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Madonna has removed an image of R&B legend Luther Vandross from a memorial segment of her Celebration tour at the request of the late singer’s estate. A spokesperson for Madonna confirmed to Billboard on Tuesday morning (Feb. 27) that the picture was removed from a bit in the show in which the singer pays tribute […]
Ariana Grande isn’t switching positions on how she feels about music leaks. During the first episode of her multi-part interview on The Zach Sang Show Monday (Feb. 26), the 30-year-old pop star addressed the matter of her unreleased songs finding their way to social media without her permission last year — one of which, she hinted, found a much more kosher home on her upcoming Eternal Sunshine album.
“The few studio sessions I did, which are all over TikTok, thank you so much,” she began, sporting a head-to-toe red outfit — save for her black stilettos — and matching lipstick. “I’ll see you in jail, literally,” the singer added.
“Thieves! Pirates! Crooks!” she said, laughing but still serious. “Illegal. I’ll pay you more to put it away, like, to get it back.”
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Grande went on to give context for her catchy ’90s-inspired track “Fantasize,” which was never supposed to see the light of day, but still found its way to TikTok virality last year. “That wasn’t my song, it wasn’t for me,” she explained, noting that she’d written it for an unnamed TV show. “It was like a parody of this girl group vibe.”
Even so, the “POV” singer took note of her fans’ love for “Fantasize” and decided to incorporate it into her new record, which arrives March 8. “I kind of gave them Ariana’s version of that on the album,” she said. “They’re completely different now. So although you’ve heard them — because you stole them — they’re very different now.”
The second part of Grande’s interview with Sang arrives the day of Eternal Sunshine‘s release, and will find the pair talking about each individual song on the 13-track album. So far, the only single she’s dropped ahead of the LP’s release is the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Yes, And?”
While opening up about having her music stolen, the Victorious alum also shared her thoughts on the similarly viral artificial intelligence recreations of her voice — and let’s just say, she might hate that even more than the leaks. “What are we doing? Why?” she said, seemingly at a loss for words.
“I hate it,” she added. “It’s terrifying.”
Watch Grande on The Zach Sang Show above.
Kevin Bacon and wife actress Kyra Sedgwick got their boots dirty this week for a barnyard cover of Beyoncé‘s smash country hit “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The couple took to the pen to mingle with their pigs and ponies for one of their beloved cover song videos, in which Bacon — rocking a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, […]
As BTS member J-Hope rounds the corner on the final eight months of his mandatory 18-month South Korean military service, the K-pop superstar is giving Army a soundtrack to his final stint in uniform. The singer announced the details of a new mini-album on Tuesday morning (Feb. 27), Hope on the Street Vol. 1, which […]
Pres. Joe Biden gets it. The commander-in-chief stopped by Late Night With Seth Meyers on Monday night (Feb. 26) to help the show’s host celebrate his show’s 10th anniversary, and to keep stoking the fires of right-wingnut conspiracy theories about his alleged devious plot to secure the most important endorsement in this year’s presidential campaign.
“Can you confirm or deny that there is an active conspiracy between you and Miss Swift?,” Meyers asked Biden about the allegations from conservatives that the President is working behind the scenes with Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce to boost his campaign against expected challenger Donald Trump by locking in the power couple’s endorsement.
“Where are you getting this information? It’s classified. That’s classified information,” Biden said with a smile in a rare late night appearance. “But I will tell you, she did endorse me in 2020.”
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Meyers was as relentless as a White House pool reporter in his questioning, wondering if the Swift thumbs up might “come around again.” Biden still wouldn’t bite, joking, “I told you it’s classified.”
Before this month’s Super Bowl, conservatives got spun up about a made-up theory that Swift and Kelce had cooked up a plot with the White House to have the pair officially endorse Biden after Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVIII. The visit by Biden — his first as a sitting president — marked the 10th anniversary of the launch of Late Night. Biden, then Vice President, and the night’s other guest, Amy Poehler, were the inaugural guests on Meyers’ first broadcast on Feb. 24, 2014.
Biden, 81, also had jokes, noting that Trump, 77, is “about as old as I am but he can’t even remember his wife’s name,” in response to a question about concerns related to his age; Biden is the oldest sitting president and would be the oldest president to ever serve if he wins a second term. “It’s about how old your ideas are,” he added about Trump, the twice-indicted, one-term president who is facing 91 felony counts in four different cases as he mounts his third run for the White House. “This about a guy who wants to take us back, he wants to take us back on Roe V. Wade, he wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that for 50-60 years they have been solid American positions.”
The president — who was sporting a flag pin on his lapel featuring the American and Ukrainian flags in the midst of a fight in Congress over further funding for the war in Ukraine — also sat on the couch with Poehler to reminisce about his guest spot on Parks and Recreation. Meyers asked Biden about his seemingly playful adoption of the “Dark Brandon” right-wing meme, to which Biden responded, “no, I resent the hell out of it,” as he slipped on DB’s signature dark aviator shades to wild applause from the studio audience.
Check out Biden on Late Night below.
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Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are currently living out a grown-up, real-life version of Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez’s love story in High School Musical, and Zac Efron is officially here for it. In a recent interview published Monday (Feb. 26), the Iron Claw star was asked for his take on fan comparisons between Tayvis […]
They may be K-pop stars, but that doesn’t mean the boys of TOMORROW X TOGETHER can’t bust out a country move. In a video posted to the band’s TikTok, members Taehyun and HueningKai put their own spin on a viral dance trend set to Beyoncé‘s newest hit “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The clip finds the “Sugar […]
Ed Kelce doesn’t mess around when it comes to his boys. Days after Bethenny Frenkel voiced her doubts about Travis Kelce‘s relationship with Taylor Swift in an Instagram video, the tight end’s father succinctly called her out.
Sharing a news article about Frenkel’s comments on Facebook, the Kelce patriarch simply wrote: “Who TF is this troll?”
Ed’s followers on the platform were quick to back him up, with one person commenting, “No one of importance Papa Kelce … Haters gonna hate.”
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In her Feb. 16 Instagram video, Frankel had said that Travis “loves to be the center of attention” and compared the Kansas City Chiefs tight end to someone she dated in the past. “It’s all fun and games now, but when you get into real life, and you get into kids and marriage and things like that, and you get into long distance, it’s not easy,” she warned. “Relationships take work.”
“It’s hard because Taylor Swift is certainly a peacock,” she added at the time. “There really usually can only be one peacock in a relationship.”
The Real Housewives of New York City alum also touched on Travis’ display of excitement after winning the 2024 Super Bowl earlier this month, particularly the moment he shouted out one of Las Vegas’ signature songs during his post-game speech as Swift watched proudly from the field.
“I could never be in a relationship with someone who needed to stand up and grab the microphone and sing and scream ‘Viva Las Vegas,’” Frankel said. “That’s really exciting and electric in the beginning, but it does wear on you. It physically wears on you, it emotionally wears on you.”
The “Anti-Hero” singer has hung out with Travis’ dad at a couple of the athlete’s games since Tayvis first went public in September. At the big game in Las Vegas on Feb. 11, she shared a box suite at Allegiant Stadium with Ed as well as her beau’s mom, Donna, and his brother, Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce.
“She’s very smart,” Ed said of Swift in an October interview, adding that the musician is a “very sweet, very charming, down-to-earth young woman.” “We’re sitting in the suite, she gets up and in the front room, she gets up to go get a drink or something and she starts picking up empty bottles, cans, plates that are scattered around.”
But if Frankel is correct, and both Taylor and Travis are “peacocks,” at least the couple is going to the right places together: Over the weekend, they went on a date to the Sydney Zoo during the pop star’s downtime on the Australian leg of her Eras Tour. Later, the football star caught one of his girlfriend’s shows at Accor Stadium, where he was spotted dancing along next to Katy Perry and Rita Ora and handing out guitar picks to fans.
Taylor Swift carves out another Billboard chart record as she surpasses The Beatles for the most weeks spent in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in the last 60 years across all her top 10-charting albums combined.
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On the latest Billboard 200 chart (dated March 2), Swift has three albums in the top 10, which ups her cumulative total of weeks in the top 10 to 384 — across all her 16-top 10-charting albums combined. She’s in the top 10 on the latest list with three former No. 1s: 1989 (Taylor’s Version) at No. 6, Lover at No. 7 and Midnights at No. 9.
Since the Billboard 200 combined its previously separate mono and stereo album charts on the Aug. 17, 1963-dated chart, Swift now has the most weeks in the top 10. She steps past The Beatles, who have a total of 382 weeks in the top 10 across their 32 top 10-charting albums. (The Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March of 1956.)
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Swift first visited the top 10 on the Nov. 24, 2007-dated chart when her self-titled debut climbed 26-8. The Beatles first hit the top 10 on the Feb. 8, 1964, chart, when Meet the Beatles! vaulted 92-3. The Beatles were last in the top 10 on the Nov. 12, 2022-dated chart, when a deluxe reissue of the 1966 album Revolver prompted its re-entry on the list at No. 4.
Among Swift’s top 10-charting albums, the one with the most weeks in the top 10 is Midnights, with 68 weeks in the region. It’s followed by 1989 (60), Fearless (58), Lover (54) and Folklore (30).
As for The Beatles, the band’s five albums with the most weeks in the top 10 are Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (35), Abbey Road, A Hard Day’s Night (28 each), Meet the Beatles! (21) and 1 (20).
Following Swift and The Beatles among acts the most weeks in the top 10 (since August 1963) are The Rolling Stones (with 309), Barbra Streisand (277) and Drake and Mariah Carey (233 each).
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multimetric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new March 2, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Feb. 27. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
Olivia Rodrigo’s long-awaited Guts world tour kicked off on Friday night (Feb. 23) at Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, Calif., and Rodrigo had the crowd on their feet the whole night with a jam-packed set of hits spanning her two albums: 2021’s Sour and 2023’s Guts. With multiple outfit changes throughout the night — including sparkling sets […]