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50 Cent’s Sean Combs: The Reckoning documentary is set to hit Netflix on Tuesday (Dec. 2), and ahead of the explosive four-part docuseries’ arrival, 50 and director Alexandria Stapleton sat down with Robin Roberts for Good Morning America on Monday (Dec. 1) to reveal details of the opus about the Bad Boy Records founder’s fall from grace.
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The Reckoning obtained never-before-seen footage of Diddy that was reportedly slated for a doc that he was allegedly filming before the embattled Bad Boy mogul’s arrest in September 2024. One scene finds him in conversation with his legal team, imploring them to up their game.
“Listen to me, I am going to let you professionals look at the situation and come back to me with a solution,” Diddy said from what appears to be a hotel room. “Y’all are not working together the right way. We’re losing.”
There’s another scene that shows Diddy amongst the people in Harlem and then asking for hand sanitizer after getting into his car. “I been out in the streets amongst the people, I gotta take a bath. The amount of people I’m coming into contact with, that’s what I have to do,” Diddy said.
50 believes that the scene is a look into Combs’ manipulative ways. “It shows you his character,” longtime Diddy antagonist 50 told Roberts. “What’s the odds you would do that in front of a camera? That’s one of the moments he forgot he was on tape.”
A spokesperson for Combs relayed to the New York Times that they were “deeply concerned” about the inclusion of “private moments” before Diddy’s indictment that are included in the docuseries. “None of this was obtained from Sean Combs or his team, and its inclusion raises very serious questions about how this material was accessed and why Netflix chose to use it,” said Combs spokesperson Juda Engelmayer.
The G-Unit mogul pushed back against the narrative that he’s using the docuseries to needle his longtime foe instead of uplifting the victims’ stories.
“What they consider a pre-existing beef for 20 years is me being uncomfortable with him suggesting he takes me shopping,” 50 Cent added. “I looked at it like I was a tester — like, ‘Maybe you will come play with me.’”
The four-part series also includes interviews with two jurors who delivered the mixed verdict that found Combs guilty of prostitution charges in his federal trial, but dodging charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Combs was ultimately sentenced to 50 months in prison in October.
The Reckoning — which hits Netflix on Tuesday — will explore Combs’ federal trial and history of alleged sexual abuse. He’s repeatedly denied sexually assaulting anyone despite testimony from two former girlfriends at his trial alleging physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The doc will see contributions from former associates, friends, artists and employees who came forward to detail the world behind the Bad Boy empire.
Watch 50 Cent’s full interview with GMA below.
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The 61st Academy of Country Music Awards will return to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas next year following three years at Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas.
The show will stream live on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch on Sunday, May 17. This will be the fourth consecutive year that the ACM Awards have streamed on Prime Video and it will make the show’s first time on a Sunday night, regarded as the optimal night for awards show viewing, since 2021. The show was held on a Thursday night in its first three outings on Prime Video.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to return to MGM Grand for the 61st ACM Awards next May, a place that holds a lot of history and special memories for the Academy,” Damon Whiteside, CEO, Academy of Country Music, said in a statement. “It truly feels like a homecoming for us. There’s no better place to host an exciting, global country music celebration than fabulous Las Vegas!”
Jay Penske, CEO, Dick Clark Productions, added: “2026 is going to be a very special year for the ACMs, and partnering with MGM Resorts strengthens our deep commitment to delivering world-class entertainment and experiences for country music fans and partners alike.”
The ACM Awards were held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena from 2006-14 and returned to the venue in 2016 and again from 2018-19. The venue has also hosted the Billboard Music Awards, the Latin Grammy Awards, iHeartRadio Music Festival and more.
ACM Awards Week will kick off in Las Vegas on Friday, May 15. Tickets for the 61st ACM Awards and surrounding ACM Awards Week events will go on sale in early 2026.
The show’s host has yet to be named. Reba McEntire hosted the last two ACM Awards ceremonies, the latest in the 18 total that she has hosted or co-hosted. If she hosts one more ACM Awards ceremony, she’ll tie Bob Hope’s record for hosting or co-hosting the most iterations of a major awards show. Hope fronted the Oscars 19 times from 1940 through 1978. McEntire first co-hosted the ACM Awards in 1986.
In recent years, the ACM Awards ceremony has featured notable pairings of pop and country superstars, including Ed Sheeran & Luke Combs, Dua Lipa & Chris Stapleton, and Backstreet Boys & Rascal Flatts.
Established in 1966, the Academy of Country Music Awards is the longest-running country music awards show. The Country Music Association Awards were first presented in 1967. The CMA Awards were, however, the first country awards show to be televised, in 1968. The ACM Awards were first televised in 1972.
The ACM Awards aired on all three major networks – ABC (1972–78), NBC (1979–97) and CBS (1998–2021), before moving to Prime Video in 2022, when it made history as the first major awards ceremony to exclusively livestream. The 2022 ACM Awards ceremony received a Primetime Emmy nod for outstanding technical direction, camerawork, video control for a special. It was the show’s first Emmy nod in 36 years.
The ACMs have been held in Las Vegas in all but six years since 2003. In 2015, the show was held at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; in the pandemic years of 2020-21, the show was held at three iconic venues in Nashville; and for the last three years it was held at Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas.
The ACM Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge Industries and Billboard parent company Penske Media.
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Ed Sheeran may love to use a loop pedal on stage, but in life, he’s often out of the loop due to his refusal to own a phone. That’s why he found out about longtime bestie Taylor Swift‘s engagement to Travis Kelce weeks after the fact.
But after learning about the “Fate of Ophelia” singer’s big news at the same time as the rest of the world via her August announcement on Instagram, the British pop star apparently had a long conversation with Swift to get caught up to speed. Revealing that he met up with her just “a week after” he revealed to Andy Cohen in September that he’d not been privy to Swift’s engagement before the general public, Sheeran told Access Hollywood in a Nov. 28 interview, “When I saw Taylor, we had like a four-hour catch-up.”
“I’m not self-conscious about my relationship with her,” he continued, noting that he and his pal spent the time talking about “life stuff” together. “We’ve been friends for many years. We’re super close, and we see each other when we see each other. And when we see each other, we lock back into where we left off,” Sheeran added.
The two titans of pop music have indeed been close for a long time, with the pair coming together in 2012 for a collaboration on Swift’s Red album titled “Everything Has Changed.” Sheeran then joined the 14-time Grammy winner on the road for her Red Tour, and the two have teamed up on a number of tracks since.
Despite their bond, Swift forgot to tell Sheeran directly about her engagement because of his commitment to staying off the grid. “He doesn’t have a phone,” the Eras Tour headliner lamented to Jimmy Fallon in October. “And this is one thing I love about him … But when I’m going through, saying, ‘Hey, who should we call? Who should we FaceTime?’ I’m going through my texts and being like, ‘Who have I texted within the last like, month of my life?’”
But while he may have been late to the proposal news, Sheeran will definitely be at Swift’s nuptials to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end (that is, assuming the happy couple sends him an invite with the date and location by post rather than text or email). On U.K.’s Hits Radio Breakfast Show in October, Swift confirmed that Sheeran will be on the guest list and added that it will be “hard to keep” him from giving an impromptu performance at the reception.
“It’s like, Ed, if there’s a stage you know that you’ll be on it,” she said at the time. “He knows what people want, and he wants to give people what they want.”
Watch Sheeran discuss his recent catch-up with Swift below.
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It’s time to pull out those ties, suit jackets, church hats and pearls, because Nick Jonas is slipping into his Sunday Best era with a new solo album coming in 2026.
On Monday (Dec. 1), the Jonas Brothers star announced that he’s gearing up to release his first solo full-length LP in five years, Sunday Best, on Feb. 6. The 11-track project will explore Nick’s life as a husband to actress Priyanka Chopra and a dad to their daughter, Malti, according to a release.
“I’m so excited to share these new stories, candid thoughts, quiet walks home in the city, and snapshots of my life over these past few years,” the pop-rocker said in a statement. “And while this album was made over the course of the last two years, it was truly 33 years in the making.”
On Instagram, Nick shared the Sunday Best cover art, which features him looking at his reflection in a bathroom mirror while getting dressed for the day in khakis. On the wall behind him hangs a piece of construction paper with three paint handprints on it, most likely to represent the musician, his wife and their child.
Serving as Nick’s fifth solo album, Sunday Best will follow 2021’s Spaceman, which reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200. He’s released two albums with brothers Joe and Kevin since: 2023’s The Album and 2025’s Greetings From Your Hometown, both of which charted in the top 10.
As a soloist, Nick has also charted eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100 over the course of his career, including top 10 hit “Jealous.”
The singer has spent much of this year on tour with his brothers in celebration of their 20th anniversary as a band. They currently have dates scheduled through the very end of December, closing out 2025 with a performance at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood on New Year’s Eve.
See Nick’s announcement for Sunday Best below.
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Elton John & Bernie Taupin’s current Grammy nomination (best song written for visual media for “Never Too Late”) is their first as a songwriting team in 54 years. They share the nod with Brandi Carlile and Andrew Watt. The song, which was written for the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late, was nominated for an Oscar earlier this year.
It’s the first time John and Taupin have been nominated for a Grammy as a team since their music for the British-French teen romance Friends (no relation to the later smash TV series) was nominated for best original score written for a motion picture or a television special at the 1972 ceremony. (It lost to Isaac Hayes’ blockbuster Shaft soundtrack).
Amazingly, no John-Taupin collab has ever been nominated for song of the year. “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” was nominated for record of the year at the 1975 ceremony, but not song of the year. Their Oscar-winning “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from Rocketman failed to even land a nod for best song written for visual media.
Both John and Taupin have been nominated for songwriting collabs with other partners. John received four nominations for the 1995 ceremony for co-writing songs for The Lion King with Tim Rice. “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and “Circle of Life” were nominated for both song of the year and best song written specifically for a motion picture or for television. (The songs lost to Bruce Springsteen’s haunting “Streets of Philadelphia” from Jonathan Demme’s AIDS drama Philadelphia, an outcome that John, a longtime AIDS activist, was probably more than OK with.) John and Rice won best musical show album in 2001 for composing the score for Elton John & Tim Rice’s Aida.
Taupin received a best country song nod for the 2003 ceremony for co-writing “Mendocino County Line” with Matt Serletic. Willie Nelson recorded the song with Lee Ann Womack for his 50th studio album, The Great Divide.
John broke through in 1970, but didn’t win his first Grammy until 1987, for his featured role on Dionne & Friends’ “That’s What Friends Are For.” He won his first Grammy for one of his own records in 1992 when “Basque” won best instrumental composition. He composed the instrumental for flute player James Galway.
John has won five Grammys, far fewer than you might imagine for an artist of his stature. Taupin has yet to win one. “I’ve never been a favorite of the Grammys, I have to say,” John told writer Chris Willman in a current cover story for Variety. “It’s been very rare that I’ve won anything.”
John’s husband, David Furnish, added: “Elton and Bernie have never won a Grammy — can you believe that? — as a pair of songwriters.”
John received a Grammy Legend Award in 2000 but has yet to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy. Taupin has yet to receive a Trustees Award (the equivalent award for non-performers). They have fared better in other prestigious honors programs. They received the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award, in 2013, and are the reigning recipients of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
How does John and Taupin’s tepid Grammy showing compare with other legendary songwriting teams? Let’s start with the most fabled songwriting collaboration of them all – John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They received 10 Grammy nods in songwriting or composing categories.
Let’s also look at the nine collaborations that have received the Johnny Mercer Award from the SHOF. All but one has received at least one Grammy nod as a team. That one is the human hit factory known as Holland/Dozier/Holland, who collaborated on some of the biggest and best hits of the 1960s, including “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “I Can’t Help Myself” and “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” No Grammy nods for any of those songs? Please.
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, like John and Taupin, received two Grammy nods as a team. Looking at the other Mercer Award recipients, and listing them in ascending order in number of nods as a team, we find Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (four), Broadway scribes Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (five), Burt Bacharach and Hal David (six), Broadway scribes Betty Comden and Adolph Green (eight), Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff (nine) and Marilyn and Alan Bergman (11).
This year’s other nominees for best song written for visual media are “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” from TRON:Ares (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross), “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters (EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick) and three songs from Sinners – “I Lied to You” (Ludwig Göransson & Raphael Saadiq), “Pale, Pale Moon” (Ludwig Göransson & Brittany Howard) and “Sinners” (Leonard Denisenko, Rodarius Green, Travis Harrington, Tarkan Kozluklu, Kyris Mingo & Darius Poviliunas). “Golden” also received a nomination for song of the year, so it’s probably the front-runner in this category.
Trending on Billboard It’s almost time to find out what artists, songs and albums dominated the 2025 Billboard year-end charts — and this year, we’re doing it live. Comedian and social superstar Druski will host the Billboard 2025 No. 1s Livestream on Tuesday, Dec. 9, starting at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, where he’ll welcome special […]
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The full list of Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts are almost here, and we’re counting down the days to their unveiling on Tuesday, Dec. 9, with a special look at select rankings in the lead-up to the big reveal — starting with two of the year-end rock charts.
On Dec. 9, hundreds of year-end charts will be posted on Billboard’s website, following the conclusion of the Billboard 2025 No. 1s Livestream, hosted by Druski, which will broadcast on the Billboard News YouTube channel and BillboardTV on Samsung TV Plus starting at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, as special surprise guests stop by to celebrate the year in chart-toppers.
To kick off our year-end charts countdown, we’re dropping the top 10 of the 2025 Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Rock & Alternative Songs charts below – and both are led by Billie Eilish.
She leads the former with her 2024 release Hit Me Hard and Soft, and the latter with the album’s hit single “Birds of a Feather.” Hit Me Hard and Soft debuted at No. 1 on the weekly Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart dated June 1, 2024, and hasn’t left the chart. Further, it never went lower than No. 6 during the 2025 year-end chart eligibility year (Oct. 26, 2024, through Oct. 18, 2025). “Birds of a Feather” was equally as dominant, flying in at No. 4 on the June 1, 2024 Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart and has perched on the list ever since. It hit No. 1 in August 2024, and it never ranked lower than No. 4 during the chart year.
For the top 10 of both lists, scroll below. The full depth of both rankings (beyond the top 10 of each) will be posted Dec. 9 alongside the complete menu of Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts.
Take a look at the top 10s below.
Billboard’s year-end music charts represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Oct. 26, 2024, through Oct. 18, 2025. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the entries appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the October-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.
2025 Year-End Top Rock & Alternative Albums: 10. Olivia Rodrigo, Guts
Trending on Billboard Radiohead has been forced to postpone a pair of shows on their comeback tour of Europe due to illness. In a statement posted to their social channels on Monday morning (Dec. 1), the band announced that frontman Thom Yorke was suffering from an “extreme throat infection” and two upcoming shows in Copenhagen, […]
Trending on Billboard While Americans were celebrating Thanksgiving by gobbling up turkey, stuffing and more football than is absolutely necessary, Rihanna spent the holiday weekend honoring her home country of Barbados while also sneaking in a few previously unseen pregnancy bikini pics. The singer paid tribute to the Caribbean island nation where she was born […]
Trending on Billboard You already knew Jon Stewart could skewer bloviating politicians with effortless, cutting wit. But did you know he can also rock the house? The 63-year-old Daily Show legend proved it’s never too late to learn a new trick on Friday (Nov. 28) when his indie rock band, Church and State™️ made their […]
