Ed Sheeran plans on retiring from large tours after 2022

Ed Sheeran plans on retiring from large tours after 2022
Ed Sheeran plans on retiring from large tours after 2022
ABC

As Ed Sheeran looks ahead to family life, he says massive, worldwide tours are not part of his picture for much longer.

Speaking to the Teach Me a Lesson podcast recently, the “Shivers” singer explained, “I would hate to get to 20 years’ time and have a relationship with my kids that had suffered because I’d chosen work over them.”  Ed said he fears missing birthdays or important family moments because he has to “play another stadium.”

Because of those concerns, the Grammy winner admitted, “I honestly think that this next tour that I’m going on, at the end of the tour, I can’t see myself going on one of them like that again.”

As for what his modified touring schedule would look like in the future, Ed mused over two options: “Six weeks in summer or six weeks in the winter.”  He did stress that six weeks was the most he’d be willing to spend apart from his family.

“I want to put as much time into my kids as possible,” the British singer maintained, adding that it’s his firm belief that “life is about passing things on to the next generation.” 

The “Bad Habits” singer kicks off his Mathematics Tour in April 2022 and will play for 27 dates across England and Europe before wrapping in September. 

Ed is married to Cherry Seaborn and the two share a one-year-old daughter, Lyra.  The singer previously revealed he would love to have more kids, but has yet to reveal when he’ll be welcoming a fourth member to his growing family.

Ed also gave fans a special Christmas present on Thursday by releasing a special a capella version of his 2020 hit, “Afterglow,” in which he sings in a church alongside eight backup singers.

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Report: Trey Songz sued for $20 million in sexual assault case

Report: Trey Songz sued for  million in sexual assault case
Report: Trey Songz sued for  million in sexual assault case
Leon Bennett/Getty Images

Trey Songz is reportedly being sued for sexual assault, and his accuser is demanding $20 million.

Jahuara Jeffries is suing the “Can’t Be Friends” singer, birth name Tremaine Aldon Neverson, claiming that he assaulted her on January 1, 2018 at the E11EVEN nightclub in Miami, according to The Jasmine Brand.

They attended an earlier party hosted by Diddy, then she claims that Songz invited here and her friends to the club.

The lawsuit reads: “While Plaintiff was dancing on the couch, she noticed Defendant Songz standing on the floor next to her. She then felt fingers being inserted into her vagina, turned around, and saw Defendant Songz pulling his hand away from her bottom.”

“[The plaintiff] suffered negligent infliction of emotional distress and resulting pain and suffering, disability,” the document continued.

As previously reported, Songz is being investigated for a separate alleged incident in Las Vegas. Las Vegas Metro Police say that on November 28, they “received a report of a sexual assault incident alleged to have occurred at a hotel in the 3700 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard” involving the 37-year-old singer.

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Watch Tom Morello jam over Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u”

Watch Tom Morello jam over Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u”
Watch Tom Morello jam over Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u”
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

Tom Morello is helping add a bit more rage to Olivia Rodrigo‘s sound.

The Rage Against the Machine guitarist has posted a video on his Instagram showing him shredding an original solo over Rodrigo’s song “good 4 u.” Is there a wah-wah pedal involved? You’d better believe it!

Morello captioned the video “Freestyle jamming to the hits pt. 1,” suggesting we may be getting more Pop Against the Machine solos in the future.

“good 4 u” is one of several hits off Rodrigo’s 2021 smash album SOUR. The track credits Hayley Williams as a co-writer due to its similarity to Paramore‘s “Misery Business.”

In related Morello news, the guitar icon recently auctioned off the axe he played alongside grandson on The Tonight Show last month to raise money in support of Kellog’s workers on strike. The funds were used to provide hot meals to those on holding the picket line in cold weather.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Tom Morello (@tommorello)

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Priyanka Chopra tells fans to “chill out” after she drops “Jonas” from her Instagram handle

Priyanka Chopra tells fans to “chill out” after she drops “Jonas” from her Instagram handle
Priyanka Chopra tells fans to “chill out” after she drops “Jonas” from her Instagram handle
Samir Hussein/WireImage

Don’t worry, fans: There’s no trouble in paradise, as far as Nick Jonas and his wife Priyanka Chopra Jonas are concerned.

Some fans got concerned when Priyanka, whose Instagram handle used to be Priyanka Chopra Jonas, dropped the “Jonas” from the feed’s name. But according to the actress, who appears in the new Matrix film, she was just trying to be consistent with her social media.

Asked why she made the change, Priyanka told ETimes, the entertainment website of The Times of India, “I don’t know. I wanted the username to match my Twitter, I guess.”

She added, “I just find it really amusing that everything becomes such a huge deal to people. It’s social media, guys. Just chill out!”

Nick and Priyanka, who wed in December of 2018, recently celebrated their third anniversary.

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Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard explains why he decided not to spank his kids

Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard explains why he decided not to spank his kids
Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard explains why he decided not to spank his kids
ABC

Before they became parents, Tyler Hubbard and his wife, Hayley, also figured they’d spank their kids occasionally. After all, that’s how both of them were raised, the couple explain during a new episode of the Meaning Full Living podcast, which Haley co-hosts.

The couple are parents to three young children now, and they haven’t yet used spanking as a form of discipline. That’s simply because they realize it’s not the best way to communicate with their kids’ particular, individual personalities, Tyler explains. For example, he remembers one time when he raised his voice to his oldest daughter, three-year-old Liv.

“She got scared, and she got upset. I thought, ‘Man, that’s terrible,’” the singer recounts. Rather than keep leaning into that stern, disciplinarian side, Tyler says he apologized to his daughter for raising his voice.

“I was able to come to her level and say, ‘Daddy is really sorry. I should not have talked to you that way,’” he continues. “Haley and I want compliant kids, but we also want kids who trust us and want to talk to us about things.”

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Beyoncé and Jay-Z make Academy Awards shortlist for Best Original Song

Beyoncé and Jay-Z make Academy Awards shortlist for Best Original Song
Beyoncé and Jay-Z make Academy Awards shortlist for Best Original Song
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Beyoncé and Jay-Z could become the first married couple in history to compete against each other for an Oscar.

Queen Bey’s “Be Alive,” from King Richard, and Jay’s “Guns Go Bang” with Kid Cudi, from The Harder They Fall, are among the 15 songs on the Academy Awards shortlist for Best Original Song. Five will be nominated. Neither of the two superstars have been nominated for an Academy Award in the past.

Cudi has a second song on the list, “Just Look Up,” with Ariana Grande, from the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up.

H.E.R., who won an Oscar this year for “Fight for Youm” from Judas and the Black Messiah, is on the list with “Automatic Woman,” from Halle Berry’s latest film, Bruised. The four-time Grammy winner composed the song with Berry’s boyfriend, Van Hunt.

Jennifer Hudson, who also is a previous Oscar winner, made the list with “Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)” from the Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect. Hudson won her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls in 2007.

The nominations for the 94th Academy Awards will be announced on February 8. The Oscars will air on ABC March 27.

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BTS members share their personal highs and lows of 2021

BTS members share their personal highs and lows of 2021
BTS members share their personal highs and lows of 2021
ABC

As their incredible 2021 comes to an end, the boys of BTS JHope, Jimin, Jin, JungkookSuga, RM and V— individually sat down for a series of tell-all interviews Vogue Korea recently and reflected on the past year.

V admitted he became more of an introvert this year, adding, he used to be an extrovert but a recent MBTI personality test revealed he became more withdrawn.  “I don’t think these changes are a bad thing,” he shared.  V also discussed BTS’ “My Universe” collaboration with Coldplay and revealed that, after the band heard him sing, they told him “I was like the second Chris Martin.”

Suga said he is “happier” than he was before because of the success he’s enjoyed in 2021 and, when asked about his future, remarked, “I’ll always be a member of BTS.”  He noted some people pushed him to give producing a try and cracked, “I’m not responsible enough to take responsibility for anyone.”

As for RM, he’s thinking of a different future.  The singer recently had “a eureka moment” when looking at Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh‘s paintings and became “envious” they were able to communicate “directly with a boy from Korea” hundreds of years after they died. RM says he’s “fascinated by art” now and is strying art history to learn the “longevity of painters.”

Jimin reflected on the stress of the pandemic, and confided, “It felt like my whole life’s work was being negated.”  He admits that feeling made him focus on keeping BTS’ momentum going.

As for Jin, he admits he’s learned to appreciate his lazy days and declared, “I think that resting should be entirely selfish.”  

As for Jungkook and J-Hope, the two expressed hope and excitement for the future.

 

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Fox’s New Year’s Eve special featuring Billy Idol & other stars canceled

Fox’s New Year’s Eve special featuring Billy Idol & other stars canceled
Fox’s New Year’s Eve special featuring Billy Idol & other stars canceled
Scott Legato/Getty Images

Fox’s New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022 special, which was going to feature performances by Billy Idol and various other stars, has been canceled due to the surging number of COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant.

The show was set to be hosted live in New York City’s Times Square by Ken Jeong and Joel McHale, alongside special correspondent Kelly Osbourne, daughter of Ozzy Osbourne.

A statement from Fox obtained by Variety reads, “While we are confident in the health and safety protocols for Fox’s New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022, the recent velocity of the spread of Omicron cases has made it impossible to produce a live special in Times Square that meets our standards.”

The statement continues,”We will not be moving forward with Fox’s New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022 in New York. The health and safety of our casts and crews has always been, and will continue to be, of the utmost importance. Replacement programming for New Year’s Eve on Fox will be announced in the coming days.”

Variety notes that it “remains to be seen” whether the announced musical guests, including Idol, whose performance was among several that were recorded at an earlier date, will still be part of said replacement programming.

In an unrelated note, Idol canceled his planned appearance this past Monday at the 2021 Above Ground benefit concert, an event organized by his longtime touring guitarist Billy Morrison and Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro.

Billy explained in a Twitter post that he’d dropped off the bill of the Los Angeles event because he’d caught a respiratory cold that affected his voice, while noting that he’d tested negative for COVID-19 twice.

Idol is next scheduled to perform in February, when he serves as the opening act for Journey‘s 2022 tour.

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Rob Thomas says Matchbox Twenty will be recording new material next year

Rob Thomas says Matchbox Twenty will be recording new material next year
Rob Thomas says Matchbox Twenty will be recording new material next year
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

Matchbox Twenty rescheduled a planned tour with The Wallflowers, originally set for the summer of 2020, to 2021, and then again to 2022.  Now it seems like the band may have new material to perform when the tour finally launches May 17 in Vancouver.

Rob Thomas, who’s currently promoting his album Something About Christmas Time, tells American Songwriter that he and the band are “going to be in the studio working on a few new songs next year.”

“I’m also almost done with a whole new solo record, because before COVID the idea was I was going to be out with Matchbox Twenty with the new music touring…so everything got pushed back,” he explains. “And I’ve got the solo record sitting on ice that I’m really excited about.”

“But first, it’s going to be new Matchbox music,” he confirms. “So at least I’ve got no shortage of creative stuff going on.”

The most recent Matchbox Twenty album was 2012’s North.  Before his current Christmas album, Rob released his solo album, Chip Tooth Smile, in 2019.

 

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Brett Eldredge delivers a half-hour living room quarantine livestream as he recovers from COVID-19

Brett Eldredge delivers a half-hour living room quarantine livestream as he recovers from COVID-19
Brett Eldredge delivers a half-hour living room quarantine livestream as he recovers from COVID-19
Hunter Berry/CMA

Recently, Brett Eldredge had to postpone a couple of the shows on his Glow Live Tour after testing positive for COVID-19. However, quarantine’s not stopping him from bringing the holiday spirit to fans.

This week, he got all dressed up and performed a half-hour livestream concert of Christmas classics from his living room. Complete with a bow tie, microphone and lit-up tree in the background, Brett delivered a quarantine version of his Christmas tour set list, livestreaming the event on his social channels.

“Yes, I am in quarantine,” Brett joked. “I am healing up nicely. I’m feeling really great.”

Not only was he feeling well enough to perform, but the show was a refreshing pace from Brett’s normal quarantine activities, the singer went on to say.

“Just being able to sing beats the heck out of watching Netflix. I did go sledding down the stairs the other day,” he added. “My dog was just staring at me like I’m a weirdo.”

Brett’s Glow Live Tour isn’t quite done yet. He rescheduled the dates he had to cancel — a pair of shows in Chicago — to December 29 and 30.

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