Some disturbing new details have come to light concerning the death of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa.  And their dog. The bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife were partially mummified when they were found Wednesday.  Authorities are still trying to piece together what happened, but there aren’t many answers yet.

Katy Perry is going into outer space, for real.  She’s joining an all-female crew on board one of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space flights. She’ll be joined by Gayle King from “CBS Mornings”, Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sanchez, and three other women:  An aerospace engineer, a civil rights activist, and a filmmaker. Lauren reportedly brought the mission together, and will tentatively launch this spring. 

William Shatner says he’s in talks to return to the “Star Trek” universe as Captain Kirk. William Shatner hasn’t graced our screens as Captain James Kirk since Star Trek: Generations. He vocally returned as Kirk in Roddenberry Archive’s short “Unification,” with his face de-aged; however, Sam Witwer actually played the role. That didn’t make fans any less happy to see the captain back. We’ll take him no matter how we can get him, and now, it’s possible we might be able to see him once again as the formidable Captain Kirk. Shatner is 93.

Jelly Roll tells Eric Church that he once showed up to elementary school drunk. “My household was a little turbulent. We lived in a middle lower class neighborhood in Antioch right out here. Mother kinda struggled with alcohol addiction, daddy drank, you know what I mean? I was probably 13 years old when I found out vodka wasn’t a sweetener. If you watch vodka get poured in a Stanley coffee cup your whole life at 5 AM, you just assume it’s Sweet ‘N Low, until you’re 13 and you’re old enough to want to drink some Sweet ‘N Low with your coffee. I’ll never forget that conversation, when I showed up to elementary school drunk. Yes, I am as white trash as I appear.”

Remember ABC’s “TGIF” programming block?  Well, that didn’t stand for “Thank God It’s Friday”.  It stood for “Thank Goodness It’s Funny”. ABC’s “TGIF” began in 1989 and ran through 2000. In its time, it featured family favorites like Full House, Boy Meets World, Family Matters, Step by Step, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Perfect Strangersand Sister, Sister, among others.

In Touch Weekly says Kevin Costner is interested in collaborating on a comedy project with Pete Davidson after bonding with him during the Super Bowl. A source tells the magazine, “Pete and Kevin have crossed paths over the years and always clicked. Pete has a lot of admiration for him, he was psyched about him being at the Super Bowl and talking movies with him. Pete is a huge film nerd and so is Kevin and they want to explore that more with an aim of possibly working on something together. Kevin is always eager to try new things and genres, doing something with more of a comedy bent to it is absolutely on his radar. His sons are big fans of Pete too, so he will score huge points by bringing Pete around.” 

Zendaya will voice Shrek’s daughter Felicia in “Shrek 5”.  She’s seen in a new teaser alongside an aged Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey. (You can see Zendaya’s character in the announcement here.)

RadarOnline.com says Miranda Lambert is looking forward to being the opening act on Morgan Wallen’s tour because her team believes it will help her expand her audience. A source says,  “Hey, Miranda got her start warming up for Toby Keith and others in arenas and amphitheaters – it got her out of playing the honky-tonks and in front of a whole lot more people. She’s graduated to playing arenas now, but she isn’t big enough to sell out football stadiums like Morgan does. Plus, it’s not like she and Morgan are strangers. They’ve been good pals for years, and she’s looking forward to raising a little hell with him on this massive tour.”

It’s sometimes easy to forget that Carrie Underwood was a no-name until she was on “American Idol” 20 years ago.  Because Carrie is MASSIVE right now. (Here’s the video.  If Carrie’s diary entry included any OGLING over the beautiful MANES of Bo Bice and Constantine Maroulis, she didn’t read that part aloud.)

The Country Music Hall of Fame added Taylor Swift’s purple “cupcake” dress from the Eras Tour.  She wore it when she announced “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” during her Eras Tour stop in Nashville in 2023. (Here’s a photo, and here’s a video that shows a bunch of other Taylor stuff they have.)

Tinsel Town Talk – Fri 02/28/2025