TV/Film
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Zendaya learned a lesson the hard way at a Beyoncé concert back when the Euphoria actress was 13.
While speaking to W as part of the publication’s best performances package, which went live Friday (Jan. 3), Zendaya revealed that she didn’t have many celebrity crushes as a tween — but she did “have a Beyoncé poster on my wall, because I went to her concert for my 13th birthday,” she said.
The Challengers star went on to share a humbling memory from the show. “I was devastated that she didn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, because I guess it was close to her birthday and she was singing to the audience,” Zendaya continued. “My dad was like, ‘Do you want me to put you on my shoulders?’ I was like, ‘No, that’s so embarrassing.’”
“Then, after, I was like, ‘Damn, I should have let him put me on his shoulders so she would’ve seen me,’” the Golden Globe winner added. “Thirteen-year-old me was very devastated that Beyoncé didn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her.”
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The “Break My Soul” singer may not have noticed 13-year-old Zendaya that day, but Bey certainly would in the future. In 2016, the Dune actress appeared alongside the 32-time Grammy winner in the latter’s Lemonade album film, and Bey’s mom, Tina Knowles, even said in April that Z reminds the matriarch of her famous eldest daughter.
In addition to the concert, Zendaya also opened up about another experience from her teens that she’s still a little salty about: coming in second place on season 16 of Dancing With the Stars. The then-16-year-old performer — whose dance partner was Val Chmerkovskiy — lost out to Kellie Pickler and Derek Hough in 2013, something which Zendaya said she’s “still harboring a little animosity.”
“I felt that loss,” she told W. “I was only 16 years old, and it was highly stressful. Being on live television every week? It’s so scary. I took it very seriously, which, in retrospect, I wish I didn’t. I wish I’d enjoyed it a little bit more and just was like, ‘Eh, whatever.’ You know what I mean? But I was stressing myself out. I really went through it on that.”
See Zendaya on the cover of W below.
Ariana Grande is a hopeless romantic when it comes to Love Is Blind, which the singer revealed is her favorite reality TV series in a recent interview with W.
In her cover story for the publication’s best performances issue published Friday (Jan. 3), the 31-year-old singer-actress gushed that the experimental Netflix dating series is “just fantastic.” The show – which premiered in 2020 — blindly pairs up singles who aren’t allowed to see one another in person until they get engaged, at which point they have just a few weeks to live together before deciding whether they want to get married or part ways.
The legitimacy of the concept might raise some eyebrows, but Grande said that she has faith the show’s couples can go the distance. “Of course, I do,” she said. “Some of them do. I check sometimes.”
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“I’ll go to Instagram and find these people and make sure they’re still together,” the “Yes, And?” singer added. “I need to know what’s happening.”
Grande was one of several stars who posed for W‘s best performances package, for which she also spoke about her career-shifting role as Glinda in Jon Chu’s Wicked films. Her co-leading lady, Cynthia Erivo, as well as Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldańa, Zendaya, Paul Mescal and more also all spoke to the magazine about their respective breakout film projects this year.
In addition to all things Wicked and Love Is Blind, the R.E.M. Beauty founder also told the publication about the movie that’s always guaranteed to make her cry — and it’s not one you might expect. “The Waterboy, with Adam Sandler, makes me cry,” Grande said. “When they’re mean to Bobby Boucher, I cry. I don’t like it. I love Bobby Boucher.”
“He says, ‘Would you please still be my friend?’ and I lose it,” she added before conceding, “But I cry at everything.”
Watch Grande’s video interview above, and see her on the cover of W below.
Bruce Springsteen has been spending time hanging around the set for the upcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere and so far he’s very impressed with the movie’s star, Jeremy Allen White. The actor best known for playing perpetually harried chef Carmy Berzatto on The Bear has been filming the movie that will tell the story behind the making of the Boss’ stark 1982 character-heavy album Nebraska.
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In a recent chat with SiriusXM E Street Radio’s Jim Rotolo, Springsteen, 75, talked about whether it’s been strange to be on set as he watches Allen portray a thirtysomething version of him. “A little bit at first, but you get over that pretty quick and Jeremy is such a terrific actor that you just fall right into it,” Springsteen said. “He’s got an interpretation of me that I think the fans will deeply recognize and he’s just done a great job, so I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve had a lot of fun being on the set when I can get there.”
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More importantly, at a time when Timothée Chalamet is earning praise for his original vocals in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Rotolo wondered what The Boss thinks of White’s singing in the film. “He sings well. He sings very well,” Springsteen said. “You know, and Jeremy Strong [as Springsteen’s longtime manager Jon Landau] and Odessa Young [as then-girlfriend Faye], you know, it’s a tremendous cast of people. They cast the film beautifully, so it’s very exciting.”
Directed and written by Scott Cooper, the adaptation of Warren Zanes’ book of the same name, the movie has gotten full support from Springsteen. Last year, White told GQ that in addition to hours and hours of video study to nail Bruce’s signature raspy singing and speaking cadence he’s also been working with a vocal coach.
“I’ve got a really talented group of people helping me train vocally, musically, to get ready for this thing,” White told the magazine. “I’m also really lucky [that] Bruce is really supportive of the film, and so I’ve had some access to him and he’s just the greatest guy.” Before cameras started rolling, White was asked last June if he planned to do his own singing in the film, telling Variety, “we’re gonna try, we’re gonna try our best.”
In the same interview with Rotolo, Springsteen also confirmed a late 2024 press release teasing that this year will bring a new collection that will “look back at Springsteen’s storied recording career, featuring never-before-heard material.” When Rotolo asked about that release teasing unheard tunes, Springsteen simply confirmed, “there will be.” The singer also debuted a new song called “Girlfriend” in honor of late Replacement’s guitarist Slim Dunlap on the episode.
Listen to the interview below.
A quarter-century after Boy Meets World ended, 50 Cent is finally meeting the girl. Following his recent show in Las Vegas, the rapper posed with Danielle Fishel — who played Topanga Lawrence on the iconic series — and wrote afterward on Instagram that the actress is going to be “fine” forever. In a photo posted […]
Ariana Grande is explaining what really happened with that scrapped hip-hop version of “Popular,” which composer Stephen Schwartz had intended to put in Jon M. Chu’s Wicked films before the pop star pushed back on the idea.
In a cover story interview with Variety published Thursday (Jan. 2), Grande recalled first hearing the original rehearsal track for Glinda’s standout number at the very beginning of production in London — and she wasn’t totally thrilled with the instrumentation. “They had hip-hop drums,” she told the publication. “I called Jon first. I was shaking. ‘Is this something that we can meet in the middle on?’”
“And of course, it was so understood,” she continued. “And that’s what happens when you have a team who loves and respects each other and can hear those truths, because nothing has to be withheld.”
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The interview comes over a month after Schwartz — who created the soundtrack for the Wicked Broadway musical more than 20 years prior before working on the films — first revealed that the R.E.M. Beauty founder had said no to a hip-hop version of “Popular,” which he’d pitched “in the spirit of being open to new things” for the adaptation. “I thought, ‘Let’s refresh the rhythm. Let’s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit,’” he told The Los Angeles Times. “Ariana said, ‘Absolutely not, don’t do it. I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda.’”
In the new cover story, Grande clarified that the scrapped version had been less about making “Popular” sound like a song from her own multi-platinum discography and more about modernizing it for the times. Regardless, the “Yes, And?” singer still “wanted to lovingly and respectfully say, ‘Absolutely not!’” to the idea.
“Thinking through the lens of the character — Galinda Upland does not have that bounce to her at all,” she explained to Variety. “She’s as vanilla as they come.”
Though “Popular” never did get the hip-hop treatment, the track did experience some changes. Fans who saw the movie on or after its Nov. 22 premiere, or listened to its No. 2 Billboard 200-charting soundtrack, discovered that the bubbly anthem was extended with an alternate ending — featuring three key changes and an atmospheric opera note hit by Grande for the big finish.
“I had this idea for a new vocal ending,” Schwartz told The Times of the updates in November. “Ariana was a little hesitant about it, but I told her that if I had thought of it for the original show, this is how it would have been. Once she was reassured that this new bit of music was coming out of character, she was on board.”
See Grande with Chu and Wicked co-leading lady Cynthia Erivo on the cover of Variety below.
There is a very good reason you never seen Spider-Man star Tom Holland walking the red carpet with longtime girlfriend Zendaya. In a new cover story interview with Men’s Health the 28-year-old actor explained that for the same reason he can’t just drop in to see an afternoon matinee play without being swarmed by fans — or pulling attention from the actors on stage — he doesn’t want to distract from Z’s big day.
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“Because it’s not my moment, it’s her moment, and if we go together, it’s about us,” he told the magazine about why he tends to skip most non-mandatory public events and attends Zendaya’s premieres, but doesn’t do the step-and-repeat with her.
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Holland is re-emerging from a year-long break from acting and told the magazine that for the first time in nearly two decades he doesn’t have anything to promote (well, except for his new line of nonalcoholic beers, Bero). “It was just something I needed to do,” he said. “I had been acting flat out since I was 11.” The latter refers to his audition for Billy Elliot: The Musical in London, which was followed a few years later with a role in The Impossible with Naomi Watts, and then his first run at Spider-Man in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.
In addition to the fourth Spider-Man film, he is also slated to join Matt Damon and Zendaya in the upcoming Christopher Nolan adaptation of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. The star who has gotten into killer shape for his Marvel films is notorious for his dedication and focus, as well as for his signature parlor trick: a backflip. But even as he hovers at the edge of 30, Holland said age feels like it’s starting to catch up to him.
While visiting Cornwall with Zendaya and his family recently a cousin asked him to bust out one of his flips. “So I went outside and I was getting ready, and I was thinking, I can do this. I can totally do this. I’ve done this thousands of times. And Z was there, and she was like, ‘Are you sure you can still do this?,’” he recalled. After assuring her he could, Holland said he bent down and landed a perfect one. Well, almost perfect. “I actually did land it, but I pulled every muscle in my stomach, because when you do a backflip, it’s all about extending up as much as you can and then tucking,” he said. “For weeks, I could not laugh because my stomach was so sore.”
The actor also revealed that his new go-to workout anthem is Linkin Park 2.0’s comeback single, “The Emptiness Machine,” his favorite movie is, no shame, Avatar, but said he will not share his patented euphemism for sex. “That’s my lady,” he said. “I’m not getting into that!”
Ariana Grande is opening up further about Glinda’s sexual orientation after saying in November that her Wicked character “might be a little in the closet.”
In a Variety cover story published Thursday (Jan. 2), the singer-actress was asked to elaborate on her thoughts about Glinda’s possible queerness in relation to Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba, with whom the “Good Witch” nurtures an intense, passionate love-hate relationship. The two women’s dynamic is only ever referred to as a friendship in the original Broadway musical, but in Grande’s eyes, it might be something more.
“I think she’s a person who loves so much, and I do think that it goes beyond gender,” the R.E.M. Beauty founder told the publication of Glinda. “I also think that the ways in which she loves Elphaba so much, and that forgiveness and that unconditional love that they share — I think they’re in love with each other.”
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“I know, yes, it’s platonic …,” she amended before cutting herself off, not wanting to reveal too much ahead of Jon M. Chu’s second Wicked film. “But we’ll talk about it more in depth in movie two.”
Author Gregory Maguire, who penned the bestselling novel on which the Broadway show is based, also shared his thoughts on the sexual tension in the book between the two characters in a December interview. “That was intentional, and it was modest and restrained and refined in such a way that one could imagine that one of those two young women had felt more than the other and had not wanted to say it,” he told Them. “Or perhaps because a novelist can’t write every scene, perhaps when the lights were out and the novelist was out having a smoke in the back alley, the girls had sex in the bed on the way to the Emerald City. I wanted to propose this possibility, but I did not want to make a declarative statement about.”
Grande’s new interview comes over a month after the first Wicked hit theaters Nov. 22, 2024, quickly becoming the top-grossing movie adaptation of a Broadway musical ever. Its sequel, Wicked: For Good, will arrive almost exactly a year later in the fall of 2025.
Grande previously spoke about her character’s sexuality in a November interview with Gay Times, candidly telling the outlet, “Maybe Glinda might be a little in the closet.”
“You never know! Give it a little time!” she’d added. “I mean, it is just a true love. And I think that transcends sexuality, it’s just kind of a deep safety within each other.”
The “We Can’t Be Friends” musician’s co-leading lady agreed at the time. “I think Elphie … she goes wherever the wind goes,” Erivo told the publication. “I think she loves Glinda, I think she loves love. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with celebrating the deep connection that both of them have … it’s a relationship, it is true love.”
See Grande, Erivo and Chu on the cover of Variety below.
Chappell Roan is letting her Gleek flag fly in 2025. In a hilarious video shared to her TikTok account Wednesday (Jan. 1), the 26-year-old pop star recreates an iconic scene from Ryan Murphy’s Glee — taking a slushie to the face in the process.
In the clip, Roan plays the part of Kurt Hummel — portrayed by Chris Colfer on the hit Fox series — speaking into a microphone during an interview with a classmate. “You know what does take some courage? Standing up and singing about something,” the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer mouths along to the Glee audio, sassily pointing her finger at the camera.
“So here’s a message for everyone that reads your blog: Next time, instead of posting an anonymous comment online, say what you have to say to my face,” she continues.
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In the original Glee scene — which is featured in the second season’s first episode — Colfer’s character is then assaulted by a surprise slushie that a William McKinley High School bully throws in his face. For her recreation, Roan maintained the integrity of the source material, bravely committing to the bit as purple icy sludge sails into view from off camera and splashes her in the face.
“New Year New Me New Directions #glee #welcomeback #ladies,” Roan captioned the clip.
The Grammy nominee’s video marks her first post of 2025 on the platform. Just a week prior, Roan shared her thoughts on a different episode of the satirical show-choir sitcom, posting on Instagram Stories that its 2011 Christmas special was “the worst episode of Glee I’ve ever seen.”
Shortly afterward, Roan followed it up with an “apology video for the Gleeks that [she] offended,” which she filmed in front of a Christmas tree as someone off camera aims a pair of scissors at her. “I am so sorry,” she continues jokingly in the video. “I love every episode of Glee …”
Starring Lea Michele, Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera, Glee aired from 2009 to 2015. During its run, the cast notched 207 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 — one of the highest amounts on record. It’s a number only a few musicians have surpassed, including Drake, Taylor Swift and Future.
Roan ended 2024 as Billboard‘s fourth-greatest pop star of the year, a testament to the phenomenal career explosion she’s experienced in the past 12 months. Her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in August, and the star launched seven tracks onto the Hot 100 over the course of last year.
Watch Roan’s TikTok below.
Carrie Underwood‘s Las Vegas residency show Reflection: The Las Vegas Residency is coming soon to Disney+ and Hulu, with the upcoming concert special Carrie Underwood: Reflection giving fans a chance to see the three-time ACM entertainer of the year winner’s mix of spectacular performances, hit songs, aerialists, acrobats, theatrical production and flashy costumes all over […]
Ariana Grande is reflecting on a highly productive and successful year.
On Tuesday (Dec. 31), the 31-year-old pop star and actress looked back on 2024, sharing a series of nostalgic photos and videos. In her Instagram post, Grande highlighted some of the standout moments from the past 12 months, including the filming of her record-breaking musical movie Wicked and the release of her seventh album, Eternal Sunshine.
“a year full of art and heart,” the “We Can’t Be Friends” singer captioned the post. “thank you eternally for your love and support, words truly don’t suffice. i love you always and am wishing you a all a very happy new year !”
Grande’s carousel begins with a stunning shot of her “Sleeping Beauties”-themed look, worn at an afterparty following the 2024 Met Gala. The gallery also includes photos with friends and Wicked castmates, including Cynthia Erivo and Bowen Yang, along with a playful shot of her in a Catwoman-inspired outfit from her “The Boy Is Mine” music video. Several heartwarming pictures with her mom, Joan Grande, and brother Frankie Grande are also featured.
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In her Instagram Story on Tuesday, Grande shared a mysterious clip showing her head tilted against what appears to be film equipment, with the caption, “to be continued…,” alongside a heart emoji. The image is reminscent of one of her Eternal Sunshine alternative album covers.
It’s been a monumental year for Grande. The two-time Grammy winner, who ranked No. 9 on Billboard’s list of Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century, scored her sixth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with Eternal Sunshine in March. Meanwhile, her new movie Wicked became the highest-grossing film ever based on a Broadway musical at the domestic box office, earning $634.4 million worldwide since its Nov. 22 release.
The year was rounded out with a milestone for her holiday hit “Santa Tell Me,” which reached the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 for the first time since its release in November 2014. The track landed at No. 9 on the chart dated Dec. 28, after peaking at No. 11 in 2023.