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Like a lot of musicians who supported Vice President Kamala Harris in her losing bid to deny former President Donald Trump a second White House term, Sabrina Carpenter took the stage on Wednesday night (Nov. 6) with a heavy heart. During her show at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, Carpenter did not refer to Trump by […]
Billie Eilish didn’t mince words on Wednesday night (Nov. 6) during her show at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, less than a day after former President Donald Trump easily defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to secure his second White House term. The singer who had endorsed Harris — along with her brother/producer Finneas — was characteristically blunt in her assessment of Tuesday night’s results.
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“Let’s say convicted predator, let’s say that,” Eilish said without naming Trump, who was found liable in 2023 for sexually abusing, and defaming, advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and ordered to pay nearly $5 million in damages in that case, as well as $83.3 million in a related case; Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women dating back to the 1970s, has appealed the verdicts in the Carroll cases and denied all the allegations of sexual abuse.
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Seated on stage with an acoustic guitar across her lap, Eilish admitted her heart was beating “so fast” as she referred to Trump, again without explicitly naming him, as someone who “hates women so, so deeply is about to be the President of the United States of America. This song is for all the women out there. I love you, I support you.”
Eilish paused as some in the crowd yelled “f–k Trump!”
“So this song is for all the women out there,” she continued before dedicating her 2021 Happier Than Ever ballad “Your Power” to the women in the crowd. The poignant lyrics include the lines, “Try not to abuse your power/ I know we didn’t choose to change/ You might not wanna lose your power/ But having it’s so strange.”
Eilish also told her fans that when she woke up that morning she “couldn’t fathom” doing a show that night, but as the day went on she realized the “privilege” of getting to perform for them after the let-down of Harris’ decisive loss to Trump, who will become the first convicted felon to ascend to the nation’s highest office.
“And the song that we’re about to do is… about the abuse that exists in this world upon women and a lot of the experiences that I have gone through and that people I know have gone through. And to tell you the truth, I’ve never met one single woman who doesn’t have a story of abuse. Not one,” she said at the show on her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour.
“I’ve dealt with some stuff myself and I have been taken advantage of. My boundaries were crossed to say it politely,” she added before telling them, “I just love you so much and I want you to know that you’re safe with me and you’re protected here and you are safe in this room.”
During a performance of her song “TV” — which references the overturning of Roe v. Wade following Trump’s appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices during his first term — Eilish sang, “The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial/ While they’re overturning Roe v. Wade,” before standing mute for a few moments and then walking off stage without further comment.
Eilish was one of many stars who spoke out following Trump’s decisive victory on Tuesday night, writing on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday morning “it’s a war on women.”
Bruce Springsteen reacted to Tuesday’s presidential election results in the best way he knows how: by singing a song about freedom, hope, love and loss. “This is a fighting prayer for my country,” Springsteen told the crowd at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto as he and the E Street Band launched into the 2007 song “Long Walk Home” from 2007’s Magic album.
With that, the band tore into the mid-tempo rocker whose lyrics felt especially timely in light of Springsteen’s vocal, emphatic support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ losing campaign against former and now future President Donald Trump. “Last night I stood at your doorstep/ Trying to figure out what went wrong,” he sang on the song with the poignant refrain: “It’s gonna be a long walk home/ Hey pretty darling, don’t wait up for me/ Gonna be a long walk home.”
Though he didn’t comment further on the relevance of the song’s themes, their plainspoken poetry did the talking for him. “My father said ‘Son, we’re lucky in this town/ It’s a beautiful place to be born/ It just wraps its arms around you/ Nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone,’” he sang, followed by another verse layered with Springsteen’s signature dream of a better tomorrow and faith in the resilience of the American spirit: “Your flag flyin’ over the courthouse/ Means certain things are set in stone/ Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.”
Springsteen had been all-in for Harris, throwing his weight behind the 11th-hour candidacy by filming the moving “Hope and Dreams” campaign video in which he said, “This election is about a group of folks who want to fundamentally undermine our American way of life. Donald Trump does not understand this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply American. I want a president who reveres the Constitution, who wants to protect and guide our great democracy, who believes in the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, who will fight for women’s rights and a woman’s right to choose, and who wants to create a middle class economy that serves all our citizens.”
The comments came from an Oct. 28 Harris rally where Springsteen shared the stage with John Legend and former President Barack Obama. That appearance in Philadelphia came just days after The Boss joined a Harris rally in Georgia, where he told supporters that she was “running to be the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump is running to be an American tyrant.”
Springsteen was one of dozens of musicians, actors and other artists who threw in with the Harris campaign’s attempt to stop twice impeached Trump from being just the second man to serve non-consecutive White House terms, as well as the first convicted felon to ascend to the nation’s highest office.
Watch a fan video of the performance here.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s stunning win in the 2024 presidential election, singer-songwriter Ethel Cain is letting out her rage.
In a post to her Tumblr on Wednesday (Nov. 6), the “American Teenager” singer laid into the American political system, decrying the methods by which members of the electorate are turned against one another. “The problem is that America has beaten down its people for decades and gotten them weak and desperate and now promises a way out, a way to transcend and rise above, through selling out their fellow man,” she wrote. “An embarrassingly large chunk of white men are just straight up nazis these days as a way to dissociate from the rest of the carnage around them, even if they’re broke and uneducated and from an impoverished background themselves.”
Cain, who has been a vocal critic of both the Republican and Democratic tickets in the 2024 election, went on to say that modern political discourse has made everyone “so incredibly hateful,” and warned that the president-elect was far from the only issue in our current system.
“It’s not even about Trump at this point. He’s gonna get in office and do whatever he does and it’s gonna be a mess but whatever. This is indicative of deeper problem,” she wrote. “There is no solidarity and there is no love. Trump being in office or not doesn’t change the fact that America is a breeding ground for violent hatred … if anything COULD be done about it, Trump certainly wouldn’t do it. Honestly, Kamala probably wouldn’t have either. We are so deeply f–ked.”
The singer went on to deliver a direct message to any Trump supporters reading her post: “If you voted for Trump, I hope that peace never finds you. Instead, I hope clarity strikes you someday like a clap of lightning and you have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge and guilt of what you’ve done and who you are as a person,” she wrote.
As for the rest of her followers, Cain said that since “we can’t count on the government,” it would come down to them. “Just keep up the good fight in your own personal lives,” she wrote. “That’s literally the only thing to be done at this point. Stay safe out there. Maybe buy a gun.”
Cain joins a rising chorus of voices reacting negatively to Trump’s re-election. Cardi B wrote “I hate y’all so bad” after the race was called for the Republican nominee, while Billie Eilish said that his win represented “a war on women.”
Cardi B is one of countless voters left devastated by the outcome of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday (Nov. 5), which ended with Donald Trump winning over Kamala Harris.
But in a message posted to Instagram the day after the election, the 32-year-old rapper – who was a staunch supporter of the VP’s White House bid this year – chose to share some positivity despite the race not going her way. “To Vice President Kamala, no matter what they’ve said to bring you down or belittle your run for presidency they can never say you didn’t run your race with honesty and with integrity!” Cardi wrote.
“You really put up a fight against all the odds that were already stacked against you!” she continued in her Notes app message. “You never accepted defeat as an option which says so much about your strength and about your heart.”
The rapper also shared the same note on X, but added a little more. “No need to nasty, y’all picked your winner…All we can do is be hopeful and wish the best,” she tweeted. “Before Kamala joined the race, we knew how this country is set up and what was probably going to happen but it was so inspiring how she fought and changed so many minds, including mine.”
Prior to her letter to Harris, the Grammy winner was one of the first musicians to react to Trump’s victory — “I hate y’all bad,” she wrote on Instagram Stories. Cardi had fiercely advocated for the former prosecutor for months prior to Election Day and made a speech at one of the Democratic candidate’s final campaign events Nov. 1 in Milwaukee, Wisc.
“Like Kamala Harris, I’ve been the underdog, underestimated, and had my success belittled,” she said at the podium. “I didn’t have faith in any candidates until she joined and spoke the words I wanted to hear about the future of this country … Kamala recognizes that this country is at risk, and that we need to strengthen our economy and address the rising cost of living.”
Much earlier in the election cycle, before Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, Cardi made headlines for refusing to support a candidate in the 2024 race. “I feel like it was very selfish of Biden … to continue to run for president,” the rapper said on Instagram Live before he dropped out of the race over the summer. “They should’ve passed the torch to Kamala.”
In her post-election letter to Harris five months later, Cardi once again emphasized her admiration for the VP. “You really wanted better for ALL of us!” she wrote. “This may not mean much but I am so proud of you! No one has ever made me change my mind and you did! I never thought I would see the day that a woman of color would be running for the President of the United States, but you have shown me, shown my daughters and women across the country that anything is possible.”
See Cardi’s full message below:
No need to nasty, y’all picked your winner…All we can do is be hopeful and wish the best. Before Kamala joined the race, we knew how this country is set up and what was probably going to happen but it was so inspiring how she fought and changed so many minds, including mine. pic.twitter.com/pj05rnKY57— Cardi B (@iamcardib) November 6, 2024
As the world woke up to Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, Billie Eilish summed up her thoughts in five simple words. Taking to her Instagram Stories on Wednesday morning (Nov. 6), the “Birds of a Feather” singer posted her message over a black background to her audience of 120 million followers. “It’s a […]
50 Cent is back on the Trump train. A week after boasting that he’d turned down a purported nine-figure payday to appear at former and now-future President Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden campaign stop, the “Wanksta” rapper appeared to be back in The Donald’s corner.
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“I don’t care how the fight goes, I’m leaving with the winner s–t,” 50 (born Curtis Jackson) wrote on Instagram on Wednesday morning (Nov. 6) in a post that featured two pictures of the rapper with Trump, who defied odds on Tuesday night to join Grover Cleveland as the only American to be voted into the nation’s top office to non-consecutive terms.
“I still don’t know what’s going on,” 50 added along with a face palm emoji and “congratulations!”
In an appearance on The Breakfast Club last week, 50 claimed that he’d been offered $3 million to appear at Trump’s MSG rally. “Yeah. They offered me $3 million!” said 50, confirming co-host Charlamagne Tha God’s query about that event, as well as reports that 50 was also offered an undisclosed amount to perform his song “Many Men” at this summer’s Republican National Convention as well.
50 did not appear at either event, explaining to the Breakfast Club crew why he rejected the lucrative offer. “I didn’t even go far,” he said of the offers. “I’m afraid of politics, you understand? I do not like it. … It’s because when you do get involved in it, no matter how you feel, somebody passionately disagrees with you. Look, if you say ‘I stay away from religion,’ I stay away from politics. Religion, that’s the formula for the confusion that it sent Kanye to Japan. He said something about both of those things and now he can only go to Japan. So you know I’m like I don’t want to get in that, man.”
At the time, a Trump campaign source told Billboard that the story was not true, though they did not specify which part was erroneous — that Trump wanted 50 at the rally or that the offer was $3 million.
After a comedian referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s MSG event, a number of major Puerto Rican artists spoke out in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost Tuesday’s closely contested election to the former reality TV star who has continued to deny that he lost his second bid for the White House in 2020 to President Biden.
During that failed 2020 bid 50 initially supported the twice impeached former commander-in-chief before retracting his endorsement after former girlfriend Chelsea Handler called him out. “F–k Donald Trump, I never liked him,” the rapper later said in a retweet of Handler’s appearance on The Tonight Show in which she criticized her ex for his support of Trump, 78, who will become the oldest man, and first convicted felon, to ascend to the nation’s highest office when he is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Political spending among the major players in the live music industry has largely remained flat this election cycle, while contributions by individuals working at Live Nation were up slightly over past years and money spent on lobbying members of Congress dropped in 2024, according to election data reviewed by Billboard.
At Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), owner Phil Anschutz spent $1.9 million supporting this year’s Republican reelection efforts but opted not to throw any support behind presidential candidate Donald Trump. Anschutz has never supported the brash presidential candidate, but though AEG boss is sinking millions of dollars into efforts to flip the Senate for Republicans.
Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino, on the other hand, gave $25,000 in political donations to mostly Democratic Senate candidates and causes, records show, while the usually politically active James Dolan, chairman of Madison Square Garden Entertainment, made a single $25,000 donation this election cycle to Secure NYS PAC, a shadowy political action committee created to defeat House member Tom Suozzi (NY-D).
At Live Nation, executives donated about $387,000 to mostly Democratic candidates, a drop of about 6% compared to 2020, when executives donated $410,000.
The spending cycle comes during an unusually politically active year for the concert business, with a major ticketing reform package inching forward in Congress and the Department of Justice’s investigation of Live Nation on anti-trust grounds making its way through the courts.
Neither political cause has driven major spending by Rapino or his long-time rival Anschutz, who has once again sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort to flip the Senate over to the Republicans. Anschutz, a Colorado billionaire who made large parts of his fortune in energy, railroads and communications, has long supported groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee. This year, Anschutz made more than 200 donations totaling $1.9 million to right-leaning political groups, the bulk of which went to political groups supporting Senate Republicans like John Cornyn, John Thune and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Anschutz also spent $1.9 million during the 2016 cycle and $836,000 during the 2020 cycle.
Rapino spent considerably less than Anschutz this election cycle, with his biggest political contribution being the $10,000 he donated to Live Nation’s political action committee, which gave $200,000 to candidates from both political parties this cycle. As an individual donor, Rapino cut about $4,600 in donations to Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jacky Rosen in Nevada and supported Adam Schiff’s campaign for Senate in California, as well as the campaigns of high-profile California House members Katie Porter and Eric Swalwell.
Meanwhile, Gregg Maffei, president/CEO of Liberty Media and the chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, spent more than $112,000 on conservative politicians and political causes, mostly supporting the presidential candidacy of Trump and Senate Republicans. That’s significantly down from the 2020 election cycle when Maffei spent $420,000 on right-wing political causes and politicians, and the 2016 cycle when he spent $324,000.
Rihanna clapped back at social media trolls after she encouraged her fans to vote. Keep watching to see what she said. Tetris Kelly:Rihanna claps back. After posting a video on her IG, “Me trying to sneak into the polls with my son’s passport #VoteCauseICant #TanSuitSeason,” Rihanna received several negative responses and RiRi clapped back! She […]
Three years after its release, Illenium is sharing the emotional backstory behind his track “Brave Soul,” the closer from his 2021 album Fallen Embers.
In a video posted to YouTube Monday (Nov. 4), the producer tells this story alongside Jordan Hamilton, the CEO of Choice House, the Colorado addiction and mental health treatment center for men where Illenium (born Nick Miller) got sober more than a decade ago after an opiate addiction.
“I met Jordan when I was on my long trek of rehabs,” Miller says in the video. “Jordan had two years sober at the time. I had gone through treatment a couple years before that and was just trying to figure out how to live life.” Watch the complete video below.
The pair became friends, with Jordan’s sister Emma, a singer-songwriter, getting introduced to the group. Together, they eventually wrote a song that turned into “Brave Soul,” with this music written in memory of Jordan and Emma’s late brother Braden, who they lost to an overdose in 2018.
“Emma and I shared the love of [being] able to speak through music and heal through music,” Miller says in the clip. “I think that’s a really impactful thing to give back to a person that you love, and give back to yourself.”
Illenium debuted the track at his Trilogy show at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium on July 3, 2021. “It was so sick having you there and having Emma there and being able to give your brother the words from beyond,” Miller says in the video.
“To hear 40,000 people respond to that and to hear his memory, it was a super special special moment,” Hamilton continues of the song, whose lyrics honor his brother memory by saying “here’s to your brave soul/ you fought but you lost hold/ and now I’m alone to face the truth.”
Illenium opened up about his journey of finding sobriety and going on to became a stadium filling artist in his Billboard cover story this past March. Of how addiction effected his relationship with his mom, he said, “Watching that relationship get torn by the s–t you keep doing — at first, it’s like, ‘Why are you on me so much, I’m not even that bad,.’ Then it goes into ‘OK, I can’t stop’ and then it goes into, like, “F–k everyone. I can’t live without it.’ And then you’re just breaking down.”
“For anyone who’s in that place, it feels so horrible in that moment,” Hamilton says in the video, “but if you’re willing to ask for help and take some steps, that’s the jumping off point of where we get better.”
If you or anyone you know is struggling with substance abuse, visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s website for resources.