Tonight Show
What better way to celebrate the release of your love-drenched debut album as a couple than go on The Tonight Show to prove how good you are at lying to each other? Well, that’s exactly what Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco did on Thursday night (March 20) when they fêted their collab LP I Said I Love You First by playing a round of “True Confessions” with host Jimmy Fallon.
Spoiler alert: they are adorably bad at lying to one another.
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The couple had other business to discuss on the show, of course, including a re-telling of the tale of Blanco’s elaborate engagement plot, which Selena said she almost ruined because she was exhausted after a long day of work. Gomez, who wore a flattering, off-the-shoulder black velvet dress and heels, and Blanco, dressed in a bedazzled, ripped jeans and an equally sparkly pale purple short-sleeved shirt and black cowboy boots, said she had no idea that Blanco was going to propose back in December because the day it happened she was wiped from work.
“We had to do a lot of promo for the album, so I woke up and I was very confused on what was happening, where we were going, because it seemed kind of far,” Gomez said. “I’m kind of a little grumpy. I really am tired. This is too far. So then I tell him, ‘after this shoot I’m going to go hang out with my friends.’”
Blanco said that sent him into panic mode because getting engaged is the “craziest thing” in the world. “It’s like, right before you’re gonna tell someone you’re gonna be married to them forever, they’re like, ‘show me how good you can lie to me!’” Blanco joked. “It’s the hardest thing in the world!” Blanco said the cloak-and-dagger arrangement made for the “scariest week of my life.”
When Fallon predicted the music at the wedding would be “amazing,” Gomez said they are “definitely not planning exactly at this moment,” but that she will for sure leave the music portion of the big night to Grammy-nominated producer/songwriter Blanco.
The pair, of course, also talked about the album, which Gomez described as “an exploration of each other’s present, past and future. The music was very fun, but cathartic, because we got to know each other on a deeper level.”
Earlier in the episode during the lying game, Selena tried to convince Blanco and Fallon that one time her dog ran away on set and Paul Rudd found it. Blanco was immediately skeptical about the tale, asking what year it was, to which Gomez snapped, “what are you, Judge Judy?” Showing off his deep knowledge of Sel’s dog history, Blanco expertly poked holes in her story, leading the singer to complain, “He knows it’s a lie. I told you backstage I’m going to be terrible at this!”
Nobody fell for Fallon’s dumb claim that he almost ruined Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown’s last year by showing up uninvited, especially Blanco who asked, “Who is Millie Bobby Brown?” After proving his expert sleuthing skills, it was Blanco’s turn to lie, pretending he starred in a Burger King commercial as a kid. He put on a good face, but Gomez immediately wondered, “I dunno… why wouldn’t you have told me that?”
Watch Gomez and Blanco on The Tonight Show below.
You know how you know you’re a huge pop star? When the mere mention of your name, or a brief, dance-y cameo during the host’s monologue drive the studio audience into uncontrollable shrieking. BTS‘ j-hope knows this feeling.
The singer got ARMY in formation early on Monday night (March 10) during his appearance on The Tonight Show when he snuck out during Jimmy Fallon’s monologue for a bit making fun of the host’s lame dance moves. “I wish I could dance even a 10th as good as he can,” Fallon lamented of his skills compared to his guest, as Roots drummer Questlove assured Jimmy that he indeed had smooth moves. Busting into some seriously cringe dad choreo, Jimmy gyrated to massive screams as a smiling Hobi slipped on stage to show him how it’s done, leaving Fallon thinking that he’d killed it. “You love my dancing!” Fallon blushed.
The singer came back for a sit-down chat, beginning with his favorite things to do when he visits the U.S. Fallon noted that the K-pop superstar recently made his first visit to In-N-Out Burger and he asked how it went. Switching from Korean to English, j-hope said he ordered a cheeseburger, animal-style, a vanilla milkshake and fries. “It was good…. very salty and cheesy and sweety… but not healthy,” he smiled.
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After Fallon shared a recent Instagram post in which Hobi busted out his best Kendrick Lamar “Not Like Us” shuffle dance, the singer confirmed that he’s never met K-Dot, but is definitely down for a collab. “I’m ready for work with you, Kendrick,” he said to screeches from the studio audience as he did a command performance of the signature dance from Lamar’s Drake-destroying single.
In addition to talking about his early days in the underground dance crew Neuron — which was inspired by the first time he heard the clothes-to-the-back kid rap duo Kriss Kross — j-hope said that, like Fallon’s pal Justin Timberlake, when he’s in the studio he can’t help dancing to his own songs and dreaming about what it will be like to perform them live.
“Whenever I listen to music, something come up in my mind,” he said. “And I think of how I want to express that on stage.”
The singer also came back to close the show with a performance of his new solo single, “Sweet Dreams,” with Miguel. Standing on a platform on a fog-shrouded set, Hobi harmonized with the soul singer on the song’s love-filled chorus in his first-ever solo spot on the show, before busting out his melodic rap on the verse while rocking the stage in baggy jeans and fuzzy bunny slippers.
Watch j-hope on The Tonight Show below.
When we say j-hope is comfortable on the stage, we mean from his head all the way down to his fuzzy feet. On Monday night’s (March 10) episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the BTS star will make his solo debut performance on the late-night show, joined by R&B singer Miguel for their […]
It feels like almost as soon as Taylor Swift started dating Travis Kelce, the conversation turned to whether wedding bells were in the superstar couple’s future. Well, one person who’s never afraid to share his opinion has officially weighed in on the hot topic. ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith appeared on The Tonight Show Starring […]
J-Hope is heading back to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon — this time as a solo artist. The BTS star is scheduled to take the stage at the popular late-night show next week, on Monday, March 10, Billboard can exclusively announce, marking the 31-year-old singer’s solo debut on the program. Back in 2018, his […]
André 3000 stopped by The Tonight Show on Monday night (Dec. 16) to chat with host Jimmy Fallon about his right-turn into the world of jazz and perform a rendition of one of the songs from his Grammy-nominated solo album New Blue Sun.
Three Stacks stressed to Jimmy that despite his name being on the cover and the LP being tagged as a “solo” project, it was truly a “collective effort.” Asked to describe the vibe of the all-instrumental, no rapping album that came out in November 2023, André said it’s definitely a “very open, trusting free-form exploration.”
Though some fans were bummed that the man widely consider to be one of the greatest MCs of all time put down the mic and picked up woodwinds, André revealed that the title of the first song on the album — “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time” — wasn’t a joke.
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He said that though for years he’s been “producing, making beats and still trying to do a vocal, rap kind of situation. Because I’m still a fan of rap. But that wasn’t on tap right now and that just happened to be what I was doing at the time. So I was like, ‘I enjoy this. Let me share it.’”
During a 17-year hiatus from releasing music as a lead artist, André dabbled in acting and became a kind of traveling minstrel meme among fans who delighted in posting videos of the MC strolling around coffee shops and airports playing one of his many flutes. “You know how when you have your phone you’re usually just scrolling and looking, I’ll play my flute,” he said. In fact, while in Philadelphia shooting a movie years ago, he would be spotted around town playing and people would come up to him and say, “‘you know it’s a game now. People are trying to find you and we’ll tweet and we’ll say, ‘Well, he’s at this park.’”
He also said that before each performance with his band they huddle and pump each other up with the phrase “fly free… that’s what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to really fly free with it. The reward is different, because you have to listen to every second to know what’s happening. It’s just a different muscle, a different exercise than going and performing verses and choruses that you’ve written. Both are rewarding in their own ways.”
Dré then came back later in the show to perform an edited version of the originally 13-minute song “BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears a 3000® Shirt Embroidered.”
Watch André 3000 on The Tonight Show below.
Ice-T is a multi-hyphenate already, but the gangsta rap legend might want to consider adding diplomat to his extensive resumé. On The Tonight Show on Wednesday (Dec. 4), Ice sat down with Jimmy Fallon to explain how he managed to get two of the most bitterly divided men in rock to finally agree on something.
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Falllon noted that the new Body Count album features a cover of Pink Floyd’s iconic 1979 song “Comfortably Numb,” which Ice-T somehow got clearance to record despite the rock band never granting such clearance due to the long-running animosity between former singer/lyricist/bassist Roger Waters and singer/guitarist David Gilmour.
“Not only David Gilmour, but David Gilmour and Roger Waters,” Ice-T confirmed. “Who haven’t agreed on anything in 20 years!” Explaining that rappers are always listening to old tracks to find something they can sample or rap over, Ice-T said he always loved Waters’ rumbling bass part on the original, so he wrote new lyrics to rap over the song from the landmark The Wall album.
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“We lay it out and then I just don’t think about the politics. So they go, ‘Okay, you gotta send this to Pink Floyd to get it approved,’ and everybody’s like, ‘That’s not gonna happen,’” he said. So, he sent it to the band’s publishers, who immediately said no, explaining that Pink Floyd doesn’t allow samples or covers. “So it was dead in the water, I was ready to trash the song,” he said of the update that features his new narrative about his fears for humanity’s future amid perpetual war and strife.
But then his manager found a way to reach Gilmour’s manager, who sent it along to his client, who was “blown away” by the new lyrics. “He said, ‘I totally approve it’” Ice-T told Fallon of the unexpected thumbs-up. Then, they had to get Waters’ approval, with Ice-T admitting that he had no idea what the origin is of the decades long beef between the two men.
So, Waters listened and asked who was singing on the track, and when he heard it was the rapper, he approved it as well. “So now you’ve got two people on opposites sides that approved the song, which made me feel really good, ’cause that means that the song is honest and real,” Ice-T said. Then came the cherry on top: Gilmour said he wanted to perform on the cover and appear in the video as well.
“Body Count’s version of ‘Comfortably Numb’ is quite radical, but the words really struck me,” said Gilmour, 78, in a statement about the new version featuring his guitar work when the single was released in September. “It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach. They’ve made it relevant again. The initial contact from Ice-T was for permission to use the song, but I thought I might offer to play on it as well. I like the new lyrics, they’re talking about the world we’re living in now, which is quite scary.”
The rapper also told Fallon about celebrating daughter Chanel’s ninth birthday on Thanksgiving and described how his wife Coco “does all” the planning for the Christmas holiday. “If it wasn’t for her there wouldn’t be no holidays as far as Ice-T is concerned,” he said. Ice then dropped a stone cold fact that might get him in trouble with the Recording Academy.
“I won a Grammy recently and I’m like, ‘It didn’t come with no money, right? It’s just a Grammy,” he said of his 2021 best metal performance award for “Bum-Rush” from Body Count’s Carnivore album. “And then all my boys were like, ‘I want a Grammy!’ So I had to actually go make duplicate Grammys — I don’t even know if that’s okay, but I did it — and it cost me money to win the Grammy!”
The long-running Law & Order: Special Victims Unit co-star later returned for a performance of Body Count’s metal-edged cover of “Comfortably Numb,” filling the Tonight Show studio with the strains of their ominous take on the Pink Floyd classic. Bathed in green light, his eyes obscured behind black wrap-around shades, Ice sang/spoke the iconic “hello, hello, is anybody out there/ can anybody hear me?” over pealing guitars and down-tuned, rumbling bass.
Body Count’s cover appears on their eighth studio album, Merciless, which features collaborations with death metal howler Corpsegrinder, Light the Torch singer Howard Jones and Soulfly vocalist/guitarist Max Cavalera.
Watch Ice-T talk “Comfortably Numb” and perform on The Tonight Show below.
Gwen Stefani jumped in the wayback machine on The Tonight Show on Tuesday night (Nov. 26) when she joined host Jimmy Fallon and house band The Roots for a run through one of her most beloved solo hits on classroom instruments. With Fallon pounding on a drum and shaking tinsel-decked percussion instruments, Stefani sang the […]
Keke Palmer had a moment on the red carpet at this year’s Met Gala. And while she looked fabulous and enjoyed the evening, it wasn’t without its stressors. Chief among them was being called out by none other than Nicki Minaj on the red carpet. The Nope star stopped by The Tonight Show on Tuesday […]
Jimmy Fallon is the latest guest to take on the Hot Ones challenge, eating increasingly spicy wings as host Sean Evans asks questions. However, it’s hardly Fallon’s first rodeo. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news He often incorporates a Hot Ones segment with Evans on his Tonight Show, […]