Music News

18 Sep 2023

Adele Calls Rich Paul Her ‘Husband,’ Turns Down Fan’s Marriage Proposal: ‘I’m Straight, My Love’

Are wedding bells in the air for Adele? During Weekend 27 of her Weekends with Adele residency, the Grammy-winning “Easy On Me” singer turned down a fan’s marriage proposal and referred to boyfriend Rich Paul as her “husband” — and she did it all in less than 15 seconds.

In a one-on-one moment in the middle of the audience, a fan asks Adele, “Can I marry you?” “You can’t marry me, I’m straight my love,” Adele quipped in response. “And my husband’s here tonight.” When the fan pressed whether or not she could give the marriage a try, Adele hilariously replied, “No, I don’t wanna try. You’re crazy, leave me alone,” as the audience erupted into laughter.

In 2021, Adele started dating sports agent Rich Paul, her first publicly confirmed long-term relationship following her divorce from charity entrepreneur Simon Konecki, which was finalized three years after the “Someone Like You” first filed the petition in 2019.

Billboard has reached out to Adele’s reps for comment.

This is just the most recent flurry of headlines a Weekend with Adele concert has unleashed. A few weeks ago (Aug. 26), Adele stopped her show and scolded security after they repeatedly bothered a fan for standing up and enjoying the show. “Why are you all bothering him?” she asked. “Can you leave him alone, please? They won’t bother you anymore, darling. You enjoy the show. Leave him alone.”

Adele will play her final Weekends with Adele show at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on Nov. 4, 2023.

Adele has earned five No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 from 25 career entries, including “Rolling In the Deep” (seven weeks) “Set Fire to the Rain” (two weeks) and “Easy On Me” (10 weeks). On the Billboard 200, she has notched three No. 1 albums: 2011’s 21 (24 weeks), 2015’s 25 (10 weeks), 2021’s 30 (six weeks).

Watch the full exchange between Adele and a marriage-minded fan below.

18 Sep 2023

Olivia Rodrigo Ex Zack Bia Reveals If He Thinks ‘Vampire’ Is About Him: ‘I Think the Internet Just Ran With It’

Zack Bia has heard all the rumors and innuendo suggesting that ex-girlfriend Olivia Rodrigo‘s slashing GUTS single, “Vampire” is about a former real-life boyfriend, likely him. “I don’t think it’s really about me,” the DJ and Field Trip Recordings label co-founder told GQ magazine. “I think the internet just ran with it.”

The 27-year-old who is acting a pre-show DJ hype man for Drake’s current North American tour said he believes “Vampire” is probably a fictional composite character, which is another reason he’s not sweating the heated rhetoric. “Look, I’m in the industry so I know how a song gets made,” said Bia, “firmly denying” that the couple’s six month 2022 relationship was even worthy of such a lacerating breakup banger. “We hung out, we’re both busy, and we ended up not furthering our relationship. There was never any drama, you know?”

With a chorus that includes the lyrics: “I used to think I was smart/ But you made me look so naive/ The way you sold me for parts/ As you sunk your teeth into me, oh/ Bloodsucker, fame f–ker /Bleedin’ me dry like a goddamn vampire,” the track from Rodrigo, 20, pulls no punches about the heartache caused by… someone.

It’s worth noting that the song seems to suggest a dalliance with an older man (“Went for me and not her/ ‘Cause girls your age know better”), and even hints at the time frame in question (“Six months of torture you sold as some forbidden paradise.”) To be fair, the internet also thought “Vampire” might be about another older man, producer Adam Faze, who Rodrigo dated when she was 18; she was 19 when she dated Bia, from around April-August 2022.

GQ said it spoke to an unnamed source in Rodrigo’s songwriting camp about Bia’s suggestion that the songs wasn’t him and their response was “I don’t know if that’s exactly true.”

If it isn’t about him, why didn’t Bia — who was also reportedly the subject of the scathing 2019 Madison Beer song “Selfish” — try to knock down all that TikTok speculation that he was the bloodsucker in question? “Any time I’ve been speculatively the subject of a song, or the focus of a TikTok trend, whether grounded in reality or not, it’s like, it’s never been up to me to address it because the scale of it is so widespread,” Bia said. “100 million people have heard this song. The only thing I can address is my own life. I can control what my friends think and the creative output that I have and things like that.”

Thinking of the song from a label exec perspective, Bia said at the end of the day, “Vampire” is just undeniable, which is all that matters. “Look, the momentum of a song is so special,” he said. “I think Olivia is a generational songwriter. I think she’s a generational talent. I’m always just proud of her continued accomplishments.”

In fact, Bia said he kind of digs the track that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July; GUTS debuts at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart dated Sept. 23. “The song’s so big and so awesome,” he said. “Look, a heartbreak song for the summertime, it’s an undefeated formula.”

18 Sep 2023

Olivia Rodrigo Celebrates ‘Guts’ Hitting No. 1 by Quoting Her Own Song

Olivia Rodrigo‘s Guts are all over the Billboard charts — and she couldn’t be happier. On Sunday (Sept. 17), the Grammy-winning pop star celebrated her sophomore studio album reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and U.K. albums chart with an Instagram post.

“I’m grateful all the f–king time???thank u guys for the most love filled, exciting week,” Rodrigo captioned a three-picture photoset, referencing a lyric from “All American Bitch” off her new album. “Last slide is how I feel rn ??.”

In the first image, Rodrigo sports a floral dress as she poses with a trophy commemorating her No. 1 debut on the U.K. Official Top 100 Albums Chart. A screenshot of a Billboard article announcing the album’s No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 followed, with a quirky selfie rounding out the pack.

Guts topped the U.K. charts Friday (Sept. 15) as the best-selling and most-streamed album of the week in that region. According to Official Charts Company, Guts‘ 60,300 units total outsold the rest of the top 10 combined. Rodrigo also claimed the fourth-biggest opening week for an album in 2023 on the U.K. charts.

Guts topped the Billboard 200 on the chart dated Sept. 23, becoming Rodrigo’s second consecutive record to launch atop the ranking following her 2021 debut Sour. In the United States, Guts shifted 302,000 album units in its first week, slightly outpacing the first-week performance of Sour.

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for the pop star. On Sept. 12, she rocked the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards with a medley of her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single “Vampire” and Guts standout “Get Him Back!” On Sept. 15, the “Drivers License” singer also added 18 new dates to her recently announced Guts World Tour. The new tour, her first headlining arena trek, will visit major cities across the U.S. and Europe and feature supporting acts such as The Breeders, PinkPantheress, Chappell Roan and Remi Wolf.

18 Sep 2023

Surprise! Kim Petras Is Dropping Her Long-Lost French Pop Album ‘Problematique’

Surprendre, Bunheads! Pop superstar Kim Petras is here to say “bonjour” to her fans with a special surprise project.

On Monday (Sept. 18), Petras is set to surprise drop her French-pop album Problématique via Repbulic / Amigo Records. Across 10 tracks, Petras delves into ecstatic pop sounds, ranging from funk (“Born Again”), to R&B-pop (“Deeper”) to bratty, materialistic pop jams (“All She Wants” featuring Paris Hilton). As she sings on the titular track, “I’m a little bit dramatic, little real, a little plastic/ I just keep on wreaking havoc.”

Some fans have already heard the tracks off of Problematique, thanks to a major leak of the album back in early August 2022. While most singers would encourage fans not to listen to pirated songs, Petras took a very different approach on X (formerly known as Twitter). Writing candidly in a series of since-deleted tweets, Petras told fans that they may as well give the album a listen, since it was unlikely they would get to hear it otherwise.

“It’s ok if u wanna listen to the leaks … I’m not getting to put out any music anyways I’m f—ed. I’m devastated idk how all of this happened and I just wanna quit,” she wrote at the time. “Nothing is scrapped I didn’t get approval to release anything. It’s limbo.” A press release for the album confirms that Problématique was originally shelved “after partially leaking and leaving fans clamoring for more.”

The new album is Petras’ second of 2023 — in June, she unveiled Feed the Beast, her long-awaited Republic debut. Her latest album drop comes just a week before Petras is set to head on her headlining world tour in support of Feed the Beast, kicking off the 34-date run in Austin, TX on September 27. Tickets are available at Petras’ website.

Listen to Problématique below:

18 Sep 2023

Blink-182 Announce Track List, Release Date for ‘One More Time…’ Reunion Album

The long wait is almost over. Blink-182 finally announced the release date and track list for their eagerly anticipated reunion album on Monday morning (Sept. 18). The trio’s first new album with returning OG member singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge since 2011, ONE MORE TIME…, is due out on Oct. 20 via Columbia Records; the title track will drop at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday (Sept. 21).

The news was announced via a nearly four-minute video montage uploaded on Monday in which the group — which also includes bassist/singer Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker — discussed childhood trauma and chaos that birthed the band in a chat with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe; that full interview will be uploaded soon.

“Blink was always a way to force the happiness in the room,” says DeLonge in the clip, which chronicles the hurt feelings and press pile-on that accompanied the guitarist’s departure in 2015. “I definitely didn’t want to hold these guys back in any kind of way,” the band’s co-founder says emotionally in the Lowe interview, recalling a conversation with his wife in which he told her he might not ever play music again.

However, when Hoppus shared that he was battling the blood cancer diffuse large B-cell lymphoma — the bassist announced in April 2022 that he was cancer-free — DeLonge said the news made him think that playing music with his friends was “the only thing I want to do.”

The video preview features a sneak listen to three new songs, including the emotional title track ballad, which Barker says dives into the question of “why does it take these catastrophes like me being in a plane crash or Mark being sick for our band to get back together?” Barker was nearly killed in a Sept. 2008 plane crash that took the lives of four passengers and critically injured his friend Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein.

The song tackles those traumas head-on with the lines, “I wish they told us it should take a sickness/ Or airplanes falling out the sky.” Hoppus tells Lowe that the chemotherapy he underwent “wrecked” his vocal cords and resulted in him visiting a vocal coach to even get him to the point where the band could play Coachella earlier this year. “When it’s the three of us onstage I feel unstoppable, we f—ing crush,” Hoppus says.

The bassist also dives into the intense feelings he felt after his diagnosis and the struggle during treatment, with DeLonge saying once he heard his friend was sick “nothing matters, really,” and Barker adding that he always knew the trio’s “brotherhood wouldn’t ever deteriorate… or wouldn’t be there.” Other songs previewed in the video include the uplifting rocker “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got” and the blitzing “Anthem Part 3.”

According to a release announcing the project, ONE MORE TIME… was recorded during the band’s 2023 reunion tour, which kicked off with a surprise last-minute addition to the lineup for April’s Coachella Festival. Produced by Barker, it features 17 new songs that “capture the band at the top of their game, layering in themes of tragedy, triumph and most importantly, brotherhood.” To date they’ve previewed the collection with the single “Edging,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart in November, after topping the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart.

Hoppus promises that this is, without a doubt, “one of the best albums we’ve ever made.”

Check out the track list for ONE MORE TIME… and watch the trailer below.

ONE MORE TIME… tracklist

“Anthem Part 3”

“Dance With Me”

“Fell in Love”

“Terrified”

“One More Time”

“More Than You Know”

“Turn This Off!”

“When We Were Young”

“Edging”

“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got”

“Blink Wave”

“Bad News”

“Hurt (Interlude)”

“Turpentine”

“Fuck Face”

“Other Side”

“Childhood”

18 Sep 2023

NFL Announcer Drops Taylor Swift Reference After Travis Kelce’s Touchdown: Watch

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is dealing with his rumored romance with Taylor Swift — even on the football field.

He scored his first touchdown of the season during a showdown between the Chiefs and the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday (Sept. 17). Since Kelce missed last week’s game — the first game of the regular season — the Patrick Mahomes-assisted visit to the end zone was particularly special.

NFL announcer Ian Eagle took the moment as an opportunity to tease the player by slipping in a few Swift lyric references as he called the play. “Kelce finds a blank space for the score!” he quipped, a callback to Swift’s 2014 Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper “Blank Space.”

Eagle is the lastest voice to join the choir of opinions and commentary on the alleged romance between the Grammy-winning pop star and the 2023 Super Bowl champ. Last week Kelce’s older brother — Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce — said “I cannot comment” when asked about the rumors.

During a recent interview with NFL+ host Andrew Siciliano, Travis addressed the situation — barely. In their conversation, he confirmed his story about trying to shoot his shot at Swift via an Eras Tour friendship bracelet, but he also refused to get any more specific than that. “I said what I said. And I meant what I said when I said it. And you know what, it is what it is,” he said before shutting down further conversation about the pair’s relationship status. “I’m not gonna talk about my personal life.”

Fully aware of how quickly people have latched onto this story, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end teased listeners, saying, “I know what you writers wanna hear, and you wanna hear more about that and I’m not gonna give you anything!” When Siciliano asked if Swift had reached out to him, Kelce responded, “And that’s gonna wrap it up here,” thus ending the interview.

Check out Kelce’s interview with Sicilliano below:

18 Sep 2023

Joey Fatone, Lance Bass & JC Chasez Say *NSYNC ‘Trolls’ Reunion Could Roll On: ‘Anything Is Possible’

If you’re still not done hyperventilating over *NSYNC‘s surprise reunion at the 2023 MTV VMAs and the announcement that the beloved boy band have recorded a new song for the Trolls Band Together threequel, member Joey Fatone has some some advice for you: keep beating that drum. Fatone was one of several *NSYNCers who were out and about over the weekend dropping tantalizing teases about the potential extension of the one-off get back.

“We’re excited for *NSYNC to come out with a song,” Fatone shared during a panel discussion at the ’90s Con in Florida on Sunday according to People. “Which is crazy to say after 25 years. And no, I don’t know if there is a tour!”

While there is no official talk of a tour — or any additional *NSYNC activities — at the moment, Fatone told thirsty fans that if they want to see the quintet that also features Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass keep the good times rolling they should hit up their former label. “If the fans want it that much yell at the companies, yell at Sony, yell at RCA, yell at them to say that they need an *NSYNC album,” Fatone counseled.

After the VMAs appearance, the band dropped their first new song in more than 20 years, “Better Place,” which will be released on Sept. 29 and appear in the Trolls movie, due out on Nov. 17. Fatone went on to suggest that Timberlake’s upcoming unnamed solo album might be another chance for them to revisit the “Better Place” magic.

“Obviously Justin’s coming out with his album, so he’s probably going to be doing a tour, I’m sure he’s doing that. Then hopefully, cross our fingers — I can’t promise — but hopefully we do something together,” Fatone said; at press time a spokesperson for Timberlake had not returned a request for comment about any other potential *NSYNC activities involving the band’s biggest break-out member.

TMZ caught up with Chasez at LAX over the weekend and while he said he was focused on promoting the single at the moment, the singer teasingly added, “anything is possible.” The gossip site said it also talked to Bass, who used the opportunity to say that if fans wanted the band to keep the reunion going for a tour and/or album, they should support the ongoing Hollywood writers/actors strike.

“Better Place” is the first new *NSYNC song since 2002 and their VMA appearance — where they presented Taylor Swift with the best pop award for the “Anti-Hero” clip, was their first time on the awards show’s stage since 2013, when they gathered for Timberlake’s Video Vanguard Award medley performance.

While no other *NSYNC activities have been announced so far, the guys continued to stoke the flames in a Friends-themed video they posted last week. In the clip on their official Insta, they used the audio of Joey and Rachel from “The One With All the Resolutions” episode, with Timberlake mouthing, “Do you know something?” as Fatone responded, “Do you know something?” and so on and so on as they appeared to be holding back on another surprise.

JT stars in the upcoming film, returning as the main troll Branch alongside Anna Kendrick’s Poppy. The new movie’s plot follows as Branch reunites with his brothers to get their childhood boy band, BroZone, back together. While *NSYNC reunited for the soundtrack, in the film, Timberlake’s bandmate brothers are voiced by Troye Sivan, Eric André, Daveed Diggs and Kid Cudi.

Check out the Friends tease below.

18 Sep 2023

Sum 41 Singer Deryck Whibley Back Home After Hospitalization For Pneumonia: ‘He Is Able to Breathe Without as Much Pain’

Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley was rushed to the hospital due to a bout of pneumonia that wife Ariana Cooper Whibley said could have resulted in heart failure. “Deryck and I were suppose to be in Chicago right now, celebrating our eight year wedding anniversary but the universe had a different plan for us,” wrote the model who married the singer in 2015 wrote in an Instagram post on Friday.

“We spent the entire night in the ER and will now be spending the next few days here in the hospital as he fights through pneumonia,” she added alongside a picture of her holding Whibley’s hand in the hospital and one of him being loaded out of an ambulance on a gurney. “The scariest part is that there is a lot of strain on his heart and they are telling us that there is a possibility of heart failure.
This is obviously not our first time in a situation like this but it brings back a lot of really difficult memories seeing him back in a hospital bed connected to wires and IVs.”

Whibley was hospitalized in 2014 after years of alcohol abuse had caused his liver and kidneys to collapse, during which he was placed in a medically induced coma for a week to ward off withdrawal symptoms. Sum 41 announced in May that they were splitting after 27 years together following the release of their double-album swan song, Heaven :x: Hell.”

The post from Whibley concluded with a promise to keep fans informed of the singer’s progress. “I know how strong he is because I have witnessed what he has been able to overcome but that doesn’t make it any easier to see” she wrote. “I’ll do my best to keep everyone updated but if you could keep him in your heart over the next few days, we could really use it.”

On Sunday, Whibley provided that promised update on her husband’s health, writing that, “Deryck was discharged after responding so well to his treatments. He is now under the care of his mother who is a registered nurse and myself. The pressure and strain on his heart and lungs has improved and he is able to breath without as much pain.”

Sum 41 — who have been on the road this summer on what they said would be their final tour — are slated to play the When We Were Young Festival in Las Vegas in late October alongside a packed lineup including Green Day, Rise Against, Thirty Seconds to Mars, The Offspring, Simple Plan and many more. At press time a spokesperson for Sum 41 could not be reached for further comment on Whibley’s health or the status of the band’s upcoming dates.

See Ariana Whibley’s posts below.

18 Sep 2023

Olivia Rodrigo Loves That Your Dad Rocks Out to Her Songs Too: ‘It Just Makes Me Feel Less Alone’

If you’ve been blasting Olivia Rodrigo‘s GUTS album in your room lately and you find your dad singing along a bit too excitedly to “Get Him Back!,” you’re not alone. The 20-year-old singer told People magazine that her angsty pop-punk anthems about teenage drama and the pain of being pure at heart appear to be landing with fans beyond her Gen Z target audience.

“I actually think that I’m really excited by the way that people are getting behind artists that normally would be deemed for young people,” she told the magazine. “I love interacting with fans who are my age and people who are going through the struggles that I’m going through in real time, but it’s been really fun also to experience those girls’ dads be like, ‘Wow, I remember when I was going through that heartbreak.’”

Specifically, Rodrigo said her Grammy-winning Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 breakthrough single “Drivers License” seemed to cross over to a much wider audience than listeners her age experiencing the highs and lows of first love. “I remember when that came out, people of all walks of life would just come up to me and be like, ‘I remember exactly where I was when I was experiencing that heartbreak for the first time,’” Rodrigo said of the 2021 hit. “It’s just such a cool thing to see that we’re all so much more alike than we are different. It just makes me feel less alone. I’m just like, ‘Wow, my experiences aren’t really that unique. Everyone has experienced some sort of pain or loss and insecurity.’”

The good news for Rodrigo — whose sophomore album, GUTS, just debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart in its first week — was that her songs are making it so that “people are starting to take teenage girl music a little more seriously, which I’m really happy about.”

It’s not just dads, though, according to The Daily Beast (pay-walled). The site spoke to AP reporter Maria Sherman, who said that she’s noticed another recent evolution in the demo obsessing over Rodrigo’s music that further widens the singer’s reach. “We’re seeing that conversation evolve where it’s accepted that people of all ages, particularly older women, are relating to and feeling for Olivia Rodrigo, and now there’s a connection with men, too,” she said. “Not to say that they weren’t listening to it, but I’ve certainly seen this conversation come up quite a bit.”

These millennial men, dubbed “Rodri-Bros” by the Beast, have no problem singing along, and relating to, the singer’s emo tales of romantic wreckage. One of those bros, 35-year-old Brooklynite Jeff, said he was a fan because of the “Gen Z of it all. I think I’m just sort of fascinated by that generation. In the last few years, I’ve started realizing that as a smack-dab-in-the-middle millennial, I’m no longer part of the young, fun, progressive generation, at least comparatively. I really like the openness and maturity and vulnerability in her music that I think is indicative of a lot of Gen Z.”

The allure might also have something to do with an initial attraction to Rodrigo’s signature sound, which mixes pop songcraft with a heavy nod to late ’90s and early 2000’s bands that appealed to these guys in the first place, including My Chemical Romance, Paramore and Dashboard Confessional.

The main reason so many of these wicked sensitive dudes say they aren’t afraid to harmonize along with “Deja Vu,” though, is precisely because Rodrigo taps so directly into the universal feelings of being a teenager. “She captures a lot of the experience of being an insecure teen without compromising a more adult voice to do so,” said married high school teacher Jesse, 34. “Even if you don’t like her music, I don’t know that there are many artists that are able to thread that needle in the same way.”

18 Sep 2023

Leslie Jones Says Chris Rock Attended Counseling After Will Smith Oscars Slap: ‘That S–t Was Humiliating’

Even though Chris Rock was able to make jokes about Will Smith slapping him at last year’s Oscars during his live Netflix special earlier this year, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, good friend Leslie Jones said the effects of that on-stage assault were much deeper than the public has seen.

“That s–t was humiliating. It really affected him,” Jones told People magazine in an interview promoting her new memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones (featuring a forward from Rock). “People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters.”

Jones said the incident “infuriated” her when she watched Rock get slapped hard across the face by Smith during the awards ceremony. “You don’t know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there,” she said. “I was so f–king mad on so many levels.” The former SNL cast member and stand-up comedian said that for a long time she was just mad about the incident in which Smith — who would win a best actor Oscar later in the night for his starring role in the Williams family tennis biopic King Richard — stormed the stage and assaulted Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

“Chris Rock did a f—ing joke,” Jones said of Rock’s quip. I know Will, too… I was like, you couldn’t handle that s–t afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching.”

On the night of the incident, Smith leapt from his seat and slapped Rock hard across the face after the comedian made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, which, Rock later said, he was not aware was a result of the singer/actress’ struggle with alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that can cause hair loss and balding.

When she talked to Rock about the incident later, Jones said she asked the fellow stand-up why he didn’t just run away when he saw Smith charging at him. “‘I would’ve been running around that stage like “Will, calm down. Jada, call your man!,’” Jones said, adding that she also wished that Smith had reacted to the moment differently. (It did not appear as if People reached out to Smith or Rock’s camps for comment.)

“He could have still fixed it,” she said of Smith, who was back on stage a short time later to accept his best actor award. If Jones had her way, Smith would have offered an immediate, heartfelt apology to Rock, along the lines of: “‘I shouldn’t have did that. Bring Chris out. I can not accept the Oscar right now because that was f—ing wrong.’”

Instead, during his acceptance speech, Smith issued a mea culpa of sorts for his actions earlier in the night — without mentioning Rock — with the comedian later declining to press charges. Following a more formal apology to Rock, Smith resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which banned him from attending any Academy events for 10 years; Smith is still eligible for future Oscar nominations and will keep the award he won in 2022.