11-21-24 Morning Rush - Dancing With The Stars Artem & Nikki Finalize Divorce & Bachelor Lawyer Calls Me Out (Again) I Correct Him (Again)

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 Welcome to the rush hour, your daily dose of pop culture for your rush hour ride, buckle up and enjoy the drive with your host, stand up comedian, Dave Neal. Hey, good morning everybody. It's Thursday, baby, November 21st, 2024 and I got all of your pop culture news in one place. We're going to open with Nikki Bella and Artem Chigvintsev settling their divorce at a court.

We'll I love that story for you. And in other dancing with the stars news, we've got the pommel horse, Prince Steven, the door is sick. Neterozic, whatever, explains what happened when his glasses fell off on his semi finale dance. And also a feel good story on the gridiron as a school's football team received a surprise donation.

By a famous quarterback. Plus Gronkowski weighs in on the disastrous Jets season as coach and general manager have now been fired. And speaking of getting fired, the rocks new Christmas movie bombs at the box office in Elton John's new play bombs on Broadway, a lot of bombs happening out there. And it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

We got all these stories and more coming up next on the brush. Well, it looks like the messy divorce between Nikki Bella and Artem Chigvintsev, a former Dancing with the Stars dancer, has been finalized. Here's TMZ reporting the story. Nikki Bella and Artem Chigvintsev have settled their divorce. Hey there, it's Charli now from TMZ.

So we've obtained legal docs which reveal Artem and Nikki went to mediation earlier this month and figured out a divorce settlement. Our sources tell us that Artem and Nikki agreed to quickly settle their divorce because they both want to move on, because it was getting very expensive to pay lawyers.

Plus the whole process was becoming emotionally draining. We're told Artem and Nikki aren't getting along these days, but they are cooperating with one another and their relationship is very much a work in progress. The terms of the settlement aren't clear, but as we first reported, a judge already ordered Artem and Nikki to share custody of their four year old son, Mateo.

We broke the story. Nicky filed for divorce from Artem in the wake of his domestic violence arrest back in August, though prosecutors ultimately decided not to file criminal charges against him. Artem and Nicky also had restraining orders against each other, but the documents show they agreed to dismiss those restraining orders as well.

The settlement comes about two weeks before. For their divorce trial was set to begin. And our sources say the exes wanted to get it over with and move on with their lives without each other for more entertainment news. Well, it looks like cooler heads have prevailed, at least to the extent that the baby's not going to go broke because they were fighting.

You know, this is the saddest part, right? Lawyers always win. We love lawyers when they're on our side, but in the world of divorces, they always win, and bachelorette would have loved to go to mediation when you're in mediation, you're not in the courtroom. So not everything's public, right? You can sit down with your ex and you can hammer things out with a mediator.

And it seems like that's exactly what went down. So I guess this is a good thing that they're both moving on. Well, we covered jelly roll yesterday. He's dropped over a hundred pounds in the last year, and he wants to be open and honest about his weight loss journey. Uh, entertainment tonight caught up with him.

Here's what he had to say. This is your moment, Jelle. You deserve this. Man, it is. Sitting here talking to you last year, coming back a year later, being 100 pounds lighter on the carpet alone, if that was the only thing I did in that year, it would be like, wow. But then think about the year I've had, man.

You've been so open about your health and wellness journey. You look incredible. You've lost, what, over 100 pounds? Yes, ma'am. I just want to feel good. I want to feel normal. I've been morbidly obese my entire life. I want to feel normal. It's just something I want to do. And I'm pretty committed to it. I can't wait to come back next year and then look back.

And I'm also glad I'm being so honest about it. Cause I want the world to see it, man. I don't want to, I'm not hiding it. I didn't go try to do it in the dark. You know what I mean? I'm, I'm just doing it right here in front of everybody. I want to continue to show what God can do if you allow him to work.

Amazing. Look, I've been a fan of Jelly Roll ever since I heard his viral song, Save Me, uh, unbelievable. So he posts this song, I get goosebumps thinking about it. He posts this song four years ago, let's play it in the background. And this song, in the comment section, he says, I know this is a little different for me, but I'm wondering if this should make the album or not.

Y'all let me know. That comment got 111,000 up votes. The song has 276 million views. Somebody save Me, me

So Long Live this song has resonated with so many people that they actually see a jelly roll. show as like going to church and being saved themselves. And why is that? Well, it's because he's been able to talk about his addictions, his time in and out of prison and all of his issues. He wears his heart on his sleeve unapologetically.

He made it out alive. And not only has he blown up in the indie circuit, he's now a full blown star. I feel like it's all that I need Something inside of me's broken I hold on to anything that sets me free I'm all scars Baby, don't waste your time So he wears his heart on his sleeve But he also uses that energy of his past and where he's been.

He uses it as motivation to drive him forward. I actually saw a reel of his recently where he shared that some advice. I think his grandfather gave him is that you should own property. It's the one thing that, uh, is finite on this earth and you should own a plot of it. And he ended up saying how proud he was in Tennessee to buy.

I don't know what it was like 200 acres or a thousand, whatever it was. It was a massive property and he's just, he's just sharing these blessings he's getting in life. And he's letting people go along for the ride. I absolutely can't state this enough. I love seeing stuff like that. So a big fan of jelly roll over here.

Well, we love underdogs. We love champions. We love hearing people's success stories. And of course, Steven, uh, Neterozic, uh, pommel horse Prince, the bronze medal winner From this past year of the Olympics in Paris, he's been competing on dancing with the stars. Let's be honest. He's not a great dancer. He's never danced before, kind of nerdy, wears glasses, can barely see, has no depth percent perception.

Uh, yet he's managed to, you know, uh, make it this far and we love him. He's got great energy and here's what he and his partner, Riley Arnold had to say about their dance. It looked as though her elbow might've knocked his glasses off mid dance. Let's have a listen. All season, we have not worn Steven has not worn his glasses all season.

And that was kind of like our plan throughout because, you know, like, when we do dance with his glasses, sometimes I bump them. And there's always that risk that they fly off during like a trick or something. Yes, which is just not ideal for our situation. So, we had taken them off. But for this tango, I was like, I want him to wear his glasses.

Like, glasses are Steven. That is who he is. End to end. It was kind of like he took them off in the cha cha and it was a whole moment of him putting on his glasses And it being like his story. Okay, so that was like my plan with the tango We have practiced all rehearsals with his glasses on and this has like literally never happened Yes, like he has never taken off his glasses and practiced the tango At all in rehearsal no issues at all and no issues so we're dancing Guys we have But obviously we are in crunch time already because you know, we did the cha cha Scores happen and we were like pressure's high.

We have to walk step it up. Yeah, we gotta step it up Okay. Halfway through the dance. All of a sudden I feel Stephen, he's very unstable. And I'm just like, what's happening? He didn't mess up, he's doing all his footwork, but something was just so unstable. And I was like, something's wrong. I was like, did he get hurt?

Like, I'm just so confused. I turn around look at his face literally like this So he's showing his glasses. They were they looked like a comedically off they were and again, he can't fix him He's in his hold and he does his thing either way. I love I love this couple. I love what he's doing Um, i've never i've never known the name of a male gymnast It's not something that you typically know if unless you follow male gymnastics But from the second I saw steven, uh, neda razik.

I I knew I was a fan of his Very unique set of pommel horse skills. All right. Well, I'm going to go into a feel good story here. We need some more feel good news out here. It's a wild time. I got a feel good football story coming for you next. Well, Baker Mayfield donated equipment to a high school football team because their season was in jeopardy.

And not only did he donate the equipment, but then he found out that they won the state title. Have a listen to this. You guys donated 17, 900 to for equipment. They went one and eight last year, and during the bye week, they went 10 and three, won the state championship. How cool was that to, to see that, to hear that news?

And they said that every week, you know, they would have these watch parties where they would, they would team bond over watching you play. They said you played a big part in their season. Um, I mean that it's, I got chills thinking about it. It's, it's just a cool story. Um, like I said, just. Got an unbelievable platform to be able to give back and, uh, obviously they were in a predicament of probably not having a season for not just for the varsity, the JV, they didn't have enough equipment.

So just being able to give back and then seeing that turnaround and it's, um, all we did was get some helmets. They did the rest, they turned it around, they believed in it. And that's, that's what football is all about. It's teaches you life lessons, how to handle adversity, how to deal with it and push forward.

So, uh, yeah, congrats to them. It's pretty special. It reminds me of a hockey team I know of up in Minnesota that, uh, was playing for a district that had little funding. And then they actually got some donations from a man named Mr. Duxworth. And with the help of Emilio Estevez, they became the mighty ducks, the flying V.

I mean, this is the football version of the mighty ducks. All it is. And you know what? It's actually a good point. Sometimes you just need good swag. To play well. You know, they always say like dress for the job you want, not the job you have, but there really is something to it. You know, you get a nice Jersey on for me with standup.

I put on new shoes. Oh, I'm feeling good out there. Well, no nice Jersey or new shoes was going to save the jets this season. Uh, after a few games, the jets coach was fired. Some think that was Aaron Rogers doing, uh, but then the general manager was fired too. Here's what Gronk had to say. There's drama, of course, going on.

He's, it's never a dull moment for Devante Adams. Uh, he gets there. He was there, he's been there for 35 days. A coach gets fired mid trade. Now we have, the GM is fired on Tuesday. They're leaving for a bye week. If you're, like, what even happens here? What are your thoughts when you heard this is happening?

I mean, it's a, it's a show going on over there with the New York Jets right now. And, uh, it's a tough situation. I mean, I feel for all the guys over there, you never want to be in an organization that's just falling every single week, weekend and week out. And there's just really no positives, uh, throughout, throughout the whole situation and especially when expectations were just so high and they just been playing at such a low standard.

It's tough. It's tough. I mean, they've tried to do everything, obviously starting off with firing coach Robert Sala, bringing in Devante Adams, bringing in all the other guys that Aaron Rodgers wanted as well. And now they're firing their GS. I mean, it just goes to show that, you know, when you don't have the right chemistry, we don't have the right team unity, you know, you, you crumble, you really crumble without all that.

Um, so we'll get into some of the bombs speaking of the jets bombing. Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, his new movie, Red One, bombs at the box office. They say it might not even make it to Christmas. It's a Christmas movie, but did they release it too early? Um, so it stars Lucy Liu, Chris Evans, and Dwayne Johnson.

And, uh, he's also the producer. And I guess the budget was 250 million. Opening weekend. It only made 3. 34 million and not good, not good at all. Uh, you know, how it'll do long term yet to be seen. Uh, I think he'll be okay. He'll be fine. I'm going to watch it. It's the rock playing, uh, Santa's bodyguard. Yeah, sure.

Or his head of his secret service. So it wasn't the only bomb in the world of entertainment. Elton John's 25 million Broadway musical announces closure just five days after opening. This is wild. It's called Tammy Faye and it's set to close next month. It quickly failed to fill audience capacity at week ending 17th of November.

It drew a gross of 374, 000 with an overall attendance of 5, 700, which is 63 percent capacity. It'll close with a final performance at New York's Palace Theater on December 8th. After just 24 previews and 29 regular performances, reviews have been scathing with the New York Post calling it a disaster of biblical proportions.

We love a good disaster though. I bet you this is the type of press that'll get people to want Alright, well Netflix is being hit with a class action lawsuit over streaming issues on the Jake Paul Mike Tyson bout. The fight emerged as the most viewed sporting event ever on the platform, with 108 million people watching worldwide.

Tens of thousands of subscribers reported trouble with their streams. A Florida resident alleges Netflix was woefully ill prepared for the nine figure global audience that tuned in to the bout, and the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages on behalf of subscribers. Who had trouble watching the fight brings claims for breach of contract and violations of Florida law surrounding deceptive trade practices and consumer protection.

Oh boy. I mean, we're a little too Sue happy, right? It's like, first of all, 99 percent of us are stealing Netflix from our moms. They're just like, whatever, you know, either way, as far as the fight's concerned, here's what, uh, David Portnoy, a CEO of Barstool had to say regarding the Paul brothers, Jake and Logan being the possible best marketers of our generation.

I say Jake Paul and Logan, maybe the two best marketers ever live of our generation and his boxing career. Jake's brilliant. Like he's built himself up enough where he can do this. People hate his guts for the most part, but he lost a Tommy fury who stinks. That's the only guys ever fought. Who's sort of a real boxer, sorta not his side.

So. I don't know where they go next. They've been so unbelievable. Every time you're like, who do they have that can draw the interest? Yeah. They come up with something. They're brilliant. You would do numbers. You and the ring would do numbers. Who me? Yeah. Yeah. I would never do that. I can't even lift my shoulder.

So anyway, I won't be fighting either. Although for now. For a paycheck, I'd pretty much do anything. Uh, well, the Logan brothers considered some of the biggest villains out there. And speaking of villains, we actually have, uh, the, the, the head villain of the Clayton Eckerd trial, uh, Laura Owens attorney.

He's, I guess, uh, taken to responding to some questions about me on his, I guess, a live stream he did. This was compiled by justice for Clayton official. Here's what he had to say. Of the OBGYN department at one of the largest hospitals in Phoenix, who has the exact opposite opinion backed by years of government research.

And Dave Neal says, HCG tests don't count for anything. I got, I got more than that. Um, I'm not going to make that argument right now. It's just, I got to walk guys. Thank you so much. I don't even know. I'm probably going to screw this up and your phone will keep running in my, in my pocket. All right. So anyway, he says, uh, and then the other questions that were being asked, when do you air your grievances of lies?

Nathan said, what specifically do you believe Dave Neal has lied about? Rex said, what are the lies? So you, you actually see so many people going to bat for us. It's actually amazing how many people have gone to bat for us in the, uh, in this sort of smear campaign going on out there where I've been accused of lying.

Now I've made content for over a year straight exposing this pregnancy fraud. Now, the truth is yes, on a, uh, Blood test or HCG test, Laura Owens did test at a level of 102. 0. Now she of course committed medical fraud when she sent me doctored images stating that her records were actually 140, 000, you know, there's a big difference there in the levels.

So the point isn't that 102 would be an indicator of pregnancy. Sure. That would be an indicator of pregnancy. The point was for what? Some five months after that, she never got an ultrasound. And the ultrasound she does have came from a Planned Parenthood that she never actually went to. And she changed the sort of information on the top of it to say it was from the Scottsdale Medical Imaging Lab.

And then the other ultrasound she has has now been admitted by her own attorney to be an ultrasound that is her sister's. And somehow, and somehow, I'm the bad guy. Listen, I don't, you know, like, like, I don't really take offense to much. It really doesn't bother me. Like, we're, we're really unbothered going on with our lives here.

Does he think I'm dumb? Does he think you guys are dumb? I don't understand. One of two things is true. Either he's so dumb, he believes what he's saying, or he believes we're so dumb, we'll believe what he's saying. But for a year straight, For a year straight, we've been unwavering in the truth. We've been bathing in the truth and in accepting all the victories that come along with that, uh, courtroom victories, the victory of public opinion, uh, all of her previous attorneys shying away and leaving this case because they realize she's lying.

The judge decided, I mean, it's just one thing after another. We found a dang Fiverr logo on the ultrasound. So, what he would rather say is, OBGYNs say if you test to this level, then you're pregnant. Well, that would be an indicator of pregnancy. Just like, you know, the check engine light goes on in your car.

That's an indicator that you might have to go to the mechanic. She never went to the mechanic. She never went to get an actual ultrasound. All she has is faked ultrasounds, and, you know, lying ultrasound. under oath and changing her story under oath about which Planned Parenthood she ever went to. Sorry, don't get mad at me because your client is a liar.

Don't get mad at me because you decided to take a case that has made you look Like a damn fool. And by the way, who really cares? We wouldn't have known his name anyway, and we won't know it after this. Right. But just because he wants to talk a lot of trash, make a whole bunch of promises doesn't mean we're playing by those rules.

No, we exist in a world of reality and truth. And I think that's okay. And it's been so great to just see so many people come out and support that with us. Will we ever find out why? Laura Owens created that fake person, Chase J. Jones, or the fake doctors that claimed she had ovarian cancer. We'll never get all these answers, I don't think, but what we know for sure is that all went down and no amount of him bitching on a walk is going to change the truth.

Not in my book and not as long as I'm alive, I'll tell you that much. Okay. We've got a couple more stories to get to politically, so if you don't want politics, don't keep listening, but it's getting pretty buck wild out there and we'll have that for you next. So Donald Trump appointed or nominated Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general, right?

The biggest law enforcement position in the country, possibly the world. Well, now CNN has obtained the document assembled by federal investigators detailing the trail of payments to various women made by former Republican representative Matt Gaetz. Have a listen. New York Times obtaining a new document from federal investigators.

This document details the trail of payments from Matt Gaetz, Trump's choice for Attorney General, to numerous women, including some who testified that Gaetz was paying them for sex. Gaetz's face at the top left, barely eligible because of the high number of women and payments, and you can see him paying, um, uh, many individuals there, and also a payment down to, uh, uh, Uh, Joel Greenberg, the other man on the screen, who is so this, this, I'm just going to let you know what I'm looking at.

It is a web of payments, dozens, maybe a hundred or so payments, all in the 8, 000 range. It's currently serving time in prison for all of this. It shows tens of thousands of dollars in Venmo payments between gates, friends, associates, and women. All of this related to sex parties. It includes the two women who testified that they were paid to have sex with the former congressman.

Their attorney told me about these payments. How much did he pay them? When my clients provided testimony to the house, they put up on the screen a list of the Venmo and PayPal transactions directly from Representative Gates to my clients. For one of the clients it was a little over 6, 000. For another client it was a little over 4, 000.

That's just to, to those two women, as you can see, obviously, uh, there are many more. Yeah. And we knew this would leak because of course people want it to come out, but the house of reps voted to not let the Senate see it. And it's like, why are they trying to hide this? It's been a bipartisan investigation going on for several years.

Uh, it didn't, it wouldn't have been political, uh, if he wasn't appointed or nominated to be the attorney general, which begs the question. And again, I don't mean to be pressing, but, you know, you know, the Republicans always prided themself in being the party of value, of morality. Does any of this even matter anymore?

A lot of House Republicans, your colleagues, the people you lead, have real issues with Matt Gaetz, uh, as somebody to lead the U. S. Justice Department. I'm sure you've heard them. Because I've heard them. I want you to take a listen to now Senator, former House member, Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma talking, uh, to our Manu Raju months ago, uh, about Matt Gaetz.

He was accused of sleeping with an underage girl. And there's a reason why no one And the conference came and defended him because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the house floor that all of us had walked away of the girls that he had slept with. He'd brag about how he would crush ED medicine and, and, and chase it with, um, with an energy drink so he could go all night.

So just to take a step back, because you and I have known each other for a long time. With some of these nominees, Gates, Hegseth, RFK Jr., I wonder, does it matter anymore? I wonder. For Republicans to think of leaders as people who are moral in their personal lives, is that still important to the Republican party?

And of course there is no real right answer in it. And look, I don't think every person who gets elected to every office should be morally, you know, you should be, you know, not have a. A record. We shared jelly roll before the guy's been in prison and he still has a beautiful message to share. There's stories about redemption.

There's stories about overcoming drug overdose and things like that. The problem is, is like this guy, this little twit, right? He's a, he only gets the job because he had a political, his parent, his dad was in politics and his grandfather, we should be looking at people like that, regardless of political party and being like, take a hike, pal.

Let's get our brightest minds out there to fight for us, not argue about what gender. Has to go into the bathroom, which again, just, it's just culture war issues. Let's talk policy. Let's talk about what's going to be great for our country. What's going to bring us all together. And again, we'll have to see how it all plays out.

I'm as interested as anybody else to see how the next four years go. I truly, truly am. Uh, but even if the economy's great and even if inflation goes down, where's the morality of our country? Where's the morality of our country? How we treat people, how we treat our neighbors. We've really been divided.

We've really been split up due to fear and the stoking of these culture wars. And, uh, look, we're going to be celebrating Thanksgiving next week with family. My, my only advice to people out there. If it looks like you're about to get into a culture war argument with one of your relatives, go get a second serving of apple pie and leave that conversation alone.

You don't need to do it. All right, folks, that's going to do it for me. I got a lot of content coming today. I got a golden bachelorette story on YouTube. I'll be covering some more Clayton Eckerd content, of course, on the Patreon, patreon. com slash Dave Neal. And then we'll be back this afternoon with another episode of the rush.

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