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Jewel is defending her polarizing choice to perform at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Inauguration Day ball while apologizing to those whose feelings she may have hurt in the process. In an Instagram video posted Friday (Jan. 24), the singer/songwriter explained that her appearance at the politician’s “Make America Healthy Again” event four days prior had […]
Marilyn Manson will not face criminal charges from Los Angeles prosecutors following a four-year investigation into allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault, the city’s District Attorney said Friday.
Nathan J. Hochman, elected in November, said his office had decided that the statute of limitations had expired for any domestic violence charges against the rocker (Brian Warner), and that they simply could not prove a sexual assault charge in court.
In a brief statement, Hochman said prosecutors “recognize and applaud the courage and resilience of the women who came forward” and thanked them for their “cooperation and patience.”
“While we are unable to bring charges in this matter, we recognize that the strong advocacy of the women involved has helped bring greater awareness to the challenges faced by survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault,” Hochman said.
In a statement to Billboard, Manson’s attorney Howard King said: “We are very pleased that, after a thorough and incredibly lengthy review of all of the actual evidence, the District Attorney has concluded what we knew and expressed from the start – Brian Warner is innocent.”
Manson has faced a slew of allegations of sexual wrongdoing over the past several years, including from his ex-fiance Evan Rachel Wood, who alleged that the rocker “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.” He also faced claims from former assistant Ashley Walters, model Ashley Morgan Smithline and two Jane Doe accusers.
Manson has denied all of the allegations, and many civil lawsuits filed against him have since been dropped, dismissed or settled. He later sued Wood for defamation over her accusations, but a judge dismissed much of the case in 2023. Manson eventually dropped the case in November and agreed to pay Wood $327,000 in legal fees.
In early 2021, Los Angeles County detectives said they were conducting a criminal investigation and eventually served a search warrant on Manson’s West Hollywood home. The identities of Manson’s accusers in the criminal case have not been disclosed, but Game of Thrones actor Esmé Bianco publicly shared last year that her allegations against him were part of the criminal probe.
In October, then-District Attorney George Gascón said that “new evidence has emerged within the last few weeks” and that his office was pursuing “new leads” that would add to the “already extensive” case file they had amassed. But just weeks later, Hochman was elected.
An upcoming Michael Jackson biopic is delayed due to a recently-revealed, decades-old legal agreement barring any portrayal of the family of one of his abuse accusers, according to a report by the news site Puck, requiring costly re-shoots of key scenes.
Michael – a musical biopic from director Antoine Fuqua starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson in the title role – was delayed in November by studio Lionsgate, pushing the movie’s 2025 release back from April to October. No explanation was offered at the time.
Now, according to the Thursday report by Puck, there’s an answer: Filmmakers have been forced to scrap key portions of the movie because they would potentially violate a legal contract reached with the family of Jordan Chandler, a then-13-year-old boy who accused the superstar singer of molestation in the 1990s.
In the agreement, Jackson’s team reportedly promised not to dramatize the Chandlers in any capacity. That’s a huge problem, according to the report, because the Michael script portrays Jackson as a “naïve victim of the money-grubbing Chandlers” and features a scene of the boy’s father “threatening to leverage his son’s accusations to ‘destroy’ his ex-wife and Jackson’s career.”
A representative for the Jackson estate did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
The existence of the agreement with the Chandlers was not disclosed to filmmakers until after shooting was completed on the $150 million film, according to Puck. Estate executor John Branca reportedly informed producers about the problem around the time that the Financial Times reported in September that the estate had paid out hush-money to other accusers in never-before-reported settlements.
The estate is reportedly funding the necessary re-shoots to the movie, and the filmmakers will seek Lionsgate’s approval for a revised script and shooting strategy for “as early as this week.” Lionsgate is reportedly “hopeful” about the October release date and producer Graham King is “confident that his team can fix the movie.”
A source with knowledge of the film’s production told Billboard on Friday that re-shoots are already scheduled and that the movie’s ultimate release is not in jeopardy, but declined to go further into details.
Jackson, who died suddenly in 2009, was never convicted or held legally liable on any accusation of child molestation, but is still dogged by such allegations. Two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, continue to claim Jackson sexually abused them as children, spending the last decade pursuing civil lawsuits. And their allegations were amplified in 2019 by HBO docuseries Leaving Neverland, which laid out their claims in disturbing detail.
The Jackson estate has always vehemently denied all such claims, pointing out that the singer was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial and arguing that his accusers are simply seeking monetary gain from an artist who cannot defend himself because defamation law does not extend to dead individuals.
The allegations have not dampened the value of Jackon’s legacy. Though the estate was nearly $500 million in debt at the time of his death, it has since generated billions from royalties, theatrical productions and other revenue streams – including a recent $600 million deal to sell half of his music catalog to Sony Music.
Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt have joined more than 20 other property owners in suing the City of Los Angeles and the L.A. Department of Water and Power, claiming the city’s decision to “drain” a local reservoir left firefighters without enough water to fight the devastating Palisades Fire that destroyed their home.
In the complaint, which was filed Tuesday (Jan. 21), Pratt, Montag and their co-plaintiffs accuse L.A.’s Department of Water and Power (LADWP) of making “the conscious decision to operate the water supply system with the reservoir drained and unusable as a ‘cost-saving’ measure,” leading hydrants in the Pacific Palisades to “fail…within a span of 12 hours” because the tanks that fed them were not replenished by water from the “empty” Santa Ynez Reservoir.
The lawsuit cites multiple public officials, including Los Angeles County Public Works director Mark Pestrella, for allegedly acknowledging the failures that led to the fire’s uncontrolled spread through a heavily populated area. It claims that “Defendants also designed the water system for public use such that it would not have enough water pressure to fight an urban fire” despite knowing the region was prone to destructive blazes.
“LADWP and City of Los Angeles had a duty to properly construct, inspect, maintain and operate its water supply system,” reads the complaint, filed by attorneys Peter McNulty, Brett Rosenthal and E. Kirk Wood. “The Palisades Fire was an inescapable and unavoidable consequence of the water supply system operated by LADWP and City of Los Angeles as it was planned and constructed. The system necessarily failed, and this failure was a substantial factor in causing Plaintiffs to suffer the losses alleged in this Complaint.”
A key reason for the city and the LADWP’s failure, according to the suit, was its stated decision to leave the reservoir “empty for nearly a year” in order “to seek contractor bids rather than using in-house personnel to repair” it.
“This stated public purpose was far outweighed by the substantial risk posed to Pacific Palisades by wildfires,” the complaint continues. “The degree of damage that resulted from the Palisades Fire far outweighed any benefit that could have been realized by outsourcing and delaying repairs to the Santa Ynez Reservoir.”
Montag, Pratt and their co-plaintiffs are seeking damages including “costs of repair, depreciation, and/or replacement of damaged, destroyed, and/or lost personal and/or real property” and “loss of wages, earning capacity, and/or business profits or proceeds and/or any related business interruption losses and displacement expenses,” among other relief.
The City of Los Angeles and the LADWP did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Pratt became a ubiquitous presence on TikTok earlier this month after his and Montag’s home was destroyed in the massive Palisades Fire, with the reality star encouraging fans to stream Montag’s 2010 album Superficial to help them recover from their losses. Thanks to those efforts, Superficial and its songs have appeared on multiple Billboard charts. This week, the album notched a No. 54 debut on the Billboard 200 with more than 15,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. the week ending Jan. 16, according to Luminate, with more than 3.5 million on-demand official streams in the tracking week and 12,000 downloads sold.
Since breaking out on Jan. 7, the ongoing Palisades Fire has burned more than 23,000 acres, destroyed more than 6,000 structures and killed 11 people. It is now 72% contained. A second blaze, the Eaton Fire in Altadena, has burned more than 14,000 acres, destroyed more than 9,000 structures and killed 17. That fire is now at 95% containment.
As wildfires continue to threaten Los Angeles amid dangerous “red flag” conditions, the boutique bank Raine has announced that its Grammy Week event will be reframed as a fundraiser for music professionals affected by the massive Palisades and Eaton blazes.
The event, to be held on Jan. 30 at the San Vicente Bungalows in West Hollywood from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., will be co-hosted by Raine, the National Music Publishers’ Association, and music industry publications Music Business Worldwide and HITS. Donations will go to the Recording Academy and MusiCares’ Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort supporting music workers impacted by the disasters. Those interested in attending are being asked to donate a minimum of $250, which can be done at the event’s RSVP page. Questions can be directed to wildfirefundraiser@raine.com.
Raine partner Fred Davis says they chose to turn the event into a fundraiser — rather than cancel it altogether — to make the most of the attendees’ “enormously charitable” nature.
“So many in our music community have been devastated by their losses. It hurts,” Davis tells Billboard. “I have grown up in this industry. I have a responsibility to help.”
The Raine event would have been the music and entertainment industry-focused bank’s second Grammy Week cocktail party, but invitations went out one day before the Palisades Fire broke out on Jan. 7. That blaze went on to destroy more than 6,600 buildings and homes across more than 23,000 acres, while 11 people lost their lives. The Eaton Fire, which started later the same day in Altadena, is estimated to have destroyed more than 9,000 structures and killed 17. Both of those fires continue to burn but are nearing full containment, though a newer blaze, the Hughes Fire, exploded on Wednesday (Jan. 22) north of L.A. and prompted widespread evacuations in the Castaic Lake region. It has since burned more than 10,000 acres and is at 24% containment.
Notably, the Raine event is one of the few to remain on the Grammy Week calendar in the wake of the wildfires, with the majority of the major bashes either canceled or postponed. Those that remain, including the annual MusiCares Person of the Year and Clive Davis Galas put on by the Recording Academy, have similarly been re-spun as fundraisers for wildfire relief.
The Grammys themselves, which are still scheduled to be held on Feb. 2 at Crypto.com arena in Downtown Los Angeles, will go forward, according to academy, “with a renewed sense of purpose: raising additional funds to support wildfire relief efforts and honoring the bravery and dedication of first responders who risk their lives to protect ours.”
Longtime booking agent Scott Pang passed away on Thursday (Jan. 23) after suffering from a cardiac arrest. He was 69 years old. “He loved what he did and he was always on the phone,” his son Thompson Pang tells Billboard. “He knew so many people, it was crazy.” Pang was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on […]
A teenager who stabbed three young girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England was sentenced Thursday to more than 50 years in prison for what a judge called “the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime.”
Judge Julian Goose said 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana “wanted to try and carry out mass murder of innocent, happy young girls.”
Goose said that he couldn’t impose a sentence of life without parole, because Rudakubana was under 18 when he committed the crime.
But the judge said he must serve 52 years, minus the six months he’s been in custody, before being considered for parole, and “it is likely he will never be released.”
Rudakubana was 17 when he attacked the children in the seaside town of Southport in July, killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. He wounded eight other girls, ranging in age from 7 to 13, along with teacher Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, a local businessman who intervened.
The attack shocked the country and set off both street violence and soul-searching. The government has announced a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop the killer, who had been referred to the authorities multiple times over his obsession with violence.
Defendant disrupts the hearing
Rudakubana faced three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder and additional charges of possessing a knife, the poison ricin and an al-Qaida manual. He unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges on Monday.
But he wasn’t in court to hear sentence passed on Thursday.
Hours earlier he had been led into the dock at Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England, dressed in a gray prison tracksuit. But as prosecutors began outlining the evidence, Rudakubana interrupted by shouting that he felt ill and wanted to see a paramedic.
Goose ordered the accused to be removed when he continued shouting. A person in the courtroom shouted “Coward!” as Rudakubana was taken out.
The hearing continued without him.
Horror on a summer day
Prosecutor Deanna Heer described how the attack occurred on the first day of summer vacation when 26 little girls were “gathered around the tables making bracelets and singing along to Taylor Swift songs.”
Rudakubana, armed with a large knife, intruded and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.
The court was shown video of the suspect arriving at the Hart Space venue in a taxi and entering the building. Within seconds, screams erupted and children ran outside in panic, some of them wounded. One girl made it to the doorway, but was pulled back inside by the attacker. She was stabbed 32 times but survived.
Gasps and sobs could be heard in court as the videos played.
Heer said two of the dead children “suffered particularly horrific injuries which are difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature.” One of the dead girls had 122 injuries, while another suffered 85 wounds.
A teenager obsessed with violence
The prosecutor said Rudakubana had “a longstanding obsession with violence, killing, genocide.”
“His only purpose was to kill. And he targeted the youngest and most vulnerable in society,” she said, as relatives of the victims watched on in the courtroom.
Heer said that when he was taken to a police station, Rudakubana was heard to say: “It’s a good thing those children are dead, I’m so glad, I’m so happy.”
The killings triggered days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on incorrect reports that the attacker was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in the U.K. Some suggested the crime was a jihadi attack, and alleged that police and the government were withholding information.
Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators haven’t been able to pin down his motivation. Police found documents about subjects including Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs on his devices.
In the years before the attack, he had been reported to multiple authorities over his violent interests and actions. All of the agencies failed to spot the danger he posed.
In 2019, he phoned a children’s advice line to ask “What should I do if I want to kill somebody?” He said he had taken a knife to school because he wanted to kill someone who was bullying him. Two months later, he attacked a fellow student with a hockey stick and was convicted of assault.
The definition of terrorism
Prosecutors said Rudakubana was referred three times to the government’s anti-extremism program, Prevent, when he was 13 and 14 — once after researching school shootings in class, then for uploading pictures of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to Instagram and for researching a London terror attack.
But they concluded his crimes should not be classed as terrorism because Rudakubana had no discernable political or religious cause. Heer said “his purpose was the commission of mass murder, not for a particular end, but as an end in itself.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week the country must face up to a “new threat” from violent individuals whose mix of motivations test the traditional definition of terrorism.
“After one of the most harrowing moments in our country’s history, we owe it to these innocent young girls and all those affected to deliver the change that they deserve,” Starmer said after the sentencing.
Wrenching testimony from victims
Several relatives and survivors read emotional statements in court, describing how the attack had shattered their lives.
Lucas, 36, who ran the dance class, said that “the trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrendous.”
“I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died?” she said.
A 14-year-old survivor, who can’t be named because of a court order, said that while she was physically recovering. “we will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever.”
“I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward,” she said.
The prosecutor read out a statement from the parents of Alice Da Silva Aguiar, who said their daughter’s killing had “shattered our souls.”
“We used to cook for three. Now we only cook for two. It doesn’t seem right,” they said. “Alice was our purpose for living, so what do we do now?”
This story was originally published by The Associated Press.
One of the survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion and massacre of Israelis by Hamas forces will represent her county at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 24-year-old aspiring singer Yuval Raphael — who escaped the mass killing of hundreds at Israel’s Nova Music Festival — punched her card this week to sing for her nation at this year’s contest in Basel, Switzerland after she won the 11th season of Israel’s singing competition Rising Star. The victory resulted in her being tapped to represent Israel at the global sing-off.
Previous Eurovision representatives from Israel who went on to Eurovision after winning the show include Israeli singer Netta, who won Eurovision in 2018; pop stars Noa Kirel and Eden Golan finished in third and fifth place, respectively, over the last two years.
According to THR, Raphael won Rising Star on Wednesday (Jan. 22) after performing a stripped-down version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” a nod to the Swedish pop supergroup that blew up after their 1974 Eurovision win; she also performed a cover of Sam Smith’s 2015 Oscar-winning song James Bond Spectre track “Writing’s on the Wall.”
In addition to praising her vocal abilities, the show’s judges said Raphael’s gripping personal story of surviving the massacre resonated with them. The singer described running away from the EDM festival and taking cover inside a public bomb shelter outside of Kibbutz Be’eri, where she hid in a cramped cement bunker, trapped under dead bodies as she herself played dead for more than eight hours to escape being murdered by Hamas invaders.
The singer who is fluent in English, French and her native Hebrew, was rescued by the father of another Nova attendee, who drove into the battle zone to save his daughter, and others’, lives. “Every time we [those who were still alive] raised our heads, we couldn’t understand why there were less and less people in the bomb shelter,” Raphael said in a March 2024 speech in front of the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice. “We thought the terrorists were taking the dead bodies. We didn’t realize it was because of the grenades, blowing up their bodies.”
Raphael has been an advocate for Israel over the past year and has said that she hopes, “the world will hear a first-person account of what I went through and have been dealing with every day, so no one could claim otherwise.” The Oct. 7 assault in which Hamas militants killed, sexually assaulted and abused more than 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis and took 251 hostages led to a nearly three-year war between Israel and Hamas that ended over the weekend thanks to a tenuous ceasefire.
The world’s biggest music event — which regularly draws 200 million viewers in more than 40 countries — is headed into its 69th year. Typically averse to any displays of political speech or nationalism, the European Broadcasting Union defended the inclusion of an Israeli contestant last year in the midst of the war that Palestinian authorities said resulted in the death of more than 46,000 residents of Gaza. As some called for Israeli contestant Eden Golan to be left off the stage in much the same way that Russia was uninvited in 2022 following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the singer faced boos when she sang “Hurricane” on the show. Golan, who finished fifth, later said she faced death threats during her run in last year’s contest.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has sued a man he says defamed him by falsely alleging he possessed videos of the embattled hip-hop mogul committing sexual assault, causing him “profound reputational and economic injury and severe prejudice” ahead of his criminal trial.
In the complaint, filed in New York federal court on Wednesday (Jan. 22), Combs accuses Courtney Burgess, along with Burgess’ attorney Ariel Mitchell, of “pretending they have proof that Mr. Combs engaged in heinous acts, knowing that no such proof exists” — thereby leading “millions of people … to believe in the made-up ‘evidence’ that Defendants have falsely described and vouched for.”
Mitchell notably represents several of Combs’ accusers.
“Defendant Burgess falsely claimed that he possessed videos of Mr. Combs involved in the sexual assault of celebrities and minors,” write Combs’ attorneys Michael Termonte, Erica Wolff and Anna Estevao of the New York firm Sher Tremonte. They add that Mitchell then “repeated those lies” to media outlets while knowing all along that Burgess’ claims “were false, or at a minimum was utterly reckless in disregarding their falsity.” The complaint accuses both Burgess and Mitchell of seeking “to capitalize on the resulting publicity for financial gain” despite knowing that “no such tapes exist.”
Also named as a defendant in the lawsuit is cable network NewsNation, which the lawsuit claims “recklessly repeated and amplifed [Burgess’] lies as if they were true” without ever reaching out to Combs’ representatives for comment or verifying that the alleged videotapes existed in the first place.
To bolster their case, Combs’ attorneys attempt to discredit Burgess by referring to him as “a fringe character” who claims to have worked in the music industry “for decades” even though “there exists no public record of any professional achievements and he left no detectable footprint on the industry prior to his recent campaign to malign Mr. Combs.” They further allege that despite Burgess’ claims that he received the alleged videos from Combs’ late ex-girlfriend Kim Porter, he in fact had “no more than a passing acquaintance” with her.
Combs’ attorneys also claim that Burgess tried to capitalize on the highly publicized allegations swirling around Combs by posting a memoir allegedly written by Porter to Amazon, which they say later pulled the book after it “was denounced by Ms. Porter’s family and others as a fake,” according to the suit.
The lawsuit equally tries to discredit Mitchell — known for filing sexual assault cases against powerful men including Trey Songz, Chris Brown and Combs himself — by claiming her cases against Songz and Brown were disproven and that in “peddling false claims to media outlets” like NewsNation about the alleged videotapes of Combs, she “insisted on valuable benefits and payments in exchange for interviews, including first class air travel, four-star hotel accommodations, hair and makeup allowances, and a ‘materials fee’ for copies of, among other things, demand letters sent on behalf of one of her clients who sued Mr. Combs.”
They add that Mitchell spread her alleged lies about Combs far and wide, including in multiple NewsNation appearances and in a documentary about Combs titled The Making of a Bad Boy that aired on NBC’s Peacock streaming service earlier this month. (NBC is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.)
“Defendants made these false and defamatory statements in bad faith, as part of a deliberate effort to damage Mr. Combs’s reputation, undermine his businesses and, by painting him as debauched and a pedophile, to poison the public’s perception of him and deprive him of a fair trial,” Combs’ attorneys conclude.
Combs is asking for “not less” than $50 million in damages.
Burgess, Mitchell and NewsNation did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Combs is currently imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn ahead of his criminal trial, which is set to kick off on May 5. He is charged with running a multi-faceted criminal enterprise in order to satisfy his need for “sexual gratification.” Among other accusations, he is alleged to have held so-called “freak off” parties, during which he and others drugged victims and coerced them into having sex. He faces a potential life prison sentence if convicted on all charges.
Angel Carter Conrad is getting ready to tell her side of her family’s history — including her memories of famous brothers Nick Carter and the late Aaron Carter — in a new documentary titled The Carters coming to Paramount+ later this year.
As announced Wednesday (Jan. 22), the two-part project will give viewers a “deeply personal look at the extreme highs and tragic lows of a family propelled into the spotlight” by Nick’s boy band career with the Backstreet Boys and Aaron’s rise to solo pop stardom. Told through the eyes of Angel — Aaron’s twin sister — the doc will piece together the Carter family’s “deeply disturbing path” through never-before-seen home movies and exclusive interviews with friends Melissa Joan Hart and Scout Willis.
“The Carters follows bona fide American teen heartthrobs, Nick and Aaron, who seemed to have it all,” reads a description. “But behind their remarkable gifts was a family dealing with mental health struggles, drug addiction, and heartbreaking neglect.”
An exact release date has not yet been announced. Director Soleil Moon Frye said in a statement, “I feel morally responsible to create a safe space for others to share their truths … Angel’s courage in sharing her family’s journey of mental health issues, addiction, pain, unbearable loss, and at the core, love, is a profound testament to who she is.”
“This documentary is a labor of love for my family,” added Angel. “By sharing our true story — one shaped by loss, resilience, and healing — I hope to honor our journey and transform our past into a message of hope and purpose for others facing similar challenges.”
Aaron, Nick and Angel are three of five children in their family. They also had a sister named Leslie, who died of an apparent overdose in 2012, and another sister, Bobbie Jean, who died of an accidental overdose in 2023. Aaron died the year prior in an accidental drowning. The siblings also lost their father to a heart attack in 2017.
Seemingly uninvolved in the documentary, Nick Carter is currently embroiled in legal battles with three women who have accused him of sexual assault: Shannon “Shay” Ruth, Dream singer Melissa Schuman and an anonymous Jane Doe, who in August 2023 filed a complaint alleging Nick assaulted her multiple times in 2003 when she was 15. Ruth sued the “Now or Never” singer in December 2022 for allegedly raping her on a tour bus when she was a teenager, while Schuman’s suit came in April 2023 over claims Nick gave her drug-laced alcohol and assaulted her when she was 18.
In August last year, Nick countersued Schuman for $2.5 million. He also countersued Ruth before that; both times, a judge refused attempts to have the countersuits dismissed.