From career milestones and new music releases to major announcements and more, Billboard editors highlight the latest news buzz in Latin music every week. Here’s what happened in the Latin music world this week.

Danny Felix’s signing

Danny Felix, the Phoenix-based singer-songwriter and producer known as one of the pioneers of the trap corridos movement, signed a deal with Global Talent Services (GTS), a subdivision of Universal Music Group, to further develop his musical career. “It is a blessing to have the support of a management company that looks out for my interests since it is an essential part of an artist’s success,” said Danny Félix in a statement. GTS manager Andres Gomez added: “Being part of the day-to-day life of a musical genius is an honor. Danny is the architect of a cultural movement with undeniable prospects.” The signing comes after the release of Felix’s debut album, Vuelve. Up next, the singer will premiere his single “El Mariachi Tumbado” next to renowned Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan.

Carla Morrison’s important PSA

Carla Morrison has teamed up with PETA for a new campaign, where she’s asking everyone, including her fans, to love and protect dogs, and all animals, as opposed to killing them for fur coats, collars and cuffs. In a video ad, the Mexican crooner is seen performing her hit single “Disfruto” to her two dogs Tino and Chawiwi. “We should all have empathy and just think, ‘OK, maybe I shouldn’t buy this or I shouldn’t wear this,’ because animals . . . feel pain the same way we do,” she says. Watch it below:

Karol G’s Tusa Airlines

This week, Colombian star Karol G dropped her third studio album, KG0516, home to bangers such as “Tusa,” “Bichota” and “Location.” In celebration, she partnered with Spotify to give fans the ultimate musical experience. In the virtual experience, dubbed “Tusa Airlines,” Karol goes globe-trotting around the world with her fans, “taking them from the Dominican Republic to Spain and everywhere in between through her music – offering a global escape for listeners,” notes the statement. In the journey, Karol shared the story behind six of her favorite songs on the album, including “El Barco” and her Camilo-assisted “Contigo Voy a Muerte.” Click here to watch.

Chiquis defends women in the industry

On an Instagram video posted earlier this week, Chiquis opened up about all the judgments women receive in the music industry. “As soon as a woman does something, where we are embracing our sexuality, where we are embracing our bodies, we’re criticized,” she said. The Mexican-American singer started the conversation after Cardi B received negative comments about her “WAP” performance at the Grammys. In the captions, she tagged artists such as Karol G, Natti Natasha, Becky G and Lizzo, sending her colleagues some words of encouragement. “I RESPECT, VALUE, and HONOR what you do on a daily! It isn’t easy being a woman in this industry, but we got this shit!”

Lele Pons returns to social media

Lele Pons has returned to social media after taking a break to focus on her mental health. In her comeback post, the influencer-turned-singer said she spent her days “working on myself” and “getting help for my well-being.” Now that she’s back on socials, she encourages her fans battling with a condition or disorder to be strong. “You are worth it. It is okay to feel down and not be okay, but it is also important to not give up on yourself and get back up on your feet. Take time to take care of yourself and come back stronger,” she posted. “Don’t ever feel ashamed to show your vulnerable side because we all go through hard times in our own ways. Accept yourself for who you are and fight to be the best version of yourself each day.”

Sharon Osbourne is out of the conversation, parting ways with The Talk in the wake of her heated on-air defense of pal Piers Morgan — one that saw her demand co-star Sheryl Underwood “educate” her about racism on live air.

The news came two weeks after the March 10 dustup, one that was followed by multiple allegations of racist comments from Osbourne being levied by former co-stars Leah Remini and Holly Robinson Peete. CBS confirmed the expected departure late Friday afternoon.

“Sharon Osbourne has decided to leave The Talk,” read a statement. “The events of the March 10 broadcast were upsetting to everyone involved, including the audience watching at home. As part of our review, we concluded that Sharon’s behavior toward her co-hosts during the March 10 episode did not align with our values for a respectful workplace. We also did not find any evidence that CBS executives orchestrated the discussion or blindsided any of the hosts. At the same time, we acknowledge the network and studio teams, as well as the showrunners, are accountable for what happened during that broadcast as it was clear the co-hosts were not properly prepared by the staff for a complex and sensitive discussion involving race. During this week’s hiatus, we are coordinating workshops, listening sessions and training about equity, inclusion and cultural awareness for the hosts, producers and crew. Going forward, we are identifying plans to enhance the producing staff and producing procedures to better serve the hosts, the production and, ultimately, our viewers.”

Like so much of the news cycle these days, the origin of Osbourne’s on-air demise is Meghan Markle’s barn-burning interview with Oprah Winfrey — in which the Duchess of Sussex alleged racist behavior within the British Royal Family. Media firebrand and perennial martyr Piers Morgan called Markle a liar on Good Morning Britain, stormed off the set and ultimately quit the ITV program as many regarded his comments as racist.

When Osbourne came to his defense on The Talk, the discourse quickly devolved. At one point, and most damningly, she demanded that Underwood, a Black woman, explain to her why Morgan was being called a racist. “Educate me, tell me when you have heard him say racist things,” Osbourne said. “I very much feel like I’m about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend, who many people think is a racist, so that makes me a racist?”

Osbourne apologized on Twitter, but the show suspended production starting March 15 as it announced an internal investigation. Things got worse for Osbourne from there. After Robinson Peete accused Osbourne of having a hand in her own dismissal from The Talk, alleging Osbourne had referred to her as “too ghetto,” Remini entered the conversation. The actress and activist, during an interview with journalist Yashar Ali, claimed that Osbourne had made racist comments about former colleague (and Chinese-American woman) Julie Chen, homophobic remarks about The Talk creator and then-moderator Sara Gilbert and anti-Italian slurs toward Remini herself.

Initially contrite on Twitter, Osbourne then went on the offense during the show’s hiatus. She gave interviews to both Variety and Entertainment Tonight, claiming that she had been “set up” by the producers and was offered up as a “sacrificial lamb.” Her publicist also issued a doozy of a statement, alluding to Remini and Robinson Peete’s comments by noting, “The only thing worse than a disgruntled former employee is a disgruntled former talk show host.” It’s not typically the strategy of someone expecting to keep their job, so the writing seemed to be on the wall.

Still, CBS took its time with the investigation into the matter — first announcing a two-show hiatus and then extending it to a full two weeks as the additional claims came in.

The Talk holds a unique space in CBS’ daytime block as the only in-house talk format in a lineup otherwise dominated by game shows, soap operas and syndicated content. (One piece of that syndicated content in most markets, however, is CBS Media Ventures’ The Drew Barrymore Show — already renewed for a second season after a promising launch.) Positioned as a rival to The View, The Talk has enjoyed its fair share of ratings success and the rotation that so often comes with panel formats. Original cast members Remini, Robinson Peete and Marissa Jaret Winokur were all dumped after the first season with fellow originals Chen and Gilbert dropping out in recent years. Osbourne was the last remaining founding panelist.

Osbourne holds a unique place in 21st-television history. The British national rose to Stateside prominence in 2002 with the wildly successful launch of MTV’s The Osbournes, a docuseries that paved the way for a generation of reality talent. She followed that with a brief talk show of her own and a run as a judge on America’s Got Talent before settling into The Talk as her full-time gig. Her dance card is currently empty.

As for The Talk, Underwood is still joined by remaining panelists Carrie Ann Inaba, Amanda Kloots and Elaine Welteroth. It’s not immediately clear if or when CBS might bring on a fifth member. The show will return with original episodes on Monday, April 12, following the pre-scheduled hiatus the week of April 5.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

Demi Lovato is embracing freedom in a new interview, telling Entertainment Weekly about how taking off her engagement ring instantly felt right.

Lovato called off her two-month engagement to ex-fiancé Max Ehrich in September (they were dating for six months prior). The “Dancing With the Devil” singer showed off her massive diamond ring in July during a beachside proposal, but in her latest interview, she showed that her bare fingers were proof she can take matters into her own hands.

“Also, the size of that ring, it made it really real. The second it was off, I was like, ‘You know what? I’m good. I don’t need that.’ I just don’t need an object on my finger to make me feel like I’ve got my sh– together,” she said. “It looks like stability, but it doesn’t mean that it is. And I don’t actually grow through stability. I find that I like living not in chaos or crisis, but in fluidity. It’s not [being] stuck and stagnant in an ideal or a tradition that was placed upon us by the patriarchy.”

While Lovato was hosting the 2020 E! People’s Choice Awards in November, Lovato joked, “So I did what everyone else did: I went into lockdown mode and got engaged.” The joke didn’t go over well with Ehrich, who accused her of “exploiting our breakup for clout” in the comments section of one of her Instagram posts debuting her blond haircut. In one of the songs from her upcoming album Dancing With the Devil… The Art of Starting Over titled “15 Minutes,” Lovato flips the script on Ehrich. “Good riddance — you got your 15 minutes,” she sings on what EW describes as a “savagely upbeat banger.”

“I really had myself fooled, because it was the safe and expected thing,” Lovato told the publication. “Obviously I cared deeply about the person, but there was something inside of me that was like, ‘I have to prove to the world that I’m okay.’ Now that I’m not engaged or married and I’m okay, I’m like, ‘Wow. Isn’t that so much more empowering?’ It’s not this false sense of security.”

Justin Tranter, one of the songwriters involved on Dancing, broke down “15 Minutes” for EW and said the song was written during a weeklong COVID-safe songwriting camp in Malibu, where Lovato would rotate through rooms in the rented mansion of different teams of producers and writers. When Demi heard a scratch vocal of the song, she “just started sobbing. It was really emotional, and really something that Demi needed to do and say.”

Earlier this month, USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released the results of a study that concluded there have been no significant improvements for women in the music industry over the last nine years. Results of that survey showed that “women were 21.6% of all artists on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts across the past nine years and represented only 20.2% of artists on the chart in 2020.”

Now, a new study is piggybacking on those results to ask a simple question: Why?

Released Thursday (March 25), Be The Change: Women Making Music In 2021 is a study by media and technology analysis company MIDiA, in conjunction with Tunecore and its parent company, the digital music company Believe. After examining underrepresentation in the music industry by surveying 401 female music creators around the globe, the study offers several key conclusions.

The first is that “gendered expectations have skewed recognition and reward in the music industry,” with 81% of women surveyed reporting that they think it’s harder for female artists to get recognition than male artists. Additionally, almost two-thirds of female creators identified sexual harassment or objectification as a major issue. The study labeled it “by far the most widely-cited problem.”

The study notes that this sexualization and objectification “are a consequence (or symptom) of unbalanced power dynamics” as they relate to as ageism (reported by 38% of the women polled), lack of access to male-dominated industry resources (36%) and lower pay (27%). Challenges related to tokenism, the fabrication of competition between female artists and treatment of the problem with lip service only are also cited as key issues facing women in music.

The study concludes that these challenges are “symptomatic of deeper issues of systemic male dominance permeating industry attitudes and behaviors,” with over 90% of respondents reporting that they had experienced unconscious bias during their careers. 84% of women polled reported that they believe that women are still expected to take on the primary role of parenting duties and that the music industry prioritizes young female artists, which is “partly a symptom of the industry’s youth obsession, but also so that women become successful before they are presumed to decide to take on the role of motherhood.”

In terms of solutions, respondents noted that they most desire changes to come from “within organizations and from leaders across the music industry through diversity, policies and culture,” with 42% stating this as one of the best ways to encourage more women into the industry. Thirty eight percent of female music makers want to see these changes come as a result of legislation, while 35% say an effective way to create change is via mentorship programs where women work with other women.

“We have a long way to go still before there is no more need for reports such as these,” writes Imogen Heap in an introduction to the study. “There are many incredibly talented people across the industry who come from diverse backgrounds and still remain the minority.”