Cam’ron just upped the ante in his ongoing feud with actor Omar Gooding.

The rapper-turned-host recently took to Instagram to reveal that he pranked Gooding by hiring him as an actor for a fake movie.

“I booked the n—a to do a movie that’s never coming out like three weeks ago,” Cam told his followers. “Yeah, Omar. That movie that you flew down to Miami for? It ain’t no movie coming out. I booked you. And I was laughing at you behind the scenes. I was there. I was sitting there laughing at you. And you know what? Now you’re coming on Revolt tonight because you signed the paperwork. I could do whatever with the footage.”

He then finished the video by saying he wanted to hire Gooding for a baby shower and claimed that he’s going to start booking his enemies. “Now do another record; I’ma book you for my goddaughter’s baby shower,” he said. “Her sh– is in October and we’ll book you to do all the diss records. I’ll pay you for that too because what I’ma start doing is paying n—as just to laugh at them. It cost me $3,500 to do everything to book you — the hotel, your flight, all that sh–. It costs me $12,000 to $13,000 to go to the NBA game. I’d just rather laugh at you for $3,500.”

He added: “Be careful. This is my new sh–. It’s called, ‘Book My Opps.’”

Gooding then responded with his own video on Instagram saying that he wanted to apologize for what he was about to do to Cam in yet another diss record, saying, “It’s gon’ be diabolical,” before also thanking the Harlem rapper for the free trip to Miami and asked him to book him again.

“Keep booking, I’ma keep spendin’ it,” he said before ending the clip.

The back and forth between Gooding and Killa dates back to a December 2024 episode of Talk With Flee when Cam’ron mistakenly confused Omar Gooding with his older brother Cuba Gooding Jr. by adding the Jr. suffix after the younger Gooding’s name during a conversation with 50 Cent about certain Black actors not having consistent work unless someone like 50 hires them.

“No disrespect to nobody I’m talking about,” Cam said to the Queens filmmaker. “Like Ving Rhames, you sitting around, or Omar Gooding Jr., y’all n—as sitting around — I would have saved my money and shot my own sh– by now — but the Black actor has to sit around for a 50 Cent or somebody in your lane to come pick them up to put them in something.”

Omar Gooding has released three diss records (and counting) aimed at Cam’ron.

The Only Murders in the Building crew are keeping their friends close, and their murder suspects closer. In a Tuesday (Aug. 12) trailer for the show’s highly anticipated fifth season, Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin’s characters find themselves in the middle of a modern-day Godfather situation, with the trio having to get cozy with members of the New York City mafia to solve their latest mysteries.

The two-and-a-half-minute teaser opens with the death of doorman Lester, who is found in an outdoor fountain pooling with his blood. After the cops rule the shocking situation an “accident,” the Arconia mystery solvers must “go face to face with the mob” — as Martin’s character puts it — to find clarity.

“This isn’t the mob, this is the new mob of New York” says a distressed Short after meeting a group of gangster brothers in the trailer.

Elsewhere in the video, the gang crashes Lester’s funeral to get answers — and at one point, Martin unceremoniously checks the doorman’s casket to see if the body still has all 10 fingers. As mourners start yelling at him for defiling the corpse, the Rare Beauty founder says hilariously, “We’re all going to Hell.”

The new trailer comes about two months after Gomez revealed that she and her fellow cast and crew had wrapped filming for the fifth season of Only Murders. Sharing an emotional video of her last day on set, the star wrote on Instagram, “To my only murders family, the past 5 years you all have seen my best and my worst.”

“I hope [you’re] reading this because I deeply appreciate each and every one of you,” she added at the time. “Words can’t describe how much I love what we’ve all created and we wouldn’t be here without you all!”

In addition to the core trio behind Only Murders, Meryl Streep will also return for the fifth season, which will premiere on Hulu on Sept. 9. The new installment also stars Renée Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Christoph Waltz, Keegan-Michael Key, Beanie Feldstein and more fresh faces.

Watch the trailer for season 5 of Only Murders in the Building above.

Metro Boomin’s civil rape lawsuit is slated to go to trial in September after “unsuccessful” settlement negotiations between the superstar producer and a woman who alleges he assaulted and impregnated her in 2016.

Vanessa LeMaistre’s 2024 lawsuit claims she blacked out after ingesting Xanax and alcohol in Metro Boomin’s studio during a recording session and later woke up to the producer (Leland Wayne) raping her. The producer denies sexually assaulting LeMaistre, and his lawyers have called the case a “pure shakedown.”

The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in Los Angeles federal court starting Sept. 23. According to a court filing from Monday (Aug. 11), attorneys for Metro and LeMaistre attempted to avert a trial by holding a mediation session with a retired judge in July but were unable to agree on a deal.

“After the mediation, the parties have continued limited settlement discussions, which have proven unsuccessful,” says the joint status report. “The parties are currently preparing the matter for trial.”

L.A. jurors will now be tasked with deciding whether Metro raped LeMaistre, who claims she met the producer in Las Vegas in the spring of 2016. LeMaistre says she confided in Metro about the recent death of her 9-month-old son, and that they “bonded over the ability of music to help people in their darkest moments.”

But LeMaistre’s belief about her bond with Metro allegedly “shattered” the following September, when the producer invited her to watch him work in his California recording studio. LeMaistre says she had a shot of alcohol and half a bar of Xanax, then blacked out, waking up on a bed in a different location “completely unable to move or make a sound” while Metro raped her.

LeMaistre alleges she became pregnant as a result of the assault and had an abortion in November 2016. Notably, the lawsuit claims the attack is referenced in Metro’s 2017 song “Rap Saved Me” with Offset, 21 Savage and Quavo.

The lyrics in question, rapped by 21 Savage and Offset in the chorus, are: “She took a Xanny, then she fainted/ I’m from the gutter, ain’t no changing/ From the gutter, rap saved me/ She drive me crazy, have my baby.”

The lyrical reference in LeMaistre’s lawsuit is surprising, since Metro is a music producer and songwriter but does not typically write lyrics or rap himself. Metro has denied writing the “Rap Saved Me” lyrics, as well as the rest of LeMaistre’s allegations.

Metro’s attorneys say in court filings that the producer and LeMaistre had fully consensual sex in 2016, and that the plaintiff concocted an “elaborate and grandiose plan” to fabricate assault allegations and demand millions of dollars from Metro while under the influence of ayahuasca eight years later.

Reached for comment on Tuesday (Aug. 12), Metro’s lawyer Lawrence Hinkle referred Billboard to his statement last year, in which he called the lawsuit “a pure shakedown.”

“These are false accusations,” said Hinkle when the lawsuit was filed in October. “Mr. Wayne refused to pay her months ago, and he refuses to pay her now. Mr. Wayne will defend himself in court. He will file a claim for malicious prosecution once he prevails.”

LeMaistre’s attorney, Michael Willemin, said in his own Tuesday statement that Metro “has failed to comply with basic discovery obligations” since the case began.

“Meanwhile, we and Ms. LeMaistre have pushed the case forward aggressively, and, because of that, we are headed towards trial on September 23, 2025,” says Willemin. “We look forward to holding Mr. Wayne accountable in front of a jury of his peers.”

Tom Sandoval famously pondered on The Traitors season 3 “I think I’m the only person that is musically inclined in this whole castle” during the creepy doll challenge. While that’s certainly not true of his competition as he and his cover band aim for the win on America’s Got Talent, Tom Sandoval and The Most Extras certainly had enough musical inclination to get them past the audition phase and into the quarterfinals.

“I am so excited!” the reality star and singer tells Billboard of advancing to the next stage of NBC’s talent competition show, before sharing he previously had some hesitations about competing. “I was very, very nervous. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do it. I thought, you know, I might be facing a lot of backlash online, and I just decided this is such a great opportunity for me … and for the band to be out there.”

That backlash, of course, is from his May 2023 headline-making “Scandoval” — his affair with fellow Vanderpump Rules cast member Raquel “Rachel” Leviss, who also happened to be a close friend of Sandoval’s girlfriend of nearly 10 years Ariana Madix — which had him go from a fan favorite to Public Enemy No. 1 (or, as The New York Times called him, “The Most Hated Man in America“). Since then, the reality personality has been on a redemption tour of sorts to rehab his image, which included participating in season 2 of Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Tes, and the aforementioned Emmy-winning Peacock show The Traitors.

But he’s putting the past behind him and moving forward with his musical aspirations, which he also showcased at times on VPR, from the filming of his Charles McMansion video for original song “T.I.P” to playing the wooden penis flute and recording his trumpet playing for pals Lala Kent and James Kennedy’s song.

“I’m glad I did it,” he says of auditioning for AGT and getting a standing ovation from the judges for the band’s cover of A-ha’s 1985 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Take on Me.” As for the band’s upcoming live performance, which viewers will be voting on? “Being able to perform again, when we come back, this is going to be [a] bigger performance, better and just overall, more — a lot,” he teases of the upcoming set, which will be a cover of The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” which topped the Hot 100 for four weeks. “It’s going to be more extra than the first one!”

“We’re going to step it up as far as, like, just the overall production of our performance,” he explains. “Just really give it our all. We’re gonna be going a little bit different direction, music-wise. So I’m really excited for people to see the variety and the versatility that our band has.”

“You’ll have never seen us perform this song the way it’s going to be performed,” he adds. “It will definitely be our own. Trust me!”

Sandoval does have a goal in mind for the live performance beyond just moving forward in the competition. “I wanted to really showcase the fact that we’re a band that pretty much plays everything and anything,” he says of his group, which often covers classic pop hits. “So I wanted to have a nice little juxtaposition to what we did before, so in the sense of like, genre and era and things like that.”

One thing the reality star did say he’s working on making better this time is his vocals, which judge Simon Cowell critiqued as “weren’t great” after the cover band’s AGT audition. “I’ve been vocally training every day and just doing the best I can to keep improving myself,” shares Sandoval, who also says he “did not take offense” at all to the famously acerbic judge’s comments about his singing. “[I’m] always trying to get better.”

But for now, the performer says he’s just taking AGT one step at a time. “As of right now, to me, [the] ultimate reward is just getting out there and being able to play again,” he says. “And if we’re able to come back and play again and we go further, I will be that much more happier just going back out there and performing.”

As for what’s next for Tom Sandoval and The Most Extras? “We have a tour coming up. We’re going to be hitting about 20 or so different cities,” the former VPR star says. “We’re gonna work on recording some songs as well. Might do some originals too, but we’re definitely going to be recording and putting some music out.”

America’s Got Talent airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on NBC, and streams the next day on Peacock. The quarterfinals kick off on Aug. 19, with the first voting results revealed Aug. 20.

iHeartMedia exceeded its revenue guidance in the second quarter, with revenue rising 0.5% to $934 million, the company announced Monday (Aug. 11). 

Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a common profit metric that strips out the impacts of financing and accounting, rose 3.9% to $156 million, a result that was at the high end of guidance. 

Investors reacted positively to the results, pushing iHeartMedia shares up 24.5% to $2.03 on Tuesday (Aug. 12). 

“Our second quarter performance was solid and slightly ahead of our initial expectations as we continue to execute initiatives while navigating a still uncertain macro environment,” CEO Bob Pittman said during the company’s Tuesday (Aug. 12) earnings call. 

At the multi-platform group, which includes iHeartMedia’s core radio broadcasting operations, revenue fell 5% to $545 million, while adjusted EBITDA dropped 8% to $96 million. The digital audio group, which includes iHeartMedia’s fast-growing podcast business, fared better than broadcast, however. Revenue there grew 13% to $324 million, while adjusted EBITDA climbed 17% to $108 million. Podcast revenue alone reached $134 million, up 28%, while non-podcast digital revenue improved 5% to $190 million. 

For the third quarter, iHeartMedia expects a low single-digit revenue decline and adjusted EBITDA of $180 million to $220 million, which represents a year-over-year decline of approximately 5% at the midpoint. That $40 million range of adjusted EBITDA guidance shows “there is still uncertainty in the marketplace,” said Pittman.