LAS VEGAS — A rap icon is in the theater and, yes, in the club over New Year’s Eve.

“50 Cent: In Da Club” runs Friday through Jan. 4 at PH Live, the former Bakkt Theater and (going to its origins) Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts.

This is a custom-designed, Las Vegas-peppered production, a first for the rapper born Curtis James Jackson III.

As the series opens, 50 Cent and Eminem generated international buzz by teasing to a joint album.

“Looks like I’ll be back in the booth after all! Just gotta do this residency in Vegas first,” 50 posted on social media Friday morning.

Eminem said in an interview on DJ Whoo Kidd’s “Whoo’s House” on SiriusXM’s Shade 45 this week he would be interested in such a collaboration. “That would be great,” Eminem said. “We just gotta stop (B.S.-ing) and just do it … “I would never say it’s not possible.”

This month Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre invited the two superstars to guest on their “Missionary” release. They teamed on “Gunz N Smoke.”

Over the years, 50 and Eminem have also collaborated on “Patiently Waiting,” “Crack a Bottle,” “Don’t Push Me” and many more.

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Ben Affleck’s Christmas gift for Jennifer Lopez reveals surprise obsession

Even though Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are reportedly ironing out the details of their divorce, the former super couple appear determined to maintain an amicable relationship and met up last weekend to exchange Christmas presents for themselves and their children.

And, Affleck put some thought into his present for Lopez, Page Six reported. The gift wasn’t anything extravagant or intimate — not another multimillion-dollar piece of jewelry. Instead, it was something that would be meaningful to the mega-star entertainer and even reveals a personal obsession for her, according to Page Six.

The 52-year-old actor and director turned up at the members-only Soho House club in West Hollywood on Sunday, carrying a black bag that contained the gift — “an autographed Marlon Brando book.” That’s according sources who spoke to Page Six, including the owner of Mystery Pier Books, the famed West Hollywood book store where Affleck did some holiday shopping.

“Ben gifted Jennifer with the (Marlon Brando) book because she’s a fan, plus her Super Bowl bodysuit was inspired by Marlon Brando,” a source told Page Six.

The source didn’t identify the name of the “Marlon Brando book” but the legendary star of “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris” published an autobiography, “Songs My Mother Taught Me” in 1994, 10 years before he died in 2004 at age 80.

Like any author, Brando autographed copies of his book, at least one of which could have ended up at Mystery Pier Books. The internationally renowned Sunset Boulevard shop is known for its celebrity clientele and for exclusively selling “first edition, first state” copies of collectible literature, including books signed by authors.

Meanwhile, Lopez’s “Super Bowl bodysuit” likely refers to the sexy and studded, black-leather bodysuit she wore while performing at the Super Bowl LIV Halftime show in 2020. It sounds as if the bodysuit was inspired by Brando’s iconic outlaw biker look in his 1953 film, “The Wild One.”

Starting in 1951, Brando became the hottest and most heralded young actor in Hollywood, with starring roles “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “On the Waterfront” and “The Wild One.” Subsequent generations of stars, from Al Pacino to Johnny Depp, have cited Brando as an inspiration for how to approach acting on film.

It now appears that Brando was an inspiration for Lopez as well, and Affleck thought Lopez would like a book related to the two-time Oscar winner.

Signed copies of Brando’s autobiography can sell for $600 or more on eBay. Of course, several hundred dollars wouldn’t be considered extravagant in the Affleck-Lopez playbook.

Affleck reportedly spent more than $7 million on two diamond engagement rings he gave to Lopez over the course of their two-decade-long love story.

They first made news as a couple in 2001 and became engaged before enduring a big, splashy breakup in 2004. After the two rekindled their romance 17 years later, their love story reached its apex with their marriage in 2022. They first wed by eloping to Las Vegas in July 2022, then wed again in a lavish ceremony on the grounds of Affleck’s Georgia estate in August 2022.

But it was downhill from there, according to multiple reports. The couple separated in April 2024 and Lopez filed for divorce on the second anniversary of their Georgia reception. Nonetheless, they have reportedly vowed to stay friendly, if only for the sake of the five children they share between them.

Lopez shares 16-year-old twins Max and Emme with her third ex-husband Marc Anthony. Affleck co-parents Violet, 19, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, with his ex-wife Jennifer Garner. When Lopez and Affleck rekindled their romance, their children became close.

Page Six reported last week that the estranged spouses want to stay “connected” amid their divorce, though they apparently celebrated the holidays separately. On Christmas Day, Lopez posted photos of her enjoying the holidays in Aspen with Emme and with her sister Lynda Lopez.

“They have every intention of continuing to be in each other’s lives despite not being romantically involved,” a source told Page Six. “Ben and Jennifer are still connected and they do communicate when it involves their kids.”

The exes also “have a mutual respect” for each other, which is “not something that goes away” overnight, the source also said.

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Chelsea Handler says she’s in a good place as she’s about to turn 50

ATLANTA — Comic and talk show host Chelsea Handler has revealed no shortage of introspective and often outrageous nuggets about her life over a span of six books going back 20 years.

Now she’s about to hit 50 years old come February and she’s finishing up a tour that includes her last stop of the calendar year in Atlanta at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on Sunday.

“I feel pretty awesome about everything,” said Handler in a call with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I feel pretty grateful I’ve been able to create this awesome life for myself. I’m untethered to anyone or anything. I can get up and go to Rio in the morning. Often, I do stuff like that. Not having children or getting married has given me bandwidth for other people and actually be a figure in a lot of children’s lives. Nieces and nephews and miscellaneous children I’ve acquired over the years.”

Since 2021, Handler has been able to monetize her name and her skills via a successful weekly podcast “Dear Chelsea,” which she said is her audio version of Dear Abby, the longtime newspaper columnist of yore.

“I get to talk to real people about real life problems whether it’s their relationship or family dynamics or people my age wanting to make a career change,” Handler said. “I got all this from an expensive therapist. I can now regurgitate that advice to people who need it.”

She enjoys playing therapist to a degree. “I’m a big cheerleader and big sister,” she said. “I can be the nudge you need to make the decision you know you should make. I find getting an outside perspective who has no skin in the game is helpful.”

While she brings in celebrities such as Jennie Garth, Kevin Hart and Heather McMahan on the podcast, she is fine not having to keep up with celebrity gossip, which was her stock and trade on her talk show “Chelsea Lately,” a groundbreaking late night basic cable talk show on Comedy Central from 2007 to 2014.

She helped give exposure to fellow comics including Whitney Cummings, T.J. Miller and Heather McDonald with her freewheeling roundtable discussions on pop culture.

She said with basic cable now largely obliterated and streamers struggling to find any traction with talk shows, that formula may be dead.

“It all feels a bit stale,” he said. “We’re in a waiting period to see what happens. We’re in a transition period. We are going back to three major networks, but they’re streamers instead. I don’t know. It’s very confusing. It’s also not my problem.”

Handler has a seventh book coming out “I’ll Have What She’s Having” on her 50th birthday

Writing, she said, “is a great exercise that is different from my podcast or stand-up or TV work. It’s great for someone who didn’t graduate college to have six New York Times bestselling books. All my brothers have college degrees but zero books. I take a lot of pleasure in that as they will tell you. You have to read a lot to be a good writer. I read tons.”

This time around, she focuses on her childhood and her entrepreneurial tendencies. “I sold hard lemonade at age 8,” she said. “I realized regular lemonade wouldn’t make much money. So I sold lemonade with gin, whiskey and tequila to parents.”

Her parents, like many in the 1980s, were not the most attentive. “It becomes funny after the fact,” she said. “My siblings all have the same stories not getting picked up from school or our parents handing us a $100 bill to buy 65 cent pizza in the cafeteria. We all have good senses of humor because of it.”

She said she had aspirations as a young kid to grow up to “be loud, be brave and stand up for stuff. I wanted to travel and learn languages. I have accomplished all these things. Sometimes we forget the road we’ve taken. We can go through so much trauma and pain and hardship and forget how far we’ve come.”

By Tribune News Service