FAN-favourite Survivor star Jane Bright – who won $100,000 in the reality TV show – has passed away aged 71.
Her daughter Ashley Hammett announced the tragic news of her mum’s passing on Thursday, saying that she was found dead in her home.
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An iconic Survivor star has diedCredit: Getty
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Jane Bright, who appeared on Survivor: Nicaragua, has died aged 71
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She placed 6th out of 20 on the show but was given the fan-favourite awardCredit: Getty
She died nearly 15 years since appearing on the CBS competition series.
Bright was born in North Carolina, and worked as a dog trainer before appearing on Survivor in 2010.
After being crowned as fan-favourite on the show, she earned $100,000, but missed out on the $1million first place prize.
The beloved TV star placed 6th out of 20 contestants on season 21 the reality game show, and started the season in the Espada tribe.
She was known for her straight-talking personality and underdog story.
Her daughter announced her death on Facebook, saying: “Today Jane Hammett Bright was found passed away within her home by a good friend and county sheriff.”
Grieving fans poured out on social media, with many remembering her iconic moments on Survivor.
One fan said: “RIP. She was iconic, she had some of the most entertaining moments on that (slightly underrated) season.”
Another said: “Rest in peace Jane. one of if not the best part about Nicaragua.”
The user added: “She was a legend and of my favourite that season. I really wish I could have met her. RIP Jane.”
Her cause of death is currently unclear.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos.
On a spring afternoon in 2005, the members of OK Go dressed up in tacky suits, gathered in front of a video camera and awkwardly danced their way into history.
The band’s DIY single-shot clip for its song “A Million Ways” — in which the brainy rock quartet moves through three and a half minutes of intricate choreography on the patio behind singer Damian Kulash’s Los Angeles home — became one of music’s first viral videos, racking up millions of downloads (remember those?) and helping to establish a new way for acts to connect with fans as the internet began to supplant MTV and Top 40 radio.
“As soon as the treadmill thing happened, it was like: Holy s—, we’re pop culture now,” Kulash said the other day of “Here It Goes Again,” which won a Grammy Award for best music video and has been viewed more than 67 million times on YouTube.
Twenty years after “A Million Ways,” the mechanics of cultural connection have transformed again thanks to social media and TikTok, where what you encounter as you scroll is guided by the invisible hand of data analysis.
Said OK Go bassist Tim Nordwind with grinning understatement: “The algorithm has become a bit more powerful.”
“Not a big fan of the algorithm as an arbiter of art,” Kulash added. “It’s sad to see optimization in a space that was once the Wild West.”
Yet OK Go is still at it: Last month the group released its latest one-shot video for the song “Love,” for which Kulash and his co-directors installed dozens of mirrors on powerful robotic arms inside an old Budapest train station to create a kind of kaleidoscopic obstacle course.
The band’s methods have grown more sophisticated since “A Million Ways,” and these days it seeks out corporate sponsors to help bring Kulash’s visions to life. But an adventuresome — and touchingly personal — spirit remains key to its work.
“What I love about the ‘Love’ video is the humans in the room,” Kulash said as he and Nordwind sat outside a Burbank rehearsal studio where OK Go was preparing for a tour scheduled to stop Friday and Saturday at L.A.’s Bellwether. (The group’s other members are guitarist Andy Ross and drummer Dan Konopka.) “The robots are only there,” the singer added, “to move the mirrors so that we can experience that magical thing — so simple and beautiful — of two mirrors making infinity.”
A wistful psych-pop jam inspired by Kulash’s becoming a father to twins — his wife, author and filmmaker Kristin Gore, is a daughter of former Vice President Al Gore — “Love” comes from OK Go’s new album, “And the Adjacent Possible,” its first LP since 2014. It’s a characteristically eclectic set that also includes a strutting funk-rock tune featuring Ben Harper, a glammy rave-up co-written by Shudder to Think’s Craig Wedren and a woozy existentialist’s ballad about discovering there’s no “no deus ex machina working away in the wings.” (That last one’s called “This Is How It Ends.”)
“We’re old people who listen to sad ballads,” said Kulash, who’ll turn 50 in October. “That’s what happens when you become an old person, right?”
Wedren, who’s known Kulash since the latter was a teenage Shudder to Think fan in their shared hometown of Washington, D.C., said that “part of the beauty of OK Go is that they’re so musically omnivorous — that all these things that wouldn’t seem to go together always end up sounding like OK Go.” In Wedren’s view, the band “doesn’t get enough credit for how exploratory they are as musicians — maybe because of the genius of the videos.”
If that’s the case, Kulash doesn’t seem especially to mind. He knew nearly two decades ago that the viral success of the treadmill video — which the band recreated onstage at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards between performances by Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé — threatened to make OK Go “a one-hit wonder whose one hit was an exercise equipment stunt,” as the singer put it. “Or it could be the opening to an opportunity to do more and weirder things.”
Among the weird things the group ended up doing: the 2014 clip for “I Won’t Let You Down,” in which the members ride around a parking lot in Japan on personal mobility devices under the eye of a camera on a drone.
“I remember hearing that Radiohead didn’t play ‘Creep’ for 10 or 15 years because they were too cool for that,” he said. “Had we taken the path of being too cool for treadmills and homemade videos, I can look back and say —”
“We’d have had a much quieter career,” Nordwind chimed in.
There’s a way of looking at OK Go’s emphasis on visuals that depicts the band as a harbinger of an era when “musician” is just another word for “content creator.”
“It’s weird to think about a life in the vertical as opposed to the horizontal,” Nordwind said with a laugh, referring to the respective orientations of videos on TikTok and YouTube.
“What’s difficult about social media is the question of volume — the volume and quality balance is off to me,” Kulash said.
Creators, he means, are expected to churn out content like little one-person factories.
“Day after day,” Nordwind said. “We like to take our time.”
“Also: When I fall in love with a song, I want to hear that song over and over again,” Kulash said. “I will listen to ‘Purple Rain’ until I die. Do people go back and search someone’s feed to replay the TikTok they first fell in love with?
“The relationship that I think people have to their favorite YouTube star or TikToker,” he added, “feels much more like a relationship to celebrity than it does a relationship to art.”
OK Go at its rehearsal studio in Burbank.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
For Kulash, who made his feature debut as a director (alongside his wife) with 2023’s “The Beanie Bubble,” the pursuit of art is bound up in ideas of effort and limitation, which is why AI doesn’t interest him as a filmmaking tool.
“When everything is possible, nothing is special,” he said. “The reason we shoot our videos in a single shot is not purely for the filmmaking heroics. It’s because that’s the only way to prove to people: This is real — we did the thing.”
OK Go’s dedication to costly and time-consuming practical effects has led to partnerships with a number of deep-pocketed brands, beginning with State Farm, which spent a reported $150,000 to finance the band’s 2010 “This Too Shall Pass” video with the Rube Goldberg machine. (Meta sponsored the “Love” video and in return got a prominent spot in the clip for its Ray-Ban smart glasses.)
Kulash said that kind of product placement was “scary as s—” back in the late 2000s, when the fear of being perceived as sellouts haunted every rock band.
“Now, of course, it’s like a badge of honor,” he added, among influencers eager to flaunt their corporate ties.
To explain his position on the matter, the singer — whose band walked away from its deal with Capitol Records in 2010 to start its own label, Paracadute — tried out an extended metaphor: “On the other side of the planet, tectonic plates are moving and the hot magma of corporate money is coming out of the ground. That’s why the MTV Awards exist, that’s why the Grammys exist, that’s why everything you think of as a celebration of high art exists. It’s all advertising dollars, every last bit of it. You’re protected by these continents of middle-people, which let you feel like you’re marking art. But if you can manage to be one of those microbes at the bottom of the sea that gets its energy directly from the thermal vents of the hot magma money, then you get to make something other people don’t.” He laughed.
“There’s no record label in the world that would ever be like, ‘Hey, why don’t you go to Budapest for three weeks and spend a ridiculous amount of money to make this music video at a time when there’s not even a music video channel anymore?’
“But brands know that’s worthwhile, and we know that’s worthwhile,” he said. “You just have to make sure you don’t get burned by the magma.”
Super Bowl champion and Olympic gold medalist? Some NFL players could be at the center of the venn diagram in 2028.
NFL team owners could vote next week at the league’s meetings on whether to allow NFL players to participate in Olympic flag football in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. A resolution, announced Thursday, included several possible guidelines as further negotiations continue between the NFL Players Assn., the league, national governing bodies and Olympic authorities.
The proposed resolution would permit players under an NFL contract to try out for a 2028 Olympic flag football team, but limit NFL player participation to no more than one from each NFL team for each national team. In addition, each NFL team’s designated international player can play for his home country.
With injuries a primary concern for the crossover, the proposal adds that any NFL player would have injury protection and salary-cap credit if they are injured while playing Olympic flag football. Olympic flag football teams would have to implement certain minimum standards for medical staff and field surfaces for eligible NFL players to participate.
The resolution also calls for a flag football schedule that does not unreasonably conflict with a player’s NFL commitments. The 2028 Olympics are scheduled for July 14, 2028-July 30, 2028. The timing could potentially conflict with the beginning of some training camps, but the flag football competition, which is scheduled to take place at BMO Stadium, will only span about a week of the Games.
Flag football is one of five new sports in the 2028 Olympic program and one of two sports, along with squash, making its Olympic debut. The U.S. men’s flag football team is five-time defending flag football world champions.
NFL owners are “committed to supporting the growth of flag football,” the resolution states.
“The membership believes that participation by NFL players in flag football during the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California will support such growth and advance several league interests,” the resolution continues, “including increasing fan and public interest in flag football, expanding the global reach of the NFL, and providing greater opportunities for fan engagement and for our league partners.”
Reposts flood in. Likes climb faster than administrators can count.
Each spring, the Chargers know how to run up this score.
When it comes to what senior director of production Tyler Pino calls the “content Super Bowl,” the Chargers are multi-time season NFL schedule release champions. They broke the internet with popular anime videos in 2022 and 2023. A Sims 2 theme in 2024 kept online sleuths laughing for weeks at inside jokes.
The schedule reveal video posted Wednesday in the pixelated style of Minecraft surpassed one million views on X, formerly known as Twitter, in 45 minutes, and four million in three hours, confirming the Chargers’ social media dynasty. The next closest NFL team schedule video was viewed roughly 1.5 million times during that same span.
should we REALLY make our schedule release video in minecraft?
Each year’s creative videos have suddenly become more notable than the schedules they promote. But the Chargers’ content team tries to stay focused on the process of winning fans over one like, lower-case letter and laugh at a time.
“I don’t think our goal is to be the best on the internet,” said Megan Julian, Chargers senior director of digital and social media, “but our goal is to build generational fandom on the internet.”
When Julian joined the Chargers in 2018, she was the only person behind the social media accounts. The franchise had just returned to L.A., where a whole generation had grown up without the NFL. Fans were already invested in different teams. Instead of trying to change an established fan’s mind, the content team aimed to cultivate new ones by reaching different, younger audiences that will fill SoFi Stadium for generations.
Allie Raymond, left, and Megan Julian of the Chargers’ social media team, walk on the practice field during rookie minicamp at the team’s headquarters in El Segundo.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Julian made the Chargers’ social media accounts feel like entering a group chat. The team, which includes director of organic social media Allie Raymond; Jaemin Cho, the senior vertical video coordinator; Lorren Walker, programming manager for organic social media; and coordinator Hannah Johnson, post in lower-case text in short, sharp bursts. They never overexplain the joke.
Here, among friends, it’s already known.
“You’re talking with the fans,” Julian said. “Not at them.”
Occasionally commenters complain about the lower case letters or can’t keep up with the newest slang. The schedule release videos often include pointed jokes toward opposing players or teams. Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, who controversially sat out for one play last year because he was tired, ran out of gas in a go-kart race in this year’s video.
But the unique tone has built a distinct brand for an organization that is fighting for any way to stand out in a crowded L.A. market.
“We’re creative, and we think a little bit off kilter,” said David Bretto, the director of creative video. “But we do that because we’re allowed to do that, and the organization sees the success.”
A member of the Chargers’ content team films players taking part in rookie minicamp at the team’s headquarters in El Segundo on May 9.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
“There are only 20 days a year that we actually play the sport. Then the other 345, we’re just entertaining people.”
— Jason Levine, Chargers senior vice president of brand, creative and content
The content team’s reputation precedes them. When videographers checked bags at the NFL combine, security guards asked what they were cooking for the schedule release. Incoming rookies asked who is behind the keys of the social media accounts that go viral with the latest TikTok trends.
Inspired by the energy of young, charismatic stars on the 2018 team including Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Derwin James Jr., Julian started to craft a social media persona that matched the on-field personnel. For the franchise’s current era, showing the players’ personalities remains at the forefront.
Some players welcome the sight of the social media team holding a tiny microphone tethered to their phones. Linebacker Daiyan Henley is as ubiquitous on the Chargers’ TikTok account as the team’s logo. A more reserved personality such as Justin Herbert still shines through in videos that showcase the star quarterback’s humble charm.
Highlight videos of Herbert avoiding their cameras still turn into internet gold because while this is a football team, football is only a fraction of the franchise’s digital brand.
“There are only 20 days a year that we actually play the sport,” said Jason Levine, Chargers senior vice president of brand, creative and content. “Then the other 345, we’re just entertaining people.”
Allie Raymond records players and coaches taking part in Chargers rookie minicamp on May 9.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
The biggest internet stage is the schedule release. The Seattle Seahawks sparked a revolution in 2016 with a cupcake-themed video in which special ingredients representing each city of their opponents were stirred into a batter. Some teams hire production companies and outside contractors to prepare for the big reveal. This season, NBA legend Allen Iverson and actress Brenda Song made cameos for the Buffalo Bills and the Rams, respectively.
But Julian proudly notes that all of the Chargers’ videos have been produced in-house.
The Chargers’ first major schedule release video came in 2019 when they represented each opponent with stock footage. A dog dressed in a lion’s mane. A person in a bear suit on a picnic. Both games against the AFC West rivals Kansas City Chiefs were represented by awkward chefs. The 73-second collection of clips was so weird it somehow worked.
The day before it dropped, Julian and Bretto nearly scrapped the project all together.
“To me, schedule release kind of feels like you’re on a cliff,” Bretto said. “You put all this work to get to the top of this mountain, and at the very end, there’s nothing to do but just jump. You don’t know how the audience is going to react.”
Just count the tens of thousands of likes. The reception is clear.
Halle Bailey secured a temporary restraining order Tuesday against rapper DDG, alleging that the father of their son Halo was abusive throughout their two-year relationship and has continued to behave badly since they broke up last year.
The “Little Mermaid” star, 25, and the rapper-blogger, 27, whose real name is Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr. split up in October, declaring at the time that they were “still best friends.” Son Halo was born in December 2023 after Bailey worked hard to keep her pregnancy off the radar.
“Throughout our relationship and continuing to date, Darryl has been and continues to be physically, verbally, emotionally, and financially abusive towards me,” she said in court documents reviewed by The Times. “I am seeking orders to protect myself and our son Halo from his ongoing abuse.”
The TRO was granted by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. Bailey indicated in court documents that she was concerned for her safety and that of their son, Halo Saint Granberry, and asked that DDG be ordered to stay away from both of them. No advance notice was given to DDG because Bailey was afraid he would retaliate with violence or by taking Halo out of the area, the documents said.
DDG appeared to find out about the restraining order Tuesday in the middle of a profanity-laden livestream, prompting his co-streamers to decry what appeared to be a phone alert as fake news.
“That can’t even be real,” DDG said, staring at his phone.
He is temporarily prohibited from approaching Bailey and his son or contacting them through any means including electronic.
In her declaration, Bailey accused DDG of “badmouthing” her to his millions of fans on Twitch and YouTube whenever he “wants to cause upset.”
“He claims I am withholding our son and that I am with other men. As a result, I then receive threats and hate on social media. He seems to try to set up drama for his fans. He goes ‘live’ ranting about me and alleges that I am keeping Halo from him. This is false. I have requested a set schedule, which he refuses.”
She also said he frequently calls her “b—” and says she is “evil.” She also detailed one physical altercation from January of this year.
DDG went to Bailey’s house on Jan. 18, she said in the declaration, to pick up Halo. She said she asked DDG when he would return the child and alleged he wouldn’t give her an answer.
“The discussion continued as I walked with him outside to assist to put Halo into the car seat. I was buckling the baby into his seat and physically got into the back seat to adjust the car seat. I had left my front door open and was not even fully dressed as I was not even wearing shoes. Darryl kept repeating ‘Get out of my car, B—.’ Halo was crying.”
Bailey said she was nervous leaving the baby with her agitated ex and repeatedly pleaded with him to stop calling her a b—. Then the argument escalated, she said.
“The next thing I knew, things got physical between us. We fought each other, wrestling and tussling. At one point, Darryl was pulling my hair. He then slammed my face on the steering wheel, causing my tooth to get chipped. I then stopped fighting back as I was in a lot of pain,” Bailey wrote.
“I wanted to get out of the car with Halo but was now stuck. Darryl then said that since I would not leave the baby in the car, he would take me with them. He drove quickly towards his house. When we arrived at his house, I was crying and told his family what happened. I begged his family who were there to help me figure out a schedule with him. They said just leave Halo and go. I left hysterical. I had bruises over my arms and a chipped tooth.”
Bailey also detailed a violent incident on March 7 that ended up with her filing a police report. She and Halo were home sick with RSV when DDG came over to see his son, whom Bailey didn’t want to leave the house because of his illness. That angered DDG, she said, and he started yelling and calling her names.
“He then saw that the Ring camera was recording; he unplugged the Ring camera, opened the side door, and threw the Ring camera out of my home. I went outside to retrieve the Ring camera. He then locked me out of my house,” Bailey said in the declaration.
“I went around the back and came into the house through another entrance. I plugged the camera back in and called my family member for help. With her on the phone line, I repeatedly asked Darryl to please leave. I told him that he was being rude, and I was too sick to deal with him. He would not leave. When he realized that my family member was on the phone line, he became enraged. Around this same time, I noticed that he also saw the Ring camera was back on so he smashed the camera. I have this recorded and will bring the recording to the hearing.”
Halle Bailey and DDG, who share son Halo, broke up last October.
(Scott Garfitt / Invision / Associated Press)
She said DDG then grabbed her phone and hung up on her relative while she managed to get Halo away from him.
“Darryl then ran out of the house with my phone. I followed, begging to please give my phone back. He got into his car and closed the car door on me while I was holding Halo. Darryl then drove off and threw my phone out the window and yelled ‘GO GET IT B—.’ As a result of this incident, I filed a police report.”
Both parties have been ordered to participate in a May 30 mediation teleconference to determine custody or visitation if the two fail to come up with a plan before then using online court tools. A court hearing is scheduled for June 4.
In her Tuesday declaration, Bailey said that their relationship “ended in 2024 because of Darryl’s temper and lack of respect towards me. There have been numerous incidents of physical abuse, even before Halo was born.”
The document contains other alleged acts, including DDG declaring on social media that she was with another man on Mother’s Day. She said she was not, then mentioned that he had riled up his fans so that they accused her online of withholding the child and sleeping with other men. She also said DDG has never paid child support and she has never asked him to do so.
Bailey is also asking the court to allow her to take Halo to Italy for eight weeks while she is filming a movie.
“This is not child-centered,” she said of the conflicts between them, “and Halo is only being used to further his fan base and online presence.”
That’s a far cry from the rosy picture she painted in interviews while they were a couple.
Bailey and DDG first sparked romance rumors in January 2022, then made things red carpet official at the 2022 BET Awards that June. Speaking to Essence in August 2022, Bailey said she had been aware of DDG since 2015 from his YouTube channel. Their relationship began with private messages on social media, she said.
“I grew up being on YouTube and would always see the young Black creators and was constantly inspired by them,” she told the magazine. “He was one of them.”
When the magazine asked Bailey whether she was in love with DDG, she replied, “Yes. For sure I am.”
But shortly after the live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” premiered in May 2023, DDG released the song “Famous.”
In the explicit song, he raps, “Hardest things I did was fall in love with a famous b—.” If that wasn’t enough of a nod to his girlfriend, DDG’s lyrics also seemingly hint at Halle’s Ariel falling for co-star Jonah Hauer-King’s Prince Eric (“Filmin’ a movie now you kissing dudes”) and their time on the press tour (“Why is y’all holdin’ hands in the photo?”).
DDG, and his relationship with Bailey, quickly drew criticism online. One X user slammed DDG and his “embarrassing antics,” while another said “the whole song is the nastiest thing he could’ve done” to his girlfriend.
Amid the backlash, DDG said Halle heard the song, and said, “It’s just music.”
Bailey seemed to recover after that drama. “You know, you have puppy love experiences, you think that’s love,” she told Cosmopolitan in September 2023. “But this is my first deep, deep, real love.”
Times staff writers Carlos De Loera and Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this post.
Alice in Chains announced on Monday that they will cancel their forthcoming tour as well as any festival appearances. The decision came after a previous show was called off on May 8 because drummer Sean Kinney experienced medical complications.
“After our soundcheck this evening at the Mohegan Sun Arena, Sean experienced a non-life-threatening medical emergency,” the group wrote on X. “We unfortunately have to cancel tonight’s show. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”
Just two days later, the band confirmed on Instagram that they were canceling all upcoming appearances.
“After careful consideration and following the advice of medical professionals, we have made the decision to cancel our upcoming festival performance and the Alice in Chains headline shows,” they wrote.
“While we were all eager to return to the stage, Sean’s health is our top priority at this moment. Although the issue requires immediate attention, his long-term prognosis is positive.”
Kinney is one of the group’s last remaining founding members, alongside lead vocalist Jerry Cantrell. Layne Stanley and Mike Starr passed away in 2002 and 2011, respectively, and were later replaced by current members William Duvall and Mike Inez.
The “Would?” and “Man in the Box” band was slated to perform four shows across the United States before going across the Atlantic for two appearances in Birmingham, U.K. The latter would see them on July 5 as openers in Ozzy Osbourne’s final show and Black Sabbath reunion “Back to the Beginning.”
“We sincerely appreciate your understanding and support at this time,” the band added.
Fans were quick to support the group in their decision. “When a brother and fellow band mate is sick and in need of medical care,” one fan insisted, “the opening line of the statement should’ve been, ‘Without hesitation and with full interest in the well-being of our brother and fellow band mate…’”
Others offered their prayers and shared “get well soon” messages in the comment section on the band’s post.
No further details were shared as to the condition of Kinney and what led to the “medical emergency.”
“Selena y Los Dinos,” the latest documentary film about the life of Tejano music icon Selena Quintanilla, has been acquired by Netflix. The film is currently scheduled to begin streaming in winter 2025.
The movie, directed by Isabel Castro, features original VHS footage taken by Selena’s older sister, Suzette, and is interspersed with present-day interviews with family and friends.
Netflix announced its acquisition in a Tuesday press release.
“Through personal archive and intimate interviews with her family, the film reveals new dimensions of her journey that have never been seen before,” Castro shared in the release. “I am deeply grateful to her family for their trust and support throughout this journey, and I can’t wait for a global audience to experience the magic, heart and community that Selena gave to all of us.”
Suzette also shared her enthusiasm about the scope of the partnership with Netflix in the Tuesday announcement, stating, “Grateful to have a platform that helps bring Selena’s story to fans around the world.”
This is not the first time that the Quintanilla family has collaborated with the streaming giant. They worked with Netflix to help create “Selena: The Series” — a scripted retelling of Selena’s childhood, rise to fame and death starring Christian Serratos as the Texas singer.
It was after working as an executive producer on the Netflix series that Suzette consulted her lawyer about making her own documentary.
“There’s some things that you just want to hold on to and not share with everyone,” Suzette said at the documentary’s 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere. “I was always taking the pictures, always with the camera. And look how crazy it is, that I’m sharing it with all of you so many years later.”
The documentary surfaces footage from performances in which Selena subverts the idea of the well-manicured image that the Quintanilla family has constantly put out of the singer in the 30 years since her death. It also captures, in real time, the evolution of a bold new identity growing among Latino youth in the 1980s, encapsulated in Los Dinos’ cultural hybridity.
The film was awarded with a special jury prize for archival storytelling at the renowned movie gathering at Sundance. The jury made note of how the feature “transported us to a specific time and place, evoking themes of family, heritage, love and adolescence.”
So badly were people clamoring to view the movie that the organizers of Sundance pulled it from its online platform. The film had fallen victim to a number of copyright infringements as eager fans were uploading clips from it to social media platforms. This was the first time that Sundance had removed a feature during the festival.
De Los assistant editor Suzy Exposito and Times staff writer Mark Olsen contributed to this report.
Terry Brunk, the professional wrestling pioneer known to fans as Sabu, has died at age 60, World Wrestling Entertainment announced Sunday.
No cause of death has been given.
The nephew of WWE Hall of Famer Ed “The Sheik” Farhat, Brunk wrestled on several circuits, including a handful of appearances with WWE (then known as World Wrestling Federation, or WWF) in 1993. He then rose to fame with Extreme Championship Wrestling, for which he was a two-time champion.
Known as an originator of hardcore wrestling, Sabu often leapt from chairs and threw his opponents through tables and barbed wire. He signed with WWE in 2006 as part of the company’s ECW revival and competed against Rey Mysterio for the world heavyweight championship and against John Cena for the WWE championship.
He and his fellow ECW Originals (The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer and Rob Van Dam) defeated the ECW’s New Breed (Elijah Burke, Kevin Thorn, Marcus Cor Von and Matt Striker) at WrestleMania 23 in Brunk’s hometown of Detroit.
Sabu left WWE in 2007 and continued to wrestle in various leagues, including All Elite Wrestling in 2023 and Game Changer Wrestling, for which he wrestled his final match last month.
“AEW and the wrestling world mourns the passing of Sabu,” AEW wrote on X. “From barbed wire battles to unforgettable high-risk moments, Sabu gave everything to professional wrestling. Our thoughts are with his family, his friends and his fans.”
“He was an outlaw and a gamechanger,” the organization wrote in the caption. “He inspired so many that stepped inside a GCW ring and he will continue to inspire for generations to come. His legacy will last forever and he will never be forgotten.”
Van Dam also posted a tribute to his longtime friend on X.
“Sabu was as irreplaceable in my life as he was in the industry,” the WWE Hall of Famer wrote. “You all know how important he was to my career, and you know how much he meant to me personally. He’s been a tremendous influence since I was 18 years old , when I met him.
“Learning to be an adult, while you’re in the crazy environment of this business can go several different ways. I’m proud to have been able to carry on so many of Sheik and Sabu’s values, both in and out of the ring. Sabu helped make me the wrestler I am, the person I am, and I’ll always be proud of that and grateful.”
Many others from professional wrestling paid their respects on social media. WWE star Sami Zayn wrote that Sabu belongs in the organization’s hall of fame, calling him a “one of a kind, absolute legend and a true game changer for professional wrestling.”
This is a gut punch. I was pushing this agenda again a few weeks ago after Sabu had his final match.
RIP Sabu. One of a kind, absolute legend, and a true game changer for professional wrestling. https://t.co/wVgZ4ao42k
Longtime wrestling announcer Tony Schiavone called Sabu “an incredible talent that will obviously put someone through a table in the afterlife.”
Mysterio posted on Instagram: “Feel truly honored to have shared the same ring with you many times and even more to have called you my friend. Always had me on my toes. … You will be missed.”
Retired WWE wrestler Marc Mero wrote that Sabu “was not only a remarkable performer but also a gracious and engaging person.”
“Sabu’s wrestling style was fearless and relentless,” Mero wrote. “From his intense barbed wire battles that tested the limits of both his body and spirit, to his high-risk maneuvers that left audiences in awe, often deafening in their excitement. He truly gave it all every time he stepped into the ring. His dedication, courage, and passion for wrestling have left an indelible mark on the sport and its fans.”
Fellow retired WWE wrestler Jake “the Snake” Roberts wrote: “He was a pioneer in our business, a talented performer, and most importantly, a good man.”
