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Gucci Mane finally linked up with his doppelgänger, NBA referee James Williams.
The Atlanta rapper attended the playoff game between the Cleveland Cavs and the Miami Heat on Tuesday (April 29), and posted a picture on Instagram of himself and Williams having a courtside chat.
Back in 2021, NBA superstar Ja Morant reshared a photo of himself and Williams posted by the NBA’s Latin America X page, writing, “Me & Gucci,” and it went viral. And ever since, Williams said fans and players only refer to him as “Gucci or Guwop.”
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“I am Gucci Mane, at this point that’s who I am,” Williams told the Crown Refs podcast back in 2023. “I’m actually shocked when somebody on the floor calls me James. Nobody calls me James, everybody calls me Gucci or Guwop.”
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He continued by saying that he doesn’t take it seriously and actually finds the situation funny. “I’ve really just embraced it. I think that it humanizes us,” he said. “Referees who are just the cops out there, I’m not a big fan of ’cause that’s not how I referee. I like to go out there, I like to have fun; engage the fans, the players, the coaches. While we have a job to do, you should still have fun while you’re doing it.”
He added, “Once that thing went viral, just like my life has been completely altered forever. It’s a part of who I am at this point. Nobody calls me James, it’s really quite comical to be honest with you.”
@crownrefs In this classic clip from episode 304 of the Crown Refs Podcast, NBA Finals referee James “Gucci” Williams talks about his famous nickname and how he’s embraced it because it’s fun and humanizes officials. Be sure to check out the RefMasters app, available for iOS and Android. @RefMasters ♬ original sound – Crown Refs
He then told a funny story about a time when he was in Chicago catching a flight and a random youth basketball team wanted to take a picture with him. “The other day I was in O’Hare and there was a basketball team walking through,” he recalled. “I’m walking to my gate and they’re like, ‘That’s the Gucci Mane ref. Can we get a picture?’ I think it’s funny, I really do. I don’t take myself too seriously. We get to referee a kid’s game for a living.”
Williams has been in regular rotation during the NBA playoffs this year, so fans will be seeing more of Gucci Mane’s twin reffing games.
NFL star Sauce Gardner shuts down wide receivers on the field, but the New York Jets cornerback may have locked up Ice Spice off the field. The Bronx rapper posted a since-deleted selfie to her Instagram on Tuesday (April 29) featuring herself posing with Gardner in front of a mirror. Billboard has reached out to […]
In today’s mainstream Latin music landscape — a space often dominated by música urbana, tropical rhythms, and regional Mexican music — CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso have carved a lane entirely their own. Armed with flamboyant charisma, virtuosic musicality, and a penchant for genre-defying audacity, the Argentine duo represent a new wave of artistry that refuses to fit neatly into any box. At a time when the mainstream clamors for familiarity, they bring chaos and innovation to the table, pushing the boundaries of what Latin music can sound like.
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Their meteoric rise is nothing short of groundbreaking. Last week, the pair performed two back-to-back sold-out shows at New York’s Bowery Ballroom — as part of their wildly ambitious 60-date world tour, which includes stops in global festivals like Coachella (U.S.), Fuji Rock (Japan), Glastonbury (England), Roskilde (Denmark), and Lollapalooza (Berlin, Paris). Just weeks earlier, the duo made their debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, a rare feat for Argentine artists, and a testament to their growing influence on the global stage.
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But for them, fame doesn’t come without complication — a sentiment captured in their latest EP Papota and its opening track, “Impostor.” The song serves as a brutally humorous and raw meditation on their skyrocketing success, grappling with the absurd pressure of becoming icons seemingly overnight. The Tiny Desk concert that launched them to international acclaim six months ago — now one of the most-viewed performances on the channel by a Spanish-language artist, with 33.5 million views — serves both as a badge of honor and a symbol of what they jokingly call “síndrome de impostor” (imposter syndrome) on the aforementioned song.
“Coming all the way from el culo del mundo (the ass of the world), we didn’t expect this,” CA7RIEL tells Billboard Español backstage at the Bowery, referencing their South American roots. “To suddenly appear here, with all these cameras and lights — it’s insane. We’re from way down there; we’re still adjusting to being up here.” Yet their poised combination of rock star energy and mayhem proves they’re more than ready.
CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso
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Their chemistry isn’t just professional — it’s personal. The duo met when they were just six years old, drawn together by matching surnames (Guerreiro and Guerriero) and the mistaken assumption by their teacher that they were brothers. That fateful connection would snowball into a lifelong friendship and artistic partnership that thrives on curiosity, trust and unabashed eccentricity.
Raised in Buenos Aires, their musical influences stem from both the streets and their homes. CA7RIEL grew up watching his father play guitar, and today he’s an impeccable guitarist who plays jazzy, progressive riffs on his Fender. “I wanted to be Michael Jackson. I wanted to be Queen — the whole band,” he admits. Paco Amoroso, meanwhile, was hooked on pirated compilations of the Argentine rock icons, like Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota, whose legacy courses through their veins. “For years it was the only thing I listened to, those 18 tracks,” Paco recalls. He adds, “Argentine rock is more like a way of life, I feel. You wanted to be like those guys, we didn’t want to go to work. We wanted to be drinking champagne. And when you’re a kid, you want that.” He also references the Dutch violinist André Rieu: “I wanted to play the violin, he is a total master.”
Their early inspirations laid the foundation for their ability to mix genres and embrace experimentation. “We go through different phases,” Paco explains, “vicios diferentes” (different vices). “At one point, it was all about rapping, then playing instruments, which was how we started. We even had a phase where we just gamed all the time and did nothing else. Then you keep evolving,” he adds. The duo’s knack for innovation — mixing intricate jazz chords, gospel-style vocals, live instrumentation and electronic rhythms, as they masterfully demonstrated that night at the Bowery — has made them boundary-pushers in their own right.
Though CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso rose to prominence as a duo, their journey has also been defined by daring forays into solo territory. After their breakthrough collaboration on tracks like 2019’s “Ouke” and “Mi Sombra,” both artists paused their partnership to venture into their individual projects. CA7RIEL’s solo debut featured two EPs before evolving into the eclectic El Disko, a 2022 Latin Grammy-nominated album that fused funky grooves, old-school hip-hop, glowing synths, and lo-fi minimalism. For his part, Paco Amoroso explored bold sonic textures in his brooding 2021 album Saeta, further pushing the boundaries of Argentinian trap and electronic music.
Despite their time apart, their connection remained intact, culminating in a magnetic reunion for 2024’s Baño María and their latest EP, Papota. The new era finds them reuniting as friends and collaborators, carrying with them the richness of their individual experiences and a renewed creative spark.
Their Tiny Desk performance — previously mentioned in connection to the introspection of “Impostor” — stands as a pivotal moment, showcasing their identity as sons of Buenos Aires and bringing their unorthodox artistry to the global stage. The performance became one of the series’ most successful videos, reaching numbers comparable to Latin icons like Natalia Lafourcade’s seven-year-old set, all while introducing viewers to the raw complexity of their sound.
CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso perform at Bowery Ballroom in New York on April 23, 2025.
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Their taboo-breaking flamboyance — including playful moments on stage, sometimes even kissing each other on screen as a symbol of their camaraderie — adds a theatrical flair to their shows that captivates. It’s this kind of unorthodox, boundary-defying presence that makes them not just stars but leaders of Latin music’s avant-garde.
No moment encapsulated this better than their closing number, where CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso invited audience interaction, holding out their microphones for fans to belt out the lyrics. “Interacción total,” CA7RIEL called it.
When asked what lies ahead, the duo keeps it grounded, “Seguir estando vivos” — just staying alive. Paco elaborates with a laugh: “For some people, that’s easy. For others, not so much.” It’s an ethos reflective of their unfiltered approach to music. With every new song, stage and daring experiment, they’re proving that their bold vision isn’t just about breaking boundaries — it’s about living fully through the music they create.
Name: Catriel and Ulises
Age: Both 31
Recommended Song: Paco recommends “El Día del Amigo” because “it speaks about friendship” and showcases the essence of their project. CA7RIEL, on the other hand, picks “Mi Sombra,” a track he describes as “something that stayed in the bottom of the drawer,” which makes it an unexpected favorite for him.
Biggest Accomplishment: Both agree on one simple yet deep accomplishment: “Being born and not yet dead,” they say with a wry chuckle.
What’s Next: “Lots of touring,” they reply in the midst of their 60-date tour, which includes stops in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia, as well as performances at international festivals like Coachella, Glastonbury, Lollapalooza and Fuji Rock.
Don Toliver and Doja Cat have joined forces for a new song titled “Lose My Mind,” which will appear on the F1 movie soundtrack. On Wednesday (April 30), Don Toliver dropped off the music video for “Lose My Mind” after teasing the song just 24 hours earlier. The song will appear on the soundtrack for […]
Turnstile is giving fans a two-for-one special Wednesday (April 30), with a music video debut that features new songs “Seein’ Stars” and “Birds,” both from the band’s upcoming album, Never Enough, out June 6. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The former track dreamily glides along […]
Megan Thee Stallion announced she’s building her own Popeyes store from scratch, and showcased an active construction site in a new video on social media. On Tuesday (April 29), Meg hopped on Instagram wearing a yellow hard hat to announce she was constructing her own Popeyes location. In a video on social media, she wandered […]
Sheryl Crow knows a great song when she hears it, or writes it. And lately she’s been hearing so many good ones from the younger generation of female singers and songwriters that she’s got serious FOMO.
“The caliber of writing is just so good with Chappell Roan, Olivia and Phoebe Bridgers, and these women are not just in the studio throwing in a lyric — they play,” she told Variety magazine. “If you want to take a course in great songwriting, go study at the college of Taylor Swift. There’s Brandi [Carlile] and Courtney Barnett. For a long time, there was a dearth of women who were playing and singing and rocking, and now I’m tickled.”
Some she got to see work their magic up close at the recent session at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium to tape an all-star network special honoring Ringo Starr’s country album, Look Up. Crow said she was dumbstruck “being onstage with Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz and Larkin Poe. I remember having a conversation with people on the Grammys board 15 years ago, saying, ’What are you guys going to do to get instruments into young women’s hands?’ Lo and behold, some of the greatest musicianship right now is young and female.”
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More than three decades into a career that was kicked into overdrive by her 1994 Tuesday Night Music Club hit “All I Wanna Do,” Crow is also sanguine about her place in the music business these days. “I feel happy. I feel at peace. There isn’t that ’Oh my God, I gotta write a hit song.’ Even if I wrote a hit song, it wouldn’t get played!” she said. “So now I just wanna write music that feels like I’m glad I wrote it.”
The mother of two teenage boys hasn’t toured much lately — she did open some dates for P!nk last year — and while she’ll hit the road for a limited run of shows with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan for their Outlaw Music Festival this summer, she would have “done every single one” if her kids wanted to join her on the road. “I’m too selfish to want to miss any time with them; I feel like my 18-year-old was just born, and he’s gonna be leaving for college in a year,” she said, promising that once both boys are out of the house she’ll “go back to work full time, because I have an acute connection to joy when I’m playing.”
And though she’s lived in Nashville for more than two decades, proud progressive Crow said she’s well aware that her habit of tweaking conservatives doesn’t always make her popular in the city that’s a blue dot in an otherwise deep red state that overwhelmingly went for Donald Trump in all three of the presidential elections he’s participated in.
So the singer who famously announced in February — long before the current spate of protests, sell-backs and arson attacks — that she was selling her Tesla and donating the proceeds to NPR is finding her own way to quiet the red noise around her. “Tennessee is a hard place for me. I mean, I struggle,” she said. “I call my representatives [in Congress] every single morning — Andy Ogles and Marsha Blackburn hear from me every day — because we have to stand up and be vocal and fight for the future for our kids.”
Asked what she imagines her reps think when they get a fresh voicemail from the Grammy-winner every single work day, Crow said, “I do think, ’Are they laughing?’ But it’s like what Jimmy Carter said: ‘As long as there’s legal bribery, we won’t ever have fair elections.’ So we have to keep raising our voices and showing up to these organized rallies.”
She also noted that unlike the flak she got back in 1996 when Walmart banned her self-titled album because of the lyric “Watch out sister/ Watch out brother/ Watch our children as they kill each other/ With a gun they bought at the Walmart discount stores” on the song “Love Is a Good Thing,” back then she didn’t live in Tennessee, “where everybody is armed.”
So, yes, “there was a moment where I actually really felt very afraid,” she said of a scary incident that occurred after she announced her Tesla sell-off. “A man got on my property, in my barn, who was armed. It doesn’t feel safe when you’re dealing with people who are so committed,” she revealed.
Given what she knows now, would Crow post that kind of video again? “I can’t help it,” she told the magazine. “I feel like I’m fighting for my kids. Also, that’s the way I was raised. There have been times when it hasn’t really been fun, but I follow my [To Kill a Mockingbird lead character] Atticus Finch dad [attorney Wendell Wyatt Crow]; I’m very similar to him if I see something that seems unfair, you know?”
Forrest Frank first hit Billboard’s charts in 2020 as half of the pop duo Surfaces, but he’s since emerged as a leading voice in Christian music. This week (on the chart dated May 3), he scores his first solo entry on the Billboard Hot 100 as “Your Way’s Better” debuts at No. 72.
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Released in October 2024 via River House Records/10K Projects, the song enters with 6.5 million official U.S. streams (up 34% week-over-week), 764,000 radio audience impressions (up 18%) and 4,000 downloads sold (up 49%) April 18-24, according to Luminate.
The track also spends a 26th week on the Hot Christian Songs chart, holding at its No. 2 high.
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As a member of Surfaces (alongside Colin Padalecki), he initially broke through with “Sunday Best,” which climbed to No. 19 on the Hot 100 in June 2020. The song also found success at radio, reaching No. 9 on Pop Airplay and No. 13 on Adult Pop Airplay.
Beginning in 2023, though, Frank had pivoted to solo endeavors. He first reached Billboard’s charts as a solo act that February, when “No Longer Bound,” with Hulvey, debuted at No. 20 on Hot Christian Songs — it peaked at No. 19 the following week.
Frank has since become a force in Christian music, logging 33 entries on Hot Christian Songs, including six top 10s: “Good Day” (No. 2 peak in 2024); “Up!,” with Connor Price (No. 8, 2024); “Never Get Used to This,” with Jvke (No. 6, 2024); “The Present” (No. 9, January); “Nothing Else,” with Thomas Rhett (No. 4, March); and “Your Way’s Better.” No other artist has charted more songs on the ranking since the beginning of 2023. He finished 2024 as Billboard’s No. 1 top new Christian artist.
Frank’s album Child of God has also spent 33 weeks and counting at No. 1 on the Top Christian Albums chart, making it the fifth longest-leading No. 1 album this century. The set’s follow-up, Child of God II, is slated for release May 9.
Frank has also logged four tracks on Christian Airplay: “Good Day” (No. 5 peak), “Never Get Used To This” (No. 18), “The Present” (No. 10) and “Your Way’s Better” (No. 30 to date).
The recent surge in attention for “Your Way’s Better” can be partly attributed to TikTok, where the song has soundtracked over 400,000 clips. It’s a tried-and-true method for Frank, as “Sunday Best” also utilized the platform to blow up in 2020.
What makes “Your Way’s Better” particularly notable is that it’s a Christian track — a genre has rarely made inroads on the Hot 100 historically. This week, however, two such songs are charting simultaneously: “Your Way’s Better” and Brandon Lake’s viral “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” which jumps to the top 40 (63-40) in its 10th week on the chart, reaching a new high. The latter also spends a 20th week at No. 1 on Hot Christian Songs.
Since 2020 — excluding religious-themed holiday tracks and the 38 entries by Kanye West from his albums Jesus Is King and Donda, and one by DJ Khaled, as both were long-established hip-hop acts — only three Christian songs have charted on both the Hot 100 and Hot Christian Songs charts:
Artist Billing, Title, Peak Year(s)
Lauren Daigle, “You Say,” 2018-2021
Brandon Lake, “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” 2025
Forrest Frank, “Your Way’s Better,” 2025
The rise of Christian music is no fluke, as the genre has been steadily growing in popularity. According to Luminate’s 2024 year-end report, Christian/gospel is one of the fastest growing genres among young audiences in the U.S., with the average listener is spending 19% more time with Christian/gospel music than in 2022.
Today’s music executives pay particular attention to on-demand consumption. If a listener chose a particular song, rather than simply hearing something that came up randomly, it’s fairly safe to assume that the song had greater value to them.
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But, new artist Chase McDaniel argues, real-time listening might very well have more impact on listeners in certain situations since there’s a surprise element involved in the experience.
“There’s probably three times in my life that I can say a song changed my life, and it was always on country radio,” he says. “In this day and age, when you can go and select the song and play it yourself, or you go to some playlist and it’s this [artificial intelligence]/robot thing, it takes away the meaning. But when you hear it played on the radio, and it’s at the right time, and you don’t know why it’s on right now, and it feels like it’s for you, it feels divine.”
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McDaniel hopes his first radio single — “Burned Down Heaven,” released by Big Machine to country radio through PlayMPE on March 17 — has that kind of effect on those who hear it. It certainly had psychological value for McDaniel, since it forced him to confront a painful chapter from his past.
“[It was] this low point, just covered in shame and in guilt and loneliness, knowing what you’ve done and not being able to fix it,” he says. “That’s truly what that lyric’s kind of pointing to.”
Just as McDaniel’s been surprised a few times by a song on the radio, he was surprised by “Burned Down Heaven.” It emerged from a conversation with his grandfather, who was reflecting on his relationship with his wife.
If he were forced to choose, his grandfather said, “I think I would turn down heaven for your mamaw.”Preparing on Feb. 13, 2024, for the next day’s writing appointment, McDaniel started working with that “turn down heaven” phrase as a possible title. But on one run-through, he was shaken by a small mistake.
“I accidentally said the phrase ‘burned down heaven,’ as if it fell from the sky,” he remembers. “It was like it came from my subconscious. I literally felt like I got struck by lightning, because saying the phrase ‘burned down heaven’ felt like the worst imaginable thing that anyone could say.”
If the thought hit him that hard, then it might have some emotional value for other people, too, so he considered bringing it up the next morning, though he had some reservations: The idea of setting fire to heaven might offend some listeners. So he held it back when he showed up to write with Jon Nite (“Dancin’ in the Country,” “Break Up in the End”) at the Nashville studio of writer-producer Lindsay Rimes (“World on Fire,” “Heaven”). After they ran through some other ideas, McDaniel finally brought up “Burned Down Heaven,” and when he explained the metaphor, both co-writers were up for it. They started with the chorus, to make sure they landed the idea effectively, and to make the best use of McDaniel’s range.
“He’s got some of the [Jon] Bon Jovi [power] up there, but he’s also got some of the Josh Turner [richness],” Rimes says. “It’s those kinds of dynamics in his vocals. I wanted to bring both of those through, because they’re kind of a strong part of his brand.”
They pitched the chorus in a high range to create an explosive effect. They also massaged the stanza’s opening lyric to better address McDaniel’s nervousness about the title.
“It was really Jon’s idea to say, ‘Hey, let’s bring this back to Earth,’” McDaniel recalls. “When I said, ‘Feels like I burned down heaven,’ he said, ‘Where was it at?’ And I was like, ‘It was in this driveway.’ He’s like, ‘There it is: Feels like I burned down heaven in that driveway.’ It brought it back to planet Earth. It made it real.”
They focused on the fiery part of the title in the chorus, incorporating “matches,” “ashes” and “smoke,” though the words were slipped in subtly. When they got to the lower-pitched verses, they shifted to the spiritual part of the title, though they handled the religious allusions so lightly that they almost go unnoticed. “You want to feel like it’s real,” Nite says. “You want to feel like you’re in the emotion of this moment, rather than cute little sayings about heaven.”
McDaniel didn’t talk much about it during the write, but he built the storyline around a difficult breakup from his past. “It was definitely the best thing — I realized that over time — but it was something that I still hadn’t forgiven myself for,” he says. “Anytime that I feel like I’ve made a mistake or hurt somebody, it just weighs on me, and so I carried it for years.”
Despite all of McDaniel’s concerns going into the appointment, it all developed easily. They started at 11 a.m. and had a demo and vocal performance of the completed song by 1:30 p.m. In fact, while Rimes and McDaniel worked on the demo, Nite went to the backyard and started another song that also got finished that day.
The “Burned Down Heaven” demo was so well developed that they used it as a foundation for the final tracking session at Nashville’s Sound Stage with drummer Evan Hutchings, bassist Tony Lucido, keyboardist Alex Wright and guitarists Ilya Toshinskiy and Sol Philcox-Littlefield.
“I don’t think a lot changed once the band was on there,” Rimes says. “Obviously, there’s live drums and stuff like that, but the basic bones of the song were in there.”
McDaniel recut his vocal for the master version, singing the first verse and first chorus separately, so that his voice could overlap with itself as he transitioned into that chorus. The final touches were provided by Gideon Klein, a musician that Rimes hired to arrange strings and overdub all of the parts.
Big Machine released it on Valentine’s Day — exactly one year after it was written — and it performed well enough that the label issued it to radio a month later as fans presumably gravitated toward the honesty in McDaniel’s story.
“All the guys that listen to it are like, ‘You know what? I’ve been this sometimes, and I just have been too proud to say it,’” Nite says. “All the girls are like, ‘I’ve had five boyfriends that do this, and they’ve been too proud to say it, and it’d be amazing if somebody actually said it was their fault.’ I think that’s why it’s caught fire a little bit.”
For his part, McDaniel hopes that someone might hear “Burned Down Heaven” on the radio and have the same unexpected life moment that he’s experienced with the platform.
“I’m on a mission now in country music to spread the light and tell people that they matter and that they’re important,” McDaniel says. “This song isn’t straight up about mental health and survival, but it is reflective of shame. Anytime that you can’t live with your mistakes and you can’t accept the past and you can’t forgive yourself, it makes it hard.”
Selena Gomez could barely calm down when she kissed fiancé Benny Blanco for the first time, with the singer-actress recently recalling how the moment got her so worked up, her skin broke out in a reaction that left her “a little embarrassed.”
While appearing on an episode of Table Manners With Jessie and Lennie Ware posted Wednesday (April 30), Gomez and the producer both gushed about the day they first locked lips early on in their relationship, which started in mid-2023. According to Blanco, the two were playing the get-to-know-you game We’re Not Really Strangers on their second date when one of the prompts directed them to take a selfie.
“She got right on my chest and took a selfie, and then right after, I just looked at her and I said, ‘I gotta kiss this girl,’” Blanco said, with Gomez adding, “It was a very good kiss.”
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It was so good, in fact, that the Only Murders in the Building star’s face immediately started to betray her. “Her heart started beating quickly, she started getting a rash on her face, and she was so nervous,” the “Eastside” musician recalled, joking that the rash was actually because “I was so disgusting and repulsive.”
In reality, Gomez says her skin became inflamed simply because she “hadn’t liked anyone in a very long time.”
“When you feel something behind the kiss, it’s completely different,” she explained. “I had been alone for about five years with the exception of a few s–tty dates here and there, but never felt that way … I was a little embarrassed, but he was like, ‘Are you OK?’ And I was like, ‘No, no, I’m fine.’ I didn’t want to be like, ‘I like you, I really like you.’”
The couple has been together ever since, with Blanco asking his fiancée to marry him in December. Shortly after their engagement, the couple dropped a joint album titled I Said I Love You First, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Listen to Gomez and Blanco recall their first kiss below.