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After Evan Rachel Wood accused her ex-fiance Marilyn Manson of sexual abuse on Monday (Feb. 1), the musician took to Instagram to deny her claims.
“Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how – and why – others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
In addition to her own claims, Wood also shared the allegations of at least four other women on her Instagram Stories who said they had similar experiences with Manson (real name: Brian Warner).
Wood’s Monday post came after she had previously said she had been raped twice, including by a significant other that she wouldn’t name. “The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood wrote on Instagram. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”
The Westworld actress met Manson when she was 18 and he was 36. They were engaged in 2010 before breaking up. In 2018, Wood testified in front of a House subcommittee in an effort to get the Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights passed in all 50 states.
After Wood’s allegations were posted on Monday, Manson’s label announced it was cutting ties with the shock rocker.
“In light of today’s disturbing allegations by Evan Rachel Wood and other women naming Marilyn Manson as their abuser, Loma Vista will cease to further promote his current album, effective immediately,” the label said in a statement. “Due to these concerning developments, we have also decided not to work with Marilyn Manson on any future projects.”
Kobalt Music Group is back to being a pure music publishing operation with the pending sale of its AWAL distribution and music company and neighboring rights division to Sony Corp. announced Monday (Feb. 1). Moreover, the company says it is no longer on the block.
The lucrative deal, which still needs regulatory approval, is expected to bring in about a $430 million return for the company’s investors, presumably taking the pressure off the sale process.
Kobalt and its backers had been trying to sell the entire company, with the hopes of achieving a $750 million to $1 billion payday, sources tell Billboard. Kobalt spent about $75 million in acquiring AWAL (in 2011) and Fintage House’s neighboring rights division (in 2016), Billboard estimates, but also spent a considerable amount in building those operations. Still, the price tag of the just announced deal looks like it will help investors at least recoup their investments in the company.
Kobalt issued a statement Monday following news of the sale, saying it will strengthen its commitment to its publishing business and AMRA. “We are both excited for the big opportunities ahead across music publishing, AMRA and Kobalt Capital,” Kobalt founder and chairman Willard Ahdritz said in a statement. “Our team and capabilities will only grow stronger and play a continued role in making the industry better for creators.”
Going forward the company says it will stick to its core mission. “Kobalt’s mission from the start has been to create transparency and fairness for creators,” Kobalt CEO Laurent Hubert said in a statement. “I could not be more excited to focus 100% of our efforts on our incredibly successful music publishing business. Through our world-class creative and synch team’s ‘one roster, one territory’ approach combined with our global tech infrastructure, Kobalt has become the destination of choice for some of the most successful music talent in the world.”
Kobalt’s publishing operation had $450 million in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2019, while AMRA had another $65 million. (The company’s financials for the year ended June 30,2020, are expected to be filed in April or May.) The company has been predicting it will finally achieve profitability when its numbers are reported, after many years of the company reporting red ink.
Meanwhile, this deal allows the three major music companies to continue to dominate the indie distribution sector. As noted earlier, the deal will give Sony an estimated $1 billion in revenue from distributing independent labels through its The Orchard and AWAL operations.
While Kobalt doesn’t break out AWAL’s operations by geography, overall the company says 45% of all of its revenue, including publishing, is derived from the U.S. marketplace. If that percentage is applied to AWAL’s $106 million in revenue, that would give its U.S. arm about $48 million. That means the deal would add another 0.7% to Sony’s U.S. market share, increasing it to about 26.4% based on 2020 figures, Billboard estimates.
Sony’s presence in the independent sector increases to about 6.5% market share, also including releases from its Orchard and RED distribution services.
Cardi B has a brand-new single on the way: “UP” will drop on Friday.
The rapper took to Twitter on Monday night (Feb. 1) to announce the new release. “My new single ‘UP’ drops this Friday! LETS GOOOOOO! #Up.”
On Sunday, Cardi tweeted a video with the caption “I got an announcement to make tomorrow” and a loud-speaker emoji, so it’s safe to say this was her big news. In addition to the single news, Cardi also linked fans to her webstore, where she’s selling a CD single of the new song.
Cardi’s last release was “WAP,” her blockbuster team-up with Megan Thee Stallion that topped the Billboard Hot 100 back in August. She was named Billboard’s 2020 Woman of the Year in December, accepting the honor from Breonna Taylor’s mom, Tamika Palmer.
Travis Scott’s little girl Stormi is growing up, and he captured the feeling in an original poem he wrote for her third birthday on Monday (Feb. 1).
“3 is bigger than 2/ 3 more years of love that’s true/ 3 more inches u might have grew/ 3 more years a lot to dooo!!!/ 3 more TIMES I LOVE UUUUUU,” the chart-topping rapper wrote on Instagram with two black-and-white shots of the famous father-daughter duo. “Happy bday to my Lil storm storm.”
His Cactus Jack Records signee Don Toliver commented “BiG3,” while Bryson Tiller sent his love in the form of three brown hearts. Scott and Tiller chopped it up about fatherhood and raising Black daughters in a “crazy” climate on an episode of .WAV RADIO on Apple Music last fall.
Young Thug posted a tribute to his “niecey Pooh stormskii” on his IG Story featuring a throwback shot of his “Franchise” collaborator and Stormi at her second birthday last year. Scott reposted it, writing back, “She said thanks unk.”
Her mother Kylie Jenner posted her own touching series dedicated to their toddler for her 213 million Instagram followers, including a shot from the family of three’s Despicable Me-inspired Minion Halloween costumes last year. “crying today because i can’t stop the time. it’s all the little things i’ll miss like your cute voice and our long talks on the potty,” Jenner wrote. “Watching you experience everything for the very first time has been the best part of these last few years.”
Chloe Bailey of Chloe x Halle commented, “what an angel,” under her post, which also received a lot of love and teary-eyed messages from the Kardashian-Jenner clan.
See Scott’s sweet birthday poem for Stormi here.
Sabrina Carpenter released the highly anticipated music video for her single “Skin” on Monday (Feb. 1), and the romantic mini-film has another familiar face.
She cast Gavin Leatherwood from Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Sabrina Spellman, that is) as her love interest in the Jason Lester-directed visual. Their cozy relationship gets shaken up by an earthquake, snowstorm and rain showers that are symbolic of people trying to disturb her happiness. But the two weather it all together.
Carpenter is also credited as the video’s creative director. She recently signed with Island Records, and her latest single marks her first release under the label.
Carpenter shut down widespread speculation that “Skin” was a response to Olivia Rodrigo’s No. 1 smash single “Drivers License” in an Instagram post last Sunday.
“I wasn’t bothered by a few lines in a (magnificent) song and wrote a diss track about it. I was at a tipping point in my life for countless reasons,” she explained in the caption. “So I was inspired to do what i usually do to cope, write something that I wish I could have told myself in the past. people can only get to you if you give them the power to. and a lot of people were trying to get to me.”
Watch her official “Skin” music video below.
The colorful ensembles BTS wore in their “Dynamite” music video were the top-selling items at an event hosted by Julien’s Auctions on Sunday (Jan. 31).
The collection of outfits sold for a total of $162,500, a number that was more than eight times the amount they were estimated to bring in, according to a press release about the auction benefiting MusiCares.
Japanese art collector Yusaku Maezawa and YouTuber HIKAKIN were the buyers.
A painting of Snoop Dogg’s self-portrait dog wearing a “Doggy Style 25″ gold chain signed by Snoop was the next top seller at $96,000.
Other top-selling items featured in the auction included an original painting of Coldplay’s Chris Martin by Billy Morrison, a Schecter bass guitar signed by Nikki Sixx with a handwritten note from him, Pete Townsend’s blue boiler suit and long beige linen ‘kimono’ coat worn on stage in 2019 and Joe Walsh’s signed Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar with the original Gibson hard shell case donated by Gibson Guitars. Browse the full list of items at the auction here.
All proceeds from the items sold at auction will go to MusiCares, providing aid to artists and music community professionals in times of need.
Sabrina Carpenter showed a few seconds of “Skin” on Sunday (Jan. 31).
“SKIN MUSIC VIDEO TOMORROW 2pm PT,” she wrote on Twitter. “going live on my YouTube Channel right before at 1:40pm PT.”
“Maybe we could have been friends,” Carpenter sings in the clip, which shows a quick montage of what seems to be romantic scenes from a relationship.
Carpenter, who recently signed with Island Records, surprise-released the song on Jan. 22. Fans speculated it was a response to Olivia Rodrigo’s hit single “Drivers License,” due to rumors of a love triangle involving Rodrigo, Carpenter and Joshua Bassett. (In “Drivers License,” Rodrigo sings, “And you’re probably with that blonde girl/ Who always made me doubt/ She’s so much older than me/ She’s everything I’m insecure about.” In “Skin,” Carpenter sings, “Maybe you didn’t mean it/ Maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme.”)
But in an Instagram post last week, Carpenter said “Skin” “isn’t calling out one single person. some lines address a specific situation, while other lines address plenty of other experiences I’ve had this past year.”
“i wasn’t bothered by a few lines in a (magnificent) song and wrote a diss track about it,” she wrote. “i was at a tipping point in my life for countless reasons. so i was inspired to do what i usually do to cope, write something that i wish i could have told myself in the past. people can only get to you if you give them the power to. and a lot of people were trying to get to me.”
Watch the “Skin” music video preview below, and tune in to see the full visual at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT on Monday (Feb. 1).
It’s been a year since the release of Walls, Louis Tomlinson’s debut solo album, which arrived on Jan. 31, 2020.
The former One Direction member joined fans on Twitter on Sunday (Jan. 31) to mark the anniversary of Walls. In honor of the special day, Tomlinson also took part in a little fan Q&A, chatting about topics ranging from the making of Walls to post-pandemic plans.
“1 year of my first album Walls. Crazy how quick the time has gone. When I finally get to tour this album it’s going to be f—ing unbelievable! Sending you ALL a massive thank you for everything you do! This is our day!” Tomlinson tweeted.
“I was going to do some merch but I didn’t want to market the day. Just wanted it to be a celebration for us! So you’ll have to wait for new merch!” he added. When someone pointed out that many celebrities might have turned the anniversary into “a cash grab,” Tomlinson commented, “Too many greedy f—ers out there!”
One fan asked, “A year after walls’ release, do you think you could have done something differently?”
“Don’t think so,” wrote Tomlinson. “All part of the process. Still really proud of it.”
In another tweet, he shared that prior to the album’s release, he’d been most excited for listeners to hear “Kill My Mind” and the title track “Walls” for the first time.
When asked whether he’ll eventually go on tour in honor of the Walls album, he replied, “When it’s safe of course!!”
Tomlinson also took a moment to offer some advice to those who are having a hard time amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Remember that everything is going to be better when normality sets back in,” he wrote.
To wrap things up, Tomlinson posted a video featuring the original “Walls” song demo. Check out his tweets and that clip below.
Taylor Swift now has three albums that haven’t gotten the proper stadium tour treatment due to the pandemic, leaving fans everywhere to daydream about what it might be like to finally experience the material from Lover, Folklore and Evermore live in-person for the very first time.
One of those Swifties dared to parody what one might expect from a Folklovermore Tour by (pretty accurately) impersonating some of Swift’s stage go-tos in a series of TikToks.
“If you know, you know,” @anthonylario winked with a TikTok caption on one of his earlier imitations of Swift on tour.
“Over the past few years, I wrote three very different albums,” he began in his Swift-inspired TikTok sketch with the highest view count, spoofing her usual style of introducing songs on stage.
“And even though we haven’t yet had the chance to hang out and sing them together, I can hear you guys screaming every single lyric. And I write a lot of lyrics. And I’m also just so humbled that after this whole quarantine, you chose to spend one of your first nights in public hanging out with me, so thank you. Even though these three albums are different, I find that there’s three consistent facets: stories of lovers, folklore tales, and nights like this that can hopefully last … forevermore,” Lario quipped before playing the opening chords of Evermore’s title track. (See the whole thing here.)
“I think for me, this quarantine, like a lot of you, was filled with media and music and films and love stories … set in June, July … And love triangles in August,” he said in another video on TikTok set to the fake cheers of an imagined crowd. He then launched into a mashup of “August” (off of Folklore) and “Cruel Summer” (from Lover), mixed in with a 1989 gem, “Out of the Woods.” (View it here.)
He even filmed what might happen the next time Swift invites a special guest to her stage, guessing that it could be Olivia Rodrigo, whose hit song “Drivers License” got an early co-sign from Swift.
“I think for me, one of the most important parts of these unprecedented times was listening [to] and supporting emerging artists, whether it be on social media or … in your car. So, one of my favorite songs to sing is this next song, and I just sang to it today while driving. Through the suburbs,” he said, playing the first verse of “Drivers License” and bringing out “Olivia.” (Watch it in full here.)
Check out his most-watched tour parodies making the rounds with fans on social media, and be sure to view more of his videos directly on TikTok.
