UPDATE (July 9): Goo Goo Dolls are set to perform at the 39th annual Carousel Ball at the Hyatt Regency Denver on Oct. 11, honoring music icon Neil Diamond. Previous stars who’ve headlined the ball included Sir Elton John, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and John Legend.

Goo Goo Dolls have landed two No. 1 hits on Billboard’s all-genre Radio Songs chart – “Iris,” which held the top spot for a then record 18 weeks in 1998, and “Slide.”

“We’re excited to take the stage at The Carousel Ball and support an amazing cause,” said Goo Goo Dolls bandmates John Rzeznik and Robby Takac in a joint statement. “The progress the Children’s Diabetes Foundation has made in diabetes research and patient care has brought new hope to countless families and we’re honored to be a part of their special night.”

PREVIOUSLY (April 29): Neil Diamond is set to receive the Inspirational Lifetime Achievement Award by the Children’s Diabetes Foundation at the 39th Annual Carousel Ball on Oct. 11. The event will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Denver, near the home of CDF’s primary operations and its clinic and research facility, the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes.

Diamond is just the third recipient of the award, following Sidney Poitier (2016) and Diane Warren (2024).

Proceeds from The Carousel Ball benefit CDF and focus on patient support, awareness and diabetes research. The Carousel Balls, which date to 1978, collectively have raised more than $117 million.

Diamond, 84, has served on CDF’s advisory board and has attended the organization’s fundraisers for many years, including performing in Denver in 2001, as well as at The Carousel of Hope Ball in Beverly Hills in 2012, where he memorably sang an impromptu duet of “Sweet Caroline” with George Clooney.

“It’s been my absolute joy to have supported the Children’s Diabetes Foundation for so many wonderful years,” Diamond said in a statement. “Barbara Davis and her organization have done an immense amount of good helping kids, adults and their families facing a difficult diagnosis.”

“Neil Diamond is a once-in-a-generation talent,” event chair Dana Davis and honorary chair Barbara Davis said in a joint statement. “As a bestselling recording artist the world over, he is an undeniable force whose songwriting has earned him countless musical accolades. … For over 35 years, Neil has lent his timeless voice to our efforts to find a cure for diabetes. On behalf of the patients and researchers his generosity has touched, we can’t think of anyone more deserving of our Inspirational Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Diamond’s career spans nearly 60 years. He landed his first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, “Cherry, Cherry,” in October 1966. He has notched three No. 1 hits on the Hot 100 — “Cracklin’ Rosie” (1970), “Song Sung Blue” (1972) and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” a duet with Barbra Streisand (1978). Diamond finally topped the Billboard 200 in 2008, nearly 42 years after he first made that chart, with Home Before Dark.

Diamond was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and has received two additional awards from that organization — the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement in 2000 and the Johnny Mercer Award (their top honor) in 2018.

Additionally, Diamond received MusiCares’ Person of the Year Award in 2009, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2011 and a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2018. He was voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. His achievements also include a Grammy, a Golden Globe Award, an American Music Award, an ASCAP Film and Television Award and a Billboard Icon Award.

In addition to the award to Diamond, The MacMillan Family will be honored with the High Hopes Tribute Award for their nearly three decades of commitment as supporters of CDF. To purchase tickets and tables and learn more about the event, visit the Children’s Diabetes Foundation’s site.

Tori Kelly was made for loving her family, which will be growing very soon. On Wednesday (July 9), the singer announced that she is pregnant with her first baby, marking a major milestone with husband André Murillo.

In a video posted to her socials, Kelly and the basketball player kiss and snuggle in some shots while dancing on the beach in others. In a song that plays over the footage, the Grammy winner sings, “I’m ready for what comes next/ Let’s make a baby.”

At the end of the video, Kelly shows off her baby bump.

“This year has already been full of highs — getting to perform in stadiums all summer, writing the most personal songs of my career and now getting to start a family with my amazing husband,” she told People in an exclusive statement. “We are just so grateful for what’s to come and can’t wait to meet this little gift from God.”

Kelly and Murillo first started dating in 2016 and got engaged the following year. The soon-to-be first-time parents then got married in May 2018.

A few years later, the athlete was by Kelly’s side when she experienced an alarming health scare. After reports surfaced that doctors had found blood clots in her legs and lungs, Murillo gave fans an update, writing on his Instagram Story at the time, “Tori is smiling again and feeling stronger … Not fully out of the woods but we see the sun … Your love and kindness has been overwhelming.”

Kelly is currently on tour in Europe with Ed Sheeran. Her last album, TORI., arrived in April 2024.

See Kelly’s pregnancy announcement below.

“I love doing things that break all the rules,” says Nicole Scherzinger with a smile during a sit-down interview with Billboard at Netflix’s New York City office. “It doesn’t get any more real than having a band put themselves together without any record execs or labels telling them what they have to do, what they have to look like. That doesn’t work anymore. That’s the old formula.”

Scherzinger is talking about Building the Band, a new singing competition that premieres on Netflix today (July 9) and finds her serving as a mentor and judge. An engrossing, potent cocktail of Love Is Blind and The X Factor, Building the Band tracks young singers from across the globe as they form their own groups without ever having met in real life: contestants can hear each other’s auditions and talk on the phone, but the first time they see each other is during their debut performance as a band. “It was solely based off of music compatibility and chemistry and connection. Sight unseen,” says Scherzinger, who calls the show a “social experiment” that worked out “better than we could have imagined.”

With Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean playing host, Kelly Rowland and Liam Payne (filming completed prior to his tragic death last October) joined Scherzinger as guest judges, providing direction and feedback to six bands vying for the win. Scherzinger, who one month ago won the best actress in a musical Tony Award for her stunning work in Broadway’s Sunset Blvd., is particularly qualified for a show like this. She’s judged several singing competitions (The Sing-Off, The X Factor, The Masked Singer) and done the band thing, too – three times, in fact, as she points out to me: she led the Pussycat Dolls to massive success (four top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100); sang in the TV show-formed band Eden’s Crush, who won Popstars USA in 2001 and notched one Hot 100 top 10 hit; and spent time in the rock band Days of the New (that one I was admittedly not aware of until she quizzed me).

Beyond her own solo and group successes, Scherzinger also changed pop music history: she was the driving force behind putting Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson together as a group on The X Factor UK in 2010.

In short: she knows a thing or two about raw talent and what will connect with a wider audience. Beyond resumes and vocal abilities, there’s an ineffable quality she looks for in groups. “(You need) that natural chemistry. It just has to work organically because that’s the only thing that’s gonna move you, that’s the only thing that’s gonna make you care – give you the electric volts, I call them,” she says. “There’s too much stuff out there today – it’s gotta be something amazing that knocks you out the park.”

Fifteen years ago, Scherzinger felt those electric volts when One Direction formed. Despite the gut-wrenching loss of Payne, there’s a palpable love and gratitude in her voice as she reflects on watching Payne pay it forward on Building the Band. “I thought it was so beautiful to see the journey, to see Liam come full circle. Especially my relationship with him, having helped form the band One Direction and then see him have such wildly, phenomenal global success with One Direction and with his solo career… (to see him) mentor these bands, it was really beautiful,” Scherzinger shares.

“I saw the joy it brought to Liam. I felt that this was his happy place. Like myself, AJ and Kelly, we’ve lived this. We’ve learned it. To be able to bestow any inspiration and knowledge and wisdom and experience on any of these contestants and these bands, it brought us all joy. Particularly Liam. I felt this really inspired him and this was his happy place. This was his happy place because Liam was such a beautiful heart, and he loved to give back. He loved to help.”

In his role on Building the Band, Payne is comfortable, friendly and naturally funny. “He’s with us in spirit,” Scherzinger says. “I know how proud he was of this show and I know the joy that he got from doing this show. I feel like we are honoring him with this show, and that is such a beautiful thing. I’m so excited for people to see him in his highest light, giving back.”

Building the Band is also a bit of a full circle moment for Scherzinger, who spent time in a reality show-based band before graduating to massive success with the Pussycat Dolls, one of the most commercially successful girl groups of all time. Looking back on 20 years since the band’s debut album, PCD, Scherzinger offers some advice she might give to a younger version of herself: “Be your authentic self and lead with your heart – and be sure you carry your balls with you.”

Advising budding artists on Building the Band also made Scherzinger think about how the industry has changed for women and girl groups. “When I was thinking of the Pussycat Dolls — and I’m so proud of the Pussycat Dolls — I’m thinking about, what would the Pussycat Dolls look like today? The Pussycat Dolls would look like Lizzo; like Demi Lovato; like Billie Eilish. It’s unconventional. It’s not what you would think. For me, that’s so important. Ten years ago, 20 years ago, being sexy was about being sexy for someone else. Now being sexy is about feeling sexy in your own skin. Feeling strong about owning, embracing and loving and accepting yourself. It’s called evolution. It’s called times are a’changin’. It’s about inclusivity. It’s about accepting yourself and not trying to conform and be put in a box.”

That inclusivity and artist-first focus fueled Scherzinger’s approach to mentoring singers on this show. “I want to see the best in people. How can I bring out the best in you, as a human and as an artist? Find the strengths and focus on the strengths. How can we encourage, how can we empower? And that’s what we should do for anyone,” she concludes. “Not only in Building the Band, but in life.”

Michael Jackson’s estate is ratcheting up allegations that a recent child abuse accuser fabricated his claims for a payday by filing court papers identifying the man as a music manager who expressly disclaimed that the King of Pop was a pedophile in the 2011 memoir My Friend Michael.

In a petition to compel arbitration submitted to Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday (July 9) and obtained by Billboard, the Jackson estate identifies Frank Cascio as the man behind an alleged $213 million extortion attempt reported last fall. Articles at the time said the estate had brought an arbitration demand against an accuser, at that point anonymous, who was trying to secure a financial windfall despite inking a binding settlement years earlier.

Filling in some gaps in that account, Wednesday’s petition says Cascio launched a “shakedown” of the Jackson estate when the HBO docuseries Leaving Neverland amplified years of child sexual abuse claims against the deceased pop superstar in 2019. According to the estate, Cascio and his associates “decided it was their turn to profit from making specious accusations against their dear friend” despite having been staunch defenders of Jackson for more than 30 years.

The petition says that Cascio, who had known Jackson since he was a child and worked as the singer’s manager, spent years “passionately” proclaiming Jackson’s innocence in interviews with ABC’s Primetime Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Wendy Williams Show. Cascio also disclaimed the swirling abuse claims in My Friend Michael.

“Frank’s book adamantly confirmed that he could state ‘with the absolute conviction of a man who saw Michael interact with thousands of kids’ that ‘in all the years that I was close to him, I saw nothing that raised any red flags,’” says the petition. “Frank stated unequivocally, ‘I want to be precise and clear, on the record, so that everyone can read and understand: Michael’s love for children was innocent, and it was profoundly misunderstood.’”

As the petition puts it, Jackson’s estate “reluctantly” agreed to pay Cascio a settlement in 2020 — which previous reporting has tallied at $3.3 million — without admitting any wrongdoing and in exchange for a promise that any future disputes would be decided in confidential arbitration. But Cascio allegedly violated that agreement last year by threatening to file a public lawsuit unless he and his associates were paid $213 million more.

Those alleged threats led the Jackson estate to bring a private arbitration demand for extortion, which remains pending before the mediation firm Signature Resolution. Now, the estate says Cascio’s newly retained celebrity attorney, Mark Geragos, is once again threatening to bring a public lawsuit unless they satisfy a fresh demand of $44 million.

“In order to enforce their rights under the agreement, petitioners hereby seek an order compelling respondents to resolve any and all of their specious alleged claims against petitioners and any attorneys who represented petitioners in the pending arbitration before Signature Resolution in accordance with the express provisions of the agreement,” the Wednesday petition reads.

Geragos did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.

Jackson, who died suddenly in 2009, was never convicted or held legally liable on any accusation of child molestation. But he’s still dogged by such allegations: Two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, are continuing to pursue civil lawsuits alleging Jackson sexually abused them as children, and they laid out the accusations in disturbing detail in Leaving Neverland.

The Jackson estate has always vehemently denied all such claims, pointing out that the singer was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial. The estate has generated more than $3 billion since Jackson’s death, and it maintains that his accusers are simply seeking to profit off an artist who cannot defend himself because defamation law does not extend to dead individuals.

The estate calls Leaving Neverland a “one-sided hit job” and sued HBO over the series in 2019. That case has since settled confidentially, and Leaving Neverland is no longer available on HBO’s streaming platforms.

Mexican star Alejandro Fernández announced he will dedicate his upcoming concerts in Ft. Worth and El Paso in Texas to the victims of the deadly floods, and will donate part of the events’ proceeds to affected families.

Heavy rain on Friday (July 4) that led to flash flooding has killed at least 116 people, according to CNN, after the Guadalupe River surged by more than 20 feet leading to catastrophic damage primarily affecting the South-Central Texas region.

“As an artist, I’ve always sought to bring love and hope through my music; as a father, I’m absolutely heart broken by the news of this tragedy at Camp Mystic,” Fernández said in a statement. “I want to dedicate my concerts in Ft. Worth and El Paso to all the families going through this horrific pain and make a donation to support them during these difficult times.”

According to a press release, a portion of the revenue from these shows — taking place Sept. 6-7 at Dickies Arena (Fort Worth) and UTEP Don Haskins Center (El Paso) — will be donated to Catholic Charities Archdiocese of San Antonio, Inc., a nonprofit organization providing assistance and emergency shelter to communities affected by the floods, and will be responsible for distributing the collected funds to families in need. 

The donation aligns with Fernández’s history of helping out those who need help after devastating events. Earlier this year, he made a donation to the Los Angeles Fire Department and to the Wildfire Relief Fund, supporting efforts to combat the devastating wildfires that swept through L.A. in January.

Fernández joins a number of artists — including Shakira, Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey — who have expressed support to those affected by the devastating floods, as responders continue search-and-rescue efforts across the impacted areas in Texas.