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America’s Got Talent Season 19 reached a dramatic peak on Aug. 20 when Japanese dance and acrobatic group Airfootworks delivered a performance that ignited a heated response from the judges.
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The group’s gravity-defying routine set off a friendly clash between Simon Cowell and Howie Mandel, culminating in an unprecedented double Golden Buzzer moment (kind of).
As Airfootworks concluded their intricate and masterfully executed performance, which was set to “Celestial” by Ed Sheeran, Simon exclaimed, “Terry, I am just about to get myself fired,” before lunging for the Golden Buzzer.
However, Howie, who was officially assigned the buzzer for the night, quickly intervened. In a split-second move, Mandel pressed the buzzer just before Cowell could, securing Airfootworks a direct path to the finals.
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The ensuing moment was filled with lighthearted chaos, as both judges vied for credit. A video replay confirmed that Mandel had narrowly outpaced Cowell to the buzzer.
“I feel like I’ve been abused!” Mandel quipped, as the two exchanged playful banter over who deserved the accolade.
Mandel then joined Airfootworks on stage to personally commend them, saying, “You guys are athletes, you guys are dancers…you guys are magicians. I don’t know how you do it, but what you just did was absolutely brilliant.”
Cowell, still reveling in the moment, admitted, “I just couldn’t help myself! It was such an amazing performance that I felt like I had to be a part of it.” He added, “This is what this show is all about—finding acts like this that are truly world-class.”
This season, Cowell has already caused a stir by awarding a second Golden Buzzer to Sky Elements during the auditions, a move that led to all judges receiving an extra buzzer push.
With Airfootworks now fast-tracked to the finals, the remaining contestants from the night face an uphill battle as they compete for one of the three remaining spots through audience voting. The stakes are significant, and the competition is fierce.
The results of this live show will be unveiled during a special episode on Wednesday, Aug. 21, at 8 p.m. ET on NBC. Viewers will learn which acts will advance alongside Airfootworks, moving one step closer to the ultimate victory.
Check out Airfootworks earn a Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent below.
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Don McLean is a Swiftie.
The iconic singer-songwriter behind “American Pie” and “Vincent” recently spoke about Taylor Swift’s extraordinary success in an interview with The Standard.
McLean, whose song “American Pie (Parts I & II)” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in 1972, is impressed by Swift’s evolution from a rising country artist to a global powerhouse.
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“She is a person who is an example of what talent and really hard work can accomplish,” McLean said, describing Swift as a “monster star, the size of the galaxy.”
McLean continued, “She’s working all of the time, and she does everything that she does better than everybody else, whether it’s a video or a performance or songwriting or records or whatever… The only thing is that she stays happy.”
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Reflecting on his own career, McLean shared, “I have a lot of interests, and they sustain me. I don’t go around thinking ‘Man, why don’t I have this?’ or ‘Why don’t I have that?’ – that is the quickest way to be unhappy I can think of.”
McLean, who has sold over 50 million records worldwide, has been honored with numerous awards, including a Grammy Hall of Fame induction for “American Pie.”
Back in 2021, Swift sent McLean a note and a bouquet of flowers after her 10-minute version of “All Too Well” surpassed his song “American Pie (Parts I & II)” as the longest song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“What a classy artist!” McLean tweeted at the time, sharing Swift’s handwritten inscription that reads, “Don, I will never forget that I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. Your music has been so important to me. Sending love one writer of LONG SONGS to another. Your fan, Taylor.”
In the most recent interview, McLean also addressed the challenges Swift has faced in the music industry, particularly regarding the ownership of her early albums.
“The record companies are the biggest thieves on the planet. That was their business, stealing. You have to be very careful,” he said, referencing Swift’s legal battles to regain control of her discography from Scooter Braun, which led to her re-recording her first six studio albums.
Machine Gun Kelly has opened up about his struggle with addiction, revealing how a confronting conversation with his 15-year-old daughter, Casie, pushed him to get sober.
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On the Sunday, Aug. 18 episode of the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast, MGK (real name Colson Baker) recalled the moment that changed everything.
“It started with my daughter saying, ‘Dad, you know I can tell when you’re high?’ It broke my heart,” the “Emo Girl” singer shared. Casie was just 11 or 12 years old at the time. “It was the ultimate letdown.”
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“It took me a while afterward, because obviously drugs have a vice grip on you,” he continued. “That was step one for me. As a father and as a man, to be the father I wish my dad would have been, I have to break this generational curse for my kid.”
Earlier this month, Baker discussed his one-year sobriety milestone on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast.
“I’m completely sober from everything. I don’t drink anymore. I haven’t drank since last August,” he said. MGK quietly entered rehab after completing his European tour in 2023, battling alcohol, marijuana, and pills.
“They just gave me so many ways to operate the body, show where this anger is coming from, and methods to quell it,” he explained. He also credited his fiancée, Megan Fox, for helping him through the recovery process, saying, “Megan has for sure been extremely helpful in dealing with the kind of psychological withdrawals that come with [sobriety].”
Reflecting on his father’s struggles, MGK revealed on the Dumb Blonde podcast how deeply his family’s past has influenced him: “My father was so tormented from some of the most insane s—t I could imagine a kid could go through.”
Machine Gun kelly‘s determination to break the cycle of addiction and trauma in his family is clear: “As a father and as a man, to be the father I wish my dad would have been, I have to break this generational curse for my kid.”
In July, the proud dad celebrated Casie’s 15th birthday with a heartfelt tribute on Instagram, sharing moments from their life together. “The world spins but when I look at you it stops. Happy 15th princess,” he captioned a series of sweet photos.
Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga have been independently ruling pop radio for the past almost 15 years, and last week, they finally came together for their first collab: the bombastic pop/rock duet “Die With a Smile.” On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking about why they make such a potent […]
Lil Jon transported the 2024 Democratic National Convention to Atlanta when he made a surprise appearance to share the Georgia delegates’ votes for Vice President Kamala Harris during the DNC roll call on Tuesday night (Aug. 20). The roll call took on a new format this year, with DJ Cassidy introducing each state with its […]
Travis Kelce is heading to the big screen.
The Kansas City Chiefs football star, and boyfriend of Taylor Swift, has landed his first movie project as an actor.
Kelce is attached to star in Loose Cannons, an action comedy that is in the process of being set up at Lionsgate. Chad Stahelski, the John Wick filmmaker who has a first-look deal with Lionsgate, is producing with Jason Spitz, his partner at 87Eleven Entertainment, as well as Alex Young. Tim Dowling, whose credits include Adam Sandler comedy Just Go With It, wrote the script.
The premise centers on how every police precinct, at least in this movie’s world, has a crazy, out of control, rule-breaking officer on staff. But rather than pair them with a straight arrow and by the book partner, the premise here is that unhinged person is paired with someone just as out of line as they are.
In Cannons, two loose cannons are forced to partner up after their precincts merge due to budget cuts and no one wants to work with them. The duo end up taking on the cases no one else can.
The script is described as having tones of Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys and Rush Hour, all landmarks in the buddy action comedy genres.
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Cannons is the latest major step in Kelce’s climb of the Hollywood ladder. The sports star has long wanted to expand his portfolio into entertainment, appearing in an episode of Showtime comedy Moonbase 8 in 2020 and hosting Saturday Night Live in March 2023. The drive into Hollywood become more focused when the tight end signed with CAA in spring 2023.
Since then, he’s signed on to host a reboot of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader titled Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity for Amazon, while his first major acting role is the upcoming Ryan Murphy FX horror show Grotesquerie, which started production in May.
Stahelski is deeply ensconced in Lionsgate’s feature projects, acting as overseer of the Wick franchise for the company. He is also working on a remake of Highlander, which is a franchise hopeful and is to shoot next year after years of development.
Dowling made a name for himself with several big studio comedies, among them Universal’s Role Models, starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, and DreamWorks’ Office Christmas Party, starring Jason Bateman. On top of Sandler’s Just Go With It, he worked on the comedian’s big-budget 2015 entry Pixels. On the action front, he co-wrote the romantic spy movie This Means War, which starred Tom Hardy, Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Los Angeles-based trio LA LOM make their first Billboard chart appearance with debut album The Los Angeles League of Musicians, as the 13-track set launches at No. 5 on the Tropical Albums chart (dated Aug. 24).
“I know I wasn’t thinking about charts when we made the record,” Zac Sokolow, LA LOM’s guitar player, tells Billboard. “We’ve been really excited to have the opportunity to share our original music with people around the world, and we’re really happy to hear that the record is resonating with people.”
The Los Angeles League of Musicians was released Aug. 9 on Verve/VLG. That gives the label its first entry and top 10 on a Latin chart in over a decade, since Natalie Cole’s Natalie Cole En Español debuted at No. 1 on both, Top Latin Albums and Latin Pop Albums charts in January 2013.
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The Los Angeles League of Musicians (LA LOM is its acronym), opens at No. 5 on Tropical Albums with a little over 2,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. for the tracking week of Aug. 9-15, according to Luminate. Most of the album’s first week sum comprises traditional album sales, with a small amount of units through streaming activity. That equates to 358,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the album’s songs.
On Tropical Albums, one unit equals one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.
With The Los Angeles League of Musicians, LA LOM banks its first entry on a Billboard chart and its first top 10 on any ranking.
Notably, it’s just the third album to debut in the top five on Tropical Albums so far in 2024, after Prince Royce’s Llamada Perdida (No. 2 start in March) and Marc Anthony’s Muevense (No. 4 debut in May). Further LA LOM marks the third top five debut by a group this decade, joining El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico’s En Cuarentena and Buena Vista Social Club’s Ahora Me Da Pena EP, both which achieved a No. 3 opening in April 2021 and May 7, 2022, respectively.
“We all have a background playing different styles of music that we heard around Los Angeles, the city we all grew up in,” Sokolow adds. “Everything from classic soul, rockabilly, country, jazz, to traditional music from Eastern Europe. When we play cumbia, we bring all these elements from the city to our music. The tropical/cumbia that’s most popular around LA is probably the pop cumbia style from Mexico you hear on the radio, but there are also some really great bands that play music influenced by the chicha from Peru, or the vallenato style from Colombia. We play our own style from Los Angeles.”
Thanks to LA LOM’s U.S. growing footprint, the group, composed of Zac Sokolow (guitar), Jake Faulkner (bass), and Nicholas Baker (drums/percussion), concurrently makes its debut on the Emerging Artists chart, at No. 18. The tally ranks the most popular developing artists of the week, using the same formula as the all-encompassing Billboard Artist 100, which measures artist activity across multiple Billboard charts.
Further, the album takes LA LOM to its first appearance on Top Current Album Sales, where it arrives at No. 44.
“What you hear on the record is pretty close to the way we play live, but we always play the best when we are playing to a room full of dancers,” Sokolow concludes. “We’ve been pretty busy touring the last couple months and have dates coming up all over the world. Make sure to come see us when we make it to your town!”
The Democratic National Convention continued Tuesday night (Aug. 20) at Chicago’s United Center, and more music stars took the stage to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris‘ presidential nomination. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Patti LaBelle stepped onstage to deliver her 1977 hit “You Are My Friend” for the […]
Jennifer Lopez has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck after two years of marriage, according to People and first reported by TMZ.
The documents reportedly list the date of separation as April 26, 2024, but were filed on Aug. 20, which marks the two-year anniversary of their wedding ceremony in Georgia. Lopez and Affleck have yet to publicly announce their separation.
Lopez and Affleck first began dating back in 2002 after meeting on the set of Gigli, the first of two movies they would star in together (the second being Jersey Girl in 2004), before getting engaged. The couple delayed their planned 2003 wedding before calling it quits in 2004. Just a month after the couple officially tied the knot in Las Vegas, Bennifer celebrated their marriage in August 2022 in front of family and friends at their home in Riceboro on the Hampton Island preserve outside of Savannah, Georgia.
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The marriage marked Lopez’s fourth wedding, following Ojani Noa, Cris Judd and Marc Anthony. Affleck was previously married to Jennifer Garner.
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“I never thought that he and I would get back together,” Lopez told Billboard earlier this year of her relationship with the actor. “I just just couldn’t give up on idea that there was something amazing out there for me, even when it got really bad — and it did at times. I always believed deep, deep down to not give up completely. It wasn’t until I got to the point where I was really OK on my own and not having to be in a relationship when I feel like universe kind of opened up and said, ‘Well here you go.’”
She added of the duo sharing the astrological sign of Leo, “Let me tell you it’s fiery! It’s great, and it’s challenging. We are both very willful. If you know what Leos are like, you know we’re passionate. Oh my God, so passionate, the both of us. One of us gets on a tangent about something, it’s like, ‘Just sit down and let him have his moment.’ Or he needs to sit down and let me have my moment. We know each other in that way and we’re getting to know each other again, which is really beautiful too.”
Reports of trouble in the marriage began in the spring, when Affleck was notably absent from the Los Angeles and Mexico City premieres of Netflix’s Atlas, which J.Lo starred in. During a promo stop in Mexico City in May, a reporter asked, “Is your divorce with Ben Affleck real? These rumors?”
In video of the exchange, Lopez’s co-star Simu Liu jumped in and said, “Okay, we’re not doing that. Thank you so much guys, we really appreciate it. Thank you.” Lopez then looked at the the reporter and said, “You know better than that.”
She’s a real tough kid, and Taylor Swift proved it with her new music video for “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” which arrived on Tuesday (Aug. 20), shortly after she wrapped up the European leg of her Eras Tour in London. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, […]
