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Donald Trump recently launched into online rants targeting not one, but two of the world’s biggest musicians, and the American Federation of Musicians International isn’t letting it slide.
Hours after Trump wrote that Taylor Swift isn’t “hot” anymore while calling Bruce Springsteen “dumb as a rock” in posts Friday (May 16) on Truth Social, AFM International President Tino Gagliardi issued a statement condemning the “attacks” on two of the labor union’s members.
“The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada will not remain silent as two of our members — Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift — are singled out and personally attacked by the President of the United States,” Gagliardi began.
“Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift are not just brilliant musicians; they are role models and inspirations to millions of people in the United States and across the world,” the statement continued. “Whether it’s Born in the U.S.A. or the Eras Tour, their music is timeless, impactful, and has deep cultural meaning. Musicians have the right to freedom of expression, and we stand in solidarity with all our members.”
The “Anti-Hero” singer and E Street Band leader are just two of tens of thousands of musicians who are part of the AFM, which “negotiates fair agreements, protects ownership of recorded music, secures benefits such as health care and pension, and lobbies for musicians and the rights of workers,” according to the union’s website. Swift is a member of her local Nashville branch, while Springsteen is part of chapters in both Los Angeles and his home state of New Jersey, per the AFM’s statement.
The organization’s defense of the two stars counters Trump’s tirade against both of them earlier on Friday. Starting with Swift, the politician had written, “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”
The remark comes eight months after he first posted that he hated the 14-time Grammy winner on Truth Social following her endorsement of his opponent, Kamala Harris, in the 2024 election. Trump has a long history of directing barbed comments at Swift, previously making fun of her for getting booed by Philadelphia Eagles fans at the Super Bowl in February.
Shortly after name-dropping the Eras headliner, Trump turned his attention to The Boss. In response to Springsteen slamming the billionaire’s “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration” at a concert in Manchester, England, two days prior, Trump wrote, “Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden … Sleepy Joe didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing, but Springsteen is ‘dumb as a rock.’”
At press time, neither Swift nor Springsteen had addressed Trump’s latest comments, but both have been vocal in their opposition to the Republican Party leader. In addition to backing his opponents in both of the past two elections, the “Karma” artist has criticized his policies on a number of occasions. And in 2020, the “Dancing in the Dark” rock star called Trump a “threat” to democracy, telling The Atlantic, “He simply makes any kind of reform that much harder … These are all existential threats to our democracy and our American way of life.”
05/16/2025
The politician has also taken aim at Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen over the years.
05/16/2025
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Donald Trump is not too happy with Bruce Springsteen, whom the president called “highly overrated” and “dumb as a rock” in a heated post on Truth Social after the musician slammed his administration during a concert in Manchester, England.
On Friday morning (May 16) — two days after Springsteen voiced his disdain for the United States government’s “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” leadership at the kickoff show of his 2025 European tour — Trump began by writing, “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States.”
“Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country,” Trump continued. “Sleepy Joe didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing, but Springsteen is ‘dumb as a rock,’ and couldn’t see what was going on, or could he (which is even worse!)?”
“This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare,’” Trump added. “Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”
Billboard has reached out to Springsteen’s reps for comment.
The twice-impeached president’s comments come after The Boss greeted his Manchester crowd Wednesday (May 14) by saying, “The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll, in dangerous times.”
“In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, and has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,” he continued before launching into 2001’s “Land of Hopes and Dreams.” “Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring.”
Springsteen — who also posted the speech on his Instagram — has long been open about his stance on American politics, endorsing Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Four years prior, he called the POTUS — who in May 2024 was convicted of all 34 felony counts in his hush money trial — a “threat to our democracy” in an interview with The Atlantic.
The “Born in the U.S.A.” singer is just one of many major music stars who has made their stance against Trump clear — and Springsteen also isn’t the only one of them whom the former reality star has put on blast recently. Also on Friday, Trump insulted Taylor Swift, writing that the 14-time Grammy winner is “no longer ‘HOT?’”
Justin Bieber‘s team has spoken out amid the ongoing federal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, who stands accused of sex trafficking and racketeering and faces potential life in prison for his alleged crimes.
In a statement shared with People Friday (May 16), the pop star’s spokesperson said, “Although Justin is not among Sean Combs’ victims, there are individuals who were genuinely harmed by him.”
The spokesperson added, “Shifting focus away from this reality detracts from the justice these victims rightfully deserve.”
Billboard has reached out to Bieber’s reps for comment.
The statement marks the first time the “Peaches” singer has directly discussed Combs since the Bad Boy Records founder was arrested in September, with federal prosecutors accusing him with running a large-scale criminal operation in which he “abused, threatened and coerced women” for decades, in part through drug-fueled sex parties known as “freak-offs,” according to the indictment.
Combs has denied all of the accusations, and in the defense’s opening statements at his trial in New York City Monday (May 12), his lawyer asserted: “Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case. We take full responsibility that there was domestic violence. Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”
Friday marks the fifth day of the trial, which has so far focused heavily on the days-long testimony of Cassie Ventura, Combs’ ex-girlfriend. It was her now-settled civil lawsuit in November 2023 — in which she accused him of years of rape and physical abuse — that first raised allegations against the hip-hop titan, sparking a flood of additional suits from others who claimed he abused them, and setting into motion the criminal probe that led to his indictment.
Amid Combs’ fall from grace, some of Bieber’s fans have remembered that the two musicians crossed paths in the past. In a 2009 video with more than 11 million views on the “Baby” singer’s YouTube channel, a then 15-year-old Bieber spends time with the producer for 48 hours, and the pair discusses cars and hitting on girls.
“Where we hanging out and what we’re doing, we can’t really disclose,” Combs says in the video. “But it’s definitely a 15-year-old’s dream.”
In 2010, the two would take the stage with a group of other musicians at the BET-SOS Saving Ourselves Help for Haiti Benefit Concert. In 2011, they appeared together on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, with Combs saying at the time, “We’ve become friends in a strange way … [Justin] knows better than to be talking about the things that he does with Big Brother Puff on national television.”
Bieber also attended Combs’ Deleon Tequila launch party in Atlanta in 2014. In one picture from the event, the Canadian pop star sits next to Ventura; in another snap, Combs poses with his arm around Bieber.
Bad blood is still brewing. Donald Trump made yet another jab at superstar Taylor Swift in a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday (May 16).
Eight months after he shared on the same social media platform that he hates the 14-time Grammy winner, the twice-impeached president posted, “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment.
The insult seemingly came out of thin air, as Swift has not spoken about Trump since endorsing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president in September. Her support of President Joe Biden’s vice president came after the business mogul shared an AI image of the “Anti-Hero” singer falsely endorsing him for a second term in office.
“It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth,” the star wrote of the fake image at the time. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
Swift concluded that message — which was accompanied by a photo of her with her beloved cat Benjamin Button — by signing off as “Childless Cat Lady,” a dig at Vice President JD Vance’s comments about Democrats who don’t have kids.
Five days after the superstar backed his opponent, Trump posted on Truth Social in all caps, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
While they never had mad love for each other, Trump — who in May 2024 was convicted of 34 felony counts in his hush money case — did previously appreciate the singer-songwriter. In August 2012, he wrote on X (then Twitter) to thank the star for a photo, closing his message with “you are fantastic!” Months later in October, he congratulated her on landing the co-hosting gig announcing the Grammy nominations special, ending his tweet with “Taylor is terrific!”
But once Swift began sharing her political leanings in 2018, when she urged the voters of Tennessee to vote against Republican Marsha Blackburn in the midterms, Trump’s opinion of the star shifted. “Let’s just say I like Taylor’s music about 25% less now, OK?” he told reporters at the White House.
The housekeepers suing Smokey Robinson for sexual assault have now filed a police report, leading the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to open a criminal investigation on top of the bombshell civil claims filed against the 85-year-old Motown legend.
Lawyers for four anonymous housekeepers, who alleged in a $50 million lawsuit earlier this month that William “Smokey” Robinson Jr. repeatedly raped them over the course of nearly two decades, confirm in a Thursday (May 15) statement to Billboard that criminal authorities are probing the claims.
“We are pleased to learn that the LA County Sheriff’s Department has opened a criminal investigation into our clients’ claims of sexual assault against Smokey Robinson,” say attorneys John Harris and Herbert Hayden. “Our clients intend to fully cooperate with LASD’s ongoing investigation in the pursuit of seeking justice for themselves and others that may have been similarly assaulted by him.”
Robinson’s lawyer Christopher Frost says in his own statement to Billboard that the housekeepers’ claims are “manufactured “ and motivated by “unadulterated avarice.” Frost notes that police did not launch a criminal probe unilaterally; rather that the Sheriff’s Department is required to investigate because the women filed a police report.
“We welcome that investigation, which involves plaintiffs who continue to hide their identities, because exposure to the truth is a powerful thing,” Frost says. “We feel confident that a determination will be made that Mr. Robinson did nothing wrong, and that this is a desperate attempt to prejudice public opinion and make even more of a media circus than the Plaintiffs were previously able to create.”
The Sheriff’s Department did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
Robinson, who’s currently on a legacy tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of his album A Quiet Storm, was accused in the May 6 civil lawsuit of forcing housekeepers to have oral and vaginal sex in his Los Angeles-area bedroom dozens of times between 2007 and 2024.
The singer’s wife, Frances Robinson, is also named in the lawsuit. The housekeepers say she did nothing to stop her husband’s abuse, despite knowing that he had a history of sexual misconduct and had previously struck settlements with assault victims.
The lawsuit also says the Robinsons paid their employees below minimum wage, and that Frances Robinson created a hostile work environment replete with screaming and “racially-charged epithets.”
Smokey and Frances Robinson have fiercely denied the housekeepers’ claims, saying through Frost on May 7 that the “vile, false allegations” are merely “an ugly method of trying to extract money from an 85-year-old American icon.”
YG revealed he was the victim of sexual abuse when he was a teenager on his poignant “2004” single in March. Now, the Compton rapper is opening up to about being sexually assaulted by a 30-year-old when he was just 14 years old.
“I kept it inside for a long time,” he told ABC News on Wednesday (May 14). “My family’s first time hearing about that was when the record came out.”
The 35-year-old said he played the candid track for some of his male friends and was surprised to hear that many could relate after enduring similar experiences growing up. “90 percent of the people that I played it for — the men, the males — they all got similar stories. That was the conversation everyone was having,” he said. “It was like, ‘Yeah, I was sexually abused.’”
When the encounter took place over 20 years ago, he thought it was “lit” and didn’t realize he had been sexually assaulted. “It wasn’t a thing that I did some with an older woman — it’s lit,” YG explained of his thought process at the time. “You go through life and you see stuff and you learn stuff and it’s like, ‘I got raped.’”
“2004” came together when J.LBS (J Pounds) pushed YG to open up about something he had never talked about before on a record during a studio session. “He like, ‘You gotta talk about something you ain’t never talked about. You gotta dig deep! What’s something that you ain’t never told somebody that nobody know,” he recalled. “Then I was like, ‘Bop twice my age.’ And everybody was like, ‘What?!’”
YG hopes his honesty influences peers and fans to tell their own stories. “Especially coming from an artist — somebody like me — it’s unexpected,” he added. “People put me in a box… They look at us like we gang members, we animals, we not human, but it’s like, bro, I’m human. I go through real-life stuff.”
While “2004” came as a shock to many of YG’s fans and friends, it’s only the tip of the iceberg as far as his personal story goes, and he’s planning to delve deeper into his life with the arrival of his The Gentleman’s Club album this summer.
“People say I live a dangerous life — I talk about that and I give it to you straight like that,” he said. “Now me going through this growing stage of my life, it ain’t hard for me because I’m telling my truth.”
This year marks a chapter of change in YG’s life, who was baptized for the first time with his children in March. “2004” arrived with an accompanying music video, co-directed by the rapper himself, which boasts over 1.5 million views on YouTube.
Watch the full interview with YG below.
If you or someone you know is struggling and in need of help in the wake of sexual assault, please contact RAINN at 800-656-4673 or at online.rainn.org.
Suge Knight has an interesting theory when it comes to Diddy and President Donald Trump. When talking on the phone from prison with Chris Cuomo on the journalist’s News Nation show CUOMO in an interview that was posted Wednesday (May 14), Knight suggested Diddy has enough power and influence to warrant a possible pardon from […]