9 Michigan celebrities’ most memorable moments from 2024

0 60

From Eminem to Kristen Bell and representative Rashida Tlaib, these Michigan celebrities have had some big moments—both good and bad—throughout 2024.

Whether you bought a house, changed careers, or simply survived the tumultuous 2024 presidential election cycle, this year’s been one for the books, and celebs have helped spur cultural touchstones throughout the year. The Charli XCX-born “Brat” summer lit up the world in electric green, Sabrina Carpenter had us sipping espresso a little extra, and Taylor Swift’s lengthy Eras Tour concluded, finally allowing Swifties in Michigan and beyond the chance to breathe and reflect on what they’d experienced and the community they’d gained. Oh, and we can’t forget Beyoncé’s release of the genre-defying “Cowboy Carter,” which she’ll be performing live for the first time on Christmas Day—the perfect nightcap on a wild ride of a year.

But none of these celebrities are from Michigan, and the Mitten State’s notable names have made just as memorable headlines as the aforementioned celebs. Here, we’ll break down the following Michigan-born bigwigs’ biggest moments of 2024:

  • Madonna
  • Kristen Bell
  • Dax Shepard
  • Tim Allen
  • Rashida Tlaib
  • Eminem
  • Ken Jeong
  • Floyd Mayweather Jr.
  • Francis Ford Coppola

From a massive Celebration Tour finale to losing loved ones, Madonna’s 2024 was full of many highs and lows

After more than 80 shows, Madonna’s Celebration Tour came to an end this May, with the “Like a Virgin” singer saving her final show for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. If you’ve spent any amount of time online, particularly in fan communities focused on performers, you’ve likely seen the phrase “come to Brazil” here and there. It’s a straightforward plea from Brazilians: They want to see their favorite artists. And as the world saw on Saturday, May 4, the pop-music-loving crowd in Brazil will turn out in droves when the opportunity arises. Madonna took Rio de Janeiro by storm, and her audience landed at a whopping 1.6 million concertgoers. The beach she performed on was completely packed, and the best part was that the show was free—one final way to celebrate the Celebration Tour. Many more saw the “4 Minutes” singer’s performance via a live broadcast from a local television network.

Not everything was so peachy for Madonna this year, though. First, two of Madonna’s family members—her brother, Christopher, and her stepmother, Joan—passed away this year, both from cancer and only about a week and a half apart. “My Family has experienced many losses this year. My father has endured with Dignity,” Madonna wrote in an Instagram caption posted alongside a photo of herself, her father, and her children on December 2. “Watching him cry in the cemetery when we buried my brother Christopher -right after he lost his wife. Was a moment I will never forget.” 

Then, on Friday, December 13, the “Material Girl” singer drew criticism for posting A.I.-generated images of herself mingling with Pope Francis. One photo shows the Catholic leader grinning as he looks at her, while another sees him touching the performer intimately. “This is ridiculously disrespectful,” one X, formerly known as Twitter, user said of the photos. A.I. is controversial on its own, as is toying with religious scriptures, iconographies, and leaders, so this was likely always going to end with bountiful criticism.

Madonna performs at Montreal’s Centre Bell during The Celebration Tour, January 2024. (proacguy1/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Kristen Bell’s new series soared, while her parenting skills came under fire

Maybe you know her from “Veronica Mars,” or perhaps your first introduction to her was “The Good Place.” In either case, everyone loves Kristen Bell (who could hate the voice of Anna from “Frozen”?), and 2024 was, overall, at least, good to her. Bell’s latest project, the Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” in which she stars opposite Adam Brody of “The O.C.” fame, has been majorly successful since it launched on the streaming service this September. The series sees a love story between a sex podcaster named Joanne (Bell) and a rabbi named Noah (Brody) unfold, and yes, it’s just as intriguing and conflicting as it sounds. It’s charming, but it’s also an emotional tug-of-war game, which is what Bell does best. The show has been so successful so far that a second season is reportedly slated to begin filming in February 2025 (via Variety), which is rare in the current streaming landscape. Its Rotten Tomatoes score? 94% at the time of writing. This speaks for itself.

However, amid all of the excitement surrounding “Nobody Wants This,” Bell found herself embroiled in online controversy following a “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” interview this September in which she said that she and hubby Dax Shepard allowed their children to be meander on their own for seven hours during a visit to Copenhagen, Denmark (via Entertainment Weekly). In fact, Bell described the day as “free-range parenting,” pulling a term typically reserved for farmed chickens. In her defense, they were staying at a theme park, and their hotel was attached, so their children were nearby even when they were exploring the park.

“We let them wake up, they woke up at like six every morning, they scanned their bracelets to go outside — didn’t see them for seven hours. Just running around Copenhagen,” Bell told Kimmel. Naturally, some found great offense in this. “Revealing this is so unsafe,” one X user wrote about the situation. “Totally irresponsible unless they are over the age of 18 years old,” another wrote. Statistically, you can’t get much safer than Copenhagen, so there likely wasn’t much to worry about here, but it’s also understandable why some people expressed concern.

Dax Shepard brought home the Bezos bacon and opened up more about his parenting practices

Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell’s husband, has been active in the entertainment industry since the mid-’90s and his career is only growing bigger as the years go by. This year, the “Idiocracy” star struck a deal with Amazon thanks to his uber-successful podcast, “Armchair Expert.” The show, which has been consistently releasing episodes since 2018, sees Shepard interviewing creatives and intellectuals in hopes of understanding them—and the world and people around us—better. Former guests include “Wicked” actor Cynthia Erivo, Marvel star Lupita Nyong’o, cognitive researcher Cat Bohannon, and more.

Following the $80 million deal, “Armchair Expert” falls under the Amazon Wondery umbrella, with the podcast previously working closely with Spotify, according to The Wall Street Journal. In the deal, Amazon’s Wondery podcast division also obtained rights to develop two new podcast series with Shepard, as well as merchandise. Wondery is home to other smash-hit podcasts like “Stolen Hearts” and “Ghost Story.”

One of Shepard’s other most notable moments of the year came not from his podcast but from that of friends Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. On September 18, Shepard appeared on the podcast “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” and he revealed to the two co-hosts that the first-ever episode of his own show, “Armchair Expert,” which revolved around a conversation between him and his wife, was a nightmare. Essentially, this was new territory for the couple, and some kinks needed to be worked out. “… she sat down and she had it in her mind that I was going to try to trick her into really revealing something, which of course then I sensed that and then I was annoyed,” Shepard explained on the podcast (via Newsweek). An argument ensued, but the couple ultimately patched everything together—and Bell has even appeared on “Armchair Expert” in the years following this initial incident. 

Tim Allen returned home to ABC and distanced himself from politics (at least publicly) 

For many, Tim Allen is hard to hate. He’s the Santa Clause and Buzz Lightyear, after all, and he’s been providing people laughs in their living rooms for decades thanks to hit series like “Home Improvement” and “Last Man Standing.” However, chuckles can only go so far once politics get involved, and Allen has alienated some of his fan base over the last eight or so years thanks to his affiliation with President-elect Donald Trump. He’s even gone so far as to say in the past that he “liked” the way Trump is able to “p*** people off” (via the Independent).

That said, Allen has been mostly mum about Trump as of late despite it being an election year. In fact, a quick scroll through his X feed shows that his latest post about the president-elect is from July when Trump was nearly assassinated. “Really had some trouble processing the cowardly assassination attempt last week,” Allen wrote in part. “The former president, like him or not, is someone’s grandad, father, sibling, friend and husband.” Even come election week, Allen simply posted a photo of Toy Santa from “The Santa Clause 2” with a caption that reads: “This guy should be president.”

There’s no real way to say why Allen has distanced himself from discussing politics publicly, but it could have something to do with his acting and comedy careers continuing to fly higher. For instance, on November 14, Allen announced in an Instagram post that he’s returning to Las Vegas for a night of great comedic fun next May. Even more important, perhaps, is his upcoming ABC series, “Shifting Gears,” which will see him starring opposite “2 Broke Girls” and “WandaVision” star Kat Dennings. The series’ pilot was ordered this spring, and come July, the network picked up a full first season (via Us Weekly). In this show, Allen will portray Matt, who owns and operates a car restoration shop, and Dennings will play his estranged daughter, Riley. They’re forced to reconnect when she and her children need to move in with him, and with her needing help with the kids and him being widowed, this rekindled connection might be exactly what they all need. “Shifting Gears” is slated for a January 8, 2025, premiere.

Actor Tim Allen arrives for the FOX Winter TCA 2019 on February 6, 2019, in Los Angeles, Calif. (DFree/Shutterstock)

Representative Rashida Tlaib’s progressive politics pushed her (far) over the finish line

Politicians might not be celebrities in the same way that, say, Kristen Bell or Madonna are, but they’re highly discussed individuals whose every move is examined, making them, at least in our book, celebrities in their own right. And when it comes to Michigander politicians who had a memorable 2024, none come to mind faster than Representative Rashida Tlaib.

The Detroit-born Palestinian representative is one of only two Muslim Congress members—the other being Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar—and all eyes were on her heading into the 2024 election because of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. However, it turns out that there was nothing to worry about, as Representative Tlaib pulled out a landslide reelection win with about 70% of the votes. According to The Intercept, this result was about twice as well as presidential hopeful Kamala Harris performed in Dearborn, which many attribute to Harris not fighting harder for Gaza and its people while representative Tlaib has been outspoken about the conflict from the jump. 

Of course, this all comes after Representative Tlaib, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Palestine, was censured in Congress in November 2023 because of her support for Gaza. As NBC News reported at the time, the censure followed Tlaib’s posting of a video using the slogan “from the river to the sea,” which was called “antisemitic” by some fellow congresspeople. Clearly, the people of her home state don’t agree, as they eagerly and overwhelmingly re-elected her this November because of her passion for ending the conflict in Palestine.

U.S. Rep Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Cori Bush speak at the Mississippi River in Minneapolis asking for President Biden to stop Line 3 pipeline construction. (Chad Davis/CC BY 2.0)

Eminem joined a rap pantheon on Fortnite and used his IRL voice for good

Though he was born in Missouri, Eminem has spent most of his life in Michigan and still lives in The Great Lake State after moving there when he was 11. It’s clear that he loves the state, too. This year, a real fire was lit underneath the “Lose Yourself” rapper, and he used his voice in a way he hadn’t throughout earlier portions of the presidential election: He appeared at a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Detroit on Tuesday, October 22, and introduced former president Barack Obama, who spoke to the masses about Harris’ goals and merits. Not everyone was pleased with the rapper endorsing Harris, however. “A guy I grew up listening to who used to rap about fighting the system. For some reason, he is now promoting the system. Pretty crazy,” one YouTuber user commented on an ABC News clip of the event. Many other comments echoed similar sentiments.

The next month, Eminem took the virtual world of “Fortnite” by storm in a big way. The ongoing game’s November 2024 season, dubbed “Fortnite: Remix,” which acted as a segue between bigger chapters in the game’s lore, introduced a pantheon of rap icons that players could not only interact with in the game but also play as. The other rappers involved included Snoop Dogg, Ice Spice, and the late Juice WRLD, and their inclusion was made even more special because in-game locations were named and modeled after them, too. For Eminem, this meant players could travel to Spaghetti Grotto and encounter the “Love the Way You Lie” rapper in the Mom’s Spaghetti restaurant. During the end-of-season finale on November 30, fans could even see a special Eminem performance. Though the season is over and the rapper is no longer encounterable as an NPC, fans who purchased his in-game skin and cosmetics will be able to play as him forever. 

Eminem performs at The Michigan Central Station in Detroit, Mich., on June 6, 2024. (Jgphotographydetroit/Shutterstock)

Ken Jeong immortalized his Hollywood career after decades in the industry

Ken Jeong has been a hilarious force of nature in the entertainment industry for more than two decades—we have him to thank for “The Hangover,” after all—and in recent years, he’s been bringing his sincere brand of funny and charming ridiculousness to Fox’s “The Masked Singer.” One might expect an actor, host, and performer like Jeong to have already immortalized his time in the industry with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but alas, the “Community” actor didn’t receive his star until Wednesday, October 23, this year (via NBC Los Angeles). 

Now, you do have to be in your medium for several years to be eligible for a star, but that threshold is only five years. It might seem like Jeong’s star is overdue, but the doctor-turned-actor expressed ample gratitude nonetheless. “But because of (the fans), I never have to go back,” Jeong told the audience at his star ceremony. “I’m not the funniest guy in the world, I’m not the most talented guy … But I’m the most grateful guy.” Jeong’s star is the Walk of Fame’s 2,794th, and if you want to see it next time you’re in the City of Angels, you can find it at 1708 Vine St.

Ken Jeong speaks at ABC Television Group’s Summer Press Tour 2015 at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (ABC/Image Group LA)

Londoners picked a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. 

Picking a fight with a professional boxer might not be the wisest move, but that didn’t stop some folks in London from confronting Floyd Mayweather Jr. while he was doing a bout of jewelry shopping on the evening of Tuesday, December 10. According to The Sun U.K., an eyewitness said the transgression followed Mayweather’s public declaration that he’s “proud to support the Jews” during the ongoing conflict in Palestine. “Then someone took a swing at him because of that. It looked very targeted,” the source continued, further clarifying that “racial slurs” were thrown around as well. To clear things up, the boxer wrote, in part, in an Instagram post, “I wasn’t punched or touched in any way. … I was in the UK for a quick 48-hour stop to do some shopping, and unfortunately, people let jealousy and negativity fuel false stories.”

At the time of writing, the full extent of what actually happened remains unclear, but this encounter in the streets of London made headlines for a reason. Tensions are high right now, especially regarding Palestine—and especially because Mayweather has been called out for other opinions recently. In a recent episode of the “MH Podcast,” boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. highlighted the comments Mayweather made on ESPN in January 2017, asserting that Muhammad Ali wasn’t “the greatest of all time” in the boxing world. “If you don’t respect Muhammad Ali, how can I respect you? To tell me that you don’t think Muhammad Ali is the greatest of all time, you may as well be spitting in my face,” Jones said on the podcast.

Overall, with Mayweather fighting criticism from seemingly all sides, we’re intrigued to see how he fights his way out of this one.

Francis Ford Coppola released a big box-office flop 

We hate to end our list on a sad note, but unfortunately, sad notes are all that rang from Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” which was released on September 27 to middling reviews. The film packed a star-studded cast of Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, and Shia LaBeouf, among others, but even a cast as renowned as this one couldn’t save the film. At the time of writing, Megalopolis has a 46% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the New York Post reviewer Johnny Oleksinski describing it as “[a] zero-star, wacko disaster.” 

The struggles with this film largely seem to lie in its convolution. It throws viewers into an uncanny world—the setting of New Rome is similar to New York City but not quite—where the rules of time, the vernacular, and more are not only fully unique but also up for interpretation. It’s a science-fiction world that’s sure of itself, but it never conveys itself fully to the viewer. 

This is where the real tragedy strikes. “Megalopolis” has widely been reported as Coppola’s career-long passion project—a film he’s been trying to make for many decades. Over time, the film has been put through the wringer; it’s been fraught with delays and other industry red tape that meant it never got to be fully filmed and see the light of day. That is, until Coppola took matters into his own hands and spent $120 million from his own bank account to finally bring “Megalopolis” to the silver screen. (Do note that this is only the film’s production cost and does not include its marketing budget.)

Did he have the story in his head for so many decades that he knew it too well to deliver it to viewers clearly and succinctly when the time came? Or were viewers perhaps too closed off from experimental and thought-provoking movies? There’s no telling, but we do know that the film brought in less than $12 million from theaters worldwide, making “Megalopolis” a financial disaster for Coppola.


Creative Commons License

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

Author

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.