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Fresh off her appearance at Sunday’s Academy Awards as part of a James Bond theme song tribute, BLACKPINK’s LISA bonded with Jimmy Kimmel over their shared experience of being flown up into the rafters on wires at the Oscars. “It seemed so elegant and graceful, but it’s kind of scary right?” asked Kimmel on Tuesday night’s (March 4) Jimmy Kimmel Live!, recalling the agita (and discomfort) he felt while flying over the stage during one of his hosting stints on the awards show.
“It was really scary,” LISA smiled. “I was like, ‘I’m not comfortable doing this!” The singer said producers repeatedly checked in to make sure she felt good about being lowered to the stage in a harness as she sang Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Live and Let Die” as part of a medley that also had Doja Cat covering Shirley Bassey’s “Diamond Are Forever” and RAYE’s take on Adele’s “Skyfall.” While Kimmel complained about gravity “squeezing everything down” if you know what he means, LISA said she couldn’t really feel her legs.
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“Those were the least of my problems,” Kimmel joked.
The BLACKPINK singer also talked about her well-received turn as Mook on the current season of HBO’s The White Lotus, noting that many fans have speculated that because her resort worker character is so sweet on the series she might turn out to be the killer. “Oh… am I supposed to tell you that?” she responded haltingly, with a coquettish glint in her eye. “Legally you should not, but I would appreciate it if you did,” Kimmel said, knowing that his ploy to squeeze some spoilers about the tightly-held plot of the show was going nowhere.
“I think she’s a sweet girl,” LISA said of the character whose name means “pearl” in Thai before Kimmel explained the not-as-nice meaning of the word in America. Kimmel also wondered if during the cast’s regular karaoke sessions on set if the crew or extras freaked out when they saw the K-pop superstar stepping up to the mic. “They don’t care!,” LISA said. “I’m just sitting in the corner of the room cheering them, hyping them up,” she said, explaining that she didn’t sing during the sessions, but was more into dancing.
“I feel weird for me to grab the mic and sing karaoke,” she smiled. “[There’s] a lot of pressure.” As for who was the best karaoke singer in the cast, LISA said for sure it was the lone returning actor from season two: horny masseuse Natasha Rothwell. “Oh, she’s so good!” LISA said.
She also discussed the concept behind her just-released solo album, Alter Ego, explaining that while recording it in Los Angeles she tried her hand at recording songs in a variety of styles, all of which she ended up loving. “That’s why I called this album Alter Ego and [I] have five different characters [on it],” she said of Roxi, Kiki, Sunni, Speedi and the main character, Vixi.
These days, she said, Vixi is the one that is closest to her actual personality, though, like Speedi, she loves to drive fast in her car.
Watch LISA on Jimmy Kimmel Live! below.
Director Ezra Edelman spent nearly five years meticulously piecing together his sprawling, nine-hour documentary about Prince. In an appearance this week on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, the Oscar-winning director of O.J.: Made in America called the decision by Netflix and the Prince estate to pull the plug on the film a “joke.”
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“The estate, here’s the one thing they were allowed to do: Check the film for factual inaccuracies. Guess what? They came back with a 17-page document full of editorial issues — not factual issues,” Edelman said. “You think I have any interest in putting out a film that is factually inaccurate?”
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The Yale-educated director known for his deep-dive process, spent years developing and meticulously editing his six-part The Book of Prince doc for Netflix — after being hand-picked for the project by former Netflix VP of independent film and documentary features Lisa Nishimura — only to have the Prince estate object to the way the late singer was depicted in the film; the estate announced last month that the project would never be released and that it was working on its own documentary featuring “exclusive content” from the archive of the singer who died of an accidental fentanyl overdose in April 2016 at age 57.
“This is reflective of Prince himself, who was notoriously one of the most famous control freaks in the history of artists,” said Edelman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame icon known for fiercely protecting his name, image and likeness. “The irony being that Prince was somebody who fought for artistic freedom, who didn’t want to be held down by Warner Bros., who he believed was stifling his output. And now, in this case — by the way, I’m not Prince, but I worked really hard making something, and now my art’s being stifled and thrown away.”
Before the public saw even a frame of the film, it was in the headlines last September when a New York Times magazine profile described elements of the project that touched on Prince’s alleged physical and emotional abuse of his partners, as well as allegations that the singer had suffered abuse as a child. At the time, the two companies that control Prince’s assets, Primary Wave Music and Prince Legacy, said that they were “working to resolve matters concerning the documentary so that his story may be told in a way that is factually correct and does not mischaracterize or sensationalize his life.”
Following the shelving of the film, Edelman said that he believes Netflix is “afraid of [Prince’s] humanity.” Torres, who has seen the movie, said he came away with the takeaway that “this is one of the most impressive artists that has ever lived.”
That sentiment appeared to confirm Edelman’s feelings about the project. “This is the thing that I just find galling. I mean, I can’t get past this — the short-sightedness of a group of people whose interest is their own bottom line,” Edelman said.
“The lawyer who runs the estate essentially said he believed that this would do generational harm to Prince. In essence, that the portrayal of Prince in this film — what people learn about him — would deter younger viewers and fans, potentially, from loving Prince,” the director added. “They would be turned off. This is, I think, the big issue here: I’m like, ‘This is a gift — a nine-hour treatment about an artist that was, by the way, f–king brilliant.’ Everything about who you believe he is is in this movie. You get to bathe in his genius. And yet you also have to confront his humanity, which he, by the way, in some ways, was trapped in not being able to expose because he got trapped in his own myth about who he was to the world, and he had to maintain it.”
Though neither Netflix nor the Prince estate have detailed what specific issues they have with the doc, among the controversial allegations reportedly featured in the project are claims from one of the singer’s former lovers, Jill Jones, who allegedly describes a night when Prince slapped and punched her in the face. Another former paramour, Susannah Melvoin — musician and twin sister of Prince and the Revolution guitarist/singer Wendy Melvoin — reportedly told the director that after she moved in with Prince he would not let her leave the house, monitored her phone calls and tried to keep her from seeing her sister. It also reportedly featured accounts of Prince asking Wendy Melvoin to renounce her homosexuality as a prerequisite for getting the Revolution back together.
“The whole point of it is the journey. And the whole point of it was actually reflecting a journey that he went through,” Edelman told Torres. “Prince’s whole thing was that he was a Gemini and so this sort of push-and-pull of who he was in all these facets, male/female, black/white, artist/businessman, it goes on and on. In terms of this binary in his head was this idea of good and evil, which, sorry, God and sex, and that was another basic dichotomy of his art. He was always sort of weighing his moral account of how he was going through the world and he believed in karma in terms of how he treated people.”
The movie also reportedly features an interview with Prince’s ex-wife, Mayte Garcia, in which she alleges that he left her alone after the couple’s son died six days after his birth due to a rare genetic disorder. At press time it did not appear that Netflix or the Prince Estate had responded to Edelman’s interview; at press time a spokesperson for Prince had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment.
“The image I’ve had in my head is the last show of Raiders of the Lost Ark, of just a huge warehouse somewhere in Netflix. A crate and just like put away,” Edelman said, noting that viewers will never see his work because he doesn’t “feel like getting sued.”
Watch Edelman discuss the doc’s cancellation below.
Nick Jonas admitted that he might have taken the title of the song “Moving Too Fast” a bit too literally during a rehearsal for his upcoming return to Broadway in The Last Five Years. In an Instagram video posted on Tuesday (March 4), the Jonas Brothers and solo star revealed that he had an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction.
“I was singing ‘Moving Too Fast,’ one of my character Jamie’s songs,” Jonas said of the run-through of the song he performs with his Tony winning co-star. “I’m supposed to jump onto this platform and then pull my co-star, Adrienne Warren, up onto the platform with me and keep singing.”
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And then things went a bit sideways. “I do it, and I hear a [ripping sound]. And I’m like, ‘Oh no, oh no.’ Then I feel a cool breeze in a place you don’t want to feel a cool breeze,” Jonas laughed before moving back from the camera to display the huge tear in the groin of his camo cargo pants. “This is what happened to my pants,” he said. “They’re not tight pants by any means. It just was the perfect spot and the position that I jumped up.”
It was bad, but it could have been worse, and it was.
Jonas mentioned that the pants split happened in front of the show’s director, Whitney White, as well as its composer, Jason Robert Brown, “and, of course, my co-star, Adrienne Warren,” as well as the stage management department, musical director, pianist and percussionist. So, basically, the whole team.
The singer shared that he attempted to fix the pants himself — “I tried to duct tape it, it didn’t work… I tried to put some safety pins in, didn’t hold” — before the crack stage managers ran over to Target to fetch him some black shorts so he could finish the rehearsal.
Jonas, who is returning to Broadway 13 years after starring in 2012’s revival of the musical How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, will take the stage for the debut of The Last Five Years on March 18.
Watch Jonas relive his trouser tragedy below.
No rick rolling here. Rick Astley took to his YouTube channel on Monday (March 3) to deliver a cover of Chappell Roan’s hit, “Pink Pony Club.” In his version, the “Never Gonna Give You Up” star strips the song down to just an acoustic guitar, which he plays while using his characteristically deep vocals to […]
Rapper, vocalist and now actress LISA continues to expand her solo artistry with the highly anticipated project Alter Ego. Fresh off her acting debut as Mook, a hotel staff member on HBO’s original hit series The White Lotus season three (which premiered Feb. 16), the Thai superstar leveraged the social satire’s cross-generational appeal to cement […]
For the next few weeks, all Little Monsters can hear on channel 15 is radio Gaga. SiriusXM announced on Tuesday (March 4) that it will launch a channel dedicated to all things Lady Gaga in the lead-up to the release of the singer’s upcoming seventh studio album, Mayhem.
For the first time, Gaga will have her own pop-up channel on the service, Gaga Radio, which will be available to subscribers in their cars on channel 15 through March 17 and on the SiriusXM app through April 2.
“Blending the eclectic energy that first captivated her fans with a bold, fearless artistic vision, MAYHEM explores themes of chaos and transformation, celebrating music’s power to unite, provoke, and heal,” read a statement from SiriusXM. The channel will feature music hand-picked by the Oscar- and Grammy-winning superstar, in addition to behind-the-scenes stories about the making of the new album, songs from the LP as well as classics from some of the acts that have inspired Gaga, from David Bowie, Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen to Ella Fitzgerald, Prince, Madonna, Elton John, Queen, Tony Bennett and many more.
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SiriusXM released a few excerpts of Gaga’s stories about the new album and her inspirations, including one in which she admitted to feeling “afraid” to make Mayhem, which drops on Friday (March 7). “Mayhem came to be ultimately because [fiancé] Michael [Polansky] said, ‘You need to make a pop record,’ and he was right. I did, but I did not realize how afraid I was to make this record,” she said.
“I think I thought I didn’t have it in me, or the kind of music I started making earlier in my career was something that I’ve left behind, but you know, even in picking so much of the musicians and the songs for my SiriusXM radio channel, I realized that all of that stuff is still in me and it will never not be because those artists have like grown roots in my body,” Gaga added. “That music made me who I am, and that was part of Mayhem was like the fear going into it of, ‘I don’t want to do this, but I’m gonna do it,’ and then going in and all of those artists, all of their music and all of the things that I am, are very much alive.”
“Lady Gaga is a true innovator and trailblazer whose versatility and influence has shaped pop music as we know it today and the music industry as a whole,” said SiriusXM president and chief content officer Scott Greenstein in the statement. “We are thrilled to give Gaga’s dedicated fanbase a closer look into the making of her long-awaited seventh album MAYHEM as well as the music and experiences that have defined her as an artist.”
Check out some other clips of Gaga’s behind-the-scenes commentary below.
The only thing scarier than performing a song by one of the coaches on The Voice to their faces is showing up for your Blind Audition round with an acoustic guitar and a tricky Taylor Swift song in your quiver. That didn’t stop 24-year-old Atlanta native Tori Templet from taking a runner on Swift’s 2019 ballad “Lover” on Monday night’s (March 3) show, where she earned quick chair-turns from Adam Levine and Michael Bublé and high praise from fellow judges Kelsea Ballerini and John Legend.
“I really like her tone,” Bublé said of Templet’s airy vocals as Ballerini swayed her head and Legend exhaled “whoo!” during the performance. It took less than a minute for Levine to punch his button, shortly followed by Bublé, who said “I gotta see her,” thumping his hands in rhythm as Ballerini responded “cool” to the singer’s final “my, my, my… lover” run.
Avowed Swiftie Ballerini gave Templet major props for making one of Taylor’s songs her own. “I feel like is one of the hardest feats,” she said. “And you have such a unique voice. I listened to that song differently and your voice made me do that. I will be your fan on this show.” Bublé praised Tori’s “beautiful… breathy…. sweet” voice, describing it as full of “dulcet, gorgeous tones. I just dig you,” the Great American Songbook interpreter said, adding that, selfishly, he’d like to hear he sing some jazz tunes by Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan.
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Legend also praised Templet’s unique tone, noticing that it almost has a whistle-like undertone to the full top note, getting super nerdy about the technical nature of her singing. “I was mesmerized by it. I thought it was super cool,” Legend said.
Levine went last, professing to be “blown away” by what he heard without seeing Templet, and then being even more intrigued when he saw her playing guitar as well. “I was like, ‘oh, great. Amazing, awesome. I play guitar too, it’s gonna be great.” Levine said. “The purity and simplicity in what you do is something that I think is really lacking.” He compared he voice to that of late Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan, Sunday’s vocalist Harriet Wheeler and Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval.
Excited that the Gen Z’er got his old school 1980s/90s references, Levine enthused, “that’s a lane that we get to have that gets to be ours.” It wasn’t all Christmas lights in January and giggling at dirty jokes, though, as Levine also pointed at a bum hight note that he said can easily be fixed, assuming she picked him.
Spoiler alert, after one more desperate plea from Bublé, Tori went with Team Adam.
Watch Templet’s performance below.
Lady Gaga is just days away from finally releasing her new studio album, Mayhem, and to celebrate, she sat down with Good Morning America‘s Michael Strahan to discuss this new era in her life. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In a teaser clip from the wide-ranging […]
Liam Payne‘s family issued a strongly worded statement on Sunday (March 2) expressing their distress and disappointment at the way the press had reported on the circumstances of the late One Direction singer and solo star’s death last year.
“Liam’s death was an unspeakable tragedy. This is a time of tremendous grief and pain for those who knew and loved him,” read the statement, according to BBC News. “Liam ought to have had a long life ahead of him. Instead, [the singer’s son] Bear has lost his father, Geoff and Karen have lost their son, Ruth and Nicola have lost their brother and all of Liam’s friends and fans have lost someone they held very dear.”
The family added that they understand that the investigation into Payne’s death was “absolutely necessary, and the family recognises the work done by the Argentinian authorities. However, the family accepts the Court of Appeal’s decision to drop all charges. The constant media attention and speculation which has accompanied the process has exacted indescribable, lasting damage on the family, particularly on Liam’s son who is trying to process emotions which no seven-year-old should have to experience.”
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Their comments came just a few weeks after a court in Argentina dropped charges of criminal negligence against three of the five people indicted in connection with the singer’s passing after a fall from a third-story balcony at a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina last October. The court’s ruling cleared Esteban Grassi, head receptionist at the CasaSur Hotel, Rogelio Nores, an Argentine-American businessman and friend of the singer who accompanied Payne on the trip, and Gilda Martin, the hotel’s manager. Two other men, Ezequiel Pereyra and Braian Paiz, are still facing charges for allegedly supplying drugs to Payne on the night he died.
It was Grassi who made two emergency calls prior to the accident, first reporting that a guest was “trashing the entire room” and later expressing concerns that the guest “may be in danger.” A report from Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office No. 14 released last month showed that an autopsy found that Payne, 31, had “alcohol concentrations of up to 2.7 grams per liter in blood” at the time of his death, or a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of 0.27%, which is more than three times the U.S. driving limit and just below a level that is considered life-threatening.
The Argentinian report said that in addition to the dangerous BAC, the autopsy revealed that Payne had cocaine metabolites and the medication sertraline (Zoloft) in his system before he died of what has been described as “multiple trauma and internal and external bleeding” from the 40-foot fall at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel.
In their statement, the family also wrote that they always wished “for privacy to grieve and asks that they be given the space and time to do so… Liam, you are so loved and missed.” The singer’s kin also gave thanks for a touching tribute paid to Payne at Saturday’s Brit Awards, led by his friend Jack Whitehall.
“He achieved so much in the short time that he was on this earth, and was not only a supremely gifted musician but an incredibly kind soul who touched the lives of everyone he came into contact with,” the comedian said before the screen filled with soundbites, portraits and performance video of Payne set to 1D’s “Little Things.”
“We joined in that celebration of his life and will forever remember the joy that his music brought to the world,” the Payne family wrote. Payne was buried in November in the U.K., with his funeral attended by all his former One Direction bandmates, girlfriend Katie Cassidy, and ex-partner Cheryl Cole, with whom he shared son Bear.
Alanis Morissette is headed to Vegas. The “You Oughta Know” singer announced the dates for her upcoming Alanis Morissette: Las Vegas 2025 residency run at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Monday morning (March 3), which will feature eight performances between Oct. 15 through Nov. 2. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]