UPDATE: 2/5/26 at 2:40 a.m. ET — Canadian singer Tate McRae appeared to hit back at backlash after appearing in an ad promoting Team USA’s 2026 Winter Olympics team.

The pop star shared a childhood photo of herself holding up a Canadian flag to her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, February 4. “… Y’all know I’m Canada down,” the “Run for the Hills” singer wrote over the image.

Original story:

Singer Tate McRae is just as excited for the 2026 Winter Olympics as the rest of us — but not everybody is a fan of how she’s expressing it.

Related: Behind-the-Scenes on Team USA‘s Dramatic Journey to the 2026 Winter Olympics

The 2026 Winter Olympics are officially here — and Team USA is arriving in Italy with star power, storylines and sky-high expectations.  As the world’s best athletes descend on Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, all eyes are on the Americans: from Ilia Malinin’s can’t-miss moment in men’s figure skating to Mikaela Shiffrin’s long-awaited redemption tour on […]

McRae, who was born in Canada, starred in an ad for NBC Sports promoting Team USA released on Tuesday, February 3.

“I’m trying to get to Milan for an amazing Opening Ceremony and meet Team USA,” the pop star, 22, tells a snowy owl in the commercial. 

McRae continues, “It’s the weekend with America’s best skating for gold and Lindsey Vonn’s epic comeback.”

The 2026 Winter Olympics kick off with the Opening Ceremony on Friday, February 6, the same day that team figure skating competition begins. Vonn, meanwhile, is scheduled to hit the slopes on Sunday, February 8, despite suffering a torn ACL after a crash in Switzerland last week. 

The decision for McRae to support Team USA didn’t sit well with some fans, who called her out for abandoning her Canadian roots. 

“Promoting team usa is actually crazy… girl ur from calgary, u grew up going to the saddledome and the stampede, quit pretending ur from the country that was threatening to annex us this time last year  😭😭,” one person wrote via X. 

McRae was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and spent most of her upbringing in the province. She has long supported the NHL’s Calgary Flames, who play at the Scotiabank Saddledome. 

“Tate McRae, who is from Calgary Alberta, is doing Olympic promos for Team USA… more like ‘Trait McRator’ AMIRITE!” a person commented via X. 

Another wrote, “Tate mcrae doing a olympic ad for the usa is lame af but also why is a us network even choosing a canadian to endorse them?”

“Tate McRae doing a promo for NBC and Team USA for the Olympics and not Canada has me a bit sad but okay,” a dejected fan said. 

McRae appearing in the ad might not be entirely random, however, as the “Sports Car” singer has recently been linked to New Jersey Devils star Jack Hughes, who will represent Team USA in Italy. 

McRae and Hughes, 24, were spotted together in New York City in December 2025 after she attended one of his home games. 

Hughes discussed dealing with an increased level of fame during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly last month. 

“The number one thing I focus on is my game,” Hughes said. “That’s the part I have the most fun with. Obviously there’s a lot of things that come with it. But the most fun thing is to go out to a sold-out rink, ball out and play well. That’s the most important thing for me.”

He added, “All the other stuff is good, it comes on the side if you’re playing well. You kinda got to put the cart before the horse. I’m lucky to be in the position that I’m in. The most fun I have is on the ice.”

Hughes and the Team USA men’s hockey team will begin their quest for gold in Italy against Latvia on February 12. 

Teddi Mellencamp has one of the most iconic last names in music, so it’s no surprise that she turned to her famous father, John Mellencamp, for advice before taking on The Masked Singer.

“My dad said, ‘Just sing loud and proud, and if you don’t hit a note, you don’t hit a note, but as long as you’re giving it your all, that’s what matters,’” the former Bravo star, 44, exclusively told Us Weekly after her unmasking during the Wednesday, February 4, episode of the Fox singing competition. “And so that’s what I was doing.”

Teddi didn’t initially tell John, 74, that she’d landed a gig on The Masked Singer, but when it came time to show off her pipes, she decided it was time to ask the Grammy winner for some tips.

“Once I was singing a song, then I talked to him about it. I needed advice,” she. “He’s like, ‘Don’t go out there trying to think that you’re a singer. Just go out there and sing the song the way you would if you were singing along. Have fun.’”

The advice seems to have worked, because Teddi blew the judges away with her performances of Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” and her dad’s “Jack & Diane.” The former song, she explained, has become “an anthem” for her as she battles stage IV melanoma. (A scan in October 2025 showed “no detectable cancer,” but Teddi explained on her podcast last month that she’s still considered stage IV while she remains on immunotherapy.)

“I’m probably even going to get emotional talking about it,” Teddi said of Platten’s inspiring track. “I’m almost a year [after] having all my cancer surgeries, but it’s been a fight, and I wanted to be able to share the softer side, but also [show] you can work really hard and do the things that you want to do still.”

As for the second song, John’s 1982 No. 1 hit, Teddi initially didn’t think it was an option to even sing one of her dad’s songs because of who owned the rights. When she realized his masters had been sold, however, his catalog was on the table, and she was willing to give it a shot.

When Teddi spoke to Us, her dad hadn’t yet seen her take on “Jack & Diane” — he was planning to come over and watch with her so she could get “nice and embarrassed” — but he previously expressed his approval for her “Fight Song” performance.

“He thought the first episode was great,” she told Us. “I mean, he’s my dad, so it’s different. But he was like, ‘I thought you were great.’”

Tuning into The Masked Singer is apparently always a family affair in the Mellencamp household, no matter who’s under the costume. As Teddi said in Calla Lily’s first clue package, she wanted to do the show for her kids, who love the show. (She shares Slate, 13, Cruz, 11, and Dove, 5, with ex Edwin Arroyave.)

Related: Teddi Mellencamp and Father John Mellencamp’s Best Quotes About Their Bond

Teddi Mellencamp will always appreciate her dad, John Mellencamp, despite their well-documented ups and downs. John welcomed daughters Teddi and Justice with ex-wife Victoria Granucci in 1981 and 1985, respectively. The singer also shares daughter Michelle with ex Priscilla Esterline, and sons Hud and Speck with ex-wife Elaine Irwin. In May 2024, Teddi shared that […]

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“My kids have seen me in a situation where I was recovering from brain surgery, and I wanted them to know that there’s life after that,” she explained. “And once you’re feeling better, you can push yourself and you can try new things. So, that was part of the reason that I wanted to do The Masked Singer, but the other part was because it’s my kids’ favorite show.”

The kids didn’t know in advance that their mom was on the show, but she said they figured it out as soon as they heard her voice because she always sings in the car.

“I was like, ‘How do you know?’ Because I wanted to wait [to tell them],” she recalled. “And they were like, ‘Don’t even try to fool us. We know.’”

They were then “so worried” that their mom would go home first, but that didn’t happen: She notched two performances before Calla Lily’s run came to an end despite being so nervous that she found herself shaking on stage.

“I just was like, ‘You’ve got to do this. There’s no choice,’” Teddi recalled telling herself. “You’ve just got to fight through the nerves and remember the words and sing loud.”

Teddi has been fighting hard for the past year, sharing raw insights about her health journey on her “Two T’s in a Pod” podcast, which she cohosts with The Real Housewives of Orange County’s Tamra Judge. Listeners may come expecting reality TV gossip, but Teddi hasn’t shied away from discussing the serious topic of her treatment, in part because she thinks it would be “impossible” for fans not to notice something was going on.

“You can hear the way that my voice has changed throughout the time. You can see my personality change. And I’m aware of it,” Teddi explained. “When you have brain surgery, there’s so many things affected, and I didn’t want to feel ashamed by it. So, I just wanted to talk about it and make other people not feel alone. But also, if I talk about it, then I’m less nervous about it, then I can just go along being me. I’m not trying to hide something like, ‘Hey, guys, I’m really shaky today,’ or, ‘You might notice my voice sounds funny.’”

She added, “It’s one of the side effects of one of the treatments I’m going through, and just kind of letting people know that you’re not alone. I think so many people talk about the physical aspect of having cancer, but the mental aspect has kind of been forgotten. So, as much as I can talk about that, I do.”

Just last month, Teddi opened up about starting therapy to help process all that she’s been through between her cancer battle and her divorce from Arroyave, 48.

“It’s really hard for me to tap into my feelings, because I think I’ve put up a wall,” she shared with Us. “I was so scared of what happened that I didn’t want to really dig into it and get into those emotions, but now that I have, it’s like the floodgates are open. It’s definitely been helping, because I think that when you go through a trauma and you’re just trying to white-knuckle it the whole time, it’s gonna come around. And when it came around, I was completely shocked.”

The Masked Singer, she said, helped remind her that she can keep going.

“You become such a creature of habit when you’re healing,” she said. “I’m home. I do my podcast from the house. I’m not allowed to drive yet, so my podcast room is 15 steps from where my bedroom is. It’s like everything is in one area. Being able to get out there and do that was something that showed me I can do hard things.”

The Masked Singer airs on Fox Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Hulu.

Cheers stands as one of the most iconic sitcoms of the 1980s. The series, led by Ted Danson as Sam Malone, centered around the staff and regulars of the titular bar in Boston as they took time away from their day-to-day life to go “where everybody knows your name.” The characters are among television’s most beloved: Danson’s Malone, the bar owner and former Red Sox relief pitcher; Diane (Shelley Long), the academic barmaid and love interest; Carla (Rhea Perlman), the cynical, wise-cracking and irritable waitress; Norm (George Wendt), a popular bar regular greeted with a resounding “Norm!” whenever he showed up (which was often); and Cliff (John Ratzenberger), another bar regular, a mail carrier, and know-it-all.

As the series progressed, Woody (Woody Harrelson) replaced Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) as bartender following Colasanto’s passing, while Long departing the show opened the door for Kirstie Alley‘s Rebecca, all without the series missing a beat. A spin-off was inevitable, and while any of the characters would have been effective, the call went to Kelsey Grammer‘s Frasier Crane, and Frasier (which premiered in 1993, the same year Cheers ended) would prove to be just as popular as its parent series. But the first spin-off didn’t feature any of the characters mentioned above. Preceding Frasier by six years, The Tortellis centered around characters that only ever made a handful of appearances… and unsurprisingly, it bombed.

Carla’s Ne’er-Do-Well Ex-Husband Lands ‘Cheers’ First Spin-Off With ‘The Tortellis’

In the first season of Cheers, all we knew about Carla’s ex-husband Nick was what she shared caustically. He’s a deadbeat father to five of her children, making few attempts to contact them, and no attempt to support them financially. He also cheated on Carla with another woman, Loretta. We don’t actually meet him or Loretta until Season 2’s “Battle of the Exes,” and, well, he lives up to his reputation. Nick (Dan Hedaya) is loud, boorish, and scruffy, with nary a hint of sophistication. Loretta (Jean Kasem) is a tall, blonde, and “ditzy” woman, a trophy wife who marries Nick in the same episode. And yet, after the wedding, he beelines to Cheers and begs Carla to come back to him. It’s not the last time he attempts to woo Carla back either, and it often even comes close to happening — with Nick still proving to be irresistible to her.

The Tortellis sees Loretta leave Nick and move to Las Vegas, where she hopes to make it as a performer. She moves in with her sister Charlotte (Carlene Watkins), who seemingly took her share of the smarts, and her son Mark (Aaron Moffat). Nick follows her to Las Vegas in an attempt to reconcile with her, promising to change his ways. She takes him back, tentatively, and Nick sets up a TV repair shop, and, true to his word, changes his ways. (Kind of. Not really.) Then Nick and Carla’s teenage son, Anthony (Timothy Williams), and his petulant wife Annie (Mandy Ingber) also move to Las Vegas, joining Nick and Loretta in Charlotte and Mark’s home. Six wacky stereotypical characters under one roof? Cue the hilarity.

‘The Tortellis’ Is Mercifully Cancelled After 13 Episodes

Image via CBS

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The decision to center a spin-off around characters who’ve had a handful of appearances is questionable at best, but to make it about such a despicable character and his bubble-headed wife is downright baffling. Storylines like a customer holding Nick accountable for his advertised claim of fixing a TV in a day or he’ll “eat a bug,” or Loretta confronting Charo after Nick takes longer than expected to fix a TV in her dressing room are so far apart from the savvy, well-written episodes of Cheers that it’s criminal. And speaking of criminal, Nick’s criminal past, rooted in offensive stereotypes of Italian Americans, didn’t help either, with the South Florida SunSentinel saying, “The Italian-American Anti-Defamation League should be about as enchanted with Nick Tortelli as it was with The Untouchables.” Coupled with poor ratings, The Tortellis was cancelled after only 13 episodes.

Frasier worked because people knew the character and were willing to follow him to Seattle. The series didn’t sacrifice those things that made Frasier who he was, bringing characters into the series with him that worked to both complement him and challenge him. The writing, too, was up to the same level of quality as its predecessor. Joey, the infamous spin-off of Friends, failed partially because the series changed those things that made Joey who he was, expecting fans to follow a different version of Joey to Los Angeles. The Tortellis didn’t sacrifice the characters at all, and maybe they should have. To add insult to injury, Wings, a sitcom that exists in the same world as Cheers and Frasier, had a healthy 8-season run, with characters that never showed up in Cheers at all.

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The Tortellis

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Release Date

1987 – 1987-00-00

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Directors

Michael Zinberg, Jack Shea, Greg Antonacci

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Adrian Conejo Arias is clapping back at the government’s claim that he abandoned his son while ICE agents pursued him in Minnesota. Arias is the father of the 5-year-old boy in a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack. Liam went viral after footage showed immigration officers surrounding the boy and allegedly attempting to bait the father with the child.

ICE had ultimately detained and shipped them both to a holding facility in Texas. Now, amid the father-son reunion, Adrian is setting the record straight while the government doubles down on abandonment claims.

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Claressa Shields lit up timelines again, and nope, it’s not because Papoose is upstairs. The boxing champion hopped on TikTok’s viral ‘Liberian Girl’ Challenge, and her spicy moves have the internet cuttin’ up, per usual.

RELATED: Come On Outfit! 5 Times Claressa Shields Shut Down Critics By Confidently Showing Off Her Sense Of Style (PICS + VIDEOS)

Claressa Shields Said “My Turn” & Shook The TL UP!

Listen, when it comes to a dance challenge, just tap Claressa Shields in. Winter or not, the GWOAT pulled up, giving straight summer vibes while jumping on the ‘Liberian Girl’ Challenge. The trend comes with a few spicy lil’ moves set to Michael Jackson’s classic, and of course, Claressa added her own sauce — especially when it came to the twerk. She rocked a yellow two-piece with a crop top and pleated mini skirt, then hit a smooth walk-off that said it all. If you ask her, she ate that up and left zero crumbs. Peep the video below.

Social Media Went Straight Into Reaction Mode

Of course, The Shade Room’s comment section exploded with reactions to Claressa’s take on the ‘Liberian Girl’ challenge. Some folks vibed with her energy, while others made it clear they don’t get how anyone could hate when she’s clearly having a time.

Instagram user @niccigilbert wrote, “She looks super cute having fun, traveling the world as a champion against all odds, all the way from Flint, Michigan Go Claressa Go 👑👑👑✨✨✨💛💛” 

Instagram user @buttababy03 wrote, “Pap watching from upstairs 😂😂” 

While Instagram user @meekmeek2u_ wrote, “I like her 🤷🏽‍♀️😂Idk why it’s so popular to hate this woman. She just having fun 😂 damn.” 

Then Instagram user @kristen.hurt wrote, “MAAANNNN let that lady live… We let Brittney do it, so why can’t she? 🤷🏾‍♀️🙂” 

Another Instagram user @rose.ichiban wrote, “I actually love Clarissa ❤️” 

Instagram user @mrshairtoday wrote, “Let her have fun! 😍” 

Then another Instagram user @mirrajai.fit wrote, “She’s a boxer having fun trying to do a little dance. I think it’s cute 😍👏🏽” 

Finally, Instagram user @ssherman31 wrote, “Seems so fun and full of life ❤️” 

Claressa Claps Back At Trolls For Throwing Shade At Her Moves

While plenty of folks praised Claressa for having fun with the TikTok challenge, a few trolls chimed in and she peeped. She clapped back with a video from what looked like a workout, questioning why some people stay so miserable. Still, Claressa didn’t let the comments about her needing to be “more girly” or “loosen up” faze her one bit. She said anyone who laughed did exactly what they were supposed to do, because that’s the whole point of dance videos. “It’s a f*****g TikTok who cares! I don’t get paid to dance. I’m a fighter, I’m a world champion.” She continued to flex, “19-time world champion.” 

Claressa Shows Out For ‘Counting Green’ Challenge With Papoose’s Daughter

We already told ya’ll Claressa doesn’t play when it comes to a dance challenge. In fact, she and Papoose’s eldest daughter, Dejanae Mackie, kicked off the ‘Counting Green’ challenge for Pap’s single. The ladies were getting to the money, flexing on ’em, and hitting a mean chicken while they were head while they were at it.

RELATED: Taste Test? Papoose Rates Claressa Shields’ Cooking In Skeptical Clip As Fans Side-Eye His Review (VIDEO)

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