After strong winds forced the cancellation of his Coachella 2026 weekend one performance last Friday (April 17) Anyma returned for weekend two on a much stiller night that allowed for the world debut of his new show, ÆDEN.

Starting a bit late at approximately 12:15 a.m. on Friday night/Saturday morning, the producer walked onstage dressed in all white, with the massive screen running the entire length of the festival’s mainstage switching on behind him. While this screen would host a varied cast of characters during the performance, it was first populated by dozens of digitally rendered columns that crumbled to the ground before rising again.

Also rising was Anyma himself, with the platform on which he stood elevating and lowering at various points of the show, a cool effect that in moments made the producer appear to be floating, to positioned in the center of a swirl of fire and at the nexus of many other onscreen special effects.

The show soon introduced a character resembling Michelangelo’s David, who busted down the columns while robot-like elements showed from under his stone artifice. The performance would go on to incorporate other such characters from the worlds of ancient art and mythology, including a Medusa-like creature, the snakes emanating from her head hissing in time with the beat, a pair of spinning characters whose muscular bodies appeared to be rendered from tree roots, a female demon and eventually, an angel — but more on that later.

The interplay of the ancient and modern art is a core concept of the Anyma universe, and one that those who saw his End of Genesys residency at Sphere Las Vegas in late 2024 and early 2025 will well recognize. Along with all the new imagery, ÆDEN reintroduced visuals familiar to those who saw the Sphere show, with the bugging eyeballs from the “Voices In My Head” segment from Sphere (and the song’s corresponding video) showing up during this same song at Coachella, but with the eyes now rendered in black and eventually appearing to drip black blood.

As it was at Sphere, Ellie Goulding also made an appearance, with the vocalist’s image cast on the screen during her 2025 Anyma collab “Hypnotized.” But while at Sphere her face essentially shape-shifted, at Coachella she was made to look like a marble statue, in keeping with the show’s ancient art themes.

Typically at Coachella, the special guests show up for weekend one and then pack up and go home, but — perhaps because they didn’t get the chance to perform last weekend due to the cancellation — Anyma brought out a hos of guests including Muse‘s Matt Bellamy and Swae Lee. The biggest guest was also the one most people would have guessed was coming, LISA. Anyma and the K-Pop superstar released their collaborative single “Bad Angel” on April 8, and this show at Coachella saw them performing it publicly together for the first time.

LISA came onstage in a shimmery, diaphanous dress while imagery of her as the titular angel appeared on the screen behind her. As she walked down the stage’s runway, she declared that she’s “pretty pretty bad” for an angel, with those watching the performance via the livestream on YouTube at this point seeing a towering LISA hologram in the sky above her. For those of us in the crowd no such hologram materialized, but to be in such close proximity to the singer appeared to be thrilling enough for the people in the crowd whose hands were genuinely shaking as she walked by.

The final moments of the show featured an appearance by Joji, who came out to sing “Beautiful,” his Anyma collaboration released earlier this month. As Joji sang to the crowd out on the catwalk, a version of him rendered in stone appeared on the screen, once again juxtaposing new and old, human and digital, with “Beautiful” serving as the show’s closer.

All in, ÆDEN functioned as an expansion of the significant world-building Anyma has already accomplished, bringing in concepts of ancient art and culture and colliding them with the cutting-edge technology required to create a show of this size and scope. Presenting this show on the Coachella mainstage is certainly a win for Anyma, with having Anyma on the mainstage of one of the world’s biggest music festivals also marking a win for dance music itself.

Sabrina Carpenter‘s Coachella weekend two headlining set on Friday night became one of the festival’s most memorable moments in recent history, when Madonna crashed the stage for a show-stopping surprise appearance.

The Queen of Pop emerged during Carpenter’s performance of “Juno” — at the song’s iconic pose moment — as the track cut into Madonna’s “Vogue” medley, with the two pop stars performing the 1990 classic together to a frenzy from the crowd.

The pair then appeared to perform an unreleased track together, widely believed to be from Confessions II, Madonna’s long-awaited sequel to her 2005 dance landmark Confessions on a Dance Floor, due July 3 via Warner Records.

Before closing out with “Like a Prayer,” Madonna addressed the crowd directly, tying the moment to a personal Coachella milestone.

“20 years ago today I performed at Coachella — I was at the dance tent,” she said from the stage. “It was the first time I performed Confessions from the dancefloor. Same boots, same corsets… it’s like a full circle moment.”

She then noted the astrological significance of the evening: “I also want to point out it’s the new moon of Taurus. Seven planets lined up in Aries… avoid confrontations. In all circumstances — for the rest of the month — let’s try to get along, let’s try to be together, let’s try to avoid disagreements.” Carpenter, for her part, leaned into the moment: “She’s pointing to me because I’m a Taurus.”

Madonna’s 2006 Coachella performance served as a warm-up for the launch of her Confessions Tour, which went on to gross over $194 million from 60 shows and became the highest-grossing tour by a female artist at that time.

Her return to the same stage two decades later, performing the same era’s music ahead of its sequel, gave Friday night’s appearance a rare sense of full-circle weight that the crowd felt viscerally.

Confessions II — due July 3 on Warner Records — is produced by Stuart Price, who helmed the original Confessions on a Dance Floor, and will be released as a non-stop mix echoing the format of the 2005 album. It marks Madonna’s first full-length album in seven years and her first for Warner Records since Hard Candy in 2008.

Previously announced tracks include “I Feel So Free,” “Fragile,” “Forgive Yourself,” and “One Step Away.”

The appearance made for a considerably more musically star-studded set than Carpenter’s weekend one showing, where guest appearances were limited to actors Susan Sarandon, Will Ferrell and Sam Elliott.

The weekend, Actress Geena Davis also joined for a spoken word monologue — mirroring Sarandon’s cameo from the prior weekend — while Terry Crews appeared mid-set to poke fun at his iconic role in White Chicks and lightly sing “A Thousand Miles.”

Carpenter’s Coachella headline run concludes her blockbuster run behind her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and produced the top five Hot 100 hit “Espresso.” Madonna, meanwhile, heads toward the July release of Confessions II — one of the most anticipated pop albums of the year.

For as long as It Ends With Us co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have been battling in court, Taylor Swift’s name has been linked to the case. Baldoni’s camp said Lively used her close friend Swift as a “dragon” to wrest control of the movie. Lively accused Baldoni of maliciously planting media stories about her relationship with the pop superstar.

The crux of the dispute is Lively’s allegation that Baldoni and his associates orchestrated a PR smear campaign in retaliation for her complaints that Baldoni, both the co-star and director of the August 2024 film, sexually harassed her on set. Baldoni initially countersued Lively for defamation, among other things, but all his claims were dismissed. Now fully in defense mode, Baldoni still maintains that there was zero harassment and that his media strategy was merely a response to Lively’s bad-faith efforts to seize creative control of the film and ruin his reputation.

The lawsuit is finally headed to trial next month for a New York jury to decide which version of events is true. This means that after more than a year of Swift’s name popping up in court filings and getting spun into endless tabloid fodder, we’re finally getting a sense of how big a role the singer will actually play in the trial.

Swift is not a witness, and she was never deposed (despite the Baldoni team’s efforts). Her name is, however, included on a long list of individuals who might come up during the testimony, along with dozens of others, including Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds, It Ends With Us supporting actress Jenny Slate and music mogul Scooter Braun, who has close ties to Baldoni’s lead publicist, Melissa Nathan.

The most concrete way Swift could be part of the evidence is via her text messages with Lively, which Baldoni’s team obtained from Lively after initially trying to subpoena the singer herself. Lively’s lawyers have indicated that they plan to object to this evidence as irrelevant, but the Baldoni camp will likely argue that the messages show that Lively tried to leverage her friendship with Swift against him.

These communications, included in the Baldoni exhibit list and posted to the court docket earlier this year, include Swift agreeing to talk up Lively’s version of a script rewrite to Baldoni (“I’ll do anything for you !!”) and celebrating the use of her hit Folklore track “My Tears Ricochet” in the movie’s trailer.

“If Justin was strategic he would be like no Taylor Swift in the trailer because that gives you more power over the film, that’s your ally not his,” Swift wrote to Lively in April 2024. Lively responded, “Get yourself a best friend who thinks like the actual Roman Empire.” Swift replied, “His misogyny runs so deep he thinks women are incapable of winning chess matches or making long game power plays.”

Other messages show Swift supporting Lively’s legal action against Baldoni. Before the case was filed, she wrote, “I think this b—- knows something is coming because he’s gotten out his tiny violin,” and, “He needs to be beaten by his OWN words…it’s the only way to beat liars and hypocrites.”

Lively’s camp has consistently maintained that Swift had no meaningful involvement in It Ends With Us and is only now being invoked by Baldoni for clout. Swift’s reps said the same when she was subpoenaed last year, writing in a statement that the maneuver was “designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.”

Lawyers for Lively say this is not a new strategy for Baldoni’s team. A key piece of evidence for them is a summer 2024 strategy document authored by Baldoni’s publicists, which recommends “planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people in BL’s circle, like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to ‘bully’ into getting what they want.”

Along these lines, Lively’s lawyers plan to bring up Swift’s name at trial in order to show that Baldoni’s team was really the one to leverage the singer’s superstardom for its own ends. In addition to the scenario planning document, their exhibit list includes a 2024 story in the Daily Mail titled, “How Blake Lively COPIED best friend Taylor Swift to promote It Ends With Us before turning to singer to help crisis manage backlash and Justin Baldoni drama,” as well as documents that trace the origin of this article.

According to Lively’s team, Baldoni’s publicists urged a Daily Mail reporter to run this story instead of a different article about human resources complaints during the filming of It Ends With Us. In one piece of evidence, the reporter was encouraged to write about how Lively was “emulating her best friend Taylor with the charm bracelets and s—.”

Finally, Swift and her music might come up in the trial as it pertains to the process of incorporating the “My Tears Ricochet” synch for the trailer of It Ends With Us. The messages on Baldoni’s witness list reference this; when discussing the synch with Lively in 2024, Swift wrote, “I fire off those texts to Austin” — presumably a reference to her brother, Austin Swift, who manages the singer’s licensing operations.

If Baldoni’s team argues in court that the “My Tears Ricochet” synch was part of Blake’s plot to weaponize her friendship with Swift, Lively’s lawyers might respond with evidence showing that the idea to use the song came from the movie’s producers and studio, not her. Lively has also obtained evidence showing that the trailer was viewed as a major success by everyone, drawing record viewership and raising the film’s profile.

Ice Spice was enjoying a late-night McDonald’s snack early Wednesday but ended up getting into another kind of beef.

The Bronx native was involved in a physical confrontation with another woman at the Hollywood fast-food restaurant, and footage of the viral altercation was posted by TMZ on Friday (April 17).

Unaccompanied by security, footage shows Ice Spice and a friend chatting in a McDonald’s booth over a meal when they were approached by another patron. The “Deli” rapper rejected the female fan’s advances for a conversation, which escalated the situation.

“Where you from?” the fan repeatedly asked. To which Ice hilariously responded: “I’m from McDonald’s.”

The woman became angry and slapped Ice Spice and a melee ensued, as Ice jumped across tables while shouting at the perpetrator. A separate group of individuals got involved, but the situation didn’t defuse and continued outside.

Ice and another male individual got into a separate heated argument. “Let me fight the bi—,” Ice insisted. “Let me fight her. On your momma, let me fight her. Let me fight the bi—. Why would you want to fight me? Are you a bi—? You’re 120 pounds, let’s get at it then! Y’all think because a bi— famous… F— you mean, what happened? Where she at?”

Footage shows the altercation getting physical once again with the male and female perpetrators against Ice Spice, who ended up on the ground. “He pushed her,” Ice’s friend claimed.

Ice Spice’s attorney, Bradford Cohen, relayed in a statement to Billboard on Friday that they will be exploring all avenues to “hold the perpetrators responsible for their actions.”

“The unprovoked attack on my client has been reported to the LAPD and we will be pursuing any and all criminal and civil avenues to hold the perpetrators responsible for their actions,” Cohen said. “We are also exploring holding the location responsible for their apparent lack of appropriate security.”

The powerhouse attorney continued: “Not to mention that the individuals involved obviously did not realize that we would get the video from inside the McDonald’s where the unprovoked attack occurred. They then turned their cameras on after the initial attack as if to set our client up, and as they say on the video to ‘go viral.’ The only thing that will be going viral for them is their mugshots.”

The female perpetrator, who identified herself as Vayah, spoke to TMZ following the altercation to give her side of the story. “Ice Spice was just being rude. She was like, ‘Why are you over here? You could leave,’” she said. “Then she calls me a bi—. So after she calls me a bi—, I hit her.”

Vayah claimed that Ice Spice picked up her friend’s phone and threw it, which resulted in a cracked screen. “She lost a fan, I can’t listen the same to her anymore,” she said.

On the music side, Ice hasn’t released any new singles in 2026. Back in December, she teamed up with TOKISCHA for “Thootie.”

Watch footage of the altercation below.