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Chappell Roan is over-the-top. The “Hot To Go” singer who has established a reputation for elaborate costumes and aesthetics inspired by drag queens can often seem like a character from a camp movie. And, as it turns out, there’s a good reason for that.
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During a conversation at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles moderated by Brandi Carlile on Thursday night (Nov. 7), Roan talked about making her breakthrough album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and how the woman born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz transformed into megawatt pop star Chappell Roan.
“Chappell is a character,” Roan, 26, told Carlile, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “I just can’t be here all the time. It’s just too much.”
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Roan explained that it took “a lot of years” to convince people that her debut album was worth releasing. Recorded with producer Dan Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo), the LP which has logged 32 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart was released in 2023 after five years of work. “I had no money. I had no numbers backing me up,” she said. “I had an EP [2017’s School Nights] that did not do well by the music standards. I had toured, but no headlines. There was nothing backing me up.”
The star said that one of the early songs she worked on with Nigro, signature banger “Pink Pony Club” — which she performed during her Saturday Night Live musical debut last weekend — was released at the “worst time” for a club anthem, April 2020, during the early peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was, however, the track that helped her pull off a “complete 180” from how she dressed and performed at the time, which consisted of wearing “only black on stage. It was very serious.” But, she noted, as soon as she stopped taking herself so seriously “things started working.”
Roan has been open about how her rocket ride to fame has been disorienting. In addition to recently being being diagnosed with severe depression amid her Midwest Princess tour, she was previously diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. The singer canceled two shows on her tour in September just days before they were set to take place after saying she needed a break after feeling overwhelmed.
Asked by Carlile to describe her mental health routine, Roan said it is evolving in the wake of her sudden success this year. “My life is completely different now. Everything is out of whack right now,” she said. “This type of year does something to people. Every big thing that happens in someone’s career happened in five months for me. It’s so crazy that things I never thought would happen happened times 10. I think that that just really rocked my system. I don’t know what a good mental health routine looks like for me right now.”
Roan debuted a new song, the country pop tune “The Giver,” on SNL, just weeks after appearing to tease her next music era in an Instagram post in which she shared selfies and hinted at the follow-up to her debut breakthrough LP. “Album kinda popped off imo but it is time to welcome a hot new bombshell into the villa,” she captioned the pics, in a reference to the Love Island catchphrase welcoming new contestants, which led fans to speculate that she’s working on her second LP. In addition, Nigro has teased that Roan’s next album will be a “new version” of her.
A press release from the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s office No. 14 in Argentina has revealed the final results of toxicology tests taken in the wake of Liam Payne‘s death. According to a translated copy of the report, in the 72 hours before the former One Direction singer and solo star died after falling from a three-story hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he had “alcohol, cocaine and prescription antidepressants” in his system.
The report said that the toxicology report findings have already been shared with Payne’s family, and that they found that he had “only traces of polydrug use” based on “the complete toxicology tests on urine, blood and vitreous humour, carried out in a very short time.”
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The officials who carried out the autopsy concluded that the 31-year-old star’s death was caused by “‘multiple trauma’ and ‘internal and external hemorrhage,’ the result of the fall the musician suffered from the balcony of the third-floor room of the hotel in the Palermo neighborhood where he was staying.”
Three additional reports on requested by a prosecutor also confirmed that the injures Payne sustained were caused by a fall at the Casa Sur Palermo Hotel from a height and that “self-harm of any kind and/or physical intervention by third parties were ruled out.” In addition, authorities reported that Payne did not adopt a “reflex posture” to protect himself from the fall, which led to the conclusion that he “may have fallen in a state of semi- or total unconsciousness.”
Specifically, “the lack of defense or self-preservation reflex in the fall, together with other relevant data from his consumption, allow us to conclude that Liam Payne was not fully conscious or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall.” The prosecution said that, as such, they were able to rule out the “possibility of a conscious or voluntary act on the part of the victim, since, in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing nor could he understand it.”
A frantic 911 call placed by staff shortly before Payne’s death included a description of a guest who was “overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol” and “destroying [their] entire room.” By the time police arrived, Payne had already fallen and died at the scene due to his injuries
Prior to the release of the results, investigators reportedly found a number of illicit substances in Payne’s body at the time of death, including a recreational drug called “pink cocaine,” a mixture of substances that often contains ketamine combined with MDMA, methamphetamine, cocaine, opioids and/or psychoactive substances.
Payne had been candid in the past about his struggles with addiction. In May 2023, he celebrated 100 days of sobriety, saying at the time, “I feel really, really good, and support from the fans and everything has been really, really good. So, I’m super happy.” In 2021, Payne also discussed his substance use issues on the podcast Diary of a CEO podcast, detailing a struggle with depression and substances during the chaotic 1D years.
Police raided the hotel last month and reportedly seized a number of items, including computer hard drives and CCTV footage from hotel cameras.
In addition to the news on the autopsy results, the Thursday press release revealed that three people have been arrested and charged in Argentina in connection with Payne’s death after “illicit conduct was discovered,” leading to the charges of abandonment of a person followed by death, supply and facilitation of narcotics.”
The three were described — but not named — as a person who “accompanied the artist on a daily basis during his stay in the city of Buenos Aires,” who was charged with abandonment of a person followed by death, which carries a potential sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. A second person was described as a hotel employee who “must answer for two proven supplies of cocaine to Liam Payne during the period he was at the hotel” while a third, also a “drug supplier,” has also been charged with supplying narcotics.
The probe into Payne’s death included the analysis of more than 800 hours of video footage from security cameras in the hotel and on adjacent public roads, as well as a forensic extraction and analysis of the contents of the singer’s cellphone, including calls, messages, chats and social network data. Investigators also looked over a record of Payne’s orders at the hotel bar/restaurant to determine who had visited him and their food/drink “consumption habits.”
Police also extracted several gigabytes of data from cell phones belonging to hotel reception and other witnesses who voluntarily offered to corroborate their statements.
The new SUNSET BLVD: The Album musical cast recording, led by Nicole Scherzinger, debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Cast Albums chart dated Nov. 9. The Cast Albums chart ranks the top-selling cast recordings of the week in the United States, based on traditional album sales, according to data tracking firm Luminate. The Nov. 9-dated […]
Country star Zach Bryan is now at the center of serious allegations from his former girlfriend, Barstool podcast host and internet personality Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia.
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In a Nov. 8 episode of the BFFs Podcast LaPaglia co-hosts with Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards, she made a series of bombshell claims, including accusing Bryan of “emotional abuse” during their relationship and claiming she was offered $12 million and a New York apartment to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), which she refused.
“The last year of my life has been like the hardest year of my life dealing with the abuse from this dude,” LaPaglia said on the podcast episode. “I’m still scared right now because I’m scared of him. My brain’s rewired, and I’m scared to make him mad.”
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LaPaglia alleges the pair shared a tumultuous relationship marked by fear and control. “There was always another excuse as to why he was treating me so poorly and why I’m crying myself to sleep every night, why he’s screaming at me,” she recounted. “And then you wake up, it’s the apology, it’s the ‘I’m going to be better, I need you in my life.’”
She alleged that Bryan made his previous girlfriends sign NDAs to prevent them from discussing their experiences publicly. “He made the women before me believe that they had no other choice than to take money from you, sign their experiences away, sign what they went through away,” she claimed.
According to LaPaglia, after their breakup, she was approached by Bryan’s team with a significant financial offer in exchange for her silence.
“I was offered a lot of money, like a big lump sum of money and a few options,” she explained. “Basically, I would have gotten the money over the course of three years. I would have had to sign all of my experiences, everything that I am, away to this person. They would have been monitoring everything that I do.”
She firmly rejected the offer, stating, “I did not accept any money. I will not accept any money. I think that’s beneath me. I don’t think you can pay people off that you hurt for them to protect you. I think that in itself, offering millions of dollars to this apparent beautiful relationship to keep it a secret, speaks volumes.”
LaPaglia explained her desire to support others who may be facing similar situations. “This isn’t about drama for me,” she said. “This is for anyone else that’s been emotionally abused and for people right now being emotionally abused. It’s for people that don’t have a support system that I luckily had going through this.”
She recounted specific incidents during their relationship, including one at the Golden Globes. LaPaglia claimed Bryan “ruined” her experience because he disapproved of her dress. “That was f—– crazy. That was the first time he had really tried to control what I wore and what I posted,” she recalled. “So I went to the Golden Globes and I posted like a carousel of pictures, and he didn’t like my dress.”
“He said he didn’t want to date someone that presents themselves that way. And he unfollowed me, he unfollowed everyone, and I… when I flew home — I flew home after the Golden Globes. He ruined my night,” continued LaPaglia.
“Everything good, anything good I did for me, he made sure to ruin it for me. He ruined my birthday, he ruined my tour, he ruined the Golden Globes. Anything Brianna did for Brianna, he had to ruin it.”
LaPaglia also described an alleged incident on her birthday, where Bryan reportedly berated her friends after she had gone to bed. “I look outside and I have my aunt trying to control Zach — there’s a recording of all of this that can never be out — basically Zach stood up at the fire and he just starts screaming at my friends.”
“He stood up at the fire and just starts screaming at my friends, ‘You’re not going to be anything, you’re a [expletive] loser.’ Just the most horrible [expletive],” she explained, adding that Bryan smashed glass. “It was just crazy, completely out of nowhere, and I’m like, ‘What the [expletive]?’ But when Zach gets in that zone, there’s no containing it.”
In another instance, LaPaglia claimed Bryan had smashed her phone, saying to her co-hosts, “Oh, Look at my phone, it’s smashed from him, he’s always smashed my phone,” adding that he “will whip it at a wall.”
She also alleged that Bryan attempted to control her professional life. “He offered to double what [Barstool Sports] offered me so that I would quit,” she said. “He just didn’t want me to do it and he always made it—he twisted it in my head where he would make me be like, ‘You’re better than this, you’re better than Barstool, you’re destined for so much more.’”
LaPaglia shared that she felt isolated and lost during the relationship, which was made public in July 2023. They dated for over a year before he confirmed their split in October.
“I lost myself throughout this whole relationship,” she admitted. “I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I lost 15 pounds I didn’t have to lose in the relationship. I didn’t sleep. I was completely isolated from my family, from my friends, from work.”
Billboard has reached out to Zach Bryan’s representatives for comment but has not received a response as of publication.
It comes after co-hosts Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards released a diss track aimed at Zach Bryan. The track, which mocked Bryan and referenced the allegations, reportedly faced multiple takedown attempts.
“We knew it was a hit the second we laid it down,” Richards said on the podcast. Portnoy added, “We got crybaby Bryan and the spineless PR team running around deleting [expletive] off the internet, and guess what, it’s still getting millions of views.”
Portnoy claimed that Bryan’s team attempted to suppress the diss track through legal means. “They’re trying to squeeze Bri because of Josh and me,” he said. “We have nothing to do with it. Either pay her or shut the [expletive] up. I’m losing patience.”
The diss track was eventually removed from several platforms, allegedly due to takedown requests from Bryan’s team. “Their crisis management—why he cares so much—is, I guess, what we’ll get into now,” Portnoy commented.
LaPaglia expressed that sharing her story was important not just for herself but for others in similar situations: “That’s why I didn’t take the money. The message I want to put out there is that so many people go through this, feeling trapped or thinking they’ll never be able to leave.”
She added later, “I hope people can understand what I went through this past year and see why I lost myself and wasn’t who I was before him. But I’m back now, and I’m so happy to just be myself again. No more dictatorship here.”
Just a day before the allegations emerged, Bryan shared his latest single, “This World’s a Giant,” with a a candid Instagram post, where he revealed his plans to pause touring to pursue a master’s degree in Paris.
“After not being home for a year and a half, I drove out to my mother’s gravestone in the dead of night… and I came to realize just like in the past, that she never would call me again,” he wrote, sharing a series of images of his late mother, Annette, and his bandmates.
Bryan continued, “I told her I quit touring because I got accepted to get my masters in Paris next year… I told her about all my best friends in New York and all the nights we howled with the moon… [and] about making it on The Rolling Stone.”
He expressed gratitude to fans, adding, “Thank you guys for listening to ‘This World’s a Giant’ last night, and thank you to all the people who love me; who have truly carried the weight with me… I’m home now and I’ll hold you through the pain.”
You can watch the full episode here.
Charlie Puth is in the festive mood, and to celebrate, he dropped a new holiday song, “December 25th,” on Thursday (Nov. 7). “December 25th is the day I always miss you the most/ ‘Cause the music and the lights, it reminds me of a night/ That you told me you had to go/ December 25th […]
The holiday duo we didn’t know we needed! Former Phildelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce teamed up with the legendary Stevie Nicks for a cover of Ron Sexsmith’s “Maybe This Christmas,” released on Friday (Nov. 8) via Vera Y Records. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Maybe forgiveness […]
Andrea Bocelli lands his 12th top 10-charting effort on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Nov. 9) with his new compilation, Duets: 30th Anniversary. The star-studded set — which includes previously released collaborations as well as newly-recorded pairings — enters the chart at No. 6 with 20,000 copies sold in the United States in the week ending Oct. 31, according to Luminate.
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Duets: 30th Anniversary also debuts atop Billboard’s overall Classical Albums chart and Classical Crossover Albums chart. It marks his 22nd and 16th leaders on the lists, respectively, extending his record for the most No. 1s in each chart’s history. On the Billboard 200, the new Duets set enters at No. 24, landing Bocelli his 21st top 40-charting set on the all-genre ranking.
The project, which celebrates Bocelli’s 30th anniversary in music, includes new performances with the likes of Chris Stapleton, Gwen Stefani and Shania Twain, alongside previously released duets with Sarah Brightman, Céline Dion, Ed Sheeran and many others.
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Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units.
The Classical Albums chart ranks the most popular classical albums of the week, ranked by equivalent album units. The Classical Crossover Albums chart ranks the top-selling classical crossover titles of the week.
The rest of the top 10 on the latest Top Album Sales chart is filled with debuts and re-entries – only one title is a holdover from the previous week.
Tyler, the Creator’s CHROMAKOPIA bows at No. 1 with 142,000 copies sold (his best sales week ever and third No. 1) while Halsey’s The Great Impersonator debuts at No. 2 with 81,000. Both albums’ sales were bolstered by an array of boxed sets and variants in their first week of availability.
Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) re-enters at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with 37,000 sold (up 1,954%) following its release on vinyl and cassette. Kelsea Ballerini’s Patterns opens at No. 4 with 35,000 sold (her second-largest sales week), aided by multiple physical and digital variants (including a signed CD and a signed vinyl).
Grateful Dead’s latest live archival project, Dave’s Picks, Volume 52: The Downs at Sante Fe, Santa Fe, NM – 9/11/83, bows at No. 5 with 20,000 sold. SEVENTEEN’s chart-topping SPILL THE FEELS falls 1-7 in its second week (18,000; down 72%).
iTZY lands its sixth top 10-charting set on Top Album Sales as GOLD debuts at No. 8 with 14,000 sold. The album’s sales were supported by its availability across 11 collectible CD variants, each containing collectible paper ephemera. Aespa’s Whiplash starts at No. 9 with nearly 14,000 sold, marking the sixth top 10 for the act. Whiplash was issued in five different CD variants.
Rounding out the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart is Green Day’s chart-topping American Idiot, which re-enters at No. 10 with nearly 13,000 sold (up 1,989%). The album was first released in 2004, and was reissued on Oct. 25 for its 20th anniversary in an array of deluxe editions, some containing a wealth of bonus tracks. American Idiot spent three nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2004-05.
More than two years since Mariah Carey was hit with legal action for allegedly stealing her perennial holiday hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, a California judge has said she feels “inclined” to grant Carey’s request for the motion to be dismissed.
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The legal saga dates back to the summer of 2022, when Mississippi artist Vince Vance (real name Andy Stone) filed a copyright lawsuit, claiming that Carey’s seasonal blockbuster infringed upon his 1989 song of the same name. Vance sought $20m from the lawsuit but ultimately dropped the case that November.
One year later, in November 2023, the lawsuit was refiled with the same basic accusations, though with greater detail added, and the addition of co-plaintiff Troy Powers, who claims to have co-written the earlier song.
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“Carey has without licensing, palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own,” Vance’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Her hubris knowing no bounds, even her co-credited songwriter doesn’t believe the story she has spun. This is simply a case of actionable infringement.”
The new lawsuit went into further details about the similarities, noting “unique linguistic structure” and specific musical elements, and claiming it’s a “greater than 50% clone of Vance’s original work”.
This past August, Carey’s legal team requested the lawsuit be dropped, noting that Vance’s claims fail the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s “extrinsic test for substantial similarity in protectable expression” — essentially arguing that any similarities between the two songs are coincidental.
Now, as Rolling Stone reports, U.S. District Court Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani says she’s “inclined” to grant that request. Furthermore, Almadani has stated she is “seriously considering” granting a related motion filed by Carey’s team requesting sanctions against the plaintiffs for what is alleged to be a “frivolous” filing.
In his argument, Gerald P. Fox, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, noted it is “not required” they show the song is “identical” or “virtual plagiarism”, but rather that only “a certain arrangement of notes has to be unique, or the melody, or any aspect of the composition that’s copied or similar”.
Carey’s lawyer, Peter Anderson, argued that the similarities that have been identified by musicologists hired by the plaintiffs amount to phrases such as “Santa Claus” and “mistletoe” – lyrics which Carey’s team have claimed are public domain.
“These are random similarities. Five or so Christmas tropes that make these Christmas songs,” Anderson claimed. “Importantly, there are eight or nine other Christmas tropes in their work that don’t appear in ours. And eight or nine in ours that don’t appear in theirs.”
Judge Almadani has not yet issued a ruling on the case, and has not indicated when a ruling is expected.First released in October 1994 as the first single from Carey’s Merry Christmas album, “All I Want for Christmas is You” is one of the most popular holiday songs in history. For the past four years, it has re-charted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the holiday season.
Veteran glam-metal outfit Poison are set to take to the stage once again in the near future, drummer Rikki Rockett has confirmed.
The group, who formed in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania in 1983, have been largely sporadic in their existence over the past 15 years, with their most recent run of shows occurring in 2022 alongside Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe.
However, speaking to Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation, Rockett—who has played with the group since their inception—has said a 2026 comeback is in the works.
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Trunk approached the topic when he told the drummer that frontman Bret Michaels had been in contact and urged him to ask about the band’s future.
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“When I announced on socials about a week ago when I knew you were going to come on today,” Trunk explained. “Bret sent me a text – Bret Michaels – a day or two ago, and he said, ‘Hey, I hear you’re gonna have Rockett on. Send him my love and tell him Poison 2026.’”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. ’26 is for sure gonna happen,” Rockett confirmed. “I mean, unless some unforeseen thing happens, but all band members have stuck their hand in and said, ‘Yeah, we’re definitely doing it – without a doubt.’”
Poison released their first album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, in 1986, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 that same year. Their follow-up, 1988’s Open Up and Say… Ahh!, would chart one spot higher, with 1990’s Flesh & Blood repeating that feat.
Despite singles such as “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” topping the Hot 100, and other hits like “Talk Dirty to Me”, “Nothin’ But a Good Time”, and “Unskinny Bop” all reaching the top ten, Poison didn’t score another charting hit past 1993, with their final album—a covers record titled Poison’d!—arriving in 2007.
Since then, Michaels has embarked upon a solo career in addition to becoming a reality TV star thanks to the likes of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels and The Celebrity Apprentice.
Earlier this year, Michaels confirmed he would be taking “most, if not all, of 2025 off” due to “physical adversity” he explained to be “diabetes, a brain hemorrhage, skin cancer and [his] self-titled ‘headbanger’s neck’.”
Michaels, who had previously experienced a raft of health issues, told fans earlier this year that he would be “taking most, if not all, of 2025 off” due to some encounters with “physical adversity”, which he clarified to be “diabetes, a brain hemorrhage, skin cancer and Bret’s self-titled ‘headbanger’s neck’.”
Lizzo has a message of positivity for followers following Donald Trump’s election win this week. Two days after Election Day ended with the twice-impeached former POTUS securing his second term in the White House, the 36-year-old musician shared a video on Instagram captioned with a simple rainbow emoji Thursday (Nov. 7). In the clip, only […]