State Champ Radio Music News
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Following the death of founding KISS guitarist Ace Frehley last Thursday at age 74, the Morris County, New Jersey medical examiner’s office is conducting a series of exams to determine the rocker’s cause of death. According to TMZ, a rep for the examiner’s office said that though an autopsy was not performed on Frehley’s body, the guitarist know for his on-stage Spaceman persona is undergoing a toxicology screening as well as an external body examination to determine how he died; the final cause of death will not be announced until after the toxicology report is completed, which could take several weeks.
At press time a spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office had not returned Billboard‘s request for confirmation on the TMZ report.
Frehley’s family announced his death last week in a statement, writing, “We are completely devastated and heartbroken. In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter, and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others. The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension. Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”
At the time, TMZ reported that Frehley had been on life support after suffering a brain bleed following a fall at home several weeks earlier. The rock star had canceled a planned performance at the Antelope Valley Fair in Lancaster, California, after suffering what at the time was described as a “minor fall … resulting in a trip to the hospital.” A statement on his Instagram at the time said Frehley was “fine, but against his wishes, his doctor insists that he refrain from travel at this time.”
Less than two weeks later, Frehley’s team announced that he would be canceling all of his remaining appearances for this year “due to some ongoing medical issues.”
Frehley co-founded KISS in 1973 in New York along with singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, basist/singer Gene Simmons and drummer/singer Peter Criss. He remained a core member of the greasepaint rockers’ lineup through 1982 and later returned for the band’s blockbuster reunion tour in 1996, staying on through 2002.
The group known for their elaborate, glittery costumes, character makeup and bombastic rock anthems released some of its most successful albums during Frehley’s tenure, including 1977’s Love Gun and Alive II, both of which charted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.
“We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley,” read a post from the band following Frehley’s death. “He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of KISS’s legacy. Our thoughts are with Jeanette, Monique and all those who loved him, including our fans around the world.”
KISS will be honored at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors taping on Dec. 7 — and airing Dec. 23 on CBS — with Frehley becoming be just the third person to receive the honor posthumously.
Trending on Billboard Nora Fatehi brings Billboard behind the scenes as she gets into glam for the All That Glitters Diwali Ball 2025. She shares memories of past Diwali events, details on her new music, a secret collaboration coming and much more. Nora Fatehi: There’s a Diwali bash happening in London, then there’s one in […]
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Justin Bieber has been on our screens for more than half of his life. But starting Wednesday (Oct. 22) the “Daisies” singer promised that we’re about to see even more of him. Bieber made his debut on Twitch yesterday with a stream that included footage of the singer playing basketball, shooting pool with friends and teasing his upcoming Coachella dates.
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The live feed from a giant warehouse space decked out with a mini half-pipe, a recording studio, ping-pong table and lounge area — with a pack-and-play bed for son Jack Blues — included an extended bit where JB put up short jumpers while talking about focusing on his health and “friendships, relationships, the ability to connect with each other,” all cued to Partynextdoor’s “Come and See Me.”
Long stretches of the stream were taken up with Bieber’s crew wandering around the space or just chilling as the singer played DJ and cued up some favorite mellow R&B, including Leon Thomas’ “Yes It Is,” as they played a lengthy game of Horse on the court. At one point, Justin hit a long shot from near the foul line while seated in a chair. The action then moved to a pool table, with Bieber yawning as he prepared to chalk up his cue.
After the game, Bieber took control of the camera and provided the first bit of actual news in the otherwise action-lacked feed with a tease about his April 2026 Coachella headlining gig, the only concerts he’s booked so far following the release of his Swag and Swag II collections and his first full live shows since 2022.
“This is our space for the next few months, so excited,” Bieber said. “I’m gonna be putting on a hell of a show for you guys at Coachella. I can’t wait. So getting ready, getting the gang together, get inspired. So Beautiful.” Speaking directly to camera, Bieber promised that the Twitch stream will be live “pretty muchevery day,” encouraging fans to tune in. “It’s gonna be awesome.”
In addition to the singer hopping on his skateboard and working the half-pipe, the feed also included a section with a shirtless Bieber playing ping pong. While not playing around, Bieber has been busy lately dropping music videos and topping charts, including a visual for “Bad Honey” and a No. 1 spot on the Pop Airplay Chart with “Daisies,” which tied him with Bruno Mars for most leaders among solo males in the chart’s history.
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Fresh off the release of his new single “Changes,” Charlie Puth is ready to be part of the change in protecting the Amazon rainforest by joining the lineup of Global Citizen Festival: Amazônia, taking place next weekend in Brazil, Billboard can exclusively reveal.
Puth will join previously announced performers Anitta, Seu Jorge, Gilberto Gil, Gaby Amarantos, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Eric Terena, Kaê Guajajara and Djuena Tikunal. It’s all going down Saturday, Nov. 1, at Belém’s Estádio Olímpico, also known as Mangueirão, in Pará, Brazil.
“I’m thrilled to be coming to Belém for the first Global Citizen Festival in Latin America,” Puth said in a press release announcing his addition. “As a Global Citizen ambassador, I’m honored to be part of such an important cause for our planet and can’t wait to see you on November 1st.”
Also announced Thursday (Oct. 23): Brazilian singer Vivi Batidão will perform during the festival’s pre-show, and Alane Dias, Ricardinho and Luiza Zveiter have joined the lineup of presenters. The festival will be co-hosted by Regina Casé, Mel Fronckowiak, Hugo Gloss and Isabelle Nogueira, with appearances by Rodrigo Santoro and Estêvão Ciavatta.
Any fans not attending in person can visit globalcitizen.watch to tune in live on Nov. 1 at 6 p.m. ET, and the fest will also broadcast on Globo across Brazil.
The event will focus on amplifying the voices of indigenous peoples and local communities in the Amazon rainforest and aim to raise $1 billion to protect, restore and rewild the Amazon rainforest. Global Citizen Festival: Amazônia will be a zero carbon footprint festival, in alignment with Global Citizen’s campaign to Protect the Amazon rainforest; find the full details of the Protect the Amazon campaign here.
Puth will likely perform some of his newest music at the festival, after announcing his fourth studio album, Whatever’s Clever!, last week and dropping the lead single “Changes” alongside a music video that doubled as a pregnancy announcement for him and his wife Brooke. Puth just wrapped a 16-show residency at Blue Note Jazz Club in New York and Los Angeles, where he also live-debuted “Beat Yourself Up” from the new project, due March 6 via Atlantic Records.
Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. Find details about tickets and more information here.
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Stadium shows, records set on the Billboard charts, awards. All of it, nice. But for Teddy Swims, the moment he knew he’d really “made it” was when he collaborated with The Wiggles.
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No lie. Swims is at the back-end of an action-packed tour of Australia and New Zealand, during which he performed at the NRL Grand Final, delivered a keynote at SXSW Sydney, and, yes, performed on stage with The Wiggles.
This morning, Swims stopped by Nova 100’s Jase & Lauren for a chat about the land Down Under, his tattoo obsession, and realizing his dream as an unofficial Wiggle.
The Wiggles joined Teddy Swims onstage during his concert at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on Oct. 15, for a medley of “Rock-A-Bye Your Bear,” “Hot Potato” and “Fruit Salad.”
“Yeah, that was the coolest thing ever,” he remarks. “So, I reached out to them years ago when I first started coming up on Instagram, because they’re really my heroes growing up, and always wanted to collab with them. And so I reached out to them, like, ‘you’re my heroes. I love you’.”
Fortune smiled on Swims as he greeted the children’s entertainers backstage on the Today Show, ahead of the Oct. 5 rugby league finale.
“I met them in the hallway, and they were like, ‘you want to play ‘Fruit Salad’ with us?’ And I was like, ‘oh my god!’… I was absolutely starstruck.”
Swims played his cards right and asked The Wiggles to join him at a show, which they did.
“Oh dude, it was so sick,” he recounts. “We did this whole three song medley, and the whole band was involved. It was the coolest thing ever. I think it was, like, I even said it afterwards, that was my ‘made it’ moment for me.”
Swims has some serious runs on the board. He made history in July when “Lose Control” became the first song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to spend triple-digit weeks on the chart, as it reached its milestone 100th frame. The next best is Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves,” which logged 91 weeks on the tally in 2021-22.
The Atlanta-born singer’s blend of R&B, country and soul has seen him fly high on Australia’s charts, too. In January, Swims’ I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2) opened at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, while “Lose Control” went to No. 4 on the national singles survey.
Speaking on Australian breakfast radio, Swims admitted he’s “running out of space” for new ink, but there are countless blank canvases among his pals.
“Right before my son was born,” he notes, “I was trying to take a couple months off the booze and so we’d always have kind of party after the show in the green room and stuff, there’s so many people. So I was like, instead of fighting the urge to drink, I could just pull the tattoo machine out and all the drunks would just let me tattoo them.”
Swims’ I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy Tour of Australasia continues tonight, Oct. 23 with the second of three dates at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena. Matt Corby is the support act and Frontier Touring is producing the trek, which ends Oct. 29 with a sold out concert at Perth’s RAC Arena.
Stream his Nova interview below.
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Since Jelly Roll arrived on the country scene over the past three years, he’s always put his wife Bunnie Xo and their relationship front and center at awards shows and on red carpets. But there was a time years ago when the hitmaker was struggling with substance abuse issues and their marriage wasn’t always picture-perfect.
During his appearance this week on the Human School podcast, Jelly Roll got candid with host Miles Adcox about one of his lowest points.
“I don’t talk about this publicly at all, but one of the worst moments of my adulthood was when I had an affair on my wife,” Jelly said. “Because it was the first time that I was like, ‘I really can’t get this right at all. I know I’m in love with this woman.’ It was just such a, just really, really, really blew me back.”
To get where they are now, Jelly said “I did a lot of work to repair that relationship, you know what I mean? The repair has been special. And we’re stronger than we could have ever been. I wish our story would have went in a way that it never had an affair, but – and I’m in no way glad it happened – but man, I’m proud of who we are today.”
Jelly Roll acknowledged that he was running with a much different crowd when he cheated on Bunnie, and among his friends at the time, abusing drugs and being unfaithful to your partner were par for the course.
“I was hanging around a bunch of people that were cheating on their wives,” he said. “When I was doing cocaine, I was hanging around a bunch of people that were doing cocaine. When I was drinking a lot, I was hanging around a lot of people that were drinking a lot.”
Since then, he’s dropped those friends, gotten clean and devoted himself to the marriage. When it comes to the friends he surrounds himself with now, Jelly said: “I wanted to be friends with people I wanted to be like.”
Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo have been married since 2016 and they renewed their vows in 2023. They share two children from previous relationships and have been very public about their IVF journey, with plans to keep growing their family.
You can watch the full hour-plus Human School interview below, with the affair conversation starting around the 48:30 mark.
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Luke Combs and Opry Entertainment Group (OEG) will bring a new Category 10 entertainment venue to the Flamingo Las Vegas next fall. Inspired by Combs’s chart-topping 2017 hit “Hurricane,” the Category 10 brand’s flagship venue opened in Nashville in late 2024.
The three-story venue will feature Hurricane Hall, a main dining hall that will include three bars, a central stage and dance floor, as well as state-of-the-art video, acoustics and lighting. Hurricane Hall will offer curated artist lineups daily and host the brand’s free line dancing lessons. The second floor will include The Still, inspired by Combs’s songwriting talents, which will offer a more intimate area with a view of the stage, as well as an extensive collection of bourbons hand-selected by Combs. The Still will also have an adjacent outdoor patio space.
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The third level will hold The Eye Rooftop, a covered rooftop space featuring a DJ booth, dance floor and bar with views of the Las Vegas Strip. The venue will also feature the Beautiful Crazy Women’s Lounge, located inside the women’s restroom on the first floor, which will offer a champagne bar, makeup counters, soft seating and Hollywood vanity mirrors.
Combs said in a statement, “I am stoked about having a second Category 10 location in Las Vegas. 2026 was already going to be an awesome year, but this takes it to the next level. I can’t wait for Bootleggers to have their own place to party on The Strip.”
Combs is set to headline more than 20 dates in Europe and North America next year on his My Kinda Saturday Night stadium tour. He was recently named the highest RIAA-certified country artist in history, with more than 168 million units sold.
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“With Luke’s enormous international appeal, securing the right Las Vegas location for Category 10 has been a priority since we first announced the partnership back in 2023,” Colin Reed, executive chairman of OEG parent company Ryman Hospitality Properties, said in a statement. “The United Kingdom ranks as the leading market for international visitors to Las Vegas outside North America. Combined with the UK’s continued embrace of country music and Luke, this is an ideal moment to bring Category 10 to one of the world’s great entertainment playgrounds.”
Reed continued, “We have formed a wonderful relationship with Caesars Entertainment through our Ole Red Las Vegas location, and we look forward to bringing more country music experiences to the market.”
“The addition of Category 10 continues to build on the momentum of a tremendous year transforming Flamingo Las Vegas,” added Dan Walsh, senior vp and general manager of the resort. “With exciting new experiences like the Go Pool, Pinky’s by Vanderpump, Gordon Ramsay Burger and Havana 1957, we’ve brought a whole new level of energy to our iconic resort. Category 10 elevates that energy even further, bringing one of the biggest names in music to the Flamingo and offering live performances with great food and cocktails at the best location on The Strip.”
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More than 550 entertainment industry leaders gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday (Oct. 19) for Creative Community for Peace’s (CCFP) seventh annual Ambassadors of Peace gala to promote dialogue and unity through the arts. The event was held at the Beverly Park residence of Haim Saban, chairman and CEO of Saban Capital Group.
This year’s honorees were Bruce Resnikoff, president/CEO of Universal Music Enterprises; Jonathan Strauss, CEO of Create Music Group; David Kohan, showrunner and executive producer of Will & Grace and Mid-Century Modern; his wife, Blair Kohan, partner and board member at United Talent Agency; and actor Jerry O’Connell.
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The event featured a performance by John Mellencamp, who said, “I don’t like to call it antisemitism. It’s too polite a word for what it really is. Hatred is what it really is. And I may just be a guy with a guitar and sing some songs, but I promise this to the Jewish people: I will remain a staunch ally to you guys as long as I’m on this earth. And to the Jewish haters, I say f—k you.”
“In order to make a difference, sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zone, and that’s what I’m doing tonight,” Resnikoff said. “In the Jewish community, especially during an epidemic of undeniable and widespread antisemitism, we will always need more voices, and particularly in the music industry. CCFP brings caring people together to help amplify our voices, and I’m proud to do my part tonight.”
Strauss added, “Great companies and great cultures are not built in an echo chamber. Disagreement doesn’t mean division; it means engagement. And there’s nothing worse than apathy.”
CCFP chairman and co-founder David Renzer opened the event and said, “We have to push back. We have to educate. We believe in coexistence. We believe in the power of music and arts and culture to help build bridges and that it should not be shut down.”
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Ari Ingel, CCFP executive director, added, “Jewish pride means knowing where we come from and taking control of where we are going. It means speaking Hebrew with joy, wearing your Magen David in the open, loving Israel, not with blind nationalism, but with eyes wide open, with commitment, with critique and care.”
Among those paying tribute to this year’s honorees were Ringo Starr, Def Leppard, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, Rebecca Romijn, Howie Mandel, Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Greg Berlanti, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.
Artists and entertainment leaders in attendance included Gene Simmons of KISS; Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records; Gary Barber, co-founder Spyglass Media Group; Suzanne de Passe, co-chairwoman of de Passe Jones Entertainment Group; Jody Gerson, CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group; Jacqueline Saturn, president of Virgin Music; Michael Rotenberg, founder and partner at 3 Arts Entertainment; David Zedeck, global co-head of Music at UTA; Jacob Fenton, UTA partner; Larry Rudolph, founder and CEO of 724 Entertainment; and Phylicia Fant, global head of music industry & culture collaborations at Amazon Music.
Previous Ambassador of Peace honorees include Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr., Grammy-winning songwriter Diane Warren, reggae star Ziggy Marley, music mogul Scooter Braun, chairman & CEO of Sony Music Latin America Afo Verde, and CEO and co-chairman of Warner Records Aaron Bay-Schuck.
More information on Ambassadors of Peace can be found on the event’s website.
Trending on Billboard Monica isn’t a fan of sleepovers. Instagram entertainment account TheNeighborHoodTalk reposted a video of a single father expressing frustration with not being able to throw his daughter a slumber party because some of the other mothers weren’t comfortable having a male host. “When I found out why I couldn’t throw my daughter […]
Trending on Billboard Joe Budden added another chapter to his feud with Drake earlier this month, when he called the 6 God a “bi—” after a federal judge tossed his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group. Explore See latest videos, charts and news “The Drake news broke about the lawsuit,” Budden said during a recent […]
