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Katy Perry’s manager, Bradford Cobb, appears to be firing back at Wendy’s after the fast-food chain took a dig at his client earlier this year.
On Friday (Nov. 7), reports emerged that Wendy’s plans to close hundreds of restaurant locations nationwide as part of a corporate “turnaround plan.” Interim CEO Ken Cook announced that between 200 and 350 of the company’s roughly 6,000 U.S. restaurants would be affected, according to CNN.
Cobb quickly took notice of the news, reposting a KTLA headline about the closures to his Instagram Story, alongside a photo of the brand’s iconic red sign.
The longtime manager’s post comes months after Wendy’s threw shade at Perry on social media. In April, the chain’s official X account responded to a Pop Crave post about Perry’s return from her Blue Origin NS-31 spaceflight with a blunt jab. “Can we send her back?” Wendy’s replied, causing a stir online.
The company doubled down with another post on X featuring a photo of the “Firework” singer kissing the ground after landing, captioned, “I kissed the ground and i liked it.” When one user pointed out that Perry had only been in space for about 10 minutes, the brand wrote back, “Don’t short change her it was 11 minutes.”
Perry was one of six passengers on Blue Origin’s all-women flight crew, which landed safely back on Earth after the brief suborbital trip.
Weeks later, Perry addressed the online negativity, leaving a heartfelt comment on a fan page thanking her supporters for standing by her.
“I’m so grateful for you guys. We’re in this beautiful and wild journey together,” she wrote. “I can continue to remain true to myself, heart open and honest especially because of our bond. I love you guys and have grown up together with you and am so excited to see you all over the world this year!”
The artist continued, “Please know I am ok, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me. My therapist said something years ago that has been a game changer, ‘no one can make you believe something about yourself that you don’t already believe about yourself’ and if I ever do have any feelings about it then it’s an opportunity to investigate the feeling underneath it.”
She closed, writing, “When the ‘online’ world tries to make me a human Piñata, I take it with grace and send them love, cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed.”
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Britney Spears is back on Instagram after a short break from the platform.
Just days after deactivating her account, the 43-year-old pop star reappeared on Friday (Nov. 7), sharing a new photo with her 42 million followers. In the image, she poses in a white lace bra, gray and black underwear, and black boots.
“So much has happened this year, it’s crazy …,” Spears captioned the image. “I try to live within my means and the book, ‘Draw the Circle’ is an incredible perspective. Get your ballerina 🩰, circle, and own your boundaries.”
She continued, “It’s incredibly strict and somewhat of a form of prayer but with so many endless possibilities in life, it’s important to do you and keep it simple. I know there is a confusing side too. The devil is in the details but we can get to that later 😳😂🤧.”
The “Gimme More” singer’s return comes about five days after she deactivated her account. The brief disappearance coincided with the release of her ex-husband Kevin Federline’s tell-all memoir, You Thought You Knew, which includes several sensational claims about their two-year marriage.
Spears did not address her short-lived absence from Instagram, which went dark on Nov. 2 and displayed an automated message saying the “profile may have been removed.” The pop star has taken several social media breaks in recent years — briefly in 2021 and twice in 2022 — and has periodically stepped away from posting ever since.
Her latest retreat followed a series of mid-October Instagram posts in which she appeared to respond to allegations made in Federline’s book. “Its fun to tell stories at this point because this all might sound so silly but with what garbage literally is being said about me I said why not bring SUBSTANCE to the table,” she wrote.
Prior to that, Spears accused Federline of “constant gaslighting” and criticized those who “profit off my pain,” seemingly referring to her financial relationship with her ex. “No money from Britney for 5 years you trying to get paid that’s what general America is saying weird you both have moved on… your kids are adults it’s a different world now … why is HE SO ANGRY,” she wrote.
Fans have recently expressed concern about the singer’s well-being after she continued posting her trademark dance videos along with cryptic messages about her two sons — Sean Preston, 20, and Jayden James, 19 — with Federline, according to People.
In one video posted on Oct. 7, Spears appeared with bruises on her arms and bandages on both hands and her right knee. “Psss I fell down the stairs at my friend’s house… it was horrible… it snaps out now and then, not sure if it’s broken but for now it’s snapped in !!!” she explained in a TikTok post showing her injuries.
Check out Spears’ latest Instagram post here.
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There are few moments more immediately significant than an artist learning they’ve earned a Grammy nomination. For KATSEYE‘s Megan, that revelation arrived not during the live reveal or from celebratory screams, but in the glow of KATSEYE’s group chat.
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“I woke up a little bit later so I woke up to the group chat going crazy — that’s literally how I found out,” she tells Billboard exclusively during a phone interview just two hours after the Recording Academy announced the 2026 nominees in full. “It’s just me here right now, but the group chat is blowing up.”
With nods in best new artist and best pop duo/group performance, Megan says KATSEYE’s two nominations feel like a confirmation of the whirlwind experience the sextet has been on from their 2023 Dream Academy competition series to climbing up the Billboard Hot 100 as “Gabriela” reaches a new peak of No. 37 this week.
“It’s all settling in and I feel like I haven’t fully come to my — I don’t know — I feel like it hasn’t settled in fully that we are nominated for two Grammy Awards,” she adds. “It’s crazy, I literally woke up to the news. I think throughout the day it’s gonna settle a little bit more, but feeling super grateful.”
Megan
Austin Hargrave
With best pop duo/group performance, “Gabriela” is recognized in a stacked category in this year of superstar team-ups. KATSEYE is up against Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande‘s Wicked duet “Defying Gravity,” Kendrick Lamar and SZA‘s latest collab “30 for 30,” ROSÉ and Bruno Mars‘ multicultural smash “APT.” as well as “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters’ HUNTR/X group of Ejae, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami. Megan says the recognition is particularly significant for their position as a global girl group.
“With any award or nomination, it means so much to us because we work so, so hard,” she says. “So, it’s like all of the hard work, those long hours and all the dedication are really paying off. But especially for the best pop duo/group [performance], we really do rely so much on each other; we are literally sisters at the end of the day. So, being able to get nominated with my five best friends is literally a dream come true. It’s the best feeling ever. And especially with what we represent globally, it means so much to each and every one of us. We’re just like so excited and so happy about everything.”
That happiness doesn’t just extend to KATSEYE’s nods, but also to her fellow best new artist nominees, which include friends of the band like Addison Rae, sombr and Alex Warren.
“It’s insane that we’re even in the same category — it’s literally crazy,” the Honolulu native adds. “But yeah, Addison, sombr, even Leon Thomas, Alex Warren, Lola [Young], every single one of them, they’re literally all amazing and we all look up to them in our own ways. We’re so new, so to even be in the same category as these amazing artists is so, so cool. But to be able to share the nomination with some of our friends like Addison, sombr and Alex, it’s really, really cool and I’m proud of each and every one of them as well.”
As for the whole group, KATSEYE shared the following statement on their social media following the Grammy nominations reveal: “We can’t even believe this is real life!! two nominations?! thank you to the Recording Academy we are truly humbled, and congrats to all the nominees today, you inspire us! we wouldn’t be here without our EYEKONS — words can’t describe how grateful we are to you.”
The 68th Annual Grammy Awards will take place Sunday, Feb. 1, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Before that, KATSEYE dropped a new teaser clip today as well, seemingly hinting at something special coming on Nov. 11, tagging the Valorant video game and its accompanying esports league in the caption. Watch below:
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Last season, Stranger Things had a major impact on the Billboard charts, giving Kate Bush her first Hot 100 Top 10 with “Running Up That Hill” at No. 3. The cast of the 5th & final season of Stranger Things gives us their anthems for taking on the “Upside Down” in Hawkins. Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo and more share their favorite tunes on the red carpet of the premiere.
Catrise Johnson:
Before heading into the upside down, what would your character be blasting in their headphones?
Millie Bobby Brown:
Beyonce.
What Beyonce song?
Millie Bobby Brown:
“American Requiem.”
That’s a good one. That’s a good one.
Millie Bobby Brown:
Or “YA YA.”
What is your character playing in their headphones?
Finn Wolfhard:
Probably some punk or some metal. Eddie from season four probably got into his got into his head, and got him into some heavier music. So maybe Metallica?
Noah Schnapp:
It’s Will Byers, I feel like he’s very like indie, maybe like boy genius, like just a little indie.
I like that.
Noah Schnapp:
Maybe I should just go with a classic. My favorite, “Forever Young.”
Gaten Matarazzo:
This is very good, like a hype up song. We need something to hype you up a little bit. Maybe we could go with like…
Beyonce?
Gaten Matarazzo:
Oh my gosh. How about all of ‘Renaissance.’
Oh, my God. ‘Renaissance?’
Gaten Matarazzo:
The tour was amazing. I didn’t get to see ‘Cowboy Carter’
Act three we have to be there.
Gaten Matarazzo:
Yes, I’ll be able to make it two for three.
Priah Ferguson:
Maybe Whitney Houston.
Oh, what Whitney Houston song?
Probably, I believe our children are the future.
Keep watching for more!
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For years, the Cascio family was one of Michael Jackson’s fiercest defenders against ugly pedophilia claims. The five siblings from New Jersey, whom Jackson considered a “second family” and who spent much of their childhoods with the King of Pop, publicly denied that he was ever inappropriate with them.
That all changed in 2019, when the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland amplified child sex abuse claims against Jackson from two men in disturbing detail. As the Cascio siblings tell it, the film led them to reflect and reveal to each other for the first time that they had all been abused by Jackson as children across “hundreds of instances.” The estate of Jackson, who died in 2009, says the Cascios fabricated these claims and were seeking to cash in on the cultural moment.
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Whether the Cascios’ allegations were true or not, one thing is for sure: The siblings signed a multimillion-dollar settlement, including a strict nondisclosure agreement, with the Jackson estate in late 2019. Now, the validity of this settlement is the subject of a bitter legal battle in court.
The Jackson estate alleged in a court petition this summer that the Cascios violated the settlement with an “extortionate” threat that they would go public with the claims unless they were paid an additional $213 million. Last month, the Cascio siblings responded by asking a judge to declare the settlement void.
The Cascios — Frank, Aldo, Marie-Nicole, Edward and Dominic — said the estate “exploited their confusion and vulnerability” upon coming to terms with the alleged abuse by pressuring them to quickly sign a deal they didn’t understand.
According to the Cascios’ Oct. 6 court filing, the siblings didn’t have their own lawyer and were told by the Jackson estate that the deal “would not get done” if they hired counsel and took time to review the papers. They also said the estate misrepresented the nature of the settlement, telling them it was a “life rights” agreement.
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“Exploiting the same patterns of trust, fear and conditioned loyalty that Michael Jackson had cultivated for decades, the estate manipulated respondents’ emotional state to extract their silence through coercive and deceptive means,” wrote the Cascios’ attorney Mark Geragos. “The rushed process was intended to, and did, in fact, take advantage of the Cascio siblings’ shock and trauma upon realizing this had happened to all of them.”
The estate, meanwhile, says the Cascios were not pressured to sign anything. To the contrary, the estate claims in court filings that the Cascio siblings were the ones who demanded a settlement for their “specious allegations” — and that the estate reluctantly paid to avoid public pain and harm to Jackson’s children.
“Frank inaccurately depicts the negotiations leading up to the execution of the Agreement as one-sided strong-arming,” wrote the estate’s attorney, Jonathan Steinsapir, on Oct. 30, referring to Frank Cascio.
The truth, argues the estate, is that the settlement was “extensively negotiated” and “voluntarily executed” by the Cascio siblings. It is now urging a judge to enforce all provisions of the agreement, including a mandatory arbitration clause.
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A court hearing on the dispute is scheduled for Dec. 3 in Los Angeles County. Geragos and a rep for the Jackson estate both declined to comment on the matter on Friday (Nov. 7).
Jackson was never convicted or held legally liable for any accusation of child sex abuse during his lifetime; he settled a civil claim in 1994 without admitting any wrongdoing, and he was acquitted at a criminal trial in 2005. But such allegations have continued to dog his legacy, most notably when Leaving Neverland hit screens in 2019.
The Jackson estate called Leaving Neverland a “one-sided hit job” and sued HBO, leading the documentary to be removed from the streaming platform. Yet the subjects of Leaving Neverland, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, are continuing to pursue civil sexual assault claims against the estate.
Meanwhile, the Jackson estate has been extraordinarily successful at monetizing the singer’s legacy. Jackson died with $500 million in debt, but the estate has since generated more than $3 billion with catalog deals and new live shows exploiting the King of Pop’s intellectual property.
The estate’s latest endeavor is Michael, a long-developed biopic tracing Jackson’s rise to stardom. After years of setbacks and delays, Michael finally has a release date of April 24, 2026.
The movie’s first teaser trailer dropped on Thursday (Nov. 6) with scenes of Jackson’s real-life nephew, Jaafar Jackson, recording and performing Michael’s record-smashing 1982 album Thriller. The teaser does not allude to any of the abuse claims against Jackson.
Trending on Billboard Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” is making waves on the Country Airplay chart, Sombr’s “Back to Friends” hit No. 12 on the Hot 100 — but can the two songs break into the top 10 of the Hot 100? Can Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” head into the top three of the chart? […]
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The easy thing for Rosalía would have been to follow up 2022’s successful Motomami, which placed her on the brink of superstardom, with a quick album that walked that same path: Songs that treaded the line between her flamenco Spanish roots and Latin and reggaetón influences. It was a formula that yielded hits like “Despechá,” Rosalía’s take on merengue, and “La Fama,” her take on bachata alongside The Weeknd. The set provided an unlikely segue from her stunning but niche-appealing El Mal Querer, to a broad audience who embraced Rosalía and her sound with cult-like passion.
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It stands to reason, then, that something along those lines would follow in quick succession.
Instead, fans waited for two and a half years for LUX, an album that not only breaks parameters for Rosalía, but for the musical landscape as a whole. Recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra, it’s an ambitious, complex, sprawling orchestral and operatic ouvre of 18 tracks, performed in 13 different languages, where Rosalía pushes her vocal prowess into untested waters. This isn’t your tried-and-done collection of pop songs set to symphonic arrangements, but rather a new take on pop (or is it classical?) that tests the limits of what genre is and where it falls in the spectrum of musical production and consumption especially in an era of fast-food music that’s quantified and discarded with grim abandon.
“Sexo, violencia y llantas” (Sex, Violence and Tires), the provocatively titled opener to Lux, starts with a piano intro that evokes a classical piano étude — a cross between Bach and Chopin — then gives way to Rosalía’s vocals set to a sustained acoustic bass line that final crashes in choruses and full string orchestra. The track ebbs and flows in rhythm, pacing and BPM’s, full of rubattos and crescendos, sounding every bit like a classical music composition, except it quite isn’t. The opening line – “Quién pudiera vivir entre los dos, primero amaré el mundo y luego amaré a Dios” (How nice it’d be to live between them both, first I’ll love the world, then I’ll love God) — establishes the foundation of an album and an artist tied to the terrestrial but aspiring to the spiritual and sublime, and actually reaching them more than once.
Lux keeps you on your toes. Divided into four movements, yet another nod to its classical ground, it nevertheless doesn’t adhere to the tradition of a single tempo or mood per movement, but instead veers from arrangements and styles in dizzying manner. Listen carefully, though, and you’ll find the “intentional structure” Rosalía sought to create throughout the album. “I was clear that I wanted four movements,” she told Billboard in her cover story. “I wanted one where it would be more a departure from purity. The second movement, I wanted it to feel more like being in gravity, being friends with the world. The third would be more about grace and hopefully being friends with God. And at the end, the farewell, the return.”
Does Lux follow the rules of classical composition? It doesn’t mean to, and sometimes, it runs all over the place (we can only imagine the Grammys and Latin Grammys discussing what category to place the album and tracks into). “Porcelana,” for example, sounds like four different segments glued together without much rhyme or reason. But Rosalía’s voice is irresistible, capable of going through pianissimos to forte with ease and support. Only a trained voice could deliver this tour de force, and you keep listening, rivetted, until the very end, moving from “Porcelana,” with its traces of reggaetón, urban and flamenco, to “Mio Cristo Piange Diamante,” a bona fide aria performed in Italian.
There are decided commercial nuggets here. “La Perla,” performed with Mexican trio Yahrtiza y su Esencia (with Yahritza’s soprano voice beautifully rising to the task of singing with Rosalía), is a deliciously naughty dis track aimed at a former lover and arranged as a waltz, both quaint and incisive. And “Dios Es Un Stalker” is as catchy and rousing as a mid tempo pop hit can be.
But this is an album that defies convention, arrangement and structure. Challenging but exquisite, we hope it forces others to delve deeper into their art, and make us wait just a little bit more if it means making us listen again and again — not because we’re immediately hooked, but because we want to discover more.
Trending on Billboard As nominations for the 2026 Grammys pour in, so are new music releases from artists who just might earn Recording Academy recognition for it next year — including Rosalía, Katy Perry, Kehlani and more. The buzziest release of the week might just be Lux, the long-awaited followup to 2022’s Motomami. The sprawling, […]
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Few artists have had as big a year as Sombr. The 20 year old New York native broke out in a big way in 2025, with two top 20 Billboard Hot 100 hits — “Back To Friends,” which peaked this week at No. 12, and “Undressed,” which reached No. 16 in October — and the release of his debut album, I Barely Know Her, which reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 in September.
This week, things are getting even better: the singer/songwriter is set to make his debut on Saturday Night Live this weekend, and just today (Nov. 7) received a Grammy nomination in the coveted best new artist category. To add on to that, last night he finished the sold out North American leg of his first-ever headlining tour in his hometown, across 31 dates in which every single venue had to be upgraded to accommodate demand, with several cities adding dates as well. All told, according to UTA data, Sombr has sold more than 100,000 tickets across two dozen countries, including his first-ever sold-out arena show at the 3Arena in Dublin, with more shows in Australia and Europe to come later this year into next. And that victory earns UTA agent John “JT” Taylor the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Taylor, who is Sombr’s co-agent alongside UTA partner Matt Meyer, also has a long relationship with the Jonas Brothers, for whom he played guitar and served as musical director in their early days, before joining their management team at Philymack from 2014 to 2022. He is now their agent as well, as the group is in the midst of a tour that has sold 442,000 tickets and grossed $42.4 million from shows between Aug. 10 and Sept. 29, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Here, Taylor discusses Sombr’s remarkable rise, the logistics of having to upgrade so many venues on a tour while an artist is blowing up and more. “I haven’t ever seen it this quickly, personally,” Taylor says of Sombr’s rise. “It’s indicative of the way artists are able to effectively engage and reach audiences far and wide through smart digital strategy and great partnership with DSPs and social media platforms.”
Sombr broke out in a big way this year with two top 10 Hot 100 hits, and this week, he wrapped the North American leg of his Late Nights & Young Romance Tour, having sold out the entire run, according to UTA figures. How did you approach the booking and routing for someone who was actively making a name for themselves at the time, and what key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
To begin with, we are so fortunate to be working with a very special artist who is particularly attuned to his fan base. Shane’s fans are the most important thing in the world to him, so he has been incredibly focused on the fan experience throughout every step of this incredibly rapid growth trajectory. As for the strategy, we have an incredible IQ department at UTA that helped us as we determined our strongest markets and how to best estimate demand as we determined venue size. We worked with individual local promoters, who we are proud to have great relationships with, to ensure we could keep ticket prices accessible, the venues open to all ages, and to make sure we had Shane playing in iconic places that his fans would be excited about.
As things continued to explode for Shane online, on the airwaves and beyond, it became evident that the rooms we had initially booked, which were the right rooms at the time, were simply too small. With the awareness we might leave too many fans unable to see a show, we pivoted quickly in real time to upgrade wherever we could.
sombr in his home studio.
Bryce Glenn
Each venue on the North American tour was upgraded, and multiple dates were added in several cities. How do you make the call to do that and how difficult is it, logistically to pull off the switch, and overall to assess the correct venue size for an artist without much touring history?
Throughout this process, Shane has prioritized the fans and their experience. That mandate definitely brought with it some challenges, but was ultimately rewarding in the end. Shane wanted to upgrade wherever possible, but with the caveat that he didn’t want to change dates, didn’t want to refund tickets or cancel any of the shows. He was admirably adamant that we honor all of the original tickets sold at face value. This meant that our team — Matt Meyer, Jess Braunstein and myself — had to work with the promoters to find what larger rooms were available and able to accommodate those who already purchased tickets in the same seating configuration. We had to navigate this while renegotiating our current deals, all while considering the additional expenses associated with the larger rooms, and continuing to keep ticket prices fair and accessible throughout. We are very proud to say we were able to accomplish this in almost every market, which felt almost like a miracle once we had pulled it off.
He’s also performed in Europe and is about to go to Australia, with more European dates planned for next year, and has sold over 100,000 tickets across more than a dozen countries. How rare is that for an artist so relatively new, and how did you approach each territory?
Some markets still really depend on the artist showing up and doing the leg work to build the audience, such as Japan, but even there Shane played Summer Sonic in August as his first-ever festival appearances and first time in the country, and already has amassed strong offers to return to a rapidly growing base. In Europe, we played a few headline shows in key markets, where the data was overwhelmingly convincing to test the waters. Shane was quick to alert us to the incredible numbers he was seeing in Ireland, for example. Again, we moved quickly and did everything we could to stay ahead of the explosive growth as we plotted out our 2026 headline run, which sold out clean on the on-sale, including highlights of three nights at Brixton in London and capping off with a show at the legendary 3Arena in Dublin.
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How do you continue to grow an artist over the years into a real touring heavyweight?
By always prioritizing and supporting the artist’s vision and always putting the fan experience first. We are so fortunate to have an incredible team to support that vision with care and expert level strategy. We work closely across all departments at UTA to ensure we are not leaving any opportunity overlooked. Beyond the walls of our buildings, we have amazing partners at Warner Records, High Rise PR and of course with Shane’s team at The System — Andy Boose and Ann Perkins.
What’s next for Sombr?
SNL! His first ever Australian shows, the aforementioned headline European/U.K. run and some amazing festival looks in 2026.
Trending on Billboard Following its release on the spookiest week of the year, Florence + the Machine’s Everybody Scream has landed at No. 1 on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart dated Nov. 7. It makes for Florence Welch’s fifth set to reach the summit following 2009’s Lungs, 2011’s Ceremonials, 2015’s How Big, How Blue, How […]
