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As a trio of devastating wildfires continues to spread through the greater Los Angeles region, music and music-related events — including several tied to the current film awards season in the city — are being canceled or postponed out of both safety concerns and respect for the unfolding situation.
As postponement and cancellation announcements continue to come through, we’re keeping track with the updated list below. (These are listed in descending order of announcement, so you can find the latest cancellations at the top.)
Better Man premiere
Paramount Pictures canceled the L.A. premiere of its forthcoming Robbie Williams biopic Better Man on Wednesday (Jan. 8), with a studio spokesperson stating, “Due to the dangerous conditions affecting Los Angeles we are canceling tomorrow’s premiere of ‘Better Man.’ Our thoughts are with those impacted by the devastating fires resulting from these conditions, and we encourage everyone to stay safe and follow guidance and orders from local officials and government agencies.”
Critics Choice Awards
The annual film and TV awards ceremony — which boasted nominees including Miley Cyrs, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Selena Gomez and Maren Morris in the Best Song category — was postponed from Sunday (Jan. 12) to Jan. 26 at the Santa Monica Airport’s Barker Hangar. “This unfolding tragedy has already had a profound impact on our community. All our thoughts and prayers are with those battling the devastating fires and with all who have been affected,” said Critics Choice Association CEO Joey Berlin in a statement.
Unstoppable premiere
A red-carpet screening of the wrestling drama starring Jennifer Lopez set for the DGA in West Hollywood on Tuesday night (Jan. 7) was also canceled due to the fires. “In light of today’s safety concerns around heightened wind activity and fire outbreaks in Los Angeles, we regret to inform you that we are canceling tonight’s premiere of ‘Unstoppable,’” said the studio in a statement. “As much as we were looking forward to celebrating this wonderful and inspiring film with you, safety is our first priority. We encourage everyone to watch ‘Unstoppable’ on Prime Video, which will be available globally on January 16. Thank you for your understanding and please stay safe.”
Emilia Perez music event
An event in Hollywood to celebrate the music of the Netflix film starring Selena Gomez that was set to be attended by songwriters/composers Camille & Clément and star Karla Sofía Gascón was canceled by the streamer.
A Complete Unknown screening and dinner
A screening and dinner for the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothee Chalamet set to take place at the San Vicente Bungalows in West Hollywood on Thursday (Jan. 9) was postponed.
American Cinematheque Tribute to the Crafts
The ceremony, which celebrates individuals in 14 filmmaking categories from the past year, including music, was postponed from Thursday (Jan. 9) at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre, with a new date to be announced later. “We have made the decision to postpone tomorrow’s (January 9th) Tribute to the Crafts at the Egyptian due to the dangerous ongoing fires and wind conditions. We will update you on a new date as soon as we know,” said a statement released by the organization.
Selena Gomez’s Rare Pop Up
A pop-up event slated from Friday to Sunday (Jan. 10-12) at Complex LA to celebrate five years of Gomez’s Rare album was postponed.
Travis Barker‘s children Landon and Alabama are safe and sound amid the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles County’s Pacific Palisades. Both the rock star’s son and daughter — whom he shares with ex-wife Shanna Moakler — gave updates on Instagram Stories as wind-fueled flames rapidly traveled across parts of L.A. Tuesday night (Jan. 7). “Just […]
Mandy Moore is among the tens of thousands of Angelenos who’ve been forced to evacuate in the midst of the devastating, fast-moving wildfires that have engulfed the Los Angeles area of the past 48 hours. “Evacuated and safe with kids, dogs and cats,” the This Is Us star and “When I Wasn’t Watching” singer wrote in an Instagram Story on Wednesday (Jan. 8).
“Praying and grateful for the first responders,” she added. In a second slide of Moore with one of her three children with husband Dawes singer/guitarist Taylor Goldsmith, she wrote, “grateful for the kindness of friends that we had a place to land last night. Trying to shield the kids from the immense sadness and worry I feel. Praying for everyone in our beautiful city. So gutted for the destruction and loss. Don’t know if our place made it.”
The singer who released her seventh studio album, In Real Life, in 2022 and who scored the hits “Candy” in 1999 (No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100) and “I Wanna Be With You” in 2000 (No. 24), added a hashtag for the Eaton Fire, which according to NBC News has killed two people and burned more than 2,200 acres to date, with zero percent containment.
That fire, as well as the Palisades and Hurst fires, have burned nearly 8,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses so far. The blazes have been fed and spread by the destructive annual Santa Ana winds, which at times have whipped up to nearly 100 m.p.h., sending embers flying through the air as fire crews struggle to contain the blazes that experts say are already one of the most destructive to hit the region in recent memory.
In addition to the evacuations and homes and other structures destroyed, NBC reported that more than 300,000 Angelenos have lost power.
The Associated Press reported that in addition to Moore, the Pacific Palisades fire has displaced Star Wars icon Mark Hamill and actor James Woods in he hillside neighborhood along the coast that is home to many stars and which was name-checked in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic “Surfin’ USA.” In a testament to the speed of the out-of-control fire, news reports featured footage of fire crews using bulldozers to clear streets littered with abandoned cars clogging the roadways, left behind by fleeing residents. Other stars who live in the area where 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders include Adam Sandler, Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker’s kids, Landon and Alabama, were also forced to evacuate from their Palisades homes, while former reality TV stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag (The Hills) reported themselves safe after their Palisades home burned to the ground.
NBC also reported that Lakers coach JJ Redick said his family was evacuated from their homes on Tuesday due to the Palisades fire. In addition to a number of school closures, Universal Studios closed its park in Hollywood and Universal CityWalk and the L.A. premieres of the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man and the Blumhouse horror movie Wolf Man, as well as Jennifer Lopez’s wrestling drama Unstoppable have been cancelled; the SAG Awards also called off their in-person nominations announcement on Wednesday.
Another, smaller blaze dubbed the Tyler Fire was 100% contained at press time, with fire officials saying that at this point the causes of the various conflagrations is not yet known.
Ye — formerly Kanye West — had laid low for the first week of 2025 in his return to social media, but that changed on Tuesday night (Jan. 7), when he called out his former partner Adidas while attacking the company’s alleged search engine practices, and also took issue with designer Jerry Lorenzo in an Instagram post.
West believes when fans search for Yeezy on Google that Adidas is the first to come up before his own website, which he thinks is done intentionally to hurt his brand even though the apparel giant severed ties with him in 2022 over his repeated antisemitic remarks.
“When you google Yeezy.com the adidas site comes before the Yeezy site Members at adidas Stop doing this Stop doing your moves to hold me back Our partnership is done You’re a 60 billion dollar company that froze my accounts,” he wrote alongside a screenshot of his search results. “Now I’m back on my feet (no pun intended) and I’m not going to stand for this (no pun again) I did phenomenal work for you guys and because I stood up for myself yall tried to intimidate and oppress me everyone remembers I had major issues with adidas because of design theft and oppression before ‘the tweet.’”
Ye and Fear of God designer Lorenzo were close collaborators in the 2010s (they stopped working together in 2016), but the rapper criticized Lorenzo for continuing to work with Adidas. Fear of God teamed up with the company in 2020 for an athletic line, and the deal included the designer as creative director of Adidas Basketball.
“Y’all know Jerry was corny and disloyal for doing work with adidas after the way they handled things I still showed up to his show that was a copy of my Hollywood bowl show being the so called bigger man but I’m never doing that again for no one It’s Yeezy over everything,” Ye continued in his Instagram post of showing up to support Lorenzo at his 2023 Hollywood Bowl fashion show.
Billboard has reached out to Google for comment, as well as Adidas regarding Ye’s remarks about the the clothing company and Lorenzo.
For West, he’s done with the collaborations and those he believes are using him to create imitations of his work, as he’s “here to dominate as I always have.”
“Everyone that ever took a picture next to me that had their own clothing lines and agendas everyone knows they was acting like they were my friends to promote they weak ass fake Yeezy lines They never wanted to truly work for the king,” Ye added in his lengthy post. “They wanted to use the king Get paid more than they would get paid anywhere else be yes man and be happy for any time I didn’t accomplish what ‘we’ were working towards Now they banished NO MORE HUGS Yeezy over everything I’m not here as a platform for anyone else I am here to dominate as I always have.”
The Chicago native also said he’s sticking to his $20 price model for merchandise going forward, which he believes is “burning the game to the ground.”
After spending the first week of 2025 relaxing in the Maldives while celebrating wife Bianca Censori’s 30th birthday, it could be another busy year for Ye. He’s been teasing his Bully album, as snippets have hit social media. However, there’s still no firm release date for the project, which will serve as his Vultures 2 follow-up and first solo album since 2021’s Donda.
West and Adidas settled their longstanding litigation since the split in 2024. “Both parties said we don’t need to fight anymore and withdrew all the claims,” Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden said on October’s quarterly earnings call, before adding that neither party would be paying in the settlement. “No one owes anybody anything anymore. So whatever was is history.”
An ex-gang leader is seeking to have all the charges against him dismissed in the 1990s killing of rap music icon Tupac Shakur. Attorney Carl Arnold filed the motion on Monday in the District Court of Nevada to dismiss charges against Duane Davis in the 1996 shooting of Shakur. The motion alleges “egregious” constitutional violations because […]
Film composer Danny Elfman has lost a bid to dismiss a defamation lawsuit over statements he made to the media defending himself from sexual harassment allegations.
The ruling came in a case filed last year by former friend and fellow composer Nomi Abadi, who claims that Elfman defamed her when he issued a strongly-worded statement to Rolling Stone denying her accusations that he had exposed himself and masturbated in front of her.
Elfman had argued that he couldn’t be sued because his comments were made in the course of litigation — a form of legal “privilege” designed to ensure that the adversarial American court system can function properly without fear of defamation lawsuits.
But in a decision issued Dec. 24, Judge Gail Killefer denied Elfman’s motion and allowed Abadi’s case to advance. In her ruling, the judge said Elfman’s comments to Rolling Stone had been more akin to a “press release” than a protected legal motion.
“To allow defendant Elfman to make statements and permit their publication while hiding behind the litigation privilege would decimate the purpose of the privilege,” the judge wrote.
In a statement to Billboard on Monday, Elfman’s attorney Camille Vasquez vowed to appeal the order: “We respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling and are optimistic that the Court of Appeal will agree with us that this case ought to be dismissed.”
An attorney for Abadi did not immediately return a request for comment.
Abadi’s allegations against Elfman — a prolific film composer best known for the famous intro to The Simpsons — were first publicized in a 2023 article from Rolling Stone. The story reported that Elfman had entered into a previously unreported $830,000 settlement in 2018 to resolve her accusations and that Abadi had recently sued him for failing to make payments under that deal.
In the article, Elfman responded with an extensive statement. Calling the allegations “vicious and wholly false,” he described Abadi as having a “childhood crush” on him and intending to “break up my marriage and replace my wife.” Elfman said that when he attempted to distance himself from her, “she made it clear that I would pay for having rejected her.”
Last summer, Abadi added defamation to her list of accusations against Elfman. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles court, she claimed that his media statement had falsely tarred her as an “extortionist” and as a “scorned woman seeking revenge and money,” leaving her career as a composer “in tatters.”
“In publicly branding Nomi as a liar, and a failed temptress who lied about him for reasons of revenge and greed, Elfman and his representatives defamed Nomi,” her lawyers wrote at the time.
In moving to dismiss that case, Elfman’s lawyers cited California’s anti-SLAPP statute — a law that aims to make it easier for judges to quickly dismiss cases that threaten protected speech. They argued that the response statement came in a letter threatening to sue Rolling Stone if it published Abadi’s allegations, meaning it was shielded under the litigation privilege rule.
But in her order last month, Judge Killefersaid said Elfman’s letter had been “more than just an attempt to dissuade Rolling Stone from republishing allegations of sexual misconduct.”
“It was an effort to litigate the issue before the court of public opinion, permitting Elfman to publicly deny the veracity of plaintiff’s claims while preemptively hiding behind the litigation privilege to prevent any defamation claim,” the judge wrote.
Judge Killefersaid also rejected other defense arguments from Elfman’s legal team, including their claim that his statement to Rolling Stone had merely been a statement of “opinion” that was not capable of being proven false. To the contrary, the judge ruled that his denial statement was an “assertion of fact” that could potentially put him on the hook for defamation liability.
With the anti-SLAPP motion denied, Abadi’s case against Elfman will now proceed into normal litigation, which could take years to resolve if the case is not settled.
Nikki Glaser, who hosted the 2025 Golden Globes on Sunday night (Jan. 5), is facing criticism after poking fun at the allegations against Diddy during her opening monologue. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Attorney Ariel Mitchell, who represents a number of clients accusing Diddy of sexual assault, […]
The Golden Globes hit CBS and Paramount+ on Sunday (Jan. 5) night, taking over the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. Comedian/actress Nikki Glaser hosted the show, which has new owners and a new lease after a scandal-ridden few years at the top of the 2020s. After Glaser held space for a Wicked joke during […]
Nicki Minaj has been sued for assault by a man who claims the rapper physically attacked him following a concert in Detroit last April, according to documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday (Jan. 3).
In the complaint, the plaintiff, Brandon Garrett, claims that while working as a day-to-day manager for Minaj’s 2024 Pink Friday 2 tour, the rapper (real name Onika Maraj) hit him multiple times after flying into a rage backstage at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
According to the lawsuit, the alleged assault occurred on April 21 after Garrett was summoned to Minaj’s dressing room backstage at the arena, where he says he was confronted by Minaj and her former manager Deb Antney about sending another tour employee, identified as hospitality manager Luke Montgomery, to pick up prescriptions for Minaj in his place.
“Ms. Antney asked why Mr. Montgomery was picking up prescriptions on behalf of Defendant Maraj,” the complaint reads, referring to Minaj by her birth name. “Plaintiff responded that he had Mr. Montgomery pick up a prescription in the past because Defendant Maraj wanted it immediately, but Plaintiff was occupied at the venue with Defendant Maraj in the quick change room during a performance because one of Plaintiff’s job duties was assisting Defendant Maraj with dressing during performances.”
Garrett claims that Minaj then became “visibly upset” and “angrily screamed” at him, “Are you f—ing crazy having him pick up my prescription? You have lost your f—ing mind and if my husband was here, he would knock out your f—king teeth. You’re a dead man walking. You just f—ed up your whole life and you will never be anyone, I’ll make sure of it.” Minaj then allegedly “started yelling” at Montgomery, asking what day he picked up the prescriptions and “what exact prescriptions they were.” When Montgomery said he did not remember, Minaj allegedly “screamed” at him “to look through his phone until he finds it.”
The complaint states that when neither Montgomery nor Garrett could find the information Minaj had requested, she “asked to see Mr. Montgomery’s cell phone to read the last text message between Plaintiff and Mr. Montgomery.” After Montgomery allegedly offered up his cell phone to Minaj to read the messages, Garrett says she approached him and “got very close to his face” while continuing to yell at him.
“At this point, Defendant Maraj open-handedly struck Plaintiff on the right side of his face, causing his head to swing backwards as his hat flew off his head,” the complaint reads. Garrett alleges that at this point, several members of Minaj’s security team “swarmed in close” to them before Minaj allegedly “struck Plaintiff on his right wrist, knocking the documents in Plaintiff’s hand onto the floor.”
Garrett claims that Minaj then ordered him out of the room. After complying with her demand, he says he “ran to the nearest restroom and locked himself inside for hours,” during which he says he called his fiance to tell him what had happened. “At this point, Plaintiff’s wrist was throbbing and his face was sore, but he stayed in the restroom because he was terrified and feared for his safety,” the complaint continues. In the “early morning hours” of April 22, Garrett says he then received a text message “from a bus mate on the tour” informing him that Antney said Garrett “would not be riding the bus from Detroit to Chicago,” leaving him stranded.
After arriving back in Chicago on a flight, Garrett says he contacted the Chicago Police Department for a police escort back to his hotel “because he feared for his safety and did not know if his belongings had been removed or tampered with.” He says he filed a police report with the Chicago PD after arriving back at his room, where he allegedly remained “for the next couple days…because he was fearful and traumatized” over the incident. He says he then flew back to Detroit to file a formal police report there.
Garrett is suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and battery and is asking for punitive and exemplary damages and general damages, among other relief.
A representative for Minaj did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment. Antney also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the individuals charged in connection with Liam Payne‘s death earlier this week has now been arrested by Argentinian authorities. Braian Paiz, one of two men accused of supplying drugs to Payne prior to his death, was arrested by police on Friday (Jan. 3), according to a CBS News report. The former One Direction […]