The comedian became the first comedian to ever perform at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, on Saturday night. And the hometown hero did it in front of a sold-out crowd by bringing some of his famous friends along for the monumental night.
“How did this happen?” asked a bearded David Letterman as he took center stage to wild cheers and applause. “What, are the Beatles here tonight, ladies and gentlemen? This makes that Taylor Swift wedding look like a student film.”
Letterman wasn’t the only surprise Mulaney had in his back pocket for the Mister Whatever tour stop. He invited Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy as an opener, and the 89-year-old played a short set while audience members took their seats. Guy is currently on tour himself with stops this month in Toronto, New York, Michigan, Kansas and Missouri.
Richard Kind, Mulaney’s longtime good friend and sidekick on the Netflix live variety talk show Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney, acted as the night’s emcee and appeared on stage with a “Mayor” sash. Kind welcomed Mulaney’s pal and former Saturday Night Live colleague Fred Armisen, who performed a comedy set that featured some musical numbers.
Then came Letterman who had the task of welcoming Mulaney to the stage. The two had spent some quality time together recently as Mulaney appeared as a guest at Letterman’s May show at Hollywood’s Montalban Theatre as part of the Netflix is a Joke Festival. Before that, Letterman had also appeared on Mulaney’s Everybody’s Live.
Mulaney delivered a well-received and lengthy set — he “blew the non-existent roof off Wrigley Field,” praisedSlash Film’s Ethan Anderton — that featured anecdotes about his life with wife Olivia Munn and their two children, Malcolm and Mei, and the beauty of their family.
For months ahead of the performance, Mulaney had been teasing the stop. “I’m very unabashedly excited about it,” he told Jimmy Kimmel during a stop on his late night talk show. He also joked to Jenna Bush Hager and guest host Matt Rogers during a Today show stop that “if the wind is right in Wrigleyville,” the sound from the show will carry to surrounding streets. And per a video shared on TikTok, he was right.
When it was all said and done, Mulaney seemed floored by the scene. “Every Chicago thing in me tells me to stop bowing, but I’m going to enjoy the moment,” he said as he closed the show. “Thank you very much for being with us tonight. Another round of applause please for Fred Armisen, Buddy Guy, Richard Kind and Ball State’s David Letterman. Words can’t describe how cool this is.”
Mulaney’s Mister Whatever tour rolls on through 2027. See below.
Sam Neill, the amiable and adventurous leading man who emerged from New Zealand to make his mark in such films as Jurassic Park, The Piano, Dead Calm, In the Mouth of Madness and so much more, has died. He was 78.
The news was shared in a post on Neill’s official Instagram account.
“It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia,” the post read. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
Neill revealed in March 2023 that he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma a year earlier.
“I’m not in any way frightened of dying. That doesn’t worry me. It’s never worried me from the beginning,” he told the TV news magazine Australian Story in October 2023. “But I would be annoyed, because there are things I still want to do.”
Early in his career, the boundary-breaking Neill starred in Sleeping Dogs (1977), one of the first New Zealand films to play internationally; in the Australian period drama My Brilliant Career (1979), opposite Judy Davis; and as Damien in the third Omen film, The Final Conflict (1981), filmed in the U.K.
Neill also played a Russian officer in John McTiernan’s The Hunt for Red October (1990); a captain of a doomed spaceship in Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997); the father of Scarlett Johansson’s character in Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer (1998); and the patriarch of a family with a robot (Robin Williams) in Chris Columbus’ Bicentennial Man (1999).
On television, he portrayed a real-life spy on the 1983 ITV series Reilly: Ace of Spies; the King Arthur magician Merlin in Hallmark miniseries that aired in 1998 and 2006; Cardinal Thomas Wolsey on Showtime’s The Tudors in 2007; the corrupt police inspector Chester Campbell on the BBC’s Peaky Blinders in 2013-14; and a husband whose wife goes missing in Peacock’s Apples Never Fall in 2024.
After starring alongside Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane in the psychological thriller Dead Calm (1989), directed by Australian Phillip Noyce, Neill had quite the year in 1993 with his turns as the cynical paleontologist Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park and as the cold, cruel frontiersman Alisdair Stewart in The Piano, directed by New Zealander Jane Campion.
From left: Richard Attenborough, Laura Dern and Sam Neill in 1993’s ‘Jurassic Park’
MCA/Courtesy Everett Collection
And in John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994) — one of his many horror films — Neill played the insurance man John Trent, whose investigation leads him into an insane asylum.
The versatile Neill portrayed heroes and villains with equal aplomb, sparkled in art house and tentpoles alike and had a knack for exploring the shades of gray in his characters. “I’d like to think I’m able to suggest ambiguities and complexities in the people I play, because I think all of us have hidden aspects or contradictory qualities,” he once said.
Nigel John Dermot Neill was born on Sept. 14, 1947, on the kitchen table in the family home in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, where his father, Dermot, a third-generation New Zealander, was stationed with the Royal Irish Fusiliers as a member of the British Army. His mother, Priscilla, was English.
They moved in 1955 to New Zealand, where his family had a wine and spirits merchant business, and he attended boarding school at Medbury School and Christ’s College in Christchurch. He started calling himself Sam — he liked Westerns, and “Western people were called things like Sam,” he wrote in his 2023 memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This? — and had a stuttering problem.
He got interested in acting while attending the University of Canterbury, then earned a degree in English literature at Victoria University. After graduation, Neill toured for a year doing Shakespeare with the Players’ Drama Quartet and spent six years as a director of shorts and documentaries with the New Zealand National Film Unit.
“The informal agreement there was that you’d make one film for the post office or the railways or the banana company and you’d make one for yourself,” he said in a 2009 interview. “I wanted to make a film about skiing — I love skiing — but I had to dress it up and say that it would be really good for tourism.”
Neill also did a bit of acting, and after he was spotted playing a priest in the short film Ashes (1975), he was cast in the lead as a man on the run from a totalitarian government in Sleeping Dogs (1977), directed by Roger Donaldson. The thriller, the first color film made in New Zealand, helped kickstart the country’s “cinema of unease” movement.
He said he fell in love with Australia while he was portraying Davis’ complicated love interest in Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career (1979), which screened in competition in Cannes and made him realize that he could make a living doing what he loved to do. Around this time, he also recurred as Ben Dawson on the Nine Network period soap opera The Sullivans.
Sam Neill with Judy Davis in 1979’s ‘My Brilliant Career’
Analysis Films/Courtesy Everett Collection
Recommended by James Mason, Neill got to play Damien — the antichrist is now a grown-up U.S. ambassador — in The Final Conflict. Two years later, he was the dashing Russian adventurer turned British secret agent Sidney Reilly on Reilly: Ace of Spies, and he earned a Golden Globe nomination for that.
He would become a favorite in Sweden after starring as the villain Brian de Bois-Guilbert on a 1982 TV adaptation of Ivanhoe that airs on New Year’s Day every year in the country, then starred alongside Meryl Streep for Aussie director Fred Schepisi in Plenty (1985) and Evil Angels (1988), the latter about one of the most controversial legal cases in Australian history.
Neill auditioned for James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987) but said he really didn’t want the part, he explained in a 2021 interview.
“I felt so awkward all that day when we made that thing. It went on and on and on,” he said. “I’m so relieved they offered it to someone else. You really don’t want to be the Bond that no one likes. That’s a fate worse than death.” (Timothy Dalton would play 007 for the first time in that film.)
Neill described Dr. Grant in a 2001 interview as a man who has “tremendous ambivalence. He knows Jurassic Park is a horrible place to be and knows there’s nothing more dangerous than a dinosaur that is not behind bars. But because he lives and breathes dinosaurs, he finds them completely compelling.”
He would return as Grant in Joe Johnston’s Jurassic World III (2001) and Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World Dominion (2022).
He wrote in his memoir that The Piano, winner of the Palme d’Or and three Oscars, was a “lonely” job because Holly Hunter, who portrayed Ada, the wife his character abuses, “was of necessity remote” (not surprising since Alisdair cuts off her finger in the movie). “Happily,” he added, “Jane is a very caring director for her cast and was always there to hug me when I was at my lowest.”
Sam Neill as Alisdair Stewart in 1993’s ‘The Piano’
Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection
Neill also did lots of work (2002’s Dirty Deeds, 2008’s Dean Spanley, TV’s Old School, etc.) alongside his “brother from another mother,” Aussie actor Bryan Brown.
His film résumé also included Possession (1981), Death in Brunswick (1990), Carpenter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Country Life (1994), Restoration (1995), Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997), The Dish (2000), The Zookeeper (2001), Perfect Strangers (2003), Skin (2008), Daybreakers (2009), The Hunter (2011), Taika Waititi‘s Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) and, as a stage actor playing Odin, Thor Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).
In 1983, Neill bought some acreage in central Otago in New Zealand — this was “always the land of my dreams; this was where we came for holidays when I was a kid,” he said in 2020 — and launched his Two Paddocks vineyard.
“I don’t expect people to take me seriously, but I’m determined that they respect my wine,” he told the London Times in 2014. “A few weeks ago it won a trophy and two gold medals in London. I call that the ‘up yours’ factor.”
He also was a comforting, entertaining presence during the pandemic, when he posted videos of him singing and playing the ukulele on Twitter.
Survivors include his children, Andrew, Tim and Elena, and six grandchildren.
After a long relationship with New Zealand actress Lisa Harrow (they met on TheFinal Conflict), he was married to Japanese makeup artist Noriko Watanabe (they met on Dead Calm) from 1989 until their 2017 divorce. More recently, he dated Laura Tingle, a political journalist for Australia’s ABC network.
In 2022, a writer for the Sydney Morning Telegraphnoted that Neill is the least “celebrity” celebrity there is.
“I do hope I’m not a celebrity because … I think it’s two different jobs,” he said. “You can be an actor — hopefully a very good actor — but it’s another job to be a celebrity, and that’s one you can sign up for or not. And I never signed up for that. I’ve avoided that like the plague.
“The winemaking thing is absolutely half my life and has been immensely rewarding, and it’s very different from everything else that I do. I’m sort of … half-farmer, half-thespian, if you like.”
Sam Neill overlooking his Two Paddocks vineyard in the central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island in 2001.
Jay-Z’s third and most hotly anticipated concert at Yankee Stadium on Sunday night was plagued by a nearly four-hour delay due to fans rushing the venue’s gates, with Jay finally taking the stage four hours after the concert’s listed start time (and around three hours after the previous two nights).
“I appreciate your patience. We gonna have a good time. I got some shit for you, I promise you,” Jay said when he finally took the stage after midnight.
“There was like ten thousand people outside,” he explained, “and they closed all the doors ‘cuz [people] rushed the door, and i didn’t want to start music and have people get trampled. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience.”
According to a report on New York’s ABC7, citing an unidentified police source (and multiple social media posts), a large number of fans rushed at least two of the stadium’s gates and got past security without being screened. A full lockdown of the stadium ensued, with fans neither being allowed out of the venue nor inside for an extended period of time.
Reps for Jay-Z and Live Nation, the concert’s promoter, did not immediately respond to Variety’s requests for comment.
A video making the rounds online appeared to show A$AP Rocky, Charlamagne Tha God and Fabolous waiting to get in, with the caption “Wow even celebrities are stuck outside the last Jay Z yankee stadium show tonight 😭.”
Sunday’s setback made for an anticlimactic finale to the three-night stand. On the first night, Beyonce joined Jay onstage during the concert’s first song, singing Mary J. Blige’s part on “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” The concert, a celebration of the 30th anniversary of his debut album, “Reasonable Doubt,” also featured guest appearances from their daughter Blue Ivy Carter, as well as Nas and Alicia Keys.
Indian auteurs Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane have joined forces again to spotlight writer-director Ravi Muppa’s short film “Incognito,” the debut release on shorts-only YouTube channel titled Oh Flip Shorts that is launching July 15.
The channel arrives courtesy of producer Ranjan Singh, with Kashyap serving as curator. The plan calls for a fresh short to premiere on the platform each month, with the goal of building an audience and community around independent short-form work.
“Incognito” stars Vikram Singh, Ayushi Nema and Dev Chauhan. The story follows a motel receptionist short on money who makes extra income selling hidden-camera footage of guests, then finds himself torn between self-preservation and intervening after filming a woman who appears to be a trafficking victim.
The short has already made the festival rounds, screening at more than 20 international events, among them the Oscar-qualifying Palm Springs International ShortFest.
“I’ve always loved short films as they are the first stepping stone for a director to test their storytelling style and give an actual practice to them of shooting a story,” Kashyap said. “Continuing the same, this is our effort to showcase some excellent short films, curated by me and presented by filmmakers whose work I look up to. We’re glad to begin with ‘Incognito’ by Ravi Muppa, and very hopefully that it’ll be liked by the audience.”
“‘Incognito’ is gripping and beautifully atmospheric, a true blue genre short with an out of the box ending. Congratulations to Ravi and his team and I’m so happy that we can present this to the audience,” Motwane added.
As revealed by Variety, plans for a feature-length version of “Incognito” are already underway, with Invention Studios joining Flip Films and Campfire Studios as co-producers. Kashyap, Nicholas Weinstock, Divya Souza and Singh are attached to produce.
Muppa, whose earlier development credits include “Stree” (2018), “Bala” (2019) and “The Family Man” (2019), said: “The film has been an incredibly special journey, and I’m deeply grateful to the producers, collaborators, and champions who believed in it and helped carry it forward. I’m especially excited that this is just the beginning, as we now look ahead to expanding ‘Incognito’ into a feature,” Muppa said.
Singh, who produced the short through his Flip Films banner, added: “We are thankful to Anurag for the curation, and Vikram and other directors to lend their support to the same. Every month we’ll be premiering one new short on the channel and hope that we’ll be able to make a community very soon.”
Bitcoin [$BTC] has spent days consolidating at the time of writing and was on the edge of a decisive move. The asset has failed to reclaim the $64K level for a third consecutive time, and the momentum behind each attempt has weakened.
Bitcoin will need far stronger momentum to force a rally, and several factors will decide whether that happens. Among them, the role of miners cannot be dismissed, since their actions tend to shape market direction.
Bitcoin mining stocks stay under water
Bitcoin miners, responsible for securing the network, have traded underwater for weeks. Notably, over the past month alone, the Artemis Theme Tracker recorded a 10% decline across these Bitcoin mining stocks.
Source: Artemis
The tracker follows eleven Bitcoin mining stocks currently valued at $102.9 billion. Iris Energy [IREN] and Applied Digital [APLD] have absorbed the steepest losses over the past month, down 20.1% and 20%, respectively, while Hut 8 Mining and Hive Digital Technologies have slipped 3.3% and 4.3%.
Cipher Mining [CIFR] stood as the only name in the category to hold net positive, rising 5.2% over the same period and outperforming the S&P 500, which gained 1.5% across the month.
The question is whether miners will offload their $BTC, particularly as mining costs climb; paired with Bitcoin’s underperformance, that pressure could build further.
What will Bitcoin miners do
Miners have kept their Bitcoin positions steady despite the growing threat of selling in the market. At press time, the Bitcoin Miners’ Position Index (MPI) reflected near‑term confidence with a reading of -1.1, with miners continuing to accumulate.
The metric measures the ratio of total miner outflows in USD to their one-year moving average, and a reading below that average typically signals that miners are holding their assets.
Source: CryptoQuant
The Miner Supply Ratio, which tracks how much of Bitcoin’s supply miners hold, has likewise been climbing, an overall sign of accumulation.
The climb began on the 8th of July and has continued since, with the supply ratio reaching 0.05951 at press time. A sustained rise would reinforce a supportive dynamic for Bitcoin, provided miners keep their assets off the market.
Miners hold their reserves steady
Miners remain central to Bitcoin’s price performance, as their decision to sell or hold can steer direction.
The group controls roughly 1.1933 million Bitcoin, just over 5% of the total supply in the market, and any move to sell could weigh on the asset and drag it lower.
Source: CryptoQuant
Currently, though, this group is doing the opposite despite the decline in Bitcoin’s price over the past weeks. Their holdings have edged up to 1.1938 million, one of the highest levels since early May.
Final Summary
Bitcoin miners are accumulating rather than selling, with holdings edging up to 1.1938 million $BTC, even as mining stocks trade under water.
Bitcoin has failed to reclaim $64,000 for a third straight time, and with the Miners’ Position Index at -1.1, miner conviction remains one of the few supports underpinning the asset.
Crypto markets have largely held on to gains over the weekend, but were looking a little shaky on Monday morning as traders digested the latest developments between the US and Iran.
The US has launched several waves of strikes on Iran over an Iranian attack on another container ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has declared the Strait closed, while President Trump said otherwise.
Meanwhile, some heavy inflation reports could further rattle sentiment and add to the volatility as the bear market drags on.
“Q2 2026 earnings season has arrived, and Strait of Hormuz tensions are mounting again,” said the Kobeissi Letter.
Economic Events July 13 to 17
US Central Command reported on Monday morning that forces began launching more strikes against Iran “to continue degrading their ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
Crude oil prices were up around 4%, with WTI and Brent hitting $74.50 and $79, respectively, while US stock futures opened slightly lower.
June’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data is due on Tuesday, which could add to the market volatility. This is followed by the Producer Price Index (PPI) data out on Wednesday, measuring wholesale inflation.
Year-on-year measures for both headline CPI and PPI are expected to rise by 3.8% and 6.2%, respectively, reported Yahoo Finance. Rising inflation will put more pressure on the Federal Reserve to hike rates, which is bad news for risk-on assets such as crypto. The escalation of military action in the Middle East is also not good for dampening inflation concerns.
June Retail Sales data and July Philly Fed Manufacturing Index reports are due on Thursday, followed by July’s Michigan Inflation Expectations and Consumer Sentiment reports on Friday.
Key Events This Week:
1. Markets React to Strait of Hormuz Closure – Today, 6 PM ET
2. June CPI Inflation data – Tuesday
3. June PPI Inflation data – Wednesday
4. June Retail Sales data – Thursday
5. July Philly Fed Manufacturing Index – Thursday
6. July MI Inflation…
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) July 12, 2026
Several Wall Street banks and finance giants are reporting Q2 earnings this week, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank on Tuesday, followed by Morgan Stanley and BlackRock on Wednesday.
Crypto Market Outlook
Total market capitalization has remained steady over the weekend, hovering around $2.26 trillion with a very minor dip on Monday morning after the latest airstrikes.
Bitcoin had held ground just above $64,000 for the past 12 hours or so but dipped to $63,400 during early trading, where it remains at the time of writing.
Ether prices fared a little better, holding above $1,800 for most of the past day following a 15% gain over the past fortnight. Escalation of conflict and higher inflation this week could send both much lower.
Bitcoin ($BTC) is trading around $63,396 on July 13, 2026. It is still nearly 50% below its all-time high of $126,198. While short-term price action remains choppy, Eric Trump says institutional adoption is accelerating faster than ever. He believes Bitcoin still has a long way to go.
Eric Trump Sticks to $1 Million Bitcoin Call
Speaking in a recent interview, Eric Trump said Bitcoin is entering a new phase of adoption. This is as traditional financial institutions continue embracing crypto.
“The floodgates are opening,” Trump said, pointing to major firms like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and JPMorgan Chase expanding Bitcoin services. He shared that when he recently logged into his Fidelity account, he was prompted to create a digital asset wallet. Therefore, it is now easier than ever for customers to buy Bitcoin.
According to Trump, the biggest change is accessibility. Investors no longer need to rely on complicated wallets or self-custody. Now Bitcoin is available through spot ETFs and large financial institutions.
“We are on the one-yard line of cryptocurrency, and we’ve got another whole field to run,” he said.
Trump also doubled down on his long-term prediction, saying, “I do think it hits a million dollars eventually. I’ve never been more bullish on anything in my life.” He added that stronger crypto legislation in the U.S. has only increased his confidence.
Perhaps his boldest claim came when discussing institutional demand. “I talk to the biggest companies, the biggest families in the world, and every single one of them is racing to buy Bitcoin,” Trump said.
American Bitcoin Stock Struggles Despite Bigger $BTC Holdings
Interestingly, Trump’s bullish comments come even as American Bitcoin, the mining company he co-founded, continues to face pressure in the stock market.
According to Bloomberg, the company’s shares have dropped more than 95% from their peak, wiping out over $600 million from the value of Eric Trump’s roughly 6% stake over the past 10 months. The company recently carried out a 1-for-15 reverse stock split to maintain its Nasdaq listing. Still, it hit a record low last week.
Despite the weak stock performance, American Bitcoin continues to build its Bitcoin treasury. The company purchased 500 $BTC this week, taking its total holdings to more than 8,000 $BTC. However, its first-quarter results showed an operating loss of $118.2 million, including a $117.2 million Bitcoin impairment charge.
U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Adds Long-Term Confidence
Supporting the long-term bullish narrative, the U.S. government now holds around 328,372 $BTC, worth roughly $20-$25 billion. These assets are primarily acquired through criminal asset seizures. The holdings are managed as part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR), established under a White House Executive Order.
While Bitcoin remains well below its record high, growing institutional participation, improving regulation, and continued accumulation by both private investors and governments are keeping long-term expectations firmly intact.
UPDATED, with comment from AG: Oregon‘s attorney general has dropped a civil investigative demand for Paramount to turn over records related to its efforts to secure federal approval for its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield also had asked a state circuit court judge to order Paramount to turn over the materials and to delay Paramount’s closing of its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by 60 days so the documents could be reviewed. A hearing has been scheduled for Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
A Paramount spokesperson said, “We are pleased that the Oregon Attorney General has withdrawn its motion to delay this transaction. It was the right decision and avoids an unwarranted effort to delay a lawful, pro-competitive merger.
“Antitrust authorities around the world have carefully reviewed this transaction, clearing it or concluding that it does not violate any competition laws. That regulatory record underscores what the facts, the law and the economics make clear: this transaction will create a stronger challenger to dominant global streaming and technology platforms, expand consumer choice, increase investment in premium content and theatrical distribution, and create more opportunities for creators and workers. We look forward to completing the transaction and delivering those benefits.”
Jenny Hansson, communications director for Rayfield, said in a statement, “Paramount made it clear that they weren’t going to comply with the investigative demand, and that they think they’re above the law. We’re not going to let them waste Oregonians’ resources on these games. We’ve withdrawn the motion to consider our next steps.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state attorneys general are said to be considering a legal challenge to the transaction.
Rayfield sought Paramount records of lobbying of federal officials, as well as its role in a statement that the DOJ released in support of the transaction. The attorney general also sought documents “related to the formulation and execution of lobbying strategies aimed at obtaining regulatory approval of the proposed merger, which Respond as internally named ‘Project Warrior.’”
In a court filing, Paramount has objected to the document requests, arguing, among other things, that they impose “burdens and demands which are disproportionate” to the Oregon investigation and are “of such marginal relevance that the value of any materials sought is outweighed by the burden imposed on Paramount in having to provide such information.”
“Lobbying activities and related communications are wholly irrelevant to whether the proposed acquisition ‘violates Oregon’s antitrust laws,’” the company’s legal team wrote.
[This story contains spoilers for the season eight finale of Peacock‘s Love Island USA.]
After a season full of highs and lows and love and heartbreak, fans have crowned the winners of Peacock’s Love Island USA season eight.
Heading into Sunday night’s finale, viewers got to vote on which couple would take home the grand prize of $100,000 (split between the winning couple). The final couples were Trinity and Bryce, Aniya and Carl, Kayda and Zach, and Melanie and Sincere.
After couples went on their final Love Island USA dates during the finale, host Ariana Madix revealed the Islanders who received the most votes and captured America’s heart in the end were Trinity and Bryce. Aniya and Carl were the runners-up, with Melanie and Sincere coming in third place, and Zach and Kayda in fourth.
“I feel like I’m in a dream right now. I’m walking up here, I’m like, ‘Is this fucking real?’” an emotional Bryce said after winning. An overjoyed Trinity added, “I’m just so overwhelmed. I never would have expected in a million years I would be in this position right now.” The pair also told each other that they love them.
Peacock also announced Sunday that the Love Island USA reunion special will air on Aug. 31 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET, with Madix and Andy Cohen returning as hosts. Additionally, Love Island: Beyond the Villa has been renewed for a third season and will premiere in 2027. The cast will be revealed later this year.
Though Trinity and Bryce seemed like an unlikely match at first, appearing to be more friends than lovers, their relationship actually became a slow burn, developing throughout the season. Once Casa Amor arrived, their true feelings finally came to the surface during the show’s ultimate relationship test. When they finally got reunited, they remained a power couple, eventually making it official as girlfriend and boyfriend before the show ended.
Trinity and Bryce on Love Island USA season eight.
Ben Symons/Peacock
While their relationship didn’t face too many hurdles, plenty of other Islanders throughout season eight did. From Sincere’s ongoing lies to Melanie and Kenzie’s shady exploring to KC’s hurtful words about Aniya and Zach’s commitment issues with Kayda, the season was still filled with more than enough drama.
In addition to the show being “able to carve out a unique place” in the television space, Madix also praised the casting team for casting Islanders who draw viewers in. “These Islanders are never together. They don’t meet. There’s no interaction where they can chemistry test the way you would on a scripted show,” the host previously told THR. “So you don’t know until they’re all in a room together what kind of sparks are going to fly. And yet year after year, the casting team does such an incredible job of finding the secret sauce amongst the cast to really make those sparks fly and make the show exciting.”
The season was also met with a few scandals when Alannah Keyser and Vasana Montgomery were removed from the show when respective social media posts emerged of them using the N-word. They’ve both since apologized.
Apple sued OpenAI and two former employees, alleging theft of hardware trade secrets.
The complaint claims former Apple employees accessed confidential files, shared supplier information, and used internal information at OpenAI.
The lawsuit follows OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s hardware startup io Products.
Apple has sued OpenAI and two former employees, accusing the ChatGPT maker of using stolen trade secrets for its consumer hardware efforts.
The complaint, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, names former Apple senior system electrical engineer Chang Liu and former iPhone and Apple Watch design executive Tang Yew Tan, along with OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, and io Products.
Apple alleges Liu, who left the company in January after eight years, failed to return a company laptop and later accessed Apple’s internal systems through an authentication bug.
“While employed by OpenAI, Mr. Liu also exploited a rare, previously unknown authentication bug to access Apple’s shared network folders,” Apple’s attorneys said in the complaint. “Upon discovering that he had this unauthorized access to Apple’s systems, Mr. Liu did not report it, return his stolen Apple-issued work laptop, or delete the program that allowed the access.”
Apple alleges Liu downloaded dozens of confidential hardware files, including information about unreleased products, engineering presentations, technical specifications, and proprietary project data.
The company also alleges Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple before becoming OpenAI’s chief hardware officer, used confidential information from his time at Apple to benefit OpenAI.
The complaint claims Tan used Apple’s internal project names during OpenAI interviews and asked about unreleased products. Apple also alleges candidates were told to bring “actual parts,” for “show and tell.”
Apple further claims OpenAI’s recruiting process requested “CAD/design artifacts,” prototypes, supplier information, and details about employees’ work on Apple hardware.
Apple and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Decrypt.
The lawsuit follows OpenAI’s $6.4 billion acquisition of io Products, the hardware startup founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive. Ive is not named in the complaint.
According to the filing, OpenAI’s hardware division has hired more than 400 former Apple employees. Apple claims it contacted OpenAI in February with concerns about confidential information entering the company but did not receive a response.
The news comes after a separate trade secret dispute between OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI. In September, xAI sued OpenAI, alleging the ChatGPT maker recruited former employees to obtain confidential source code, training methods, and data center strategies.
OpenAI denied the allegations, and a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in June, finding xAI failed to show OpenAI encouraged a former employee to disclose confidential information.
The lawsuit is a stark pivot from Apple and OpenAI’s earlier relationship.
In 2024, Apple tapped OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to Siri as part of its Apple Intelligence initiative. However, earlier this year, Apple turned to Google’s Gemini to power its next generation of AI models after delays stalled the rollout.
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