Pop

Taylor Swift has earned herself a spot in the penthouse of Dita Von Teese’s heart. The famed burlesque performer shared in a new chat on the Allison Interviews podcast that the “Anti-Hero” singer was delightful to work with on the martini glass routine in the pop superstar’s “Bejeweled” music video.

“The best experience was Taylor,” Von Teese said while discussing teaching her iconic routine to others. “She’s really, like, a kind girl. She knew everything about what I do.”

The performer added that the 12-time Grammy winner didn’t just want her in the shadows, either. “She wanted to not just have me be behind the scenes teaching her to be, you know, in my glass,” Von Teese explained. “She wanted to showcase what I do.”

And that was exactly what happened in the “Bejeweled” music video. Von Teese appears alongside the pop superstar in one segment, recreating the burlesque star’s sultry dance, with both women teasingly pull off a stocking before sensually dousing themselves with liquid squeezed from giant olives while in the martini glasses.

While Swift was a model student, Von Teese said some of her experiences weren’t quite as bright, namely, when she was asked to teach the same routine to former Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel for her now-defunct eponymous talk show. “Guess what? She didn’t show up for rehearsal!” Von Teese shared. “I was like, ‘Why am I at rehearsal? I don’t need to rehearse. I can do this blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back.’ Then we did it live on camera, and I was like, ‘You’re on your own.’”

“Bejeweled” — off Swift’s 2022 Billboard 200 No. 1 album Midnights — peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 2022. The album also featured singles “Anti-Hero,” which was No. 1 for eight weeks, “Lavender Haze” and “Karma,” both of which reached No. 2 on the Hot 100.

Watch Von Teese talk about working with Swift in her podcast appearance below, and revisit the “Bejeweled” music video above:

The Weeknd compiled his first three mixtapes into one Trilogy compilation album back in 2012, and 12 years later, he’s preparing to close out the current chapter in his career with yet another trilogy.

On Sunday (Jan. 7), he posted the album covers from his 2020 album After Hours and 2022’s Dawn FM — the latter of which celebrated its second anniversary on Sunday — and a third, black slide with a white question mark in the middle and a parental advisory warning label. “3,” he wrote as the caption.

The Canadian-Ethiopian superstar (real name Abel Tesfaye) said in his May 2023 interview with W Magazine that his next studio album will be his final one as The Weeknd. “It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter. I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. Eventually. I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn,” he said at the time. “The album I’m working on now is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd. This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said everything I can say.”

It’s poetic to end his tenure as The Weeknd the same way he started it: In 2011, he dropped three mixtapes — House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence — that were eventually remastered and repackaged into his Trilogy compilation album, which Republic Records and his XO label released the following year.

In 2021, The Weeknd released the original mixtapes on streaming services on their corresponding 10-year anniversaries since the samples had finally cleared, including Beach House‘s “Master of None” on “The Party & The After Party,” Siouxsie and the Banshees‘ “Happy House” on “House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls” and Aaliyah‘s “Rock the Boat” on “What You Need.”

See his teaser post below:

Ariana Grande just dropped two major details about her fast-approaching new music. 

Just a day after announcing that her new song will arrive Friday, Jan. 12, and be titled “Yes, And?,” the 30-year-old pop star confirmed that the lead single will not share a name with her upcoming seventh album, as some fans had previously speculated. She also clarified that the photo she paired with the song announcement – a blurry image of the left side of her face and red lips – will indeed serve as the album cover. 

“p.s. i couldn’t wait any longer to tell you that although this is not the album title, it is indeed the album cover (well…….one of them!),” the vocalist wrote on her Instagram Story Monday (Jan. 8), resharing her post from the day prior announcing the single. 

“Yes, And?” follows weeks of Grande teasing her musical comeback on social media, where she’s been sharing photos and muted clips of her time in the studio putting the project together. Last week, she sported a custom “Yes, And?” sweatshirt in public, leading fans to wonder whether it was the title of a new song or album. 

The star’s latest album rollout follows her years-long break from music, having spent the time since 2020’s Positions focusing on her R.E.M. Beauty business and her role in the upcoming live-action adaptations of the Broadway musical Wicked. In the past three years, her pop-star endeavors have only spanned guesting on other artists’ songs here and there (such as the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Die for You” with The Weeknd and “Met Him Last Night” with Demi Lovato) and releasing a 10th anniversary edition of her debut album, Yours Truly. 

A couple days before the new year, she reflected on her time spent away from music in 2023. “I’ve never felt more at the mercy of and in acceptance of what life was screaming to teach me,” she wrote in a message on her Instagram Story. “I have never felt more pride or joy or love while simultaneously feeling so deeply misunderstood by people who don’t know me, who piece whispers together and make what they want out of me and their assumptions of my life.”