HitFix

Outrage Watch: Zayn Malik says you’re all just jealous

by: Uproxx authors

Welcome to the March 19, 2015 edition of Outrage Watch, HitFix's (almost) daily rundown of all the things folks are peeved about in entertainment. Today's top story: you're all just jealous of Zayn Malik.

The One Direction heartthrob, who just pulled out of the boy band's tour of Asia due to “stress,” has slammed rumors that he cheated on fiancee Perrie Edwards with a “mystery blonde,” writing on Twitter:

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Sounds guilty to me.

[Daily Mail]

Want more? There's plenty of indignation to go around. See below for a full roundup of today's kerfuffles.

Outraged: Black scholar Dr. Boyce D. Watkins
Target: FOX's “Empire”
Why: After slamming the blockbuster FOX series set at a hip-hop entertainment company as “ghettofied hood drama” and “coonery” in a January column, Watkins expanded on the comments on last night's “CNN Tonight” hosted by Don Lemon, saying: “A lot of black actors and actresses are just tired of being put in the entertainment ghetto. The entertainment ghetto is basically the place where you have roles that are shows that are specifically designed for black people, where black actors are kind of locked into. …I can tell you this, if that family were a normal family and didn't have so many dysfunctions, those characters would have been white.”

“If you're calling it coonery, then you might be calling [my] family coonery, cause I have a lot of those folks in my family,” responded visibly-offended co-panelist Nischelle Turner.

Later in the segment Watkins also appeared to lump the series in with so-called “blaxploitation television,” though he was cut off before he could finish his statement.

Meanwhile, have you seen Cookie and Anika's fight? Bru-tal.

Outraged: Kendall Jenner
Target: US Weekly
Why: The reality star wants you to know she never talked to Us Weekly about her father Bruce Jenner's transition:

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In a story posted Wednesday (which has since been taken down), the magazine quoted Jenner as saying: “I love my dad. He's always been there for me and my sisters. He's a wonderful man. And just because he's changing shoes now, so to speak, doesn't make him less wonderful. I will always love my dad, whether he's a man or a woman.”

Good thing she cleared the air on this. Those quotes make her sound like a MONSTER.

[Extra]

Outraged: Pharrell Williams
Target: The “Blurred Lines” verdict
Why: “The verdict handicaps any creator out there who is making something that might be inspired by something else,” Williams told The Financial Times after being ordered, along with “Blurred Lines” “co-writer” Robin Thicke, to pay more than $7.3 million to the Marvin Gaye family over copyright infringement (the family claims Thicke and Williams plagiarized Gaye's 1977 song “Got to Give It Up”). “This applies to fashion, music, design… anything. If we lose our freedom to be inspired, we're going to look up one day and the entertainment industry as we know it will be frozen in litigation. This is about protecting the intellectual rights of people who have ideas.”

[Financial Times via Rolling Stone]

Outraged: Daily Beast writer Stereo Williams
Target: Pharrell Williams, Common, Raven Symone
Why: Williams is lashing out at recent statements made by Williams (“The New Black doesn”t blame other races for our issues”), Common (“Me as a black man, I”m not sitting there like, ‘White people-y”all did us wrong”) and Symone (who defended a Univision host fired for comparing Michelle Obama to a character from “Planet of the Apes”), writing in part: “The idea that black people”s reaction to racism-and not the racism itself-is what must be addressed is an effective distraction that decenters the struggle of black people. It centers the comfort of white people, absolving white supremacy and indicting black rage as 'the problem.'”

Good read. Check out the full piece here.

Outraged: Twitter, New York Daily News contributor Erica Pearson
Target: Eva Mendes
Why: After counseling women not to wear sweatpants around the house — They're the “number one cause of divorce in America,” the actress jokingly (?) told Extra — Mendes was in hot water with a number of folks online.

“Hey, girl – is that really the message you want to send?” writes Erica Pearson over at the New York Daily News, who added later: “If so, that”s sad. I thought the days when moms felt the pressure to look as perfect as Betty Draper from 'Mad Men' each morning just might be behind us.”

Twitter also was not thrilled about this:

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In case you were wondering, this is what Eva wears on a typical Sunday:

Outraged: Charlie Sheen
Target: President Obama
Why: Perennial shit-starter Sheen took aim at Obama's annual tradition of filling out March Madness brackets on ESPN's “Sportscenter” by firing off a tweet that referred to the Commander in Chief as “Barry Satera Kenya” and accused him of, essentially, being more interested in the NCAA tournament than attending a “soldier's funeral” — possibly that of Major General Harold Greene, a soldier who was killed last August while serving in Afghanistan. (Read more about that here.)

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Not surprisingly, Sheen's tweet has come under fire from multiple sources.

“Charlie Sheen”s Racist Obama Rant,” reads the Daily Beast headline.

“Charlie Sheen launches racist Twitter tirade against President Obama,” charges the Guardian.

And on Twitter:

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Let's not give him too much attention, guys.