16 ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT US AT: 8351-9456, 1215820631@QQ.COMTuesday May 26, 2020

LADY GAGA had just dropped what is sure to be the song of the summer, “Rain on Me,” an irresistibly earwormy ’90s throwback featuring Ariana Grande. The house music banger’s new music video, which premiered Friday morning, features the two pop-queen warriors reigning over an anime rave on the fan-tastic planet Chromatica, in a dazzling display of cyberpunk girl power.

But surprisingly, Gaga, whose “Chromatica” album drops next week, confessed in a recent interview with Apple Music’s Beats 1 host Zane Lowe that she was initially “ashamed” to pursue a friend-ship with Grande — and that this dynamite duet would have never happened if Grande hadn’t pursued and encour-aged her.

Gaga revealed that she

initially pushed Grande away because she was worried that she would be a bad influence on her younger peer — who was coping with the trauma from the 2017 bombing at her Manchester concert and the 2018 overdose death of her ex-boyfriend, Mac Miller.

“[Grande] was so persistent. She would try over and over again to be friends with me,” Gaga told Lowe. “And I was too ashamed to hang out with her, because I didn’t want to project all of this negativity onto some-thing that was healing and so beautiful.”

After that conversation, that very night an inspired Gaga wrote “Rain on Me” — a song that she said “has many layers” and is “a metaphor for the amount of drinking that I was doing to numb myself” while dealing with her own trauma.

Gaga said the “true partner-ship” she and Grande forged while recording “Rain on Me” and shooting its music video was crucial to her own heal-

ing process. “She was so open to trying things that she hasn’t done before.

Celebrating the Thursday evening release of the “Rain

on Me” track and the Friday morning premiere of the video, Gaga and Grande took to social media to celebrate each other.

(SD-Agencies)

Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande triumph over their trauma

Ariana Grande (L) and Lady Gaga embrace in the final scene of their “Rain on Me” music video. SD-Agencies

CAPPING an online contro-versy that has played out over the past few days, Lana Del Rey dropped a new spoken-word piece titled “Patent Leather Do-Over,” featuring music by Jack Antonoff, late Saturday.

The singer sparked atten-tion with a forcefully worded Thursday post in which she wrote she was being accused by critics of “glamorizing abuse” and held to a different standard than fellow female artists like Doja Cat, Ariana Grande, Camila Cabello, Cardi B, Kehlani, Nicki Minaj and Beyonce.

In a follow-up Saturday post, the singer said the new piece

would appear on “Behind the Iron Gates — Insights From an Institution,” the second of two spoken-word LPs she has recorded, and which she says was due in March; the singer previously announced her first spoken word album “Violet Bent Backwards Over

the Grass,” as well as a follow-up to her Grammy-nominated album “Norman F—ing Rock-well,” which features extensive collaboration with Antonoff.

In “Patent Leather Do-Over,” Del Rey talks about the late British poet Sylvia Plath and her best-known work, “The Bell Jar.”

“Sylvia, I knew what you meant when you talked about swimming in the ocean and leaving your patent leather black shoes pointed towards it while you swam. It tickled you to leave them there,” Del Rey says, continuing with a reference to Plath’s husband, poet Ted Hughes.

(SD-Agencies)

Lana Del Rey drops spoken-word song ‘Patent Leather Do-Over’

Lana Del Rey

AVIRON Pictures founder William Sadleir was charged Friday with allegedly misap-propriating funds meant for businesses impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Sadleir was ousted from the indie distributor in January.

The 66-year-old producer was also charged separately by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday for allegedly defraud-ing a publicly-traded fund of at least US$13.8 million.

According to the Department of Justice, Sadleir secured more than US$1.7 million from the forgivable Paycheck Protection Program, which he said would be used for payroll via three film production and distribu-tion companies. Instead, he allegedly used the money for personal expenses.

Sadleir was arrested Friday and subsequently charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, false statements to a financial institution and false state-ments to the Small Business Administration, according to federal authorities. The recently passed PPP program is meant to assist employees and small businesses battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

“This film producer alleg-edly made a series of misrep-resentations to a bank and the Small Business Admin-istration to illegally secure

taxpayer money that he then used to fund his nearly empty personal bank account,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna of the Central District of California said in a statement. “The Paycheck Protection Program was implemented to help small businesses stay afloat during the financial crisis, and we will act swiftly against those who abuse the program for their own personal gain.”

Also on Friday, the SEC charged Sadleir in Manhattan court with violating the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws, the producer allegedly misappropriating millions from investors.

The SEC alleges BlackRock Multi-Sector Income Trust, a registered closed-end man-agement investment company, invested approximately US$75 million in Aviron.

“When private companies and individuals solicit or accept investments, including from investment companies, they must comply with the federal securities laws,” Adam S. Aderton, co-chief of the SEC’s enforcement division’s asset management unit said in a statement. “We allege that Sadleir raided millions from BIT and its investors, and rather than using those funds for investment purposes he spent them lavishly on him-self.” (SD-Agencies)

Aviron Pictures founder charged in $1.7m pandemic scam

AS the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to keep people in self-isolation, Disney+ remains a source of at-home entertainment. And the streaming service has announced a number of titles that will be added in June.

Among them are beloved animated Disney films, includ-ing 1999’s “Tarzan” and its 2005 sequel “Tarzan II.”

Fan-favorite live-action films are also being added to the roster, such as the 2010 film adaptation of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”

Another book adaptation

that is set to premiere on Disney+ in June is “Artemis Fowl,” based on Eoin Colfer’s 2001 YA novel.

Elsewhere, “Frozen” fans are in for a treat with the pre-miere of “Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2.” The six-part documentary series fol-lows the filmmakers, artists, songwriters and cast as they create the long-awaited sequel to the original 2013 Disney animated feature.

Other noteworthy addi-tions include season three of the Disney Channel sitcom “Raven’s Home,” seasons one and two of “Howie Mandel’s

Animals Doing Things” and the 2014 animated film “Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy.” On the animated series side, season one of the retro classic “Schoolhouse Rock” will make its debut on the streamer as will season one of 1997’s “101 Dalmatians.”

(SD-Agencies)

Disney+’s new releases come in June

A scene from “Tarzan.” SD-Agencies