(PARK CITY, Utah) — Gwyneth Paltrow won her court battle over a 2016 ski collision at a posh Utah ski resort after a jury decided Thursday that the movie star wasn’t at fault for the crash.

“I felt that acquiescing to a false claim compromised my integrity,” Paltrow said in a statement released by her representatives. “I am pleased with the outcome and I appreciate all of the hard work of Judge Holmberg and the jury, and thank them for their thoughtfulness in handling this case.”

A jury dismissed the complaint of a retired optometrist who sued Paltrow over injuries he sustained when the two crashed on a beginner run at Deer Valley ski resort, siding with Paltrow after eight days of live-streamed courtroom testimony that made the case a pop culture fixation.
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Paltrow, an actor who in recent years has refashioned herself into a celebrity wellness entrepreneur, Paltrow looked to her attorneys with a pursed lips smile when the judge read the eight-member jury’s verdict in the Park City courtroom. She sat intently through two weeks of testimony in what became the biggest celebrity court case since actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard faced off last year.

The dismissal concludes two weeks of courtroom proceedings that hinged largely on reputation rather than the monetary damages at stake in the case. Paltrow’s attorneys described the complaint against her as “utter B.S.” and painted the Goop founder-CEO as uniquely vulnerable to unfair, frivolous lawsuits due to her celebrity.

Paltrow took the witness stand during the trial to insist the collision wasn’t her fault, and to describe how she was stunned when she felt “a body pressing against me and a very strange grunting noise.”

Throughout the trial, the word “uphill” became synonymous with “guilty, ” as attorneys focused on a largely unknown skiing code of conduct that stipulates that the skier who is downhill or ahead on the slope has the right of way.

Worldwide audiences followed the celebrity trial as if it were episodic television. Viewers scrutinized both Paltrow and Sanderson’s motives while attorneys directed questions to witnesses that often had less to do with the collision and more to do with their client’s reputations.

The trial took place in Park City, a resort town known for hosting the annual Sundance Film Festival, where early in her career Paltrow would appear for the premieres of her movies including 1998’s “Sliding Doors,” at a time when she was known primarily as an actor, not a lifestyle influencer. Paltrow is also known for her roles in “Shakespeare in Love” and the “Iron Man” movies.

The jury’s decision marks a painful court defeat for Terry Sanderson, the man who sued Paltrow for more than $300,000 over injuries he sustained when they crashed on a beginner run. Both parties blamed the other for the collision. Sanderson, 76, broke four ribs and sustained a concussion after the two tumbled down the slope, with Paltrow landing on top of him.

He filed an amended complaint after an earlier $3.1 million lawsuit was dismissed. Paltrow in response countersued for $1 and attorney fees, a symbolic action that mirrors Taylor Swift’s response to a radio host’s defamation lawsuit. Swift was awarded $1 in 2017.

Paltrow’s defense team represented Sanderson as an angry, aging and unsympathetic man who had over the years become “obsessed” with his lawsuit against Paltrow. They argued that Paltrow wasn’t at fault in the crash and also said, regardless of blame, that Sanderson was overstating the extent of his injuries.

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AP writer Anna Furman contributed from Los Angeles.

April is a month for the memoir, it seems: Maggie Smith’s lyrical You Could Make This Place Beautiful illustrates the end of a marriage and the beginning of a new chapter. Nicole Chung’s A Living Remedy recounts her parents’ deaths and the inequalities inherent in American society. And Ava Chin’s Mott Street takes the reader along as the author unearths her own hidden family history in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Beloved fiction writers also return this month: Gayl Jones is back with Butter, a collection of luminous short stories, and a posthumous translation of Izumi Suzuki’s work, titled Hit Parade of Tears, embraces the weird and the wonderful.
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Here, the best new books to read this April.

A Living Remedy, Nicole Chung (April 4)

TIME contributor Nicole Chung’s second memoir dovetails with her first, All You Can Ever Know, which was published in 2018. While best seller All You Can Ever Know recounts Chung’s search for her birth parents, Korean immigrants in Seattle, A Living Remedy details how she coped with the successive deaths of her adoptive parents, a white couple from rural Oregon. In 2018, Chung’s father died of diabetes and kidney disease at age 67. Less than a year later, her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and later died during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. A Living Remedy lambasts the American health care system—and its lack of equitable access—while gently unpacking Chung’s heavy grief.

Buy Now: A Living Remedy on Bookshop | Amazon

Enter Ghost, Isabella Hammad (April 4)

The title of Isabella Hammad’s anticipated second novel (following The Parisian in 2019) is a play on a stage direction from Hamlet. It can also be read to mirror protagonist Sonia Nasir’s homecoming to Palestine after leaving her failed marriage behind in London. Sonia visits her older sister, Haneen, and meets Haneen’s friend, the spirited theater director Mariam. Soon, Sonia has joined Mariam’s production of Hamlet alongside a troupe of actors from across historic Palestine, and before she knows it, she’s playing a lead role. Enter Ghost offers an example of its own themes, using art to illuminate life—and tenacity—under occupation.

Buy Now: Enter Ghost on Bookshop | Amazon

Butter: Novellas, Stories, and Fragments, Gayl Jones (April 4)

A year ago, Gayl Jones’ novel Palmares—her first in two decades—was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Now, she’s back with her second collection of short fiction, including two novellas and 10 stories. The titular novella chronicles a reunion between a British war photographer and her mixed-race daughter, a photographer in her own right, as the latter prepares to photograph the former. The other novella, “Sophia,” follows a narrator by the same name as she leaves the U.S. for Spain, where she remembers her time among leftist revolutionaries in Mexico. Butter tells singing stories of characters navigating multiracial, multicultural societies.

Buy Now: Butter: Novellas, Stories, and Fragments on Bookshop | Amazon

The Lost Wife, Susanna Moore (April 4)

Susanna Moore’s eighth novel, set in 1855, follows 25-year-old Sarah Browne as she flees an abusive husband in Rhode Island and heads west to the Minnesota Territory, where she hopes to find a childhood friend. By the time she arrives, her friend has died, and Sarah must start fresh. She quickly does so, marrying the town physician, having two children, and befriending the women on the nearby Sioux reservation. When the Sioux Uprising of 1862 erupts—after the federal government never fulfills its promise of payments to the tribe—Sarah and her children are captured, but protected by the Sioux. Sarah sympathizes with her captors, and slips into the gap between her two worlds. In envisioning the tribe’s plight, The Lost Wife illustrates the devastating outcomes of oppression.

Buy Now: The Lost Wife on Bookshop | Amazon

Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld (April 4)

Curtis Sittenfield follows 2020’s Rodham, an alternate history of Hillary Clinton’s life, with a rom-com novel aptly titled Romantic Comedy. In it, we meet 36-year-old Sally Milz, a writer for The Night Owls, a late-night sketch comedy show clearly based on Saturday Night Live. Sally has given up on love, settling into a comfortable routine with her career instead. Enter: pop star Noah Brewster, a musical guest and host on the show, who upends Sally’s understanding of romance and social hierarchy. Surrounded by average-looking men on the show who keep dating standout women, Sally always assumed the reverse would never happen for women. Now, she’s not so sure that double standard exists at all.

Buy Now: Romantic Comedy on Bookshop | Amazon

The People Who Report More Stress, Alejandro Varela (April 4)

After becoming a 2022 finalist for a National Book Award for his debut book, The Town of Babylon, Alejandro Varela is back with a collection of interconnected short stories, The People Who Report More Stress. The titular stressed-out people are those who live on the margins, treated as peripheral. In “Midtown-West Side Story,” that’s Álvaro, a struggling restaurant worker who turns to selling stolen luxury clothing to provide for his family. In “The Man in 512,” it’s Manny, who takes care of the children of a privileged Swedish family. These stories artfully pinpoint the inequities within American society and highlight the frustration inherent in being unable to adequately address them.

Buy Now: The People Who Report More Stress on Bookshop | Amazon

Life and Other Love Songs, Anissa Gray (April 11)

This rhythmic novel, by The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls author Anissa Gray, hinges on the disappearance of Ozro Armstead on his 37th birthday. Ozro leaves behind his wife, Deborah, and daughter, Trinity, as well as his brother, Tommy, and mother, Pearl. The cause of his sudden absence remains murky as time creeps on, both for the family and for the nation at large. Slowly, Deborah and Trinity piece together their lives—and a fuller portrait of who Ozro might have been. Life and Other Love Songs explores one family’s reckoning with the social and political factors that drove them first to Detroit and then to New York as part of the Great Migration.

Buy Now: Life and Other Love Songs on Bookshop | Amazon

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Maggie Smith (April 11)

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, the title of Maggie Smith’s sixth book, is also the last line of her poem “Good Bones,” which went viral eight years ago. The title of that poem, in turn, refers to how realtors describe rundown houses—and how Smith describes the world to her children, despite its many flaws. Smith’s children reappear in this new memoir, which documents the unraveling of her marriage and the hurt that follows. In telling that story, Smith unveils a heartbreaking portrait of womanhood and rocky, gendered power dynamics in even the most liberal of households.

Buy Now: You Could Make This Place Beautiful on Bookshop | Amazon

Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime, Anjan Sundaram (April 11)

An unconventional memoir, given its twin settings, Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime is a firsthand account of ethnic cleansing in the Central African Republic—and the irreparable personal damage wrought by the author’s choice to report on it. Shortly after the birth of his first child, Anjan Sundaram—who previously wrote the memoirs Stringer (2013) and Bad News (2016)—decided to fly to Africa to resume his career as a wartime correspondent. While there, he documented details of the conflict, from mass graves to everyday heroes. When he returned home, though, he found his marriage in tatters, and reckoned with weighing professional calling over familial duty.

Buy Now: Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime on Bookshop | Amazon

Hit Parade of Tears, Izumi Suzuki (April 11)

Japanese writer and actress Izumi Suzuki is back, nearly four decades after her death. Her latest collection to be published in English comprises 11 short stories translated by Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, and Helen O’Horan. Suzuki’s work is richly steeped in science fiction, fantasy, and ’70s counterculture. In one piece, a woman with newfound magical powers teaches her wayward husband a lasting lesson. In another, a Tokyo high-rise fills with salmon roe—the byproduct of a time warp. Throughout, Suzuki empathizes with those who feel alien, other, or ostracized—especially women and girls battling patriarchy and misogyny.

Buy Now: Hit Parade of Tears on Bookshop | Amazon

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, David Grann (April 18)

It’s hard to believe that The Wager—written by the author of The Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon—is a true story. David Grann tells the riveting tale of the British ship the Wager, which embarked from England on a secret mission against Spain in 1740. Two years later, 30 ragged men from the Wager landed ashore in Brazil. Six months after that, three more Wager sailors washed up in Chile. The two groups accused each other of mutiny, eventually going on trial in England. The Wager reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered history—and imperialism—with gusto.

Buy Now: The Wager on Bookshop | Amazon

Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America, Julia Lee (April 18)

This unfiltered memoir is a far cry from Julia Lee’s other books: two works of academic criticism and a romance novel published under a pen name. In Biting the Hand, Lee explains how writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison guided her toward evaluating where her identity and upbringing as a Korean American in Los Angeles fit into America’s racial stratification. The 1992 Los Angeles riots, which took place when Lee was 15, opened her eyes to the privilege she held. “Asian Americans are the beneficiaries and the victims of white supremacy,” she writes, “but we have a choice. We can uphold the power structure or we can dismantle it.”

Buy Now: Biting the Hand on Bookshop | Amazon

Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming, Ava Chin (April 25)

In this vivid memoir, Ava Chin, a fifth-generation Chinese American and the only child of a single mother, searches for her father. Once she finds him, she goes on to discover a six-story building on Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown that, over time, was home to multiple generations from both sides of her family. In the pages of Mott Street, Chin masterfully braids together the roots of her own family tree with the history of Chinese marginalization in America—specifically, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was only repealed during World War II, forcing migrants like her family members to forge new identities.

Buy Now: Mott Street on Bookshop | Amazon

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, Claire Dederer (April 25)

In a realm beyond cancel culture, full of nuance and necessary questions, lies this book of criticism and memoir by essayist Claire Dederer. Monsters further develops the ideas raised in “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?,” Dederer’s viral 2017 essay in the Paris Review. From Hemingway to Picasso to Miles Davis, the author grapples with artists who have been accused of monstrous things and asks whether we can—or should—separate their art from their acts. “The way you consume art doesn’t make you a bad person, or a good one,” she posits. “You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that.”

Buy Now: Monsters on Bookshop | Amazon

On the edge of Wallace Park in Portland, Ore., there is an unremarkable house with a camellia shrub out front. The house is painted a bluish gray now, but it might have been another color before. Cheryl Strayed is standing on the sidewalk in the rain with a smile on her face, conjuring a memory. This is where she took part in a yard sale in 1995, immediately after she—now quite famously—completed a 1,100-mile solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. At the time, she was a 27-year-old aspiring writer with 20¢ to her name. She sold whatever she could, including a pencil sharpener to a man who rode in on a bicycle. The man invited her to dinner with some friends, and later that night, Strayed met the person she would marry.

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Strayed sees them everywhere: little signs, small reminders. It’s one of the things that define her writing, that ability to draw connections—whether between a yard sale and the life she’s built with her husband, or between a cry for help from a reader and a lesson she’s learned from her own past.

Strayed, 54, has built a career on her dual abilities to tell the whole, ugly truth about herself and to empathize with others, creating a space for self-acceptance. Wild, the 2012 memoir of her Pacific Crest Trail journey, told the story of the sudden loss of her mother to lung cancer when Strayed was 22; her subsequent struggles, including a heroin habit and a divorce; and the hike that brought her back to herself. That book, which was adapted into a 2014 film starring Reese Witherspoon, has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. It also launched Strayed’s “accidental” career as a public speaker, for which she has traveled the world teaching writing and speaking to people about the great dreams and traumas of their lives, offering whatever wisdom and encouragement she can.

Read More: Why It’s Easier Than Ever to Get Great Advice

It was a fitting shift. Before Wild made her a household name, Strayed was going by another one: Sugar. In 2010, two years before Wild shot her to literary stardom, Strayed took over the advice column “Dear Sugar” for the online literary magazine the Rumpus. It was a no-pay job answering reader letters in the voice of a woman with a checkered history first dreamed up by the writer Steve Almond, and he was ready to pass the mantle. For two years, as Sugar, Strayed anonymously responded to letters seeking advice on everything from whether to have children to how to overcome jealousy. Instead of offering the practical guidance given by most advice columnists, Strayed treated each missive like an essay, sharing bits of her personal story to make broader points about the beauty and agony of being human.

A collection of the columns, Tiny Beautiful Things, was published just a few months after Wild. Strayed and Almond launched a podcast, Dear Sugars, in 2014. Nia Vardalos adapted Tiny Beautiful Things into a play in 2016. And now, on April 7, Hulu will premiere a television series of the same name. Strayed executive-produced and helped write the series, with Little Fires Everywhere alum Liz Tigelaar serving as showrunner. With their team, they created the story of Clare (played by Kathryn Hahn and, in scenes from the past, Sarah Pidgeon), a mother whose life is crumbling when she’s asked to take over as the columnist Sugar.

Sugar is, well, sticky. Her story keeps getting remade, and Strayed couldn’t shake her if she tried. She and Almond stopped making their podcast in 2018; the Rumpus column was already long done. But strangers never stopped writing to her. They found her personal email or wrote to the old “Dear Sugar” address, seeking a piece of her wisdom. So she started a monthly newsletter. Giving advice is part of her now. The writer and the persona are inextricably linked. And it’s precisely because they—both Sugar and Strayed—have lived through dark times, erred, and never claim to have all the answers that the advice is so potent. “I’m not some wise guru who’s like, here’s how to live,” Strayed says, ambling along on our rainy walk. “I’m right down there in the muck with you.”

Tigelaar likes to say that adult Clare in the emotional Tiny Beautiful Things is an alternate-reality version of Strayed, one who never hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and never wrote Wild; now 49 and devastated that she hasn’t fulfilled her promise as a writer, she drinks too much, she creates chaos, and her marriage, her work, and her relationship with her kid are all suffering. But, divergent as their present-day realities may be, the Clare character and Strayed share the same history: both married the wrong person too young, both lost their mothers to cancer during their senior year of college, and both fell into self-destruction.

There is a scene in Tiny Beautiful Things when Frankie (the mother of young Clare, played by Merritt Wever) calls Clare home from college. She resists—she’s busy, she has work and class and a life on campus—but Frankie insists. We see Clare enter the house where she grew up with her mom and her brother Lucas, the table set for an unusually formal dinner. Her mother is wearing lipstick and a nice dress. She made spinach lasagna and bought ice cream for dessert. Clare fumes. “I can’t just come home just because you miss me,” she says. This is when Frankie tells her children: she’s going to die.

“I get chills even saying this to you,” Strayed says. “That was straight from my life.” She had the surreal experience of sharing the story of how she learned of her mother’s illness in the writers’ room for the series, then watching the actors play out the scene. The same thing happened with Wild. “Who does this?” she says. “It’s like, OK, people, now you’re going to re-enact Cheryl’s 10 most painful moments, and Cheryl’s going to sit there and watch, sometimes over and over.”

Strayed being Strayed, she found something heartening in the scene. Watching young Clare storm into the house with her selfish, early-20s attitude, Strayed recognized that any young woman trying to establish her independence might behave the same way. She couldn’t have known what her mother was about to reveal. Observing Pidgeon step into the character, Strayed says, “I feel such a sense of gentleness for the younger version of myself … It’s the most specific and bizarre form of therapy.”

Read More: The Rise of the Lone She-Wolf

This is the story that she has carried with her for more than 30 years. It was the subject of her first book, the 2005 novel Torch, of Wild, of so many important moments in the “Dear Sugar” column and Tiny Beautiful Things in all its forms. With the show, Strayed emphasizes that she wanted to tell a “true story” about grief. Clare’s problem is not that she hasn’t moved on from her mother’s death, she explains. A primal loss like hers is a trauma that re-emerges again and again. When Strayed had her first child, she had to reckon again with her grief, and when she turned 45 and outlived her mother, she did again.

She likens grief to a box you’ll hold forever—what it means to you is determined by how bravely you look into it. “Anyone who reads my work or sees the show knows how very much I have turned my deepest sorrow into beauty,” she says. “That’s what grief is. If we work really, really hard, we can get to that place.”

The rain is coming down harder, so I set our course toward a coffee shop I know nearby. With the glowing storefront in sight, Strayed suddenly stops, looking downward. I follow her gaze. I see a penny in the middle of the sidewalk, wet and a little grimy. She sees another sign from the universe: there are good things here. “I’ve had all the luck,” she says, urging me to take it. Instead, I suggest we leave it for the next person to find, so she bends down to touch a finger to the surface, transferring some of her good fortune.

Shaking off the wet as we enter the café, I realize the mistake I’ve made. There it was: my chance to claim a little piece of Strayed’s magic for myself. That’s what we congregants of Sugar do. We take her words of encouragement and sympathy, her tough love and her powerful example, her belief in humanity, and we tuck them in our pockets and hold onto them.

Inside, we sit down and continue the conversation. Strayed tells me she’s working on another memoir, a project she’s been wrestling with for a while. She tells me more about her family, about awkward times when she’s been recognized in public, about her writing process. Then, on the walk back to where we started, she brings me right to the spot where we left the penny. It’s still there, shinier than before. “It’s destiny,” she says.

In early March, TIME sat down with global music sensation Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also known as Bad Bunny, as he was preparing to perform at Coachella—the first Latino artist to headline the prominent music festival. During a wide-ranging interview for a TIME cover story, Martínez Ocasio spoke candidly about his life, his music, and spending more of his time these days in Los Angeles, a place he “always dreamed of going” as a chamaquito (a little boy) growing up in Puerto Rico. He also addressed his burgeoning acting career, along with the responsibility he feels as a reggaetonero who is often asked to speak for an entire region.
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The following transcript has been condensed, edited for clarity, and translated into English. For the Spanish version click here.

We’re currently in downtown L.A. Are you liking it here?

In reality, yes I like it. I’ve always liked it since I started coming here a few years ago. It’s a place that since I was chamaquito (a little boy)—before all of this—I’ve always dreamed of going. I always dreamed of going to Los Angeles one day because I was a fan of the Lakers and Kobe.

Do you have family in the U.S.? Do you remember the first time you came to the States?

Damn. If I didn’t have family in the United States I wouldn’t be Latino.

I remember the first time I came to the U.S. I was 12 years old. It was summer and I went to Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania. I stayed in different family member’s houses, but I visited New York for only one day. We went and came back. I remember it really well. That was the first time. And it was the first and only time until I grew up.

Where are the best beaches? Los Angeles or Puerto Rico?

[Audibly chuckles] You know the answer to that. Puerto Rico, definitely 1000 times. I haven’t gotten into the water yet. I’m going to see if in the summer the water gets warmer and then I’ll go.

Read the Cover Story: Bad Bunny’s Next Move

Growing up in the pueblo of Almirante Sur, what were your fondest memories of your childhood?

I always say that I had a very normal life. I grew up with my mom and dad. I am the oldest brother of three so I remember waiting for my brothers. When my first brother Bernie came and the second, Bysael. My mother was a teacher and my dad was a truck driver. So you know we were working people. Very Catholic. We went to church. We had to do good in school. I grew up with a lot of love from my mother and my father. I saw them sometimes trying hard, going through difficult times to bring us food and other times, easy. They were beautiful moments, sometimes of uncertainty but in the end I was always grateful to the core that I grew up in my family, my barrio (town), in my pueblo (city) and the way I grew up because from there I acquired a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge that makes me the person I am today.

What role did music play in your life in your early life?

The thing I’ve done the most in life is listen to music. Since I was little I was always a fan of music. When I was a kid I had a lot of CDs of salsa, merengue. My mom listened to a lot of merengue and balada (ballad) and my dad would listen to salsa. When I was a chamaquito or niño (teenager or younger boy) I was listening to rap and reggaeton. I always remember when I was 5 for Christmas they gifted me a CD of Vico-C, “Aquel Que Había Muerto,” with the dark cover, almost black, you could barely see Vico C’s face. My mom would buy records from a catalog, which was like a book and you chose the records and they came in dozens. Well she would choose about eight and let me choose the last four. I’d grab CDs of Marc Anthony, Victor Manuel and CDs of “bolero” music. I grew up always listening to music and tried to imitate the voices of the singers and the sounds they made. Since I was little it was always my passion. I was always a big fan of artists. That’s why when they ask me, ‘What artist inspired you?’ I never say one alone because I listened to so many artists and genres like reggaeton, which has many artists that inspired me and salsa. I would say that the entire movement of Latin music inspired me.

What do your parents and family think about you being the biggest artist in the world?

I don’t think they know that. [Laughing] In reality, my dad is proud of me and is happy that I feel good and that I’m living my dreams. I always thank God that me, my friends and my family maintain our feet on the ground. I go to my dad’s house and I feel so relaxed. So normal. Like nothing is happening. Outside of that house perhaps the world is listening and talking about me, but in that house everything is the same. Nothing has changed. My dad doesn’t act a new way or treat me a new way. It’s beautiful for me to like going there and they still look at me with the eyes of, ‘Come here, Benito Antonio. The baby. Their son.’ You understand? My mom is the same as my dad. That’s why I say they don’t know, but not in the sense that they don’t understand it. It’s the sense that I am still the same person and nothing has changed on how we feel and treat each other. Every time I go to the house it feels just like that… a home.

Could you have imagined where you are now?

Perhaps at first I would not have imagined that I dreamed of this. When I was in my room alone making beats, dreaming that one day I’d have success in music, no. But now with time passing and I’ve seen big things I can now imagine the next and the next. I remember two years ago I told myself, papi (dude) I’m already at a level that if it goes down I won’t be the same as before, I won’t be able to recover my normal life so to speak. But yes, I have imagined it, but if you ask me from the beginning when I was a chamaquito (little boy), no. When I was a little boy, I only dreamed of music and that someone would listen to my music. I always say that if a thousand people listened to me and I performed once a month at a little place, just with that I would be happy. But the hunger and the passion that I have for this is impossible because I always want to give more and more and more.

Do you feel like the emergence of the Internet and streaming platforms like Spotify are important reasons why you’re here today?

Obviously yes, and on this I can tell you, above other people, if it weren’t for social networks I wouldn’t be here. What I don’t believe in is that it’s an advantage. There’s a bunch of artists of the past that say, ‘During my time there wasn’t Spotify. During my time there wasn’t Instagram.’ But there were other things. For example, it was more difficult than getting exposure to reach the position. But at the same time it was better to those who achieved it. Now we’re at a time where at any point you can release a song. I compete with one million people. When I come out with something that same day a thousand artists come out with songs. Twenty albums coming out on the same night. Back then, one, two or three albums would come out. There wasn’t so much saturation in music. I release an album now and a week passes and 15 new albums have arrived. So it’s easier for more people to not listen to my album and start to listen to another. Before you would buy an album at $15 you wouldn’t have money to buy another album. You were going to burn through it and pela, pela, pela (listen over and over again). Now you listen to my album and you’re bored, you can listen to others. So to maintain yourself right there in the position that they continue to listen to you and that you maintain the position that your album continues to stay at the top is way more difficult than times before. Nowadays it’s much harder. Before you would listen to the same song for a whole year on the station. It is the station that plays your song and if they don’t like it, you do have chavos (money) to pay the station, otherwise you could not compete with anyone. Now anyone puts a song in the media and can pegarla (hit it).

Read More: ‘Hago Música Como Si Fuera la Única Persona en el Mundo.’ Bad Bunny sobre Coachella, Hollywood y Superándose a sí Mismo

Do you think about the industry’s competition when you’re at the creation stage of your projects?

No. When I’m in the studio I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I’m not thinking about the amount of people who are recording or not. I make music like I’m the only person in the world.

Do you care about staying in your position as the number one artist in the world?

I always say no, but I think I lie. Because at the end of the day I’m very competitive. But with everything. If I’m playing chess, I want to win. If I’m making jokes, I want to tell better jokes. I’m very competitive. In all situations. So obviously in music I am. But in a good way. But I don’t like to see others lose. I like everyone winning. There’s space for all of us. I like to see others triumph and have success. I like to see people have good music because it’ll make me better. If I see someone making a song that’s rompiendo (breaking or hitting the records), if there is someone who made a cabrona (badass) song, I am going to make a more cabrona (badass) song. I want to do something better. But not to overshadow them, but because I want to do something better. We can all win, we can all shine together.

You were the most streamed artist on Spotify for three years in a row. Why do you think your music has this effect on people?

I don’t know. The manner in which I do music is a way that’s so real. I give so much love to the music. I always say that my mom gave so much love to me since I was kid, that’s why I have so much to give to the world and los demás (the rest). I think that my songs are the same. I give so much love to my songs that it doesn’t run out. That energy every time you listen to my song it’ll give you so much alegria (joy). I don’t do songs just to do them. When I have a song to release I will release it.

Do you have a song right now?

Right at this moment? Yes. [Reaches to phone in right pocket] But I’m not going to show you. [Laughs]

Who would you say you do music for? For Puerto Rico?

I do music for the people that love me. When I read comments that say, ‘Bad Bunny, now I’m not going to listen to your music,’ that’s fine. If you don’t want to listen to my music anymore that’s OK. That’s fine, someone will like it. I do music for who wants to listen to me and for who wants to connect with me. If you don’t like what I’m doing I’m not going to do something else for you to like it. If you don’t like it, well brother, there are plenty of artists out there, and perhaps you’ll find someone you’ll like. Someone is going to like what I’m doing and those are the people I’m singing to. But obviously, yes I do music for Puerto Rico. It’s where I was born and grew up. I’m a fan of our people, our culture, as well as our culture within reggaeton. When I write and I do music my spirit is always in Puerto Rico and I try for the music that I do to be liked by people there.

Your latest album Un Verano Sin Ti was an immersive listening experience. Why was bringing the experience of a Puerto Rican summer to the world important to you?

A lot of artists will do songs, take a picture, the cover and that’s it, then the video and that’s it, done. I want to create an entire world, an ambience and sentiment along with an album, from the videos, the visuals, the cover, the thematics, everything synchronized, with the purpose that you listen to it so that you feel like you’re in a place or having a feeling. If someone is in f–king Switzerland they can feel like they’re in the Caribbean, they can feel like they’re on the beach. That’s why all the visuals for the songs are me on the beach and it’s 360 so if you put the [VR headset] on you’ll be on the beach with me. If you are in Puerto Rico even better cause then you don’t need the [VR]—you are there.

Read More: Allow Bad Bunny to Teach You Puerto Rican Slang

Your producer Tainy is a legend in the reggaeton space. What has it been like working with him on your projects?

I have been a fan of his forever. I have had dreams since I was a chamaquito (kid) to work one day with Tainy. Even after I got into music, it took time to be able to work with him. I remember when I did my first record and they asked me, ‘Who do you want to work with?’ And I said, ‘I want to work with Tainy.’ And up until now we’ve worked together. I don’t work with a lot of producers like that hand in hand.

We’ve got a video question directly from Tainy that we’d like to show you from our phone. Tainy: As a fan I’d like to know, how did you find a way to put so much of who you are as Benito the person, not just Bad Bunny the artist in your urban music?

I always attempt to give the real me in my songs. I am a chamaquito (still young). [Laughs] We have different preoccupations and desires to do one thing one day and the next not. One moment we go to the club to drink and smoke, and tomorrow I want to be chilling at home watching a movie. Tuesday I want to go to the gym and Wednesday I want to eat a hamburger. And then next I’ll be thinking about my ex or a girl that I like. And then tomorrow I am bothered over something I think is an injustice. But then by night I go to eat tacos, they give me a bit of tequila and I’ve forgotten.

I think there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why my songs have everything in it. We’re in the club, we’re on the beach, we’re crying over love, we’re upset about social injustice because that’s how it is.

Your first project with Tainy was Estamos Bien, which you dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Maria. In that sense, the song speaks to the resilience of Puerto Ricans. Is it important for you to speak on Puerto Rico injustices, while also highlighting the resistance of Boricuas?

Yes, there’s always different sentiments to the songs so that you can listen to it and take from it what you want. For example, I remember when we were doing Estamos Bien, it also gave a sense of what’s going on and I did it so you could also feel for the island and Puerto Rico. In that song I also talk about butts and chavos (money) and things like that, more trap so that the people from the street that also like that can also feel. To me it could signify one thing but to another person it means something else. So I always attempt to do that in the songs. If I’m giving you a message, I’m going to do it in a way that can be interpreted in different situations so that they can see themselves in it too.

How is reggaeton a genre that offers the opportunity to not only do perreo-style music (reggaeton dance party tracks), but also address social and political topics?

Yeah, undoubtedly! I think that reggaeton and all music genres are a means to express yourself. They always have been. Music has always told stories of things good, things bad, dangerous things, things that bother you. So reggaeton is just another genre of music. It includes sounds from the street, from the barrio (town). There’s always space and opportunity to talk about everything a little bit in reggaeton records. That’s why I have songs for the club. I have songs for everything.

Do you think the elements of race and colorism are involved in determining who is successful in the reggaeton space?

They’ve asked me that before… it’s been a long time since I’ve had a question like that. Within my ignorance I didn’t understand it. I said that can’t be. I couldn’t imagine it. I can’t say that yes or no because I haven’t lived it. I also haven’t seen with my own eyes that yes this person didn’t become more successful because of their skin. I haven’t seen it. It’d be irresponsible of me to say yes. For example, they asked me about if Tego Calderón would’ve been bigger if he wasn’t Black. But in my eyes, Tego Calderón is the biggest singer in the industry. You understand? I didn’t understand things about the industry that maybe are true. Maybe doors closed because of his skin, maybe some promoter preferred an artist whiter than him. But those things I don’t know. I haven’t lived it. When they asked me I said, ‘What? To me Tego Calderón is the biggest singer in the genre, he is one of my idols too. What do you mean not as big? What’s bigger than him?’

Is it important for you to give your flowers to the greats like Tego Calderón and those that have inspired you?

Yes of course. To me it’s important to always maintain a respect for those who deserve it. If you see someone who you feel inspired by and admired, say it and say it with respect. It doesn’t matter how big I grow, I include people that have inspired me that for the better that I wouldn’t necessarily be here. I don’t have a name but there are artists that I used to listen to and I see them and I respect them equally. I’m a fan of reggaeton and I don’t want to forget about its history.

What was your process and approach of creating your Grammys performance?

They never told me what to do. They gave me the liberty to do what I wanted and I knew that I wanted to sing “Después De La Playa.” A lot of people thought that I’d perform “Titi Me Pregunto” or “Moscow Mule,” but I knew I wanted to do “Despues De La Playa.” But I wanted something more. So I had the idea to do the first part of ”El Apagón.” And mano (brother) the idea came very spontaneously and naturally. In Puerto Rico in the month of January there’s the street festival of San Sebastián. It’s a super big, traditional Puerto Rican festival where you’ll see personalities portrayed by the cabezudos (big heads). Incredibly, in all my life I’ve never been to one. So I thought this year, I wanted to go. I thought I’d find a way to put myself there, but I couldn’t because I was here so I thought, you know what, I’m bringing the San Sebastián Festival to the Grammys. I actually didn’t know that I was going to be the opening act. That was something decided at the last minute. I think after they saw the show they thought let’s put him as the first act. And I said, ‘First?’ It was all very natural.

Read More: How Puerto Ricans Are Fighting Back Against the Outsiders Using the Island as a Tax Haven

During your performance, there were subtitles that read “Non-English” on the program. Your fans were vocal on social media about their disappointment. What was your reaction when you first saw that?

In reality when I saw it…it didn’t capture the message. It didn’t say ‘in Spanish’… como que (like) ‘non-english’… well, the system doesn’t work. It was porqueria (crap), that’s the only way I could put it.

One of the songs you chose for the performance, El Apagón, is one of your most politically direct records. What does the lyric ‘Todo quieren ser latino… pero les falta sazón, batería y reggaeton’ (Everyone wants to be Latino… but they’re missing seasoning, drums and reggaeton) mean to you?

That line is from Tego Calderón! The thing that happens when you’re creating music, especially me, is that I’m the type of person that changes my mood quickly. So when I wrote that song I was upset. I thought: these people… what do they think? That for the moment… there’s artists that want to do things and also now mentioned their Latin roots that they’ve never said but now because of the moment, yes you want to do a song in Spanish. Cabrona (asshole), you’ve been singing for 20 years and now you want to do a song in Spanish? You didn’t do it at your best moment but now you want to do a song in Spanish because you are apagá (not in your best moment)? So things like that I see and in that moment it bothered me. But now that feeling has passed me. It’s not like I feel like that right now. It’s good to do what you want. And the same for other artists that are gringo (white) that never would have the opportunity to work with a Latin artist or do a song in Spanish, and now you see them looking at Latin music because it’s on top. It became “cool” to be Latino. They’re not just doing the music, they’re trying to copy the flow of Latinos. But then I think about it—our culture and music runs far and wide. It impacts people in other places. They want to try it and feel it. So why am I going to be bothered by that, if they do it with respect?

Act 60 is a law that entices foreigners to move to Puerto Rico for its tax benefits. How do you feel about non-Puerto Ricans coming to the island and contributing to gentrification and displacement of natives?

It bothers me so much. I think what bothers me the most is them wanting to come, take possession, occupy a space, but don’t want to embrace anything, or help out. They don’t want to give back. When you go to a new barrio (town), they’re always going to look at you oddly because you’re from another place. They’re going to feel like you’re taking something from them, like when they see you using the basketball court and you aren’t from there, of course they would look at you bad. But if that person embraces and contributes to the barrio (town) I’m sure that somehow they’ll accept you little by little. This is good. You understand? I think that’s everything. The other day I was watching a TikTok of a white girl talking about Hurricane Maria with such happiness, saying that it was the best thing that happened to Puerto Rico. She said it so contentedly, and sure, yes us Puerto Ricans look for the positive in situations over the negative. But it isn’t the same. So I think that’s what bothers me the most, not having empathy nor respect for the place they’re going to benefit from.

How is it for you being an artist so big in the U.S. when there are such strong tensions between the two? Do you ever feel like you have an obligation to educate?

Yes, I always talk about it to my friends from here. If I’m with someone I can educate, I will. I always do it. And not just in the songs or the interview. I do it in real life. If I’m with someone and I hear something very ignorant about my country or my culture, I always try to educate them, like ‘No it’s not like that.’

Do you think the U.S. government has failed the Puerto Rican people?

[Immediately giggles] I think that the government has failed Puerto Rico, it’s failed the United States. Equally, Puerto Rico has failed Puerto Rico. I believe that all governments have failed their country at some point.

Do you feel it’s unfair that you get these political questions that you have to speak on behalf of the entire Island?

Yes, I think it’s unfair. And that’s why some artists don’t do it. If you don’t talk about it in your songs, you won’t get these types of questions. They’re not going to ask Daddy Yankee something like that. I don’t know why I said Daddy Yankee, sorry Daddy Yankee. They won’t ask them something like that because they don’t address that in their songs. I will limit talking about that because then I don’t want them to ask me. When I’m writing my music I’m not thinking, ‘Well then they’re going to ask me.’ I’m thinking simply about expressing myself at that moment. Because when they ask me it might be hard for me to express because I’m not as good with my words when I’m talking. But in the songs, yes, that’s where I’ll say it because that’s where I feel comfortable—I feel intelligent, I feel capable of. In my songs I will be able to express myself fully like how I want. That question could be a bit unfair because I simply do a song and then a responsibility so big falls on me. That responsibility isn’t only on me. If I weren’t to release that song talking about something no one would ask me. We wouldn’t be doing an interview with that type of question.

You go by the mantra “yo hago lo que me da la gana” as referenced in the title of your sophomore album YHLQMDLG. The more famous you get, do you still think that’s still the case?

Yes. Because I don’t care about fame. I don’t care about that pressure that we were talking about. I don’t care about that. I’m a person. I’m a human and I make mistakes. I have always said I will live how I want. But I never limit or act a way because of what they’re going to say or think—no. I’m famous and I don’t stop being human.

Your appearance in Bullet Train alongside Brad Pitt was epic. Where has your interest in acting come from and what was that experience like?

I have always liked acting. Where I grew up, if you like something it’s the only thing that you like. It’s complicated to take classes for music, piano, singing, and acting. It requires money and time. When you’re growing up where the conditions are not the city like San Juan, you have almost everything, theaters and stuff. I always liked acting, but not more than music. Music is always number one. So when the opportunity came for acting it’s coming thanks to my fame and success in music. I’ve tried it and like it. The Bullet Train experience was super cabrón (awesome).

What was more difficult? Fighting with Brad Pitt or fighting with the Mizz on WWE?

Definitely fighting with Brad Pitt. That fight was hard because it was physical and serious. But the two were cabronas (amazing fights). The day with Mizz—that fight that day was the best day of my life.

Do you feel like the more famous you get the more fans invade your personal space?

I think it’s possible that they operate in a different way. If they understand that we are the same, we are human, that we should not be aggressive, why invade my private space? I always say I will never say no to someone who comes up to me to say hi. I will never leave someone’s hand out that’s greeting me. Never. If you’re coming up like you’re going to rob me, then yes, it’ll bother me. Someone will ask me for a photo, I stretch out my hand, and they leave it there because they’re looking for their phone. Why do you want a picture with me? Cause I’m the Statue of liberty? I’m a human. Greet me. The photo isn’t worth more than a greeting. A photo isn’t worth more than an exchange of words. That’s worth more than a photo. You can say I know Bad Bunny. You prefer to know me or have a picture with me?

Read More: The 10 Best Albums of 2022

Do you still live in Puerto Rico?

I always say I live in PR because I don’t know. I could be two years in LA but I’ll always say that I live in Puerto Rico. Now I’m here in LA for a little while. I’d like to move to other places like New York. But yes my home is in Puerto Rico. I say I still live in Puerto Rico because I know it’s just temporary. Just for a bit looking for other experiences. But at the end of the day I’ll always go back to Puerto Rico and will stay forever.

Your film Cassandro received buzz at the Sundance Film Festival. How was that experience?

Amazing. That was one of my first experiences acting. I remember I was nervous. I think I was more nervous than for Bullet Train because it was my first experience. I didn’t want to joderlo (mess it up) or ruin it. Acting with Gael was so great and they treated me super well. I’m glad it was my first experience.

Read More: Bad Bunny Speaks Out on Black Lives Matter Protests

Your first on screen kiss was with Gael Garcia Bernal. How was that?

It was cabrón (badass). My first kiss for a movie and it was with a man. That’s the penalty I get for being with so many women during my life. [Begins to laugh] If you’re acting, you’re being someone you’re not. That’s the fun part. So when they asked me for that I said, ‘Yes, I’m here for whatever you want.’ I think it was very cool. I didn’t feel uncomfortable. It’s part of acting. It’s part of what I’m doing.

Anything you can share on your Marvel film ‘El Muerto’?

We haven’t recorded any scenes yet. Maybe they’ll switch me out for Pedro Pascal. [Laughs]

You’ve always been a fan of wrestling. What was that day like stepping into the WWE ring?

Best day of my life. I never felt that kind of adrenaline before. I wanted to explode before. It was like I was a kid all over again. And the fight—it was the blink of an eye. Everything happened fast.

It appears like you’ve been learning a lot of English. Is learning the language something you felt pressured to do or always had an interest in?

No. I’m just learning, that’s it. There’s a lot of things that I’m losing, like opportunities, ‘cause the language. I didn’t care about [learning] English. But now, I think I care. It has been so natural just talking and practicing but without pressure or with one goal or something.

Does it bother you when people ask if you’ll ever do music in English?

No, because I think it’s a fair question. But no one asks Drake when he’s going to make a Spanish song. The day I feel like I need to do a song in English, I’ll do it because I feel it.

You said 2023 is the year for you?

Everyday I exercise, rest, watch TV, write music—but without pressure—not that I have to do it, it’s because I like it.

Tainy told us you like to decorate your studios according to your vibe. What is your studio currently decorated like?

For Un Verano Sin Ti, I put little plants to make it look tropical. Now I have created a space that looks like, ‘70s—very colorful, vintage. Colors from that time. I’m on that vibe right now. I’m buying ‘70s cars, ‘70s shit. ‘70s drugs. [Laughs]

You’re the first Latino to headline the famous Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif. How are you feeling going into it?

A lot of people ask me that in the street. I’m like, ‘Am I supposed to feel something?’ I performed at Azteca. I performed at Yankee Stadium. I’ve performed every place. Coachella is going to be another f–king performance to me. I felt more pressure at the Hiram Bithorn [Stadium in Puerto Rico] than I feel for Coachella. Obviously I’m excited. I want to do my best.

Read More: Reggaeton Is So Much More Than Party Music. This Podcast Breaks Down Its Political Roots

Your Yankee Stadium show was iconic. Do you want Coachella to top that one?

There’s a lot of megastars that have performed at Coachella before so I don’t want to compete with any of them. I just want to be myself. A lot of legends have performed at Coachella but no one like me. There’s never been a Benito performing at Coachella. And that’s the cool thing for me.

What do you want your fans to experience at your Coachella set?

I want them to enjoy the show. I want the people to feel free like it’s not Coachella—we’re in the barrio (town), on the beach. At Coachella, there’s never been someone from where I come from. There hasn’t been anyone that will bring what I bring. I want people to not feel pressure or responsibility. We’re going to enjoy where we are now because we don’t know where we’re going.

I was looking at all of the Coachella flyers since ‘99. I forgot I was doing it this year. I saw that it said my name for 2023—I thought it was fake. It was a bit impressive. All of the people that have been and now it’s me, but it doesn’t change who I am as an artist and as a person. If I’m there it’s because I do my job well. I don’t want to try doing something bigger than Beyoncé or Radiohead.

Read More: The Best Latin Songs and Albums of 2022

Lastly we need to know… Do you have a song with Justin Bieber coming out?

There’s a song with Justin Bieber? It’s a rumor? No, I don’t have a song with Justin Bieber. That’s fake. You’re never going to know what I’m going to do. Don’t lie to yourself, you will not know my next move.

—With reporting by Israel Meléndez Ayala

In 40 minutes, the former grocery bagger from Puerto Rico will try on outfits worth thousands for the cover of this magazine. In 12 hours, he will be photographed embracing the world’s highest-paid supermodel. In one month, he will be staring out onto a sea of 125,000 superfans from the heights of Coachella’s main stage.

But right now, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, who also goes by Bad Bunny, is slouched almost completely horizontally on a green-room couch in downtown Los Angeles, thinking about being with his parents back home in Puerto Rico.

“Outside of that house, perhaps the world is listening and talking about me,” he murmurs in Spanish. “But in that house, everything is the same. Nothing has changed. It’s beautiful for me to go there and they still look at me with the eyes of, ‘Come here, Benito Antonio. The baby. The son.’”

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Bad Bunny wants to be the biggest artist in the world—and he is. Last year, his fifth solo studio album, Un Verano Sin Ti, was Billboard’s top-performing album of the year, beating out Taylor Swift and Harry Styles. He broke the all-time record for tour revenue in a calendar year—with $435 million earned—and was Spotify’s most streamed artist for the third year in a row. But Bad Bunny also wants to just be Benito; to do whatever he wants, or hace lo que le da la gana, as he named his sophomore album. And until this point, it is exactly this mentality that has brought him unprecedented success. Where other musicians reaching for his level of stardom have hidden certain parts of themselves, Benito has refused to compromise: on the language he sings in; the political stances he assumes; the dresses and nail polish he wears.

Read More: ‘Hago Música Como Si Fuera la Única Persona en el Mundo.’ Bad Bunny sobre Coachella, Hollywood y Superándose a sí Mismo

Bad Bunny is perhaps the world’s first reverse crossover artist, whose success comes from a refusal to cater to the mainstream. His stubborn originality, independence, and fiercely local lens have made him a radically new kind of global pop star, etching pathways to success that completely bypass New York or Hollywood industry gatekeepers.

But the further Benito ascends into the stratosphere, the more the expectations of his growing fandom threaten to exceed what his whims can deliver. His unequaled stature means he is often asked to speak for an entire region, a responsibility that he alternately embraces and chafes at. During the course of our conversation, he dances around political questions and refers to himself as a chamaquito—a little boy.

Seven years into his career, Benito, 29, is a legitimate heir to Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, or Beyoncé. How he navigates this next fraught period could determine how close he can come to meeting the near impossible expectations placed on him by his fans, his homeland, an exacting industry—and himself.

“I always say that if a thousand people listened to me and I performed once a month at a little place, just with that I would be happy,” he says in his deep baritone and distinctly Puerto Rican inflection. “But the hunger and the passion that I have for this is impossible, because I always want to give more and more and more.”

In 2022, Bad Bunny had the type of pantheon year that even other pop superstars dream about. Un Verano Sin Ti topped the Billboard charts for 13 non-consecutive weeks, with the least played song on the record racking up 190 million Spotify streams. In November, Un Verano Sin Ti became the first entirely Spanish-language album to receive a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.

Read More: ‘I Make Music Like I’m the Only Person in the World.’ Bad Bunny on Coachella, Hollywood, and Topping Himself

Benito’s success starts with his inimitable singing voice, which is malleable enough to be imbued either with cutthroat swagger or pathos. He’s a master aural chemist, melding together decades of Latin music into cutting-edge mixes that resonate at the club, on the beach, or at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon. And he creates at a startlingly fast pace. “I’ll send him an idea and tomorrow night, there are vocals in an email that don’t need any adjustments,” the producer Tainy, who is one of his main collaborators, tells TIME.

Benito has achieved all of this without releasing a single song in English, or making any real attempt to cross over. Other Latin artists have scored megahits in Spanish: Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” back in 1958, Los Del Río’s 1993 hit “Macarena,” Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” in 2017. But U.S. interest has ebbed and flowed, with subgenres like Latin pop and reggaeton—a genre that blends Jamaican and Latin musical influences with hip-hop elements—dismissed by industry insiders as fads.

Bad Bunny grew up in the midst of reggaeton’s first mainstream moment. San Juan, P.R., and artists like Daddy Yankee and Ivy Queen played crucial roles in the genre’s evolution in the ’90s and ’00s. As a teenager, Benito listened to reggaeton and other forms of Latin music, and anointed himself Bad Bunny based on a childhood photo taken of him in a bunny costume. He started recording in his room and uploading songs to Soundcloud, and his first hit, “Diles,” blew up when he was 21. Five critically acclaimed and commercially successful solo albums followed, along with a Super Bowl performance with Shakira and 10 music videos that have each surpassed a billion views on YouTube.

Read More: Allow Bad Bunny to Teach You Puerto Rican Slang

You don’t accomplish all this without being relentlessly motivated. When asked whether he cares about maintaining his position at the top, he says, “I always say no, but I think I lie. Because if there is someone who made a cabrona song, I am going to make a more cabrona song.” The word cabrón, which is a stronger vulgarity in some cases, often signifies “badass” in Puerto Rican slang.

All this has unfolded against the streaming boom, which has given fans direct access to regional music. Executives are now focused on sheer streaming numbers as opposed to radio spins, and Latin music is growing faster than any other genre in the U.S. No one is streamed more than Bad Bunny. He has proved to the industry that hits don’t need to be manufactured by Max Martin’s assembly line: that they can be freestyled on an island 3,000 miles away from Los Angeles.

While accepting a Grammy onstage in February, Benito dedicated his trophy to Puerto Rico, where his journey began. He grew up the oldest of three brothers in Almirante Sur, a rural area in Vega Baja, a 45-minute drive from San Juan. His parents, a truck driver and a teacher, went through both easy and “difficult times to bring us food,” he says. All the while, they filled their Catholic household with salsa and merengue music from stars like Héctor Lavoe and Elvis Crespo.

Benito’s rise has paralleled a particularly tumultuous period in Puerto Rican history. In 2016, the same year he released his first single, Congress enacted the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) in an effort to restructure the island’s estimated $70 billion in debt. The federal law resulted in austerity measures that have cut back on public services for the island, which has one of the highest poverty rates in the U.S. Puerto Rico was under Spanish colonial rule for 400 years before transitioning into a fraught, century-long commonwealth relationship with the U.S., which has been marked by such indignities as coerced sterilization. Debates surrounding statehood have been in limbo since the population first voted on a status referendum over 50 years ago.

During Hurricane Maria in 2017, one of the deadliest natural disasters and the largest blackout in U.S. history, Benito’s parents lost power for months. In 2018, after President Trump visited the island and threw paper towels into a crowd, Benito declared on The Tonight Show that “more than 3,000 people died and Trump is still in denial.” In 2019, he put his tour on hold to join protests in San Juan calling for the removal of Governor Ricardo Rosselló.

Read More: How Puerto Ricans Are Fighting Back Against the Outsiders Using the Island as a Tax Haven

Benito is increasingly careful with his words on politics, conscious that being the biggest Puerto Rican star in the world comes with the ability to shift public discourse. Whereas a 2019 Instagram post encouraging Puerto Ricans to join him in protest was direct, his comments today are more equivocal. “I think the [U.S.] government has failed Puerto Rico,” he says, before backtracking slightly. “It’s failed the United States. Equally, Puerto Rico has failed Puerto Rico. I believe that all governments have failed their country at some point.”

His music is less inhibited. His 2022 song “El Apagón” rails against Puerto Rico’s current Governor Pedro Pierluisi and the constant power outages since its electrical grid was privatized. Instead of a traditional music video, Benito released a short documentary alongside independent journalist Bianca Graulau about the displacement that has resulted from Act 60, a law that offers tax incentives to foreigners.

Benito makes music that reflects the multi-faceted experience of life itself, moving within a few verses from lyrics about sex to Puerto Rico’s lack of infrastructure. He isn’t interested in making reggaeton that’s only perreo (dance-party tracks), nor is he trying to make politically correct records for an older, more conservative, and vulgarity-averse Latino demographic.

Read More: Bad Bunny Speaks Out on Black Lives Matter Protests

His songs and acts of political resistance are widely celebrated—and are now even the subject of at least one college class. But his ascendence has not come without criticism. In 2020, many on social media called out him and other urbano artists for failing to engage in conversations about anti-Blackness following the murder of George Floyd, especially given reggaeton’s history of rewarding white-presenting artists while neglecting its Black roots. Benito is white-presenting, but is often referred to as jabao, a Puerto Rican of mixed race.

When Benito is asked whether he believes race and colorism play a role in the success of a reggaeton artist, he responds, “Because I haven’t seen it or lived it, I can’t say. It’d be irresponsible of me to say yes. They asked me about if [’00s reggaeton superstar] Tego Calderón would’ve been bigger if he wasn’t Black. But in my eyes, Tego Calderón is the biggest singer in the industry.”

Music historian Katelina “Gata” Eccleston of Reggaeton Con La Gata, who has long studied reggaeton and its racial elements, calls Benito a “great ambassador,” and believes that no one artist should be held accountable for the industry’s failures around colorism. Still, she says Benito’s comments above show that “he still does not understand his positionality.”

Benito is frustrated by how his political lyricism seems to necessitate his answering political questions on behalf of the millions of disparate residents of his home island. “That question could be a bit unfair because I simply do a song and then a responsibility so big falls on you,” he says. “You’re not going to ask Daddy Yankee something like that.”

Over the pandemic, Benito hunkered down in Puerto Rico. Now, he often finds himself in Los Angeles, which is where TIME meets him on a balmy March morning. He arrives in fashionable yet comfy clothes: baggy Balenciaga sweats and a yellow-trimmed Moncler puffer jacket covering a shirt of the Mexican pop icon Juan Gabriel. His accessories include Y2K-style sunglasses, a skull ring, mismatched heart earrings, blush-pink nails, and three layered gold chains.

Read More: Reggaeton Is So Much More Than Party Music. This Podcast Breaks Down Its Political Roots

Over the course of several hours, Benito speaks in hushed tones, at times raising his voice excitedly to punch home a point or jokingly insult a member of his posse sitting in the corner. Later on, he teases playing an unreleased song, reaching for his phone in jest.

Benito’s attention to detail is apparent as he prepares for the photo shoot. Wearing a floor-length Willy Chavarria coat and a sizable white flower on his chest, he makes his way through piles of jewelry before adding a pearl necklace to his already well-adorned neck. “Beautiful. Me gusta,” he says in Spanglish as he looks in a mirror.

Los Angeles’ appeal to Benito includes Hollywood, which he is keen to immerse himself in. He recently appeared in Narcos: Mexico and Bullet Train, which featured him in a life-or-death brawl opposite Brad Pitt. David Leitch, Bullet Train’s director, says that Benito was fastidious about learning the fight choreography, asking to rehearse scenes over and over. “I’d love to do an action movie where he’s the lead,” Leitch says. “He has a soulfulness and an incredible empathetic quality.”

Benito also appeared in biopic Cassandro, in which he plays a paramour to Gael García Bernal. “My first kiss for a movie and it was with a man,” he says, laughing. “That’s the penalty I get for being with so many women during my life.”

He took the job seriously. “If you’re acting, you’re being someone you’re not,” he says. “So when they asked me for that, I said, ‘Yes, I’m here for whatever you want.’ I think it was very cool; I didn’t feel uncomfortable.”

Read More: The Best Latin Songs and Albums of 2022

Benito is part of a rising generation of male pop stars challenging stereotypical masculine ideals. He has kissed a male dancer onstage, appeared in drag, and declared that his heterosexuality does not define him. He used a 2020 appearance on The Tonight Show to call attention to the murder of a transgender woman, Alexa Negrón Luciano, in Puerto Rico. This month, he will receive GLAAD’s Vanguard Award for his LGBTQ allyship.

Last year, Sony Pictures announced he would star in a Spider-Man spin-off, El Muerto, as Marvel’s first Latino superhero. At the time, Benito said that the role was “perfect” for him, as he grew up watching wrestling and called his 2021 WWE Wrestlemania debut “the best day of my life.” But during our interview, Benito feigned confusion when asked about the movie and said that no filming had yet taken place. Benito’s publicist said that the movie was “at a standstill,” and later clarified that it’s “in development.” (A representative for Sony declined to comment on the record.)

“Maybe they’ll switch me out for Pedro Pascal,” Benito says jokingly.

Benito’s Hollywood dreams are sometimes dampened when he encounters a lack of understanding about his homeland: “If I hear something very ignorant about my country or my culture, I always try to educate them, like ‘No, it’s not like that.’” At the Grammys in early February, his exuberant opening number was nearly overshadowed by the program’s live captioning, which read “singing in non-English.” “It was porqueria (crap),” Benito says dismissively.

He is currently preparing for his Coachella performances, which will take place on April 14 and 21 in Indio, Calif., and mark the first time a Latino artist has headlined the festival. Coachella has hosted massive stars, but the gig doesn’t seem to faze him. “Am I supposed to feel something?” he asks incredulously. “I felt more pressure at the Hiram Bithorn [Stadium in Puerto Rico] than I feel for Coachella.”

Read More: Bad Bunny Is on the 2021 TIME 100

The bigger he gets, the more invasive his fans have become. In January, he was filmed throwing a fan’s phone in a nearby body of water after she started to film them together. “If you’re coming up like you’re going to rob me, then yes, it’ll bother me,” he says. “Why do you want a picture with me? Because I’m the Statue of Liberty?”

Several hours after the interview, Benito ignites another firestorm when paparazzi photograph him embracing supermodel Kendall Jenner, a member of the Kardashian dynasty. Many Latino social media users treated this potential romance as a fundamental betrayal. Benito has often sung about his love for Latin women and culture, even dismissing the non Latinos who want to participate in reggaeton culture or take advantage of Puerto Rican land as lacking sazón (flavor). “It ain’t Benito no more, it’s Ben,” went a common refrain on social media.

Benito declined to comment on the dating rumors. But he says he feels less strongly about the sazón lyric than when he wrote it. “I was upset,” he says. “But now that feeling has passed me. Our culture and music impacts people in other places. They want to try it and feel it. So why am I going to be bothered by that, if they do it with respect?”

Benito says that the “only reception” for his music he cares about is from Puerto Rican fans. But he also says he remains unbothered by his critics. “When I read comments that say, ‘Bad Bunny now I’m not going to listen to your music,’ that’s fine,” he says. “I’m not going to do something else for you to like it. There are plenty of artists, and perhaps you’ll find someone you’ll like.”

As much as Benito purports to be carried downstream by his desires, he also acutely understands the fleeting nature of fame. “I release an album now and a week passes and 15 new albums have arrived,” he says. “So to maintain yourself right there in the position at the top is way more difficult than before.”

Read More: The 10 Best Albums of 2022

Bad Bunny doesn’t have to change anything: he’s already fulfilled the dreams of so many Puerto Ricans and flipped the music industry on its head. Musically, he will continue to do whatever he wants: while he decorated his studios with a tropical decor for Un Verano Sin Ti, he says that lately, his space embodies a ’70s vintage vibe. He has continued to record music this year, he says, but without a specific deadline.

Yet because he loves being on top, he is realizing that some compromise may be necessary in order to stay there. This includes learning more English. “There’s a lot of things that I’m losing, like opportunities, ’cause the language,” he says in English. “I didn’t care about [learning] English. But now, I think I care.” He adds that any English-language song he writes will be on his own terms: “The day I feel like I need to do a song in English, I’ll do it because I feel it.”

The social media fallout of the Jenner photo reinforced how every one of his personal choices is scrutinized through a larger cultural lens. This is a heavy weight to bear for someone who, as much as he genuinely cares about his country, doesn’t feel like an island’s fate should fall on his shoulders alone.

“I am a chamaquito, and we have different preoccupations and desires to do one thing one day and the next not. One moment we go to the club to drink and smoke, and tomorrow I want to be chilling at home watching a movie. And then next I’ll be thinking about my ex or a girl that I like,” he says, sitting slightly more upright than when the interview began. “And then tomorrow I am bothered over something I think is an injustice. But then by night I go to eat tacos, they give me a bit of tequila, and I’ve forgotten.”

—With reporting by Israel Meléndez Ayala

Styling by Nycole Sariol; Hair by Tanya Melendez; Make-up by Bo; Production by Aries Rising Projects

A inicios de marzo, TIME se sentó con la sensación musical mundial Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, también conocido como Bad Bunny, mientras se preparaba para actuar en Coachella, el primer artista latino en encabezar el destacado festival de música. Durante una amplia entrevista, Martínez Ocasio habló con franqueza sobre su vida, su música y cómo pasa más tiempo en estos días en Los Ángeles, un lugar al que “siempre soñó ir” cuando era un chamaquito (un niño pequeño) mientras crecía. Puerto Rico. También se refirió a su floreciente carrera como actor, junto con la responsabilidad que siente como reguetonero a quien a menudo se le pide que hable en nombre de toda una región.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

La siguiente transcripción ha sido condensada, editada para mayor claridad y traducida al inglés. Para la versión en español haga clic aquí.

Actualmente, estamos en el centro de L.A. ¿Te gusta aquí?

Realmente, sí me gusta. Siempre me ha gustado desde que he estado viniendo unos años. Es un lugar al que desde que era chamaquito—antes de todo esto—siempre soñé con ir. Siempre soñé con ir algún día a Los Ángeles porque era fanático de los Lakers y Kobe.

¿Tiene familia en los Estados Unidos? ¿Recuerdas la primera vez que viniste a los Estados Unidos?

Coño. Si no tuviera familia en los Estados Unidos, no sería latino.

Recuerdo la primera vez que vine a los Estados Unidos. Tenía 12 años. Era verano y fui a Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pensilvania. Estuve en casas de diferentes familiares, pero visité Nueva York solo un día, fuimos y volvimos. Lo recuerdo muy bien. Esa fue la primera vez. Y fue la primera y única vez, hasta que crecí.

Read the Cover Story: Bad Bunny’s Next Move

¿Dónde están las mejores playas? ¿Los Ángeles o Puerto Rico?

[Risas audibles] Ya sabes la respuesta a eso. Puerto Rico, definitivamente 1000 veces. Todavía no me he metido en el agua. Voy a ver si en verano el agua se calienta y luego voy.

Al crecer en el pueblo de Almirante Sur, ¿cuáles fueron sus mejores recuerdos de su infancia?

Siempre digo que tuve una vida muy normal. Crecí con mi mamá y mi papá. Soy el hermano mayor de tres, así que recuerdo haber esperado a mis hermanos. Cuando vino mi primer hermano, Bernie y el segundo, Misael. Mi madre era maestra y mi padre era camionero. Así que sabes que éramos gente trabajadora. Muy católico, nosotros fuimos a la iglesia. Teníamos que hacerlo bien en la escuela. Crecí con mucho amor de mi madre y mi padre. Los vi a veces esforzándose, pasando por momentos difíciles para traernos comida y otros momentos fáciles. Fueron momentos hermosos, a veces de incertidumbre, pero al final siempre agradecido con el núcleo en el que crecí; mi familia, mi barrio, mi pueblo y la forma en que crecí, porque de ahí, adquirí mucha experiencia y muchos conocimientos que me hacen ser la persona que soy hoy.

¿Qué papel jugó la música en tu vida en tus primeros años?

Lo que más he hecho en la vida es escuchar música. Desde pequeño siempre fui fanático de la música. Yo de niño tenía muchos CDs de salsa, merengue. Mi mamá escuchaba mucho merengue y balada, y mi papá escuchaba salsa. Cuando era ‘chamaquito’ o niño, escuchaba rap y reggaeton. Siempre recuerdo cuando tenía 5 años, para Navidad me regalaron un CD de Vico-C, “Aquel Que Había Muerto,” con la carátula oscura, casi negra, apenas se veía la cara de Vico C. Mi mamá compraba discos de un catálogo, que era como un libro y tú elegías los discos y venían por docenas, bueno, ella elegía como ocho y me dejaba elegir los últimos cuatro. Tomaría CDs de Marc Anthony, Victor Manuel y CDs de música de bolero. Crecí siempre escuchando música y trataba de imitar las voces de los cantantes y los sonidos que hacían. Desde pequeño siempre fue mi pasión. Siempre fui un gran fan de los artistas. Por eso cuando me preguntan ‘¿Qué artista te inspiró?’ Nunca digo uno solo porque escuché tantos artistas y géneros como el reggaetón, que tiene muchos artistas que me inspiraron, y la salsa. Diría que todo el movimiento de la música latina me inspiró.

¿Qué piensan tus padres y tu familia acerca de que eres el artista más grande del mundo?

No creo que lo sepan. [Risas] En realidad, mi papá está orgulloso de mí y está feliz de que me siento bien y de que estoy viviendo mis sueños. Siempre agradezco a Dios que yo, mis amigos y mi familia, mantengamos los pies en la tierra. Voy a la casa de mi papá y me siento tan relajado. Muy normal. Como si no pasara nada. Fuera de esa casa quizás el mundo esté escuchando y hablando de mí, pero en esa casa todo es igual. Nada ha cambiado. Mi papá no actúa de una manera nueva ni me trata de una manera nueva. Para mí es hermoso que me guste ir allí y todavía me miran con ojos de ‘Ven aquí, Benito Antonio. El bebé. Su hijo.’ ¿Tú entiendes? Mi mamá es igual que mi papá. Por eso digo que no saben pero no en el sentido de que no lo entiendan, es en el sentido de que sigo siendo la misma persona y nada ha cambiado en cómo nos sentimos y nos tratamos. Cada vez que voy a la casa me siento así…un hogar.

Read More: The 10 Best Albums of 2022

¿Podrías haberte imaginado dónde estás ahora?

Quizás al principio no hubiera imaginado esto que soñé con esto. Cuando estaba solo en mi habitación haciendo ritmos, soñando que algún día tendría éxito en la música, no. Pero ahora, con el paso del tiempo y he visto grandes cosas, ahora puedo imaginar lo siguiente y lo siguiente. Recuerdo que hace dos años me decía ‘papi’ ya estoy en un nivel que si bajo no voy a ser el mismo de antes, no voy a poder recuperar mi vida normal por así decirlo. Pero sí, me lo he imaginado, pero si me preguntas desde el principio cuando era chamaquito, no. Cuando era pequeño, solo soñaba con la música y que alguien escuchara mi música, siempre digo eso. Si me escucharan mil personas y yo actuara una vez al mes en un lugarcito, solo con eso sería feliz. Pero el hambre y la pasión que tengo por esto es imposible porque siempre quiero dar más y más y más.

¿Sientes que la aparición de Internet y las plataformas de transmisión como Spotify son razones importantes por las que estás aquí hoy?

Obvio que sí, y sobre esto te puedo decir, por encima de otras personas, que si no fuera por las redes sociales no estaría aquí. Lo que no creo es que sea una ventaja. Hay un montón de artistas del pasado que dicen, ‘Durante mi tiempo no había Spotify. Durante mi tiempo no había Instagram.’ Pero había otras cosas. Por ejemplo, fue más difícil obtener exposición para llegar a la posición. Pero al mismo tiempo fue mejor para aquellos que lo lograron. Ahora estamos en un momento en el que en cualquier momento puedes lanzar una canción. Ahora compito con un millón de personas. Cuando salgo con algo ese mismo día salen mil artistas con canciones. Veinte álbumes saliendo en la misma noche. Antes no, salían uno, dos o tres discos. No había tanta saturación en la música. Sacó un disco ahora y pasa una semana y han llegado 15 discos nuevos. Entonces es más fácil que más personas dejen de escuchar mi álbum y comiencen a escuchar otro. Antes, si comprabas un álbum a $15, no tendrías dinero para comprar otro álbum. Te lo ibas a quemar y ‘pela, pela, pela.’ Hoy no, escuchas mi disco y te aburres, puedes escuchar otros. Así que mantenerte ahí en la posición de que te sigan escuchando, mantenerte en la posición de que tu álbum siga ‘top,’ es mucho más difícil que antes. Hoy en día es mucho más difícil. Antes escuchabas la misma canción un año entera en la emisora. Es la emisora que pone tu canción y si no les gusta, sí tienes chavos (dinero) para pagar la emisora, sino no podrías competir con nadie. Ahora cualquiera pone una canción en los medios y puede ‘pegarla.’

¿Piensas en la competencia de la industria cuando estás en la etapa de creación de tus proyectos?

No. Cuando estoy en el estudio disfruto lo que hago. No estoy pensando en la cantidad de gente que está grabando o no. Yo hago música como si fuera la única persona en el mundo.

¿Te importa mantenerte en tu posición como el artista número uno del mundo?

Siempre digo que no, pero creo que miento, porque al final del día soy muy competitivo, pero con todo. Si estoy jugando al ajedrez, quiero ganar. Si estoy haciendo chistes, quiero contar mejores chistes. Soy muy competitivo. En todas las situaciones. Así que obviamente en la música lo soy. Pero en el buen sentido. Pero no me gusta ver a otros perder. Me gusta que todos ganen. Hay espacio para todos nosotros. Me gusta ver a los demás triunfar y tener éxito. Me gusta ver que la gente tenga buena música porque me hará sentir mejor. Si veo a alguien haciendo una canción que está rompiendo, si hay una canción cabrona, yo voy hacer una canción más cabrona. Quiero hacer algo mejor. Pero no para opacarlo a él, sino porque quiero hacer algo mejor. Podemos brillar todos en el mundo.

Fuiste el artista con más reproducciones en Spotify durante tres años seguidos. ¿Por qué crees que tu música tiene este efecto en la gente?

No sé. La forma en que hago música es de una manera tan real. Le doy tanto amor a la música. Siempre digo que mi mamá me dio tanto amor desde ‘chiquito,’ por eso tengo tanto que dar al mundo y a los demás. Creo que mis canciones son las mismas. Le doy tanto amor a mis canciones que no se acaba. Esa energía cada vez que escuches mi canción te dará mucha alegría. No hago canciones solo por tirarlas. Cuando tenga una canción para tirar, entonces se tira.

¿Tienes una canción en este momento?

¿Ahora mismo? Sí. [Alcanza el teléfono en el bolsillo derecho] Pero no te lo voy a enseñar. [Risas]

Read More: ‘I Make Music Like I’m the Only Person in the World.’ Bad Bunny on Coachella, Hollywood, and Topping Himself

¿Para quién dirías que haces música? ¿Para Puerto Rico?

Hago música para la gente que me quiere. Cuando leo comentarios que dicen: ‘Bad Bunny, ahora no voy a escuchar tu música’, está bien. Si ya no quieres escuchar mi música, está bien. Eso está bien, a alguien le gustará. Hago música para quien quiera escucharme y para quien quiera conectar conmigo. Si no te gusta lo que estoy haciendo, no voy a hacer otra cosa para que a ti te guste. Si no te gusta, pues ‘brother,’ hay muchos artistas por ahí, y tal vez encuentres a alguien que te guste. A alguien le va a gustar lo que estoy haciendo y esas son las personas a las que les estoy cantando. Pero obviamente, sí hago música para Puerto Rico. Es donde nací y crecí. Soy fan de nuestra gente, de nuestra cultura, de nuestra cultura también dentro del reggaetón. Cuando escribo y hago música mi espíritu siempre está en Puerto Rico y trato de que la música que hago sea del agrado de la gente de allá.

Tu último álbum, Un Verano Sin Ti, fue una experiencia auditiva inmersiva. ¿Por qué era importante para ti traer la experiencia de un verano puertorriqueño al mundo?

Muchos artistas hacen canciones, se tiran una foto, la portada y ya, luego el video y ya está. Quiero crear todo un mundo, un ambiente y un sentimiento entero alrededor de un álbum, desde los videos, las visuales, la portada, la temática, todo sincronizado, con el propósito de que lo escuches para con el propósito de que lo escuches para que te puedas sentir en algún lugar o sentir de alguna manera. Si alguien está en la f-king Suiza, puede sentir que está en el Caribe, puede sentir que está en la playa. Es por eso que todas las imágenes de las canciones son mías en la playa y son 360, así que si te pones los [auriculares de realidad virtual], estarás en la playa conmigo. Si estás en Puerto Rico, aún mejor porque entonces no necesitas los [VR]: estás allí.

Tu productor Tainy es una leyenda en el espacio del reggaetón. ¿Cómo ha sido trabajar con él en tus proyectos?

He sido fan suyo desde siempre. He tenido sueños desde que era chamaquito para trabajar un día con Tainy. Incluso después de que entró en la música, me tomó tiempo poder trabajar con él. Recuerdo cuando hice mi primer disco y me preguntaron, ‘¿Con quién quieres trabajar?’ Y dije: ‘Quiero trabajar con Tainy’. Y hasta el sol de hoy seguimos trabajando. No trabajo con muchos productores así de mano a mano.

Read More: The Best Latin Songs and Albums of 2022

Tenemos una pregunta en video directamente de Tainy que nos gustaría mostrarle desde nuestro teléfono. Tainy: Como fan me gustaría saber: ¿Cómo encontraste una manera de poner tanto de ti como Benito la persona, no sólo Bad Bunny el artista en tu música urbana?

Siempre trato de dar lo más real de mi en mis canciones. Yo soy un chamaquito. [Risas] Y tenemos distintas preocupaciones y deseos de hacer una cosa un día y al día siguiente no. Hoy a lo mejor quiero ir a la discoteca a beber y fumar, y mañana quiero estar tranquilo en mi casa viendo una película. El martes quiero hacer ejercicio y el miércoles quiero comer una hamburguesa. Y luego estaré pensando en mi ex o en una chica que me gusta. Y luego mañana estoy molesto por algo que creo que es una injusticia, pero ya por la noche voy a comer tacos, me doy un poco de tequila y se me olvida.

Creo que no hay nada de malo con eso. Por eso mis canciones tienen de todo. Estamos en la discoteca, estamos en la playa, llorando por un amor, estamos molestos por la injusticia social porque así es.

Tu primer proyecto con Tainy fue Estamos Bien, el cual dedicaste a las víctimas del huracán María. En ese sentido, la canción habla de la resiliencia de los puertorriqueños. ¿Es importante para usted hablar sobre las injusticias de Puerto Rico, al mismo tiempo que destaca la resistencia de los Boricuas?

Sí, siempre hay diferentes sentimientos en las canciones para que puedas escucharlo y tomar de él lo que quieras. Por ejemplo, recuerdo cuando estábamos haciendo Estamos Bien, también dio una idea de lo que está pasando y lo hice para que también pudieras sentir por la Isla y Puerto Rico. En esa canción también hablo de culos y chavos (dinero) y cosas así, más trap para que la gente de la calle que también le gusta eso también y puedan sentir. Para mí podría significar una cosa, pero para otra persona significa otra cosa. Así que siempre trato de hacer eso en las canciones. Si les estoy dando un mensaje, lo haré de una manera que pueda interpretarse en diferentes maneras para que diferentes personas se puedan identificar.

¿Cómo es el reggaetón un género que ofrece la oportunidad no solo de hacer música al estilo perreo (pistas de fiestas bailables de reggaetón), sino también abordar temas sociales y políticos?

¡Sí, sin duda! Creo que el reggaetón y todos los géneros musicales son un medio para expresarse. Siempre lo han sido. La música siempre ha contado historias de cosas buenas, cosas malas, cosas peligrosas, cosas que te molestan. Así que el reggaeton es solo otro género de música que nace de la calle, del barrio. Siempre hay espacio y oportunidad para hablar un poco de todo en los discos de reggaeton. Por eso tengo canciones para la discoteca. Tengo música para todo.

¿Crees que los elementos de raza y color están involucrados en determinar quién tiene éxito en el espacio del reggaetón?

Me han preguntado eso antes…ha pasado mucho tiempo desde que tuve una pregunta como esa. Dentro de mi ignorancia no lo entendía. Dije que eso no puede ser. No podía imaginarlo. No puedo decir que sí o que no porque no lo he vivido.Tampoco he visto con mis propios ojos que sí, esta persona no se volvió más exitosa debido a su piel, no lo he visto. Sería irresponsable de mi parte decir que sí. Por ejemplo, me preguntaron si Tego Calderón, si hubiera sido más grande si no fuera negro. Pero a mis ojos, Tego Calderón es el cantante más grande de la industria. ¿Tú entiendes? No entendía cosas sobre la industria que tal vez sean ciertas. Quizás las puertas se cerraron por su piel, quizás algún promotor prefirió a un artista más blanco que él. Pero esas cosas no las sé, no las he vivido. Cuando me preguntaron dije: ‘¿Qué? Para mí Tego Calderón es el cantante más grande del género, también es uno de mis ídolos. ¿Qué quieres decir con no tan grande? ¿Quién es más grande que él?’

¿Es importante para ti dar tus flores a los grandes como Calderón y los que te han inspirado?

Sí, claro. Para mí es importante mantener siempre el respeto por aquellos que lo merecen. Si ves a alguien por quien te sientes inspirado y admirado, dilo y dilo con respeto. No importa lo grande que crezca, incluyo personas que me han inspirado que para mejor no necesariamente estaría aquí, yo no tengo nombre pero hay artistas que yo escuchaba y los veo y los respeto por igual. No quiero olvidarme de su historia.

¿Cuál fue su proceso y enfoque para crear su actuación en los Grammy?

Nunca me dijeron qué hacer. Me dieron la libertad de hacer lo que quisiera y supe que quería cantar “Después De La Playa”. Mucha gente pensó que interpretaría “Titi Me Pregunto” o “Moscow Mule,” pero yo sabía que quería hacer “Después De La Playa.” Pero yo quería algo más. Así que tuve la idea de hacer la primera parte de “El Apagón,” y mano, la idea surgió de forma muy espontánea y natural. En Puerto Rico en el mes de enero se celebra la fiesta de la calle San Sebastián. Es un festival puertorriqueño súper grande y tradicional donde verás personalidades retratadas por los cabezudos. Increíblemente, en toda mi vida nunca he estado en uno. Así que pensé que este año quería ir. Pensé que encontraría la manera de ponerme allí, pero no pude porque estaba aquí, así que pensé, sabes qué, traeré las fiestas de San Sebastián a los Grammy. En realidad no sabía que iba a ser el acto de apertura. Eso fue algo que se decidió en el último minuto. Creo que después de ver el programa pensaron en ponerlo como el primer acto. Y yo dije, ‘¿primero?’ Fue todo muy natural.

Read More: Allow Bad Bunny to Teach You Puerto Rican Slang

Durante su actuación, hubo subtítulos que decían “Non-English” en el programa. Sus fanáticos expresaron su decepción en las redes sociales. ¿Cuál fue tu reacción cuando viste eso por primera vez?

En realidad, cuando lo vi… no capté el mensaje. No decía ‘en español’… como que ‘non English’… bueno, el sistema no funciona. Fue una porquería, esa es la única forma en que podría decirlo.

Uno de los temas que elegiste para la interpretación, El Apagón, es uno de tus discos más directos políticamente. ¿Qué significa para ti la letra ‘Todo quiere ser latino… pero les falta sazón, batería y reggaetón’?

¡Esa línea es de Tego Calderón! Lo que sucede cuando estás creando música, especialmente a mí, es que soy el tipo de persona que cambia de humor rápidamente. Así que cuando escribí esa canción estaba molesto. Pensé: esta gente… ¿qué piensan? Eso por el momento… hay artistas que quieren hacer cosas y también ahora, mencionaron sus raíces latinas que nunca han dicho pero ahora por el momento, sí quieres hacer una canción en español. Cabrona, llevas 20 años cantando y ahora quieres hacer una canción en español? ¿No lo hiciste en tu mejor momento pero ahora quieres hacer una canción en español porque no estás apagá en tu mejor momento? Entonces cosas así las veo y en ese momento me molestó. Pero ahora ese sentimiento me ha superado. No es que me sienta así en este momento. Es bueno hacer lo que quieras. Y lo mismo para otros artistas que son gringos que nunca tendrían la oportunidad de trabajar con un artista latino o hacer una canción en español, y ahora los ves mirando la música latina porque está en la cima. Se volvió ‘cool’ ser latino. No solo están haciendo la música, están tratando de copiar el flujo de los latinos. Pero luego pienso; nuestra cultura y nuestra música se extienden por todas partes. Impacta a personas en otros lugares. Quieren probarlo y sentirlo. Entonces, ¿por qué me va a molestar eso, sí lo hacen con respeto?

Read More: Reggaeton Is So Much More Than Party Music. This Podcast Breaks Down Its Political Roots

La Ley 60 es una ley que invita a los extranjeros a mudarse a Puerto Rico por sus beneficios contributivos. ¿Cómo se siente acerca de los no puertorriqueños que vienen a la isla y contribuyen a la gentrificación y el desplazamiento de los nativos?

Me molesta mucho. Creo que lo que más me molesta es que quieran venir, tomar posesión, ocupar un espacio, pero no quieren abrazar nada, ni ayudar. No quieren devolver. Cuando vas a un barrio nuevo siempre te van a mirar raro porque eres del otro lado. Van a sentir que les estás quitando algo, como cuando te ven usando la cancha de baloncesto y no eres de ahí, claro que te mirarán mal. Pero si esa persona abraza y aporta al barrio estoy seguro que de alguna manera te aceptará poco a poco. Esto es bueno. ¿Tú entiendes? Creo que eso es todo. El otro día estaba viendo un TikTok de una chica blanca hablando del huracán María con tanta alegría, diciendo que fue lo mejor que le pasó a Puerto Rico. Lo dijo muy contenta, y claro, sí los puertorriqueños buscamos lo positivo de las situaciones por encima de lo negativo. Pero no es lo mismo. Entonces creo que eso es lo que más me molesta, no tener empatía ni respeto por el lugar del que se van a beneficiar.

¿Cómo es para ti ser un artista tan importante en los Estados Unidos cuando hay tensiones tan fuertes entre los dos? ¿Alguna vez has sentido que tienes la obligación de educar?

Sí, siempre se lo hablo a mis amigos de aquí. Si estoy con alguien a quien puedo educar, lo haré. Siempre lo hago. Y no solo en las canciones o la entrevista. Lo hago en la vida real. Si estoy con alguien y escuchó algo muy ignorante sobre mi país o mi cultura, siempre trato de educarlo, como ‘No, no es así.’

¿Cree que el gobierno de Estados Unidos le ha fallado al pueblo puertorriqueño?

[Ríe inmediatamente] Yo creo que el gobierno le ha fallado a Puerto Rico, le ha fallado a Estados Unidos. Igualmente, Puerto Rico le ha fallado a Puerto Rico. Creo que todos los gobiernos le han fallado a su país alguna vez.

¿Sientes que es injusto que te lleguen estas cuestiones políticas que tienes que hablar en nombre de toda la Isla?

Sí, creo que es injusto. Y es por eso que algunos artistas no lo hacen. Si no hablas de eso en tus canciones, no recibirás este tipo de preguntas. No le van a preguntar a Daddy Yankee, no le van a preguntar algo así. No sé por qué dije Daddy Yankee, lo siento Daddy Yankee. No les preguntarán algo así porque no habla de eso en las canciones. Limitaré hablar de eso porque entonces no quiero que me pregunten. Cuando estoy escribiendo mi música no estoy pensando, ‘Bueno, entonces me van a preguntar’. Estoy pensando simplemente en expresarme en ese momento. Porque cuando me preguntan puede ser difícil para mí responder porque no soy tan bueno con mis palabras cuando hablo. Pero en las canciones sí, ahí lo diré porque ahí es donde me siento cómodo, me siento inteligente, me siento capaz. En mis canciones podré expresarme plenamente como quiero la pregunta podría ser un poco injusta porque simplemente hago una canción y luego una responsabilidad tan grande cae sobre mi. Esa responsabilidad no es solo mía. Si no sacará esa canción hablando de algo nadie me preguntaría. No estaríamos haciendo una entrevista con ese tipo de pregunta.

Sigues el mantra “yo hago lo que me da la gana” como se menciona en el título de tu segundo álbum YHLQMDLG. Cuanto más famoso te vuelves, ¿sigues pensando que sigue siendo así?

Sí. Porque no me importa la fama. No me importa esa presión de la que hablábamos. No me importa eso. Soy una persona. Soy un ser humano y cometo errores. Siempre he dicho que voy a vivir como quiera. Pero yo nunca me limito de hacer de una manera o actuar de una manera por lo que van a decir o pensar, no. Soy famoso y no dejó de ser humano.

Tu aparición en Bullet Train junto a Brad Pitt fue épica. ¿De dónde viene tu interés por la actuación y cómo fue esa experiencia?

Siempre me ha gustado actuar. Donde crecí, si algo te gusta es lo único que te gusta. Es complicado tomar clases de música, piano, canto y actuación. Requiere dinero y tiempo. Cuando creces donde las condiciones no son las de la ciudad como San Juan, tienes casi todo, teatros y esas cosas. Siempre me gustó actuar, pero no más que la música. La música siempre primero. Entonces, cuando llegó la oportunidad de actuar, llegó gracias a mi fama y éxito en la música. Lo he probado y me gusta. La experiencia del Bullet Train fue súper cabrón.

Read More: Bad Bunny Speaks Out on Black Lives Matter Protests

¿Qué fue más difícil? ¿Pelea con Brad Pitt o pelea con Mizz en WWE?

Definitivamente peleando con Brad Pitt. Esa pelea fue dura porque fue física y seria. Pero los dos eran cabronas (peleas increíbles). El día con Mizz, esa pelea ese día fue el mejor día de mi vida.

¿Sientes que cuanto más famoso te vuelves, más fans invaden tu espacio personal?

Creo que es posible que operen de otra manera. Si entendieran que somos iguales, somos humanos, que no debemos ser agresivos, ¿por qué invadir mi espacio privado? Siempre lo he dicho, que nunca le voy a negar un saludo a alguien. Nunca te voy a dejar con la mano extendida para saludarme, jamás. Si te acercas a mí como si fueras a robar, entonces sí, me voy a molestar. Alguien me pide una foto, estiro la mano y ahí la dejan porque están buscando el teléfono. ¿Por qué quieres una foto contigo? ¿Por qué soy la estatua de la libertad? Soy un humano, saludame. La foto no vale más que un saludo. Una foto no vale más que un intercambio de palabras. Eso vale más que una foto. Puedes decir que yo conocí a Bad Bunny. ¿Prefieres conocerme o hacerte una foto conmigo?

¿Todavía vives en Puerto Rico?

Siempre digo que vivo en PR porque, no sé. Podría estar dos años en L.A. pero siempre diré que vivo en Puerto Rico. Ahora estoy aquí en Los Ángeles por un ratito. Me gustaría mudarme a otros lugares, a Nueva York. Pero sí, mi casa es Puerto Rico. Digo que todavía vivo en Puerto Rico porque sé que es un ratito. Solo por un rato buscando otras experiencias. Pero al final del día siempre regresaré a Puerto Rico y me quedaré para siempre.

Su película Cassandro recibió revuelo en el Festival de Cine de Sundance. ¿Cómo fue esa experiencia?

Asombroso, esa fue una de mis primeras experiencias actuando. Recuerdo que estaba nervioso. Creo que estaba más nervioso que con Bullet Train porque era mi primera experiencia. No quería ‘joderlo’ o dañarlo. Actuar con Gael fue genial y me trataron súper bien. Me alegro que haya sido mi primera experiencia.

Tu primer beso en pantalla fue con Gael García Bernal. ¿Cómo fue eso?

Está cabrón. Mi primer beso para una película, y fue con un hombre. Ese es el castigo que recibo por estar con tantas mujeres durante mi vida. [Comienza a reír] Si estás actuando, estás siendo alguien que no eres. Esa es la parte divertida. Entonces, cuando me preguntaron por eso, dije: ‘Sí, estoy aquí para lo que quieras’. No me sentí incómodo. Es parte de la actuación. Es parte de lo que estoy haciendo.

¿Algo que puedas compartir sobre tu película de Marvel ‘El Muerto’?

Aún no hemos grabado ninguna escena. Quizá me cambien por Pedro Pascal. [Risas]

Siempre has sido fanático de la lucha libre. ¿Cómo fue ese día al subir al ring de la WWE?

El mejor día de mi vida. Nunca antes había sentido ese tipo de adrenalina. Yo quería explotar. Era como si volviera a ser un niño, y en la pelea, fue un abrir y cerrar de ojos. Todo sucedió rápido.

Read More: How Puerto Ricans Are Fighting Back Against the Outsiders Using the Island as a Tax Haven

Parece que has estado aprendiendo mucho inglés. ¿Aprender el idioma es algo por lo que te sentiste presionado o que siempre te interesó?

No. Siempre he dicho que debo aprender. Hay muchas cosas que estoy perdiendo, como oportunidades, por el idioma. No me importaba [aprender] inglés. Pero ahora si, creo que me importa. Ha sido tan natural simplemente hablar y practicar, pero sin presión o con un objetivo o algo así.

¿Te molesta que la gente te pregunte si alguna vez harás música en inglés?

No, porque creo que es una pregunta justa. Pero nadie le pregunta a Drake cuándo va a hacer una canción en español. El día que sienta que necesito hacer una canción en inglés, lo haré porque lo siento.

¿Dijiste que 2023 es el año para ti?

Todos los días hago ejercicio, descanso, veo televisión, escribo música, pero sin presión, no es que tenga que hacerlo, es porque me gusta.

Tainy nos dijo que te gusta decorar tus estudios de acuerdo a tu ambiente. ¿Cómo está decorado tu estudio actualmente?

Para Un Verano Sin Ti, puse plantitas para que pareciera tropical. Ahora he creado un espacio que parece de los años 70, muy colorido, vintage. Colores de esa época. Estoy en esa vibra ahora mismo. Estoy comprando autos de los 70, mierda de los 70. Drogas de los 70. [Risas]

Eres el primer latino en encabezar el famoso festival de música de Coachella en Indio, California. ¿Cómo te sientes al entrar?

Mucha gente me pregunta eso en la calle. Estoy como, ‘¿Se supone que debo sentir algo?’ Me presenté en Azteca, me presenté en el Yankee Stadium. He hecho función en todos los lugares. Coachella va a ser otra f-king función para mí. Sentí más presión en el Hiram Bithorn [Estadio en Puerto Rico] que en Coachella. Obviamente estoy emocionado. Quiero dar lo mejor de mí.

Tu show en el Yankee Stadium fué icónico. ¿Quieres que Coachella lo supere?

Hay muchas megaestrellas que se han presentado en Coachella antes, así que no quiero competir con ninguna de ellas. Solo quiero ser yo mismo. Muchas leyendas han actuado en Coachella pero nadie como yo. Nunca ha habido un Benito actuando en Coachella. Y eso es lo bueno para mí.

¿Qué quieres que experimenten tus fans en tu set de Coachella?

Quiero que disfruten del ‘show.’ Quiero que la gente se sienta libre como, ‘esto es Coachella, pero no es Coachella,’ estamos en el barrio, en la playa. En Coachella, nunca ha habido alguien de donde vengo. No ha ido nadie con lo que voy a llevar. Quiero que la gente no sienta presión ni responsabilidad. Vamos a disfrutar donde estamos ahora porque no sabemos a dónde vamos a estar después.

Estuve mirando todos los folletos de Coachella desde el ‘99. Olvidé que lo estaba haciendo este año. Vi que decía mi nombre para 2023, pensé que era falso. Fue un poco impresionante. Todas las personas que han estado y ahora soy yo, pero eso no cambia quién soy como artista y como persona. Si estoy ahí es porque hago bien mi trabajo. No quiero intentar hacer algo más grande que Beyonce o Radiohead.

Por último, necesitamos saber… ¿Tienes una canción con Justin Bieber a punto de salir?

¿Hay una canción con Justin Bieber? ¿Es un rumor? No, no tengo una canción con Justin Bieber. Eso es falso. Nunca vas a saber lo que voy a hacer. No te mientas a ti mismo, no vas a saber mi próxima movida.

—Reportando en Español por Israel Meléndez Ayala

Succession usually thrives on profane wit and eat-the-rich schadenfreude, but Sunday’s season 4 premiere offered a more melancholy form of darkness. While Jeremy Strong’s fragile Kendall Roy tends to be the focus of the show’s saddest moments, this time the characters under the microscope were his younger sister Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) and her semi-estranged husband Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen). After a day of bidding against one another in an interfamilial war to purchase the liberal news empire Pierce Global Media—she as a representative of her siblings, he on behalf of their mogul father, Logan (Brian Cox)—Shiv sneaks into their cold, modern home at night, rousing Tom and ending their marriage.
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Both apparently exhausted, they don’t speak directly about Pierce, which Shiv, Ken, and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are now set to acquire following an astronomical offer expertly engineered by Logan’s nemesis Nan Pierce (Cherry Jones, magnificent as always). Nor do they really get into Tom’s betrayal of Shiv and her brothers, by warning Logan that they were planning to block his sale of Waystar Royco to Swedish tech titan Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), in the final scenes of season 3, although it couldn’t be clearer that Tom would like to have those conversations. “There are some things I wouldn’t mind saying, and explaining,” he tells her.

But Shiv has already put all of her defense mechanisms into overdrive. First, she makes fun of Tom for palling around with Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) as “the disgusting brothers” and sleeping with models. Instead of firing back with any zingers of his own, he simply reminds her: “We agreed that we could have a look around while we had a think, right?” When he wants to have the “big talk” they’ve been planning about the future of their marriage, she shuts him down. “I don’t think it’s good for me to hear all that,” Shiv says, unapologetically protecting her own ego. Then she reverts to her family’s preferred patois of corporate-speak and cursing: “We both just made some mistakes, and I think a whole lot of crying and bullsh-t is not gonna help that. So, if you’re good, we can just walk away with our heads held high and say ‘good luck,’ yeah?”

Tom knows better than to make a big emotional scene—or, for that matter, to point out that his wife isn’t holding her head high so much as she’s holding back tears. Yet he doesn’t grovel or plead, either. This quiet exchange in their darkened home is among his most sympathetic scenes to date because, instead of telling Shiv what he thinks she wants to hear, he responds to her emotionally stunted brusqueness with a sincerity of which she seems incapable. When she suggests it’s time for them to “move on,” Tom simply replies: “That makes me sad.” Succession creator Jesse Armstrong chooses his words, and plots out his character arcs, carefully, so it doesn’t feel like a stretch to read this as a callback to Tom’s memorable line from the season 2 finale: “I just wonder if the sad I’d be without you is less than the sad I get from being with you.”

There is, of course, a lot more history worth revisiting here. We could go back to the couple’s wedding night, when Shiv flees from intimacy by asking Tom for an open marriage. His sabotage at the end of season 3 is directly preceded by her noncommittal responses to his inquiries about having children, her apparent indifference to his future at Waystar, and her stunning attempt at dirty talk: “You’re not good enough for me,” she says. “That’s why you want me. That’s why you love me. Even though I don’t love you. But you want me anyway.” As she’s battled her siblings, Tom’s appeal to Shiv has always been that he doesn’t challenge her at all.

Not that their relationship is uniquely awful in the grand scheme of the Roys’ love lives. It’s just the only one that’s been dissected at length over the course of three seasons. Sunday’s premiere showed us Ken—already divorced with two kids he rarely sees—taken aback to learn that his sometime girlfriend, Naomi Pierce (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), was spending time with Tom. (Yes, the linchpins in the Pierce bidding war are two feuding couples.) Meanwhile, the siblings’ elder half-brother Connor (Alan Ruck) is days away from marrying a woman (Justine Lupe) he met in her capacity as an escort, who panics upon hearing that he might spend $100 million on his pathetic presidential campaign, until he assures her that after doing so he’d still be rich. For autoeroticist Roman, sex is something that he inflicts on inappropriate women. Even Greg’s dating has become transactional; in Italy, he tried to trade up from Ken’s publicist Comfry (Dasha Nekrasova), and now he’s hooking up in Logan’s guest room with a woman glued to social media, who may or may not be engaged in corporate espionage.

As with every other toxic tendency that afflicts this odious family, Logan is patient zero. These days, he’s so cozy with his ambitious personal assistant, Kerry (Zoë Winters)—now introducing herself as his “friend, assistant, and adviser”—that his kids are suspicious he’s trying to sire yet another heir. What’s going on with his current wife, Marcia (Hiam Abbass)? “She’s in Milan shopping, forever,” says Kerry. Which must mean she’s enjoying the compensation she negotiated out of Logan in Sarajevo when it looked like he might be arrested, at the beginning of last season. Shiv, Kendall, and Roman’s mother, Caroline (Harriet Walter), just traded her children’s supermajority in the Waystar holding company to Logan for a property her sleazy new husband had his eye on. And then there’s Connor’s mom, whom Logan had institutionalized.

Hence the current of loneliness that runs through even the most gleefully vicious moments of Succession, a show about a family for whom reasonably equal, mutually supportive relationships, romantic or otherwise, do not compute. “What are people?” Logan asks his security guard and “best pal” Colin (Scott Nicholson), in Sunday’s episode, after leaving his depressing birthday party to mix with commoners at a diner. He answers his own question: “They’re economic units. I’m 100 feet tall; these people are pygmies. But together they form a market”—like a “job market, marriage market, money market, market of ideas” (emphasis mine).

Shiv was raised on this philosophy, so it’s no wonder that she chooses to cut her losses with Tom instead of enduring, as she so tellingly frames his suggestion that they have an open conversation, “a whole lot of bullsh-t for no profit.” Unwilling to cede any ground to Tom, she refuses his pitiful offer to “see if I can make love to you” but insists on staying put until morning. By the time they drift off, their hands are clasped together—you decide whether it’s a truce or a handshake to seal their agreement to split up—but their bodies are perpendicular, legs hanging off the bed, frozen in poses as unnatural as their monstrous marriage.

Gwyneth Paltrow took the stand on Friday to testify in a trial over a ski crash at a Utah ski resort, where a man claims that the movie star’s recklessness on the slope caused broken ribs, brain damage and lasting physical injuries.

Paltrow testified that the crash shocked her — and, at one point, she worried that she was being violated.

“Two skis came between my skis, forcing my legs apart. And there was a body pressing against me and a very strange grunting noise. My brain was trying to make sense of what was happening,” she said of the collision.
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Paltrow and Terry Sanderson, the retired optometrist suing her, are both expected to answer questions about the crash while their attorneys jostle to convince the 8-member jury which skier was positioned downhill and had the right of way. The actor-turned-lifestyle influencer has said that Sanderson was responsible for the crash.

Paltrow’s heavily anticipated testimony comes halfway into the trial and on the final afternoon Sanderson’s attorneys could compel her to testify. Throughout the week in Utah, her attorneys have asked for special restrictions, including limiting photography both in the courtroom and in the public parking lot outside — where a rope cordons off Paltrow’s entrance and exit paths.

Her testimony could last longer than an hour and is expected to mirror what she said in a previous deposition about how she “froze” when the crash happened.

“We came crashing down together. This man was behind me on the mountain,” she said in November 2020. “My knee – and our skis — were still sort of tangled up. Our bodies were almost spooning and I moved away quickly. And my knee splayed open, and I was in shock.” Next week, Paltrow’s team is expected to call to the stand medical experts, ski instructors and her two children, Moses and Apple.

The trial has touched on themes ranging from skier’s etiquette to the power — and burden — of celebrity.

After the collision, Sanderson sent his daughters an email with the subject line: “I’m famous … At what cost?” One of the daughters wrote back: “I also can’t believe this is all on GoPro.”

GoPro cameras are commonly worn by outdoor athletes and patrons of upscale ski resorts to capture action sports. Sanderson’s daughter, Shae Herath, testified Friday that she didn’t know whether GoPro footage existed, despite her email. She said her father told her over the phone that he assumed there must be GoPro footage of the collision — from someone on the crowded run with a camera affixed to their helmet.

“There was this big, blood curdling scream. Someone would’ve looked,” Herath said, recalling the conversation with her father about how Paltrow shrieked during their collision.

While Sanderson’s attorneys have focused on their client’s deteriorating health, Paltrow’s legal team has intrigued the jury with recurring questions about the mysterious, missing GoPro footage. No video footage has since been located or entered as evidence.

The trial thus far has shone a spotlight on Park City, Utah — the posh ski town known for rolling out a red carpet for celebrities each January during the Sundance Film Festival — and skiers-only Deer Valley Resort, where Paltrow and Sanderson collided. The resort is among the most upscale in North America, known for sunny slopes, après-ski champagne yurts and luxury lodges.

The proceedings have delved deep into the 76-year-old Sanderson’s medical history and personality changes, with attorneys questioning whether his deteriorating health and estranged relationships stemmed from the collision or natural process of aging.

After a judge threw out Sanderson’s earlier $3.1 million lawsuit, Sanderson then claimed damages of “more than $300,000.” Paltrow has countersued for a symbolic $1 and attorney fees. The amount of money at stake for both sides pales in comparison to the typical legal costs of a multiyear lawsuit, private security detail and expert witness-heavy trial. Lawyers for Paltrow spent much of Thursday raising questions about Sanderson’s mentions of their client’s wealth and celebrity as well as what they called his “obsession” with the lawsuit.

The first three days of the trial featured testimony from medical experts, Sanderson’s personal doctor, a ski companion and his daughter, who said she noticed post-concussion symptoms less than a year after the accident. Her lawyers Thursday asked Sanderson’s daughter whether her father thought it was “cool” to collide with a celebrity like Paltrow, the Oscar-winning star of “Shakespeare in Love” and founder-CEO of lifestyle brand, Goop. Paltrow’s attorneys have cast doubt on Sanderson’s medical experts and suggested that the lawsuit could be an attempt to exploit her fame and celebrity.

Associated Press writer Anna Furman contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

Reese Witherspoon and her husband say they are divorcing after nearly 12 years of marriage.

The actor-producer and her husband, Hollywood agent Jim Toth, announced their breakup Friday in a joint statement on Instagram. Their wedding anniversary is Sunday.

“It is with a great deal of care and consideration that we have made the difficult decision to divorce,” the post said. “We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with deep love, kindness and mutual respect for everything we have created together.”

Witherspoon and Toth have one son together and they said he remains their biggest priority, asking for privacy.

Messages to representatives for Witherspoon and Toth were not immediately returned. No records of a divorce filing could be found in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Witherspoon was previously married to actor Ryan Phillippe, with whom she has two children.

Walter C. Cole, better known as the iconic drag queen who performed for decades as Darcelle XV, has died of natural causes in Portland, Oregon. Cole was 92.

Darcelle, who died Thursday, was crowned the world’s oldest working drag performer in 2016 by the Guinness Book of World Records and was regaling audiences until the very end.

As a performer, Darcelle was known for hosting the longest-running drag show on the U.S. West Coast. Off stage, Cole championed LGBTQ+ rights and charitable work in the Portland community.

The nightclub that Darcelle opened more than 50 years ago in downtown Portland, Darcelle XV Showplace, said it was heartbroken in a Facebook post.

“We ask for privacy and patience as everyone processes and grieves in their own way and at their own pace,” the club said. They also said that details of a public memorial will be announced and all shows at the Showplace will go on as scheduled, per Darcelle’s wishes. “Please join us and celebrate her legacy and memory, thank you in advance for your continued support,” it concluded.

The club, which had become a Portland cultural institution by the 1970s, was listed in 2020 on the National Register of Historic Places, becoming the first site in Oregon to be nominated specifically for its significance in LGBTQ+ history. Fans mourned the death on social media, including Portland’s mayor and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who said “Darcelle carved out an unforgettable chapter in Portland’s history” with her “pioneering courage.”

On Succession, the Roy family lives by the credo that all’s fair in love and war—something that’s abundantly clear when you take stock of their messy love affairs. Though it’s their hostile takeovers and power plays in the business world that provide ample drama, it’s their intimate interactions that hold the real emotional weight in the show, with enough betrayals and casual cruelties between the characters to make a soap opera seem tame.

In the world of Succession, when it comes to relationships, love is fleeting and toxicity reigns supreme. A dalliance is less a romantic sojourn than another way to gain power, while a marriage can be a way to flex control when the rest of your world is crumbling beneath your feet. For the Roy family, a relationship is less about building a future than it is brokering a deal or maintaining—or gaining—status. One need look no further than the big bad patriarch himself, Logan Roy, a man whose level of toxicity makes Future look like a saint and whose three marriages and myriad affairs are as telling of his need for complete power and dominance as his controversial and power-hungry leadership of his media conglomerate, Waystar Royco.
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The show, which returns to HBO for its fourth and final season on March 26, sees the return of some of the series’ most notorious and dysfunctional relationships, chief among them the swiftly deteriorating marriage of Tom and Shiv, a would-be power couple whose relationship has been a constant imbalance of power, that takes a major shift in season four. Ahead of the return of television’s most cold-blooded and power-hungry family to our screens, we’re taken on the task of reviewing the Succession couples who’ve made it to the final season and ranking them according to their toxicity.

7. Connor and Willa

The seemingly mismatched union between Connor, the hapless, oft-forgotten firstborn Roy and his fiancée Willa, a former escort-turned aspiring playwright may be the healthiest partnership on the show. While their relationship has always been transactional (Connor was a longtime client of Willa’s, who was introduced to him by Roman, before she reluctantly agreed to be in a paid exclusive relationship with him), the terms of it have always been clearly outlined and consensual. Connor genuinely adores Willa, so much so that he sinks part of his inheritance into her very bad Broadway play, and is willing to put his presidential hopes on the line by having her by his side as a potential first lady. Willa, for her part, is often annoyed by Connor’s capricious antics and deeply unserious nature, but cares enough about him to occasionally defend him against the cruelties of his cold-hearted family and to gamely agree to his marriage proposal after she sees how dejected he is. In a family ruled by outsize ego and ambition, Connor and Willa may be the dynasty’s most complacent couple, but they’re arguably the most content.

Read more: Everything You Need to Remember About Succession Ahead of Its Final Season

6. Kendall and Naomi

For Kendall and Naomi, shared interests and life experiences have led to a romantic relationship of convenience. Both pairs have grown up in moneyed, powerful families, though all the resources and privilege in the world have done little to find them happiness or insulate them from bouts of darkness. As the two black sheep of their respective families, Kendall and Naomi are drawn together by their vices (namely, their struggles with substance abuse and a predilection for partying as an avoidance tactic) and a desire to stick it to their rival media families’ expectations. But the heart of their relationship is darker, rooted in trauma bonding around the deaths in their pasts and their survivor’s guilt (Kendall’s drug-induced car crash resulted in the death of a waiter at Shiv’s wedding in season one, while Naomi survived a car crash that took the life of her mother). While this couple is hardly a pair of star-crossed lovers, there’s a touching intimacy shared between the two that comes from a mutual and innate understanding of the struggles and situations of their lives.

5. Roman and Gerri

Roman and Gerri’s taboo flirtation is the unlikeliest pairing on Succession, but it’s become one of the show’s most delicious storylines, thanks to some dirty phone calls and truly off-the-charts chemistry. The May-December pseudo-romance between the brash but impotent youngest Roy son and the family’s stoic general counsel was sparked when Roman’s characteristic need to push the envelope during a late-night business phone call lead to some sexually charged chastising from Gerri, birthing the forever-iconic insult, “slime puppy.” While the pairing, which Roman has dubbed “the rock star and the mole woman” is definitely an instance of so wrong, it feels right, their relationship, which consists just of sadomasochistic phone sex, acts as a mirror for showing just how deeply the problematic family dynamics of the Roys have affected Roman, down to his sex life. Ahead of his dalliance with Gerri, Roman’s love life was often defined by the absence of sex—he couldn’t or wouldn’t sleep with his many girlfriends and often relied on fetishes like necrophilia to try and get in the mood. His flirtation with Gerri, whose dominatrix-esque rebukes allow him to tap into both his humiliation fetish and his ever-present mommy issues and finally enables Roman to get off—that is, until a work victory makes Roman so over-confident that he accidentally sends a dick pic to Logan, instead of Gerri, bringing about a swift pause to their interlude. Here’s hoping that we’ll see the rock star and the mole woman reunited for more slime puppy dirty talk in season four.

Read more: Corporate Lawyers Discuss The Accuracy of Succession and The Roy Family’s Brewing Legal Battle

4. Logan and Kerry

Of all of Logan’s extramarital affairs, his one with Kerry, his blunt-banged personal assistant (and potential baby mama), may be the most troubling. While Kerry has been present for the past three seasons of the show, she began playing an outsize role in the last season, overtly becoming his confidant and trusted right hand and acting as his emissary and mouthpiece, especially as tensions flare with his children in the midst of a health scare and business conflicts. It’s become increasingly clear over the past three seasons that Kerry and Logan are intimately involved beyond their professional relationship—in one scene, they exchange a flirtatious glance during a business deal, while in another, she follows him into his bedroom following a business meeting. The season three finale, however, dropped a major clue that Kerry may be strategizing for a much bigger role in Waystar Royco and the Roy family; at their mother’s wedding, Connor tells Shiv and Roman that Kerry’s been putting maca, a natural supplement purported to aid in fertility, in the green juices and smoothies she’s been feeding Logan daily.

3. Logan and Marcia

Logan and Marcia’s relationship highlights just how much the Roys view marriage as a business deal. While they were introduced as truly affectionate and loving couple in the early days of the show, with Marcia appearing as a fierce defender of Logan in both his professional and personal lives, it all changed once Logan betrayed Marcia’s trust, appearing to pursue a flirtation with Rhea Jarrell, the one-time CEO of Waystar Royco—and perhaps more hurtfully to Marcia, not keeping her abreast of the business aspect. Following this indiscretion, Marcia proves herself to be as cool and calculating a businessperson as Logan with just as much capability to inflict emotional hurt. After confronting Logan about his misstep during a formal event where he’s receiving an award, she dismisses him by telling him that he is boring her, then leaves the event ahead of his honor. It’s later revealed that her exit was long-term—while the couple is still technically married, Marcia now lives alone abroad—but not before she uses Logan’s betrayal as leverage for re-negotiating the terms of their union and securing larger financial provisions for herself and her two children from her first marriage.

Read more: The Case for Betting on Succession‘s Tom Wambsgans

2. Tom and Greg

Of all the partnerships on Succession, Tom and Greg’s hilariously ridiculous and endlessly shippable bromance may be the most endearing, though its foundation is built on a web of manipulation and power grabs. As the odd couple and self-proclaimed “Disgusting Brothers” of Waystar Royco, Tom and Greg are drawn to each other as ambitious, if not always savvy social climbers, united by their outsider statuses, general thirstiness and an overwhelming amount of unhealthy codependency. For much of season one, Tom uses Greg as his personal punching bag, maligning him as often as his brown-nosing, power-worshipping self is maligned by the other members of the Roy family, perhaps most notably, his wife Shiv. As the show progresses, however, Tom and Greg develop a twisted sense of connection that goes beyond camradarie and veers into the homoerotic and psychosexual, with Tom even likening himself to the Roman Emperor Nero and Greg to his castrated lover Sporus, in a metaphorical tale that mirrors the betrayal of Shiv that takes place at the end of season three. Though their relationship is dysfunctional, it’s absolutely telling that when Tom makes his daring power play to stop the Roy siblings’ coup (thus ingratiating himself with Logan) it’s not Shiv he turns to, but Greg—showing exactly which power couple Tom is willing to throw his weight behind.

1. Tom and Shiv

No other couple embodies the toxic nature of a bad romance more than Shiv and Tom, a couple whose entire beleaguered relationship hinges on an imbalance of power. For the majority of their relationship, the power differential is clear—Shiv, truly her father’s daughter, uses Tom as a way to assert and maintain control. In their partnership and later, their marriage, she calls the shots and inflicts cutting slights with nonchalance: she proposes an open relationship on their wedding night, pursues an affair with an ex-boyfriend, and shows indifference to Tom’s very real concerns about being sent to prison.

Shiv may not be able to stand up to her bully of a father or exact control over the business dealings at Waystar Royco, but she can certainly cut Tom down to size, whenever she wants, seeming to find safety, security, and comfort in keeping him humble. Tom, for his part, mostly willingly engages in this dynamic—as a class outsider with a social climbing agenda, he’s so hungry for power, that he’s a willing cuck, eager to sublimate himself to Shiv’s demands and to be humiliated constantly by her family’s cruelties just to be adjacent to Logan and increase his chances of success. While both Tom and Shiv are using each other to achieve what they want, they are by no means happy—throughout the course of the show, their tumultuous relationship, one of the few consistent couples during its entirety, has been a slow-burning swan song, hinting at an inevitable bitter demise by a thousand tiny cuts. Who can forget the bedroom talk a drunk Shiv initiates with Tom, when she tells him: “You’re not good enough for me. I’m way out of your fu-king league. That’s why you want me. That’s why you love me, even though I don’t love you. But you want me anyway” or the time she casually tells him, “I may not love you, but I do love you,” as a deluded way of reassuring him about their relationship.

However, the moment that may best sum up just why Shiv and Tom are the most toxic relationship on a show filled with megalomaniacs comes in season 2, when Tom says the quiet part out loud in a rare moment of true vulnerability on their honeymoon.

“A lot of the time, I’m pretty unhappy,” he says. “I love you, I do, but I wonder if the sad I’d be without you is less than the sad I get from being with you.”

Richard III as a fictional character has a lot to answer for: Shakespeare painted him as a deformed, power-mad schemer. But Richard III as a real person? Evidence suggests he was more complicated than that. With his charming, sympathetic picture The Lost King, Stephen Frears digs into the fairly recent rehabilitation of the misunderstood monarch’s legacy—as well as the 2012 discovery of his long-lost bones beneath a Leicester parking lot.

Sally Hawkins plays Philippa Langley, the real-life amateur historian instrumental in figuring out where, exactly, the last Plantagenet King had been buried. Hawkins’ Philippa suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, an illness that’s not always taken seriously. She’s close with her ex-husband (Steve Coogan), though even he occasionally loses patience with her. (Coogan and Jeff Pope wrote the script for The Lost King, adapting it from The King’s Grave: The Search for Richard III, by Langley and Michael Jones.) An encounter with a mansplaining Shakespeare expert—who has no idea what he’s talking about—so aggravates Philippa that she’s driven to learn more about the real Richard. Eventually, she persuades a top archaeologist (Mark Addy) to dig for the ruins of the church where Richard was said to have been interred, rather ignobly, in 1485.

Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek

Langley’s conviction about that burial site was largely a ripple of intuition, and Hawkins plays her as a woman forced to fight skepticism and dismissal at every turn: she radiates a brazen confidence that shines through any surface impression of timidity. In the end, Philippa’s understated persistence wins the day, leading her to a dramatic arrangement of bones that, given the fallen King’s famous spinal curvature, are almost literally shaped like a question mark—though what they really represent, at long last, is the finality of an answer

Spoiler alert: This article discusses events from the first five episodes of Love Is Blind Season 4.

A few episodes into the fourth season of Netflix’s wildly popular dating series Love Is Blind, 26-year-old marketing manager Micah gently breaks off her relationship with Kwame, 31, a sales development manager. Clearly caught off guard, Kwame—who isn’t looking at, and in fact has never seen, Micah because the show’s premise dictates that couples don’t meet face-to-face until they’re engaged—defaults to the oral equivalent of a form rejection letter.

“Thank you for taking your time, for listening,” he tells her. “It was fantastic getting to know you, and I hope that works out for you to the best of your ability. I truly wish you the most luck. Thank you for being transparent with me.”
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It’s a telling moment—not because it reveals Kwame’s innermost self, but because it’s so representative of a curious tendency among Love Is Blind casts past and present. While decades of reality TV have yielded such clichés as “I’m not here to make friends,” and dating shows tend to abuse pop-psychology and self-help buzzwords, from connection to journey to toxic, the mix of marriage-ready singles who sign up for this so-called social experiment often seem most fluent in the language of corporate America. Throughout season 4, cast members talk about leaning in to their engagements and feeling burnout from years of failed relationships. “I think it just speaks to core values,” Micah observes when she meets Kwame and he explains why he chose to use his real name on the show, rather than an Americanized alternative, Alex.

In many ways, it makes sense that the jargon of white-collar leadership manuals and corporate communications would be a lingua franca in Love Is Blind’s famous pods. Dating shows don’t all appeal to the same kind of participants. Beachfront flirt-fests in the vein of Love Island, Temptation Island, and Too Hot to Handle—as well as self-aware takes like FBoy Island, the canceled HBO Max series that recently found a new home on the CW—tend to attract professional exhibitionists: influencers, models, actors, personal trainers looking to promote their brand by flexing shirtless for an audience of millions. Even on The Bachelor and its ilk, the typical contestant is destined to find fleeting fame, not a lifelong mate.

While no cast is monolithic, a couple dozen 20- and 30-somethings who are more eager to fast-track their romantic futures than to launch ongoing careers in reality TV seem more likely to have already settled into traditional professions. Indeed, a plurality of Love Is Blind’s fourth cast have some combination of the words marketing, manager, senior, sales, coordinator, director, or specialist in the job titles that identify them on screen. It probably isn’t a coincidence, either, that an even higher percentage of participants who get engaged in the pods, and thus become the season’s main characters, fit the above description. Whatever their individual skill sets happen to be, these professionals share a vocabulary honed in conference rooms and client emails. As anyone who’s ever worked in an office can tell you, language plays a huge role in that culture.

It’s not news that people tend to feel most comfortable around those with whom they have the most in common. The pods, where all the cast members have to go on are their conversations, make the words that come out of each person’s mouth even more crucial than they’d normally be. If the typical blind date feels a bit like a job interview, then these encounters are interviews pared back to pure Q&A. (Two season 4 cast members actually work as recruiters.) Daters ask one another about their values and goals, and sometimes go so far as to pose the kind of brain-teasers that make interviews for many tech and finance positions so fearsome.

The corporate language seems to come out especially often when cast members are angry or frustrated. “I can’t get you to invest,” Zack, a 32-year-old attorney, complains to his match, Irina. “What I see in you is unlimited potential,” another man tells his fiancée, later in the season, upon discovering a threat to their relationship. Asked to make a difficult compromise for his potential wife-to-be, someone else quips: “Follow up with an email, if you could, after this meeting.” There’s easy comfort to be found in euphemisms, whether they’re inside jokes or urgent pleas.

As shallow and mechanical as some of these utterances look on paper, they don’t necessarily reflect insincerity. Rather, I think they’re representative of a certain relatively successful subset of a certain financially stressed generation for whom the boundaries between work and home verge on nonexistence. In the season 4 premiere, co-host Vanessa Lachey asks the cast why they chose to come on the show. “I find myself easily distracted with work, my phone”—where swiping through dating-app profiles isn’t so different from digging through resumes—”and this is just the perfect opportunity to set that aside,” says real estate investor Ryland, 28. When the couples destined for the altar return from their pre-wedding honeymoons in Mexico and move in together, long workdays and tedious telecommutes suddenly become an issue.

Four seasons in, Love Is Blind might have proven that it’s possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never seen or touched. (Not that said love always translates into sexual chemistry or ends in marriage, or that said marriages never end in divorce.) But even in the pods, there’s more going on than two beautiful souls communing free of any outside influence. The corporate workplace penetrates even this supposedly sacred “experiment,” dropping signifiers of education, ambition, and social class wherever it goes.

The Broadway-to-Hollywood pipeline has never been more active, and it’s easy to see why. Streaming platforms need content. Theater needs revenue streams. Hence the glut of uneven-at-best musical adaptations on platforms like Disney+ and Netflix. But bringing stage and screen talent together to create original stories tailored to streaming can yield more inspired results, as Hulu’s Up Here so endearingly demonstrates. Scripted by Dear Evan Hansen playwright Steven Levenson and sitcom vet Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (New Girl, The Carmichael Show), with Thomas Kail (Disney+’s Hamilton) in the director’s chair and songs by Disney stalwarts Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, the series, which debuts on March 24, infuses the magic of Broadway into what might otherwise have been a mundane romantic comedy.
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Mae Whitman stars as Lindsay, a habitual good girl with dreams of becoming a writer, who scrounges up the courage to dump her milquetoast fiancé, flee their sleepy Vermont hometown, and move to Manhattan to build a more exciting life, in the fateful year of 1999. While her glamorous roommate is hooking up with a stranger in a bar bathroom, Lindsay—clad in squeaky PVC pants and eager to pass as a real New Yorker—meets Miguel (Carlos Valdes), a sensitive finance guy struggling to fit in with fratty colleagues. They click, but things get complicated fast.

The cycle of breakups and makeups that follows is rom-com boilerplate, and thus the eight-episode season drags a bit. What elevates Up Here are the surreal musical numbers, which illuminate why Lindsay and Miguel keep sabotaging their relationship. Each surrounded by a chorus of critical people from their past—parents, rivals, exes—they’re swept up in showtunes that cast doubt on the possibility of ever really knowing another person and R&B songs about why they’ll never fit in. Offbeat humor and earthy lyrics (on the plastic pants: “What if they’re worth contracting yeast infections in?”) ward off any whiff of saccharine. Like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with a neurotypical twist, Up Here understands that musical sequences are opportunities for introspection—and that nothing can make a brain go haywire like the vicissitudes of love.

The allure of a franchise is that it offers more of something you love, ostensibly buffed up and freshened—it’s newness with sameness built in. The James Bond movies, the Thin Man comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, a long, undulating string of Rocky pictures stretching from 1976 to pretty much yesterday: franchises are nothing new, because the instant Hollywood sees one dollar sign, it starts sniffing the trail for the next. Audiences respond as they’re conditioned to, wanting more of something they loved last year, or the year before, or even in the previous decade. In the case of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the cycle is apparently endless, perhaps stretching beyond even our children’s lifetimes. No one who’s making money off a current franchise wants to ask the multi-million-dollar question: what if the most elegant and dignified thing a franchise can do is…end?

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Specifically, is it time to say good-bye to John Wick?

The answer presented by John Wick: Chapter 4—nearly three hours of gorgeously staged practical action sequences, and a heavy dose of Keanu Reeves as the dolorous existential hit man of the title—is a resounding maybe, not because the film isn’t satisfying, but because it is. And as a person who adored the first film—and who has enjoyed every sequel so far, on a scale ranging from greatly to moderately—I can’t shake the sense that the series is pushing its luck.

My taste for movie violence is specific and antiquated, a kind of dinosaur love. Movie violence isn’t what it used to be; it has become something of a lost art. Audiences have been conditioned to think fast, choppy cutting is exciting by itself, which means action sequences are often sliced-and-diced into an illogical coleslaw. You can’t tell who’s coming from where; you barely get a chance to savor the sight of bodies in motion, clashing, stumbling, clutching at one another in a wild, feral embrace. Forget the bloody, balletic exhilaration of movies like Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch, or John Woo’s 1990s Hong Kong action extravaganzas: movie-action craftsmanship took a turn for the worse in the early 2000s, and with the ascent of the Marvel universe—movies in which the ostensibly exciting action sequences are literally nearly all the same, and heavily doctored with CGI—the discipline and clarity of thought necessary to make a good fight scene seemed all but lost.

Read more: Why It Took Keanu Reeves 30 Years to Become an Overnight Sensation

But the 2014 John Wick—directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, guys who’d actually worked as stuntmen—was different. The action sequences had been choreographed into episodes of thrilling, brutal beauty, blocked with care and edited with painterly precision. Weighing in at a trim, tough 96 minutes, it was as bold as a fist, plucky and defiant, with a smoldering movie star at its heart. No wonder audiences fell in love with it and, specifically, with Reeves-as-Wick. Though he’d already had a long career of almost unequivocal likability, John Wick pushed him into a new realm. You could almost diagram the movie’s blunt emotional efficiency with a series of arrows and stick figures. Here was a suffering hero, a killer trying to turn over a new leaf, who’d just lost his beloved wife to cancer—and then vengeful baddies kill the small, adorable dog she’d left him as a comfort. No one could blame Wick for kicking back against those villains, but he was also kicking out at the unfairness of the world. John Wick represented a new breed of action-noir, with a hero who drew from the tough-but-tender repertoire of great noir figures like Robert Mitchum and John Garfield, men who couldn’t be duped by anything but love—it would always be their undoing. Wick, a man who’d lost love through no fault of his own, was the ultimate fatalistic romantic hero, a man so broken he had nothing left to lose. His killing-machine amorality was both tragic and cathartic.

And as of John Wick: Chapter 4—directed by Stahelski—it still is, though the appeal of the franchise is in danger of wearing thin. Each successive entry has become longer and more elaborate, and each strays a little further from the original’s plainspoken, ragged grandeur, like a photograph that’s been Xeroxed too many times. The action scenes are as elegantly blocked and as cleanly shot as ever, but they also bear the weighty responsibility of trying to top everything that’s come before.

As Chapter 4 opens, Wick prepares to emerge from the underground bunker of the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), where he retreated at the end of 2019’s enjoyable but unwieldy John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum. The first thing we see is his fist, smashing against a post wrapped tightly with rope, blood-stained from repetitive impact. The Bowery King shows up like a valet, holding a fresh black suit aloft. This is how John Wick reenters the crime world from which he’s been banished, a universe of refrigerator-sized thugs with golden teeth and Russian tough gals making impossible demands.

But Wick’s deadliest opponent this time around is one of the top cats at the mythical crime organization the High Table, the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård, in a series of magnificently sharp, showy suits featuring either meticulous pick-stitching, twinkling glitter fabric, or both). The Marquis has closed the Continental Hotel, the New York hideout joint for high-toned hit men, as a way of punishing manager Winston (Ian McShane) for failing to kill Wick in the last installment. And because he really wants the job done, he has chosen a particularly formidable henchman to do away with Wick once and for all: the suave and unruffled Caine, played by action star Donnie Yen (of the Ip Man movies), is an ace marksman—who also happens to be blind. He taps his way through the world with the aid of a cane that doubles as a weapon.

There are yet more characters packed into Chapter 4: an ambitious mercenary whom the Marquis dubs Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson), who travels the world with an obedient German Shepherd trotting by his side; an old friend of Wick’s, Koji (played by the marvelous Hiroyuki Sanada), who runs the Osaka Continental and risks his life to provide refuge for his comrade. The story hops from New York to the deserts of the Middle East to Osaka and beyond, dragging a bit here and there, but picking up when the action finally reaches Paris, the site of a fantastically orchestrated driving sequence in which a bevy of cars—one driven, by Wick, with nervy rigor—swoop, skim and screech around each other, their movements glidingly precise, like bathing beauties in an Esther Williams movie.

Every scene in Chapter 4 is good enough, and some are even great: there’s a superb hand-to-hand combat sequence set in Osaka, in which Wick, Koji and Koji’s daughter Akira (played by the Japanese-British pop star Rina Sawayama) square off against waves of stormtrooper-like warriors, dispatched by the Marquis. But even this sequence, taking place largely in a gorgeous museumlike space filled with shimmering, neon-rimmed glass panels and samurai armor preserved in display cases, goes on for too long. It’s fantastically elaborate, but perhaps too much of a good thing—economy can be a kind of music, as we know from Wick’s trademark spartan dialogue, and that goes for action scenes, too.

We already know that the world of John Wick isn’t going to disappear anytime soon: A prequel spinoff TV mini-series, The Continental, with Mel Gibson, will stream sometime this year, and a movie spinoff, Ballerina, starring Ana de Armas, is currently being completed. (That film also features Lance Reddick, who has played the Continental’s somber and courtly concierge Charo in every John Wick installment; he died on March 17, just a few days before Chapter 4’s Los Angeles premiere.) Modern audiences can’t get enough of mythology and world-building, and the John Wick universe offers myriad possibilities.

But what does any of it mean in the context of the John Wick character, who has become a Reeves trademark, a kind of minimalist poetry in motion? At the end of John Wick: Chapter 4, the character’s exhaustion is clear—though he’s done away with hundreds of bad guys across four movies, he’s also been beaten and battered himself, and one man can only take so much. Wouldn’t there be a kind of elegiac satisfaction in laying him to rest? Even if bringing the series to some kind of gratifying end comes with complications, as Stahelski himself has admitted. “John may survive all this shit, but at the end of it, there’s no happy ending,” he told Indiewire in 2019, when asked how he might wrap up the story of John Wick when it’s time to do so. “He’s got nowhere to go.” He can’t, Stahelski said, just ride off into the sunset, or fall in love with some spectacular woman. And by this point he’s probably killed close to 1000 people, give or take—how does any man, even a John Wick, live with himself after that? He has nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, and eventually, he’ll have nothing left to give. Maybe he should quit while we still love him enough to mourn him. Because that, whenever it might happen, is the ending he deserves.

When Charity Lawson, a therapist from Georgia and a contestant who placed fourth on the latest season of The Bachelor with Zach Shallcross, was announced as the next Bachelorette on March 14, she had around 20,000 Instagram followers. Since the announcement, Lawson’s follower count has grown to over 70,000. Shallcross has just 120,000 followers. Those figures are the lowest for any lead on the popular ABC shows since the boom of Instagram, according to Bachelor Data, a page that tracks the data of various facets of the show–from contestants’ time on screen to Instagram follower count.
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The height of the show’s Instagram capabilities can be seen in 2019 when Bachelor Colton Underwood’s final four contestants all surpassed 500,000 Instagram followers before the show ended. “Back then they would get followers just for simply existing on the cast without having to create good content,” Lawson says. Since 2020 at the start of the pandemic, Bachelor Data has seen a consistent decline in contestant’s follower count. And yet, “Bachelor contestants are still going on to the show with the mindset of ‘I’m just going to post pretty pictures on Instagram and I’m going to try to make a living off of it,’” says Suzana Somers, who launched the Bachelor Data Instagram page.

But increasingly, the reality TV-to-social-influencer pipeline has dried up. While the majority of contestants on reality TV dating shows like The Bachelor don’t come out meeting their forever love, they previously knew that if they resonated with viewers at home, they would be all but guaranteed hundreds of thousands, or millions of Instagram followers—and a lucrative career as an influencer. “Everyone knows that being cast on a reality show and being on TV is a jumping point. If you’re smart about it you can potentially capitalize off of that platform,” internet personality Tiffany Ferg said on her popular web series: Internet Analysis.

That was perhaps especially true for “Bachelor Nation” alumni. Season 14 Bachelorette contestant Jason Tartick quit his corporate banking job after building a large following on Instagram, leading him to make over $1 million in gross revenue in one year from social media influencing. He shared that fact on his Trading Secrets podcast, which features Bachelor contestants candidly sharing their content creation earnings. Fellow contestant-turned influencer Tyler Cameron revealed on Tartick’s podcast that when he first left the show he only had $200 in his account, but that soon after he made $250,000 for two Instagram posts due to his large following. Former Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe has launched a line of wine that is now available at Target; JoJo Fletcher has hosted television shows on top television networks; Hannah Brown reportedly took home six-figures for her win on Dancing With The Stars.

Lori Krebs, founder of LoriK PR talent management agency, manages Tartick, alongside 50 other reality-TV turned influencers. When looking for someone to sign, Krebs says she seeks clients with “a mass appeal to viewers of the audience” and that “have a passion of creating a brand for themselves.” At least some of that “mass appeal” is judged by Instagram follower count. “If they end up having a million followers or 500,000 followers that obviously does help with mass appeal. It shows a lot of people are engaging.”

Why are follower count numbers low?

Ratings for the show have been going down, but Somers assures that follower count is “declining at a faster rate than the ratings are declining.” She believes the decline may be coming from audiences taking more control over the power of their follow. “I think people have a greater sense of ownership on who they want to follow and whether or not they give that person a platform,” she says.

There’s also some backlash over the opinion that too many contestants were joining reality TV shows only to get followers, says Somers. Perhaps the biggest example of that came from season 7 of Bachelor In Paradise, when couple Brendan Morais and Piper James broke the fourth wall and discussed what their Instagram following would look like after the show. As a result of that conversation and his involvement in a controversial love-triangle with another contestant, Morais lost nearly 90,000 Instagram followers in the days that followed. Somer’s Bachelor Data profile had the biggest growth date since launching her page, gaining 14,000 viewers in one day as audiences were tracking the data around Morais and James’ situation, she says. Brands also weren’t too keen to work with the pair due to the drama.

Oversaturation and the overwhelming amount of television being produced is certainly not helping the situation. Another competitor to The Bachelor franchise is Netflix’s Love Is Blind and Too Hot To Handle, whose first seasons have seen contestants garner millions of followers. But the more shows, seasons and spin offs there are, the more reality TV contestants have to compete with one another for relevancy. According to Somers’ data, Love Is Blind contestants are seeing a decline every season in Instagram followers as well.

There’s already some evidence that fewer opportunities for social media stardom are leading some would-be reality TV contestants to say “no thanks.” Low follower counts for contestants on saucy British reality show Love Island, have reportedly led to a drop in applications for the show. Part of the reason the show’s follower counts dropped is a new production decision to not allow any contestants to have active Instagram accounts during their time on the show. The decision was in large part to help contestants and their families with online hate. “I actually know one friend that got scouted, but she doesn’t want to do it if [the social media ban] is going to continue,” Zara Lackenby-Brown, a contestant in the show’s latest season, told BBC.

What does this mean for future contestants?

Somers senses that the decline in numbers means the reality TV influencer bubble may burst, which can impact casting, as it potentially has with shows like Love Island.

Krebs says The Bachelor, in particular, is still a reliable path for post-reality TV stardom online, but only for the select few that now manage to come out of the experience with a sizable following. She admits hasn’t watched the last seasons of the show, nor has she signed anyone new from the past season, but says, “They’re the OG of dating reality television.”

And despite the decline in Instagram followers for some stars—at least one other member of Bachelor Nation was able to get an influencing job. Somers went from being a fan of the show to becoming a full time data content creator. She serves as a reminder that this change signals that internet stardom no longer lies within the doors of getting casted on a show like The Bachelor. Even the average viewer can grow online. “Becoming an influencer is more accessible than it has ever been,” she says. “You don’t need to go on a reality TV show to grow a following anymore. Anyone can grow a platform these days.”

Following in the wake of acclaimed television forebears like Lost and Game of Thrones, Yellowjackets has become the latest show to incite a massive amount of fan theories about the mysteries at the heart of its plot.

The hit Showtime series, which splits its time between the aftermath of a 1996 plane crash that leaves a high school girls’ soccer team stranded in the Canadian wilderness for 19 months and the lives of the survivors 25 years later, became a near-instant pop culture phenomenon when its first season debuted in November 2021. Now, with the season 2 premiere set to stream on March 24 before airing live on March 26, fans are abuzz wondering what’s in store for the Yellowjackets next.
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Yellowjackets has already been renewed for a third season and co-creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have said their plan is for the show to run for five seasons. “There are shows that can go forever, but I think that when you’re telling such a deeply serialized story and it’s about these characters’ lives, you want to reach a satisfying conclusion and not just drag things out forever,” Lyle told Entertainment Weekly. “This isn’t really one of those setup shows where it can go anywhere. So far, we’ve been really on track. Season 2 is largely what we always planned, but you do make a lot of discoveries along the way and so it’s always a little bit surprising.”

That means season 2 likely won’t solve all of the mysteries that fans have been theorizing about since Yellowjackets began. But we can still hope for answers to at least some of the biggest questions that left us reeling after season 1.

Read more: What the Yellowjackets Season 1 Finale Reveals About the Show’s Wild Teen Matriarchy

What happened to Shauna’s baby?

One of the most obvious plot points the show will eventually have to address is the fate of the baby that teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) is carrying in the wilderness. In season 1, Shauna discovered that she was pregnant with Jeff’s (Jack DePew) child after the Yellowjackets’ plane had already crashed. In the present timeline, adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and Jeff (Warren Kole) have a daughter, Callie (Sarah Desjardins), but she’s only 16, indicating she’s not the baby from 25 years ago.

Given the hints the show has dropped that at least some of the girls will eventually turn to cannibalism to survive, some fan theories say the death of Shauna’s baby will be the event that irrevocably fractures the group. However, Tawny Cypress, who plays adult Taissa, has directly denied that Shauna’s baby will end up as anyone’s meal.

“They’re not going to eat the baby,” Cypress told Entertainment Weekly, nodding to her own characters’s shocking season 1 transgression: “But beheading dogs? Totally.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Shauna’s baby won’t end up meeting a different sort of terrible fate.

What’s going on with Taissa?

In the present-day timeline of the season 1 finale, Taissa’s partner Simone (Rukiya Bernard) discovered a ritualistic shrine comprised of the couple’s dead dog’s head, their son Sammy’s (Aiden Stoxx) broken doll, and what appeared to be a human heart hidden in the basement of their home. That same mysterious symbol that keeps popping up in the past timeline was also drawn on the wall behind the sacrificial altar.

Simone coming across the disturbing scene was juxtaposed with Taissa finding out that she had upset her opponent to win the election for New Jersey state senator, implying that something supernatural may have been responsible for Taissa’s unexpected victory. We learned earlier in the season that both teen (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and adult Taissa do things they don’t remember doing while sleepwalking. But whether the shrine is the work of conscious Taissa, unconscious Taissa, or someone else entirely is still up for debate.

Who was Adam, really?

Adult Shauna ultimately ended up killing the young artist supposedly named Adam (Peter Gadiot), with whom she was having an affair, after finding out he was lying about his past and becoming convinced he was the one blackmailing Taissa (Tawny Cypress), Natalie (Juliette Lewis), and Misty (Christina Ricci) by threatening to reveal “what really happened out there.” But it turned out Shauna’s husband Jeff was actually the blackmailer, leaving fans wondering about Adam’s true identity.

One popular theory posited that Adam was grown-up Javi (played in the past timeline by Luciano Leroux), the younger son of Coach Martinez (Carlos Sanz) and younger brother of Travis (played in the past by Kevin Alves and present by Andres Soto) who was stranded in the wilderness with the Yellowjackets. However, Yellowjackets‘ showrunners have said that while they originally considered having Adam turn out to be Javi, they ultimately decided not to go that route.

“We did entertain the notion that Adam was basically Javi coming back to torment Shauna in a way, or torment the Yellowjackets,” co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco told Variety. “We fairly early on dispensed with that idea. It did not feel organically right to us. It didn’t feel to deliver on the promise of what we actually wanted to dramatize with her affair and their marriage.”

Still, it’s difficult to believe Adam was just an innocent stranger with no other significance, considering the amount of screen time he got in the first season. Though he’s now dead, it seems possible we might find out there was more to Adam than he originally let on.

What happened to Javi?

Speaking of Javi, we last saw him in the past timeline hiding from the Yellowjackets as they experienced a collective psychosis brought on by magic mushroom-spiked stew on the night of the team’s “Doomcoming” party in the penultimate episode of season 1. The following day, Travis launched a search for his younger brother after discovering he was missing, but we’ve yet to learn if Javi survived his time in the wilderness.

It seems unlikely that the showrunners would let Javi die offscreen with no explanation—especially in light of their initial plan for Adam. Whether it’s in the past or present, we wouldn’t be surprised if Javi still has a role to play in the Yellowjackets’ story.

Did Travis actually commit suicide?

Despite Natalie and Travis’ pact to never take their own lives, when adult Nat and Misty found Travis’s dead body in the third episode of season 1, it definitely appeared as though he had committed suicide by hanging himself. But a number of suspicious details surrounding his death—including Misty realizing that candles had been placed on the floor under his body in a pattern forming that same ritualistic symbol from Taissa’s shrine and Lottie turning out to be the one who emptied Travis’s bank account the day after he died—seem to suggest Travis was actually murdered.

What was Natalie ‘right’ about?

When adult Nat and Misty searched Travis’s house before discovering he was dead, Misty was able to deduce that the last thing Travis had written before he died was a note reading, “Tell Nat she was right.”

Natalie told Misty that she didn’t know what Travis’s message meant. But fans have a lot of theories about what he was referring to, ranging from Javi still being alive to Lottie leading a cult.

What’s the deal with adult Lottie’s cult?

The closing moments of the season 1 finale saw a group of strangers wearing necklaces depicting the ever-present symbol from the wilderness break into Natalie’s hotel room and kidnap her just as she was seemingly planning to kill herself. At the same time, Nat’s former sponsor Suzie (Colleen Wheeler) was leaving her a panicked voicemail revealing that it was Lottie who had drained Travis’s bank account, insinuating that the group had been sent to retrieve Nat by Lottie herself.

This confirmed that Lottie was not only still alive, but also apparently still dabbling in the supernatural forces she believes she discovered in the wilderness. “There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that what started in the wilderness is still alive 25 years later, but has just been sort of on a slow boil,” Lisco told TV Insider. “And now for reasons that we will explore in season 2, it’s going to explode.”

Who was killed in the pilot?

It’s the question that has been on every Yellowjackets‘ fan’s mind since the opening scene of the series’ premiere: Which girl were the Antler Queen and her masked followers seemingly hunting and eating?

Some fans were convinced throughout the first season that it was Jackie (Ella Purnell) who would turn out to be the victim, but we know now that she froze to death before the team ever turned to cannibalism. Yellowjackets‘ showrunners have also hinted that eating each other might not even be the worst of what happens in the wilderness, suggesting that the cold open could be a red herring for some yet unknown evil.

“If we do our jobs right, the eating of a person will not be the most transgressive thing that these young women do in the wilderness,” Lisco told EW. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto mogul Justin Sun for allegedly violating securities rules, and said eight celebrities including Lindsay Lohan and the artist known as Soulja Boy illegally touted tokens.

Lohan and Soulja Boy, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, illegally promoted the tokens — Tronix and/or BitTorrent — without disclosing compensation, the SEC alleged. Most of the celebrities agreed to pay a total of more than $400,000 to settle the allegations, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, the agency said in a statement. The only two that didn’t were Soulja Boy and singer-songwriter Austin Mahone.
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Lohan didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment by phone or email. The attorneys representing Cortez Way and Mahone declined to comment.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in New York, alleges that Sun worked with companies he owns and controls – the Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation Ltd., and Rainberry Inc. — to engineer the offer and sale of the unregistered securities, including the Tronix and BitTorrent tokens. It also accuses the crypto entrepreneur of breaking antifraud and market manipulation rules.

Read More: How Logan Paul’s Crypto Empire Fell Apart

“Sun and others used an age-old playbook to mislead and harm investors by first offering securities without complying with registration and disclosure requirements and then manipulating the market for those very securities,” Gurbir Grewal, the director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in a statement.

Sun was an early investor in Bitcoin, and has used his investments as well as his success with a social-media app in China to start Tron, a blockchain network that’s currently used by thousands of gambling and gaming apps.

In the complaint, the SEC said Sun and his companies employed “bounty programs” that directed users to complete certain tasks, such as social media promotions, in exchange for tokens.

The agency also alleged that the crypto businessman carried out a fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate the trading volume of Tronix — the native crypto of the Tron network — in the secondary market, including by directing his employees — from at least April 2018 through February 2019 — to conduct more than 600,000 “wash trades” of TRX between two crypto accounts he controlled.

Read More: Influencers Are Scamming Their Fans Through Crypto. Here’s How Their Tactics Have Evolved.

“It makes sense that the SEC examines the practice of wash trading,” said Campbell Harvey, a finance professor at Duke University. “Market manipulation should not be allowed in any type of market. Again, there should be clear guidelines specific to the crypto space as to what constitutes manipulation.”

Sun, and representatives of Rainberry didn’t immediately return requests for comment.

TRX, the token associated with the Tron network, dropped around 12%. The price of BTT, a token associated with BitTorrent, fell by more than 1%.

Read More: 2022 Killed Wide-Eyed Crypto Idealism. Here Are Lessons for 2023

The total value locked in decentralized-finance apps — which let people lend, borrow and trade — on the Tron blockchain dropped by more than 3% in the last 24 hours, to about $5 billion, in the last 24 hours, according to tracker DeFi Llama.

— With assistance from Olga Kharif.

Nepotism babies have been the subject of a seemingly never-ending public discourse. Naturally, people love to poke fun at their alleged lack of real-world understanding, and take perverse pleasure in suggesting the less talented among them were handed jobs in the entertainment industry. The conversation found a new subject in the past day, following a TikTok uploaded by Romy Mars—daughter of Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars and Oscar-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola (herself the nepo baby of The Godfather auteur Francis Ford Coppola). After being grounded, the 16-year-old secretly uploaded a chaotic, sped-up video of herself trying to cook pasta, which may be the only relatable part of the story she tells. And while comments on this subject tend toward the negative, the video has been met with a warmer reception, with some saying Mars has the potential to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a great director.
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Mars’ video appeared on TikTok on Tuesday, and was quickly shared widely across social media. Since posting it, the video and Mars’ TikTok account have been deleted (though it can still be viewed on Twitter). In the video, Mars invites viewers to watch her make pasta with vodka sauce, “because I’m grounded.” The teen says she got into trouble because she tried to charter a helicopter from New York to Maryland on her dad’s credit card to have dinner with a camp friend. As she starts to cook, she shares that she does not know the difference between garlic and onion, and had to look up what they looked like.

Mars says she decided to make the TikTok since she was already grounded, because her parents forbid her from having any public social media accounts. To explain why, Mars cut to herself showing off her father’s Grammy Award (and notably not her mother’s Oscar). “They don’t want me to be a nepotism kid, but TikTok is not gonna make me famous, so it doesn’t really matter,” she says.

The video then takes a turn that has nothing to do with pasta or vodka sauce. Mars introduces Ari, her babysitter’s boyfriend, who is petting her dog, and tells viewers, “My parents are never home, so these are my replacement parents.” She asks Ari what he thinks about the whole “helicopter fiasco.” Ari thinks she says “fiasca” and says he likes that spin on the word, “because it’s like a feminine form of the word fiasco.” Mars replies, “It’s Women’s History Month, so…”

The video found an audience of 8.5 million on Twitter, and reignited the conversation surrounding nepo babies. Hollywood is full of sons, daughters, siblings, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and distant relatives of stars trying to find their way toward fame. A common critique of these nepo babies face is that they earn their successes through connections rather than talent. But there are many exceptions, and Mars seems to have the potential to be one of them. Online, many people commended everything from the TikTok’s editing to the chaos-filled, addictive nature of the narrative. It “has gotta feel like a worst-case scenario for Sofia Coppola,” read one tweet.

Another person called the video, and everything it covers, “perfect art.”

Mars’ future on social media might be uncertain at the moment, but the internet is banking on her return to mainstream audiences when she’s older and hopefully following in the footsteps of her mom and legendary grandfather.