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Toys ‘R’ Us, Back From the Dead, Will Open U.S. Stores in 2019

KINGSTON, MA – MARCH 15: The exterior of the Toys R Us store in Kingston, MA is pictured on March 15, 2018. The company is declaring bankruptcy and closing all of its stores.

Maybe American kids will only have to live through one Christmas without Toys “R” Us.

About a year after shuttering U.S. operations, the remnant of the defunct toy chain is set to return this holiday season by opening about a half dozen U.S. stores and an e-commerce site, according to people familiar with the matter.

Richard Barry, a former Toys “R” Us executive who is now CEO of new entity Tru Kids Inc., has been pitching his vision to reincarnate the chain to toymakers, including at an industry conference this week, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public.

The stores are slated to be about 10,000-square feet, roughly a third of the size of the brand’s big-box outlets that closed last year, the people said. The locations will also have more experiences, like play areas. The startup costs could be minimized with a consignment inventory model in which toymakers ship goods but don’t get paid until consumers buy them, some of the people said.

A spokeswoman for Tru Kids said the company wasn’t ready to publicly share details on its U.S. strategy.

New Rivals

It remains to be seen how much of a boost the retailer’s comeback will provide the toy industry, including giants such as Hasbro Inc. and Mattel Inc. The original Toys “R” Us, the only national toy chain, left a huge holewhen it went under. It had been generating about $7 billion in sales a year in the U.S. through more than 700 locations, including the Babies “R” Us brand.

Walmart Inc., Target Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. have swooped in to fill the void. They have all expanded toy assortments and marketing, including a printed toy catalog from Amazon. Other non-traditional chains jumped into the category, including grocery stores and Party City Holdco Inc.

There is also a question of how many toymakers will do business with the new Toys “R” Us after many lost money when the former company announced liquidation in March 2018, just months after filing for bankruptcy.

MGA on Board

MGA Entertainment Inc., one of the best-performing toymakers in the world, is already on board to sell at the re-imagined Toys “R” Us shops, said Chief Executive Officer Isaac Larian, who said he has been pitched the plan. His company’s properties include Little Tikes, L.O.L. Surprise! and Bratz dolls.

“This market needs a self-standing toy store, that’s for sure,” Larian said in an interview. “We will sell them inventory.”

Related: Tears ‘R’ Us: The World’s Biggest Toy Store Didn’t Have to Die

During the chain’s bankruptcy, lenders led by Solus Alternative Asset Management and Angelo Gordon took control of the company’s assets. After results didn’t improve, they opted to shutter operations in the U.S. Units in Australia and other regions also closed, with divisions in Asia and Canada acquired by new owners.

This group tried to sell the intellectual property, but opted to keep it to garner a better return. As owners of the intellectual property, they have been collecting licensing and other fees from the units still operating and selling them private-label goods. The lenders then formed Tru Kids with the goal of reviving the brand in the U.S. and other regions it exited. It has since hired several industry veterans and signed a deal to bring Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us back to Australia through a partner.

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WOW! Jay-Z named world’s first billionaire rapper!

Nine years ago, two unlikely lunch partners sat down at the Hollywood Diner in Omaha, Nebraska. One, Warren Buffett, was a regular there. The other, Jay-Z, was not. The billionaire and the rapper ordered strawberry malts and chatted amiably, continuing the conversation back at Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway offices.

Buffett, then 80, walked away impressed with the artist 40 years his junior: “Jay is teaching in a lot bigger classroom than I’ll ever teach in. For a young person growing up, he’s the guy to learn from.” This moment, which was originally captured in our 2010 Forbes 400 package, made it clear that Jay-Z already had a blueprint for his own ten-figure fortune. “Hip-hop from the beginning has always been aspirational,” he said.

Less than a decade later, it’s clear that Jay-Z has accumulated a fortune that conservatively totals $1 billion, making him one of only a handful of entertainers to become a billionaire—and the first hip-hop artist to do so. Jay-Z’s steadily growing kingdom is expansive, encompassing liquor, art, real estate (homes in Los Angeles, the Hamptons, Tribeca) and stakes in companies like Uber.

His journey is all the more impressive given its start: Brooklyn’s notorious Marcy housing projects. He was a drug dealer before becoming a musician, starting his own label, Roc-A-Fella Records, to release his 1996 debut, Reasonable Doubt. Since then he’s amassed 14 No. 1 albums, 22 Grammy awards and over $500 million in pretax earnings in a decade.

Crucially, he realized that he should build his own brands rather than promote someone else’s: the clothing line Rocawear, started in 1999 (soldfor $204 million to Iconix in 2007); D’Ussé, a cognac he co-owns with Bacardi; and Tidal, a music-streaming service.

Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean, the superproducer behind some of Jay-Z’s biggest hits (“On To The Next One,” Beyoncé’s “Upgrade U”), looks at Jay-Z as something others can model: “It’s bigger than hip-hop … it’s the blueprint for our culture. A guy that looks like us, sounds like us, loves us, made it to something that we always felt that was above us.”

“If he’s a billionaire now, imagine what he’s about to be,” Swizz Beatz says. “Because he’s only just starting.”

What’s Jay-Z Worth?

To calculate his net worth, we looked at the artist’s stakes in companies like Armand de Brignac champagne, applying our customary discount to private firms. (He owns 100% of Armand de Brignac and has partial ownership of the other companies.) Then added up his income, subtracting a healthy amount to account for a superstar lifestyle. We checked our numbers with a roster of outside experts to ensure these estimates were fair and conservative. Turns out, Jay-Z really is a business, man.

Armand de Brignac

$310 million

Jay-Z has used his music to shill the $300 gold bottles of the “Ace of Spades” champagne since launching the brand with the 2006 video “Show Me What You Got.” More recently, his verse on Meek Mill’s “What’s Free” put a half-billion-dollar value on the wine, which seems like a bit too bubbly a number.

Cash & investments

$220 million

A vast investing portfolio includes a stake in Uber worth an estimated $70 million. He reportedly purchased his piece for $2 million back in 2013—and then wired founder Travis Kalanick another $5 million in an attempt to increase his holdings, but was rebuffed.

D’Ussé

$100 million

Jay-Z’s cognac, a joint venture with beverage giant Bacardi, moves almost 200,000 cases and has grown nearly 80% annually. “Jay-Z resonates with consumers who are attracted to the ultra-premium lifestyle,” says Eric Schmidt, Beverage Marketing Corp.’s Director of Alcohol Research.

Tidal

$100 million

In 2015, Jay-Z submitted a bid to purchase the Scandinavian streaming service’s parent company for just shy of $60 million. He relaunched Tidal later that year with a roster of celebrity investors including his wife, Beyoncé, and other music luminaries, from Kanye West to Calvin Harris.

Roc Nation

$75 million

This wide-ranging entertainment company started over a decade ago as part of a joint venture with concert giant Live Nation. Roc Nation represents some of the top stars in the entertainment through its sports agency (Kevin Durant, Todd Gurley) as well as its record label and artist-management arms (Rihanna, J. Cole).

Music catalog

$75 million

Before the beginning of his stint as Def Jam’s chief in 2004, Jay-Z negotiatedthe eventual return of his master recordings from the aforementioned label that helped launch his career; in a separate deal with EMI, he clawed back his publishing rights. Wise move: his hits now clock close to 1 billion streams annually.

Art collection

$70 million

In the song “Picasso Baby,” Jay-Z boasted about a “Basquiat in my kitchen corner.” He probably wasn’t kidding. For over a decade, he’s been scooping up masterpieces like Basquiat’s “Mecca,” purchased in 2013 for a reported $4.5 million. “He’s rapped about it all in detail,” says Fab 5 Freddy, a contemporary and friend of the late painter. “Jay-Z helped educate millions of hip-hop fans mentioning Jean-Michel.”

Real estate

$50 million

After welcoming twins in 2017, Jay-Z and Beyoncé bought a pair of homes to match: a $26 million East Hampton mansion and a $88 million Bel Air estate. Jay-Z also owns a Tribeca penthouse, snagged for $6.85 million in 2004.

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Justin Bieber Opens Up About His Past Drug Addiction

Imagine being in your young teens and having the entire world in front of you due to complete and utter pop stardom. Money, fame, and success is all at your fingertips at such an early age. How would you react to all that power? It might easily go to your head or manifest into an addiction of some kind.

Over the decades there have been many stars that fit just that description. Some of them have faded incredibly quickly, others stayed on the straight and narrow path, and others fell only to rise again. There are certainly more horror stories than success stories when it comes to that kind of fame.

One of the kings of pop music over the last decade is someone who fits exactly the description of a young star who put himself on the precipice of utter destruction. That star is Justin Bieber. He came onto the scene when he was just a young boy, and in a recent Vogue interview, he talks about his addiction to Xanax.

Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin grace the cover of vogue

In a recent issue of Vogue, two of Hollywood’s youngest stars graced the cover. They are a power couple like no other, Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin. The two opened up during an interview with Vogue and pretty much left everything out on the table, including his Xanax addiction.

“I found myself doing things that I was so ashamed of, being super-promiscuous and stuff, and I think I used Xanax because I was so ashamed. My mom always said to treat women with respect. For me that was always in my head while I was doing it, so I could never enjoy it. Drugs put a screen between me and what I was doing. It got pretty dark. I think there were times when my security was coming in late at night to check my pulse and see if I was still breathing.”

Clean since 2014

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According to Justin Bieber, he got clean back in 2014 with the help of his pastor at the time, Carl Lentz. The detox was done at Carl Lent’z house, and was a success. He hasn’t taken drugs in five years since the detox, which his now wife, Hailey Baldwin, is incredibly happy about. Bieber still enjoys the occasional drink during social events, but that is all. That’s not bad for someone who could have easily ruined his career.

Regarding her now husband, Hailey Baldwin had this to say: “I’m really proud of him. To do it without a program, and to stick with it without a sober coach or AA or classes-I think it’s extraordinary. He is, in ways, a walking miracle.” While her comments are meant to be uplifting, this shouldn’t deter anyone from seeking traditional help with their addiction.

Justin also had sex addiction issues

Bieber also opened up about his “legitimate problem with sex.” That problem can’t be made easier by the fact that Justin Bieber is a sex symbol for millions of girls around the world. His sex issues, along with his Xanax addiction, led him to become celibate. He enjoyed a year of focused celibacy when he met Hailey Baldwin.

Justin Bieber went on to explain his intentions for cleaning up his life, and what gifts that has brought him. “I wanted to rededicate myself to God in that way because I really felt it was better for the condition of my soul. And I believe that God blessed me with Hailey as a result. There are perks. You get rewarded for good behavior.” If Hailey Baldwin is the reward for that tough journey, it is a journey well taken.

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Shady secrets McDonald’s doesn’t want you to know

For a company that specializes in food, folks, and fun, it’s pretty amazing how shady McDonald’s actually is. You might think it’s no big deal to walk in, order a burger, get it in two minutes, and then leave. But apparently such a thing can only be accomplished by bending (or outright breaking) every rule in the book. Some genuine sociopathy from the people in charge helps too, as you’re about to find out.

They once got (and still might get) their nuggets from lethally abused chickens

Obviously, to enjoy meat of any kind, some animal had to sacrifice its life. But it’s always refreshing to know the animal lived peacefully and died in its slumber. But, according to summer 2015 footage released by activist group Mercy For Animals, McDonald’s cares not one iota for that, working with farms that openly, brazenly, and possibly gleefully abuse their chickens before murdering them into almost-food. The farm that Mercy For Animals targeted, T&S Farm, was recorded beating chickens to death with spiked clubs, with the occasional curb-stomping for variety’s sake. The workers knew full well what they were doing, with one outright asking the cameraman, “you don’t work for PETA, do you?” like a kid caught with his hand in an extremely bloody cookie jar.

Since the video, McDonald’s has disavowed the chicken-killing farm, giving the usual PR responses to assuage as many disgusted customers as humanly possible. But not even the slickest press release can answer three burning questions: how long has this happened, why did it take this video for a major company to realize bludgeoning food to death for fun is evil, and since it’s been a year already, are they secretly working with that farm again?

They won’t pay workers overtime for working major holidays

For a long time, McDonald’s understood what Thanksgiving and Christmas meant, and so they allowed their workers to enjoy both the holiday and all the turkey they can stomach. But money cares not for our arcane traditions and emotions, and so in 2012 McDonald’s started opening on the holidays. This was always a thing company-owned stores did, but now they were “urging” (or, really, forcing) franchisees to do the same. Apparently, doing so rakes in thousands per restaurant, which is all that matters anymore. And yes, if you’ve hit McDonald’s either of these days, you’re officially part of the problem. Commence feeling bad…now.

That’s pretty sucky of them, but at least franchise owners can pay holiday overtime. Workers at the company-owned stores, unfortunately, are fresh out of luck—McD’s flat-out refuses to pay them extra for working on a day that, as far as many are concerned, should only be worked by those who deal in emergencies. (No, Big Mac withdrawal doesn’t count.) They hide under the excuse that, because workers volunteer to work those days, they’re not entitled to overtime pay. Because when you’re dirt-broke, struggling to raise a family, and living from minimum-wage paycheck to minimum-wage paycheck, you definitely have the option of not volunteering to get paid for something.

Like so many other thieving rich folk, McDonald’s has apparently devolved into filthy, leeching tax cheats. According to the wonderfully titled Golden Dodges: How McDonald’s Avoids Paying Its Fair Share of Tax, between 2009 and 2013, McDonald’s avoided paying over $1.8 billion in taxes. The company used a series of barely legal (and something not even that) loopholes and cleverly shifting profits from whatever country they earned them in, to low-tax havens in countries they didn’t. This seems to especially be true overseas, where McDonald’s is looking at charges that they stole a billion euros ($1.1 billion American) from the European Union by sending their profits through Luxembourg, a country barely big enough to physically store all that money. Australia claims McDonald’s did the same thing there, sending their profits through Singapore and magically pocketing about a half billion in would-be taxes.

Even Brazil has a McBone to pick with the company, claiming they regularly bribe tax officials for minor favors like, oh, ignoring all laws so suddenly the company pays fewer taxes with no issues. But hey, they might have to charge ten extra cents per box of nuggets if they can’t deprive the world’s schools and hospitals of much-needed funding, and we can’t have that.

For some reason, enough people hit McDonald’s with their health in mind for the company to make mad bank selling food meant to trim your waistline on the cheap. That sounds great, except that it’s wrong in every conceivable way. The chicken kale Caesar salad, for example, clocks in at a cool 730 calories, 53 grams of fat, and 1,400 milligrams of sodium—numbers that absolutely should not be attached to a bunch of leaves. For comparison’s sake, a Double Big Mac has 680 calories and 1,340 mgs of sodium, meaning they’re touting a healthy salad that’s unhealthier than their unhealthiest hunk of cow. But don’t worry, you can skip the dressing, eat a plain dry salad, and save 200 calories, so now it’s only unhealthier than a single Big Mac. Small victories are still victories.

For the breakfast crowd, McDonald’s oatmeal has got you covered, and hornswoggled. Thanks to “fun” additives like cream, “natural flavor,” and sugar, the McOatmeal clocks in at 290 calories, with 32 sugar grams. You would literally do better with candy for breakfast—a regular-size Snickers bar, for example, only has 280 calories and 30 grams of sugar. Plus, Snickers doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. You can trust a Snickers bar, unlike anything Ronald McDonald touts as good for your abs.

They’ll sue anyone with the gall to run a business with ‘Mc’ or ‘Mac’ in its name

Once you get greedy enough, any threat to even a dime of your profit must be fought tooth-and-nail, even if it means losing more money to lawyers than you ever would’ve to the “competition.” It’s the principle that counts. In this case, we have McDonald’s going after literally any small business that uses “Mc” or “Mac,” because that’s their thing, and they don’t customers getting confused by seeing it anywhere else. The customer is apparently both always right, and the dumbest people on the planet.

Sometimes, they sue fast food joints, like McJoy in the Philippines or Mac Dooglas in Colombia (which was destroying McDonald’s bottom line with three whole restaurants in a tiny village no one outside the tiny village had even heard of.) But other times they just get petty, like when they sued a coffee shop called McCoffee—which had that name for 17 years—until they finally agreed to change their name and stop leeching tens of dollars from poor little McDonald’s. Though probably the stupidest case was when they went after a hot dog stand called McAllan. Like, a single hot dog stand, which is a product McDonald’s doesn’t even serve. That’s like Budweiser suing some kid’s lemonade stand. They lost that case, after the judge returned with a verdict of “really?” But usually, McDonald’s wins hands-down, valiantly beating back the evil little guy with the almighty power of Unlimited Wealth.

McDonald’s would rather use self-serve kiosks than pay employees a higher wage

Does McDonald’s food actually taste good? Who cares? It’s cheap! One of the primary ways that McDonald’s pulls that off is by paying the majority of its employees the least that it’s legally allowed to do so. In most places, that’s right at, or close to, the federal standard of just $7.25 an hour, an amount economic experts prefer to as “a complete tease.”

However, many cities and states have recently opted to raise their local minimum wages, in the hopes that workers can finally afford more than a closet inside a studio apartment. In Arizona and Colorado, it’s set to rise to $12 an hour, Washington’s will soon be $13.50 per hour, and Los Angeles workers will get a minimum of 15 bucks an hour. These states that have the audacity to pay workers a living wage could severely cut into McDonald’s bottom line, so the company has responded by threatening to replace its employees with robots: specifically, self-service kiosks. Robots work for free! At least, until the Uprising.

Here’s how it works: Customers come into a McDonald’s, enter their order on a touchscreen, the company CEO buys another 500-foot yacht and vacations in Bermuda. RoboClerk then sends the order to the kitchen, where an actual human (for now) puts the food together. Yes, they do have to pay somebody for that job (for now), but it does mean McDonald’s no longer has to staff a person at the counter—a great savings to the company, even at minimum wage.

They’ll roll these kiosks out nationally and internationally, if they prove to be efficient and cost-effective in test runs. What a golden time the future will be, when a screen instead of a human will ask “do you want fries with that?”

Their burgers don’t decompose

Burgers taste best when they’re hot and freshly prepared, but if you order those things at Mickey D’s and for some reason can’t get to them for a while, like say, a few months, don’t worry about it, they’re still “fine.” Or at least, they look fine. Eerily, McDonald’s small hamburgers don’t seem to rot at a regular pace. Or much at all, really.

In 2008, a health blogger named Karen Hanrahan posted a photo of a McDonald’s hamburger … that she’d bought in 1996 and saved, just to see what would happen. What happened is that, after twelve years, it looked the same as it looked in 1996, and it also looked the same as a brand-new McDonald’s hamburger.

Hanrahan argued that the immortality of the burger must be due to the vast array of preservatives in the burger, which rendered it “chemical food” that lacked any sort of natural nutrition. But according to food scientist J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, writing for Serious Eats, regular McDonald’s hamburgers don’t decompose normally because they don’t — and can’t — dry out. A typical McBurger is a non-perishable food on the level of dried beans, saltines, and other pantry staples. Paranoid of the apocalypse? Building a fallout shelter? Install a McDonald’s. Wasteland be damned, you’ll never starve.

How is this possible, though? Simple — there’s nothing to dry. A small McDonald’s hamburger is thin but flat, making for a high surface area-to-volume ratio. Then, it’s cooked until well-done on a hot grill, sucking out all the tasty, delicious, mortal moisture. No moisture means no bacteria—decaying agents—can propagate. Ever. And thus, the food lasts forever. Basically, you’re eating a mummy.

The company receives hundreds of millions in government cheese

The 2015 launch of all-day breakfast at McDonald’s led to two things: the meaningless of time, with regards to breakfast being a morning thing, and increased sales at McDonald’s nationwide. During the last quarter of that year, the company raked in a whopping $6.22 billion, attributable largely to the novelty of being served an English muffin with eggs on it just in time for Jeopardy!

That being said, it’s much easier for a company to rake in the profits if they’re getting free money from the government so it can play with its menu and experiment with late-evening hash browns. And they do — between 2003 and 2013, McDonald’s got subsidies from 42 state and city governments totaling nearly $4 million. McDonald’s even got a piece of the big federal “bailout” package in 2008 and 2009: a $203 million piece to be exact. McDonald’s: Too big to fail, and as long as government fatcats get literally fat off of midnight snack McGriddles, it never, ever will.

There’s a whole herd of cattle in that one burger

McDonald’s store signs claim “billions and billions served,” which means the number of burgers sold as much as it does the customers who have eaten those burgers. To serve that many burgers, McDonald’s has to slaughter and prepare an incredibly high volume of cattle in incredibly large and sophisticated meat-processing facilities. McDonald’s calls this burger creation the “blending process,” and it somehow gets more appetizing when you learn the step-by-step process.

In a nutshell, just so, so many cows are slaughtered. Their meat gets mixed together, and then formed into patties, but it’s done so haphazardly that a single beef patty may contain the meat of up to 100 different cows. A Bessie is a Bessie is a Bessie, apparently. But hey, even if you eat nothing but McDonald’s burgers, you’re still eating a wide variety of food from all over the globe.

The truth behind the “hot coffee” lawsuit

It’s the case most associated with “frivolous lawsuits” or an overly litigious society: the woman who successfully sued McDonald’s after she went and spilled a cup of their coffee on herself. The reality of the case, however, is quite complex, and, frankly, horrifying.

In 1992, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck went through a McDonald’s drive-through and pulled up on the lid to put in some cream—which, you know, cools it down—and wound up dumping it all over her sweatpants-covered lower half. But coffee, especially McDonald’s coffee, is hot: Even with clothes on, the brown stuff caused third-degree burns on over 16 percent of Liebeck’s body, including her thighs and genitals, burning the skin away completely in some places. During her eight-day hospitalization Liebeck underwent painful skin graft surgery.

Liebeck sued McDonald’s, initially wanting just $20,000 to cover medical costs and lost income during her recovery. That’s not so bad, but as we’ve made perfectly clear thus far, McDonald’s is both cheap and petty. The company offered $800 (roughly 800 cups of McDonald’s coffee), which was so insulting, Liebeck’s lawyers took them to court. Ultimately, she was awarded about $3 million by a jury who did find her partially responsible, because she pulled up on the lid too hard, but McDonald’s mostly responsible, for serving coffee way too hot for human consumption and/or handling.

Among the information that came out in the trial: McDonald’s required its restaurants to serve coffee at around 185 degrees, which is way hotter than what Mr. Coffee produces. In fact, a thermodynamics expert testified a liquid that temperature can burn through human skin in as little as two seconds. Even more shocking: In the decade before the Liebeck case, McDonald’s had received more than 700 complaints from people who had burned themselves on the coffee—and yet the company still refused to lower the temperature. They could’ve lost no money, then could’ve lost just 20 K, then lost 3 million, all because they were stubborn. Food, folks, and fantastic stupidity.

The weird history of Ronald McDonald

It is seemingly impossible to escape the lure of McDonald’s. Much like Jason Voorhees, run as hard as you want, but everywhere you turn, there it is, staring at you with its golden arches. Resistance is futile. At the center of the McDonald’s universe, holding it all together for generations, is the cherry-red smile of the infamous Ronald McDonald. While the mere mention of McDonald’s invokes images of pure Americana, Ronald’s white face-paint, carrot-top hair and peering smile masks a more oddball history. Grab your fries, kids.

Ronald was a replacement

Let the truth be told: Ronald started life as a scab.

In the Washington, D.C., area, Bozo the Clown, a children’s TV character that was franchised locally and played by different performers in different markets, was used to help promote the local McDonald’s franchise, owned by Oscar Goldstein and John Gibson. When Bozo went off the air in the D.C. marketplace, “Ronald McDonald, the Hamburger-Happy Clown” appeared faster than The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air could recast Aunt Viv. One second, Bozo was there, then Ronald burst upon the scene. Gullible children were none the wiser, and they continued to gobble burgers.

Clad in a yellow jumpsuit and striped shirt, early Ronald wore a paper cup for a nose and a tray for a hat while a complete McDonald’s meal hung from his belt buckle. Today, the Fashion Police would be blasting sirens, but the 1960s were a more colorful and accepting time. At least for clowns.

While Bozo faded into the past as a warmly-regarded nostalgia act, Ronald began to build his empire upon the foundation his predecessor had left behind. After just three local D.C. commercials, the clown was plucked from obscurity to star in national commercials. A star was born, but poor Bozo would never be publicly credited as Ronald’s forefather. Pie to the face for you, Bozo!

His creator was ignored for decades!

While credited by McDonald’s as the first performer to portray Ronald McDonald, the fast food kings have been less than forthcoming with the role famous television weatherman Willard Scott had in creating Ronald. They never told you the truth, Ronald. He is your father.

In his 1982 book Joy of Living, Scott wrote that the owners of the local Washington, D.C., McDonald’s franchise hired him to come up with the burger-boosting replacement for Bozo the Clown. A local radio personality at the time, Scott took center stage in a trio of McDonald’s commercials as the clown, including one ensuring the flower power generation was indeed aware of Stranger Danger.

Ray Kroc, responsible for the franchise’s expansion nationally and beyond, sensed potential, promoting Ronald to national mascot. Scott, however, was cast aside, and the role was recast. Much as Kroc left the McDonald brothers in the dust, Ronald abandoned Scott, who was uncredited for the role he originated, without as much as an Extra Value Meal to show for it.

Scott famously had a decades-long run as an NBC weatherman, but even he couldn’t forecast that after he went public with his claims, McDonald’s would remain silent, beyond a brief acknowledgement Scott was the first to portray Ronald. Brrrr. Talk about a cold front. Even more insulting, the official credit for Ronald’s creation went to Oscar Goldstein, one of the franchise owners that tapped Scott to create Ronald to begin with.

Scott’s role would continue to be ignored until March 2000, when NBC’s Today Show aired a tribute to Scott that featured Henry Gonzalez, at the time President of McDonald’s Northeast Division, finally thanking Scott for his role in creating Ronald. Scott would retire from television in 2015, but had he received royalties for siring Ronald, certainly he’d have been long gone, lounging on some giant tropical island and basking in all his creative glory.

His best friend was evil

Everyone loves Grimace. He’s Ronald’s best friend, that jovial blob who popularized purple decades before Prince was singing about rain. However, it’s been a deep-harbored secret that Grimace was not always as fun-loving — he used to be straight-up evil.

Evil Grimace, as he was originally coined, debuted as a four-armed thief out to steal milkshakes and sodas, only to be thwarted by Ronald, who tricked him into leaving all of the stolen goods behind by pretending to be a mailman delivering a fake invitation for a McDonald’s beauty contest. Yes, this is how they sold burgers in the ’70s. Groovy, man.

While Grimace may have been the scourge of McDonaldland when he debuted back in 1971, his reign of terror did not last long. After a few appearances, he was retconned into the dim-witted, happy right-hand man for Ronald we know today. They even cut off two of his arms.

Exactly how this happened in-universe has never been revealed. Was Evil Grimace apprehended and reprogrammed, A Clockwork Orange-style? McDonald’s isn’t talking, but it’s possible. Such treatment might kill a mere mortal, for as we know, nothing can kill the Grimace.

He lived in a psychedelic nightmare

Everyone needs a place to hang their hat, right? Spokesclowns are no different, and in trippy days of the 1970s, his home, McDonaldland, was revealed. Featuring anthropomorphic characters designed to espouse the enrichment of the world through fast food, McDonaldland was complete sensory overload to children, with bright, colorful characters that looked as if they escaped Disney purgatory. Even better, you didn’t need to go on vacation to see them — they were broadcast right to you, originally in a memorable series of commercials, before evolving into VHS adventures that McDonald’s used to enrapture guests at children’s birthday parties, along with some of the trippiest playgrounds of all time.

Presided over by Mayor McCheese, a politician who remains so beloved he was actually endorsed in the 2016 Presidential Election, McDonaldland was a fantastic fever dream, filled with apple pie trees and thick shake volcanoes — the magical place where Ronald and Grimace foiled the sinister plots of Hamburglar and others who sought to swipe McDonald’s meals for themselves. These colossal battles of good vs. evil deftly balanced delivering moral lessons to kids while also accomplishing their true task: They Live-style subliminal advertising that McDonald’s is yummy and awesome and kids should ask for it all the time. Indoctrinating the young is the key to repeat business. Ask the WWE.

Like Atlantis before it, McDonaldland was lost to time and the ever-changing whims of corporate America. Modern campaigns put the gang out to pasture. Still, future civilizations may one day come across the ruins of McDonaldland and assume we worshiped at the altar of a crazy clown in a yellow jumpsuit. Stranger things, indeed.

He was sued by H.R. Pufnstuf

When the McDonaldland ad campaign was launched, the colorful characters starring in madcap adventures certainly delighted thousands of children, but there was one family it didn’t delight — The Kroffts. Brothers Sid and Marty Krofft ruled over their own magical puppet kingdom, and were at the height of their popularity at the time. They were the kings of the psychedelic ’70s Saturday morning genre, so it was hardly a surprise when they were approached by McDonald’s ad agency Needham, Harper and Steers and asked to sprinkle some of that unbridled creativity over Ronald’s head. The two sides came to terms, but the agency soon yanked those plans.

So imagine The Kroffts’ surprise when McDonaldland debuted and Mayor McCheese bore a striking resemblance to their own top creation, H.R. Pufnstuf. To make matters worse, the Krofft brothers later learned some of their former employees had also worked on the campaign, and the Ice Capades later declined to renew the usage of Kroft characters, in favor of the McDonaldland copycats. Faster than you can say Freddy the Flute, a lawsuit was launched from the Land of the Lost, with all parties soon sitting before a magical jury that was to decree whether The Kroffts’ copyrights had been infringed.

The jury agreed with the Kroffts, but only awarded $50,000 in damages. Both sides flew like Birdie the Early Bird to an appeals court — The Kroffts, to get more of that Fry Guy cash, while McDonald’s, like Captain Crook, wanted to escape scot-free. Testimony indicated that representatives of Needham had toured Krofft HQ even after they had opted not to go with the family, leaving McDonald’s in quite the bind, legally. In the end, it was decided that The Kroffts were indeed owed some of that McDough, to the tune of $1,044,000. On top of that, McDonaldland commercials were shuttered. The Hamburglar did not escape this time, folks.

Moral of the story, kids? Who’s your friend when things get rough? Lawyers, that’s who.

McDonald’s tried to put a real-life Ronald McDonald out of business

McDonald’s is extremely protective and litigious over their brand. Just open any business that features a “Mc” and watch McLawyers descend upon you for a McBeating. So, it probably came as no surprise when McDonald’s attempted to legally smack down Fairbury, Illinois, eatery McDonald’s Family Restaurant over the use of the McDonald’s name.

What was unique was that the owner and proprietor was one Ronald McDonald. No kidding. Ronald McDonald opened his 240-seat eatery in 1956. When corporate McDonalds became aware of this establishment, it began firing off legal letters and phone calls, warning the McDonald family that they were trading on McDonald’s good name. In response, the family slightly changed the title, removing the possessive “s” from their name.

Not good enough for McDonald’s: it then descended upon Fairbury and opened its own outlet, seeking to plant a flag and become the dominant local McDonald’s. It was McDavid vs. McGoliath, for the hearts and stomachs of fair Fairbury.

The battle lasted three years, and, despite their corporate might, McDonald’s found itself unable to uproot Ronald. They finally tapped out, shutting down their location. This led Ronald to snark, “Most of our customers tried it once and never went back. They say they don’t miss it and they are glad we won out.” A McDonald’s spokesperson gave it their best spin, noting, “Closings rarely happen, because we are normally very good at site evaluation.” Hey, Mike Tyson was great at knocking people out, too, but then he met Buster Douglas.

Victorious, Ronald even kicked a little dirt on his clownish cousin post-victory, adding the possessive “s” right back to the name of his own eatery, where it has remained to this very day. Fairbury remains McNugget-free for two decades and counting.

The Hamburglar is real

Debuting in 1971, the Hamburglar joined the Ronald’s rogue’s gallery, attempting, over and over, to commit grand theft burger and hoard McDonaldland’s finest all for himself, but falling short every time. He’s received a few makeovers over the years, going from red-headed stepchild to his most recent incarnation, where he came to life and swapped his trademark bush hat for a Twitter-trending fedora, until dropping off the radar again. Or did he?

In April 2016, international headlines were made when a mysterious hat-wearing suspect broke into a Five Guys restaurant in the Washington, D.C., area and promptly cooked himself a meal. Despite calls to the public for help in identifying this hardened criminal, authorities were unable to apprehend this menace to society. Officer Big Mac, asleep on the job. Robble robble!

The McMarketing may have gotten out of hand

Ronald and McDonaldland were specifically designed to market McDonald’s to children, and in that regard, it did gangbuster business, not only in keeping registers ringing across the country, but in getting the characters out of the restaurants and into the hands of children as tangible playthings. There were action figures, plush dolls, McWrist Wallets, novelty records, McDonaldland playsets, VHS tapes, and playgrounds, some of which as dangerous as they were colorful.

In the late-’80s and early-’90s, that weirdness spread to the world of videogames. There was 1993’s McDonald’s Treasure Land Adventure for the Sega Genesis, where Ronald fights off pirates en route to tracking down a treasure map so they could return home via an intergalactic rainbow. Or, 1992’s multi-platform MC Kids, where our heroes chase down Ronald’s magic bag after it was stolen by the Hamburglar. Does Felix the Cat know about this?

All of this madness pales in comparison to the insanity of 1988’s Japanese Famicom-only title Donald Land, where Ronald has to rescue all of his kidnapped friends from an evil clown named Gumon, fighting his own brainwashed friends and evil animals along the way. How did corporate approve this?

The licensing of Ronald across the board was all over the place, to be sure, but hey, it doesn’t matter what we think. He’s enshrined in the National Museum of American History — at least in doll form — forever, and we’re not. So there.

He’s a failed actor

While he’s starred in countless commercials and home videos designed to build upon McDonald’s propaganda, Ronald is also a failed film actor, with just one lone credit to his name. Box office bomb Mac & Me was released in 1988 as an attempt to cash-in on the hot alien craze that followed the release of Spielberg classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. One can almost smell Hollywood deal-making in the air as the film unspools, taking the E.T. plot point that used Reese’s Pieces to forge a bond between E.T. and Elliot, only attempting to Xerox that strategy to the umpteenth degree, throwing in any and all product placement the producers could force-feed the audience.

None of these attempts are more traumatizing than an entire sequence that takes place at a mythical McDonald’s, where local children have congregated outside to break-dance. Ronald himself is there as the master of ceremonies for a children’s birthday party that our hero, Eric, attends, secretly bringing his alien pal Mac along for the ride. With Mac safely hidden inside the skin of a teddy bear, this fever dream of a sequence leads to a huge dance number, because, well, it’s the ’80s.

Ronald was heavily involved in promoting the film, but, in the end, it’s become a forgotten relic of the era, sucking the life out of viewers and Ronald’s cinematic dreams alike. The Flashdance reboot will have to wait. Until that day, Ronald will have to settle for motivational speaking gigs.

There have been calls for his retirement

Ronald has been around for generations, a welcoming face to wave families in the door before they scarf down their McNuggets. In recent years, however, his once rock-solid show of support has slipped. As Aaron Eckhart famously said in The Dark Knight, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” To some, Ronald has become the sneaky villain, tricking generations into making terrible choices, like that last shot at closing time.

“This clown is no friend to our children or their health,” proclaimed Corporate Accountability International, who called for Ronald’s unceremonious retirement in 2010, bemoaning him as the key ingredient in the secret sauce of obesity. To some, Ronald, not irresponsible parenting, was the root cause of a fast food nation brimming with health issues.

While McDonald’s did blink, in some regard, adding healthier fare on their menu, and introducing a slightly more grown-up hipster Ronald, in the end, the Southwest Salad and dialing down the kid-friendliness did little to change a nation’s craving for a late night Big Mac. Pass the diabetes.

Creepy clowns almost did him in

Every Superman has his kryptonite. In 2016, it appears that Ronald McDonald’s was discovered: creepy clowns. For inexplicable reasons, a plethora of creepy clowns descended upon planet Earth, popping up in major metropolitan cities and quiet towns alike.

Although there was no evidence that Ronald was culpable in this rising army of sinister clowns, he still shouldered some of the blame, since, for the first time, McDonald’s decided it was going to distance itself. Admitting it was “mindful of the current climate around clown sightings in communities,” the company opted to downplay Ronald’s appearances in the company’s many community and charity events. Although innocent, he was a persecuted clown.

Eventually, the sightings diminished, yet Ronald remains relegated to the shadows, his commercial run apparently far behind him. Until the tides change, one envisions him quietly waiting for the day when he gets to hold court while championing Big Macs yet again. Until then, tears of a clown. An innocent clown. Or was he?

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UPDATE: 13 dead, including gunman, in shooting at Virginia Beach Municipal Center

VIRGINIA BEACH

A longtime city employee shot and killed 12 people and injured at least four others after opening fire Friday afternoon in the public works building, making it the country’s deadliest mass shooting this year. 

Police said officers killed the man, whom they did not name, after he fired at them in the city’s scenic Municipal Center in Princess Anne, a campus of about 30 brick Colonial-style buildings.

The four injured were all in surgery Friday, Police Chief James Cervera said during a news conference a couple of hours after the massacre.

One officer was shot during the exchange but was saved by his bulletproof vest, the chief said.

“This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach,” Mayor Bobby Dyer said in the news conference. “The people involved are our friends, co-workers, neighbors and colleagues.”

Friday’s rampage is believed to be the worst mass killing in Virginia Beach’s history. Prior to this week, a shooting on June 30, 1994, at the Witchduck Inn held that distinction: Four people — the business owner, two employees and a patron — were shot to death at the restaurant. It also came on the heels of a shooting in Chesapeake’s Holly Cove community over Memorial Day weekend that left one dead and nine others injured.

In the U.S., it is the deadliest attack since the November 2018 shooting at Borderline Bar & Grill in California, when 12 people were killed. 

L. Todd Spencer/Staff Police work the scene where 12 people were killed during a mass shooting at the Virginia Beach city public works building on Friday evening, May 31, 2019. The shooter, a current and longtime public utilities employee, also was killed. An officer was shot, but was saved by his bulletproof vest.

The gunfire in Virginia Beach began shortly after 4 p.m. as workers were preparing to leave for the weekend. The shooting occurred in building 2, next to City Hall near the intersection of Nimmo Parkway and Princess Anne Boulevard. The planning, public utilities, public works departments and others are located there. The three-story brick building on Courthouse Drive houses about 400 workers.

Many of the employees work out of small office spaces along long hallways. The doors are typically unlocked and open to the public.

The shooter on Friday was a current employee of the public utilities department, Cervera said. He came armed with a .45-caliber handgun with a sound suppressor on it and shot one victim in a vehicle outside before entering the building. The rest were shot inside.

Cervera said police found victims on every floor of the building.  

Four officers responded, found the gunman almost immediately and then initiated what became a long gunfight with the suspect, Cervera said. After an officer shot the suspect, they administered first aid.

Virginia Beach police are investigating with help from the FBI and state police, he said. They’re still working to identify victims and contact family members. They’re also still working to notify the suspect’s next of kin. Once that is done, Cervera said, his department plans to name the suspect only once out of respect for the victims. 

Cervera said the city offices now resemble a “war zone.”

Megan Banton, an administrative assistant in the public utilities office where the man worked, said her supervisor heard a noise then shouted for everyone to get down.

The supervisor then pulled Banton and others into her office and shoved a desk against the door while Banton called 911.

“It felt like forever,” Banton said. 

Zand Bakhtiari was one of only five people left in the geographic information services department — located on the first floor of the building — at the end of the day Friday when his supervisor, who had left the office, texted to say there was an active shooter and to shelter in place.

Bakhtiari wasn’t nervous until he heard the gunshots — lots of them, one round in quick succession. He said it sounded like an automatic weapon.

“It was repeated, rapid gunfire,” he said. It sounded like it was coming from above or below him on the second floor or the basement, he said.

After a few minutes — Bakhtiari doesn’t know how much time passed — the bullets stopped, but the fire alarm had been set off. And he could smell the gunpowder.

He assumed it was over when he heard the fire alarm, but he and his co-workers didn’t know whether to evacuate or stay put, so they all came out of their individual offices and huddled together.

L. Todd Spencer/StaffA police officer stands out in front of City Hall next to the building where 12 people were killed during a mass shooting at the Virginia Beach city public works building on Friday, May 31, 2019. The shooter, a current and longtime public utilities employee, also was killed.

After about 10 minutes, officers and SWAT team members came in, told them to duck down and keep their hands up as they escorted employees out and checked every room.

Arthur Felton, an 18-year employee in the planning department, was also inside when the shooting started. He evacuated the building after a co-worker heard gunshots. 

“I never thought this would happen in my building,” Felton said. “The people who were shot — I’m sure I know most of them.”

Employees’ family members were sent to Princess Anne Middle School to reunite with loved ones. 

Jonathon Gruenke/Staff Police personnel from various agencies stand outside Princess Anne Middle School in Virginia Beach on Friday evening, May 31, 2019.

Paul Swain’s fiancee sent him a text message at 4:17 p.m. that said, “They are shooting on my floor.” He said he drove to the Municipal Center so fast he was pulled over for speeding. 

The officer let him go when he told him why he was driving fast.

Swain made it to the area but was directed to reunite with his fiancee at Princess Anne Middle School. 

“My heart is just pounding,” he said as he waited to see her again. Swain reunited with her in the parking lot.

Police did not allow media on the school’s property. When he walked into the school, he said, he was greeted by staff who had a checklist of names. People were waiting for their families in the cafeteria, he said.

Vicki Cronis-Nohe/Freelance Emergency vehicles fill the parking lot at the Princess Anne Middle School in Virginia Beach, Va, on Friday, May 31, 2019. A longtime city employee opened fire at a municipal building in Virginia Beach on Friday, killing 11 people before police shot and killed him, authorities said. Six other people were wounded in the shooting, including a police officer whose bulletproof vest saved his life, said Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera.

Amy Woody is trying to find her neighbor of 20 years who didn’t come home from her job at the city. She said her neighbor always returns home around 4 p.m. but wasn’t answering her text messages or phone calls. Woody arrived at the school shortly after 8:30 p.m. with her two dogs.

“I just want to make sure she is OK,” she said. “It’s definitely a very solemn feeling right now. It’s hard.”

Cheryl Benn rushed to the school after getting a frantic call from her husband, David, who is a traffic engineer and works in the building. At first all she could hear when he called was sirens.

She said her husband barricaded himself in a room away from the shooter and held the door shut until police told him it was safe to leave. 

“He was definitely a little freaked out,” Benn said.

While her husband gave detectives a statement, Benn waited outside the school with her dog.

“Some of those people could be his co-workers,” she said.  

Public Works spokesman Drew Lankford, who works in the building where the shooting occurred, left the office on Friday afternoon to get a haircut. While he was gone, his daughter called and said there had been a shooter in his work building. 

His daughter, who works in the City Hall building nearby, said security told people to get under their desks. He rushed back to the office and saw police taking cover behind parked cars with their guns drawn.

City Councilwoman Barbara Henley had pulled up to the City Hall building just after 4 p.m. to pick up the agenda as she does every week when she heard sirens and saw police cars.

“I thought it was an accident,” Henley said.

As she parked in the lot between buildings 1 and 2, she noticed city employees standing outside using their cellphones. Someone told her there was a shooting and she should leave. Henley had gotten back in her car when she heard a male voice shout, “Get down!”

People scattered.

“I was scared to death,” said Henley, who quickly drove home.

Henley said she’s never seen a situation like this before at the Municipal Center, adding that security has recently been beefed up in the City Hall building as a result of shooting incidents across the nation. Not all the municipal buildings at the complex take the same security measures, she said.

Late on Friday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who arrived in Virginia Beach a few hours after the shooting, said the people who died were heading into the summer weekend.

“That they should be taken in this manner is the worst kind of tragedy,” Northam said. “Their families are facing painful loss and grief. They each leave a hole and a family in their neighborhood, in this community and in our Commonwealth.”

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A Mom And Her Son Had Graduation Ceremonies On The Same Day. So One University Surprised The Mom After She Skipped Hers.

A touching moment coordinated by two university heads to confer a mom’s degree at her son’s graduation ceremony has gone viral across social media after one school, Central Michigan University, captured the moment and shared it on Facebook over the weekend. Stephan Wilson and his mom, Sharonda, both graduated from two separate universities in Michigan this year. However, their ceremonies fell on the same day. Stephan graduated with a degree in fine arts in musical theater from Central Michigan University. Sharonda was also scheduled to graduate that same Saturday with a bachelor’s degree from Ferris State University. Sharonda decided to skip her own graduation so she could attend Stephan’s. A spokesperson for CMU told BuzzFeed News that the school’s president, Bob Davies, learned about this unfortunate circumstance after a friend of Stephan’s made mention of it the morning of the graduation. “One of Stephan’s friends works in President Davies’ office as a student worker,” said Ari Harris, the assistant communications director for the university. “She saw a post on Stephan’s Facebook page about Mrs. Wilson skipping her ceremony in order to watch Stephan walk.” Davies then placed a call to David Eisler, the president of Ferris State University. Together, the two university heads surprised both Stephan and his mom by presenting Sharonda with her own graduation cap, and a mini ceremony, during Stephan’s graduation.

“On behalf of president Eisler and Ferris State trustees … please move your tassel from your right to your left,” Davies announced to Sharonda as the crowd erupted in applause. Her son cheered on his mom next to her. In a statement provided to BuzzFeed News, Davies said he wanted to make sure the Wilsons both got “the chance to celebrate together as a family” as it was a “milestone achievement.” “The commencement ceremony is a celebration of student achievement and it acknowledges the passion, dedication and enthusiasm required to earn a college degree,” he said. “Sharonda and Stephan both put in the long hours and hard work, and they deserved the chance to celebrate together as a family.”

BuzzFeed News has reached out to Stephan for comment. However, the school said the new graduate may be slow to respond because following the ceremony he immediately “jumped on a bus with the CMU School of Music Chamber Singers to begin a multi-state musical tour.”

Central Michigan University provided BuzzFeed News with a statement on his behalf, in which he thanked both schools. “Earning our college degrees has been an incredible journey for both my mom and I, and it was a blessing to stand beside her and celebrate together. I’m so thankful to President Davies and President Eisler for making this such a special moment for us,” said Stephan. BuzzFeed News has also reached out to Sharonda for comment.

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7 people found killed in 2 homes in Tennessee; suspect captured!

A suspect was taken into custody after seven people were killed in two separate homes over the weekend in Tennessee, authorities said.

Officials with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) responded to a home Saturday night on Charles Brown Road in Sumner County, where initially four people were found dead.

A fifth victim – a woman — was found in another residence on Luvy Daniels Road, authorities said. The woman lived at the home and her car was stolen, Sumner County District Attorney Ray Whitley told ABC News. It is unclear whether she had a connection to the suspect.

Two more bodies were later found at the Charles Brown Road home, authorities announced Sunday afternoon. One of the victims found at that scene was 12 years old, Whitley said.

UPDATE: Our Forensic Scientists, processing the scene on Charles Brown Road, have found a sixth body in the home. This brings the total to seven deaths and one critical injury. Efforts to identify the victims remain ongoing at this time. pic.twitter.com/8LU6cV9MhF— TBI (@TBInvestigation) April 28, 2019

The victims have not been identified. Another person at the initial scene was injured and transported to the hospital.

Police identified a suspect Saturday and launched a manhunt in which as many as 150 law enforcement agents fanned out across the surrounding rural area to search for 25-year-old Michael Cummins. Authorities also warned residents that he may be armed.

PERSON OF INTEREST: We are working to locate Michael Cummins in connection to the multiple homicides we are investigating in Sumner County.  He may be in the woods in the area near the scene and may be armed. If you spot him, call 911 immediately. pic.twitter.com/4MEelTIpyB— TBI (@TBInvestigation) April 28, 2019

Devine said a search plane flying over the region spotted an individual in a wooded area and sent officers to the location.

“He was found in a remote area very close to the scene where these events occurred,” Josh Devine, communications director for TBI, said Saturday night.

Cummins was hiding in a creek bed and drew his weapon as the officers approached, authorities said.

Police opened fire and struck Cummins at least once. He was later taken into custody and transported to a local hospital, police said.

He is expected to survive.

No officers were injured, authorities said.

Cummins is awaiting charges for the alleged shooting, authorities said.

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YouTuber Jake Paul Is Taking The Allegation Of A Woman Being Drugged At His House Party “Very Seriously,” His Lawyer Says

Los Angeles authorities are investigating a woman’s allegation that someone may have put something in her drink, causing her to “black out,” at Paul’s massive house party in Calabasas.

A woman’s allegation that she blacked out after possibly being drugged at Jake Paul’s party at his Calabasas mansion is being taken “very seriously” by the 22-year-old YouTuber, his lawyer stated on Tuesday.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating “a possible single occurrence of unwillful impairment” based on the woman’s complaint filed Sunday, a day after Paul threw the party for rapper Desiigner’s 22nd birthday.

The woman told police that she may have blacked out after “something was put in her drink” at the party, authorities said.

“We take this claim very seriously,” Paul’s attorney, Stanton “Larry” Stein, said. “And we are working with authorities to make absolutely sure we do our part to uncover the truth.”

A representative for Paul, who did not wish to be identified, said that Los Angeles authorities had not yet questioned Paul or even approached him for an interview as part of the investigation.

The representative said that Paul never saw anyone pass out at the party and that he “certainly wasn’t involved” or anywhere around where the woman may have lost consciousness.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department declined to provide details about the investigation on Tuesday.

Paul’s representative suggested that one could expect at least some of the guests to drink excessively and get sick at a party that was attended by hundreds of young people.

The representative said that Paul’s party planner had hired 38 security officers who checked everybody’s IDs and were stationed both inside and outside Paul’s mansion to help keep the party under control.

The planner had also arranged for an ambulance with paramedics on the driveway because the party featured motocross and boxing events.

Instagram: @undefined

Arman Izadi, a nightclub promoter and self-proclaimed “mood director,” said in an Instagram post that he was in charge of Paul’s $500,000 party.

Izadi had previously pleaded guilty in Las Vegas to attempted battery with substantial bodily harm, the Daily Beast reported last year.

Izadi was also arrested in 2013 on charges related to robbery, kidnapping, pimping, and battery after three women testified to a grand jury that Izadi had recruited them at parties and made them work as prostitutes, the Daily Beast reported. Most of the charges against him were later dropped amid allegations of misconduct by one of the Las Vegas detectives working on Izadi’s case.

Izadi didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Instagram: @undefined Arman Izadi (left) with Jake Paul (center).

A singer who attended Paul’s party on Saturday said that she did not see or hear about anyone being drugged, but that she saw an “inebriated” woman being escorted out of the party by a few security officers.

Rosette Luve said on Tuesday that she saw the woman walking, adding that she looked “super intoxicated.” Luve said that she hadn’t heard about drinks being spiked with drugs and that nothing happened to her girlfriends who “drank all night.”

Another guest at the party, Tasha Mackk, stated that she didn’t see any drugs at the party.

“Just a bar and a good time,” she said.

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ON VACATION: A couple found dead in Dominican Republic!

An American woman died of respiratory failure in her Dominican Republic hotel room days before a Maryland couple was found dead of the same cause at the same resort, a hotel staff member told ABC News.

Miranda Schaupp-Werner was found dead at the Grand Bahía Príncipe hotel in La Romana on May 25 — five days before Edward Nathaniel Holmes, 63, and Cynthia Ann Day, 49, were found dead in their hotel room.

Schaupp-Werner, 41, “died suddenly and inexplicably in her hotel room…after arriving and having a drink from the in-room mini-bar,” family spokesperson, Jay McDonald, said in a statement to ABC News. She was healthy before she died, McDonald said. She had arrived in the Dominican Republic the day she died, McDonald added.

Her husband, Daniel Werner, was with her when she began experiencing physical distress and collapsed, McDonald said.

Schaup-Werner died of respiratory failure and pulmonary edema, according to the hotel. An autopsy performed on the couple determined that they died of the same causes, according to the Dominican Republic National Police.

The family became alarmed after learning of the similarity of Holmes’ and Day’s deaths and the possible implications, such as whether they’d been poisoned, and has contacted the State Department to request an investiation, McDonald said.

“No toxicology report was done as part of the cause of death inquiry, nor were Mrs. Shaup-Werner’s glass and drink tested,” McDonald said.

A spokesperson for the hotel declined to comment further on Miranda Schaupp-Werner’s death.

The U.S. Department of State confirmed to ABC News that Schaupp-Werner was an American. ABC News has reached out to the State Department for additional comment on her death.

Local police said they are aware of Schaupp-Werner’s death but have not opened a criminal investigation into it because her death does not appear to be suspicious.

Police are investigating the deaths of the couple, as they were initially considered suspicious since Holmes complained of chest pains the day he died but refused to see the doctor that was called, police said.

The couple’s bodies showed no signs of violence, police said.

Holmes and Day arrived at the hotel on May 25 and were scheduled to depart on Thursday, police said. They were found unresponsive by hotel staff after they missed their scheduled check-out time on Thursday, according to a statement from the hotel.

“We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” a State Department official said on regards to Holmes’ and Day’s deaths.

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Who is this alien? Why, it’s the psychedelic frogfish.

“Who is this alien?” is Mashable’s enduring series about the exceptionally peculiar critters that inhabit a relatively small, ocean-dominated world in the outer realms of the Milky Way galaxy, called Earth. Many of these lifeforms, you’ll find, are quite alien.

Hiding in the nooks and crannies of dead piles of Indonesian coral is a pudgy fish, wholly covered in swirls of orange and white. Seen from the right perspective, the critter might be mistaken for a vibrantly colored brain. 

But amid the explosion of whirling lines are cryptic, aquamarine eyes and a camouflaged frown. Inhabiting shallow seas around the tropical Ambon Island, this creature was mostly unknown to the scientific world until 2008. 

It’s the psychedelic frogfish. 

“It’s an incredibly vibrant frogfish,” said Rachel Arnold, a marine scientist who coauthored the research that identified the kaleidoscopic creature as a new species. 

Many frogfish — a stocky group of fish notorious for violently gobbling their prey — are also known for blending into their undersea worlds. Some look like sponges, and others like seaweed, noted Arnold. The psychedelic frogfish — or Histiophryne psychedelica — certainly takes camouflaging to an extreme level. “They do aggressive mimicry,” she said. The fish take on an appearance similar to species of tropical coral with whirling, orange patterns. “It reminded me of many patterns of corals I have seen,” said David Hall, an underwater wildlife photographer who captured the first shots of the frogfish. 

A psychedelic frogfish in Ambon, Indonesia.

This allows the lumbering, ungainly fish to hole up in the shadowy coral as unassuming prey comes near. At the right time, perhaps when naive prey swim near or inside a fateful cavern amid the coral, the psychedelic frogfish will promptly “swallow them whole,” said Arnold.  

Curiously, when Arnold traveled to Ambon to see these astonishing critters, hiding out amid coral rubble some 10 to 15 feet beneath the ocean surface, the psychedelic frogfish didn’t match the surrounding environment, which was devoid of the brain-like, orange corals that the psychedelic frogfish often resembles. 

It’s unknown why the psychedelic frogfish live in these particular dark holes, then, and also why the fish seem to vanish from their Ambon homes for extended lengths of time, only to turn up once again. 

“They’re still a bit of an enigma,” said Arnold. “It shows up and disappears for long periods of time.”

What’s more, the fish are fantastically-patterned, but never easy to find here — even when they’re known to be around. “If I had to search for these fish on my own, I would never have found them,” said the photographer Hall, noting that he relied upon a local guide who had previously spotted a psychedelic frogfish. 

Though relatively new to science, the psychedelic frogfish are well-known to Indonesian locals — though before Hall no one had a camera in the right place at the right time. 

A pair of psychedelic frogfish in Ambon, Indonesia.

“It’s the local people that really knew about its existence,” said Arnold. “The local people really understand more about this fish than we do.”

Yet with limited time diving around these elusive frogfish, Arnold and her team deciphered a good deal about the species. Most known frogfishes have a lure hanging from their head, which they hold out to attract prey, said Hall. But the psychedelic frogfish doesn’t carry a lure. It just waits for unwitting prey to pass by.

“The local people really understand more about this fish than we do”

True to its name, the psychedelic frogfish often “hops” around to get places, using its fins to push off the bottom of the seafloor. Curiously, when egg-bearing females emerge from their dark holes, they wrap their dorsal (back side) and tail fin around a peach-colored clutch of some 200 eggs, looking for safe harbor to place the priceless sacks of life. 

Leaving hundreds of eggs on the coral-littered seafloor, however, poses modern-day problems. “Conservation-wise, it’s a pretty big red flag,” explained Arnold, noting that it would be easy for collectors — perhaps eager to capture the hallucinatory fish — to sleuth out the eggs and over-harvest the species. 

Each psychedelic frogfish — while all almost fantastical and brilliantly patterned — is markedly distinct. Though, amid the profusion of lines and swirls, their unique line expressions might be indiscernible to the human eye. 

“Their striping is like their fingerprint,” said Arnold. 

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