As he gears up for a new season of The Voice, coach Blake Shelton has some serious country star power by his side: He’s enlisting Jimmie Allen as the guest mentor to his team.
“I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer..” Blake wrote on his social channels, posting a selfie of himself with Jimmie from the set of The Voice.
Blake and Jimmie may be longtime mutual fans, but according to Access, they’re new friends who got to know each other on the set of the TV show.
“We’ve met on occasion, at awards shows and music industry events, but literally nothing more than, ‘Hey, how you doing, good to meet you’ type moments,” Blake says. “But I’ve watched him. I’ve watched his career develop … he’s just an incredible performer, and he’s so focused on what he does. He’s clearly just a huge fan of music.”
For his part, when asked what the best part of meeting Blake was, Jimmie starts with a joke: “I got to say I hung out with Gwen Stefani’s husband.”
In all seriousness, though, Jimmie’s excited to have had “a chance to meet an artist I’ve admired for a while.” “Just how cool he was, how open he was to trusting me and what I have to say to share with his team.”
Season 22 of The Voice kicks off on September 19 on NBC.
Now that she’s no longer on the road with her sold-out world tour, Olivia Rodrigo seems to be working on the follow-up to her smash hit debut album SOUR!
We can thank her musical collaborator, producer Dan Nigro, for spilling the beans. He shared a photo of himself hanging out with the Grammy winner to his Instagram Stories on Tuesday.
The two, who are flashing peace signs, are relaxing on a couch in a music studio. Nigro is holding a guitar in his hands while Olivia looks excited. There was no caption so it isn’t entirely known what the pop star was doing there.
Fans are hopeful this means a new record or EP is on the horizon.
The “drivers license” singer has previously revealed she is working on her sophomore album. She spoke to ELLE in March and was questioned about the tone of her new work.
Olivia revealed, “I’m definitely not as sad as I was when I wrote SOUR … I’m so excited to make my next record and explore more colors and textures and feelings and grow as a human being even more.” The singer added she is “stoked” about what’s next because of how much she’s changed since releasing her debut single.
It is not known when we can expect to hear Olivia’s new work.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Liz Cheney is looking to turn her landslide loss in Wyoming’s Republican primary Tuesday night into a nationwide crusade to keep Donald Trump out of the White House — one she said Wednesday could include her running for president herself.
Despite her six-year tenure in Congress now headed to a close, Cheney said her political work isn’t done yet and is previewing what’s to come next — including a potential run for the presidency and an organization aimed at taking down Trump in 2024.
Cheney’s first hint at a presidential campaign came in her concession speech, in which she invoked President Abraham Lincoln as an example of patriotism and a champion of the Republican Party.
“The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all,” she told her supporters on Tuesday night. “Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our Union and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history.”
Cheney, once a rising Republican star, was soundly defeated by Trump-backed Harriet Hageman. Cheney said Tuesday she could have won another term but only if she accepted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
As vice-chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Cheney has become one of the party’s most outspoken critics of the former president.
“It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic — that was a path I could not and would not take,” she said as she addressed her supporters on Tuesday night.
Cheney made a more direct indication she’s thinking about running for the White House on Wednesday morning.
“I’m not going to make any announcements here this morning, but it is something that I am thinking about and I’ll make a decision in the coming months,” Cheney told NBC’s “Today” program on Wednesday.
In the meantime, her focus will be on stopping Trump.
“In coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic, and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for president,” Cheney spokesperson Jeremy Adler told ABC News.
The news of the anti-Trump group was first reported by Politico.
Trump has yet to formally announce a campaign but has repeatedly hinted at a comeback since the day he left office. Most recently, he told Fox News at CPAC that the “the time is coming” for a formal announcement.
Trump took a victory lap as Cheney was defeated on Tuesday night, calling Hageman’s win “great and very decisive.”
“This is a wonderful result for America, and a complete rebuke of the Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others. Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now.”
His criticism of Cheney continued in another post on Wednesday.
“The Fake News Media is claiming that Liz Cheney has such a ‘wonderful and bright’ political future. Maybe they didn’t notice that she lost by nearly 40 points? She’s too angry and sick to succeed in the future, but who knows!” he wrote on the conservative social media site.
ABC News’ Will Steakin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Wyoming’s Republican voters got one step closer to picking their secretary of state on Tuesday in a primary matchup of candidates with opposing views on the 2020 election.
ABC News reports that state Rep. Chuck Gray is projected to win the Republican nomination for secretary of state.
Gray, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, claimed the 2020 race was “illegitimate.” He faced state Sen. Tara Nethercott, who has said that she believes the 2020 election was secure; and geologist Mark Armstrong.
Gray also supported the former president after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, tweeting: “This is political persecution!”
There were no listed Democrats on Tuesday seeking the party’s nomination to be secretary of state, though voters could submit write-ins.
The winner of November’s general election will succeed Ed Buchanan, who is retiring and has himself defended the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
While Wyoming is not a competitive state at the presidential level, the race marks another example of election deniers running for a position that would involve overseeing elections.
The secretary of state is also first in line to the governorship, since Wyoming does not have a lieutenant governor.
We are getting closer to the season premiere of The Voice, which features first-time coach Camila Cabello. Now, we finally know who will be joining this year as battle advisors.
Charlie Puth has been tapped by Camila to serve as her battle advisor. He will help whip her team of singers into fighting shape ahead of the knockout rounds. As for returning coach Gwen Stefani, she tapped pal Sean Paul to lend her a hand.
As for the rest of the coaches, Blake Shelton is bringing on Dancing with the Stars alum Jimmie Allen, while John Legend appointed R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan as his advisor.
Aside from new faces on the coaching panel and all new advisors, NBC announced it is tweaking how the knockout rounds are going to go. The company announced in a statement, “This season will showcase a new format element during the Knockout Rounds. For the first time ever, this phase of the competition will include three-way knockouts. The stakes have never been higher for the coaches and their artists as they vie for the win.”
In addition, the show is doing away with its mega mentors. Instead, “Coaches will work with their artists directly to prepare them as best as possible for this new challenge.”
The Voice returns September 19 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.
Swizz Beatz and Timbaland have filed a $28 million lawsuit against Triller over alleged missing payments in their Verzuz acquisition.
The producers sold their competition platform in exchange for a “sum in the mid-eight figures,” per The Hollywood Reporter, and shareholding rights for them and their team members. They are now alleging that payments have been backed up since January 2022.
According to the suit, the producers were supposed to receive “the first [payment] at closing, another shortly after, and two more on the first and second anniversaries of the deal,” which was to earn them each $9 million by March 17, 2022, and an additional $500,000 every month for a 10-month period.
But, “Defendants have failed and refused to make any payment to [Swizz Beatz and Timbaland] of the past due sums due and owing,” the suit read, according to the Washington Post.
Triller has since denied the allegations.
“This is truly unfortunate and we hope it is nothing more than a misunderstanding driven by lawyers. We do not wish to air our dirty laundry in the press, but we have paid Swizz and Tim millions in cash and in stock,” a Triller rep said, per TMZ.
“No one has benefited as much from Triller to date,” the rep continued. “Triller has helped fuel VERZUZ to new heights – making it the global cultural phenomenon it is today. We hope to resolve this amicably and quickly, and truly hope it’s just a misunderstanding. If we are forced to defend it, we are more than optimistic the truth and facts are on our side.”
Preston Brust, one half of country duo LoCash, is opening up about his decadeslong fight with Bell’s palsy, a facial weakness condition.
First diagnosed in 2009, Preston suffered a rare recurrence of the condition last December. About 40,000 Americans live with Bell’s palsy, which causes one-sided facial paralysis and has no known cure.
When he first got diagnosed, Preston had never heard of the condition. He thought he was having a stroke. After learning more about Bell’s palsey, he worried about how it would affect his career, as he and his duet partner, Chris Lucas, were rising stars in country music at the time.
“My initial reaction was, like, ‘I can’t let anybody see me like this,’” Preston tells People. “But Chris had my back, and I didn’t want to stop working. I was like, ‘I’m letting LoCash down if I don’t go out and work and tour.”
Back in 2009, the healing process took about seven months, and he regained about 70 percent of his strength on the affected side of his face. When the condition returned in 2021, he says, he felt like all that progress had gone “down the drain.”
“I remember waking up my wife [Kristen] and telling her Bell’s had hit me again,” he says. “We just hugged for a few minutes and I didn’t want to let go because I knew when I did, my next journey was going to begin.”
This time around, though, he’s not hiding his condition. Inspired by pop star Justin Bieber’s public bout with Ramsay Hunt syndrome, Preston decided he wanted to be open with his fans. “It feels good to share it with everybody,” he explains.
LoCash’s latest hit is “Beach Boys,” which tributes to and features legendary pop act The Beach Boys.
Jann Wenner and Bruce Springsteen in 2010; Theo Wargo/WireImage
Bruce Springsteen will help his longtime friend Jann Wenner celebrate the release of the Rolling Stone magazine co-founder’s new memoir, Like a Rolling Stone, by taking part in a special interview event on September 13 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
At the event, Springsteen and Wenner will discuss the famous publisher’s deeply personal book, which follows his eventful life while looking at the changing landscape of music, politics and pop culture of his generation, as covered by Rolling Stone since its 1967 inception.
The memoir also features Wenner’s reflections on a wide variety of important music artists, including Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Bono and Springsteen.
In-person tickets for the Q&A session are already sold out, but the event also will be streamed live online, and tickets to the virtual presentation are available at 92ny.org. Everyone purchasing a ticket will receive a copy of Like a Rolling Stone.
“If you were young, alone and in the far lands of New Jersey, Rolling Stone was a dispatch from the front, carrying news of a bigger world and another life awaiting,” says Springsteen with regard to the book. “Like a Rolling Stone is a touchingly honest memoir from a man who recorded and shaped our times and of a grand life well lived. It is wonderfully deep and rewarding reading. I loved it.”
Like a Rolling Stone will be published on September 13 and can be preordered now.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Dave Grohl made a surprise appearance at a Los Angeles charity concert Tuesday put together by director Judd Apatow in support of the Victims First organization.
According to the L.A. club Largo, which hosted the show, the Foo Fighters frontman joined Beck and Tenacious D to make “yacht-rock musical sound effects” during a cover of the Seals & Crofts song “Summer Breeze.” Also onstage were actor John C. Reilly and producer/frequent Grohl collaborator Greg Kurstin.
You can watch footage of the performance via the Largo Instagram.
The show marked one of Grohl’s first public appearances following the unexpected death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins in March. Grohl performed for the first time since Hawkins’ passing in June during Paul McCartney’s headlining Glastonbury set.
Grohl and the rest of Foo Fighters are holding a pair of Hawkins tribute concerts, taking place September 3 in London and September 27 in Los Angeles. As was announced Wednesday, the London concert will stream live via Paramount+ and MTV Brand YouTube channels.
Demi Lovato is days away from releasing their eighth studio album, Holy Fvck, and the singer says it represents them learning to finally let go of their “unresolved trauma.”
Speaking with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, Demi revealed, “Everything that I write about comes from personal experiences, and I had gone through a rough time last year.”
“I went back to treatment, and when I came out, I had all of this unresolved trauma that I hadn’t dealt with or that I started to deal with in treatment,” the Grammy winner continued. “And then when I came out, I was like, ‘It’s OK to be angry and feel those things.'”
Demi went on to explain, “So when I was making the album, in the first week, I had a lot of anger, and I think it showed in a lot of the songs — ‘Freak,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘Eat Me.'”
Once they released that anger, Demi began penning tracks “that were really empowered in my sexuality.” Then, they said, “Towards the end, you’ve got love songs.”
Demi, who has been completely sober since December, also opened up about recovering from addiction and spoke about rebuilding the trust with their closest allies, friends and family members.
“I never have come out of treatment, I mean, maybe the first time, expecting people to trust me right away. It was a learning experience of, OK, people are going to have to learn to trust you again,” Demi expressed, adding learning that lesson was “a lot.”
Demi explained rebuilding trust isn’t easy, but it can be done “by you proving yourself and not just talking, but taking actions that are towards your recovery.”
Holy Fvck arrives Friday, August 19. Demi released the latest track off of it, “29” today.
