Music

Jake Owen is a chart-topping country star, but he almost had an entirely different career. 

Growing up in Florida, Jake’s dad, Steve Owen, was a semifinalist in the U.S. Amateur, a golf tournament for amateur players. He passed that passion on to his son, who initially had plans to play professional golf. 

“He was a great player and I always felt like as a kid I wanted to fulfill these dreams that my dad never got to fulfill,” he explains to John Rich. 

But those dreams were dashed when Jake was injured in a wakeboarding accident that led to surgery on his shoulder and left him unable to play golf while attending Florida State University. After the accident, Jake learned guitar and eventually moved to Nashville, where he became a successful country singer with #1 hits like “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” and “Homemade.”

Jake admits that as a kid, he quit activities a lot and believes his dad may have viewed him as a “quitter.” But he sees it from a new perspective now, telling people not to get discouraged if their interests change.    

“I think it’s important for people out there to know that it’s OK to try things and if you don’t enjoy it, move onto something else,” he advises.

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Billie Eilish and her brother, FINNEAS, are among the 397 individuals who’ve been invited this year to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the folks who vote on and award the Oscars. If they accept, they’ll get to vote on who wins Oscars in the future.

The invitees have “distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures,” the Academy notes and are divided into different groups, such as actors, cinematographers, directors, makeup artists, hairstylists and, in Billie and FINNEAS’ case, music.

This year’s class of invitees is 44% women, with 37% belonging to underrepresented ethnic or racial communities; 50% are from countries and territories outside the U.S. Among the invitees are 15 Oscar winners, including Billie and FINNEAS, who won the Best Original Song trophy earlier this year for “No Time to Die,” from the James Bond film of the same name.

Variety reports that if everyone who’s invited accepts, the Academy will have 10,665 members, with 9,665 eligible to vote for the 95th Annual Academy Awards, scheduled for March 21, 2023.

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Jon Bon Jovi may be from New Jersey, but he’s been a player in the New York City real estate market for a while. Back in 2015, he sold a six-bedroom penthouse for $34 million. Now, he’s unloaded a four-bedroom Manhattan property for $22 million.

The New York Post reports that Jon listed the West Village home last February for $22 million, so he got his asking price. The buyer is Michael Ovitz, the former president of the Walt Disney Company. The home is a 14th floor unit that Jon bought in 2017 for just under $19 million. It features a 40-foot-long living room, oak floors, floor-to-ceiling windows and a chef’s kitchen with a balcony.

The building itself features a screening room, a gym with a 75-foot pool and a golf simulator, a garden and a reflecting pool.

The Post notes that during the pandemic, Jon purchased a $43 million mansion in Palm Beach. He also owns properties in New York’s ritzy Hamptons.

Earlier this month, Jon popped up onstage with Paul McCartney, wishing the legendary former Beatle a happy 80th birthday during McCartney’s concert at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.

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The Retaliators is finally coming to theaters.

The thriller, which features Mötley Crüe‘s Tommy Lee, Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix and members of Five Finger Death Punch in the cast, will hit the big screen on September 14.

The Retaliators — which is being produced by Better Noise Films, an offshoot of the Better Noise Music record label — has been in the works since 2019. It officially premiered at London’s FrightFest last summer.

Other musicians who appear in The Retaliators include members of The Hu, Ice Nine Kills and Escape the Fate.

For more info, stay tuned to RetaliatorsMovie.com.

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Dove Cameron isn’t bothered “Boyfriend” is a popular song title — Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande both have songs of the same name — but her label was.

Speaking to Los Angeles Times, Dove said, “There was actually a point when my label was asking me to consider naming it ‘Gentleman.'”

“I really wanted to call it ‘Boyfriend’ because I’m very aware — painfully aware — of the sort of concoction of who I am in the public eye. And that [concoction] is such a far cry from who I am,” she continued. “Arriving at the person I am now, I’m relaxing into the freedom to poke fun at who people think I am.”

Dove noted, “It’s almost like I’m roasting myself in so much of the stuff I create. ‘Boyfriend’ being such a misleading title helps me acknowledge where I was and who I am now.”

The Descendants star also spoke about how much her singing voice has changed since her Disney days.

“I was born a coloratura [a type of operatic soprano], but it’s so hard to live that way … You have to prioritize your voice above everything else,” she explained. Of meeting Kristin Chenoweth and learning how the Broadway legend preserves her voice, Dove said, “There’s no way I can do that and still do everything else I want to do.”

“And so my voice accrued damage. I spoke more, I sang more, I was working more — seven days a week, 18-hour days. And when you do that, your voice just gets raspier. Then I began to lean into that over the course of a few years in the recording studio,” she said, adding, “I do think that my voice developing in the way it did is a reflection of a lot of pain in my life.”

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One of Elton John‘s most iconic stage outfits is the sequined and bedazzled Los Angeles Dodgers uniform he wore when he headlined Dodger Stadium for two nights in 1975. It’s been on display at the world’s first Hard Rock Cafe, at Old Park Lane in London, but now he has it back.

Elton stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe on Tuesday to do a surprise performance, a few days after performing at the BST Festival in Hyde Park. While he was there, he presented the cafe with one of the Gucci suits he’s been wearing on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. In exchange, he got back the Dodger uniform — and the Hard Rock Cafe made a $100,000 donation to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

“It’s an honour to have my Gucci suit join the Hard Rock collection and a joy to have my Dodger’s outfit once more,” Elton wrote on Instagram.

In a full-circle moment, Elton John’s three final shows in the U.S. will take place this November in Dodger Stadium. The last show, on November 20, will mark his 2,000th U.S. concert. By then, he will have performed in all 50 states.

No word on whether or not Elton plans to wear the uniform at those shows, but it’s unlikely given that, well, he’s not exactly the same size he was back in 1975. But who knows — he may use the old uniform as a guide to have a fabulous new uniform designed just for the occasion.

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Selena Gomez is hard at work on her fourth studio album now that she’s completed the second season of Only Murders in the Building.

The “Wolves” singer caught up with Entertainment Tonight at the red carpet premiere of the Hulu dramedy and confirmed that new music is on the way. 

“I am actually working on it right now,” Selena said of her forthcoming album. “It’s just been a little hectic with this, but I am in the studio. I’m excited.”

This new effort will follow the release of her 2021 Spanish language EP, Revelación. The Grammy nominee didn’t tease a title or release date for her forthcoming album.

Although Selena is preoccupied with her music, she also voiced her concern over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that guaranteed a woman’s federal right to have an abortion.

In a separate red carpet interview with Variety, the singer called upon her fanbase to mobilize at the polls.

“It’s about voting,” she explained. “It’s about getting men — men needing to stand up and also speak against this issue. It’s also the amount of women that are hurting.”

Continued Selena, “I’m just not happy and I hope that we can do everything in our power to do something to change that.”

She also directed fans to her social media accounts for resources on how to help.

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While Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde have been photographed together by paparazzi plenty of times, the two have never made a public appearance together on a red carpet or gone Instagram official. However, a source tells Entertainment Tonight that that might change in the near future.

“At first, they were very aware of how others would perceive their relationship so for the sake of her kids and [Olivia’s ex] Jason [Sudeikis], they wanted to keep things low profile,” dishes the source, referring to why they’ve kept their relationship so private. Olivia shares two children — 8-year-old son Otis and 5-year-old daughter Daisy — with the Ted Lasso star.

But now, the source claims, the couple is more comfortable with the idea of their relationship being in the spotlight. As the source notes, “Privacy is still very important to both of them, but they also want to live their lives authentically, and that means some PDA and speaking about each other publicly.”

In addition, they’re both aware that when Don’t Worry Darling, Harry’s new movie that Olivia directed, comes out, they’re going to have to appear together for promotional purposes and they’ll likely have to field numerous questions about their romance. But since they’re “in such a good place and so confident in their relationship,” the source says, they may just be O.K. with that.

Don’t Worry Darling, which also stars Florence Pugh, arrives September 23.

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As he faces hundreds of lawsuits from the November 2021 Astroworld Festival that resulted in 10 deaths and numerous injuries, Travis Scott has planned his first major concert since the deadly tragedy.

La Flame will perform at London’s O2 Arena on August 6. He announced the event Monday on Instagram with the comment, “Been in the studio for a while. Time to take it to bigger speaker. See u soon London.”

Scott has performed at a few private events since Astroworld, including a Coachella after-party; the London show will be his first ticketed performance this year. The “Highest in the Room” rapper is also scheduled for the Day N Vegas festival on Labor Day weekend and has headlining dates in November at Primavera Sound in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; and São Paulo, Brazil.

As previously reported, the 31-year-old MC announced in March he would attempt to improve concert safety through his new program titled Project HEAL, a “multi-tier, long-term series of community-focused philanthropy and investment efforts.”

He stated that he “created Project HEAL to take much needed action towards supporting real solutions that make all events the safest spaces they can possibly be. I will always honor the victims of the Astroworld tragedy who remain in my heart forever.”

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