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Nelly Furtado is taking a break from the stage.
On Friday (Oct. 24), the 46-year-old pop veteran announced on social media that she’s stepping back from live performances for the “foreseeable future” to focus on new “creative and personal endeavors.” The decision comes as she reflects on how fans have reconnected with her music in recent years.
“I have decided to step away from performance for the foreseeable future and pursue some other creative and personal endeavors that I feel would better suit this next phase of my life,” Furtado wrote on Instagram. “I have enjoyed my career immensely , and I still love writing music as I have always seen it as a hobby I was lucky enough to make into a career. I’ll identify as a songwriter forever.”
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The announcement coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Grammy winner’s debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, which peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard 200 in January 2001.
Furtado’s carousel post opened with a throwback photo of herself at 20, just before her first professional performance at Lilith Fair in 1999. The next slide jumped to a video from her recent show in Berlin, where she shared that she “finally understanding what receiving flowers means” as the crowd repeatedly chanted her name.
“My music has reached a whole new generation of fans and I couldn’t be happier about that,” she continued. “In the year 2000 I remember feeling purpose in hoping some kid would dust off the Whoa, Nelly! vinyl one day in a record shop and think it was cool or inspiring, so I never could have guessed that there would be so many new ways to discover ‘old’ music in 2025!”
She added, “To have so many people rediscovering my music has been surreal and joyful. It’s been so fun embracing this opportunity, getting out on stages again and seeing up close, the true lasting power of good music. It’s made me really believe in magic.”
Furtado’s most recent album, 7, arrived in 2024. “The key for me, with this new album, is just getting back into the craft,” she told People of the project, which she created alongside her daughter Nevis. “It’s like a whole new me, who’s stronger, braver, more confident.”
See Furtado’s full announcement on Instagram below.
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Olivia Rodrigo closed out her blockbuster Guts World Tour with a secret show in New York City on Thursday night (Oct. 23), playing to an intimate crowd of fans, friends, and celebrity guests inside the historic Park Avenue Armory.
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The invite-only event, hosted by American Express, featured a setlist packed with fan favorites — including “Drivers License,” “Vampire,” “Deja Vu” and “Sour” — as well as the rare live performance of “Lacy,” a track that has taken on a viral life of its own since being featured on the TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty.
“Ever since it was in that show, people have been chanting at me at concerts to sing this song if I wasn’t going to sing it,” Rodrigo told the crowd. “And so I’m really grateful to that show, and I’m really grateful to you guys for listening to this song and streaming it, because it’s always been one of my favorites.”
The “Good 4 U” singer also welcomed young fans from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, meeting with several attendees before the show. Proceeds from ticket sales benefited Rodrigo’s own Fund 4 Good, an initiative launched to support education, reproductive rights, and young women’s leadership programs.
Among those in attendance were Emily in Paris star Ashley Park, The Bear’s Molly Gordon, Vampire Diaries alum Nina Dobrev, makeup artist Patrick Ta, Good American founder Emma Grede, and interior designer Jeremiah Brent.
Rodrigo performed beneath the soaring arches of the Armory’s Drill Hall — a venue steeped in New York military history — which once housed the Seventh Regiment of the National Guard, the first volunteer militia to answer Abraham Lincoln’s call in 1861.
The secret concert marked the final stop on Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour, which kicked off earlier this year in Palm Springs and has since spanned over 75 dates across North America and Europe.
Rodrigo has charted on the Billboard Hot 100 numerous times. Her 2021 hit “Drivers License” was No. 1 for a whopping eight weeks. In total so far, she has three Hot 100 No. 1s and made headlines for her 2025 Lollapalooza performance, including a set during which she brought out Weezer.
Trending on Billboard Guns N’ Roses have issued a statement addressing frontman Axl Rose’s apparent outburst during the band’s Oct. 18 concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina. During the opening number “Welcome to the Jungle” at Estadio Huracán, Rose was seen kicking the bass drum, throwing his microphone toward the drum kit, and walking offstage after […]
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Jon Bon Jovi is reflecting on decades of friendship and influence as he celebrates Forever (Legendary Edition), a newly expanded version of Bon Jovi’s 2024 album that features fresh collaborations with Bruce Springsteen and Jelly Roll.
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Speaking on SiriusXM’s Bon Jovi Radio, the frontman opened up about how his longtime New Jersey peer Bruce Springsteen ended up contributing harmonica to a new version of “Hollow Man,” a fan-favorite track from Forever.
“As I wrote this song, I was basically asking the heavens to make me a conduit,” Bon Jovi explained. “Give me the message, where am I going with this? I am the hollow man, fill me up with information and I’ll write it down. What do you sing when your song’s been sung?”
After hearing the demo, Springsteen called Bon Jovi the next morning. “He says, ‘I can’t get that one out of my head,’” Bon Jovi recalled. “Now you know, you’re talking to not only your childhood hero but one of the great American songwriters of the last half century.”
The Boss later agreed to lend his signature harmonica sound to the track. “I want it to be like that. Come and join my story,” Bon Jovi said. “He said, ‘I got it. Just leave it to me.’”
The full-circle moment wasn’t lost on Bon Jovi, who remembered the early days when he was just a kid in the crowd watching Springsteen perform on Sunday nights in Asbury Park. “I was that kid in the crowd while [Bruce] was jumping up with the guy that became our side man,” he said, adding, “It’s 45 years later and I just got to be me. So the whole thing is just kooky surreal.”
Forever (Legendary Edition) also features “Living Proof,” a duet with country star Jelly Roll. Bon Jovi first met the “Need a Favor” hitmaker at the 2024 MusiCares Person of the Year gala in Los Angeles, where Jelly Roll performed in tribute to the band.
“I was in love with him from that moment on,” Bon Jovi said. “I’ve gotten to know Bunnie, his wife, and her story. I’m absolutely in awe of them.”
The original Forever debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart. Its lead single “Legendary” reached No. 9 on the Adult Contemporary tally. Despite its strong debut, the album dropped off the Billboard 200 after just one week.
The Legendary Edition arrives as the band marks four decades together and caps off a reflective season for Bon Jovi, who also premiered the Hulu docuseries Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story earlier this year.
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2Pac‘s classic song “Brenda’s Got a Baby” was inspired by a true story — and the story continues.
The rapper wrote the song addressing teen pregnancy in America’s ghettos while he was filming his star-turning role as Bishop in Juice after coming across a story in the news about a 12-year-old girl who threw her baby in a trash chute after being impregnated by her 21-year-old cousin. The track has since become one of the late entertainer’s most important records in his extensive catalog.
Enter bestselling author Jeff Pearlman.
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During a recent appearance on The Rich Eisen Show to promote his new book Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur, Pearlman dropped a bombshell after being asked if he came across anybody that didn’t want to talk to him when he was trying to put the book together. “I didn’t get Dr. Dre or Snoop Dogg, but they’re hard to get anyway,” he said. “I did find most people. The vast majority. Classmates, people who worked with him in music, even Death Row employees were pretty open about talking.”
He then revealed that he “had a breakthrough very early on.”
Pearlman found the man who heard the baby crying in the trash chute and interviewed him, but it wasn’t until he spoke with Leila Steinberg, who the author referred to as a former associate manager/confidant. According to him, Steinberg made a comment about whether the story about the baby was true and wondered what eventually happened to the baby, which then sent him on a side mission to see what he could find.
He then reached out to genealogist Michele Soulli to see if she would be able to locate the baby. A few days later, she gave him the number to a Las Vegas resident named Davonn Hodge. They two met up, and Hodge told Pearlman that he found his relatives with the help of Ancestry.com and had a reunion but his mother wasn’t there. Pearlman again employed Soulli to help him find the mother and a few days later, she got in contact with a woman that was living in Newark, NJ.
Now, this is where things get really weird.
The woman expressed shock and excitement and told Soulli that she had to go back home to New York City to reunite with her baby. When Soulli asked where she was at the moment, the woman said she was in Vegas for a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.
She was reunited with her son Davonn later that night after 34 long years.
You can check out the full conversation below.
Trending on Billboard Cardi B is using some discretion when it comes with her ongoing beef with fellow rapper BIA. During a recent X Spaces, the Bronx rapper told fans listening in that she has no intentions of dissing BIA’s album sales as she was in the middle of a rant about bullies. “I don’t […]
Trending on Billboard Justin Bieber showed Odeal nothing but love and respect when the Nigerian-British star visited L.A. last week for his sold-out show at The Roxy. Both artists were seen casually hanging out in the video from Odeal’s The Shows That Saved Me tour vlog series posted Friday (Oct. 24) on YouTube, where Odeal […]
Trending on Billboard Hailey Bieber is setting the record straight regarding a rumor she’s heard about herself and Justin Bieber — and she says there’s “no world” in which it would be true. While guesting on the In Your Dreams With Owen Thiele podcast posted Friday (Oct. 24), the Rhode founder didn’t have to think […]
Trending on Billboard As Outkast’s “Ms. Jackson” celebrates its 25th anniversary on Friday (Oct. 24), Erykah Badu revealed her doubts about being the muse behind the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit. Explore See latest videos, charts and news Badu joined Popcast for an interview earlier this week, where she discussed being the subject of […]
Trending on Billboard Volbeat scores a milestone No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, jumping two spots to the top of the Nov. 1-dated survey with “Time Will Heal.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news It’s the 12th leader for Volbeat and second in a row, following “By a Monster’s Hand,” which reigned […]
