Shot at the Hollywood Bowl, the show will feature Billie performing every song off her new album, Happier Than Ever, in sequential order for the first and what’s said to be the only time.
“Disney is incredibly iconic, so to collaborate on something like this is a huge honor,” Billie says in a statement. “To be able to present my album in this way and dedicate it to the city that I love and grew up in is so exciting to me. I hope you love it.”
The special, directed by Robert Rodriguez and by Oscar-winner Patrick Osborne, will also include animated elements as Billie pays tribute to her LA hometown. Her brother, FINNEAS, will also take the stage with her, along with the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Last month, around the time of the Friends reunion special, Courteney Cox posted an amazing video on Instagram in which she, Elton John, Ed Sheeran and singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile all sang Elton’s hit “Tiny Dancer,” but changed to lyrics to “Hold me close/young Tony Danza” — in reference to what Lisa Kudrow‘s Friends character Phoebe thought Elton was singing. Now, Cox has revealed how she got the all-star group together.
As many fans know, Ed and Cox are longtime pals, and Ed even introduced the actress to her boyfriend, Johnny McDaid. Cox tells Entertainment Weekly that both Ed and Brandi were staying over her house for Brandi’s birthday when Ed asked her, “Do you mind if I have Elton John over for dinner?'”
Once Elton confirmed he was coming, Cox says, it was Ed’s idea to film the number. “He said, ‘Maybe it’d be really funny if we do a thing, the Lisa Kudrow ‘hold me closer,'” Cox recalls.
So Cox, who plays piano, asked a friend to teach her how to play “Tiny Dancer” 20 minutes before Elton was set to arrive. She says, “After dinner, Elton was like, ‘Of course I’ll do it,’ and then I was playing with Ed, Brandi, and Elton. And Elton had his arm around me, and I was like, ‘I love this moment, but I’m panicking.'”
She got through it, but once they sang the chorus, Cox says Elton asked her, “What are you doing? Why are you stopping?”
“And I’m like, ‘Dude, I only know that part of the song!'” she laughs. “It was amazing.”
What’s more, Cox says after filming the clip, Elton entertained them by playing two deep cuts from his 1970 self-titled album: “The Greatest Discovery” and “I Need You to Turn To.”
Bruce Springsteen has joined forces with Barack Obama to create a book titled Renegades: Born in the USA, featuring a series of candid conversations between the rock legend and the former president, which will be published October 26.
The book focuses on the conversations between Springsteen and President Obama that were featured on the eight-part podcast of the same name, which premiered on Spotify earlier this year. The podcast captured the two men reflecting on various topics involving their lives, music, and their love of the U.S.
The Renegades book will feature rare and exclusive photos and previously unseen material from the two authors’ archives, including handwritten lyrics by Springsteen and Obama’s annotated speeches.
The conversations featured in the podcast and the book took place last year, and included segments contemplating the volatile and conflict-filled climate in the U.S.
Bruce writes in the Renegades introduction, “There were serious conversations about the fate of the country, the fortune of its citizens, and the destructive, ugly, corrupt forces at play that would like to take it all down…Will we let slip through our hands the best of us or will we turn united to face the fire? Within this book you won’t find the answers to those questions, but you will find a couple of seekers doing their best to get us to ask better questions.”
Adds President Obama, “[T]he conversations Bruce and I had in 2020 feel as urgent today as they did back then. They represent our ongoing effort to figure out how it is that we got here, and how we can tell a more unifying story that starts to close the gap between America’s ideals and its reality.”
For more details about the book, and to order a copy, visit RenegadesBook.com.
O-T Fagbenle says he had to brush up on his Marvel Cinematic Universe knowledge when he first landed the role of Rick Mason, an ally and close friend of Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow in the Marvel action-film Black Widow.
“I was in the conversation once with [screenwriter] Eric Pearson and a couple of the producers and it was revealed that I had a certain ignorance gap in my MCU knowledge,” Fagbenle tells ABC Audio. And they all went, ‘N[ope]. That’s not what happened, because of da da da dah, da da da dah.'”
Embarrassed, O-T says producers then mandated him to “watch” a certain Marvel film “before… speaking to fans.’ And I was like, ‘I’m going to do that.'”
While it was a bit of a learning curve for O-T to fully understand the intricacies of the MCU, the bigger challenge was keeping mum on potential spoilers — especially when it came to the future of Rick Mason in other MCU properties.
“I got off an interview… and the Marvel guy came up… with the dark glasses and I was like, ‘Did I say something wrong?’ And he was like, ‘You cannot talk about those things.’ And I was like, ‘I won’t talk about those things then.’ And he was like, ‘Good.’ And so I’ve been told specifically I can’t talk about what happens in other spaces.”
“What I would say,” Fagbenle continues, “Is that like with streaming services and that, the possibility of expanding this universe and people getting to explore different characters is… immense. And I’m happy to fit in wherever they want me.”
Marvel Studios’Black Widow is in theaters and available to stream with Premier Access on Disney+.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC Audio.
The Dr. John Estate has issued a statement declaring that the upcoming Dan Auerbach-directed documentary about the late musician is unauthorized.
“The Official Estate of Malcolm John Rebennack, Jr., p/k/a Dr. John, clarifies that the Estate has not authorized the recently announced documentary on the life of Dr. John purportedly to be produced by Impact Artist Productions (and Management) and Radical Media,” a statement posted to the Estate’s website reads. “For clarity, Impact Artist Productions (and Management) does not manage or speak for the Estate, which has its own team with, as Mac would say, a gang and a half of legalizers.”
“The Estate thanks Mac’s fans for their support and assures that the Estate will ‘Walk on Guilded Splinters’ to deliver new music and an officially authorized documentary, to be announced In the Right Place at the right time,” the statement continues, referencing several of the New Orleans icon and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s songs.
Auerbach’s film, which will mark the Black Keys frontman’s directorial debut, was announced last week. In a statement, Auerbach said he was “thrilled” to tell Dr. John’s story with the currently untitled film.
“From his mysterious voodoo stage persona Dr. John, to his real, humble self Mac Rebennack — the street poet, the family man, the junkie, the Grammy award winner and all that’s in between, this documentary will introduce the world to him in a way they haven’t seen him before,” Auerbach said.
Dr. John died in 2019 at age 77. His penultimate studio album, 2012’s Locked Down, was produced by Auerbach.
Lorde burst into the music scene with her mega-hit “Royals” when she was only 16. Now, at 24, the New Zealand singer admits the new crop of teenage artists stepping into the limelight made her feel insecure.
In a new letter to fans, Lorde revealed what inspired her new single, “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” from her upcoming album Solar Power, due out August 20.
“I started writing this in the first six months after stopping touring for [Melodrama],” referring to her 2017 sophomore album. “I was so tired by the end, I’d been so busy for so long.”
Lorde recalled wanting to take a break after touring nonstop for two years, explaining how blissful it felt to “run a bath at 10am and eat a slice of cake in it.” However, the Grammy winner admits the vacation didn’t last long.
“But eventually, of course, the insecurity that this was my life now, that I wasn’t a titan of industry, but someone who just… cooked and walked the dog and gardened crept in,” Lorde confessed.
She continued, “I was starting to fall out of step with the times culturally, I didn’t have my finger firmly on the pulse for the first time in my life, and I could feel the next round of precocious teenagers starting to come up, and I felt insecure that they were gonna eat my lunch, so to speak. Was I over the hill?!!”
“I know now that as hard as I try to run towards or away one of the sides of my life, they’re both very much who I am,” she said. “And writing this song was a real step toward embracing that.”
Matt Damon reunited with his childhood pal and fellow Good Will Hunting Oscar winner Ben Affleck to write, produce and star in the upcoming medieval drama The Last Duel. He says the experience of working together was much different this time around.
“I think that writing process for Good Will Hunting was so inefficient,” he shared. “You know, because we didn’t really understand structure so we wrote thousands of pages,” Damon, 50, tells Entertainment Tonight. “We’d be like, ‘Well, what if this happened?’ And then we’d just write different scenes. So, we had all these kind of disparate scenes and then we kind of tried to jam them together into something that looked like a movie.”
“We just found that… making movies for 30 years, we actually learned something about structure along the way and the process went along a lot faster,” Damon continues, referring to present day. “And so I think we’ll write a lot more in the future just because it didn’t turn out to be as time-consuming as we thought. It was actually a lot of fun.”
Set in the 14th century, The Last Duel centers on two best friends who turn against each other after one accuses the other of assaulting his wife. They’re ordered to fight a duel to the death, with serious consequences for the wife as well as the loser.
Jodie Comer and Adam Driver also star in The Last Duel, from director Ridley Scott. It’s due out October 15.
Damon will next be seen in the drama Stillwater, opening July 30.
Panettiere and Hickerson in 2019 — Hollywood To You/Star Max/GC Images
Hayden Panettiere‘s ex, Brian Hickerson, revealed the former couple have reunited, although they haven’t gotten back together following his recent release from jail for domestic violence.
After an eyewitness told E! Online that Brian and the 31-year-old actress were spotted “enjoying beers” and “line dancing” with friends at a restaurant in West Hollywood, California on Saturday, he spilled the details on what went on that night.
Hickerson says that, while he was “enjoying a Miller [Lite], Hayden — who entered treatment for alcohol abuse in 2020 — was not drinking.” Added Brian, “We went to a new restaurant that is Texas-based, and being a Southern guy, I’m a big fan of country music. So yes, there was some line dancing involved.”
However, Brian stresses that “Hayden and I are not back together but are working on a friendship.”
“We have a long history together, and the first step in my recovery as an abuser is making amends,” he continued. “That’s exactly what Hayden has been gracious enough to allow me to do.”
An insider tells E! that Hayden is focusing on her sobriety and her relationship with Kaya — her six-year-old daughter with her ex, Wladimir Klitschko — while healing from her relationship with Brian.
“Hayden is open to forgiving Brian and starting a new chapter, despite her loved ones concerns,” according to the source. “Hayden has a huge heart and wants to see the best in everyone.”
Panettiere accused Hickerson of abusing her multiple times and, in April, he was sentenced on two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend after pleading no contest. He was sentenced to 45 days before serving four years of formal probation.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Global Citizen VAX LIVE
Did Selena Gomez shade ex Justin Bieber in her latest TikTok video? That’s what fans believe after the “Lose You to Love Me” singer shared a video of her discussing red flags in a relationship.
Selena, who turns 29 today, shared a video of herself wearing an oversized cranberry-colored sweater while drinking Coca Cola out of a straw. However, it’s the words she mouths along to that has fans buzzing: She lip-syncs to TikToker Owen Unruh‘s judgemental message, “So, you’re telling me that you can read his astrological birth chart, but you can’t read the red flags?”
Selena pauses to take a knowing sip of her drink before mouthing, “Sis.”
The video has gone viral, amassing over three million likes since it was uploaded.
While Selena mogul hasn’t mentioned who, if anyone, the video may be directed at, some fans believe it’s a jab at former boyfriend Bieber, with commenters joking about Justin’s astrological sign — which is Pisces.
However, other fans note that Selena may just be having some fun on TikTok while sharing some solid dating advice with her 31 million followers.
After postponing the 2020 North American leg of their No Filter tour because of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Rolling Stones are ready to start things up again in the fall.
The 2021 edition of their trek will kick off September 26 in St. Louis and is plotted out through a November 20 concert in Austin, Texas.
The 13-date outing includes confirmed stops at most of the venues where The Rolling Stones were scheduled to play in 2020, as well as concerts in three new cities — an October 13 appearance at this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, an October 13 show in Los Angeles and a November 6 performance in Las Vegas.
The Stones originally had been scheduled to play the New Orleans Jazz Fest in 2019, but they canceled their performance because frontman Mick Jagger needed to undergo emergency heart surgery.
All tickets purchased for rescheduled 2020 concerts will be honored for the new dates. Tickets for the newly added shows will go on sale to the general public on Friday, July 30, at 10 a.m. local time. Some exclusive VIP packages will be available. Visit RollingStones.com for more details.
Meanwhile, the band unfortunately was unable to reschedule concerts in four cities they had been slated to visit in 2020: Vancouver, Canada; Louisville, Kentucky; Cleveland, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York.
People who purchased tickets for these shows will be contacted by Ticketmaster directly with more information. These ticketholders may be given the opportunity to purchase priority tickets for concerts taking place in nearby cities.
“I’m so excited to get back on the stage again and want to thank everyone for their patience,” Jagger says. “See you soon!”
Adds Keith Richards, “We’re back on the road! See you there!”
Here’s the full list of Stones tour dates:
9/26 — St. Louis, MO, The Dome at America’s Center
9/30 — Charlotte, NC, Bank of America Stadium
10/4 — Pittsburgh, PA, Heinz Field
10/9 — Nashville, TN, Nissan Stadium
10/13 — New Orleans, LA, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
10/17 — Los Angeles, CA, SoFi Stadium
10/24 — Minneapolis, MN, U.S. Bank Stadium
10/29 — Tampa, FL, Raymond James Stadium
11/2 — Dallas, TX, Cotton Bowl Stadium
11/6 — Las Vegas, NV, Allegiant Stadium
11/11 — Atlanta, GA, Mercedes-Benz Stadium
11/15 — Detroit, MI, Ford Field
11/20 — Austin, TX, Circuit of the Americas
