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Lizzo is sharing her thoughts on the new South Park episode.
On Friday (May 24), the long-running animated comedy series released its latest special, titled “The End of Obesity,” through Paramount+. The episode takes aim at the Ozempic craze and uses the pop-rap star singer as an alternative to the popular weight loss drug.
The special begins with South Park character Eric Cartman visiting his doctor’s office in an effort to get Ozempic as a way to drop some weight. Since he can’t afford the pricey drug and his insurance won’t cover it, the physician offers him another solution.
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“I’m going to write you a prescription for Lizzo,” the doctor says. “She’s a really good singer who talks about body positivity, and just being happy with the way you look. I want you to listen to Lizzo five times a day, and watch her videos just before bedtime. I’m afraid you’ll have to be on Lizzo for the rest of your life.”
Lizzo caught wind of the joke and reacted to it with a TikTok video of herself watching a portion of the South Park episode and giving her thoughts.
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“That’s crazy. I just feel like, damn, I’m really that b—-,” she says. “I really showed the world how to love yourself and not give a f— to the point where these men in Colorado know who the f— I am and put it on their cartoon that’s been around for 25 years.”
Earlier this month, Lizzo gave an update on her mental health amid lawsuits against her and frustration over public criticism toward.
“I’m the happiest I’ve been in 10 months,” she wrote on Instagram. “The strange thing about depression is you don’t know you’re in it until you’re out of it. I’m definitely not all the way as carefree as I used to be.. But the dark cloud that followed me every day is finally clearing up. My smile reaches my eyes again and that’s a win. I thought my album was finished.. but I gotta get some of these good vibes off in a banger real quick. Thanks for your patience.”
The “Good as Hell” singer has been under scrutiny over the past year, as she’s been involved in a harassment lawsuit brought by three of her former dancers in August 2023. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles by dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, accuses Lizzo and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of a wide range of legal wrongdoing and included dozens of pages of detailed allegations.
Lizzo denied the claims in a response shared to Twitter, calling them “false allegations” and “sensationalized stories.”
Watch Lizzo’s reaction to South Park on Instagram below.
“The Tortured Poets Department” (the song) got its live debut at Taylor Swift‘s concert Saturday night (May 25) in Lisbon, Portugal. The Tortured Poets Department album has already spent a month at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart since its release, but even with the recent addition of several of Swift’s new songs to […]
RM is fresh off the release of his brand new album, and the BTS superstar continued the celebration by dropping a new music video for the project’s track, “LOST!” In the Aube Perrie-directed clip, the musician tries to navigate himself as he’s trapped in maze-like building with various floors and rooms. Eventually, he finds an […]
Throughout May, SEVENTEEN released three new music videos — “Cheers to Youth,” “Spell” and “LALALI” — highlighting each of the K-pop boy band’s distinct units. If you’re new here: the three subsects of SEVENTEEN are the Vocal Unit, Performance Unit and Hip-Hop Unit. Making up the first are bandmates WOOZI, JOSHUA, DK, JEONGHAN and SEUNGKWAN, […]
Last week, New Kids on the Block made their long-awaited return with Still Kids, their first full-length album in 11 years — and a project on which the long-running pop quintet sounds reinvigorated. During a sit-down with Billboard News, Jonathan Knight, Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood discussed how NKOTB’s first album in over a decade came together slowly but surely.
“Donnie kind of kicked it off,” McIntyre, who co-wrote roughly half of the songs on Still Kids, told Billboard, “and we’ve had success with singles, one-offs. The last song we had was [2022 single] ‘Bring Back the Time,’ great reaction there. And that sort of kicked off, ‘Maybe let’s do some more music.’ Donnie started writing, and Jordan started recording vocals. … It did take a lot! There was a lot of passion, and I heard a lot of passion. But there was a lot of give-and-take, and space to feel what this was gonna become when we all got involved.”
Instead of flying to one location and working on the album together, New Kids tinkered with Still Kids remotely — and instead of allowing that recording process to result in a disjointed project, the guys said that they pushed themselves to deliver their best material to the rest of the group.
“There’s a sense of not wanting to let each other down,” Wahlberg explained. “There’s an urgency that I think you can sometimes hear in the voices, of wanting to deliver the best of a performance. I think that’s present in this record, even in the writing.”
Next month, New Kids on the Block will kick off the Magic Summer 2024 tour, also featuring Paula Abdul and DJ Jazzy Jeff. The latter was featured on the Still Kids highlight “Get Down.”
Ahead of the tour kick-off on June 14, watch the group discuss their relationship with boy bands who have come before and after them, playing their enduring smashes on the road, the changing landscape of the music industry and, of course, their beloved Boston Celtics.
Nelly Furtado trekked from Canada to the Washington, D.C. NPR offices to make her long-overdue Tiny Desk concert debut. Furtado bundled her decorated two-decade long career into a soothing 11-track medley performance, which arrived on Friday (May 24) ahead of the holiday weekend. The set list ranged from her greatest hits like the Timbaland-produced “Promiscuous,” […]
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, Zach Bryan returns with a lyrical farewell, Twenty One Pilots put a bow on a long-running story, and Sexyy Red gets an assist from Drake. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Zach Bryan, “Pink Skies”
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As he has graduated from cult audiences to stadium crowds, Zach Bryan has never betrayed his storytelling intuition: on “Pink Skies,” a somber and striking new single, the singer-songwriter forgoes any crowd-pleasing impulse to tell a tale of a funeral preparation, addressing a deceased loved one as their grown children get ready to wish them farewell. With careful guitar strums and unabashed harmonica blasts, “Pink Skies” is a full-bodied entry in Bryan’s quickly growing discography — and while its subject matter does not scream “country radio,” he has long succeeded by shrugging off conventional wisdom, and will likely do so again here.
Twenty One Pilots, Clancy
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Nearly a decade ago, Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface introduced a multi-album narrative arc from the band, along with producing enormous crossover hits like “Stressed Out” and “Ride”; with Clancy, the best-selling rock duo concludes that particular story, while offering more alternative radio fodder like the contemplative “The Craving” and the quietly grooving “Backslide.” Regardless of how closely you’re monitoring the group’s world-building details, their seventh studio album continues to expand upon a proven formula.
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Sexyy Red, In Sexyy We Trust
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Although the majority of the initial attention paid to Sexyy Red’s surprise new mixtape will center on Drake’s guest spot on “U My Everything,” which name-checks and flips Metro Boomin’s “BBL Drizzy” beat in a master troll move, the St. Louis rapper more than holds her own across In Sexyy We Trust, which uses the audacious single “Get It Sexyy” as a starting point for a full-blown swagger showcase. Sexyy sounds magnetic when talking trash over bruising beats, and In Sexyy We Trust will endure beyond its most eyebrow-raising guest verse.
RM, Right Place, Wrong Person
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By preceding his second solo album with the heartfelt, six-minute-plus sprawl of “Come Back To Me,” RM hinted at a project that was going to showcase his emotional intelligence and creative sensibilities rather than chasing hits; indeed, Right Place, Wrong Person finds the BTS member exploring his artistry unapologetically, offering an honest, sometimes explicit, multi-lingual check-in on a superstar growing into adulthood. Plus, he’s got some great guests: Little Simz, Moses Sumney and DOMi & JD Beck stop by the project, all of whom translate their outside-the-box talents into RM’s world.
PinkPantheress, “Turn It Up”
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Since breaking through last year alongside Ice Spice with “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2,” PinkPantheress has continued to release pillowy, subtly beautiful rhythmic hyperpop, first with her Heaven Knows album and now with her first new single of 2024. “Turn It Up” examines shared music experiences, both in public and then through a more intimate exchange: “You just make me wanna say, ‘Hey, it’s me’ / We’ve been talking twice a week / I like this beat / It just makes me wanna sing,” she sings, right before clowning on her subject for singing the wrong words in the club.
Editor’s Pick: Clairo, “Sexy to Someone”
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After her sophomore album Sling leaned into Clairo’s quietest impulses, delightful new single “Sexy to Someone,” which precedes its follow-up Charm, return Claire Cottrill to the hook-friendly indie-pop that made Immunity one of the most engaging debut albums in recent memory. Waxing poetic about the lightning-bolt feeling of catching the eye of a stranger, Clairo bounces her voice off of a gorgeous collection of piano and bass, allowing the instrumentation to amplify her intimate thoughts and returning to a studio mode that suits her impeccably.
Fans got double the amount of Jonas they were expecting at the amfAR Cannes Film Festival Gala on Thursday (May 23). Midway through his previously scheduled set at the event, Nick Jonas asked the esteemed crowd to welcome a special guest: older brother Joe Jonas, who joined him for a performance of DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean.”
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In a clip from the concert, the Jonas Brothers bandmates walk side-by-side down the stage’s catwalk, Nick playing guitar as Joe passionately sings lead vocals. The latter’s band with Jack Lawless and JinJoo Lee reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the funk-pop hit in 2015.
Moments before taking the stage with his brother, Joe enjoyed Nick’s set in the audience with Diplo. Later, the “Where Are U Now” DJ posted a video on Instagram of the moment the “Jealous” singer said, “Joe, where you at?,” prompting the elder Jonas to grab a microphone from Diplo’s hand and join in.
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Both brothers looked dapper in fancy off-white suits, Joe wearing a black ribbon around his collar and Nick opting for a more traditional bowtie.
The concert comes amid their ongoing Jonas Brothers tour with oldest sibling Kevin. Earlier this month, however, the trio was forced to postpone a handful of their Mexico shows due to Nick’s health issues.
“Hi guys. I have come down with the nasty strain of influenza-A that’s been going around, and I’m not able to sing at the moment,” he wrote in a statement at the time. “We always want to be able to give you guys the best show and I’m just not able to do that for these shows in Mexico at this time.”
The global tour, which will last through mid-October, supports the Jo Bros’ latest record, The Album, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in May last year. In July, they released a single with K-pop boy band TOMORROW X TOGETHER titled “Do It Like That,” which they followed up in November with “Strong Enough” featuring Bailey Zimmerman.
Watch a clip of Joe and Nick Jonas performing at the gala below.
Two of America’s most-accomplished wing women — sports commentators Erin Andrews and Charissa Thompson — visited The Tonight Show Thursday (May 23) to discuss their role in setting up golden couple Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce many months ago.
While speaking with host Jimmy Fallon about urging the pop star to give the Kansas City Chiefs tight end a chance during an August episode of their joint podcast Calm Down, Thompson joked, “Yes, Jimmy, we are responsible [for setting them up].”
“We’re friends with him, and how could you not be,” added Andrews. “The guy’s a time. He had mentioned on his podcast that he went to the show, had wanted to meet her afterwards, didn’t get the chance to. We just started talking about it on our podcast, saying, ‘Taylor, do this for America. Date him.’ The guy, he’s not ugly by any means.”
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“We’ll take the credit,” Thompson concluded, laughing. “I just love both of them, and I’m so happy to see them happy.”
The interview comes several months after the two women sent a public message to Swift on their show, during which Andrews implored, “Taylor, I don’t know what you’re doing in your life right now besides rocking the world… please try our friend Travis, he is fantastic!” Kelce had previously shared his failed attempt at meeting the singer at her Kansas City Eras Tour stops on his New Heights pod.
Then, two months later, Swift attended her first-ever Chiefs game at Arrowhead Stadium, signaling to the world that she and the athlete had made things official. Shortly afterward, Kelce himself thanked Andrews and Thompson for their service, commenting on one of their October Instagram posts, “😂😂 You two are something else!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻 I owe you big time!!”
The 14-time Grammy winner has been a fixture at Chiefs games ever since, seeing the team through the entire 2023-24 season leading up to their victory against the San Francisco 49ers at this year’s Super Bowl. Speaking of, things came full circle on the day of the big game, with Swift showing up to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in a red jacket from Andrews’ own WEAR apparel line.
“Super Bowl Sunday, she walks in looking amazing,” the Fox Sports personality recalled to Fallon. “She threw that on and I lost my mind.”
Watch Andrews and Thompson discuss Swift and Kelce above.
Lady Gaga was in typically outrageous form on Thursday night (May 23) at the Los Angeles premiere of her Gaga Chromatica Ball concert film. The singer known for her resplendent red carpet looks showed up in a white strapless Selva dress comprised of car parts, including what looked like a bumper molded into a kind of automotive bustier.
“On the red carpet I told them it was a car part. They said what kind and I said I don’t know, I’m not a mechanic,” the singer wrote on X; Gaga also posted a series of pics of the sculptural dress, along with a poetic ode to her fans, on her Instagram.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, during a Q&A at the premiere, the singer revealed that she played a number of Chromatica dates while sick with COVID because she didn’t want to let her Little Monsters down.
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“This was such a special time. This tour went on during a time that people didn’t think that you could tour [amid the pandemic] and stadiums were packed all over the world and they were sold out, all dressed up and dancing and singing. I’m just so excited for you all to see what we made up close,” she said.
“I did five shows with COVID,” she told the assembled press. “I shared it with everyone on my team and I said, ‘I don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable at work and you don’t have to perform and you don’t have to work that day, but I’m going to do the show,’ because I just didn’t want to let all the fans down.”
She explained her thinking about playing sick, adding, “The way that I saw it also is that the fans were all putting themselves in harm’s way every day coming to the show. During all my quick changes, I kept going. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’”
THR reported that Gaga also said the tour and the album represented an “end of a time in my life and the beginning of a totally new one. And I feel like that time is actually maybe a few albums of time that I was sort of saying goodbye to old wounds or scars or challenges and with this tour, I felt really renewed to do something entirely different… I felt like the Chromatica Ball was a time where I took myself to the next level and it was something worth documenting and seeing for people that I love — not that I didn’t love my other tours,” she explained. “I’m sure we all can relate to that feeling of when you personally feel proud of something is really different from when everyone around you feels that way.”
Though she’s been chronicling the ongoing sessions for her upcoming album, Gaga also spoke at length for the first time about the follow-up to Chromatica, revealing that she’s in the studio “every single day. I have written so many songs, I’ve been producing so many songs, and it’s nothing like anything that I’ve ever made before. I love to break genre and I love to explore music. There’s something really beautiful about knowing that you will be loved no matter what you do.”
Gaga Chromatica Ball — which chronicles a Los Angeles stop of the 2022 tour at Dodger Stadium — debuts on HBO on Saturday (May 25) at 8 p.m. ET.
Check out Gaga’s red carpet post below.