Chubby Checker, whose “The Twist” was a global smash in 1960, has been eligible for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since the first class was inducted in 1986, but he was never even nominated until this year. Despite having been ignored for decades, he made it in his first time on the ballot.

So did first-time nominees Bad Company, Joe Cocker and Outkast, as well as Cyndi Lauper and The White Stripes, who had each been nominated once before, and Soundgarden, which had been nominated twice before. These seven acts were all inducted in the performer category.

The inductees were announced by Ryan Seacrest on ABC’s American Idol on Sunday night (April 27).

There are six other inductees this year in other categories. Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon are set to receive the musical influence award; Philly Soul producer Thom Bell, English studio pianist/organist Nicky Hopkins and studio bass guitarist Carole Kaye (who was part of the fabled Wrecking Crew of top L.A. studio musicians) will receive the musical excellence award; and producer and label executive Lenny Waronker will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

Sadly, several of these people didn’t live to see their inductions. Hopkins died in 1994 at age 50; Zevon in 2003 at 56; Chris Cornell of Soundgarden in 2017 at 52; and Bell in 2022 at 79.

Checker had to wait even longer for induction than Cher, who was finally inducted last year, 59 years after Sonny & Cher’s breakthrough smash “I Got You Babe.”

With Outkast and Salt-N-Pepa both being inducted this year, this is the sixth consecutive year that one or more rap acts has been in the induction class.

With Lauper, Salt-N-Pepa, Meg White of The White Stripes and Carol Kaye being inducted this year, this is the fourth consecutive year that four or more female acts were in the induction class.

Bell won the first Grammy Award ever presented for producer of the year, non-classical, in 1975. By coincidence, Waronker was among the other nominees in the category that year. Waronker was also nominated for record of the year that year for producing Maria Muldaur’s classy and sexy “Midnight at the Oasis.” Waronker’s many other hits as a producer include Gordon Lightfoot’s Hot 100-topping “Sundown,” Rickie Lee Jones’ “Chuck E.’s in Love” and Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” which Dawes performed as the opening song on this year’s Grammy telecast.

Carol Kaye, 90, is this year’s oldest inductee. Checker and Waronker are both 83, but will both be 84 by the time of the Nov. 8 induction ceremony.

All of the artists who were induced in the performer category have landed top five albums on the Billboard 200. Three of them reached No. 1: Bad Company (Bad Company, 1974), Outkast (Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, 2003) and Soundgarden (Superunknown, 1994). Three more reached No. 2: Chubby Checker (Your Twist Party, 1962), Joe Cocker (Mad Dogs and Englishmen, 1970) and The White Stripes (Icky Thump, 2007). Lauper climbed as high as No. 4 twice, with She’s So Unusual in 1984 and True Colors in 1986.

Both of the artists who are receiving musical influence awards made the top 10. Salt-N-Pepa reached No. 4 with Very Necessary in 1994. Zevon hit No. 8 with Excitable Boy in 1978.

Lauper won the Grammy for best new artist in 1985. She’s the sixth artist who was a past winner of that award to go on to a Rock Hall induction.

Outkast won the Grammy for album of the year in 2004 for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. André 3000 was nominated again in that category at this year’s ceremony for New Blue Sun.

Two of the inducted acts are duos – Outkast (André 3000 and Big Boi) and The White Stripes (Jack White and Meg White).

The other seven nominees in the performer category were denied admission to the Rock Hall – this year, anyway. Oasis and Mariah Carey were both passed over for the second year in a row. Both were surprising snubs – Oasis is reuniting for a global tour in 2025; Carey’s profile, never low, has been boosted in recent years by her status as the uncontested Queen of Christmas. Of the other passed-over artists, Joy Division/New Order were previously on the ballot in 2023; this was the first time on the ballot for The Black Crowes, Billy Idol, Maná and Phish.

The voters showed no love for brother acts this year. Oasis includes Liam and Noel Gallagher; The Black Crowes includes Chris and Rich Robinson.

Maná was vying to become the first rock en español act to make the Rock Hall. Joy Division/New Order was vying to join the short list of two related acts being inducted in tandem, following Parliament/Funkadelic in 1997 and The Small Faces/Faces in 2012.

Phish, which won this year’s fan vote, has never landed a Hot 100 hit, but the band is a powerhouse live attraction, as evidenced when it played the Sphere in Las Vegas in April 2024.

Idol was a mainstay of early MTV – as was Lauper, who did get in. In an interview with Vulture, Idol said of his guitarist Steve Stevens, “Because of our special relationship, if I get in, they will induct him as well.” This would have echoed Pat Benatar’s induction three years ago, where the Rock Hall inducted both Benatar and her husband and musical partner, Neil Giraldo. But it’s academic, as Idol didn’t make it this year.

The 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction will be live on Saturday, Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. The 2025 ceremony will once again stream live on Disney+, with a special airing on ABC at a later date and available on Hulu the next day. The 2024 ceremony aired on New Year’s Day.

Here’s the full list of 2025 inductees:

Performer Category

Musical Influence Award

Musical Excellence Award

Ahmet Ertegun Award

Lenny Waronker

One of the suspects in the armed robbery of Kim Kardashian said he plans to take responsibility for his role in the 2016 high-profile heist and will apologize in court as the trial begins Monday (April 28) in Paris.

Yunice Abbas, 71, who has publicly acknowledged his participation in the heist, is among 10 suspects facing charges including armed robbery and kidnapping.

“I will apologize,” Abbas told The Associated Press. “I mean it sincerely.”

Kardashian, 44, is expected to testify in person at the trial scheduled to run through May 23. In interviews and on her family’s reality TV show, she has described being terrified as robbers pointed a gun at her to steal millions of dollars worth of jewelry in an apartment where she was staying for Paris Fashion Week. She said she thought she was going to be raped and killed.

Abbas said he acted as a lookout at the reception area on the ground floor, ensuring the escape route was clear. He said he was unarmed and did not personally threaten Kardashian, but acknowledged he shared responsibility for the crime.

He was arrested in January 2017 and he spent 21 months in prison before being released under judicial supervision. In 2021, he co-authored a French-language book titled I Sequestered Kim Kardashian.

In her account to investigators, Kardashian described two men forcing their way into her bedroom and pointing a gun towards her, asking for her ring. She said she was tied up with plastic cables and tape while the intruders were looking for jewels, including her engagement ring worth millions of dollars.

In a 2020 appearance on David Letterman’s Netflix show, she tearfully recalled thinking: “This is the time I’m going to get raped. I’m like, ‘What is happening? Are we gonna die? Just tell them I have children. I have babies, I have a husband, I have a family’.”

She told investigators the men brought her in the bathroom before they ran off and she managed to free herself.

The residency’s concierge, held at gunpoint and forced to lead the robbers to her apartment, also suffered psychological impact.

Investigators found Abbas’ DNA on plastic ties used to tie the hands of the concierge.

Asked about the trauma Kardashian suffered, Abbas said: “It’s true, I didn’t think about it. I recognize that because I did not brutalize her myself… I was not blaming myself regarding this aspect, and yet I’m responsible for it too.”

According to Abbas, minutes after the raid started, his accomplices came down from Kardashian’s apartment and gave him a bag of jewelry.

As he was fleeing the scene on a bicycle, he saw a police car, but officers were not yet aware of the robbery. Abbas said as he rode the bicycle the bag containing the jewelry became caught in the front wheel and he fell to the ground, spilling the contents of the bag. “I picked the jewels up and left,” he said.

The following morning, a passerby found a diamond-encrusted cross in the street and handed it to police. That was the only jewel from the robbery that was ever recovered.

French justice estimated stolen items to be worth $6 million in total.

Abbas said he didn’t know Kardashian’s identity at the time of the robbery.

“I was told about a famous person, a rapper’s wife. That’s all the information I had,” he said. “Until the next morning, when I heard on TV about the influencer. That’s when I understood who she was.”

He said he will detail his role during the trial, which will be conducted with a jury, a procedure in France reserved for the most serious crimes – yet he would not denounce his accomplices.

“I’m only an outsider. I’m not the one who masterminded the case. I take my share of responsibility,” he said.

Most of the suspects have denied involvement, except for Abbas and another man whose DNA was also found at the scene.

Thierry Niemen, the journalist who co-authored Abbas’ book, said Abbas approached him because he wanted to “tell his own truth” amid what he saw as inaccurate or sensationalized accounts.

The book also revealed investigative details, including how the FBI helped French police identify Abbas’ DNA despite him wearing gloves.

“This is the case of all superlatives,” Niemen said. “The FBI overseeing an investigation on French territory — that’s already a superlative.” Kardashian was then the top influencer in the world and the case was the most popular topic on the social media in 2016, Niemen stressed.

Abbas’ earnings from the book have been frozen pending the outcome of the trial.

Kardashian’s lawyer, Michael Rhodes, has said the reality TV star and entrepreneur wants the trial “to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case.”

Los Angeles police have released video from the shooting of author Jillian Lauren, the wife of a Weezer band member, during a chaotic backyard confrontation that culminated in a volley of gunfire.

Lauren’s wounds were not life-threatening in the April 8 shooting in the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock, where the 51-year-old wife of Weezer bass player Scott Shriner emerged from her home with a gun as city police and the California Highway Patrol searched the area for three people who fled a car wreck.

Lauren — listed by police as Jillian Lauren Shriner — was released on a $1 million bond on suspicion of attempted murder pending further investigation. She is scheduled to appear in court April 30.

Police released the excerpts from body camera recordings, surveillance video and audio of 911 dispatch conversations on Friday (April 25). The video clips show officers peering over a high wooden fence into a yard and shouting over the noise of a surveillance helicopter at a woman to put down her gun or risk getting shot. The fence obscures from the cameras what is on the other side.

“Ma’am, we’re trying to help you. Put the gun down,” a voice says. “You’re going to get shot. It’s the police.”

An officer indicates that the woman has cocked a gun — “Oh, she racked it” — immediately before the sound of at least six shots rings out.

In a separate segment of silent surveillance video from Lauren’s backyard, she can be seen exiting the home barefoot and carrying a pistol in her right hand. Another segment shows Lauren from behind, apparently raising a gun that is briefly visible. Dirt kicks up near her feet, and she turns and walks toward a doorway to the house.

Further body camera video shows Lauren lying prone in the middle of a residential road as police place handcuffs behind her back, while noting that she has a wound on her arm.

Lauren’s published works include two bestselling memoirs, 2010’s Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and 2015’s Everything You Ever Wanted.

Weezer is a Los Angeles-based band, beloved especially for their 1994 record unofficially known as the “Blue Album,” with songs including “Say It Ain’t So.” Shriner joined the band in the early 2000s.

Lana Del Rey‘s debut on the Stagecoach lineup has come and gone, but the live intro to her upcoming new record set the stage for its visual components, like the personal style she seems to be leaning into for this album cycle.

Gracing the stage in pretty, tea-length dresses, with hair set in brushed-out waves and lips painted a color described by Lisa Eldrige’s cosmetics brand as an “iconic, late 1950s/early 1960s salmon-pink,” Del Rey’s physical presence at the country music festival served a mid-century, on the bayou aesthetic.

Positioned at a mic stand in front of a rural southern home set on the stage, she looked perfectly poised as she sang sweetly about being by her husband’s side, “where the baby alligators play” and “no one talks to me like you do, or takes care of us so good this way.” (The dark side peeked through, too: “Should I turn on the light or burn down the house?” she later contemplated in the premiere of “Quiet in the South,” a track of quiet rage over the worry her man might not make it home that night. “Feet up on the back porch, the wind’s blowing through/ I’m staring at the propane, like, what’s a girl to do?”)

A handful of never-before-heard songs from her unreleased, untitled next record — formerly known as Lasso or The Right Person Will Stay, depending on when you asked Del Rey — made the Stagecoach set in Indio, Calif., Friday night (April 25): the aforementioned “Husband of Mine” and “Quiet in the South,” and “57.5,” which will be remembered as the one where Del Rey called out Morgan Wallen. She also sang the hauntingly beautiful “Henry, Come On” live for the first time, and her new ballad “Bluebird” was the star of a hologram interlude.

The first dress Del Rey wore, in demure, cream lace, was custom Valentino, stylist Molly Dickson noted in an Instagram Story.

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A post shared by Pamela Cochrane (@pammycochrane)

When the “Summertime Sadness” singer returned to the stage post-interlude in red to sing an iconic line from the Born to Die track (“I got my red dress on tonight”), she was in custom Sugar Ferrini, according to Dickson. The strapless number complemented the earlier Valentino silhouette, with its fitted bodice, bow accent at the waist and full skirt.

Hair stylist Anna Cofone offered a how-to on achieving Del Rey’s coiffure in an Instagram post on Saturday. She listed Authentic Beauty Concept’s Glow Spray Serum for prepping mid-length and ends, and Tymo’s Airhype Lite hair dryer for smoothing before styling. She added Authentic Beauty Concept’s Airy Texture Spray and Nude Powder Spray to Del Rey’s roots as a “base for backcombing,” incorporated Remi Cachet Clip-In Deluxe hair extensions prepped with Curl Pro Stylist Mist, and set the singer’s hair using Tymo’s Cues curling iron with a 1/2-inch barrel. She brushed out Del Rey’s waves with an Olivia Garden Essential Style Double Tunnel Brush and finished the style with a mist of strong-hold hairspray.

Makeup artist Pamela Cochrane posted beauty notes as well, with a list of Lisa Eldridge products she used on Del Rey: Skin and Makeup Enhancing Mist, Seamless Skin Foundation in a mix of shades 5 and 10, Elevated Glow Highlighter in Crystal Nebula on her cheekbones, Kitten Lash Mascara “in the inner corners next to the lashes and underneath,” Kitten Flick Liquid Eyeliner “finely drawn along the outer half of eye with a small flick,” and Lip Pencil in shade 1W with Rouge Experience Refillable Lipstick in shade 189, Audrey.

See Lana Del Ray all dolled up in a clip of her singing “Henry, Come On” below, via Stagecoach’s official X account.

Go on and giddy up

Tune in to the @AmazonMusic livestream only on @PrimeVideo and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. pic.twitter.com/h0IsMs74We

— Stagecoach Festival (@Stagecoach) April 26, 2025