Entertainment
Country star Ella Langley says ‘very scary’ Alabama church haunted house led to her getting ‘saved again’

Ella Langley is opening up about what it was like for her growing up in a small town as a Southern Baptist.
During an interview on the “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von” podcast, the 26-year-old country music star spoke about her upbringing in a small town in Alabama, recalling getting scared in the church’s “judgment houses.”
“It’s, like, they do it around Halloween,” she said. “It’s like a haunted house for Christians, I guess. Very scary. I remember our youth group took us. You get in there, and it’s like this car crash scene, and it’s pretty much like convincing you… that you could die the second you walk out of here, so you better settle up. You better get saved.”
She explained that the haunted houses “affected me so bad” that when they asked her youth group if anyone wanted to talk, she raised her hand and “got saved again.”
The “Excuse the Mess” singer recalled her dad telling her, “Well, you are kind of a dumba–, cuz that’s the whole point of being saved.”
Langley explained that she was homeschooled for many years, and her life consisted of going to church, noting, “Pretty much all we did was go to church.”
She noted it was a “really, really small church. It started in a barn. The house that I also grew up in, my dad grew up in, and there was an old barn across the street, and it started in hay bales on that barn, and then they moved it to a church, and I mean every Sunday and Wednesday until I was 18 years old.”
She compared growing up in a small town to her experience with fame, explaining, “You’ve known all these people your whole life,” and growing up in that environment, “I would hear s— about me all the time,” adding, “you just get used to that.”
Langley began her career on social media, gaining a following by posting covers on TikTok and Instagram, leading her to release her EP “Excuse the Mess” in 2023.
The EP helped solidify her fan base and included many of her early hits, including “If You Have To” and “Country Boy’s Dream Girl.” She achieved mainstream success when she collaborated with Riley Green on her hit song “You Look Like You Love Me,” which went viral on TikTok, got millions of streams on Spotify and Apple Music, and expanded her audience.
Her debut studio album, “Hungover,” was released in August 2024, and in April 2025, Langley was presented with the ACM New Female Artist of the Year award by country icon Miranda Lambert, who has become a good friend to the budding star.
“I was singing constantly as a kid. Like I said, I’ve known my whole life what I wanted to do, so I was always doing it,” she told Grammy.com in August 2024, adding she became a stronger songwriter during COVID, saying, “all I did was write, write, write.”
The “Choosin’ Texas” singer told the outlet that storytelling is in her blood, noting, her “dad’s an incredible storyteller” and so was her grandpa. “Storytelling is what my family did,” she said.
When speaking with Theo Von on the podcast, she credited her grandparents on her father’s side for nurturing her love of music, saying her “grandpa could play anything by ear.”
“I was, like, the first girl in the family, and I started to match pitch with [my grandma] as a baby, and so she figured out I could sing, and singing was her thing, and my grandpa could, like I said, play any instrument by ear, and so at their house, that’s all we did,” she said
“I sang at church a lot. I learned how to read from singing hymnals,” she added. “I really, just the whole time, like, my whole family, we all just were like, ‘This is what she’s gonna do.’”
Entertainment
Usher boots fan off stage after her painfully awkward response to his seductive dance moves

Usher quickly put a stop to sexily serenading a fan onstage after she got visibly uncomfortable.
In a now-viral moment from the singer’s performance in Nashville on The R&B Tour with Chris Brown on Saturday, a woman from the audience got pulled onstage as the chosen fan Usher sings to. But as a shirtless Usher started singing to her, she looked painfully uncomfortable, though he continued to try to interact with her by lightly touching her chin and face.
But when he tried to get her to recline on the onstage bed and she stiffly moved back, the 47-year-old singer pulled away.
“I don’t think she want to be on the stage, huh?” he asked the audience, looking bewildered.
Eventually, the “Yeah!” singer stepped away from her completely and waved his hand backwards towards the stage in a signal to bring the fan off, looking annoyed as some fans began to boo.
The fan later took to social media to clap back at criticism she received, responding to comments that she should have never agreed to go onstage if she didn’t want to be there.
“First off NOBODY is declining to go on stage,” she wrote. “I looked good asf, you think I wasn’t going to let THOUSANDS of people see me?”
She shared that she and her mom had floor seats to the show, and she was moved up to the VIP section before the concert even started due to “pretty privileges.”
“They don’t say who you’re going up there for!” she wrote. “Y’all wanted me to go up there and f–k him atp?”
On Sunday, she posted selfies, and pointedly captioned her post, “Unbothered 😘.”
But she continued to defend herself on her Instagram Stories, insisting her attitude wasn’t “nasty.”
“Y’all aren’t gonna get on the internet calling me out my name and disrespecting me and expect me to keep it cool!” she expressed, adding, “Don’t think that yall are gonna bully me about an experience that yall didn’t get!”
Usher is known for his spicy concert interactions with fans. His bodyguard hilariously went viral in 2024 for seemingly looking disgusted on the Past Present Future Tour, during the part of the singer’s show when he would let audience members seductively eat cherries.
Usher’s co-headliner, Chris Brown, also went viral in September 2025 but for an entirely different reaction that he got to pulling a fan onstage — that fan being Travis Kelce’s ex Kayla Nicole.
Brown, 37, gave Nicole, 34, a sensual lap dance while singing his 2007 hit, “Take You Down,” during the singer’s Breezy Bowl XX Tour stop in Los Angeles, prompting mixed reaction online. Some fans thought the two went too far, while others praised Nicole for seizing the moment.
Entertainment
John Cusack reveals why he stepped away from Hollywood after decades of films

John Cusack opened up about why he’s largely taken a step back from Hollywood.
The “Being John Malkovich” star, 60, said he wanted to tell stories without studio executives weighing in, prompting him to write his upcoming graphic novel “Momo.”
“I always thought [graphic novels] were the closest things to film, really,” he told Variety at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. “You’re picking out shots, they’re so cinematic.”
Cusack explained he turned to writing because he “didn’t [want to] negotiate telling a story.”
“When you ask somebody to put $20 million or $30 million into a bank account [for a film], they want to have an opinion and they’re afraid and all that stuff,” he said.
Instead, he teamed up with illustrator Ignacio Noé to create “Momo” on their own terms.
“This was just like, I wrote it, and I said, ‘I like the story,’ and then I got this beautiful, wonderful artist, Ignacio Noé, to do the illustrations and so nobody edited anything I wrote or that he drew,” Cusack said.
“So it’s really a piece of work that was just done by two people. It was just me and Ignacio’s story, and that doesn’t happen today.”
“There’s no bull, and there’s no committee. There’s no computer up in Seattle that’s poll testing it,” he added.
“Momo” — Cusack’s first graphic novel — is set to be released on Sept. 29.
The story follows two fugitives in 1972 who set out to recover an ancient artifact for TV icon Jackie Gleason.
The actor spent decades as one of Hollywood’s most recognizable leading men, starring in “Grosse Pointe Blank,” “High Fidelity” and “Con Air,” but his acting career has become increasingly selective in recent years.
He appeared in the 2025 films “Fog of War” and the Mandarin-language film “Detective Chinatown 1900” after starring in the Chinese espionage thriller “Decoded” in 2024.
Before that, his only screen credits since 2020 were the action thriller “Pursuit” and Amazon’s dystopian series “Utopia.”
Cusack has been outspoken about the state of Hollywood for years.
“My friend Joe Roth ran Disney [until 2000],” he told the Guardian in 2014. “He made things like ‘The Rock’ and ‘Con Air’ to make shareholders happy, but then he also gave six or seven slots to people he liked.
“I got to make ‘High Fidelity’ and ‘Grosse Pointe Blank.’ Spike Lee got to make ‘Summer of Sam.’ Wes Anderson got to make ‘Rushmore.’ I had that memory of film and that’s gone.”
“Now it’s six for them — with a committee cutting the film who weren’t part of making it – and maybe one for you,” he added.
Cusack isn’t the only member of his family to step away from the spotlight.
His older sister, actress Joan Cusack, 63, made her first red-carpet appearance since 2015 in May when she attended the London premiere of “Toy Story 5,” ending an 11-year absence from public events.
“I feel so honored to have worked in this industry for a long time,” the actress told Variety in June. “But it’s also great to live your life and raise your kids and be in Chicago and be a normal person.”
Entertainment
Kelly Clarkson shares rare love life update

Kelly Clarkson defended her right to remain single during a recent Las Vegas residency show.
“People are like, ‘Oh, why are you single?’ And I’m like, ‘First of all, there are a lot of people out here making single look real good,’” the talk show host told the crowd Friday at her “Studio Sessions” show at Caesars Palace, per social media footage.
“And if you didn’t really understand what I meant by that, it’s like you see relationships and you’re like, ‘I am so glad I’m going home alone.’”
She jokingly added, “You know what’s not happening in my house? That s–t.”
“If you are in a relationship, the hardest part I feel like is just keeping that fire alive and still dating,” the “American Idol” winner continued. “And, like, still making it feel magical and not monotonous.”
The “Miss Independent” hitmaker, 44, has kept her dating life under wraps since she finalized her divorce from late ex-husband Brandon Blackstock in 2022.
Blackstock — who shared daughter River Rose, 12, and son Remy, 10, with the pop star — died in August 2025 at the age of 48 after battling melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer.
Though she returned to “The Kelly Clarkson Show” that September, Page Six reported in January that the Grammy winning songstress would be ending the daytime talk show.
The mom of two confirmed the impending end of her series in February, writing in a social media statement that there had “been so many amazing moments and shows over these seven seasons.”
She added that she’s “forever grateful and honored to have worked alongside the greatest band and crew you could hope for” and acknowledged “all the talent and inspiring people who have shared their time and lives with us.”
Clarkson wrote that it was “not an easy decision” to step away, and noted that she felt it’s “necessary and right for this next chapter of our lives” to prioritize her children.
The show will wrap up and air its final episodes this fall and her summer Las Vegas residency runs through Aug. 15.
Clarkson also released her new single, “I’d Be Lyin’,” on July 17.
Prior to Blackstock’s passing, Clarkson — who filed for divorced from the producer in 2020 and saw the legal matter settled in 2022 — addressed why she isn’t dating.
“Dating can be very difficult, which is why I don’t,” she told her Las Vegas audience in July 2025.
Clarkson said at the time that since dating “is hard anyway,” it can be a “dumpster fire” when you “add a spotlight.”
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