It might have been Selena’s night, but a special trio stole the spotlight for a few minutes. The trio in question? Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, and Iris Apatow. The three stars stunned in a photo shared to Instagram by Eilish last night (Aug. 1).
Eilish, Rodrigo and Apatow, took a break from celebrating Selena Gomez’s 30th birthday to strike a pose for the camera. Understandably, fans responded to the new pictures with immense excitement. “You went to Selena’s birthday bash,” exclaimed one user in Eilish’s Instagram comment section. “You’re so beautiful,” gushed another.
The gorgeous picture captures the union of three of Hollywood’s brightest new stars. This year, Eilish added an Academy Award to her seven Grammy Awards; she and her brother and collaborator Finneas took home best original song for “No Time to Die.” Rodrigo scored three Grammys for her blockbuster SOUR album and its Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single “drivers license.” As for Apatow, she recently starred in Netflix’s The Bubble.
Selena Gomez’s star-studded birthday celebration comes on the heels of the multi-hyphenate’s first Emmy nomination. Gomez reaped a bid for outstanding comedy series as one of the producers of the Hulu hit comedy murder-mystery series Only Murders In The Building. In a message celebrating her birthday, Selena wrote, “My twenties were a journey through good, hard and beautiful moments that I will never forget… I want to try my best to take the beautiful and the painful one day at a time and let it all make me into the very best me that I can be for myself/others/you.”
Check out the pic that has everyone talking in the carousel
Just over a year after the release of his star-studded Billboard 200-topping Khaled Khaled album, DJ Khaled is set to release God Did, his thirteenth studio album, on August 28.
A collaboration with Drake and Lil Baby titled “Staying Alive” will serve as the set’s lead single and arrive on streaming services this Friday (Aug. 5). The new single will be accompanied by its music video upon release.
Both Drake (“Greece” and “Popstar”) and Lil Baby (“Every Chance I Get,” “I Did It” and “Body In Motion”) appeared on Khaled’s last album, and “Staying Alive” will be the fifth time the two Grammy-winning rappers appear on a song together. Nonetheless, “Staying Alive” is the first time DJ Khaled, Drake and Lil Baby have been on a track together. “Staying Alive” marks DJ Khaled’s first musical release of 2022 as a lead artist; he appeared as a guest on Latto’s “Big Energy” remix alongside Mariah Carey in March.
Said to be his “biggest, boldest, and best body of work to date,” God Did will continue DJ Khaled’s highly successful year. In 2022 so far, DJ Khaled has presented at the Billboard Music Awards, helped open the Academy Awards, and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DJ Khaled has earned nine top 10 titles on the Billboard 200, three of which hit No. 1 including 2016’s Grammy-nominated Major Key. The producer-mogul has also earned six top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 including the No. 2-peaking “Wild Thoughts” (with Rihanna & Bryson Tiller) and the No. 1-peaking “I’m The One” (with Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Wayne).
Beyoncé‘s Renaissance has become a critically-acclaimed album in the few days since its release, but the acclaim has not been without controversy — several fans took issue with track “Heated” for its use of the ableist slur “spaz” in the lyrics. In light of the backlash, Monica Lewinsky is now having her say on one of Bey’s older tracks.
In a Tuesday (Aug. 2) Twitter post, the television personality and activist shared a Variety article, which states that the 28-time Grammy winner will be removing the ableist word from “Heated” in light of the backlash it received online. “Uhmm, while we’re at it… #Partition,” Lewinsky added to the tweet.
“Partition,” the third single from Beyoncé’s self titled fifth studio album, features Lewinsky’s name towards the end of the track’s first verse: “Oh, me so horny, yeah, he want to f–k/ He popped all my buttons, and he ripped my blouse/ He Monica Lewinsky-ed all on my gown,” Bey sings on the sultry R&B track.
A Twitter user then asked Lewinsky, “Have you reached out to Beyoncé or her team before you saw all the heat? I am curious.” Lewinsky replied, “No, I haven’t. I did mention it in the first vanity fair article I wrote in 2014… which was the first public thing I’d done in 10 years. but you make an interesting/fair point…”
The 49-year-old — who infamously had an affair with former President Bill Clinton while working at the White House in 1995 and 1996 — very briefly referenced the line in “Partition” in her 2014 Vanity Fair feature and said, “Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d.’”
While Beyoncé’s team has yet to comment on Lewinsky’s request, a representative did share with Variety that the use of the word “spaz” in “Heated” was “not used intentionally in a harmful way.”
Beyoncé to Remove Renaissance Lyric After Outrage: Ableist, Offensive – Variety https://t.co/DzN80FdzPB
— Monica Lewinsky (she/her) (@MonicaLewinsky) August 1, 2022
no, i haven’t. i did mention it in the first vanity fair article i wrote in 2014… which was the first public thing i’d done in 10 years. but you make an interesting/fair point…
— Monica Lewinsky (she/her) (@MonicaLewinsky) August 2, 2022
The Puerto Rican singer popped the big question at the 2022 Tomorrowland on Sunday (July 31) in Boom, Belgium, during Steve Aoki’s set.
“Guys, this is my beautiful girlfriend Lele Pons and I want to ask her a quick question,” Guaynaa said to the many thousands of fans in the audience. “I know what this means to you and how much you love Tomorrowland — Lele, will you marry me?”
Among tears of joy, the Venezuelan influencer-turned-singer said “yes” without hesitation.
Backstage, the newly-engaged couple celebrated with their celebrity friends, including Paris Hilton, Kimberly Loaiza, JD Pantoja, and Aoki himself, who provided the couple his platform. “We’re getting married!!! I love you with all my heart @guaynaa !! Can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you! 100x YESS!!!” Pons later shared the news to her 49 million followers on Instagram.
“Everyone knew except for her. Thank you to everyone who helped with this surprise,” Guaynaa also posted on his Instagram, tagging their good friends Hannah Stocking, Paris Hilton, Steve Aoki, Twan, Malik, Like Mike, Dimitri Vegas, Mau y Ricky, Stef Roitman, and Lele’s family members Chayanne, Isadora Figueroa, and Lorenzo Figueroa.
Lele and Guaynaa, who first met in 2019, collaborated for the first time in the summer of 2020, dropping their flirtatious urban track “Se Te Nota.” After much speculation about whether they were dating or not, Lele made the relationship Instagram-official in December. Nearly two years later, the couple will soon tie the knot.
In celebration of the big news, Billboard compiled a timeline of their relationship below.
Beyoncé unleashed Renaissance on July 29, and with the new era came jaw-dropping images. Promotional photos for the “Break My Soul” singer’s seventh solo studio album pulls inspiration from Prince, her hometown of Houston, and supermodel imagery from the ’80s and ’90s.
Renaissance serves as the follow-up to Beyoncé’s last solo studio album: 2016’s Lemonade. The new album’s lead single, the Robin S.-evoking “Break My Soul,” has thus far been climbing the Billboard Hot 100 since debuting at No. 15. In the interim between her two proper solo albums, the Grammy-winner flexed her artistic muscle on projects such as Homecoming, Everything Is Love (as one half of The Carters), and The Lion King: The Gift. The latter was accompanied by Black Is King, a stunning visual album that landed on Disney+ a year after the release of the album, a companion to the 2019 photorealistic remake of The Lion King. Everything Is Love, on the other hand, spawned the Grammy-nominated and VMA-winning music video for “Apeshit,” which debuted at No. 13 on the Hot 100.
Black Is King joined the B’Day Anthology Video Album (2007), Beyoncé (2013), and Lemonade (2016), as the “Brown Skin Girl” singer’s fourth visual album. Until visuals for Renaissance arrive, Beyoncé is keeping the Beyhive fed with this luxurious album photoshoot. The Mason Poole-helmed shoot finds Beyoncé slinking down club staircases, lounging on velvet couches, and levitating in a church while dripped out in an Alaïa gown.
See Queen Bey in the available Renaissance pictures so far.
Nicki Minaj used Instagram Live over the weekend to clap back at reports circulating that she owes a whopping $173 million in back taxes.
In the livestream, the “Do We Have a Problem?” rapper began by fake crying before blaming the scandalous headlines on a catfish using the alias “Kate Miller,” who was pretending to be her assistant. “My assistant, y’all, they went and told everybody that … it is true how I owe a $173 million to the IRS,” a pink-haired Minaj said directly to the camera, her voice quavering with fake emotion before she burst out in laughter. “And I hooked up (her former hairstylist) Tae. Tae is so uncomfortable around the man I married ’cause he’s so, um, and Tae don’t like to be around him. And Tae was calling that assistant, begging that assistant to stop.
“Y’all. Every day I learn that y’all gettin’ dumber and f—in’ dumber,” she concluded, summing up her thoughts on the fans who believed the false rumors.
According to The Breakfast Club‘s “Rumor Report” segment on Tuesday (Aug. 2), the online scammer also posted plenty of questionable at best “tea” about Ariana Grande, Rihanna and Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
In other news, the 10-time Grammy nominee is currently readying the release of her new six-part documentary seriesNicki, which has yet to find a home on any particular streamer despite having dropped a trailer. She also recently teased an Aug. 12 release date for her upcoming single “Freaky Girl,” just one day after the premiere of her newest episode of Queen Radio on Amazon’s Amp app.
Watch part of Minaj’s livestream via The Breakfast Club below.
After achieving her second No. 1 song, earning a handful of Emmy nominations and releasing her fourth studio album Specialin less than a month, Lizzo is now celebrating a new triumph in her latest winning streak: trending on Twitter alongside her musical hero, Beyoncé.
Some fans, however, are left a little confused by the “About Damn Time” singer’s excitement, given the controversial reason the two stars’ names are being discussed simultaneously on the platform.
In a Tuesday (Aug. 2) Instagram post, Lizzo shared a screenshot from Twitter that proved the phrase “Beyoncé and Lizzo” was trending in the platform’s “Pop” category. “Will delete later.. but this is a flex bitch,” she wrote in the caption. “12-year old me is shook— HOUSTON GRRRLS GOT THE BEST ALBUMS OUT RN! Stream #SPECIAL Stream #RENNAISSANCE.”
For good measure, the Yitty founder also uploaded an old photo of herself as well as a slow motion video of her putting her Critic’s Choice Award on a shelf full of other trophies — including her three Grammys.
Lizzo is right that both she and Bey have released two of the most talked-about albums of the year this summer, with Special arriving mid-July and Beyoncé dropping her highly anticipated Renaissance July 29. But clicking on the same trending phrase posted by Lizzo reveals that the two hitmakers are actually trending together for an entirely different reason: using and retroactively removing the word “spaz” from songs on their new records.
“Listen, love you girl but y’all are trending for using slurs sooooooooooo,” commented one person on Lizzo’s celebratory post.
“Y’all are trending because Beyoncé didn’t learn from your mistake,” wrote another.
The controversy began when Lizzo first released her song “Grrrls” about a month before Special. Fans were quick to criticize the Watch Out For The Big Grrrls creator for using “spaz” in the song, and Lizzo consequently released a statement saying she would re-release the song sans the word.
History repeated itself just a few weeks later, when listeners noticed that Renaissance contained the same term on the track “Heated.” Just a couple days after the album dropped, a rep for Bey told Billboard that the word would be removed.
It’s unclear whether Lizzo is fully aware of the reason she and her idol were linked on Twitter, but several other fans in the comments of her new post congratulated the “Truth Hurts” vocalist regardless.
“PERIODDDDDDD NOT MY GIRL LIZZO TRENDING WITH MY GIRL BEY!!!” wrote one fan, while another commented, “Houston STAND-UP!!”
It has been 17 years since Kanye West‘s debut single “Through the Wire” was released, in which he sampled Chaka Khan‘s voice from her 1984 track “Through the Fire.” While considered a staple of West’s catalogue, Khan is still not a fan of how her voice turned out on the song all these years later, she revealed on Monday (Aug. 1).
During an interview with Good Day DC, host Marissa Mitchell brought up Khan’s distaste of West’s treatment of the sample. The 10-time Grammy winner said she was “upset about sounding like a chipmunk” on the track.
“[Kanye] didn’t mention that he was gonna speed it up, you know, three times its normal speed,” Khan added. “Had he, I would’ve had something to say. But since I didn’t think of that, believe me, I think of it now. I ask, ‘How are we gonna do this?’”
The 69-year-old also commented about the “Through the Wire” sample in 2019 during her appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. According to Khan, West requested to use the sample shortly after his near-fatal car accident, telling her in a call that she was “so instrumental in my healing process.”
Khan, touched by West’s story at the time, gave him permission to use her voice on his song, but was ultimately “pissed” after hearing how it turned out. “It was a little insulting,” she said. “Not insulting — I thought it was stupid. If I’d known he was gonna do that, I would have said, ‘Hell no.’”
Watch Khan address the sample on “Through the Wire” below.
Less than 24 hours after Beyoncé pledged to change a lyric on the Renaissance track “Heated” after complaints from disability advocates over the repeated use of the ableist term “spazz” in its lyrics, a pair of Fox News commentators mocked the singer for listening to experts.
During the “Seen and Unseen” segment of The Ingraham Angle on Monday’s (Aug. 1), Brian Kilmeade asked contributor Raymond Arroyo to weigh in on the situation during a segment in which the men expressed ire over such beloved fictional sitcom characters as irascible bigot Archie Bunker being turned into “political avatars” in the current culture wars.
“I’ll let the audience pick the offensive part of this lyric … I dare you,” Arroyo said while cueing up the portion of the song in which Bey sings “Spazzin’ on that a–/ Spazz on that a–/ Dimples on my hip, stretch marks on my t–s/ Drinkin’ my water, mindin’ my biz/ Monday, I’m overrated, Tuesday, on my d–k/ Flip-flop, flippy, flip-floppin’ a–.”
A spokesperson for the singer told Billboard in a statement early Monday (Aug. 1) that “the word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced.” The medical condition the slang term derives from is “spastic,” which refers to a “condition in which muscles stiffen or tighten, preventing normal fluid movement.”
In addition to blowback on social media, disability advocate and writer Hannah Diviney wrote an op-ed in The Guardian on Monday (Aug. 1) in which she said that her “heart sank” when she heard the Renaissance lyric.
“It’s not very often that I don’t know what to say, rendered speechless by ignorance, sadness and a simmering anger born of bone-deep exhaustion. But that’s how I feel right now,” Diviney penned, noting that it’s been just six weeks since she called out Lizzo for using the same word on her Special song “Grrrls.” (Lizzo quickly responded to the controversy and removed the lyrics from the track.)
Arroyo, however, didn’t see the point, noting that Bey uses “the N-word, filthy terms for male/female genitalia, breasts and a–, but ‘spazz’ is the offensive term in that lyric,” before noting that “some” in the disability community take issue with the use of the word that has been tagged as ableist by advocates. “I don’t think she went far enough with the clean-up and lyric revision,” Arroyo said as Kilmeade grinned.
Kilmeade then noted that some people mellow with age. However, he said, “[Beyoncé’s] a parent … we haven’t really seen her in a while. Barely dressed, dancing around, and now she comes back more vile than ever. Putting out X-rated lyrics. Plus, what about the dimpled a– community,” he added. “Are they insulted by being used in her songs?”
“Or those with stretch-marked breasts, apparently,” Arroyo said, questioning why Drake — one of eight writers credited on the song — would write such lines. “Why you would sing them as a renowned woman who young people look to. I don’t quite get that.”
A spokesperson for Beyoncé has not yet returned Billboard‘s request for comment regarding the segment.
While decrying the “coarse” language in “Heated” and “Grrrls,” Arroyo also questioned why “trash talk is acceptable and yet we find this tiny little word that only offends people if you’re really looking for it and that’s the one we take out,” he concluded as the on-screen chyron read “Singers ignore true filth, yet fix their ‘ableism’.”
Watch the segment below (Beyoncé talk begins around the three-minute mark).
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