The group arrived with a clear intent, planning to remove any items bearing TLC's name from walls and desks. "We said we’re taking anything off the walls or desks that says TLC," Watkins stated in the clip. Their bold action led them to a meeting with music industry legend Clive Davis, who was then conferring with Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was playing music in the office.

Tensions escalated further when Arista executive Roy Lott joined the discussion, prompting someone in the building to call the police. Responding officers reportedly found the situation amusing, laughing at the sight of three young women disrupting a major label's operations. Watkins quipped that the event explained the label's subsequently stringent security measures: "That’s why security is so tight at Arista now."

This confrontation stemmed from severe financial hardships faced by TLC despite their blockbuster success. In July 1995, the group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reporting debts of $3.5 million, even as their album "CrazySexyCool" achieved multi-platinum status with chart-topping hits. After LaFace Records and Arista recouped costs for recording, manufacturing, distribution, travel, hotels, and music videos, each member earned less than $50,000 annually. The dispute with LaFace and Arista culminated in a 1996 settlement, providing TLC with a new contract featuring better royalty terms and increased financial control.

Watkins' "Uncensored" episode, premiering March 12, 2026, at 8 p.m. ET on TV One, delves deeper into her personal story, including her lifelong battle with sickle cell disease, diagnosed in childhood when she was told she might not live past 30. The timing aligns with renewed interest in TLC's legacy, as "CrazySexyCool — The TLC Musical" prepares to premiere on June 26, 2026, at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage, chronicling their rise, triumphs, and challenges.

TLC's story resonates as a testament to artists asserting control amid exploitative industry practices, a narrative echoed in broader discussions of artist rights. While no direct LGBTQ+ community responses to this specific recollection have surfaced in recent coverage, TLC's enduring influence in music culture continues to inspire diverse audiences, including LGBTQ+ fans who celebrate the group's empowerment anthems like "No Scrubs" and "Waterfalls." The preview clip, shared via platforms like Instagram and YouTube, has amplified these reflections ahead of the episode. This retelling underscores TLC's resilience, offering fresh insight into the determination that fueled their path to superstardom.

Alongside the tour announcement, the group is set to release a new single titled Club Song on Thursday, March 12, 2026. This marks their first new music in over a decade, exciting fans of their early 2000s hits like Don't Cha, Buttons, and When I Grow Up. The official website, pcdforever.com, has launched to provide details on dates, tickets, and the single.

The PCD Forever Tour spans 53 dates, kicking off in Europe before hitting North America and other regions. Confirmed UK and Ireland stops include September 29 at Birmingham's Utilita Arena, September 30 at Nottingham's Motorpoint Arena, October 2 at Leeds' First Direct Arena, October 3 at Liverpool's M&S Bank Arena, October 5 at Dublin's 3Arena, October 7 at Glasgow's OVO Hydro, October 9 at Newcastle's Utilita Arena, October 10 at Manchester's Co-op Live, and October 13 at London's The O2. In North America, dates include June 19, 2026, at Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, Illinois; June 25, 2026, at Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, with special guests Lil Kim and Mya; and June 5, 2026, at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, California. Additional European dates include September 10 at Oslo Spektrum in Norway and September 14 at Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany.

Ticket information has been detailed across platforms. Fans in the UK can sign up for early access via the mailing list at pcdforever.com by Monday, March 16, with presale starting Wednesday, March 18 at 9am local time. General on-sale begins Friday, March 20 at 10am via livenation.com and other authorized sellers. For the Cincinnati show, doors open at 5:30pm with the show starting at 7:00pm, and tickets include parking but are subject to fees and availability.

The announcement has generated buzz in LGBTQ+ media, given the group's longstanding popularity within the community for their empowering anthems and glamorous performances. Attitude, a leading LGBTQ+ outlet, covered the news prominently, highlighting the tour and single as a nostalgic return for fans. The Pussycat Dolls' music has often resonated with queer audiences through themes of confidence and sensuality, and this reunion is expected to draw diverse crowds to venues worldwide. No official statements from group members on community-specific impacts were available at announcement time, but the event's global scale underscores its broad appeal.

This reunion comes years after internal lineup changes and solo projects, with Scherzinger pursuing Broadway and Wyatt and Roberts active in dance and media. The tour promises a celebration of their PCD era, potentially blending classics with fresh tracks like Club Song. Venues like Riverbend enforce clear bag policies and security screenings for safety. As presales approach, excitement builds among noughties pop enthusiasts.

Doncic turned what he called unprovoked trash talk from Buzelis into 51 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in the Lakers’ 142-130 victory.

“It always feels special,” Doncic said after his eighth career 50-point game. “I obviously haven’t had a 50-point game in a year, so it was very special. I mean, in the second quarter, I kind of felt it. You know, somebody started talking to me, so that woke me up.”

Doncic would not disclose what was said by Buzelis, a second-year forward, because, “I would say that I would definitely get a tech.”

Buzelis was asked if learned any lessons from his exchange with Doncic.

“Probably not to talk to him,” Buzelis said.

It wasn’t like Doncic needed any extra inspiration, either. The NBA scoring leader got off to a strong start with 12 points in the first quarter and had another 12 in the second by making 5 of 6 shots from the field once Buzelis decided to get garrulous.

Doncic ripped off 17 points in the third quarter before notching 10 points on just four field goal attempts in the fourth. He finished 17 of 31 from the field, going 9 of 14 from 3, and 8 for 9 on free throws.

Lakers coach JJ Redick described Doncic’s ability to direct the unsporting words or deeds of opponents into his own game as a “unique trait.

“It’s not just the fact that he response to a rough play or trash talking, it’s that he can channel it, and he can channel it while still doing all the other things that needs to be done,” Redick said. “That’s obviously reflective of, you know, his defensive rebounding, his assists, his steals. Again, another game where he gets a high assist number with low turnovers.”

Buzelis picked an especially bad time to challenge Doncic, who had averaged 39.5 points per game during the Lakers’ previous three wins with LeBron James out because of right hip contusion and arthritis in his left foot. That included Doncic scoring 44 points against Indiana on Friday.

Doncic has 13 40-point games in 82 regular-season appearances for Los Angeles, moving into ninth in franchise history. Eleven of those have come this season.

Doncic scored 50 points for the first time as a Laker following the blockbuster trade that sent him from Dallas to Los Angeles in February 2025. It was Doncic’s 13th 40-point game in 82 appearances for Los Angeles, moving into ninth in franchise history.

Austin Reaves chipped in with 30 points, Deandre Ayton had 23 points and 10 rebounds for his 20th double-double of the season, and the Lakers’ four-game winning streak is their longest since running off seven in a row Nov. 14-30.

Los Angeles moved ahead of the idle Houston Rockets into third place in the Western Conference.

Josh Giddey scored 27 points and Matas Buzelis had 22 for the short-handed Bulls, who have alternated wins and losses over their past six games following 11 straight losses in February.

James started off sluggish after being sidelined by a right hip contusion and arthritis in his left foot, picking up his only points of the first half on a layup and free throw for a three-point play with 54 seconds remaining. The sequence sparked James, 41, and he made all five of his shots from the field in the third quarter to finish with 11 points in the period.

Giddey and Buzelis combined to go 10 for 20 from 3-point range, finding their shot in the second quarter and keeping the Bulls in striking distance for most of the game. Chicago ended up 15 for 36 from deep.

Up next

Bulls: Visit the Clippers on Friday.

Lakers: Host the Nuggets on Saturday.

A nearly 4-foot wooden horn known as a holztrompete, specially constructed to the composer's somewhat ambiguous specifications, signals the arrival of the ship carrying Isolde and King Marke to Brittany, inspiring a mortally wounded Tristan to hang on to life for a few more moments.

“Joyous,” said Billy R. Hunter Jr., the Metropolitan Opera's principal trumpet, who plays the wooden horn from stage left.

Yuval Sharon's compelling new production starring Lise Davidsen that opened Monday to mostly rave reviews features a specially constructed horn nearly Hunter's height — it measures a minimum 46.5 inches and lengthens slightly if the tuning slide is turned.

“You listen to the sound of the holztrompete and the imitation, it’s a clear difference,” said bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, who sings Marke alongside Davidsen’s Isolde and Michael Spyres’ Tristan. “It blows my mind to think that Wagner created it himself. How many humans have created an instrument? It really sounds like victory.”

Wagner's innovations went beyond the score

While the Wagner Tuba was invented in the 1850s by the composer for his Ring Cycle to bridge the sounds of horn and trombones, the holztrompete's details are more nebulous.

Wagner wrote the notes for an English horn but included a footnote to his score saying it should have “the effect of a very powerful natural instrument, such as the alphorn.” As pointed out in research by Daniël Vernooij, Wagner added in a June 15, 1861, letter to violinist and conductor Heinrich Esser that he wanted it to be “at least three feet long, made of wood, almost trumpet-like, slightly curved downwards so that the bell is open to the side.”

While a wood trumpet was used at the opera’s premiere, Wagner’s Bayreuth Festival in Germany switched in 1891 to a newly created woodwind called the Heckel-clarina, which resembled a soprano saxophone. Conductor Hans Richter replaced that at Bayreuth in 1902 with a tárogató, a woodwind common to Hungarian folk music. The tárogató was used by the Met when James Levine conducted “Tristan” from 1981 through 2008.

Mitch Weiss, a Met clarinet for 38 years, took over the tárogató in the 1980s from Roger Hiller.

“One day he said, `I’m sick and tired of playing this. You play it.′ And he handed me the tárogató,” recalled Weiss, now 93.

And then, Weiss had to audition for Levine alongside principal trumpet Mel Broiles.

“We each had to play the solo,” Weiss said. “I played it on a tárogató and the first trumpet played it on a low horn. And Jimmy said: `Tárogató plays it.'”

“The Hungarians used it as a battle cry instrument because it was very loud,” said Dean LeBlanc, a Met orchestra clarinet and bass clarinet who played the tárogató in the 2016 production conducted by Simon Rattle.

Barenboim made the wooden trumpet's modern Met introduction

When Daniel Barenboim led the opera at the Met later in 2008, he brought his own holztrompete.

“He pulled out this thing. I’m like: What in the world?” Hunter recalled. He said Barenboim told him, “'This is what we use at Bayreuth.'”

Barenboim took the horn with him after the run. Thomas Lausmann, hired in 2019 as the Met’s director of music administration, ordered a new one to be manufactured by Thein Brass in Bremen, Germany, which built its initial version for the Hamburg State Opera.

“They recreated an instrument that they believed would come very, very close to the instrument Wagner would have had in his time,” Lausmann said.

Hunter said the bells of the Barenboim and current Met version are slightly different. Martin Wagemann, principal trumpet of the Deutsch Oper Berlin, has played the Holztrompete at Bayreuth since 2018. He uses different versions at each hall.

“The Deutsche Oper trumpet sounds slightly darker and woodier, but it is softer and therefore harder to articulate,” Wagemann wrote in an email. “The Bayreuth instrument has slightly better intonation and a brighter sound, which allows for clearer articulation — something you need in the Bayreuth acoustic.”

Hunter compared the holztrompete to a bugle. Its one valve lowers the notes down a step — a trumpet has three valves.

“On a regular trumpet, there’s slides you can adjust with pitch but with this, there is no adjustment,” Hunter said.

There's no place like home for practice

Preparing for the mostly sold-out run through April 4, Hunter practiced for a month in the living room of his Upper West Side apartment, with an audience of his wife — who is a pianist — and their children.

“If the kids like it, then I know it’s OK,” Hunter said. “It’s like the food. If they eat the food, it means you did a good job.”

Hunter finishes the first act six stories above the stage in The Domes at the tip of the auditorium, where the banda of trumpets and trombones loudly greets Tristan's ship in Cornwall. The boat's arrival at Monday's production premiere also signaled Hunter's departure: He had about three hours until the wooden horn was needed.

“I left to put my daughters to sleep, relieve grandpa and wait for my wife to return from work,” Hunter said.

The casts, which scholars call “imprints of pain,” dramatically capture the position each resident was in when they died in 79 AD. The reproductions were created by pouring liquid plaster into the voids left by the decomposed bodies in the hardened ash.

Curators wanted to “give dignity to these people who are like us -- women, children, men -- who died during the eruption, but at the same time make it understandable,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, adding that they want people ”to understand what really happened in Pompeii."

Invented by Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1863, the technique to create the plaster casts faithfully preserves the position, expression of pain and clothing details of the victims, making them unique testimonies. It is still used by the team of scholars conducting research at the archaeological park of Pompeii.

Pompeii is the only known site that allows the recovery of this type of evidence, enabling visitors to see the reproduction of objects that were destroyed and the people who lived and died at that moment.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius killed an estimated 2,000 residents within the city, with total regional casualties reaching up to 16,000. The city of Pompeii was covered by ash, then later solidified by pyroclastic flows.

During the excavations in Pompeii, the remains of over a thousand victims of the eruption were found trapped in their homes or shelters, buried by a rain of pumice stones and volcanic rock, or killed by the collapse of roofs and walls under the weight of the volcanic debris, which reached a height of about three meters (about 10 feet.)

The 22 casts were chosen among the best preserved remains. The victims were found across the city, from the inner areas to the gates and roads leading out of the town, where the inhabitants fled in search of safety.

“They have a strong emotional impact on visitors and can be very moving," said Silvia Martina Bertesago, archaeologist at the Pompeii Archaeological Park.

“Through the analyses we can carry out today with increasingly advanced techniques, we can also understand their age and sex, but also whether they had particular diseases or particular types of diet,” she said.

The exhibition is housed in the porticoes of the Palestra Grande, located opposite the Amphitheatre. As well as an area dedicated to human remains, it also includes displays of findings such as plants and food that remained buried for centuries under meters of ash and lava.

Now, he's paving the way for a chance at Paralympic medals. As a visually impaired athlete, the 16-year-old Gustafson relies on her sibling, Spenser, to guide her through the course at the Milan Cortina Games.

It’s a bond forged by years of skiing together in Minnesota and Colorado, and strengthened by honesty — they’re not afraid to share their true thoughts — and, above all, trust. Because they inspect the course together, go over a game plan together and then Meg follows the orange blur — Spenser wears that color of snow pants and jacket to stand out — down the hill.

“We try to keep the brother-sister rivalry out of the relationship before and during the race. But after the race, sometimes it comes out," the 18-year-old Spenser said with a laugh. “We’re very close on and off the slopes, and this has only made us closer.”

On Thursday, the duo turned in their best performance yet — taking fifth in the giant slalom in the visually impaired classification. They close out their Paralympics with a slalom on Saturday, which is Meg’s best event and one where she could bring home a medal. She was also sixth in the downhill, seventh in the Alpine combined and eighth in the super-G.

For them, it’s all about communication. She listens to his instructions on the course via their Bluetooth headsets.

In fact, his words are all she hears.

“Just blocking everything out except for your guide and the snow underneath your feet is definitely a big part,” Meg explained. “I think that being brother and sister helps our relationship because I’m not afraid to criticize our dynamics. But I’m also open to him and all of his suggestions.”

Genetic disorder affects the ligaments in her eyes

Meg was born with a genetic disorder that affected the ligaments in her eyes and gives her tunnel vision. She had a fully detached retina at 12, which required four surgeries, and another two operations on the other eye. She said she has seven degrees of vision, which is why their guide-athlete tandem is a little different.

“I prefer him straight in the line of where I’m going to ski because I can only either focus on him or the gate. I cannot see both at the same time,” Meg explained.

What that means is Spenser skis about a gate ahead of her. He hollers instructions, too, simple cues like, “left-footed hairpin,” to signify a challenging set of upcoming slalom gates.

“I’ll remind her to stand tall and get her hips up, stuff like that,” Spenser said.

His mission is simple: Don't mess up. Because if he gets too far ahead, they can be disqualified. And if he falls, her run is over as well.

“I can’t crash. I can’t lose a ski,” Spenser said. “I have my bindings probably turned up way too high, because I’m too scared of losing a ski.”

Laughed Meg: “Yeah, I think that’s when the sibling rivalry would really come out.”

How it began

They grew up skiing at Hyland Hills Ski Area in Minnesota. For vacations, they frequently went West to the slopes of Colorado. She’d always try to keep up with Spenser.

The family eventually moved to Colorado, with both taking part in ski racing and both members of Ski and Snowboard Club Vail. Meg competed against able-bodied racers.

They were introduced to the Para skiing community through Erik Petersen, the competition center director at the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park.

From there, the tandem quickly ascended. Meg won seven FIS races in the lead-up to the Paralympics. Her brother has been helping guide the way.

“It’s definitely a collaboration,” Meg said. “Ultimately, if he skis a different line than I take, I’m typically going to follow him. I rely heavily on his line. So if he says this is the fastest line, I am going to trust him on that and follow his line.”

Although they listen to each other, they're not afraid to voice their opinions.

You know, like siblings do.

“Definitely can be antagonistic,” Spenser cracked about their relationship. “But I think the sibling combo is one of the more effective combos of (visually impaired) guide-to-athletes. You’re not afraid to tell the other person what you think, which is important. And they also know the athlete. They know what’s going to push them too far and what’s not going to be the best for their performance.”

Spenser has ski-racing ambitions one day, too. He’d like to compete in college. But this has been a “super-cool experience to be here,” he said.

Same for Meg.

“It’s incredible that I get to compete with my big brother," Meg said. “It's a great experience.”

It's no secret that buying concert tickets can be a frustrating and costly process. And Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster since 2010, has been the target for much of the backlash from concertgoers, artists and regulators.

On Monday, days into a trial, the Justice Department said it reached a tentative agreement to settle charges that Live Nation runs a monopoly squelching competition and driving up prices for live music. The DOJ hailed new options for promoters and venues that it said would end this illegal control. While continuing to maintain the allegations were without merit, Live Nation said the deal would give artists more flexibility for ticketing while also keeping costs affordable for fans.

What the settlement didn't do was separate Ticketmaster from Live Nation, an original goal of the DOJ's 2024 complaint.

Critics described the deal, which still needs court approval, as a win for the company over consumers. More than two dozen states vowed to keep fighting the case.

Meanwhile, industry experts say a lot more needs to be done beyond this legal battle to actually relieve concertgoers’ biggest headaches. Here's what we know.

The deal's details

Ticketmaster is widely considered to be the world’s largest ticket seller for live events. According to an annual report, it distributed 646 million tickets through its systems in 2025. And Live Nation owned, operated, had exclusive booking rights or an equity interest in 460 venues around the world, 78 of which were amphitheaters.

But this case targets major concert venues that sell tickets through Ticketmaster, generally locations with 8,000 seats or more. A “term sheet” spelling out the details said Live Nation agreed to let these venues essentially sign new agreements to sell a certain portion of tickets through entities other than Ticketmaster. Still, fully exclusive options with Ticketmaster would also be on the table for up to four years.

Specifically for amphitheaters that Live Nation already owns or operates out of, the company also pledged to cap service fees at 15%. Also for the amphitheaters, promoters may choose how to distribute up to 50% of the tickets at their own discretion.

In theory, expanding selling options could mean consumers see more choices. But the deal only requires it to be an option, not an immediate threshold, for venues to turn to competitors like SeatGeek or AXS.

On the tech side, while Ticketmaster also agreed to develop back-end technology for listing and delivering tickets for “any third-party primary marketplaces," but only for applicable venues that chose to do so.

Questioning the benefits for consumers

Live Nation would “continue to benefit from the synergy of selling both the shows and the tickets,” said Bill Werde, director of Syracuse University’s Bandier music business program. And even if others tap into Ticketmaster’s tech, he added, “I have to imagine they will always have a competitive advantage as the company that owns it.”

Werde is skeptical about consumers benefits. He says the agreement addresses just “one small part” of concertgoers' top frustrations: fees. Even there, the proposed 15% cap is limited to amphitheaters, not all venues that Live Nation owns or operates out of.

Others say it is still unclear how that compares to current charges overall. Service fees are shared between both venues and ticketing sites.

Shubha Ghosh, director of intellectual property law at Syracuse, said at best he expects to see a small dent in ticket prices. He doubts high-profile acts will suddenly start charging less or that aggressive resellers will slow down anytime soon — which he and Wede noted account for the bulk of the sky-high prices U.S. consumers face today, but is beyond the scope of this case.

Meanwhile, Live Nation maintained it made significant concessions to the government. Dan Wall, executive vice president of Live Nation's corporate and regulatory affairs, called the agreement a “very good outcome for artists and venues” and said the terms were stronger than what the government has been able to obtain in past competition cases.

“People who are trying to dismiss this as inadequate are not being realistic,” Wall said.

States' damage claims

Monday's tentative deal would create a $280 million settlement fund for the states' damage claims.

Critics called the amount a drop in the bucket when compared to Live Nation's total revenue of $25.2 billion last year.

But the $280 million, all or a portion, would only be paid out if states sign on to the deal. Attorneys general of more than two dozen states — including New York and California — pledged to keep fighting. That could potentially lead to more money, or what they argue are better benefits for consumers and artists than the Justice Department deal provides.

“There is an opportunity for the states, if they want to keep litigating, to continue to try to break (Live Nation) up,” said Kenneth Dintzer, a partner at law firm Crowell & Moring and former senior trial counsel in the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. “So this creates a floor, not a ceiling necessarily."

Next legal steps

Again, the tentative settlement still needs court approval. Dintzer, who worked at the DOJ for over 30 years, said the terms outlined now seem like the "bare bones" — noting key details need to be filled in before a final order.

And all eyes are on future litigation. The states that rejected the DOJ deal have vowed to press on, although they have asked the judge to scrap the current trial and start with a new jury in a month or two.

“We will keep fighting this case without the federal government so that we can secure justice for all those harmed by Live Nation’s monopoly,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said following Monday's announcement.

A DOJ spokesperson said the states were free to pursue their claims — but that the federal government “sought meaningful relief for consumers now” rather than draw-out litigation. The official added that the settlement would “open up” the ticketing marketplace and “enable competition which will lower prices.” Monday’s pact arrives amid wider shifts at the DOJ under the Trump administration, which ousted the agency’s antitrust division head last month.

More needs to be done, experts say

Meanwhile, industry experts stress more needs to be done to help concertgoers that isn't covered in this case. Werde pointed to the largely unregulated reselling market in the U.S. — where a “typical fan can’t even buy a ticket" amid overwhelming demand during mass ticket drops and attacks from bots, which quickly scoop up tickets to resell them at steeper prices.

Werde called for stronger laws to combat aggressive scalping, including a ban on the resale of tickets for more than they were originally listed for, along with more sweeping caps on fees. Beyond the federal level, several states have moved to try to address these concerns.

“We’ve seen this work in other countries. It’s not that complicated,” Werde said. “The ideal scenario would be one where every fan and everyone in business knows that artists set the prices — and that once artists set those prices, that’s basically what fans are going to pay.”

With Season 2 about to arrive, Rich joined us to reflect on what he’s learned, what’s new, and why this chapter takes the show to a whole new level.

EDGE: What lessons did you learn from season 1 that you are bringing into season 2?

RB: Season One was really an experiment, and it wasn’t until I got into the editing that I understood what the show wanted to be. I realized the heart of it was the friendship among the three main characters—keeping them together, talking, reacting, and navigating life as a unit. I also leaned into the humiliation comedy, which ramps up as the season goes on. These guys suddenly realize they’re running out of time, they can’t retire, and they end up taking odd jobs that lead to increasingly embarrassing situations. Watching them try—and fail—to reinvent themselves is part of the fun. Between seasons, I learned to trust the show and rely on the crew. Being on set, seeing something I wrote alone in a room become a full world, is incredible. And so many people worked on this project purely out of passion—actors deferred salaries, the cameraman took a fraction of his usual rate. It reminded me that if you trust the material, people show up for it.

EDGE: The show tackles midlife challenges in the LGBTQ community with honesty and humor. Why do you think that perspective has been underrepresented in the media?

RB: Honestly, the biggest issue is simply that it’s not considered “sexy.” And that’s not just in gay culture—straight culture has the same problem. You don’t see a lot of representation of straight characters over 50 either. There are exceptions, of course—Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which I adore and definitely draw inspiration from—but across most media, age is viewed as a tougher sell. At least, that’s the assumption. But then you look at The Golden Girls, and it proves the opposite. There’s always something that breaks the rule. Within the LGBTQ community, it feels especially important not to buy into that idea. We already struggle with representation across the board, regardless of demographic. So we have a responsibility to embrace the full spectrum of who we are, including age. I mean, there are parts of the community I don’t personally relate to—Pose, for example, wasn’t my lived experience in any way—but I watched every episode. I loved it. I thought it was brilliant. You don’t have to see yourself reflected 1:1 to appreciate a story or show empathy for a different walk of life. And that ties into something that happened recently: someone saw our trailer and commented, “Stop normalizing older–younger relationships. The imbalance is blah blah blah…”—just going off. And my reaction was: you actually need to watch the show. Yes, we portray an older–younger dynamic, but we flip it. The power sits squarely with the younger guy. The assumption this person made couldn’t have been more off. It’s that instinctive, quick-to-judge intolerance—people reacting before they’re informed—that frustrates me. I hate the word “triggered,” but honestly, that kind of kneejerk outrage does trigger me.

EDGE: How do your own lived experiences as a queer creator shape your writing for Season 2?

RB: I have to be a little careful about how I phrase this, but I’ve had jobs working in animation where I experienced something very similar to what Ray goes through. I found myself in rooms where I was significantly older than everyone else. It actually happened twice: one situation was great—I connected really well with the team, men and women alike—and the other… not so great. Those two contrasting experiences really informed Ray’s storyline in Season Two, especially his time working at Unicorn Princesses in Outer Space.