Articles - World

Funny Face’s ex-wife Elizabeth Nana Adjoa Ntim who tagged him as a ‘2-minute man’ is reportedly set to remarry this month.

TOKYO — The director of the Tokyo Olympics’ opening ceremony was fired Thursday over a Holocaust joke he made during a comedy show in 1998.

Kentaro Kobayashi was ousted just a day before the pandemic-delayed Games were set to officially kickoff Friday with an elaborate ceremony he helped create, the latest in a long list of setbacks to hit the event.

Kobayashi was fired “after a joke he had made in the past about a painful historical event was brought to light,” the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee said in a statement.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

Kobayashi used the phrase “Let’s play Holocaust” in the act, organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto said in a statement.

“We found out that Mr. Kobayashi, in his own performance, had used a phrase ridiculing a historical tragedy,” Hashimoto said.

“We deeply apologize for causing such a development the day before the opening ceremony and for causing troubles and concerns to many involved parties as well as the people in Tokyo and the rest of the country.”

Tokyo Games are underway amid new COVID-19 concerns

Kobayashi said Thursday he regretted the incident.

“Entertainment should not make people feel uncomfortable. I understand that my stupid choice of words at that time was wrong, and I regret it,” he said in a statement.

Kobayashi, 48, is a former member of a comedy duo called “Rahmens” and his unearthed attempt at Holocaust humor drew immediate condemnation from Jewish groups like the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles after it surfaced on Twitter.

Kobayashi is shown cutting up paper figures of human beings while talking about coming up with a “let’s massacre Jewish people game” in the skit.

It was not immediately clear who first posted the video footage online.

“Any person, no matter how creative, does not have the right to mock the victims of the Nazi genocide,” said the group’s Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who said the Nazis also sent disabled Germans to the gas chambers.

“Any association of this person to the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of 6 million Jews and make a cruel mockery of the Paralympics,” he said.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who has faced criticism for the decision to hold the Games in the midst of the pandemic, told reporters Thursday that “this incident is utterly outrageous and completely unacceptable.”

Kobayashi helped craft an opening ceremony at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium that will get underway at 7 a.m. ET Friday with no fans in the stands due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and the current state of emergency in Tokyo.

While the stadium can seat 68,000 people, there will be less than a thousand officials on hand to cheer on the athletes from more than 200 countries. Dignitaries will include First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, who is leading the American delegation, and Japanese Emperor Naruhito.

The ouster of Kobayashi came just days after another key member of the creative group that put together the opening ceremony, musician Keigo “Cornelius” Oyamada, was fired after boasts that he bullied disabled classmates surfaced online.

Oyamada apologized and both he and his music were removed from the program.

The Olympics have been beset by several other scandals over the past year, too.

In February, the president of the committee, Yoshiro Mori, was forced out after he said female sports officials talk too much during meetings. A month later, the Games’ original creative director, Hiroshi Sasaki, was ousted for comparing Japanese celebrity Naomi Watanabe to a pig.

Inside look at Covid precautions at Tokyo Olympics swimming venue

The pandemic derailed the Olympics last year and in the run-up to Friday’s official kickoff the Tokyo 2020 organizers have had to contend with a troubling increase in new Covid-19 cases and opposition from the Japanese public, a majority of whom fear the influx of athletes and others from abroad could turn the Games into a superspreader event.

Even before Kobayashi’s departure was announced Friday, the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun blasted the committee, writing that is has been “dogged by a series of missteps.”

“The “Festival of Peace” is going to open amid this pathetic mess nobody even imagined possible,” the newspaper wrote, referring to one of the themes of the opening ceremony.

Olympics officials acknowledged the troubles but said they remained determined to press ahead.

“We are going to have the opening ceremony tomorrow and, yes, I am sure there are a lot of people who are not feeling easy about the opening of the Games,” Hashimoto said.

“But we are going to open the Games tomorrow under this difficult situation.”

The truth can be very frustrating when all you have is lies on your side.

CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan confronted MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell during his three-day “cyber symposium” in South Dakota this week. The event was supposed to prove once and for all that China was involved in “stealing” the 2020 election from former president Donald Trump. But like the event itself—which lacked any election fraud evidence at all—MyPillow guy’s interview with O’Sullivan was also an epic dumpster fire.

When pressed about providing proof of his claims of election fraud Lindell exploded and astonishingly replied, “Just forget about the evidence.”

— Peter Wade (@brooklynmutt) August 14, 2021

Lindell followed the bizarre remark by then deflecting and angrily questioning O’Sullivan about whether he cares about America.

“If I’m right that China took our country, right now, do you care? Would that bother you? Would that bother you?” Lindell asked.

After O’Sullivan replied, “Of course it would,” Lindell continued his unhinged rant, asking, “Do you think I like to get attacked?”

Another bizarre moment in the segment came from a speaker at the event. After admitting that he didn’t understand anything about the presentation that day, he insisted that CNN and other media should start reporting Lindell’s farcical notions as true and “stop fact-checking.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not a computer guy. I don’t know what most of this stuff means,” the speaker said. “But I’ve been researching this election since November 3rd… CNNs of the world, you guys need to start reporting this and stop fact-checking it.”

“But the CNN’s of the world, you guys need to start reporting this and stop fact-checking it!” pic.twitter.com/8NM3bIK90K

— Peter Wade (@brooklynmutt) August 14, 2021

Although comical, there’s also a very dangerous side to this carnival show. On Friday, Homeland Security Intelligence chief John Cohen told CNN that false conspiracy theories about Trump and the election are fueling violent chatter among extremists online. And that chatter is “very similar” to what intel saw in the lead-up to the attack on the Capitol.

“It’s very similar to the stuff we saw prior to January 6,” said Cohen.

Cohen said online comments such as “the system is broken,” “take action into our own hands” and “bring out the gallows,” went along with the narrative shared among believers that the presidential election was not legitimate. This has led to calls for violence from extremists to overthrow the election and put Trump back in the White House.

“Concern from a law enforcement perspective is at a certain point in time, all of the conspiracy theories that point to a change occurring through process are going to sort of wear out,” Cohen said. “And the question is going to be, are people going to try to resort to violence in or in furtherance of that false narrative?”

Last week, DHS issued a warning about liars such as Lindell being a motivating factor for an uptick in online calls for violence if the former president isn’t reinstated as president. The bulletin said Lindell’s recent media blitz had been a driving factor behind some of the online chatter moving from extremist forums to “more public web forums.”

“Some conspiracy theories associated with reinstating former President Trump have included calls for violence if desired outcomes are not realized,” the DHS bulletin said.

The bulletin continued: “Over the last few days what has occurred is there’s been much more public visibility, meaning the discussions and these theories have migrated away from being contained within the conspiracy and extremist online communities, to where they’re being the topic of discussion on web forums, or more public web forums, and even within the sort of media ecosystem.”

These conspiracy theories have gone mainstream, and it’s largely thanks to hucksters like Lindell who continue to push Trump’s lies.

Sometimes, the abyss stares back. The psychic strain of existentialism wears upon us all, rarely more than when you both endure and enact an endless parade of ultimately meaningless platitudes about events, people, and things that’ll be forgotten about seconds later.

Then, sometimes, you see Machine Gun Kelly in a cropped popcorn shirt and the scales fall from your eyes.

What really matters? Does anything? No, not really. So, what we ought to do to get to the other side of the day is live in the moment. And Kelly’s outfit, in some bizarre way, is a solid temporary coping mechanism.

I mean, this look is so insane that I almost forgot to be miserable about summer’s terrible weather, for instance.

MGK and Fox were off to the premiere of Machine Gun Kelly’s Life in Pink, a Hulu documentary about the rapper’s career, mental health struggles, all the usual stuff you get from music docs these days.

The Megan Fox-aissance might be behind us but the actress’ every appearance is like a red carpet flashbang, even when she looks like a day-glo Kardashian with her lace-up heels, platinum blonde hair, and full-glam makeup.

The effect actually makes me reconsider the casting of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie rom-com: Margot Robbie is solid casting but Fox is perhaps an even better selection.

margot robbie on the set of ‘barbie’ pic.twitter.com/DlruIOsihU

— best of margot (@badpostmargots)

All sharp angles and silhouette, she’s arguably responsible for sending the sex symbol stereotype to the dustbin of history, as so many thinkpieces and interviews have unpacked.

In bubblegum pink and with a blonde dye job, she’s easily deserving to be our generation’s Barbie.

With pink hair to match his fiancée, a cropped popcorn shirt, chain-linked white pants that he forgot to finish buttoning, and Rick Owens Ramones sneakers buried beneath the cartoonish trousers, Machine Gun Kelly has almost singlehandedly destroyed the course of my day.

Sorry, yassified Ryan Gosling, but this is Ken for Generation Z.

With his hilarious tattoos, painted nails and obscene amount of flair, MGK is the only person suitable to play the ultimate himbo.

Maybe Barbie 2 will get it right.