Month: July 2023

Lindsay Lohan is getting ready to give birth, and ahead of welcoming her baby with husband Bader Shammas, the actress took to Instagram on Wednesday to show off her growing bump and the nursery ahead of the baby’s arrival.

“Everything is inspired by the beach and is so peaceful and playful,”‘ she captioned photos of her and the pieces in her nursery from a collaboration with baby brand Nestig, including a white-and-tan hardwood crib with a mobile — with puffy clouds, stars, the sun and an airplane — attached to its side. Lohan wears a white knit dress and smiles from ear to ear in the images.

“Soooo beyond blessed and super excited [prayer hand emoji] see you very soon my lovee,” Lohan’s mother Dina wrote in the comments section of the post.

Fans in the comments section gushed over how happy and healthy the Mean Girls actresses looked in the pictures. One user wrote, “Ok the nursery is beautiful, but you mama are stunning. Wishing nothing but the best for you and your family,” while another chimed in, “You look beautiful, and the baby’s room looks dreamy.” Another fan shared their love of the collection and commented on Lohan’s glowing appearance: “You look absolutely gorgeous and dreamy, ma’am!! I wish you and the baby a safe delivery and recovery!! Your collection looks amazing!”

See the photos of Lohan in her new nursery below.

Though Jimmie Allen and his wife Alexis Gale announced their separation in April, the country singer told People on Thursday (July 13) that they’re still working on their marriage.

“The divorce case is still pending, as my wife and I are working to resolve things together as a family,” he said.

Allen also clarified an earlier comment he made in which he said he was waiting to respond publicly to two lawsuits filed against him alleging sexual assault because he wanted to “fix my family first.” “What I meant by ‘fixing my family first’ was making sure their mental health and stability are OK in light of these hurtful, false allegations,” Allen told People. “I took some time off to be with my wife, kids and friends, to ensure everyone was OK.”

On Thursday (July 13), Allen filed two countersuits in Nashville federal court, lodging his first formal responses to the two abuse lawsuits, which have resulted in the once-rising country singer/songwriter being dropped from his label and removed from festival lineups, among other professional repercussions. The first case claims he repeatedly assaulted an unnamed “Jane Doe” on his management team; the second claims he assaulted another woman in a Las Vegas hotel room and secretly recorded it. Allen’s countersuits claim that one of the women defamed him and that the other illegally took his cell phone.

In a statement regarding the new filings, Allen told Billboard that he had “engaged with a legal team to proceed with an appropriate course of action,” saying he had done so in order to “protect my reputation and refute these claims that have caused severe damage to my family, mental health, and business.”

“As the son and brother of rape victims, and the father of daughters, these false claims are extremely hurtful to me and everyone around me,” Allen continued. “These false allegations have caused me to lose a vast number of business and endorsement opportunities that I worked extremely hard for. These false allegations have also not only harmed me, but have caused severe financial damage to my band, my team, and their families.”

Allen and Alexis Gale wed in 2020 and are parents to daughters Naomi Bettie and Zara James. (Allen also has an older son, Aadyn Allen, from a previous relationship.) When the couple announced their split in April, they also revealed they are expecting another child.

Taylor Swift’s third re-recorded album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), has earned over 575,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first four days of release (July 7-10), according to initial reports to Luminate — marking the biggest week for any album in 2023. Of that sum, album sales comprise over 400,000 copies – the largest sales week for an album this year, too.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is a re-recorded version of Swift’s 2010 No. 1 Billboard 200 studio album Speak Now. The 22-track re-recorded edition includes new recordings of the original album’s 14 standard tracks, along with bonus cuts and previously unreleased “From the Vault” recordings. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) follows Swift’s re-recorded Red and Fearless albums, released in 2021. Both debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

If Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) debuts at No. 1 on the July 22-dated Billboard 200 chart (which reflects the tracking week ending July 13), Swift’s count of No. 1 albums will rise to 12, surpassing Barbra Streisand (with 11 leaders) for the most No. 1 albums among female artists. Swift would also tie Drake for the third-most No. 1s among all acts, with only The Beatles (19) and Jay-Z (14) ahead of them. (The Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956.) The top 10 of the July 22-dated Billboard 200 chart is scheduled to be announced on Sunday, July 16.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. 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.

2023’s previous largest week, by equivalent album units earned, was tallied by Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which launched with 501,000 units in the week ending March 9, as reflected on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 18. The year’s largest sales week was held by the debut frame of Stray Kids’ 5-STAR with 235,000 copies sold in the week ending June 8, as reflected on the June 17-dated charts.

Sales: With over 400,000 sold in only four days, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) already has the largest sales week for any album since Swift’s own last studio album, Midnights, debuted with 1.14 million copies sold last year (week ending Oct. 27, 2022; as reflected on the Nov. 5-dated Billboard charts).

Vinyl sales comprise over half of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’s sales – as the three-LP set has sold over 225,000 copies on wax. The latter marks the second-largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era (since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991). It is second only to the first week of Midnights’ vinyl LP, with 575,000 sold in its opening frame. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is available in three color variants on vinyl – orchid marbled, violet marbled and a Target-exclusive lilac marbled color.

The remainder of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) sales is comprised of CDs, digital album download purchases and cassette tape sales.

Streaming: The collected 22 songs on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) generated more than 200 million on-demand official streams in the U.S. July 7-10, according to Luminate. The most-streamed tune on the album, by audio on-demand official streams, is the “from the vault” cut “I Can See You (Taylor’s Version),” with over 13 million on-demand official audio streams in those four tracking days.

UPDATE: This article was updated on Thursday (July 13) to reflect the latest numbers from Luminate.

Marina took to Instagram on Wednesday (July 12) and opened up to her fans and followers about the state of her health. The singer revealed that after multiple years of health issues, she’s been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as Myalgic encephalomyelitis.

“I’ve had symptoms like deep fatigue, numbness, tingling, low appetite, brain fog, rashes, insomnia and a feeling of being ‘poisoned’ for so long it’s been hard to remember what healthy feels like,” she wrote to caption a photo of herself. “My baseline energy has been at 50 – 60% for a long time. Aside from a few periods of remission, the last 7 years have consisted of relying on adrenaline and will power to push me through each day.⁣”

The Wales native shared that she has been recovering for two months, which came after “an unusually bad flare up that involved shooting pains and burning sensations all over my hands, legs and back.” The event resulted in a visit to a functional medicine practitioner who helped her deal with the symptoms, which allowed her to learn that the flare-ups can be caused by “a hypersensitive nervous system, developed in response to chronic stress,” she explained.

Marina, however, remains optimistic about her condition and her ability to get back to making music again. “The key to healing seems to lie in retraining the nervous system to regulate itself again.⁣ The happy news is… (!) I am feeling better today than I have in a long time,” she said. “My energy levels are around 65 – 70% most days and the dips I have are shorter. Healing is demanding a lot of my energy and attention right now, but the better I feel, the sooner I can get back to my creative life again. I worked for the first time in a while yesterday and it felt so good.”
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The pop singer concluded her note with empathy to all who silently struggle with chronic illnesses: “It’s hard to maintain optimism when the world feels like it’s moving on without you, but hope always exists. Answers always exist. The body wants to heal — and what I’ve learned is that you have to work with it, not against it.⁣”

Read Marina’s Instagram post about her chronic fatigue syndrome diagnosis in full below.

Fall Out Boy reaches the Billboard Hot 100 as a lead act for the first time since 2016, as its update of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” debuts at No. 94 on the July 15-dated tally.

The reimagination bows with 4.7 million official U.S. streams, 767,000 radio audience impressions and 9,000 downloads in the June 30-July 6 tracking period, according to Luminate.

It’s Fall Out Boy’s first entry on the Hot 100 as a lead act since “Irresistible,” which spent its final week on the survey dated March 5, 2016, after peaking at No. 48 that January. Since then, the band made the list with one track: featured on Lil Peep and ILoveMakonnen’s “I’ve Been Waiting,” which reached No. 62 in April 2019.

Fall Out Boy now boasts 21 charted Hot 100 hits, dating to its first in 2005, paced by the No. 2-peaking “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” in February 2007.

Concurrently, Fall Out Boy’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” vaults 44-6 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs in its second week on the chart after debuting via a partial week of streams, sales and airplay on the July 8 ranking (as the song was released June 28). It also debuts at Nos. 3 and 5 on the Hot Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs lists, respectively.

Its first full week of sales prompts the song to land its first week at No. 1 on Rock Digital Song Sales and Alternative Digital Song Sales as well. It’s the band’s first ruler on both since “Uma Thurman” in 2015.

The new song’s streaming count is also enough to score debuts at Nos. 11 and 20 on Alternative Streaming Songs and Rock Streaming Songs, respectively.

On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” debuts at No. 43. The band’s current radio single, “Hold Me Like a Grudge,” concurrently appears at No. 46, while that song’s predecessor, “Love From the Other Side,” ranks at No. 3 in its 25th week on the survey.

Interest in the new version of “We DIdn’t Start the Fire” also spurs streams and sales gains for Joel’s 1989 original. The song, which topped the Hot 100 for two weeks in December 1989, enters Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, where older songs are eligible to appear if ranking in the top half and with a meaningful reason for their resurgences, at No. 21, thanks to 2.6 million streams, up 44%, and 1,000 downloads sold, a 104% vault.

Thanks to Fall Out Boy’s update, Joel earns his first Hot 100 writing credit since the Glee cast‘s cover of his 1983 hit “Uptown Girl” reached No. 68 in 2011. (Notably, Olivia Rodrigo, new atop the Hot 100 this week with “Vampire,” shouts out Joel and “Uptown Girl” in her No. 3 hit from 2021, “Deja Vu.”)

Fall Out Boy’s edition of the song alters Joel’s original lyrics to include names and events in the news since Joel’s 1989 original, referencing the likes of Y2K, Harry Potter, SpongeBob SquarePants, Stranger Things and Taylor Swift.

In an interview with BBC Radio2, Joel said that he has heard the new verses. “Everybody’s been wanting to know when there’s going to be an updated version of it, because my song started in ’49 and ended in ’89 — it was a 40-year span. Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve already done part one.’ So, Fall Out Boy, go ahead. Great, take it away.”

The cat is finally out of the bag. After a few days of teasing, R&B star Coco Jones has confirmed that Grammy-winning superstar Justin Timberlake is the mystery artist set to feature on the remix of her hit ballad “ICU.” Jones revealed the news during a red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight at the 2023 ESPY Awards on Wednesday (July 12).

“I have a very very amazing, talented guy featured on the song,” she gushed. “Justin Timberlake is actually on the the ‘ICU’ remix! It was so amazing watching him just be a creative. We were collaborating on ideas, and I feel like [“ICU”] is nostalgic … so having his voice on it, and that soul, that element he brings … it’s going to be amazing.”

Jones first teased the remix on Monday (July 10) with a photoset that included pictures of a river, a screengrab of a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode and a collage of ’90s boy bands.

“ICU” is the second single from Jones’ What I Didn’t Tell You EP. The DJ Camper-produced ballad became the Bel-Air actress’ first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 63. The song also spent four weeks at No. 1 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. The steady growth of “ICU” also helped What I Didn’t Tell You reach the top 10 on Heatseekers Albums (No. 6).

Speaking on how the collaboration came to fruition, Jones joked, “Truthfully, I don’t know! I don’t know how this happened. All I can say is [that] he’s such a legend and he really supports me, so I’m really really happy to have this collaboration. I feel like it’s gonna shake y’all up!”

The Disney alum also revealed that she and Timberlake recorded their verses separately, but joined forces in the studio to put some final touches on the remix. “He’s so cool and chill, like me! He gives me ‘I’m doing this for fun, but life is so much bigger.’ He’s a normal human like me.”

The “ICU” remix marks Timberlake’s first musical release of the year. In 2022, the “Mirrors” singer featured on three songs: “Parent Trap” (with Jack Harlow), “Sin Fin” (with Romeo Santos) and “Stay With Me” (with Calvin Harris, Halsey and Pharrell Williams). He has not released a studio album since 2018’s Man of the Woods, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Jones recently won best new artist at this year’s BET Awards. On Wednesday (July 12), she announced a slew of new dates for her What I Didn’t Tell You Tour.

Check out Coco’s reveal of the “ICU” remix mystery artist with ET below: