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Northern Irish hip-hop group Kneecap have responded to calls from Sharon Osbourne to have their U.S. work visas revoked following their airing of anti-Israel messages during the trio’s second Coachella weekend appearance. In an email to Rolling Stone, group member Mo Chara (born Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) said that the messaging was in keeping with their career-long views on Palestine.
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He said the group have talked about Palestine “at every single gig since the band’s formation, long before [the deadly Hamas attack on Israeli civilians] October 2023 as the oppression and brutal occupation of Palestine has been ongoing for 77 years.”
Kneecap claim that their anti-Israel messages were censored on the livestream of their set during the first weekend of Coachella, but at the end of their show last Friday (April 18) they closed by projecting the phrases: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people… It is being enabled by the U.S. government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes. F–k Israel; free Palestine.” The audience then reportedly broke into a “Free Palestine” chant.
“Not the only thing that was cut – our messaging on the US-backed genocide in Gaza somehow never appeared on screens either,” Kneecap wrote on their social feeds in response to reports about the first weekend feed cut. “Back next Friday Coachella and it’ll be sorted,” they promised before the controversial second weekend set.
“We believe we have an obligation to use our platform when we can to raise the issue of Palestine, and it was important for us to speak out at Coachella as the USA is the main funder and supplier of weapons to Israel as they commit genocide in Gaza,” Chara told RS. “As I said from the stage, ‘The U.S. government could stop the genocide tomorrow.’ It’s important that young Americans hear and know it.”
He added that the band didn’t initially realize their political statements were not viewed when the YouTube livestream was cut off. “We only heard about it the next day and haven’t heard from anyone officially,” he said. “It’s not surprising, large companies don’t like to hear the truth unless it suits their narrative and pocket.”
Chara said the “Free Palestine” chant is something that “happens at all of our gigs from Spain to Scotland and Ireland to Iceland because people know what’s happening is wrong and are angry about it. The crowd chanting ‘Free Palestine’ at Coachella was a message of solidarity to the people of Gaza from regular Americans who want to see an end to the genocide, despite their government’s arming and funding Israel.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, insiders claimed Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett was “blindsided” by Kneecap’s actions. In lengthy note condemning Kneecap’s actions, Osbourne decried what she called the politicization of Coachella, saying that this year’s shows will be remembered “as a festival that compromised its moral and spiritual integrity… Goldenvoice, the festival organizer, facilitated this by allowing artists to use the Coachella stage as a platform for political expression,” she said of the event, where a number of other acts, including Green Day, Bob Vylan and Blonde Redhead, respectively, altered lyrics to reflect the plight of Palestinian children and displayed Palestinian flags on stage. “At a time when the world is experiencing significant unrest, music should serve as an escape, not a stage for political discourse,” Osbourne said.
“While festivals like Coachella showcase remarkable talent from around the globe, music’s primary purpose is to unite people. It should not be a venue for promoting terrorist organizations or spreading hate,” London-born Osbourne added, ending with a call for the “revocation of Kneecap’s work visa.”
“As someone with both Irish Catholic on my Mothers side and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage on my Fathers side, and extensive experience in the music industry, I understand the complexities involved,” Osbourne, who has managed husband Ozzy Osbourne for more than 45 years, added. “Goldenvoice’s claim of being ‘blindsided’ by Kneecap’s performance seems implausible given the circumstances. I know for a fact that certain people in the industry had written to Goldenvoice, airing their concerns around the booking of Kneecap.”
In the wake of Hamas unprovoked attack on Israeli citizen on Oct. 7, 2023 in which nearly 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis were killed and nearly 250 were taken hostage, Israel has waged a devastating war against the militant group in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in which a reported 50,000 people have been killed and most of the territories’ infrastructure has been decimated. One of the most devastating attacks on Oct. 7 was a raid on the EDM Nova Music Festival celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, where Hamas militants killed 364 civilians, as well as wounding and sexually assaulting scores more.
Kneecap’s actions at Coachella are in keeping with what has been described as a long-held solidarity between the people of Northern Ireland and Palestinians based on the 800-year British occupation of Ireland that lasted until 1921.
Organizers of the Nova Festival have invited Kneecap to view the Nova Oct. 7 6:29 a.m. – The Moment Music Stood Still: The Nova Music Festival Exhibition in Los Angeles — a chronicle of the Hamas attack on the music fest brought to the U.S. by HYBE America CEO and former Justin Bieber manager Scooter Braun — to “experience firsthand the stories of those who were murdered, those who survived, and those who are still being held hostage,” according to RS, which reported that Chara did not respond to questions about whether they’d accept that offer.
The call from Osbourne to have Kneecap’s visas revoked for their anti-Israel sloganeering comes as the Trump administration has been targeting universities for defunding and revoking the visas and/or deporting students who it says participated in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Kneecap, which also features members Naoise Ó Cairealláin (stage name Móglaí Bap) and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (stage name DJ Próvaí), are slated to launch their largest North American tour to date in October.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does stand-up comedy superstar Michelle Wolf. In the wake of the White House Correspondents’ Association’s March decision to hold its annual dinner without a traditional speech by a comedian, Wolf is set to release a 15-minute clip in which she dishes on her unflinching and controversial 2018 set at the event and even throws in a few more jokes.
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The clip, titled Dinner Time, will premiere at 8 pm Eastern / 5 pm Pacific time tonight on Punchup.live, a digital platform for live comedy where Wolf’s weekly podcast Thought Box resides. Although the podcast requires a $5 monthly subscription, Dinner Time will be free.
“There might not be a comedian at the Correspondents’ Dinner this year, but the good news is: I have some leftovers!” Wolf says. “I’ve been holding onto this set since 2022, and with everything going on, now felt like the right moment to share it exclusively on Punchup, a platform where comedians can release their own uncensored material without the constraints of any network or streamer.”
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Wolf’s routine sparked a media firestorm after she roasted a number of the political powers who were in the room — including then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is currently the governor of Arkansas, adviser to President Trump Kellyanne Conway and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie – President Trump (who skipped the event) and such talking heads as Fox News’ Sean Hannity and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Zeroing in on Conway, Wolf, addressing the media, said, “You guys gotta stop putting Kellyanne on your shows. All she does is lie.” She then added, “It’s like that old saying: If a tree falls in the woods, how do we get Kellyanne under that tree? I’m not suggesting she get hurt, just stuck.”
She also pulled no punches with Sanders, who sat just two seats away from the podium where Wolf delivered her jokes. “I think she’s very resourceful,” the comic said of the press secretary before referencing her make-up style. ” Like, she burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye.”
The barbs stuck with Sanders, who recounted the incident in her 2020 memoir, Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House. “I debated walking out or perhaps even throwing my wineglass at her,” she wrote. “But ultimately I stayed in my seat and held my head high.”
Clips of the media furor that resulted can be seen in the trailer for Dinner Time, and in the actual clip, Wolf remains unrepentant — a point of pride for ride-or-die stand-up comics. She explains to the receptive crowd that she is a non-partisan comic. “I hate Republicans. I hate Democrats. I hate the media. It’s all bad,” she says. “It’s all a big circle jerk.”
She also says that she hadn’t planned to talk about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner ever again, until Sanders wrote about it in her book. “And I was like, if you’re gonna talk about it…”
Wolf then proceeds to tell more jokes about Sanders, Conway and President Trump.
Check out the official trailer for Wolf’s Dinner Time below:
The shift in Loyle Carner’s persona in recent times is exemplified by the opening songs on his two most recent LPs. On “Hate,” the scorching opener to 2022’s hugo, the south Londoner starts by offering to “let me tell you about what I hate.” He rages against racial profiling, the limited opportunities for young Black men, the pitfalls of his own success and his relationship with his father, concluding: “I fear the color of my skin.”
Now, on his upcoming fourth album, hopefully ! (Island EMI), he strikes a different chord. The opening track — as yet unannounced — is built around a skittish drum beat and soft guitars, and sees Carner, a father of two, singing amid the hum of domesticity. His son plays the xylophone while Carner ponders about his sleeping youngsters, “What language do they speak inside your dreams?” It has the feel of light peeking through the curtains amid the dawn chorus. Let him tell you what he loves.
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When we meet Carner for his first Billboard U.K. cover shoot — and first interview about hopefully ! — he brings that lightness with him. The 30-year-old arrives in London on a break from filming a TV project in Scotland, excited about an upcoming holiday with his girlfriend and two children. hopefully ! (due June 20) is about healing, unconditional love and this new phase of his life; recent double A-side “all i need” and “in my mind” both showcase a sense of serenity and contentment with his lot.
“My relationship with [hopefully !] throughout was quite healthy,” he says in a quiet corner of Shoreditch Studios. “I didn’t have grand expectations and didn’t put loads of pressure on myself. I was able to get to the point where I’m lucky to be able to enjoy it.” In the past, he was “trying to prove something, worrying about what people think” of his music. Now he’s just grateful for the joy these songs give him. He wears a beaming smile as he speaks.
For the past decade, attention has closely followed Carner (born Ben Coyle-Larner) on his journey to becoming a British youth icon. His debut live performance was supporting MF Doom at a show in Dublin, and by age 17, he was on tour with hip-hop don Nas. Debut LP Yesterday’s Gone (2017) was a love letter to the rap that supported him following the death of his stepfather and earned him a nomination for the prestigious Mercury Prize; his sophomore record, Not Waving, But Drowning (2019), spawned a number of streaming hits, including the jazz-tinged “Ottolenghi.”
Throughout his career, he has used his platform to campaign for better awareness of ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), something that he lives with, and the benefits of cooking to help manage those symptoms. His singular voice is a crucial one for Gen Z at a time when British male stars are lacking, and his live shows attract a wide cross-section of U.K. youth culture.
hugo was a huge leap forward. Across the record, he ruminated on his mixed-race heritage (Carner’s mother is white; his biological father is Guyanese) and his place in British society, enlisting esteemed poet John Agard for a spoken word meditation on “Georgetown,” produced by Madlib. On “Blood on My Nikes,” Carner contemplates the knife crime epidemic among young men — both as victims and perpetrators — in the capital. It’s a socially conscious record, but not overwhelmingly bleak, either; he knows when to pair light with shade in order to document the human experience.
Loyle Carner
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It was his depiction of a difficult relationship with his biological father that resonated with listeners. For many years, the pair were estranged, with Carner describing him as “present at times and not present at other times.” hugo was written and recorded as Carner became a father himself, reflecting on the cycle of resentment and anguish, and how to rebuild a parental relationship. The album closed with “HGU,” seeing the pair share a mundane conversation about driving lessons, which Carner took with his father during the pandemic lockdown.
hugo became his highest-charting and best-selling album yet, landing at No. 3 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart and earning him another Mercury Prize nomination. The Guardian called it a “beautiful, blistering masterpiece.” He reimagined the album with an orchestra for a one-off show at London’s Royal Albert Hall, headlined Wembley Arena and then hosted an even bigger performance at London’s All Points East Festival in August 2024. The 35,000-capacity gig cemented his place at British music’s top table, with a supporting cast of OutKast’s André 3000 and, to come full circle, Nas. In June, he’ll headline Glastonbury’s The Other Stage, putting him on a par with Charli xcx and The Prodigy.
“I think that [hugo] was necessary for a lot of people,” he says of the album’s success. “I still have people messaging me saying, ‘Yo, I just heard that album for the first time yesterday, and it made me want to go and connect with my mum, or grandad,’ or whoever. That to me is the beauty of it, that it’s still doing its job.”
hopefully ! is something of a departure for Carner. More in tune with his love for alternative and indie music, his hip-hop stylings make way for inspiration by Irish rockers Fontaines D.C., cult star Mk.gee, Big Thief, Idles and more. The band he assembled for hugo’s live shows followed him into the studio to bring new textures to his compositions.
“It’s a lot of pressure to step out singularly as a rapper. And I’m not even, like, a ‘rapper.’ I just make music, and people like to put me in that box,” he says. “I loved the anonymity of being in a band. I wanted to be around when the magic is happening and to not just be sent a beat after all the fun parts had already happened. I wanted to move away from the words being all that I can contribute.”
Carner’s pen is still mighty, but in a different way. Since his earliest releases, his words have been what has carried him forward and provided renewed inspiration. On 2019’s “Still,” which he described as his “favourite-ever song” during its performance at the Royal Albert Hall, he speaks about his insecurities with a disarming honesty. The rhyming couplets on hugo’s “Nobody Knows (Ladas Road)” and “Homerton” show remarkable dexterity. He knows when to build tension, but also when to let the words breathe. It’s a skill he learned from his poet heroes like Agard and the late, great Benjamin Zephaniah, the man Carner was named after.
As his family has grown, Carner’s techniques and influences have changed. He describes his son as his muse, and his presence is felt throughout the album. hopefully !’s artwork features a snap of Carner and his son, with colorful scrawls and additions only a child can make with such purpose. His voice babbles away throughout the record and his mischievous personality shines. Words could not contain the emotions Carner feels toward him, so the songs became looser, less literal but still emotionally resonant, and with a greater focus on capturing his son’s “melodic” personality in his songwriting structures.
On one album highlight, Carner speaks of the transition of becoming a father and notes that he’s “falling asleep in a chair I used to write in.” Later, he speaks directly to his son, saying, “You give me hope in humankind.” He has learned to embrace sonic imperfections and to capture a feeling, letting broad brushstrokes stand proudly. There’s a childlike wonder to the rawness of these songs; from snatches of phrases to choruses that linger in your head long after music has ended.
“If you try and color around something or touch it up… you always f–k it up,” Carner says. “That’s what I love about my son’s paintings. It might even be just one line across the page, but the simplicity of how he works and moves on. That’s how I feel now.”
Loyle Carner
Lily Brown/Billboard UK
Carner used the opportunity to embrace his role as a producer-curator. “As a rapper, the insecurity is that I don’t have any musical talent or whatever, so I’m like, ‘F–k, I better fill every gap so people know that I was there, too.’ But now I don’t mind people hearing a song and I’m barely on it, because I’m so across from everything else [in the creative process].”
He sings much of what’s on hopefully !; singing with his son on his bike, in the car and at home encouraged him to let his voice shine. “He never says, ‘Dad you’re way out of tune,’ even if I know that I am.” Here, Carner’s voice has an intimate quality, like he’s caught singing under his breath without a thought as to who might hear it.
He adds: “It’s fearless, but I’m not embarrassed about it and I don’t care because that’s the truth of how I felt. It’s that kind of bravery to me that is a reflection of what it was like to be a man. This living, breathing, feeling, flawed, emotional person that is willing to turn over heavy stones and be accountable for failing.”
Entering his 30s and becoming a parent for a second time brought Carner an emotional clarity about his relationship with his biological father. His stepfather, Nik, who raised him alongside his mother, Jean, died suddenly in 2014 when he was 19. The forthcoming LP encouraged him to embrace his softer side and the personality traits that Carner wished he had experienced with his biological father.
“Me and my dad are cool now, but he wasn’t really around when I was young,” he says. It was time to take a different approach. “My inner child is getting an experience of fatherhood that I never had, which is crazy. I’m not only being a father to my son, I’m also being a father to myself. I’m a person that I never thought I could become.”
Making the record has given Carner a greater perspective about his role and place in the world and in the family dynamic. “I’m not the main character in the movie any more. It’s my son and daughter’s film, and I’m just some extra in that.”
Carner has long been an advocate for a more healthy relationship with masculinity, having worked with suicide prevention charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). He gave a passionate speech at Reading & Leeds Festival in August 2023 decrying the “toxic masculine bulls–t” that plagued his childhood. His records and shows have helped unlock certain conversations, but the issue remains prescient. Netflix’s streaming hit Adolescence, which examines the fallout from a misogynistic murder by a 13-year-old boy, has sparked new discussions around the manosphere and its pervasive influence.
Carner saw the intensity of the show — which uses one-shot takes — up close on-set; he’s close friends with actor-creator Stephen Graham and director Philip Barantini. The topics at hand need urgent attention, Carner says. “We’re at an essential need for conversation for young boys to let go of this fear, frustration and anxiety and be able to pass it to someone.
“I’m very glad that my son has my daughter to live with,” he adds. “That’s a huge thing for me, and also for me to be in the presence of someone who is growing up to be a woman. For my son, it’s even crazier, as it’s so natural and safe and understood and demystified.”
Loyle Carner
Lily Brown/Billboard UK
The aforementioned Zephaniah features on hopefully !, a full-circle moment for Carner, given his profound influence on his life and as a male role model. Zephaniah, who died in 2023 at 65, was a towering figure in literature, music and politics, vocalizing the Black experience in post-war Britain. Carner honors his hero by sampling a clip of Zephaniah speaking on the Brixton riots, but also the potential and hope of the youth to change things.
“He articulates something that my brain has always wanted to say about masculinity,” Carner says. “Kids that look like me or are stereotyped are full of feeling and emotion and pain, shame, joy, guilt, hope and naivety. And nobody knows how to deal with it.”
Why that clip? “He’s saying what I’m saying about having pent-up rage and emotion; I’d rather use my pen to express it that way in a palatable and safe way.”
Zephaniah’s work, Carner says, taught him how to be a man who feels secure in himself. “His work shows the joy of not taking life so seriously and realizing that it’s fine to be a bit lighter or softer, and know that it doesn’t discredit my legacy or my story to be silly and to let go.”
Later this year, Carner will head on a mammoth U.K. and Ireland tour that takes in residencies at some of the nation’s most historic venues, like London’s Brixton Academy and Manchester, England’s Victoria Warehouse. Before then, he’ll headline The Other Stage at Glastonbury Festival on the Friday-night lineup (June 27) alongside Charli xcx and The Prodigy; it follows his 2023 top billing on the West Holts stage. Recent headliners on the coveted Other Stage include Megan Thee Stallion and Lana Del Rey — comfortably putting him in the big leagues alongside international superstars.
When the slot is mentioned, he’s speechless for a moment. “It feels like an amazing, monumental part of my career,” Carner eventually says. His whole family will be coming to watch on Friday, and then he can celebrate the rest of the weekend and “go see Doechii” the following night on the West Holts stage.
It’s just one page in this new chapter. In March, it was announced that Carner would star in an acting role for BBC’s upcoming crime drama Mint, directed by Charlotte Regan (Scrapper) alongside Emma Laird (28 Years Later) and Sam Riley (Control). The new disciplines that have come with being on-set have inspired him to write and direct his own upcoming project. He wants to promote poetry workshops in schools to the next generation. There are many strings to Carner’s bow as a complex, charismatic cultural figure.
He’s most excited for hopefully ! to come out and for his children to hear the snapshot of this moment, about this family, and about the man their dad was when they were little. But what about the fans’ reaction to the new sound and what they might take from it? “Honestly, I don’t care. It’s totally up to them. They could take nothing and not find it for 10 or 20 years or even hate it, but…”
Carner throws his arms up and laughs. “I haven’t even thought about it, actually. I hope that people that do find it and that it can be a good friend to them.”
Loyle Carner
Lily Brown/Billboard UK
Shoot production by WMA Studios. Photography by Lily Brown. Styling by Lucas Smith. Grooming by Marina Belfon-Rose. Shot at Shoreditch Studios, London.
The Weezer movie has added more star power into the mix, with actor and musician Jack Black reportedly joining the cast. News of Black’s involvement in the forthcoming film was confirmed by Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo himself, who took to the band’s Discord server to share an AI-generated image of a film poster featuring Black. […]
Just a day after surprising fans with an in-person preview of her new single, Lorde has officially dropped her latest track, “What Was That.” Announced by the New Zealand singer just 12 hours before its arrival, “What Was That” serves as Lorde’s first piece of new music since her 2021 album Solar Power. Co-produced by […]
After an unexpected comeback with new music in 2023, The Swell Season have announced a full-scale return with their first new album in 16 years.
The duo – comprising Irish musician Glen Hansard and Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová – announced that new album Forward would arrive on June 13, with latest single “Stuck in Reverse” accompanying the news.
“It felt right to title the record Forward because it’s a reunion of sorts, but we’re not going backwards,” Irglová said in a statement. “Both of us have grown and changed; we’re in different places and getting to know each other again as the new people we’ve become.”
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First formed in 2005, the pair released a self-titled album the following year and received widespread attention after they featured in the lead roles for John Carney’s 2007 film Once. In 2008, their track “Falling Slowly” took home the Academy Award for best original song, with second album Strict Joy following the next year, reaching No. 15 on the Billboard 200.
Though a number of sporadic performances have taken place since, the pair would release “The Answer is Yes” in 2023, their first new piece of music in well over a decade. It was this recording session that inspired an eventual return. “After our whirlwind that led up to the Oscars and after, we were so busy and with that came a pressure that neither of us particularly wanted, and ultimately we kind of drifted in the middle of all of that hard work and celebration,” Hansard explained.
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“We remained good friends, helping on each other’s records, keeping up with each other’s families. While touring my last record, I realised I just missed her. I remember calling Marketa and saying, ‘Do you feel like doing some gigs?’ She said, ‘Yeah, that sounds great,’ and the shows went really well. Once we were hanging out again, new songs started coming through, and we started trying new ideas and playing the songs onstage.
“From there the idea was to do a little recording and not put any pressure on it, just see what happens, and suddenly we found ourselves making a record,” he added. “And we were both totally into it, and so here we are, a new chapter of our lives.”
Having recently performed a trio of dates across New York City and Boston in March, the pair will embark on a run of shows throughout Europe and the U.K. in May, before another North American return over the summer.
Save this storySaveSave this storySaveLorde has shared “What Was That,” her first original solo track since releasing Solar Power in 2021. The single was teased through a series of cryptic social media posts, voice notes, and audio snippets, and Talia Chetrit shot the cover art. Watch the new song’s video below.“What Was That” got its live debut on Tuesday when Lorde sang along to the track at New York’s Washington Square Park while playing the song on a small speaker. Hours earlier, the New Zealand pop star sent a mass message via her fan text line that she would appear there: “Meet me in the park Tonight 7pm – x x.” Local police and park rangers quickly shut down the event, however, due to an unmanageable crowd size. Footage from the event is featured in the new video.Lorde co-wrote “What Was That” with Jim-E Stack, and she co-produced it with Jim-E Stack and Daniel Nigro. Jim-E Stack also provided drums, keyboards, piano, synthesizer, and engineering, while Nigro contributed bass and electric guitar, piano, synthesizer, and engineering. Another notable electric guitarist on the track is Inc. No World’s Andrew Aged.Solar Power, the highly anticipated follow-up to Lorde’s 2018 album Melodrama, was led by the singles “Solar Power,” “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” and “Mood Ring.” A majority of songs from the record eventually received music videos, including “Fallen Fruit,” “Leader of a New Regime,” “Secrets From a Girl (Who’s Seen It All),” “The Path,” and “Oceanic Feeling.”Lorde stayed quiet over the next couple of years, popping up to join Muna onstage at New York’s Terminal 5 in 2023 and contribute a cover of “Take Me to The River” to A24’s Talking Heads tribute album in 2024. Then, last summer, she was tapped by Charli XCX for a remix of the Brat track “Girl, So Confusing,” all but confirming her as the song’s original subject. They’ve since performed “Girl, So Confusing Featuring Lorde” together at Charli XCX’s Madison Square Garden concert and, earlier this month, her Coachella weekend one set.Read about Lorde in “The 200 Most Important Artists of Pitchfork’s First 25 Years,” and revisit “The 100 Best Songs of 2024,” featuring “Girl, So Confusing Featuring Lorde” at No. 9.
Despite her success at celebrity roasts and comedy specials, comedian Nikki Glaser revealed at the TIME100 Summit on Wednesday (April 23) that there was one joke she told during the 2025 Golden Globes on Jan. 5 that she worried went too far.
“I didn’t say anything that was like, calling anyone ugly or fat,” she told TIME deputy editor Kelly Conniff in New York City. “I think I get a reputation of being mean because of the roasts. I’m hired to be mean for those. [At] the Golden Globes, it’s not my job to ruin their night.”
However, she conceded she was initially concerned enough about a quip aimed at Selena Gomez’s fiancé, producer Benny Blanco, that she ended up texting Blanco to get his permission to go ahead with the line.
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“I said that ‘Selena Gomez is here because of Emilia Pérez and Benny Blanco is here because of the genie who granted him that wish.’ And looking back, I’m like, that could [seem] mean, because everyone’s like, ‘He’s not attractive enough for her,’” she said. “For me, I’ve never looked at them and actually thought that. I feel like she won too. I think he’s really cool. So, because that joke didn’t actually come from a mean place, I felt like it was OK for me to say.”
Still, she was concerned enough about it that she texted him. “I got his number. I said ‘You don’t know me, but I’m hosting this thing, and I hear you’re going to be there. Can I say that you’re there because a genie granted you a wish?’ He was like, ‘That’s hilarious; let me run it by Selena.’ We were all just waiting in the writers’ room. He said ‘Selena thinks it’s great.’ So they gave me permission. It was actually Jimmy Kimmel who told me if you’re worried about a joke and how it’s going to go over, just ask them.”
The fact that Glaser reached out to Blanco to get his permission to tell a borderline-mean joke shows her character. And the fact that Blanco gave her the go-ahead to tell a joke at his expense shows his.
Gomez was nominated for three awards at this year’s Golden Globes: best supporting actress, motion picture for Emilia Pérez as well as two awards (acting and executive producing) for Only Murders in the Building. She didn’t go home with a Globe, but she went home with something better – a partner who is secure in himself and has a good sense of humor.
Glaser was the first woman to host the Globes solo and has already been hired to lead the awards show again in 2026.
At the TIME event, she said that she sensed that the audience this year was unsure of how hard she was going to go in her humor. “When I first walked out, I knew the energy was like ‘We don’t know what she’s going to do. We’ve seen her do the Tom Brady roast most recently’ – that’s kind of where I popped for most people. In retrospect, I looked back at how terrified they all looked because they were like, ‘She’s going to roast us! She’s going to be just as mean as she was to Tom Brady.’ So, I heard from a lot of them that they were really, really scared. I wish I would have known that. I would have done something to defuse that a little bit.
“Next time is going to be a lot more fun because I think they know the tone that I have now. I go [for jokes], but I’m not going to embarrass you. And if you laugh, I’m only going to make you look good because you’re going to look so relatable laughing. It’s one of the best ways for an untouchable kind of celebrity on a pedestal to look normal.”
Here’s a link to Glaser’s 17-minute conversation at the TIME100 Summit.
Billy McFarland says he’s ready to sell Fyre Festival 2 to the highest bidder.
Earlier today, the convicted fraudster took to social media to post a mea culpa about his failures as a festival promoter while once more rebranding Fyre Festival as “one of the most powerful attention engines in the world,” in his words.
The double-speak is part of McFarland’s attempt to liquidate Fyre Festival’s only assets — its trademarks and IP — to the highest bidder now that Fyre Fest 2 has been indefinitely postponed. Early this month, government officials with the city of Playa del Carmen, Mexico, poured cold water on the long-shot festival — designed in part to rehabilitate McFarland’s image following the disastrous, aborted 2017 edition of the event in the Bahamas that resulted in global mockery, competing documentary films and a federal prison sentence for McFarland — by writing on social media that “there is no record or planning of any such event in the municipality.”
McFarland has said the idea for a follow-up festival came to him while serving time in solitary confinement, and he began pitching Fyre Festival 2 after his release from prison in 2022, hyping his plans on social media with splashy videos and spurious claims. As McFarland would finally admit on Wednesday (April 23), he has failed to regain the trust of fans, major talent agencies and the municipal government of Playa Del Carmen.
In his letter to fans, McFarland explained, “I can’t risk a repeat of what happened in Playa Del Carmen, where support quickly turned into public distancing once media attention intensified,” noting, “For FYRE Festival 2 to succeed, it’s clear that I need to step back and allow a new team to move forward independently, bringing the vision to life on this incredible island.”
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On Fyre’s website, where McFarland once hawked $1.1 million ticket packages for Fyre Fest 2, he now features a short pitch deck for the sale of Fyre’s IP, sharing details about Fyre’s web traffic and Google analytics while noting he’s ready to hand off the tarnished brand.
Giving control “to a new group is the most responsible way to follow through on what we set out to do: build a global entertainment brand, host a safe and legendary event, and continue to pay restitution to those who are owed from the first festival,” McFarland wrote, noting that he owes his victims from the first Fyre Festival more than $26 million.
On Monday (April 21), news broke of Fyre’s first licensing deal: an agreement for Fyre Music Streaming Ventures, LLC, a fan-curated on-demand music video streaming service and ad-supported TV channel. As its founder, Shawn Rech, told Billboard: “I just want people to remember the [Fyre] name.”
To view the sales material for Fyre, visit Fyre.mx.
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