Category: Viral

Earlier this week, social media lit up with buzz about the leak of a 20-year-old Eminem diss track against Ja Rule and Suge Knight, “Smack You,” along with a handful of other demos. However, in a response from Eminem’s longtime spokesperson, Interscope Publicity Chief Dennis Dennehy, it sounds like Em is more frustrated by the leaks than enthused by their reception.

In a statement to XXL, Dennehy wrote, “These leaked songs were studio efforts never meant for public consumption… demos, experiments and ideas that are dated and not relevant so many years later. The latest in a line of unfinished material released against artists’ will and without their permission.”

Fans were excited at the prospect of “new” music from the rap veteran, and especially by the prospect of more examples of his battle prowess, since it’s such a big part of his musical legacy. The “Smack You” demo appears to be from around 2003, when Eminem had inherited his protégé 50 Cent’s ongoing feud with fellow Queens native Ja Rule. The track also makes repeated mentions of Death Row founder Suge Knight and his alleged shady dealings (no pun intended) with his former artist Dr. Dre — who was Em’s mentor and primary producer at the time of the feud.

Eminem even goes so far as insinuating that Suge had Tupac killed — a longstanding theory in the hip-hop community — to increase the value of his catalog. “Knowing who did it, but still nobody admits it / But if I get killed for this shit, I know who did it,” he raps.

Dexter Morgan’s homicidal backstory and the crafting of his Code are currently rolling out on the small screen in Showtime’s Dexter: Original Sin. The TV announcement gods also recently announced another prequel spin off (which will revisit John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer), but our subject today is sequel series Dexter: Resurrection, which will maybe (?) give Michael C. Hall’s devoted fans a better ending after two finale clunkers. Those, of course, include Dex’s notorious hurricane survival as well as New Blood‘s “death” scene of him being shot by Harrison in a supposedly fatal manner.

And surprise motherf*cker, Dexter lives. Again. So, let’s talk about what plot shenanigans we might forgive next in Dexter: Resurrection.

Cast

Starting here feels right. Michael C. Hall will return, not simply in voice form as with Original Sin, but in the flesh because, as Hall previously suggested, Iron Lake, NY is awfully cold, which slowed down the bleeding out and kept Dexter alive for a trip to the hospital. There, he flashed back into where his taste for death began (hence the beginning of Original Sin‘s literal origin story), and maybe that prequel will end with him waking up and escaping, paving the way for further vigilantism. So yes, Michael C. Hall, baby.

Deadline has further revealed three returning characters from earlier times:

– Angel Batista (David Zayas) from Dexter (although he is also portrayed in Original Sin by James Martinez);

– Dexter’s son, Harrison ^^^ (Jack Alcott), whose own Dark Passenger has already been established in Dexter: New Blood (maybe Harrison will go on to design safer treadmill models someday?);

– James Remar will be back as Dexter’s (very dead) adoptive father, Harry Morgan. Not that being dead is a barrier to reappearing in this franchise. Remar could appear in flashback form or as a ghost, like Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) did in New Blood.

And as Comic Book recently relayed via Jeff Sneider, rumored new faces for the franchise include Peter Dinklage and Gillian Anderson. How excellent would both of them be as serial killers in need of plucking off by Dexter? Still, I could see Gillian stepping into investigative mode, which would call back to Agent Scully, hopefully with some Easter-egg jokes about Fox Mulder. Neither of those actors have been confirmed by Showtime.

Additionally, we don’t know where Dexter will set up shop in this spin off (surely, it will not be Miami), but no location could prevent him from being haunted by Debra’s ghost. More Jennifer Carpenter, please. Is she confirmed? Not yet.

Plot

So we can erase this hot-cold mess ^^^ but will also need to hang tight for firm plot details and hold onto hope that this series could end its tradition of gut-punch finales. Additionally, Showtime revealed that filming began in January with a snowy set photo, meaning that the series might not launch too far away from Iron Lake, NY. Dexter also won’t be able to align himself with law enforcement for this spin off, which will still feel like a sharp contrast to his other incarnations.

Will any of this be believable? Probably not, but that doesn’t matter. The original show’s finale already asked for hefty suspension of disbelief, and the franchise has only leaned into that feeling as new series continue. Hall did previously admit that he actually found the franchise’s new life to be “unbelievable,” but that didn’t stop him from agreeing to keep on killing as Dexter. Also, this has clearly happened due to ongoing streaming popularity, and Netflix has increased Dexter devotees to the point where it’s impossible to ignore the appetite for more:

“I think there’s many different ways this show appeals to people as there are people who watch it. But I think maybe a biding thing is, in a world in which we feel a sense of being out of control people like spending time with a character who’s taking his own, unique control of his little corner of the world. I think we all have our shadow side that we contend with and Dexter’s is obviously a little weightier than most. People enjoy spending time with someone who is doing his best to take responsibility for that side in his sort of outside-the-box way and morally grey way … maybe contending with it in a way that is arguably admirable — even though he’s doing what he’s doing.”

This shouldn’t be too surprising. Look at how ridiculously prosperous Ryan Murphy has been with his Monster series on Netflix.

Release Date

Dexter: Resurrection‘s Summer-ish 2025 arrival will follow Original Sin, hopefully redeem the franchise from New Blood‘s ending, and prepare everybody for the Trinity Killer spin off.

Trailer

We won’t get to see Doakes come back from the grave, but while waiting for a trailer, it’s worth reliving “surprise motherf*cker” and more. What a dynamic.

The biggest sports podcast in the world right now belongs to Jason and Travis Kelce, as their New Heights podcast is consistently in the top-10 podcasts in terms of listenership in any category, but their most recent episode figures to be one of their biggest as they finally welcomed the most legendary northeast Ohio native to the show, LeBron James.

Travis, in particular, has been trying to get LeBron on the show for some time and they finally found some time to make it work as the trio got together and had some fun on an hour-long pod. During the show, Jason had to get LeBron’s thoughts on a legendary tweet about James from 2015, when someone posted about LeBron turning 30 and how “this f**kery won’t go on much longer.” James, who just turned 40 and is still playing at an extremely high level, and the Kelces laughed a lot about that tweet, with LeBron saying he saw it constantly throughout his 30s and found it hilarious that same guy re-did it on his 40th birthday.

It really is one of the all-time posts and has become, at least for the online NBA fan community, part of LeBron’s legacy as he played for an entire decade after that at an All-NBA level. James jokes at the end that “he’s gonna be really upset when I turn 50”, and it’d be very funny if LeBron just kept playing to spite this one guy — which would be the most Michael Jordan thing he’s ever done.

Connecticut punks Anxious made an instant impression with their debut album, Little Green Houses, one of 2022’s best. Much of the pre-release material for their sophomore effort, Bambi, has been out how they were influenced by the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Death Cab For Cutie. You can really hear those ambitious reference points in new single “Some Girls.” It’s a thrilling evolution from one of the best punk bands out there today.

Watch the “Some Girls” video above, and check out Anxious’ upcoming tour dates below.

Anxious’ 2025 Tour Dates

02/01 — Boston, MA @ Something in the Way Fest
03/11 — Philadelphia, PA @ Ukie Club *
03/12 — Washington, DC @ Songbyrd *
03/13 — Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall *
03/14 — Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle *
03/15 — Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5 *
03/16 — Nashville, TN @ Drkmttr *
03/18 — Dallas, TX @ Club Dada *
03/19 — Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room *
03/21 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge *
03/22 — San Diego, CA @ Voodoo Room *
03/23 — Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex *
03/25 — San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar
03/28 — Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall *
03/29 — Seattle, WA @ Madam Lou’s *
03/31 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court *
04/02 — Denver, CO @ Globe Hall *
04/05 — Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry *
04/06 — Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge *
04/07 — Hamtramck, MI @ Sanctuary Detroit *
04/08 — Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s *
04/10 — New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom *
04/11 — Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair *

* w/ Ultra Q, Stateside

Bambi is out 02/21 via Run For Cover Records. You can find more information here.

I have been in this business for a long time. And in that time I have realized many of my professional dreams. But one dream persists. It’s a modest dream, but it is mine: I want to write the liner notes for the Criterion Collection edition of Ondi Timoner’s 2004 rock documentary Dig!

Alas, it looks like it won’t happen. (I’ll explain why in a moment.) But I love this film. I believe it belongs in the canon — not just rock movies, but cinema in general.

I have thought about this a lot in the past 21 years. Actually, “thought” might be the wrong word. What’s a word for “staring at a TV screen many, many times while under the influence of various chemicals late at night”? Because that sums up my relationship with Dig! It is on my shortlist of stoner/drunken comfort movies, the sort of flick you put on when you should just go to bed already and need a good televisual hang to guide you to slumber.

For those who are unfamiliar: Dig! is a documentary about two bands from the West Coast who peaked — creatively and (sort of) commercially — in the late nineties and early aughts. Both groups work in a retro milieu heavily indebted to psych-tinged sixties rock. The director followed these bands over the course of eight years, documenting their minor triumphs and far more frequent failures. They start out as friends and mutual admirers, but over time a rivalry develops. This is mostly due to one band becoming marginally successful and the other band being fronted by a megalomaniacal lunatic who, among other outrages, believes he can write songs telepathically with the imprisoned Charles Manson.

The first band is The Dandy Warhols, a decent quartet led by a preening diva with excellent cheekbones improbably named Courtney Taylor-Taylor. The other band is The Brian Jonestown Massacre, a combustible unit whose constantly shifting lineup is steered by Anton Newcombe, a natural and absurdly prolific songwriter described by one fan as “the best sixties revivalist since the sixties.” (Was there such a thing as a “sixties revivalist” in the actual 1960s? Please, we have no time for such questions!) Much of the movie is narrated by Taylor and (somewhat) assumes his point of view as a self-described member of “the world’s most well-adjusted band” observing their chaotic and star-crossed contemporaries.

And yet each time I watch Dig! — I think this is true of anyone who watches this movie — I quickly forget about The Dandy Warhols and focus solely on The Brian Jonestown Massacre. The Dandy Warhols seemed to realize in real time that this would happen. (In one of the more infamous scenes, they stage a magazine photo shoot at the epically disheveled BJM band house to make themselves look crazier than they are. It doesn’t work.) This movie ultimately makes Taylor’s band look “better” in the sense of presenting a relatively polished front, and “worse” as far as being cool, entertaining, and/or unintentionally hilarious.

I know this is a cliché but in this case it’s apt: They don’t make bands like The Brian Jonestown Massacre anymore. This is the kind of band that will erupt into an on-stage brawl because one of the three guitar players on stage played a bum note. This is the kind of band where the second most prominent guy is the tambourine player. This is the kind of band that will play for 10 hours in front of 10 people at the Communist Party headquarters in Cleveland. This is the kind of band that will go to L.A. to audition for record labels and blow all their travel money on sitars. This is the kind of band that will proudly snort cocaine in front of a documentary camera. This is the kind of band that parties so hard that Harry Dean Stanton just magically materializes amid the maelstrom.

You get the picture. Dig! checks a lot of boxes for things that I love: rock ‘n’ roll, musical rivalries, comically large sideburns, performative decadence, delusional dreamers, tragicomic buffoonery. But above all Dig! is the most quotable rock doc you will ever see. And almost all those quotes come from Newcombe, who might be a genius and definitely is an asshole. This gives him the unique ability to claim that he is “kicking off a musical revolution” with a straight face. (What Jack Black does ironically Anton Newcombe declares with Klaus Kinski-level maniacal seriousness.)

(A quick digression: Here are the top five best Anton Newcombe quotes from Dig!:

5. “No one’s gonna say ‘fuck you’ to me on MY stage with MY band!”

4. “This song is about love and it’s called, well, ‘Love.’”

3. “The Beatles were for sale, I give it away.”

2. “I never do anything wrong. That’s why I never say I’m sorry.”

1. “You fucking broke my sitar, motherfucker!”)

That last one makes more sense if you have seen the movie.

Anyway, Dig! made me a lifelong fan of The Brian Jonestown Massacre. And I do mean lifelong — I thought their most recent record, 2023’s The Future Is Your Past, was pretty good. And by “pretty good” I mean “it sounds exactly like all of their other albums.” Newcombe is like a chef who can make countless dishes out of the same three ingredients: The Rolling Stones circa 1966, The Velvet Underground circa 1967, and The Cure circa 1982. Though all you really need from this band is Tepid Peppermint Wonderland, a 2004 compilation that coincided with Dig! Given the perpetual spottiness of their studio work, Tepid Peppermint Wonderland must be counted as one of the best “greatest hits” albums of the modern era. With its murderer’s row of endlessly re-playable rock songs, the record improbably (but credibly!) presents Newcombe as the dirtbag Tom Petty of America’s underbelly.

For a while in the aughts, I played drums in a two-piece band that was vaguely inspired by The Brian Jonestown Massacre. We would jam, drink whiskey, smoke weed and watch Dig! I’m sure we were awful. (I was unquestionably a terrible drummer.) But this did not matter. Among the many lessons of Dig! is that dicking around in an incompetent band can be a lot more fun than toiling away in a professional one.

Back to the liner notes: Dig! was recently remastered and refurbished with about 40 minutes of extra footage ahead of a run in select theaters that begins Friday January 17. (Presumably, a Blu-ray release will follow at some point.) So, there will be no Criterion Collection for your boy this time around. (Perhaps I can interest someone at Criterion HQ in a new edition of The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years?)

This new Dig! is called Dig! XX and it runs nearly two and a half hours. What do you get in that additional time? Well, you see more scenes where Anton loses his damn mind (including the Manson bit I mentioned earlier). And you get narration from Joel Gion (a.k.a. “the tambourine player”) who offers retrospective commentary on the events. Interestingly, the point of view of The Dandy Warhols is marginalized and, at times, not-so-gently mocked. For instance, after the scene where Taylor talks about their drummer leaving the band over a money dispute, the drummer is now brought back to fact-check Taylor’s claims and eye roll over his self-obsessed behavior.

How essential is this stuff? Not very. Watching Dig! XX made me appreciate how well-paced the original is. It gives you just the right amount of Anton Newcombe, whereas the “more is more” approach of Dig! XX can makes for a tedious and sluggish watch. Unlike the people in his life, the audience can walk away from Anton after 90 or so minutes. Tacking another hour to the encounter isn’t exactly a positive. (Hopefully the original version is included on the Blu-ray. My DVD copy looks lousy on a flat-screen TV.)

One of the odder revisions is an introduction from none other than Dave Grohl, who calls Dig! the greatest rock documentary ever made. But all his presence does is revive old complaints about how Dave Grohl (and/or Henry Rollins) show up in every rock doc. The audience for Dig! XX presumably already has a high opinion of the film. No offense to Dave but Dig! doesn’t need his validation.

Revisiting this Dig! did, inevitably, make me nostalgic — for my own dirtbag past, of course, but also for the pre-internet era when indie rockers (and everybody else) were less self-conscious and more open about their larger-than-life dreams and ambitions. Anton Newcombe is diluted, and he is silly, and he is a jerk, and he might even be a poseur. But that’s only because he had the space to create his own world, and the freedom from the outside noise that would have cruelly dunked on his grandiose proclamations. He was allowed to be a legend in his own mind, which eventually made him a legend in his time (at least to those of us who love Dig!).

I have interviewed a lot of indie rock musicians over the years, and the vast majority of them (respectfully) are boring. They just have nothing to say. Zero! And that is not their fault. It’s our fault. The online hoards have effectively litigated legitimately colorful cultural characters out of existence. Because we can’t take it when someone says something funny or subversive or controversial or just plain ridiculous. We take their funny quotes and crush their spirits with a million haughty tsk-tsks. And in the end, we suffer the consequences because we resign ourselves to living in a bland, PR-vetted world where nobody talks anymore about kicking off a musical revolution.

Toward the end of Dig! Newcombe takes credit for a revolution he was not directly involved in. “Do you hear the White Stripes on the fucking radio?” he says. “When I started it was Pearl Jam. Obviously the revolution happened. How many people are imitating Pearl Jam right now? Not that many. How many imitators do I have? I played a part in opening that up.” A different kind of film might have disputed that claim. Or offered up some important context, i.e. the much more significant influence of Elephant Six and Sympathy For The Record Industry, the rise of The Strokes, the existence of radio-dominant post-grunge, etc. But Dig! understands that Anton Newcombe exists only in his own context, and therefore this film must as well. In Anton Newcombe’s world, nobody has to apologize, because nobody is ever wrong.

It appears that Drake’s ” target=”_blank”>withdrawal of his pre-action court requests was the exact opposite of a change of heart. According to TMZ, he’s dived in headfirst, filing a defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group in New York federal court. That means he’s decided to forego his initial bid to secure a court order for UMG’s records pertaining to “Not Like Us” and skip straight to suing the major label.

At the heart of his contention is Kendrick Lamar’s diss song, “Not Like Us,” on which the Canadian superstar says Kendrick calls him a pedophile. (For those keeping score at home, the exact line goes, “They tell me Chubbs the only one that get your hand-me-downs / And Party at the party playin’ with his nose now / And Baka got a weird case, why is he around? / Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles.” Take from that what you will.)

Drake contends that in pushing “Not Like Us,” UMG — which is the distributor for both Drake, via Republic, and Kendrick, via Interscope — sought to devalue his music, which would give the label the upper hand in future contract negotiations. Drake reportedly signed a renewal of his record deal with Republic worth up to $400 million in 2022, although the terms were never publicly revealed.

According to Drake’s suit, UMG went to such lengths to promote the song as hiring a bot farm and employing a payola scheme with at least one radio station. Finally, Drake even asserts that “Not Like Us” put him in physical danger; there have been shootings reported near his home since its release, with at least one injuring his security guard.

Drake takes pains to stress that the lawsuit isn’t meant to be a response to the rap battle itself; rather, he wants to punish the label for promoting it, knowing about the claims Kendrick made. “This lawsuit is not about the artist who created ‘Not Like Us’,” the suit reads. “It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize” the song which it knew contained false claims.”

That being said, this probably won’t help his tattered reputation among rap fans, and may end up having the effect he feared “Not Like Us” and UMG’s plan to promote it would have. Maybe he really is done with music, and he’s just burning all the bridges on the way out.

If Dua Lipa is looking for a title for her next album, she could do a lot worse than Pump It Up.

The Substance costume designer Emmanuelle Youchnovski revealed in an interview with Next Best Picture that one of Margaret Qualley’s outfits as Sue in the Golden Globe-nominated body horror masterpiece was inspired by the “Houdini” singer, as well as Beyoncé.

“I took… you know the video clip of Beyoncé’s ‘Blow,’ where she had the colors, you remember this one? And I also took a lot of inspiration from Dua Lipa because she wears a lot of bodysuits, but the bodysuit, it’s metallic, it’s fuchsia, it’s neon. I took all the things of our pop culture, not ’80s culture,” she said before describing Sue’s bodysuit as “more skin, more Dua Lipa.”

Previously, Qualley shared that she listened to a lot of another pop star to get into character as Sue. “It’s kind of wild timing the way that the universe works because we all just had the ‘Brat Summer,’ right? With Charli XCX. And I was listening to Charli as my ‘Sue’ inspo. Because she has like a lot of good kind of like ‘pump it up’ girl songs,” she told Brut. “I got that kind of Sue energy from Charli’s old music.”

The Substance is streaming now on Mubi.

After taking some time last year to celebrate the anniversary of his signature Perfume Genius album Too Bright, Mike Hadreas is shifting his focus back to new music: Today (January 15), he announced the upcoming album Glory and shared the single “It’s A Mirror.”

Hadreas says of the song:

“I wake up overwhelmed even when nothing is going on. I spend the rest of the day trying to regulate, which I prefer to do at home alone with my thoughts. But why? They are mostly bad. They also haven’t really changed for decades. I wrote ‘It’s a Mirror’ while stuck in one of these isolating loops, seeing that something different and maybe even beautiful is out there but not quite knowing how to venture out. I have a lot more practice keeping the door closed.”

A press release notes the album contains “themes of the body and its decay, of domesticity and love, and of inescapable history and damage,” but “written from a new vantage point — on the other side of struggle, where one is left to contend with all that has happened but also has to learn to live in a still and uncharted place.”

Beyond that, Hadreas also announced a run of tour dates spanning from May to June. For tickets, an artist pre-sale starts January 16 at 10 a.m. local time, followed by a public on-sale starting January 17 at 10 a.m. local time. Find more information here.

Listen to “It’s A Mirror” above. Below, find the Glory art and tracklist, along with Perfume Genius’ upcoming tour dates.

Perfume Genius’ Glory Album Cover Artwork

Perfume Genius’ Glory Tracklist

1. “It’s A Mirror”
2. “No Front Teeth” Feat. Aldous Harding
3. “Clean Heart”
4. “Me & Angel”
5. “Left For Tomorrow”
6. “Full On”
7. “Capezio”
8. “Dion”
9. “In A Row”
10. “Hanging Out”
11. “Glory”

Perfume Genius’ 2025 Tour Dates

05/12 — Little Saint @ Healdsburg, CA
05/13 — The Fillmore @ San Francisco, CA
05/16 — Kilby Court Block Party @ Salt Lake City, UT
05/24 — C6 Fest @ Sao Paulo, BR
05/30 — The Van Buren @ Phoenix, AZ
05/31 — 191 Toole @ Tucson, AZ
06/02 — Emo’s @ Austin, TX
06/03 — The Studio at The Factory @ Dallas, TX
06/05 — Variety Playhouse @ Atlanta, GA
06/06 — Haw River Ballroom @ Saxapahaw, NC
06/07 — 9:30 Club @ Washington, DC
06/08 — Union Transfer @ Philadelphia, PA
06/10 — Brooklyn Paramount @ Brooklyn, NY
06/12 — Royale @ Boston, MA
06/13 — Electric City @ Buffalo, NY
06/14 — The Concert Hall @ Toronto, ON
06/15 — Globe Iron @ Cleveland, OH
06/17 — The Vic Theatre @ Chicago, IL
06/18 — First Avenue @ Minneapolis, MN
06/19 — The Truman @ Kansas City, MO
06/21 — Gothic Theatre @ Denver, CO
06/23 — Treefort Music Hall @ Boise, ID
06/26 — The Showbox @ Seattle, WA
06/27 — Revolution Hall @ Portland, OR

Glory is out 3/28 via Matador. Find more information here.

My Morning Jacket has been one of the most consistent rock bands of the past quarter-century, although there’s been a bit of a wait since their most recent album, 2021’s My Morning Jacket (excluding their 2023 holiday album Happy Holiday!). Now, though, the drought is over: Today, MMJ announced Is and shared the lead single “Time Waiting.”

Jim James says of the song:

“I made a loop of that piano intro and listened as I went for a walk, and all these melodies started coming to me. For a long time, I didn’t have lyrics, but then I had a dream where I was in a café and a song was playing, and the lyrics to that song became the lyrics to ‘Time Waited’ — the melodies just fit perfectly. And the lyrics are about how flexible time is, how we can bend and warp time, especially if we are following our hearts, the universe and time itself can flow to work with us.”

He also says of the album:

“I like how the word is indicates a sense of presence in the now — there’s no logic or rationale behind this record; it just is. All these songs came into existence out of an attempt to connect with something beyond the human experiment, which for me is one of the most beautiful things about music — that connection with something larger than us, yet something we are all equally a part of.”

Watch the “Time Waited” video above and find the Is art and tracklist below.

My Morning Jacket’s Is Album Cover Artwork

My Morning Jacket’s Is Tracklist

1. “Out In The Open”
2. “Half A Lifetime”
3. “Everyday Magic”
4. “I Can Hear Your Love”
5. “Time Waited”
6. “Beginning From The Ending”
7. “Lemme Know”
8. “Squid Ink”
9. “Die For It”
10. “River Road”

Is is out 3/21 via ATO Records. Find more information here.

Robbie Williams is a singer, songwriter, and entertainment. But above all things, he is a proud Brit. In his new biopic, Better Man, Williams’ love for his home country (the United Kingdom) stole quite a few scenes. However, when the English event of the millennial came around, the “Forbidden Road” singer was notably absent.

During Robbie Williams’ appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, he revealed why did not attend or (as once rumored) perform at King Charles III’s coronation in 2023. When asked by Cohen if he in fact did receive an invitation to perform at the Royal event, Williams replied: “Yeah.”

This should not come as a surprise as Williams’ friendship with the British Royal Family has been well documented. Still, Williams had to turn down the opportunity but for good cause.

“There was a reason,” he said. “I was working. I got something I couldn’t turn down because of money.”

“And the contracts,” chimed Cohen which Williams nodded in agreeance.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla coronation inside of the Westminster Abbey marked the first coronation in nearly 70 years. So, as you could guess the place was filled with other dignitaries and celebrities (including Lionel Richie and Katy Perry).

Watch the full clip of Robbie Williams on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen above.