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In October, Lady Gaga will release her first single from her forthcoming seventh solo album. But Gaga went ahead and dropped Harlequin, her companion album to Joker: Folie À Deux, which hits theaters this week.

Similarly, The Weeknd amplified anticipation ahead of Hurry Up Tomorrow, and Jon Bellion returned to making his own music. Not to mention, Christina Aguilera celebrated a classic by teaming with the modern-day pop darling, Sabrina Carpenter.

Check that out and more in Uproxx’s Best New Pop Music roundup below.

Lady Gaga — “Happy Mistake”

We’ve been down the “Lady Gaga Releases Companion Music For A Blockbuster Film” before. It delivered during her A Star Is Born coronation, and it’s even better with Harlequin. The acoustic ballad “Happy Mistake,” co-written by BloodPop and Gaga, showcases Gaga’s powerhouse vocals. If you’d told me it was on LG7 instead, I’d believe you. “It was all in the image of the character, but also kind of at the very core of her soul, which is really just me,” Gaga told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “Every character I play, it just has me as the gravity. I am wrestling, on that record, with a lot of feelings about so much that I’ve been through as an artist, everything I went through growing up in the public eye, and the industry since I was a teenager.”

The Weeknd & Playboi Carti — “Timeless”

Hurry Up Tomorrow, The Weeknd’s forthcoming LP, will serve as the final installment of his After Hours/Dawn FM trilogy. The Weeknd has spoken in the past about his plan “to kill The Weeknd” at some point, and if that’s still the plan, he can rest soundly because, as he sings in the second single from Hurry Up Tomorrow, “It don’t matter what they say, I’m timeless.”

Christina Aguilera Feat. Sabrina Carpenter — “What A Girl Wants”

Sabrina Carpenter was three months old when Christina Aguilera released her self-titled debut studio album in August 1999. Aguilera celebrated the LP’s 25th birthday by asking a fully grown and actively blossoming Carpenter to sing “What A Girl Wants” with her. Now, a full-blown Aguilera-Carpenter collaborative album should be mandated in the pop bylaws.

Rosalía Feat. Ralphie Choo — “Omega”

Speaking of celebration, Rosalía commemorated her 32nd birthday by gifting everyone else “Omega” featuring Ralphie Choo. The ballad’s accompanying video was directed by Stillz and captures Rosalía and Choo literally releasing their inhibitions on a rollercoaster. However, the song’s sentiment is more about the sensation found once getting off of life’s metaphorical rollercoaster. “Omega is the end,” Rosalía said in a statement, as per Rolling Stone. “It’s the celebration of having found what you wanted and the security with which one decides to stay. Omega is firmness with the one you love that makes you not want to be anywhere else but there.”

Jon Bellion — “Kid Again”

Jon Bellion’s fingerprints never left pop music. He’s served as the primary producer or songwriter on some of the biggest songs of the past few years, but he hasn’t released solo music since his November 2018 album, Glory Sound Prep. That just changed with “Kid Again,” a triumphant reclamation of his distinct voice now that he’s freed from a restrictive contract. “I am a kid again,” he sings. “I can do anything.” History shows that Bellion can do things other creatives can’t dream of. His next album figures to remind music lovers from whom all of their favorite lyrics and unique beats came.

Kylie Minogue — “Lights Camera Action”

In April, Time named Kylie Minogue among its “100 Most Influential People” of 2024. The Australian pop icon is bolstering her case with Tension II, her upcoming album due out on October 18. “Lights Camera Action” is the latest single, which Minogue said has a “similar kind of hypnotic quality” as “Padam Padam” while speaking with NME. She’s not wrong.

Rauw Alejandro & Mr. NaisGai — “Pasaporte”

Rauw Alejandro’s music videos usually elicit the Martin Scorsese “Absolute Cinema” meme. He tapped Adrien Brody to co-star in “Déjame Entrar,” and “Pasaporte” featuring Mr. NaisGai finds Alejandro bailing on playing a video game to globetrot in luxury. “We just have to enjoy today,” he sings. The Puerto Rican star indulges his every whim throughout the five-minute visual, but perhaps the most exciting frame is saved for the end when he writes “COSA NUESTRA NOV. 15” on a poster. Yes, Cosa Nuestra, his fifth LP, is due out on November 15.

Will Swinton — “Flames”

Fittingly and perhaps not-so-coincidentally, Will Swinton’s “Flames” is meant to be blasted at a bonfire. Swinton’s gravelly, warm voice underscores the acoustic-based song’s heart-wrenching sentiments like “Held you in the darkest nights / You held me together in the cold / But the morning brings a different light / Shows you things you never really know.” The hook is a particularly cruel twist to the heart: “And when you left / I kept the pain / Now I only feel alive inside the flame.” The New Zealand breakout will support BabyJake on his Beautiful Blue Collar Boy Tour across North America, beginning on October 14.

Alex Sampson — “Beautiful (In A Dream)”

Alex Sampson came in clutch for cuffing season. “We could be beautiful / Like autumn and the leaves,” the Canadian pop singer-songwriter sings in “Beautiful (In A Dream)” from his freshly released Hopeless Romantic EP. The lilting, gradually upbeat song embodies the project’s title and showcases Sampson’s potential to invade timelines everywhere.

JADE — “Midnight Cowboy”

Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall ensures you know she’s just JADE in her solo career with “Midnight Cowboy,” as she confidently croons, “I’m a real wild b*tch, yeah, I’m mental / I’m the ride of your life, not a rental / I’m the editor, call me Mr Enninful.” The sultry single was co-written by RAYE, and Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who, Sex Education) voices the intro. “Midnight Cowboy” follows “Angel Of My Dreams,” her debut solo single from July. JADE’s impressive stretch will continue with “Fantasy” on October 18.

No one was shedding any teardrops over a Taylor Swift-signed guitar that was destroyed as a protest (?) against something (??) — because she probably didn’t sign it. On Monday, footage circulated of a white-haired guy at the Ellis County Wild Game Dinner in Waxahachie, Texas, paying $4,000 for a guitar autographed by the “All Too Well” singer, and hitting it with a hammer. He also pretended to pull a Phoebe Bridgers and smash it on the ground.

But a Swiftie who goes by @kubaswift on X noticed something about the auction listing. “I found the listing for this $4,000 ‘Autographed Guitar’ only to find out the signed element is a signed photo from a Midnights vinyl someone has cut out and glued onto a custom guitar,” they wrote. “0 brain cells.”

In the replies, @kubaswift added, “I clocked that fake guitar design straight off the bat and looked into it further cause I knew she hadn’t signed any Eras Tour ones at least only to find out it was a signed insert from a Midnights vinyl you can even see the cut off where they snipped the signature I mean.”

Assuming this is accurate (and it seems likely considering the number of “signed” instruments on eBay), the guy in the video paid $4,000 to destroy a guitar with a photo of a real autograph.

Ellis County Wild Game spokesperson Craig Meier talked to WFAA about the uproar over the guitar smash. “It has been surprising to me how big of a deal people are making it out to be. It wasn’t meant to be mean or malicious,” he said. “He was just making a lighthearted statement showing disapproval of people in the entertainment industry trying to influence politics.”

You can watch the video here.

I think we can all agree that thinking about the early days of lockdown isn’t a particularly fun or constructive activity. Four years on, it’s still hard to process the traumatic strangeness of normal everyday life being put on pause while we all became medium-term shut-ins. The plans that were made and then unmade, the experiences that you didn’t even know you were missing, the life that was unlived — it’s too much to take in, even now.

In the grand scheme of things, missing out on a concert might not amount to much in this context. But for the sake of conversation: The show I’m saddest about not seeing in 2020 is Sturgill Simpson’s truncated Sound & Fury tour, which began in January and like everything else ground to a halt in early March, about a month before it was originally scheduled to hit my town. I had been eagerly anticipating that night for months, ever since downloading a bootleg recording of a gig from the previous fall in Washington D.C., part of a pre-tour warm-up club tour. The music on that tape was thick, gnarly and above all furious, which matched Sturgill’s personal temperament at the time. When I interviewed him in February 2020, he talked about the tour with palpable dread. His previous road campaign in 2017 drove him to substance abuse, he confessed. He also pledged he would never do a “big tour” like this ever again. So, when the Sound & Fury tour was subsequently canceled, I suspect that Sturgill was the opposite of disappointed.

Flash forward to 2024. Sturgill is back on the road, and he has apparently broken the “no more big tours” pledge. Or maybe not — since Sturgill made that promise and this jaunt — dubbed the Why Not? tour — is official billed as a “Johnny Blue Skies” show. No matter. The semantics are irrelevant. What matters is that Sturgill Simpson is playing live again and his current tour is 2024’s most musically thrilling and flat-out life-affirming live experience.

The optimal word here is joy. I saw Sturgill last week at one of the dumpier venues in the Twin Cities area, and for three hours he played 31 songs with his brilliant band and positively radiated ebullience. The music just poured out of these guys like well-aged bourbon into a well-worn tumbler — honky-tonk stompers, revved-up electric bluegrass, stoned southern rock, duel-guitar psychedelic jams. They played originals from throughout Sturgill’s catalog with muscular authority, successfully merging the traditional country and soul sounds of the early records with the gut-punch rock of the Sound & Fury era. And they skillfully inserted covers that acted as signposts acknowledging where this music comes from: The Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider,” William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” Procol Harum’s “A White Shade Of Pale,” an absolutely apocalyptic version of The Doors’ “L.A. Woman,” and Prince’s “Purple Rain,” which merged seamlessly with Sturgill’s own gently weeping guitar elegy, “One For The Road.”

It was the best show I’ve seen all year, and possibly in the past few years. It was one of those nights where you might think, I’m clearly exaggerating how good this was, this has to be a “rose colored glasses” situation. But I know it’s not, because you can stream (or download) the shows on this tour as you’re walking back to your car in the parking lot. Sure enough, I am listening to this show as I type this, and it plays like the live album of my dreams: A little Waylon Live, a little Live At Fillmore East, a little Absolutely Live, a little Rock Of Ages, a little Europe 72. The good shit, in other words.

Let’s circle back to the optimal word: Joy. It’s not a feeling that comes through on Passage du Desir, Sturgill’s studio debut as Johnny Blue Skies released this summer. Passage contains some of the loveliest music the man has made. It radiates more beauty than any album in his catalog, with the possible exception of 2016’s fatherhood opus, A Sailor’s Guide To Earth. But the overall tone is desolate, even mournful. Many listeners picked up on themes of marital discord and mid-life angst recurring in the lyrics. As someone who has tried (and often failed) not to go overboard with armchair psychology when perusing an album’s liner notes, I’m wary of speculating on those particulars. But Passage Du Desir undeniably is concerned with loss, and the struggle to recognize one’s own identity when what has defined you has gone missing.

In light of this tour, I wonder if that sense of loss wasn’t romantic in nature so much as musical. Sturgill has talked recently about how he almost lost his voice in the past few years. He even lost of his love of playing. In a recent interview with the British music magazine Uncut, he says a switch flipped in his mind when he was invited to sit in at the annual Dead Ahead festival, and was tasked with learning dozens of Grateful Dead songs. “I wasn’t really familiar with them, because in my early twenties in Kentucky there was a jam band scene which I dismissed as unstructured noodling, and I lumped the Dead into that,” he told the magazine. But after looking at the songs, “I thought, why is this so easy? It’s almost like I could anticipate where Jerry was going. And it was because Jerry played folk, country, bluegrass and blues, the same way I play guitar.”

Once he got home, “all I could think about was playing guitar for 10 hours a day again. I called my booking agent and said, ‘I wanna go on tour.”

That’s what I’m talking about: Joy. Listening to these shows — you can hear them all on Nugs.net — I hear one long and cathartic exhale, a sigh of relief after an extended period of stress and depression that comes when one finally realizes that life’s simple pleasures are still there to be had. Like getting together with friends and absolutely whipping ass for three hours every night.

Special attention must be paid to Sturgill’s band, one of the finest units you’ll see on the road this year. Their excellent ensemble playing aside, there’s a narrative here as well about rediscovery and reconciliation with the muse. Two of the players, guitarist Laur Joamets and bassist Kevin Black, are back with Sturgill after departing in the mid-2010s. And then there’s stalwart drummer Miles Miller, who has been with the man since the beginning of his ascent more than a decade ago.

The newcomer, keyboardist Robbie Crowell, might very well be the MVP. Equally adept at the barroom boogie-woogie of “Life Of Sin” and the more interstellar tones gliding through “Right Kind Of Dream,” the man can also take out a saxophone in the middle of “All Said And Done” like he’s Garth Hudson bringing “It Makes No Difference” home in The Last Waltz.

Then, of course, there’s Sturgill. Not to belabor the point, but he is having a goddamn ball on stage these days. He’s smiling wide, he’s standing on amps, and he appears intent on destroying every audience standing before him. (The army jacket he donned on stage underlined the “joyful warrior” posture.) The show I saw ended with “Call To Arms,” which at nearly 14 minutes was also the longest number of the night. Every second of that was earned, with Sturgill imploring his band to play harder and louder and faster. Then the band drifted into a space-rock jam, with Joamets sending slide-guitar lines to the outer rings of Saturn. Right when nirvana was about to be achieved, Sturgill steered the song back into “harder and louder and faster” territory, guiding the band to an overpowering climax of sound. It was part Jerry Garcia in 1972, and part the E Street Band on the Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour. Like I said: Live album of my dreams.

That night, you could sense that Sturgill simply did not want to leave the stage. What had once been a public prison — and a facilitator of personal bad behavior — had been reclaimed as a forum of celebration. I didn’t want to leave, either. I wanted to follow these guys to the next show in Kentucky. Alas, I was able to do it virtually by listening to the live recording online. In Kentucky, they played even longer: 38 songs over three and a half hours. They did Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” which I wish I had seen in person. And they tinkered with perhaps the show-stopping sequence of the St. Paul show — the progression from an instrumental jam on ZZ Top’s “La Grange” to “A Good Look” to the titanic “L.A. Woman.” In Kentucky, they put “La Grange” in the middle, which was nice but didn’t have the same sense of crazy momentum.

Nevertheless, the joy was still there. And the joy is what counts. When it first appeared on Sound & Fury, “A Good Look” registered as a bleakly cynical pisstake on the music business and Sturgill’s belief (or conviction) that he would not be part of it for much longer. “Well then, how’re you gonna eat when you’re bitin’ the hand? / Well, you know they don’t like it when you take a stand / So enjoy it while you can / And say hi to all the boys in the band / ‘Cause it’s all over now / Just a flash in the pan.”

But on stage, “A Good Look” is now the sound of guys playing like nobody is watching. It’s just pals bashing away in a garage. Are The Doors cool? Who cares? When we play it, it rules. Sturgill called it the Why Not? tour for a reason: Why not choose life? Who not rock? Why not be great?

Yesterday (September 30), the Young Thug racketeering trial featured yet another explosive twist after the judge presiding over the proceedings lit into the prosecutors for presenting such a sloppy case. However, despite this, the defense’s request for a mistrial has been denied yet again, as the trial enters its 139th day.

Judge Paige Reese Whitaker appeared to be fed up with Chief Assistant District Attorney Adriane Love’s behavior for the past month, saying, “It is baffling to me that somebody with the number of years of experience that you have, time after time after time, continues to seemingly and purposefully hide the ball to the extent you possibly can, for as long as you possibly can.

“I really don’t want to believe that it is purposeful, but honestly, after a certain number of times, you start to wonder how can it be anything but that,” she continued. “Unless it is just that you are so unorganized that you are throwing this case together as you try it.”

Judge Whitaker was assigned to the trial after its previous judge, Ural Glanville, was removed in the wake of controversy surrounding his declaring Young Thug’s defense attorney, Brian Steel, in criminal contempt of court.

Bartees Strange unveiled a new single, “Lie 95,” this summer. At the time, a press release noted the song “heralds a new era,” and now we know more about that: Today (October 1), Bartees announced Horror, a new album.

He also unveiled the Americana-leaning new single “Sober,” but don’t necessarily expect that to reflect the aesthetic of the whole album: A press release calls the project Bartees’ “most ambitious, wide-ranging project to date.”

Bartees says of the song:

“This song is about falling short in a relationship, over and over and drinking because of it. I think this is something a lot of people can probably relate to. Being in love, but not being the best at showing it or feeling successful within it. And being afraid that this is something you’ll always deal with because you never really saw a better example of how love works.”

He also says of the album:

“In a way I think I made this record to reach out to people who may feel afraid of things in their lives too. For me it’s love, locations, cosmic bad luck, or that feeling of doom that I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember. I think that it’s easier to navigate the horrors and strangeness of life once you realize that everyone around you feels the same. This album is just me trying to connect. I’m trying to shrink the size of the world. I’m trying to feel close — so I’m less afraid.”

Watch the “Sober” video above and find the Horror cover art and tracklist below, along with Bartees Strange’s upcoming tour dates.

Bartees Strange’s Horror Album Cover Artwork

Bartees Strange’s Horror Tracklist

1. “Too Much”
2. “Hit It Quit It”
3. “Sober”
4. “Baltimore”
5. “Lie 95”
6. “Wants, Needs”
7. “Lovers”
8. “Doomsday Buttercup”
9. “17”
10. “Loop Defenders”
11. “Norf Gun”
12. “Backseat Banton”

Bartees Strange’s 2025 Tour Dates

02/13/2025 — Los Angeles, CA @ Paramount
02/15/2025 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
02/19/2025 — New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
02/26/2025 — London, UK @ Oslo Hackney

Horror is out 2/14/2025 via 4AD. Find more information here.

Spooky season has finally arrived, and the TV agenda is responding accordingly even though September’s crop of arrivals aren’t fully out of the picture yet, Halloween programming is switching to the front burner. Expect James Wan to scare the hell out of you and those FX vampires to make you laugh it off, but don’t worry, horror isn’t the only game this month. Comedies, dramas, and thrillers represent as well.

Here are the must-see shows (in order of premiere date) for October 2024:

Abbott Elementary: Season 4 (ABC series premiering 10/9)

Fans of Quinta Brunson’s barrier-smashing mockumentary/sitcom have one pressing question on their minds: what will happen after Janine and Gregory kissed? After Tyler Jesse Williams’ Emmy win, he fielded questions this way: “You’re definitely gonna get an answer as to what’s going on with them…. You’ll know in the first episode.” Now there’s no excuse but to tune in live or when the show streams next-day on Hulu.

Teacup: Season 1 (Peacock series streaming 10/10)

James Wan must not believe that he has enough on his plate because he added this Peacock horror series to his revolving door of tasks. This horror series stars Yvonne Stahovski and Scott Speedman and according to the synopsis, “follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive.” The story is based upon Robert McCammon’s Bram Stoker Award-nominated Stinger with a more minimalistic, stripped down take that Strahovski might have found more stressful than her entire Handmaid’s Tale run.

Outer Banks: Season 4 (Netflix series streaming 10/10)

This season takes the Pogues in time after that 18-month leap into the future that came with an eye toward Blackbeard’s treasure. As such, this season follows the El Dorado gold discovery and subsequent attempts for the group to be “normal” and run a tour-based business at their “new safe haven,” which they are calling “Poguelandia 2.0.” Good luck? This season will see them group facing off with dangerous new forces, including a character portrayed by Pollyanna McIntosh of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. It’s not quite a Jadis crossover, but it will probably be that unsettling.

NCIS: Origins: Season 1 (CBS series debuting 10/14)

Journey back to 1991, a full decade before NCIS first introduced us to the enigmatic Leroy Jethro Gibbs. This prequel series will trace his earlier investigative days and those personality solidifying moments surrounding the death of Gibbs’ (Austin Stowell) wife and daughter and his fraught relationship with dad Jackson. Will we meet a young Ducky, too? CBS hasn’t given that detail away, but we will get to know the younger Special Agent Michael Franks as portrayed by Kyle Schmid. This is no NCIS: Tony and Ziva, and that’s alright.

Shrinking: Season 2 (Apple TV+ series streaming 10/16)

Harrison Ford’s other streaming series is gearing up to return with more psychologically-oriented humor. By the power of Taylor Sheridan, Bill Lawrence, Jason Segel, and Brett Goldstein, the man who embodied Han Solo and Indiana Jones has now officially become a TV dude.

The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 3 (Netflix series streaming 10/17)

LA’s most sensational defense attorney will begin a third season based upon Connelly’s fifth The Lincoln Lawyer book, The Gods of Guilt. As executive producer Ross Fineman hinted following the second season finale, Mickey will go up against “the toughest case he’s ever had,” and “and there’s a nagging sense that he might have been responsible in some way.” Of equal (or potentially even greater) interest to viewers is how much of Neve Campbell’s character, Maggie ^^^ (Mickey’s ex wife), will be in this season. Sure, this might be due to flashback scenes, but some Neve is better than none.

What We Do in the Shadows: Season 6 (Hulu series streaming 10/21)

It’s the final season for these vampire roommates and their human familiar, Guillermo, who has been doing through some stuff changes. This season will also follow up on Guillermo choosing to hang more with Laszlo rather than Nandor, along with those strange changes. Surely, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi devotees will view the series finale in a bittersweet way, especially after the premature loss of Max’s Our Flag Means Death, but never fear, these two will always have more humorously absurd TV up their sleeves.

Like a Dragon: Yakuza: Season 1 (Amazon series streaming 10/24)

This action-crime series will soon be under high scrutiny by those who love the Yakuza series of Sega games. The show revolves around Kazuma Kiryu, “a fearsome and peerless Yakuza warrior with a strong sense of justice, duty, and humanity,” and will (to some degree) follow Yakuza, the first game from 2005, which follows the title character after a ten-year prison sentence.

Lioness: Season 2 (Paramount+ series streaming 10/27)

One of several Taylor Sheridan stories/sequel seasons is on the way back to screens in what happens to be one of many Curren Nicole Kidman streaming shows (and she ain’t done yet). Zoe Saldana, however, is most front and central in this series about a secret CIA program that is inspired by upon the real-life Marine Corps. all-women Lioness program, and Saldana’s Joe, who is tasked with infiltrating terror cells and helping to dismantle them at the source. This season, the CIA moves to “infiltrate a previously unknown threat,” according to Paramount, but Joe is now faced with regret for “the profound personal sacrifices she has made as the leader of the Lioness program.” Yikes.

The Diplomat: Season 2 (Netflix series streaming 10/31)

Netflix already answered a question on viewers minds by confirming that the infuriating Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) is still alive. That complicates matters even more for Kate (Keri Russell), and they will display a united front against the onscreen debut of Allison Janey as Vice President Grace Penn while Kate will wrestle with how to prove that Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) was behind the season finale catastrophe. What does this mean for the Dennison (David Gyasi) situation? Oh, the soap operatics of this drama are only getting started.

At a PartyNextDoor concert in Toronto this past August, Drake popped up as a surprise guest. Along with performing “Finesse,” Drake teased a collaborative album with PND, saying, “On behalf of me and Party, we’ve been working on something for y’all. So, you get the summer over with, do what you need to do. I know all you girls are outside, and when it gets a little chilly, PartyNextDoor and Drake album will be right there for you.”

We haven’t heard much more about the project since then, but now Drake has hinted that things are still on track.

A September 30 Instagram post from Rap Direct says, “Reminder that Drake & PARTYNEXTDOOR have an album coming this Fall. You hyped for it?” Drake liked the post, seemingly indicating the fall release window is still the target.

Aside from this, we haven’t heard much about the project since August. Later that month, though, PartyNextDoor did talk about it a little bit. In an interview, he was asked what his favorite Drake collaboration is and he said, “The one we doing right now. All 15 we doing right now.” So, it looks like the project will have 15 songs.

The album will be Drake’s third collaborative project, following his and Future’s 2015 mixtape What A Time To Be Alive and his and 21 Savage’s album Her Loss from 2022.

So far this year, Nicole Kidman has starred in a Netflix movie and two streaming TV shows, Prime Video’s Expats and Netflix’s The Perfect Couple. But she’ll soon return to where she belongs: the big screen.

A24’s erotic thriller Babygirl stars Kidman as high-powered CEO Romy, who puts her career and family on the line when she begins an affair with her much younger intern Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson (The Iron Claw). “I tell you what to do,” Samuel says about the rules for their extracurricular activities, “and you do it.” Babygirl looks really good, and really sexy.

You can watch the trailer above.

Kidman spoke to Vanity Fair about the film, which was written and directed by Halina Reijn. “At some point I was like, I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to do this anymore, but at the same time I was compelled to do it. [Reijn] would hold me and I would hold her, because it was just very confronting to me,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Golly, I’m doing this, and it’s actually now going to be seen by the world.’ That’s a very weird feeling. This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.” Kidman called it her most “exposing” movie to date.

Babygirl also stars Sophie Wilde and Antonio Banderas. It opens in theaters on December 25, as does Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown, and it’s only a few days after Mufasa: The Lion King. It’s going to be a weird Christmas!

It turns out Wack 100‘s claim was Kendrick Lamar and Drake was, in fact, wack. The music manager alleged in a livestream over the weekend that the Canadian rapper filed a cease-and-desist order in order to prevent Lamar from performing his chart-topping diss track “Not Like Us” at the Super Bowl. “He’s trying to get the NFL to restrict Kendrick,” Wack 100 added.

Did Drake Send Kendrick Lamar A Cease-And-Desist To Prevent Him From Performing “Not Like Us” At The Super Bowl?

According to Rolling Stone, that’s not the case. Drake’s rep told the publication that the rumor is “not true,” while another source added that “there was never any intention or plan to send a cease and desist to anyone.”

This isn’t the first time the words “cease” and “desist” have come up in their fund. In “euphoria,” Lamar claimed that Drake tried to take down Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” which features a verse from the halftime show performer. “Try cease and desist on the ‘Like That’ record? / Ho, what? You ain’t like that record? / ‘Back To Back,’ I like that record / I’ma get back to that, for the record,” he rapped. Drake fired back in “Family Matters,” saying, “A cease and desist is for hoes, can’t listen to lies that come out of your mouth / You called the Tupac estate and begged ’em to sue me and get that sh*t down.”

Super Bowl LIX will be played on February 9, 2025.

At the moment, Britney Spears is working on, in her words, “a fictional musical where I play an extremely intelligent character.” Hopefully her singed eyebrows didn’t get in the way of that.

As Billboard notes, in a now-deleted video shared on Instagram yesterday (September 30), Spears explained the situation (in a British accent), which happened about six months ago. She said:

“I was in my room and I turned the fire on and, all of a sudden, it blew up in my face. It’s done it before, and the times it’s done it before, I quit, so I always get my security to come in and light it for me, because I was scared it was going to blow up.

But this time, I just threw the whole thing in there, and it blew into into my face and took all my eyelashes off and my eyebrows, and see this baby hair? These baby bangs? This is from six months ago. It fizzled all my hair. The person I was with would not wake up, and I thought I’d have to go to the emergency room because my face was on fire.”

Ultimately, though, Spears says she ended up just taking some Tylenol pills and going to sleep. She concluded, “All is good now. It happens.”