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In tandem with today’s observance of World Mental Health Day (Oct. 10), the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is unveiling its Never a Bother campaign in partnership with Grammy Award-winning artist and mental health advocate Megan Thee Stallion. The youth suicide prevention campaign is designed to heighten awareness of suicide prevention tools and resources before, during and after a crisis.
The Never a Bother campaign video finds Megan Thee Stallion talking compassionately about her own mental health journey, the need for transparency in conversations about the subject and the free crisis resources available to youth through the initiative. Her comments were drawn from a recent video interview with Billboard executive director of R&B/hip-hop Gail Mitchell.
“It took me a long time to be comfortable talking about my mental health,” the rapper shares at one point. “Asking for help doesn’t make me weak. Asking for help actually built my strength… going to get the help gave me the tools to be stronger. So I just definitely want to talk to the Hotties and let them know it’s OK to ask for help… Hotties, you are never a bother.” View the video below.
In addition to being posted on Megan’s Instagram and TikTok channels, the video appears on the Never a Bother website and its social media channels as well. The campaign was created with and for California youth with oversight by CDPH’s Office of Suicide Prevention to increase awareness about what’s become a crucial issue. According to data cited by the CDPH, suicide was the second leading cause of death among California youth between the ages of 10-25 from 2018 to 2022. A particular focus of the campaign, notes CDPH, are the “youth populations disproportionately impacted by suicide.”
In tune with Megan’s message, the Never a Bother website also underscores to youths that “you are never a bother. Whether it’s a low point, a crisis or something you can’t exactly put into words, get help for yourself or a friend.” The site also features real stories from young people who have felt overwhelmed by life as well as from the friends who have helped. Resources to share with youth and young people can be downloaded as well from the above-referenced website.
Megan Thee Stallion is as well known for her music as she is for her strong advocacy of mental health. Last year, she filmed a PSA in association with the Seize the Awkward campaign. She also established the Pete and Thomas Foundation, which provides resources for women, children, senior citizens and underserved communities.
The Never a Bother campaign is part of the California Health and Human Services Agency’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI). As stated in the press announcement, this latest campaign “continues the state’s effort to increase awareness of suicide prevention and mental health resources, build life-saving intervention skills and promote help-seeking behavior.”
With the 2024 presidential election just a month away, one person who will not be hitting the polls is Alabama Barker.
The 18-year-old daughter of Travis Barker went live on social media recently, where she revealed that while she is now old enough to vote, she doesn’t want to. “Not voting isn’t crazy in my opinion at all, because if I don’t feel like I have the exact education for what I’m voting for, how is it right to vote something I’m not completely educated on?” she explained in the livestream, seen by Billboard. “I could educate myself, but why would I do that if I genuinely don’t care? I’m just honest.”
She continued, “I don’t care to vote if I don’t know exactly what’s going on. I don’t think that’s wrong, and I completely stand on that and stand by it because, first of all, I just turned 18 and I never voted before. I’ve never voted. If I don’t want to vote, I don’t have to vote. If I don’t want to be in politics, I don’t have to be in politics.”
Alabama did note, however, that she does “have an opinion on what I feel is right because of what I’ve been seeing,” before adding that “one of the [candidates] is just a mess.” She did not reveal whether she was talking about Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump or Democratic candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris.
While Alabama is not voting, a number of other public figures are. Most recently, Bruce Springsteen voiced his support for Harris, joining a list of other celebrities including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Stevie Nicks, Cardi B, Jason Isbell, John Legend, Katy Perry and many more.
Meanwhile, Jason Aldean, Kid Rock, Kanye West and Sexyy Red are among the artists who are backing Trump in this year’s election.
Retired KISS bassist/singer Gene Simmons is known for unapologetically wagging his legendarily long tongue and for his self-described reputation as a lusty Lothario. But during a guest judging stint on Tuesday night’s (Oct. 8) “Hair Metal Night” on Dancing With the Stars some commenters thought he went too far by focusing on pulchritude instead of Paso doble.
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First, Simmons reportedly got a loud round of boos on air after he gave a bewigged Reginald VelJohnson (Family Matters, Die Hard) a lowly score of 5 for his stiff cha cha to Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock.” According to EW, the studio audience did not take kindly to fellow permanent judges Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli posting the same score — Carrie Ann Inaba gave them a more magnanimous 6 — but when Simmons followed suit, the boos reportedly got significantly louder.
The low score came after Simmons had previously been generous to the fellow septuagenarian, saying before the dance, “Hey Reggie, you’ve got a beautiful woman right beside you who can twist it and turn it and knows how to move it and all that. But I want to tell you, as a guy that’s been on the stage for half a century around the world, I’m kind of a big deal, Reggie. It’s all in the attitude. And you’ve got something in that beautiful face. They love you.”
VelJohnson — who was eliminated on Tuesday night — had had consistently low scores so far this season, but EW said Inaba noted that he’d been a season 33 fan favorite as he hoofed alongside such fellow stars as previous eliminees con artist Anna Delvey, actors Eric Roberts and Tori Spelling, as well as still-active contestants Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, NFL player Danny Amendola, NBA center Dwight Howard, Olympic rugby star Ilona Maher, model Brooks Nader and Bachelorette star Jenn Tran, among others.
Simmons was repeatedly called out by viewers in comments on X for what they dubbed his “creepy” remarks, which some said treated the female dancers as if they were in a beauty pageant. The pointed to Simmons saying he couldn’t decide which one was more “hot hot hot” among Amendola and pro dancer Witney Carson and telling 24-year-old actress Chandler Kinney (Pretty Little Liars) that she “fogged up my glasses” and that she “moved me — not just with your gyrations, but with your beautiful face.”
“ABC needs to issue an apology after having Gene Simmons on there and subjecting their cast to that . Why didn’t a producer tell him to knock it off,” wrote one X user, while another joked, “Gene Simmons comments about the ladies are giving the energy of the gross uncle who corners you at the reunion.” A similar comment read, “it’s only the first dance and i’m already over gene simmons being a creep,” as one added, “Gene Simmons is seriously sucking all the energy out of the ballroom with his creepy comments about the female dancers.”
Well known for speaking his mind on all manner of subjects, Forbes noted that Simmons has been called out before for his thoughts on the opposite sex, including over a passage in his 2017 book, On Power: My Journey Through the Corridors of Power and How You Can Get More Power, in which he wrote that leveraging sexuality is still the fastest route to the top for women.
“Women have a choice,” he said in an interview with the New York Post while promoting the book in 2017. “They can dress in potato sacks, [but] as soon as they pretty themselves up with lipstick, lift and separate them and point them in our general direction, they’re gonna get a response. Guys are jackasses — we will buy them mansions and houses . . . all because of sex.” In that same interview, Simmons told women to “get over” their biological urges, opining, “It’s natural to want to have kids, but, sorry, you can’t have it both ways. You have to commit to either career or family. It’s very difficult to have both.”
KISS said that after five decades on tour their End of the Road Tour — which wrapped in December — would be their last go-round. The group then sold its name, image and likeness rights and announced a virtual Las Vegas performance set to launch in 2027.
Watch VelJohnson’s routine and see some of the comments about Simmons below.
If Gene doesn’t think the woman is hot, she gets a low score. Get this man off my screen. No reason he tried to give Brooks a ten and THE Phaedra Parks a five? #DWTS— Shelby🌻 (@shelbykvosburg) October 9, 2024
Dear @officialdwts ,Shame on Gene Simmons for treating this like a beauty pageant. Never have him on the show again. EVER. He ruined it. #gross #DWTSWith love, Everyone— StarSamantha21 (@StarrSamantha21) October 9, 2024
underscoring the asian and black female contestants relative to the other judge’s scores after inflating scores all night??? gene simmons you may just be a racist #dwts pic.twitter.com/8MuuMVLeu2— lau (@kodylavenders) October 9, 2024
Beyoncé and Jay-Z have received a public apology from Piers Morgan after the polarizing talk-show host aired inflammatory allegations about them on his program. About a week after interviewing Jaguar Wright on Piers Morgan Uncensored — during which the singer-songwriter called the Roc Nation founder and Sean “Diddy” Combs “monsters,” and claimed that the famous […]
By now you surely have heard or read stories about how Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff are huge vinyl nerds. The Democratic presidential candidate and Second Gentleman have made a habit of popping into local record stores to pick up records in the midst of the harried campaign season. But on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show on Tuesday (Oct. 8), Harris opened up a bit more about her musical obsessions, beginning the chat with a touching story about how she and Emhoff reacted to the news that Prince died back in April 2016.
Stern opened the special afternoon interview by playing his favorite Prince album — the 1989 Batman soundtrack — cueing up “Batdance” because he said he was aware Harris was a big fan of the late singer. Though Stern was adamant the Purple One’s 11th studio album — which sat at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for six weeks — was his finest work, Harris adamantly, and politely, disagreed.
“No, 1999 I thought was spectacular, you can go back to his early days. Him on the guitar, there was just nothing like it,” said Harris, who also stopped by The View and The Late Show on Tuesday as part of an intensified media schedule in the final month of her still too-close-to-call race with convicted felon former President Donald Trump.
“Even you look at Bruno Mars today, who’s just been influenced by Prince,” she said, before sharing the anecdote about how she and Emhoff honored the “Purple Rain” star after they heard about his death from an accidental fentanyl overdose at age 57. “The night he passed Doug and I were in L.A. and actually just — he and I have very different musical tastes… [he’s into] Depeche Mode, that’s him, I grew up kind of hip-hop — but Prince is the one intersection where we both love and we just played Prince all night long. We dance, we sang his songs, that was our little tribute.”
The hour-long interview, the longest sit-down Harris has done since becoming the surprise, 11th-hour Democratic candidate following President Biden’s unprecedented decision to step down from running for a second term back in July, touched on a number of salient political topics as well. Harris said she was incensed at reports in a new book by legendary political reporter Bob Woodward that Trump sent hard-to-get COVID testing machines to his friend Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in the midst of the pandemic, adding that she thinks the twice impeached Trump is getting played by his autocratic friends.
“I grew up in the neighborhood,” Harris told Stern. “Some would say you’re getting punked if you stand in favor of somebody who’s an adversary over your friends on principles that we all agree on.” While she declined to say who she would put in her cabinet if elected on Nov. 5 when Stern predicted that it would likely include former Wyoming-congresswoman-turned-Trump-antagonist Republican Liz Cheney — who is voting for Harris, along with her father, former VP Dick Cheney — Harris said, “I gotta win, Howard. I gotta win. I gotta win. And listen, but the thing about Liz Cheney, let me just say, she’s remarkable.”
In addition to revealing her obsession with Formula One racing and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton in particular, and calling Trump a “loser” several times, the friendly chat ended with Harris’ recollection of attending U2’s mind-bending opening run at Las Vegas’ Sphere.
“Oh my God have you been to the Sphere?,” Harris excitedly asked Stern when he mentioned that she was spotted at one of the U2 shows there in January. “Let me just say basically everyone should go in with a clear head,” she laughed after Stern, who wore a three-piece black suit for the in-studio chat, said he was freaked out by the reports of the overwhelming visuals that he feared were “too much.”
“Like don’t be high,” Stern said. “Correct,” Harris responded with one of her signature belly laughs. “Because it’s a lot. Like there’s a lot of visual stimulation… I love U2 and actually it was a surprise for Doug.”
Watch Harris talk U2 and Sphere below.
Warning: This story contains mentions of suicide.
Lisa Marie Presley was so overcome with grief following the death of her son Benjamin Keough that she kept his body packed in dry ice in her home for two months. According to NBC, the shocking revelation is included in the new memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, which daughter, Daisy Jones & the Six star Riley Keough, completed after her mother’s death at 54 in January 2023.
“My mom had my brother in the house with us instead of keeping him at the morgue,” Keough wrote in the book. “They told us that if we could tend to the body, we could have him at home, so she kept him in our house for a while on dry ice.”
Keough said that it was important for her mother — the only child of late rock legend Elvis Presley — to have proper time to say goodbye to her son, who died by suicide in 2020. “The same way she’d done with her dad. And I would go and sit there with him,” she said, noting that California doesn’t have any laws that mandate exactly when a body needs to be buried or disposed of. Keough used archival tapes of her mother’s memories to help finish the book.
“My house has a separate casitas bedroom, and I kept Ben Ben in there for two months,” according to Presley, who had begun working on the memoir before her death; Presley died of a small bowel obstruction caused by complications from prior weight loss surgery. “There is no law in the state of California that you have to bury someone immediately. I found a very empathic funeral home owner,” Presley wrote. “I told her that having my dad in the house after he died was incredibly helpful because I could go and spend time with him and talk to him. She said, ‘We’ll bring Ben Ben [her nickname for her son] to you. You can have him there.’”
She added, “I think it would scare the living f—ing p-ss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.” Lisa Marie was nine-years-old when Elvis died in 1977.
The room where Benjamin’s body was reportedly kept at 55 degrees and Presley and Keough got tattoos that matched Benjamin’s from an artist who came to their home. When asked if they had any photos of the piece they wanted to replicate, Lisa Marie told him, “no, but I can show you,” referring to ink Benjamin had on his collarbone with Keough’s name and another on his hand with Presley’s name; the mother and daughter got Benjamin’s name tattooed on the matching parts of their bodies.
Even by the unusual rules that the Presley’s lived by, Keough said the tattoo incident was one of the most bizarre ones she’d experienced. “Lisa Marie Presley had just asked this poor man to look at the body of her dead son, which happened to be right next to us in the casitas. I’ve had an extremely absurd life, but this moment is in the top five,” she wrote.
Shortly after that, one of Keough’s brothers made it clear he didn’t want the body in the home anymore and Keough, channeling her late sibling, imagined how he might have observed the scene. “‘Guys,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘this is getting weird.’ Even my mom said that she could feel him talking to her, saying, ‘This is insane, Mom, what are you doing? What the f—!,’” Keough said.
According to People, the book details how the family held a funeral service for Benjamin in Malibu and Keough placed a pair of her yellow Nikes that her brother had always loved in the casket. In a previous interview with People prior to the book’s release, Keough revealed, “My mom physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart.”
Both Presley and her son are buried at Graceland, where Elvis is also interred.
The commentator has called the star a bad sport, an “elite snob” and much more over the years.
When Michael Stipe and Jason Isbell played a Get Out the Vote concert Oct. 4 in Pittsburgh in support of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s presidential campaign, they took time out to visit with Harris’ husband and second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Emhoff introduced the concert at Pittsburgh’s Schenley Plaza, which took place in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Backstage, in exclusive footage provided to Billboard by the Harris campaign, the two artists talked to Emhoff, a former entertainment attorney, about politics and their support of Harris.
Stipe discussed the responsibility voters have to put in the work and to vote for the candidate that most closely aligns with their ideas, even if they don’t completely match. “There’s the comparison that has been made that voting for a politician is like taking a bus,” he said. “You get on the bus that takes you closest to where you want to go. When you get off that bus, that’s when you have to start working. You have to do the walking.”
Stipe, a lifelong activist, added, “We’re a big country with a lot of weight and a lot of power. And we need it to go right and your wife can guide it in the right direction. There’s a lot to work on, there’s a lot to do, but I have a lot of faith in her.” Stipe also praised Harris for her commitment to fighting injustice.
Isbell added that growing up in Alabama, he was around people who would say, “‘No politicians actually care about working people or about regular everyday Americans’, but as I have become more involved in politics myself, I have found that that’s just not true,” adding that he found Harris a “fantastic leader, brave and strong and hyper-intelligent and I think she truly cares about American people.”
He also lauded the “integrity that Kamala has that makes me feel safer as a creative person and as a citizen in general. I feel like somebody is at the top of the pyramid that is not attempting to confuse. Somebody is trying to tell me the truth and her opponent is trying to confuse us all.”
Emhoff was treated to a private performance of Stipe and Isbell practicing the latter’s “Traveling Alone,” which they also performed on stage together. They also played a pair of R.E.M. classics, “Driver 8” and “The One That I Love.” As the video shows, Emhoff also geeked out over receiving a lyric sheet signed by the pair.
Stipe and Isbell have been vocal in their support for the VP this year, with Isbell performing at the Democratic National Convention in August, as did Stevie Wonder, John Legend, The Chicks, Mickey Guyton and P!nk. Numerous musicians — including Ariana Grande, Megan Thee Stallion, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Lizzo and Cardi B — have all endorsed Harris for president in 2024.
Election day is Nov. 5.
In his new memoir, Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 accuses his band’s former manager Greig Nori of sexual abuse and grooming.
As revealed Tuesday (Oct. 8) in the newly published pages of Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, the now-44-year-old rocker was 16 when Nori — then 34 — allegedly began abusing the musician. According to snippets of the book shared by the Los Angeles Times, the now-61-year-old Treble Charger band member was a personal hero of Whibley’s before he became a songwriting mentor and manager to Sum 41, after which the alleged sexual misconduct began, with Whibley claiming that when he was 18, Nori cornered him in a bathroom stall at a rave and “passionately” kissing him.
Over time, Whibley alleges in his book that Nori manipulated him by calling the younger musician homophobic if he didn’t reciprocate. Whibley also writes that Nori said he “owed” his then-manager for his career, and alleged that Nori pressured him into continuing the relationship because “so many of my rock star idols were queer.”
“Greig had one requirement to be our manager — he wanted total control,” Whibley writes in Walking Disaster, according to the LA Times. “We couldn’t talk to anyone but him, because the music business is ‘full of snakes and liars’ and he was the only person we could trust.”
Billboard was not able to reach Nori at press time. Multiple publications, however, have reported that Nori did not reply to requests for comment.
“I always thought that I would take this to my grave and I wouldn’t say anything,” Whibley told Rolling Stone. “As I started getting into the book, I felt like, ‘How could I not be honest?’”
Whibley still hasn’t told his bandmates about the alleged abuse, according to the LA Times. In March, Sum 41 dropped its eighth and final album, Heaven :x: Hell, after which the band spent much of this year on a farewell tour. In January, the group is slated to play Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, marking its final show ever.
Nori hasn’t been in the picture since 2005, when Sum 41 fired him at Whibley’s urging, according to the LA Times. Without disclosing anything about his personal experiences with Nori at the time, the frontman eventually persuaded his bandmates to part ways with their manager by citing Nori’s alleged professional failings, from fumbling opportunities for the group to being unreachable and showing up to important events under the influence of ecstasy.
Whibley went on to marry Avril Lavigne, who was one of the first to tell him, “That’s abuse! [Nori] sexually abused you,” the “Landmines” singer writes in Walking Disaster, according to the LA Times.
After the couple divorced in 2009, Whibley wed Ariana Cooper, to whom he’s been married for 10 years. Cooper had the same reaction as the “Complicated” musician, Whibley says.
Even so, it wasn’t until Whibley turned 35 — one year older than Nori was when he allegedly began abusing Whibley — that the Sum 41 guitarist finally started to understand what he’d been through. “It all became so clear,” Whibley told L.A. Times. “Then about a year later, the Me Too thing started happening. I started hearing stories of grooming, and it all started to make sense.”
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual abuse, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 for confidential help 24/7.
Beloved 1980s pop group the Motels have been forced to cancel the remaining dates on their 2024 U.S. tour after singer Martha Davis revealed that she is in the midst of a second battle against breast cancer. In a statement released on Tuesday (Oct. 8), the 73-year-old vocalist said that a pair of planned November […]