The former IT staff at Billboard magazine went out with a bang this week by pranking their former employers with a National Lampoon’s Animal House reference after getting laid off. Valence Media, the corporate owner of Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, made some serious staff cuts as a result of coronavirus on Tuesday, which included letting go of several writers, editors, and the entire IT department. While this news was likely devastating for these workers, it looks like some of them went so far as to seek revenge by hacking onto the Billboard website to make a few changes. Some former members of the IT staff at Billboard still had access to the platform for a short period of time after they’d been laid off, and they decided to use it to publish an article titled, “Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Lays Off Entire IT Staff Due to Covid19″ directly onto the Billboard website.

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The body of the article, which was credited to “devops,” read, “In the wake of Covid19 pandemic, Valence Media has decided to lay off their entire web IT staff. Effective today. The online Billboard Charts are essentially perfect, so IT staff are no longer needed.” The post went on to reference the 1978 comedy, Animal House: “Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life… #SavingABuckAtYourExpense.”

In the film, Stephen Furst’s character, Kent “Flounder” Dorfman, whose photo appears as the header image of the article, possesses a measly 0.2 GPA in the film, and is told that “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.” This quote was clearly a message that the former employees at Billboard wanted to get across to some folks in particular. The post has since been removed from the website, but not before it was immortalized by the blog Gizmodo screenshot. 

It's been a little over a month since the City Girls were reunited following member JT's 16-month stint in prison for credit card fraud, and they're coming back hard for 2020 by covering the latest issue of Billboard Magazine.

Detailing the many trials and tribulations they had to overcome on their way to becoming one of the biggest acts in Hip-Hop and music overall, each member gave an earful of interesting tidbits in this lengthy artist profile on the two young rap stars. Take a look below at some of the highlights:

On Yung(er) Miami's Days Partying At Trick Daddy's House:

Miami was a grade younger, but already popular on Myspace. Growing up in Opa-Locka — one of the most violent areas of Miami-Dade County — her mom’s drug-dealer boyfriend afforded their family a flashy lifestyle. Her mom had grown up with local rap icons Trick Daddy and Trina, the latter of whom is Miami’s godmother; going over to Trick Daddy’s for a pool party was just a regular Saturday. But what most impressed JT was that Miami’s uncle was dating Jacki-O, a local rapper whose best-known song, 2003’s “Nookie,” was a pussy-power anthem with lines like, “Police pull me over, they don’t write no ticket/All between my legs, trying to lick it.”

On JT's Hard Upbringing Right Before She Met Caresha:

She grew up in Liberty City, the neighborhood in which 2016’s Moonlight is set, with a drug-dealer dad who had 16 kids. Her mom was never in the picture. “I was rebellious because I didn’t have my mama around — nobody could tell me what to do,” she says. “When I started hanging out with Caresha, I was pillar to post. I started running away. I didn’t like it at my daddy’s house; I didn’t like it nowhere no more.”

On Their Reckless "Boosting Days" As Teens:

JT started sleeping at Miami’s grandma’s house every night after the girls hit the clubs, “sneaking out, fighting, drinking, being grown — doing stuff we had no business doing,” says Miami. JT had a little hustle selling hygiene products she would steal from drugstores, until business went south after an ill-conceived scuffle with a CVS loss-prevention staffer. “The people inside told me I was going to jail,” recalls JT. “They trying to pull my keys out the car, but you know Altima Coupes got a push start. So I tricked them. I’m like, ‘OK, OK, I’m sorry. Just let me pull in and park my car.’ Rolled my window up, skrrrrrt, pulled off.” She wasn’t caught, but her sister, who was with her, briefly went to jail.

On Their Big Break Joining Quality Control:

It was a friend of P’s in Miami, a waitress at a local club, who pulled out her phone and asked him, “Have you heard these girls?” around the same time “Fuck Dat N—a” was blowing up. P was on the fence, but Coach was hooked — the raunchy, boss-bitch raps reminded him of Miami’s godmother, Trina. “When Trina first came out, she had this confidence about the shit she was talking about — you’re like, ‘Who the fuck is this?!’ ” says Coach. When he played “Fuck Dat N—a” for Habtemariam, she had a different association: the freaky, uptempo party rap of the late ’80s and ’90s known as Miami bass, made famous by Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell and 2 Live Crew, the brains behind the first album deemed legally obscene (1989’s As Nasty As They Wanna Be). It was as if, without even trying, the duo had channeled the full timeline of Miami hip-hop history into something that sounded brand new.

Read the full article right now over on Billboard, and peep this funny video of the City Girls interviewing each other to see how well they know the other member: 

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Our first cover stars of 2020, Yung Miami and JT of @citygirls, play 'How Well Do You Know Your Bandmates?' and guess each other's favorite movies, childhood crushes, go-to dance moves & more. #BillboardBandmates

A post shared by Billboard (@billboard) on Jan 10, 2020 at 8:05am PST