Biles Earns Bronze to Boost GOAT Case

The Olympics may have started out in tragedy for Simone Biles, but they ended in a historic triumph for the greatest of all time. 

A week after an emotional Biles withdrew from the team gymnastics final for her mental health, the 24-year-old returned to action on the balance beam Tuesday in Tokyo. Performing a simplified version of the routine she had unveiled during the qualifying round, Biles earned a 14.000,  good enough for a third-place finish behind China's Chenchen Guan (14.633) and Xijing Tang (14.233).

The bronze medal, her second of these Olympics along with the team silver, tied Biles with Shannon Miller at seven earned making them the most decorated gymnasts to ever compete for Team USA. The former's four golds (compared to just two for Miller), five all-around, five floor exercise, and seven US national all-around championships leave little doubt that she has lived up to her legacy as her sports greatest.

Following the feat the superstar told ESPN that it wasn't easy pulling out of all those competitions.

"People just thought it was easy, but I physically and mentally was not in the right head space and I didn't want to jeopardize my health and my safety because, at the end of the day, it's not worth it. My mental and physical health is above all medals that I could ever win," Biles said. "To do beam, which I didn't think I was going to be, just meant the world to be back out there. And I wasn't expecting to walk away with the medal. I was just going out there doing this for me."

Country Icon Dolly Parton Invested 'I Will Always Love You' Royalties in Black Neighborhood

Make no mistake. “I Will Always Love You” was written by Dolly Parton, but it is, always and forever will be Whitney Houston’s song.

Courtesy RCA Records 

The country music legend admitted as much in a 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey,

“I was shot so full of adrenaline and energy, I had to pull off, because I was afraid that I would wreck, so I pulled over quick as I could to listen to that whole song,” Parton recounted to Winfrey hearing Houston’s version on the radio for the first time. “I could not believe how she did that. I mean, how beautiful it was that my little song had turned into that, so that was a major, major thing.”

So, it’s only fitting that the queen of country music, honored one of the leading ladies of soul by investing profits from the massive hit – Houston’s cover for the 1992 film The Bodyguard, which she also starred in alongside Kevin Costner, earned Parton $10 million in royalties in the 1990s alone according to Forbes — into the black community. 

During an appearance Thursday on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen the 75-year-old icon revealed she had invested the money from her songwriting credit in a building in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood when asked, "What is the best thing that you bought or invested in with money from your 'I Will Always Love You' royalties?"

“I bought my big office complex down in Nashville, and so, I thought, well, this is a wonderful place to be. I bought a property down in what was the Black area of town, and it was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there. And it was just off the beaten path from 16th Avenue. And I thought, well, I am gonna buy this place," she replied, adding. "It was a whole strip mall. And I thought, this is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney. And so, I just thought this was great. I'm just gonna be down here with her people, who are my people as well. And so, I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex, and I think, this is the house that Whitney built!"

The revelation should come as no surprise for fans of the 10-time Grammy winner, who has come out in support of Black Lives Matter in recent years and has a reputation for charity and being unproblematic that dates back decades.

Still, it’s a nice gesture and fitting tribute for Houston who died tragically in 2012 at the age of 48, accidentally drowning in her hotel bathtub.

Parton, who wrote the song in 1972 on the same day she wrote "Jolene," another one of her major hits, saw her version reach No. 1 on the Billboard’s country charts twice (1974, 1982) also said she would have loved to perform the hit with Houston during the interview but she had no illusions as to whose voice would stand out on that duet.

“I would've loved that, but I don't think I could come up to snuff with her though. She would've outsung me on that one for sure," she said. 

Posthumous Release 'Welcome 2 America' Reportedly a Return to Funky Form for Prince

 

It's 76 degrees in Minneapolis today, but for fans of Minnesota's favorite son, it might as well be Christmas.

That's because for the first time since his untimely death five years ago, His Royal Badness — The Purple One — Prince Rogers Nelson has new music out. 

"Welcome 2 America," recorded in 2010 with the New Power Generation, is the first posthumous album mined from the legendary vault of recorded music left behind by the artist, and early reviews say it's a return to funky form to a music legend whose final releases before his death had not fared well.

Rolling Stone declared the release "funkier, sexier,  superflyier" than most of his latter-day music, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars. The Chicago Sun-Times declared the album a triumph, and The Guardian seemed gobsmacked by the new tracks, declaring it his best albums of the last two decades and in a 4 (out of 5) star assessment. 

Fans wanting to judge for themselves where the new album stands in the Prince lexicon can find it on Apple Music where, in a release from the company, they are invited to "listen live for free as Apple Music Hits takes you through Prince’s Welcome 2 America release, his treasure trove of classics on Apple Music, and so much more."