely
lead up to a stroke. Of course, there are risk factors by royalty across the pond. Cameron's
that are hereditary, but there are some that are a "AVATAR” sequel finally
choice. My dad had several of them that he could appears, 13 years after the original
have changed. If you are unaware of the signs of a broke records. Will viewers
stroke, do a little research on those, too. flock to Pandora once again?
My dad survived because my brother knew those And bringing the year full circle,
signs and made the immediate decision to call 911, SMITH emerges to promote his
as he tried to hold my dad upright and drove a boat new film, “EMANCIPATION,”
as fast as he could to the dock. The quicker you recognize and hoping people will forget the signs and symptoms, the quicker you about … what was it? … at least
can react and the better the outcome may be. enough to check out the movie.
So today, instead of complaining about the irritation In this year of comebacks, will of an overactive brain, I'll just be thankful that Smith's be the biggest?
it still works….even if it is working overtime! Check back with us in 2023.