Justin Timberlake Down to Destroy the Confederate Statues

Image:Matthew Lewis/Getty Images (Getty Images)

I don’t usually turn to Justin Timberlake for his thoughts on the political discourse, since it seems like he’s here more for the good times than the hard times. But every so often he shows up for something—sometimes quite poorly, but I guess he tries—and in this case, it’s for getting rid of racist Confederate monuments.

Variety reports that Timberlake, a Tennessee native, has called for the removal of Confederate statues and monuments all over the country. “I’ve been listening closely to the ongoing debates about what to do with these statues—and I really want to take a minute to talk about this,” he wrote in an Instagram post on Monday. “There are roughly 1,848 confederate statues of in the US. More than half are in The South, and it’s not acceptable. No one should be protecting the legacies of confederate leaders and slave owners.”

Timberlake added, “If we plan to move forward, these monuments must come down… Removing these statues does not erase our country’s vile history of oppression—removing them is a symbol of respect for Black people in America and it’s a step towards progress and actual equality for all.”

His plea was not nearly as impassioned as fellow Tennessean Taylor Swift’s, and I suspect he won’t be spray-painting ACAB on anything anytime soon (coward!!!!) but, you know, something is better than nothing:

Good for you, Justin! And if you’re really interested in dismantling white supremacy, maybe we can take a second to talk about how you built up your music career… [Variety]

Zach Braff dedicated an episode of his Scrubs podcast, “Fake Doctors, Real Friends,” to friend and Broadway star Nick Cordero, who died this week after a lengthy and horrifying battle with covid-19. Braff met Cordero in 2014 while working with him in Bullets Over Broadway, and told co-host Donald Faison that watching Cordero’s illness progress was absolutely horrifying.

“Just for clarity’s sake, he didn’t have COVID-19 anymore,” he said, according to Us Weekly. “What COVID did to Nick is what it does to a lot of people, it comes in and wreaks havoc on your body. Then it leaves and you don’t have it anymore, but you’re left with what the doctors called ‘lungs that look like Swiss cheese.’”

Braff added that the health complications were so severe that if Cordero had survived, he’d have required extensive medical care—he already had his leg amputated, but would have probably lost his fingers and toes to keep up his blood pressure. Cordero’s wife, Amanda Kloots, said he was waiting to hear about a double lung transplant as well.

Per Us Weekly:

“He just deteriorated, deteriorated, deteriorated, until the point where they put him on the ventilator and then he never came back,” the Wish I Was Here director added. “He kind of woke up for a little bit and there was some exciting moments where they would say, ‘Nick if you can hear us look up,’ and he would do that, but he wouldn’t do it all the time. It was only occasionally.”