Kanye West has the internet in an uproar after photos of him wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt surfaced online.
Ye, 45, wore the controversial shirt, during his surprise Yeezy Season 9 show at Paris Fashion Week on Monday. Instead of people talking about his latest designs though, it was what his shirt that got people talking.
Jaden Smith, who was in attendance at the show, left after seeing the Donda rapper’s outfit.
“I Had To Dip Lol,” he tweeted, before adding, “True Leaders Lead.”
“I Don’t Care Who’s It Is If I Don’t Feel The Message I’m Out,” he wrote in a following message. “Black Lives Matter.”
Meanwhile, Candace Owens wore the same shirt and shared a picture of herself with Ye to Twitter.
Other fans took to social media to share their thoughts as well, with one writing, “Mind you kanye was just calling [Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner] the kkk 2 weeks ago and now he’s wearing a white lives matter shirt.”
Another expressed, “Sending a “WHITE LIVES MATTER” t-shirt down a runway in Paris is literal insanity and no amount of gospel is getting that man through Heaven’s gate, I’m so sorry.”
A third user didn’t seemed phased by the outfit choice, tweeting, “You lot are shocked at Kanye wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt like the man didn’t support Trump.”
(WASHINGTON) — Herschel Walker, a Georgia football icon and U.S. Senate hopeful, has denied a report in the Daily Beast that an ex-girlfriend claimed he paid the cost of her abortion more than 10 years ago, a claim that would seem to contradict his anti-abortion posture on the campaign trail.
Walker, a Republican, immediately denied the claim and promised to file a defamation lawsuit against the Daily Beast, which published the story, on Tuesday morning. Walker later appeared on Fox News Channel’s Hannity, where he issued additional denials.
“I can tell you right now, I never asked anyone to get an abortion,” Walker told Sean Hannity. “I never paid for an abortion — it’s a lie.”
The Daily Beast reported Monday that an unidentified woman who claimed to be Walker’s ex-girlfriend said she sought a medical abortion after the couple conceived in 2009. The woman shared documentation with the news outlet: a receipt from an abortion clinic, a bank deposit receipt with an image of a $700 check that appeared to be signed by Walker sent within a week of the abortion and a “get well” card that appeared to be signed by Walker.
ABC News was not able to confirm the Daily Beast’s reporting.
Walker has carved out a staunch anti-abortion position as a candidate for U.S. Senate, aligning himself with a bill proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that would institute a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks.
Without explicitly citing the Daily Beast’s reporting, Walker’s adult son, Christian Walker, an outspoken conservative social media personality and podcast host, lambasted his father on Twitter.
“Every family member of Herschel Walker asked him not to run for office, because we all knew (some of) his past. Every single one,” Christian Walker wrote Monday. “He decided to give us the middle finger and air out all of his dirty laundry in public, while simultaneously lying about it. I’m done.”
The younger Walker also leveled additional allegations against his father, who has attracted scrutiny in recent months for allegations of violence in his past. In a book years ago, Herschel Walker has described himself as having been diagnosed with a dissociative identity disorder, or D.I.D. He has said that treatment healed him.
“I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us,” Christian Walker wrote Monday on Twitter. “You’re not a ‘family man.'”
Walker is currently locked in a heated and high-stakes battle for Georgia’s Senate seat with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, the outcome of which could tilt the balance of power in Washington come November.
When asked about the Daily Beast report late Monday, Warnock deferred to the “pundits [who will] decide how they think it will impact the race.”
(WASHINGTON) — Within days, millions of Americans are expected to be able to take their first steps to cancel up to $20,000 in debt under President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness program — a multibillion-dollar initiative cheered on by advocates but which already faces legal challenges.
The Biden administration announced in August that single borrowers who earn under $125,000 can qualify for $10,000 in federal school loan debt cancellation while those who are married qualify for that amount if their joint income is under $250,000 (as calculated by gross adjusted income from 2020 or 2021).
Recipients of Pell grants — which are designed for people with “exceptional financial need,” according to the government — are eligible for an additional $10,000 to be canceled, or $20,000 total
Of the 43 million federal student loan borrowers who have accrued more than $500 billion in debt, most will need to fill out an application to see if they qualify for forgiveness. Only about eight million of those borrowers will automatically have their debt canceled, according to the White House, because the Department of Education already has their income information.
On Thursday, the Biden administration quietly excluded some borrowers of Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL). Both groups formerly qualified for loan cancellation. While some four million Americans in total have these loans, an administration official told ABC News that only about 770,000 people will be affected by the change.
At a Sept. 26 briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there would be additional updates on the application process “very soon.” The administration maintains that the “simple process” will open in early October.
Outside experts are more skeptical of how smoothly the program will run.
“When you see the huge numbers that the administration projects will benefit from this initiative, that all depends on people being able to take these steps and have that debt relief applied to their account in a way that actually works,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group.
Here are the key dates and details, so far, for applying for student loan forgiveness:
Early October: Loan forgiveness applications open
Applications for student loan cancellation will be released in early October, according to the DOE, though a more specific date has not yet been confirmed.
The department is recommending that everyone file an application, even those who might already qualify for automatic forgiveness.
To be notified when the process has officially opened, the department recommends borrowers sign up at their subscription page. (Private companies like Navient and Nelnet, which help administer the loans and repayments, are likewise referring borrowers to a government portal created to share updates on student loans.)
It’s unclear how many of the 43 million borrowers will submit applications. In cost estimates, the White House has said it could be as many as 75% of eligible people or as few as 50%.
“It will all depend on how good we are getting the word out about this opportunity and making sure that people actually do raise their hands to get in the line to get their debts canceled,” Pierce said.
Nov. 15: The recommended deadline to apply
DOE officials recommend that borrowers apply for student loan forgiveness by Nov. 15 in order to receive relief before the pandemic-era payment pause expires on Dec. 31 and interest begins accruing again.
The department said they expect a four-to-six-week turnaround for forgiveness.
However, some advocates like Pierce worry that may not be feasible, given the track record the federal government has with processing debt relief.
The DOE has not released details regarding a plan for borrowers whose applications are still being processed by the time the payment pause lifts after December.
Jan. 1: Student loan payments resume
Jan. 1 is when regular student loan payments will resume after a three-year moratorium first enacted under President Donald Trump during the onset of COVID-19. If a borrower’s entire balance is not erased by the federal forgiveness program, interest will begin accruing again on the remaining sum.
Dec. 31, 2023 : The program application sunsets
The application period for student loan forgiveness will close on Dec. 31, 2023.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke rolled out an ad campaign Saturday featuring tearful endorsements from families of victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.
One ad begins with parents looking straight to the camera, holding photos of their children and sharing what they hoped to do when they grew up: Lexi Rubio wanted to be a lawyer, Jackie Cazares hoped to become a veterinarian and Layla Salazar, a track star.
Another ad solely focuses on Maite Rodriguez, whose mother, Ana Rodriguez, stoically narrates the video.
“She wore green Converse with the heart drawn on the right toe. Those shoes ended up being one way to identify her body in that classroom. I never want another family to go through this. Greg Abbott has done nothing to stop the next shooting. No laws passed. Nothing to keep kids safe in school. So, I’m voting Beto for Maite,” Ana Rodriguez says in the video.
Beto for Texas’ director of communications, Chris Evans, told ABC News the ads are running in all major markets across the state of Texas indefinitely.
Uvalde families have continued to voice how unheard they feel by their representatives as they plead for gun control statewide and nationally. Parents have spoken publicly about wanting commonsense gun legislation, and their calls on Abbott to convene a special session have gone unanswered.
Nineteen students and two teachers died at the hands of a gunman on May 24. The police response to the shooting has come under intense scrutiny after it was revealed that officers did not breach the classroom containing the gunman for over an hour. The response also spurred a Texas House investigation that published a damning report in July outlining law enforcement’s failures.
The ad campaign began just one day after the first and only Texas gubernatorial debate between O’Rourke and incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, which notably featured many questions to both candidates on the topic of the shooting in Uvalde. The entire debate was less than an hour in duration, and the Uvalde-related discussion comprised more than 10 minutes of it.
Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas-Austin, told ABC News that according to his research and expertise, he does not see Uvalde heavily influencing the upcoming election.
“As horrific as that may sound, polling has consistently shown that in the wake of mass shootings, and even mass shootings as horrific as the one that occurred in Uvalde, that partisan voters tend to look to partisan interpretations of those events. And so, while we might expect to see large shifts in sentiment in the wake of these tragedies, we tend not to find them,” Blank said.
A Quinnipiac University poll last month found that the top three issues likely voters in Texas saw as most urgent were the Texas-Mexico border, at 38%, followed by abortion (17%) and inflation (11%). Gun policy garnered 8%, according to the poll, illustrating Blank’s point.
Blank also said partisan voters approach solutions to gun violence differently.
“I think the issue is that voters of different persuasions come to the issue of gun violence and gun safety with a different set of expectations about what would be effective in addressing the pandemic or the epidemic of gun violence,” Blank said.
One of the key issues of O’Rourke’s campaign platform is gun safety. He’s made it clear he believes significant policy reform is the answer, in forms such as “red flag” laws, universal background checks and a repeal of permitless carry. Abbott, conversely, says he “will continue to fight any federal government overreach that aims to disrupt the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding Texans,” according to his website. His stance has also been illustrated by his passage of open and campus carry across the state during his tenure as governor.
Even if many agree that gun violence is an issue Texas officials should do more to prevent, Blank said this “doesn’t mean that a majority of Texans think that the policy response that would be most effective necessarily has to do with stricter gun laws.”
In the Quinnipiac poll, likely voters were also asked, between Abbott and O’Rourke, who would do a better job handling gun policy; 53% said the sitting governor would do a better job, while 44% responded that O’Rourke would.
(WASHINGTON) — Five members of the Oath Keepers facing charges of seditious conspiracy “concocted a plan for an armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of American democracy,” a federal prosecutor said Monday in opening statements at the D.C. district court, kicking off the high-stakes first trial for members of the far-right militia group.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told jurors the defendants, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, along with members Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell, “banded together to do whatever was necessary” to stop the transfer of power between Donald Trump and then-President-elect Joe Biden — and that they saw U.S. Congress certification of the electoral college as their perfect opportunity.
In addition to their alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, the Oath Keepers members conspired to stage “an arsenal of firearms,” including multiple semi-automatic rifles at a hotel just outside of Washington D.C. and multiple teams of so-called “Quick Reaction Forces,” with Caldwell even plotting for ways to potentially ferry weapons into the city by boat across the Potomac River in case they were called on, the prosecution alleged.
Nestler showed jurors multiple photo and video exhibits during his more than hour-long opening statement, including the now-infamous picture of members of the group climbing the steps of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot in a military-style “stack” formation. He also showed video snippets of members of the Oath Keepers militia participating in training sessions with semi-automatic rifles.
All of the defendants, except Meggs, formerly served in the military before joining the Oath Keepers.
“These defendants use their training, knowledge and experience they gained in the United States Armed Forces to further their ability to succeed and plot to oppose by force the government of the United States,” Nestler said on Monday.
While Rhodes is not alleged to have participated in the breach of the Capitol, Nestler described him as the group’s ringleader in calling members to Washington and urging them to resist the transfer of power by force if necessary.
Nestler played audio of various public appeals Rhodes made to Trump directly, asking him to invoke the Insurrection Act, which he believed would help mobilize members of the group to take up arms and resist any efforts to remove Trump from office. He said Rhodes, a Yale-educated former lawyer, told the group “they needed to be careful with their words” and used coded language to shield their true aims of opposing by force the lawful transfer of presidential power, the prosecution alleged.
Even after the riot, as they learned law enforcement was seeking to arrest those involved in the attack on the Capitol, Rhodes attempted to pass a message directly to Trump assuring him it was not too late to take action, Nestler said.
“My only regret is that they should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said in recorded audio on Jan. 10. “We could have fixed it right then and there.”
Rhetoric used by the group’s members grew increasingly violent in the days leading up to Jan. 6, Nestler said, with Rhodes and others raising the prospect of civil war or “bloody war” erupting as the end of Trump’s time in power grew closer.
All of the defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Defense attorneys for the five charged Oath Keepers are expected to argue their clients did nothing illegal in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, while claiming the government’s decision to charge them with the rarely-used seditious conspiracy statute is an effort to target members of the militia group over their political beliefs.
“The real evidence is going to show our clients were there to do security on [January] 5th and 6th,” Stewart Rhodes’ attorney Phillip Linder said during his opening statement Monday. “The type of security they’ve done for 13 years throughout their history.”
Linder said Rhodes would testify during the trial. He described Rhodes as “extremely patriotic” and claimed the Justice Department’s presenting of his recorded statements about opposing the transfer of power were merely an attempt to “alarm and anger” the jury.
“You take a handful of texts and you take a handful of things you don’t understand, take some things that look bad and put them together then you come to a conclusion or an incorrect mischaracterization,” Linder said on Monday. “We want to bring you the full picture.”
The trial is expected to last upward of a month, lawyers have estimated, with a second set of defendants from the Oath Keepers militia charged in the conspiracy slated to stand trial in late November.
Nestler said the five Oath Keepers did have other reasons for being in Washington on Jan. 6 other than the storming of the Capitol, such as providing security for VIPs and attending Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse that preceded the riot.
But, Nestler said, all of them “also agreed to do whatever was necessary, including using force to make sure that presidential power was not transferred,” and that included driving to D.C. so they were able to bring their “weapons of war” close to the nation’s Capital.
There are many special moments in Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani‘s seven-year relationship, but there’s one in particular that stands out in Gwen’s mind.
While appearing on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Gwen and host Kelly Clarkson were reminiscing on some of Gwen’s famous fashion moments, including the red gown she wore to the Vanity Fair Oscar’s afterparty in 2016.
But the dress wasn’t the only memorable aspect of the event, as it also marked Gwen’s first red carpet appearance with her now-husband.
“That was my first public date with Blake Shelton,” Gwen confirms while looking at the throwback photo. “He never does red carpets.”
The pop superstar took the country singer as her date to the party, where she was performing; the couple hit the town after the event.
After dating for six years, the pair tied the knot in Oklahoma on July 3, 2021. But Gwen still has fond memories of their first official public outing.
“That melts me when I see it because it’s such a moment for me. A good one,” she describes.
Blake and Gwen have also reunited on the set where they met, retuning as coaches for season 22 of The Voice.
When she’s not working on her music, Grammy-winning singer and songwriter H.E.R has been gearing up to take on the role of Princess Belle in the 30th anniversary live action special of Beauty and the Beast.
The R&B star says she’s “so excited” about the project and looking forward to adding some of her own flare to the beloved character.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so excited! I’ve been in the studio, playing with the arrangements, of course staying true to the original but giving it a new fresh twist,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “It’s gonna be like H.E.R. but also Belle, you know? And I’m really excited.”
The casting of the 25-year-old musician is a historic one; it’ll be the first time Belle will be played by a Black and Filipino woman.
“I can’t believe I get to be a part of the Beauty and the Beast legacy,” H.E.R. said in a statement. “The world will see a Black and Filipino Belle! I have always wanted to be a Disney princess, and I get to work with two wonderful directors — HamishHamilton and my favorite, JonM.Chu. It is very surreal.”
H.E.R., who will also serve as a producer for the special, added that she “couldn’t be more grateful” for the opportunity.
Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration will tape live in front of a studio audience and air Thursday, December 15, on ABC.
(NEW YORK) — Getting a foot in the door at a company is a huge step for any job seeker. And one woman’s clever concept involving a cross-country pastry ploy quickly went viral on LinkedIn, but it was an unexpected friendship with the Instacart delivery woman who was integral to the plan that was the real icing on the cake.
Like so many Americans searching for their next move in a sea of creative, well-qualified applicants, 27-year-old Karly Pavlinac Blackburn was hoping to land a conversation at her dream company but got stuck trying to figure out how to break through.
“I was actually talking to my former colleague about getting in front of employers — and he was like, ‘Well, Karly you need to do better … show up in a creative way … what about a resume on a cake?’ ” she recalled, speaking with ABC News’ Good Morning America.
Although Pavlinac knew there were no open positions with Valiant Labs, Nike’s new business incubator, she took up her colleague’s suggestion in the hopes that it might help her find some favor within their team.
“I was like, I’m actually going to do that,” she said, noting that she hoped the cake would ensure she was “on their mind if roles did come up in the future.”
As for the execution, Pavlinac, who previously founded and sold a celebrity fitness monetization app, admitted “it was kind of difficult” because she lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Nike World Headquarters are based in Beaverton, Oregon — meaning she couldn’t just swing by a bakery, pick up a specialty order and deliver it to them herself.
“I’m on the other side of the country trying to get a cake delivered to Nike, [which is] in Oregon,” she said.
Instead, Pavlinac searched online and found an Albertson’s store 4.4 miles from Nike World Headquarters that offered screenprint-frosted photos on sheet cakes with delivery options through Instacart.
“The only difficult thing is when an Instacart delivery is made, you don’t know who’s gonna deliver it,” she said. “The cake has to be made ahead of time, so I had to call Albertsons and I was like, ‘Hey, there’s gonna be a delivery on this day, I know, you don’t know about it yet, but I’m gonna have to have this cake ready. You’re gonna need the image, and it’s gonna have to be ready before they get there [to pick it up].'”
On Sept. 8, an hour ahead of the delivery window at 8 a.m. local time, Pavlinac called the Albertsons store to confirm the order — a half-sheet vanilla cake with her resume printed on top — would be completed.
Everything was on schedule — now all Pavlinac needed was to ensure the cake would make it to its location.
“Lucky for me Denise was the person from Instacart that day to pick up the cake, because she’s just so amazing,” Pavlinac said, referring to highly ranked platinum Instacart courier Denise Baldwin.
Baldwin had her own to-do list once she arrived at the store to pick up the cake delivery.
“[Pavlinac] wanted me to take a look at it and make sure it looked OK,” Baldwin told GMA of the initial instructions that came with the Instacart order. “Me and the baker were both talking about it, because we couldn’t believe that somebody had gone out of the box and did a resume on a cake … I messaged Karly and said, ‘It looks great. I’m on my way to the campus, and I’ll let you know how things go.'”
The two stayed in constant communication after Baldwin left the store and navigated the massive Nike campus in search of Mac Myers from Business Operations at Nike Valiant Labs.
“She gets there and someone from security was like, ‘OK leave the cake here.’ And [Denise] said, ‘No, I have to give it to Mac, I have to see it go in his hands,'” Pavlinac recalled. “At the time I didn’t know this, but she had her 8-month-old son on one hip the whole time — she didn’t even tell me, she was just like, ‘I’m gonna get it done.'”
The working mom of three — with another on the way — told Pavlinac, “‘Don’t worry, I’m here on the campus. I’ll do whatever it takes.'”
Myers eventually came down after a call from security letting him know about the delivery. According to Baldwin, Myers was “kind of blown away” and even asked to take a picture of himself with the cake for confirmation.
The pair later shared their story in a now-viral LinkedIn post, which has been liked more than 100,000 times and garnered thousands of comments.
Pavlinac has been busy ever since with back-to-back calls from recruiters and potential employers. She’s also been checking in regularly with her new mentee, Baldwin, who is looking for her dream job as well.
“My day is jam-packed from 8 [a.m.] to 5 [p.m.] with conversations, interviews — I have so many amazing messages from people on LinkedIn that I’m still trying to go through,” Pavlinac said, adding that she has her sights set on a future in product marketing.
“The cool thing afterwards was, [Denise] texted me, ‘You’ve inspired me to go chase after something better,'” Pavlinac said. “I told her whatever I can do to help find a job … be it sharing documents on ‘how to do a job should search’ or talk[ing] about what jobs might fit.”
Baldwin, a self-described “go-getter,” said she’s looking for a position in an assistant or human resources role that capitalizes on her communications and multitasking skills.
“I’m just trying to get my foot in the door where I can have good benefits for my kids and have some security and stability,” she said.
Perhaps more important is the newfound friendship the two women have developed as a result of their cake delivery scheme — and what that friendship has taught them both.
“Denise inspires me to be a better person,” Pavlinac said.
(NEW YORK, TOKYO and SEOUL) — North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan early on Tuesday morning, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said.
South Korea and the U.S. conducted a joint strike package flight and precision bombing drill in response to the ballistic missile test, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told ABC news.
The Japanese government issued a “J-alert” through its emergency warning system, advising residents to take cover in sturdy buildings or underground.
A government spokesperson said Japan didn’t attempt to shoot the missile down because they didn’t think it posed a threat.
A U.S. defense official confirmed the launch to ABC News.
Residents in Aomori and Hokkaido prefectures, toward the northern end of Japan, were advised to be on alert and to notify police or fire officials if debris is seen.
Tuesday’s launch marked the seventh time a North Korean missile flew over Japan. The last time was in August 2017. North Korea has shot 21 ballistic missiles and two cruise missiles since January, a record-breaking number of launches in a single year. Tuesday’s launch was the country’s fifth missile test in just over a week.
“We ask that people return to life as usual, calmly,” the Japanese government’s chief spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters at a press conference.
People were also warned by officials not to touch or pick up any debris.
The office of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began to gather members to analyze the situation.
A government spokesperson said no damage has been reported so far and a search is underway for debris. Officials are gathering information and will work with South Korea and the U.S.
“North Korea’s actions threaten Japan and the international community,” the spokesperson said. “Missile launches like this go against the U.N. resolutions. Japan will launch a strong protest against North Korea in light of this. All new information will be shared promptly.”
The White House said in a statement late Monday local time in Washington, D.C., that “the United States strongly condemns the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) dangerous and reckless decision to launch a long-range ballistic missile over Japan.”
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Monday night local time, according to White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.
“In both calls, the National Security Advisors consulted on appropriate and robust joint and international responses,” Watson said, “and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reinforced the United States’ ironclad commitments to the defense of Japan and the ROK [South Korea].”
Regional players may have few cards left in their hands to play towards curbing North Korea, observers said. Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, told ABC News that the missile launch was a very provocative act as it comes amidst numerous missile tests this year.
“There are no good options for [South Korean President] Yoon, Kishida, Biden to rein in Kim Jong Un,” Kingston said. “Sanctions and condemnation have failed to deter him and there is no good military option.”
North Korea recently passed a law declaring its readiness to launch preemptive nuclear strikes. Analysts warned that the country may seek to reaffirm its nuclear weapons state status and is prepping for a seventh nuclear test.
Jaechun Kim, professor of international relations at South Korea’s Sogang University, said the U.S., Korea and Japan should mobilize cooperation from like-minded countries in non-U.N. sanctions to thwart North Korea’s provocations.
“A unified front must be established that imposes sanctions on North Korea, as they did on Russia,” Kim said. “This is the only way to penalize North Korea for its bad behavior.”
Kim also told ABC News that China, North Korea’s strongest ally, may have no little or no say in North Korea’s actions.
“North Korea just does what it needs to do these days. So, with or without China’s support, it is quite likely for the North to conduct 7th nuke test,” Kim said. “It will be interesting to see whether Xi Jinping will throw his weight behind Kim Jong Un.”
Imagine growing up in a small village in Armenia, moving to Wisconsin for a year and then moving back to Armenia. That’d be kind of disorienting, right? That’s what inspired Rosa Linn‘s breakout hit “Snap” — but she says people all over the world are telling her they can relate to it as well.
“I was 19 and I came back from the U.S. I was an exchange student for one year, and June 22nd was the day of my flight back to Armenia and it was mentally very hard to readjust,” Rosa tells ABC Audio, explaining why she wrote the lyric “Since June 22/My heart’s been on fire.”
“I was heartbroken. I was confused,” she says of leaving behind all the friends she’d made in the U.S. But also, she notes, “From 2019 [on], we started facing a lot of craziness in the world, too. So it kind of all led me to being at this snapping point, y’know?”
After Rosa sang “Snap” while representing Armenia in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the song went viral on TikTok and is now a big hit. She’s the third Eurovision artist in as many years to score a U.S. hit, following Duncan Laurence‘s “Arcade” and Maneskin‘s “Beggin’.” She credits it to TikTok, plus Eurovision upping its game by finally starting to showcase “good pop songs” — the kind that everyone can connect to.
“I got a lot of messages from people all over the world saying, ‘Thank you, the song came right in time for me because I’m going through…the same thing that you were going through,'” Rosa tells ABC Audio.
“Some people are telling me sad stories. Some people are telling me happy stories,” she notes, adding, “It’s amazing to see people connected to it from different angles.”
