Ariana Grande thanks fans: "It is ... my greatest honor to grow with you"
Ariana Grande has a lot to celebrate: She's got the #1 album and the #1 song in the country. On Instagram, she's posted a heartfelt thanks to fans for making her new album, eternal sunshine, such a success.
"i know i have been posting so much (i feel self conscious about that / also would like to keep going / thanking / celebrating !) but i just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart," she wrote. "it’s impossible to put into words what i’ve been feeling this week."
"this album is most special to me for many reasons and just holds so much," she continues. "sharing it has re-opened a lot of little and big feelings alike and it has been an emotional week in many ways !… but your overwhelmingly loving response to it all has made me feel such joyful, human connection and comfort."
She concludes, "just wanted to say i love and appreciate you all more than one can say and thank you again. it is, as it always has been, my greatest honor to grow with you… let us promise to keep going!"
Her message captions a video noting that both the album and her latest single, "we can't be friends," debuted at #1.
Ari's mom, Joan, jumped in the comments and gushed, "So proud!!! So incredibly deserved!! Your musicianship and acting [in the video] is extraordinary!! I love you! Congratulations !!"
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Pink thanks fans Down Under as she sets new touring records: "You get me, and you always have"
Pink was "lost for words" at the news that she's broken multiple records in Australia and New Zealand with her Summer Carnival stadium tour.
She posted a photo of her holding a special plaque commemorating her touring achievements Down Under and wrote, "AUSTRALIA—- AND NEW ZEALAND…. I love you and I love it here. You get me, and you always have. We’ve grown up together over the last 20 years. And we’ve danced, laughed, screamed and cried together, too. You’ve always been there for me, but this week I learned just how great your support has been."
She then listed some of her milestones: The ticket sales for the Summer Carnival tour are the biggest for any tour by a female artist in Australia, and she's the first artist to play 20 stadium shows across Australia and New Zealand in a single tour.
In addition, Pink has sold more than 3.1 million tickets over her six tours of Australia and New Zealand — the most career ticket sales ever achieved by an international performer in those two countries.
"I’m not often lost for words, but you really did it to me this week," she wrote. "Your support is never lost on me and it’s a privilege to do this with you every day. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Here’s to another 20 years together."
Billboard notes that the only other tour that has sold more tickets Down Under is Ed Sheeran's 2018 Divide tour.
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"Remember me?!" Anya Taylor-Joy takes on Chris Hemsworth in new trailer to prequel 'Furiosa'
Warner Bros. released a second trailer to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the prequel to its Oscar-winning epic Mad Max: Fury Road, on Tuesday.
Anya Taylor-Joy plays the younger version of Furiosa, Charlize Theron's character from that film, and the new snippet shows glimpses of her backstory: She was snatched from her family by Chris Hemsworth's post-apocalyptic warlord Dementus.
"As a child, my world was forever changed," she says. "He took it all from me."
Apparently, she escapes captivity, and now, according to a title card, "She is back for vengeance."
Furiosa says, "My childhood. My mother. I want them back!" triggering an all-out chase and all new vehicular mayhem for which visionary director George Miller is famous.
Furiosa apparently also forges an alliance with Immortan Joe, the skull-faced warlord she fought years later in Fury Road, warning him of Dementus, "If you find him, he's mine."
We also see Anya's character shearing off her hair. With her grease-blackened forehead, she's a spitting image of Theron's version.
A voiceover notes, "There will always be war. But to get home, Furiosa fought the world."
At the end of the trailer, she finally comes face-to-face with Dementus as an adult: "Remember me?!" she asks.
The movie from Warner Bros. Pictures revs into theaters May 24.
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SZA, Tate McRae, Teddy Swims, Benson Boone to play Lollapalooza
SZA will headline this year's Lollapalooza festival, taking place August 1-4 at Chicago's Grant Park.
SZA is one of a number of headline acts, including blink-182, Future x Metro Boomin, Hozier, Stray Kids, Melanie Martinez and The Killers. The rest of the bill is equally stacked: Tate McRae, Teddy Swims, Reneé Rapp, Zedd, Benson Boone, Kesha, RAYE and Tyla are just some of the performers who'll be taking the stage.
Additional performers include Lizzy McAlpine, Mimi Webb, Knoxa Armani White and Dominic Fike.
The presale begins Thursday, March 21, at 10 a.m. CT. Tickets will go on sale to the general public starting Thursday at noon CT.
For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit Lollapalooza.com.
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Why Joey Fatone kept recent *NSYNC reunion a secret from his mom and dad
The *NSYNC reunion at Justin Timberlake's show in LA on March 13 came as a surprise to the audience. It was such a secret, Joey Fatone didn't even tell his mom and dad that it was happening.
Appearing on The Jennifer Hudson Show with his current tour mate, AJ McLean, Joey said, "I didn’t tell nobody. I didn't even tell my parents. My father has a very large mouth ... he’s very proud, he likes to tell anybody, 'Oh, by the way...'"
“My mom would always be quiet, but I always have to tell them, like, right before or right after,” he added. “I didn’t tell my publicist; I didn’t tell nobody!"
Asked how it felt, Joey told Jennifer, "It was really exciting, it was kinda just fun ... it was just one of those things where Justin asked us to do the show. We’re like, ‘Yeah, why not?' And then we kind of played some old-school stuff, and people went crazy.”
AJ, meanwhile, said he didn't know about the reunion until he went backstage before the show and saw Joey and Lance Bass. During the performance, AJ said he was "dead center" and added, "It was awesome ... when they all walked out, the screams were unbelievable. They didn't miss a beat. Honestly."
In addition to their song "Paradise" on Justin's new album, the group also sang "It's Gonna Be Me" and snippets of "Girlfriend" and "Bye Bye Bye."
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Beyoncé reveals 'act ii: COWBOY CARTER' cover and album inspiration
Beyoncé has revealed the cover for her upcoming album, act ii: COWBOY CARTER.
She took to Instagram Tuesday to celebrate the 10-day countdown to the release of the new album, arriving March 29.
In the album’s cover photo, Beyoncé sits astride a horse, wearing patriotic cowboy garb and holding an American flag. She wears white-heeled boots and a sash across her chest that displays the album’s title, “COWBOY CARTER.”
Beyoncé also thanked fans for supporting the album’s first two singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” in the post’s caption.
“I feel honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart,” Beyoncé wrote. “My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant.”
She then revealed it took over five years to make the album, before seemingly referring to her 2016 CMA Awards performance with The Chicks.
“It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” Beyoncé wrote. “But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive.”
She said the criticism she faced as she first entered the country genre helped her to create this project and then promised surprises and collaborations on the record.
“I focused on this album as a continuation of RENAISSANCE…I hope this music is an experience, creating another journey where you can close your eyes, start from the beginning and never stop,” Beyoncé wrote. “This ain’t a Country album. This is a 'Beyoncé' album. This is act ii COWBOY CARTER, and I am proud to share it with y’all!”
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Shakira says her 11-year-old son wrote songs about her split with Gerard Piqué
After her split from her longtime partner, soccer star Gerard Piqué, Shakira topped the chart with the diss track "BZRP Music Sessions #53," in which she went in on her ex with lines like "So much time at the gym/But maybe work out your brain a bit too." She said her eldest son also reacted to the breakup through music.
When asked by the Sunday Times how Milan, 11, and Sasha, 9, who she shares with Piqué, feel about the song, Shakira says, "They know that there’s only one way to live life and it’s accepting the pain. And each one of us has different ways of doing that."
She continues, "When his father and I were going through separation, he wrote two amazing songs, the kind that will bring you to tears."
For her part, Shakira says "BZRP Music Sessions #53" allowed her to "exorcise a lot of the demons that were tormenting me. And it felt good.”
A line from that song, "Women no longer cry, women get paid," inspired the title of her first album in seven years, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, which translates to Women No Longer Cry. It's out on March 22.
As for why it's been so long since she released an album, she tells the Times, "For a long time I put my career on hold, to be next to Gerard, so he could play football. There was a lot of sacrifice for love.”
Musing about the relationship, she says, “Empathy is key in an artist’s work. An athlete is in a constant state of war and has to avoid empathy at all costs. That’s why it’s probably a really bad idea for an artist to hook up with an athlete.”
Taylor Swift, take note.
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'Star Wars: The Acolyte' trailer: A murder mystery set an even longer time ago in a galaxy far, far away
Lucasfilm revealed the trailer to its anticipated Star Wars series The Acolyte, which will debut on Disney+ with two episodes on June 4.
The series from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland is set around a hundred years before the Star Wars prequels when the Jedi Order was at its zenith as the source of peace and justice throughout the galaxy.
The trailer begins with Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae as Jedi Master Sol, leading a group of younglings in meditation with a familiar phrase: "Your eyes can deceive you, you must not trust them."
He asks what they see."Light," one young student offers, while another says "balance." A third, likely the younger version of Amandla Stenberg's assassin character, darkly says "fire."
Stenberg's masked assassin is shown facing off with a Jedi played by The Matrix franchise veteran Carrie-Anne Moss. She repeatedly dodges then uses the Force to shove her away.
"Someone is killing Jedi," a character explains. "It doesn't make sense."
There's a shot of a hunting party of eight Jedi and a quick reveal of a pensive Wookiee with his normally furry head shaved in the style of a samurai, complete with a top knot.
"This isn't about good or bad," Jodie Turner-Smith's Aniseya advises. "This is about power and who is allowed to use it."
The hunting party, including Logan veteran Dafne Keen, ultimately find themselves facing a threat in a dark forest. Just then, a red Sith lightsaber spins through the air, slashing the trees around them before its unseen owner calls it back to their hand.
At this, all the Jedi ignite their sabers and charge the threat, only to be blown back by a tremendous Force blast, and the trailer ends.
Disney is the parent company of ABC News.
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With 'Wonka' and 'Dune' sequel, Timothée Chalamet has already blown past a billion bucks in 2024
In just the third month of 2024, Timothée Chalamet has already passed a billion bucks at the box office.
The 28-year-old actor's Wonka, which came out December 15, has made more than $630 million worldwide so far, and it continues earning in theaters after the movie came to streaming.
Dune Part Two only came out March 1, but the sequel is already sand running toward the $500 million mark globally.
Of note, neither Wonka nor Dune were based on any comics property; with some exceptions — Hi, Barbie! — the superhero genre has had the lion's share of billion-dollar-plus earners in recent years.
Incidentally, Chris Pratt had a blockbuster 2023, starting with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which went on to make more than $1.36 billion worldwide and adding the more than $845 million made by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. However, his impressive grand total of more than $2.2 billion was tallied at the end of the year.
Considering how fast Chalamet's movies have propelled him past a billion bucks, and with his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown slated for release some time in 2024, it will be interesting to see where Chalamet's box office bank will end up come New Year's Day.
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Olivia Rodrigo's rumored boyfriend says, "Dating probably shouldn't be done in the public eye"
Based on photographic evidence, Olivia Rodrigo appears to be dating actor Louis Partridge, best known for starring in Netflix's Enola Holmes movies and FX's Pistol, about the punk band the Sex Pistols. In a new interview with British Vogue, Louis addresses their rumored relationship for the first time.
Asked about seeing himself in the tabloids and on social media with Olivia, he smiles and says, "Dating probably shouldn’t be done in the public eye. There’s enough going on between two people. You don’t need the voices of thousands of others in your head."
"I think she’s got it a lot worse than I have. I can be a bit of a normal person. She’s got tons and tons of eyes on her case,” he adds.
Asking how he blocks out the noise, the actor says, "If there’s a load of people nattering in a room about you, you can choose to put your ear to the door to hear what they say or not. I think you’re probably better off not letting curiosity get the better of you.”
Rumors that Olivia and Louis were dating started in October; they were seen kissing in December.
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