Salt-N-Pepa caught up with Jerah Milligan on the red carpet of the 57th NAACP Image Awards.
In honor of Women’s History Month, let’s look at records that women have set at awards shows. These aren’t simply instances of the first woman to do this or that; these are cases where a woman holds a record that isn’t gender-specific.
In some cases, women are absolutely crushing it in a particular category. Billie Eilish set a record in 2020 as the youngest person to win the Grammy for album of the year. She was just 18 when she won for When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The old record was held by Taylor Swift, who was 20 when she won for Fearless. Before that, it was held by Alanis Morissette, who was 21 when she won for Jagged Little Pill. And before that it was held by Barbra Streisand who was 22 when she won for The Barbra Streisand Album. Between them, these four women have held this record continuously since Streisand first set it in May 1964.
The all-time youngest winners in the three other Big Four Grammy categories are also women. Eilish is the youngest winner for record of the year, for “Bad Guy,” also in 2020. Lorde, 17 at the time, was the youngest winner for song of the year, for “Royals.” LeAnn Rimes, just 14 at the time, was the youngest winner for best new artist.
A total of 16 artists have received Grammy nominations in each of the Big Four categories — album, record and song of the year, plus best new artist — in the same calendar year. A whopping 12 of those artists have been women, from Bobbie Gentry (1968) to Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter (both 2025).
Women solo artists have won the Grammy for best new artist at each of the last nine ceremonies, from Alessia Cara in 2018 to Olivia Dean in 2026.
Women also rule at the MTV Video Music Awards. The four artists who have won the most Moon Persons (it still doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as Moonman, does it?) are all women. Swift and Beyoncé are tied for the lead with 30 wins each, followed by Lady Gaga (22) and Madonna (20).
In the history of the Academy Awards, just four people have been nominated for Oscars for acting and songwriting in the same year. Three are women: Mary J. Blige, Lady Gaga and Cynthia Erivo.
Here are 20 more awards show records held by women:
Megan Moroney‘s album title says it all. After reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Cloud 9, the country singer/songwriter said she’s absolutely elated about the chart news.
On Monday (March 2) — the same day Billboard announced that Cloud 9 had dethroned J. Cole’s The Fall-Off for the top spot on the U.S. albums chart — Moroney gushed in a statement, “Not to be cliche but I’m on cloud 9!”
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“I have to give credit to my fans, they’re the best in the world,” she continued of the feat. “To have them embrace an album like this is a dream come true. I can’t wait till we’re screaming these songs together on THE CLOUD 9 TOUR!”
Shortly afterward, Moroney posted another thank-you message on Instagram. “CLOUD 9 IS NO. 1!!!?! THANK YOU SO MUCH” she wrote. “BEST FANS IN THE WORLD THANK YOU FOR STREAMING & LISTENING & CONNECTING & CARING I CANT WAIT TO SCREAM THESE SONGS WITH YOU ON TOUR AHHH :,)))”
Featuring collaborations with Kacey Musgraves and Ed Sheeran, Cloud 9 dropped Feb. 20, marking the Georgia native’s third studio album. It succeeds 2023’s Lucky and 2024’s Am I Okay?, which reached Nos. 38 and 9 on the Billboard 200, respectively.
With Cloud 9 ruling the album tally the same week Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” shoots back up to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the two charts are topped by two female country musicians for the first time in history. Langley celebrated her feat by sharing Billboard‘s article on her single’s second week at No. 1 with sobbing and mind-blown emojis on her Instagram Story.
Moroney is now gearing up to embark on an arena tour in support of Cloud 9. The trek kicks off in May and runs through early October, with stops scheduled for the United States, Canada and Europe.
Halsey has been a loyal Tumblr user for well over a decade, as the social media platform was a key ingredient in helping fuel their rise in the 2010s while connecting with fans.
Tumblr celebrated its 19th anniversary on Friday (Feb. 27) and served up a heavy dose of nostalgia with a highlight reel featuring cameos from 2010s favorites like The Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, Lana Del Rey and One Direction, to name a few.
However, there was one notable omission, as Halsey was absent from the clip. “I keep your lights on for years and this is the thanks I get,” she quipped in response.
Halsey’s reply on Sunday swept social media and went viral to the tune of more than 300,000 likes on X. “They’re trying to erase you queen,” one person wrote in Halsey’s defense.
“And during the 10 year anniversary of badlands too, the disrespect is INSANE,” another fan added, while pointing to the 10th-anniversary tour Halsey wrapped up in February in support of their 2015 debut, Badlands.
Feeling the heat from the playful backlash, Tumblr released a statement apologizing for its mistake on Monday (March 2). “Halsey, we are deeply sorry you were not included in our 19th birthday edit. you are and have forever been a pillar of our platform and yes for lack of better words ‘keeping our lights on for years.’ we would never, as you once put it, intentionally swerve you,” Tumblr wrote.
The blogging network continued: “At just 19, we’re still learning and growing. we promise this will never happen again. we hope you can find it in your heart to forgive us. with love, tumblr.”
Fans are patiently awaiting Halsey to kick off their next era, with the singer’s last album, The Great Impersonator, arriving in October 2024. Halsey claimed their label was keeping them from releasing a new project during an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.
“I can’t make an album right now — I’m not allowed to,” she said in September. “That’s the reality, because The Great Impersonator didn’t perform the way they thought it was going to.”
Find Halsey’s response and Tumblr’s apology below.
Global concert staging and live events company TAIT acquired longtime production studio and creative agency partner, Silent House Productions, the two companies announced Monday (March 2).
TAIT, which stages events for the Olympics, Disney, Cirque du Soleil, Beyoncé and more, is bringing Silent House’s Emmy-award-winning production team, touring and studio operations under its umbrella. The combined companies, which recently teamed up on Taylor Swift‘s The Eras Tour, Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia tour and Backstreet Boys’ Into The Millennium residency at Sphere, can offer “creative, technical, and delivery expertise to build productions at any scale,” according to a press release.
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“By unifying two trusted industry experts, our goal is to help our partners to collectively align the creative, technical, financial, and logistical reality of their projects and ideally unlock new opportunities beyond the show,” said Adam Davis, CEO of TAIT, in a statement.
Though terms of the deal were not disclosed, this is the first big acquisition this year for the global events industry, which is expected to be worth $2.5 trillion within the next 10 years, according to a report by Allied Market Research.
In 2024, European music festivals operator Superstruct was acquired by KKR, with support from CVC Capital Partners, for 1.3 billion euros ($1.39 billion). In May 2025, Providence Equity Partners bought a controlling stake in GCL, owner of Rock-It Cargo, the official logistics provider for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and the new FIFA Club World Cup.
“By formally aligning, we’re expanding what we can do together and streamlining the creative and technical process — allowing us to bring our clients’ ideas to life faster and more economically, without compromising the artistic vision,” said Baz Halpin, founder and CEO of Silent House Group, in a statement.
Nishen Radia at B. Riley Securities served as Silent House’s exclusive financial advisor, while its legal counsel was Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Dechert LLP served as legal counsel to TAIT.
Bad Bunny’s “DtMF” continues at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200, adding a fifth week atop the chart, after first it led for two weeks in January-February 2025. It concurrently tackles the competition for its third total and consecutive week at No. 1 on Billboard Global Excl. U.S.
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The superstar has held the charts’ top spot following his Super Bowl LX halftime show performance Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, Calif., with “DtMF” the closing song in the set.
The Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts rank songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories around the world, as compiled by Luminate. The Global 200 is inclusive of worldwide data and the Global Excl. U.S. chart comprises data from territories excluding the United States.
Chart ranks are based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of audio and video music services, as well as download sales, the latter of which reflect purchases from full-service digital music retailers from around the world, with sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites excluded from the charts’ calculations.
“DtMF” leads the Global 200 with 57 million streams (down 25% week over week) and 3,000 sold (down 51%) worldwide Feb. 20-26. Plus, Bad Bunny’s “Baile Inolvidable” keeps in the top five, down to No. 5 from its No. 2 high. He also performed the latter at the Super Bowl, with both songs from his 2025 album Debí Tirar Más Fotos.
Elsewhere in the Global 200’s top five, Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” rebounds to its No. 2 best from No. 5; Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” jumps 6-3 after seven weeks at No. 1 starting upon its debut last October; and HUNTR/X’s “Golden” shines 7-4 following 18 weeks at No. 1 beginning last July.
“DtMF” tops Global Excl. U.S. with 41.1 million streams (down 20%) and 1,000 sold (down 44%) outside the U.S. Bad Bunny also places in the top five with “Nuevayol,” which falls to No. 5 from its No. 2 peak; the song likewise was in his Super Bowl set and is on Debí Tirar Más Fotos.
“The Fate of Ophelia” rises 4-2 after eight weeks atop Global Excl. U.S. beginning in its debut week in October; “Golden” ascends 6-3 after a record 20 weeks at No. 1 starting last July; and “Man I Need” bumps 7-4 after reaching No. 3.
The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated March 7) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow, March 3. For both charts, the top 100 titles are available to all readers on Billboard.com, while the complete 200-title rankings are visible on Billboard Pro, Billboard’s subscription-based service. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
With the announcement of their eight-night residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, which starts Oct. 1, Grammy-winning band Metallica is hotter than ever — especially with the 40th anniversary of Master of Puppets on Tuesday (March 3).
Whether you’ve been there from the start or you just discovered the heavy metal band’s music, Billboard rounded up the best Metallica merch and apparel to show off your love and pride for the band on Amazon. In fact, Metallica has an official store from the retail giant that features T-shirts, logo apparel, hoodies and other items. There are even cute baby and toddler onesies available for about $17-$18 each.
Scroll down and check out our recommendations for the best Metallica merch and apparel you can buy on Amazon.
And if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can order now and any one of these Metallica merch and apparel items will be delivered to your home in less than two days, thanks to Prime Delivery.
Not a member? Sign up for a 30-day free trial to take advantage of all that Amazon Prime has to offer, including access to Amazon Music for online music streaming, Prime Video and Prime Gaming; fast free shipping in less than two days with Prime Delivery; in-store discounts at Whole Foods Market; access to exclusive shopping events — such as Prime Day in July and Black Friday in November — and much more. Learn more about Amazon Prime and its benefits here.
Additionally, ahead of the band’s residency in Las Vegas in October, Metallica is on tour throughout Europe starting at Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece on Saturday, May 9. In the meantime, shop more merch and apparel from Metallica on Amazon below:
Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.
Peso Pluma officially kicked off his 2026 Dinastía by Peso Pluma & Friends Tour at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Sunday night (March 1), where he was joined by Tito Double P, Yahritza y Su Esencia, Armenta and Rey Quinto.
The opening show gifted fans with more than 35 songs, including Peso performing some of his biggest hits, such as “Lady Gaga,” “AMG,” and “Ella Baila Sola,” as well as live bangers from Tito and the other special guests.
Produced by Live Nation, the tour is in support of Peso’s chart-topping collaborative album with Tito Double P called Dínastia, released last Christmas.
“The idea is that we’re a duality — two people with the same last name,” Peso previously said to Billboard about the cover art of the joint album. “We’re opposites, like black and white, yin and yang, angels and demons. The biblical story of Jacob and Esau — two brothers who fought even before they were born — captures that tension. Tito and I might have our differences, but at the end of the day, we’re united. This album is about family, about Mexico, and about what we’re doing for corridos. That’s the bigger picture.”
Dinastía debuted at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Latin Albums chart and Regional Mexican Albums chart in January, and secured a No. 6 launch on the all-genre Billboard 200.
The trek will continue to 30 arenas and amphitheaters in select cities across the country, including San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, before wrapping at Chicago’s United Center on May 7.
See the complete setlist of the opening night of the Dinastía Tour, from Peso Pluma & Friends, below.
The past is dead.
That self-help mantra is a great reminder not to let old regrets hold us back. But it’s complicated by an old William Faulkner quote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Several chunks of Ashley McBryde’s past are unearthed in her latest single, “What If We Don’t,” a song that draws on her pre-stardom work and old relationships, accompanied by a video rooted in a difficult story from her youth. McBryde has used an intense form of therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), to heal that high-school episode, which involved the death of a close friend in a car accident. She still sheds tears talking about that friend — and about one of the song’s co-writers, who also died in 2018.
“Writing and releasing this song now is how I’ve processed it the best,” McBryde notes.
“What If We Don’t” was penned on July 8, 2015, by the self-described “Music Row Freaks,” the cowriting trio of McBryde, Terri Jo Box and Randall Clay, around a metal patio table with an umbrella on the brick-and-mortar back porch at a duplex that Box rented at the time in Nashville’s toney Belle Meade district.
“We definitely brought the neighborhood down with our red necks,” Box says with a laugh.
On that particular day, McBryde announced on her arrival that she needed a “big rock-ballad chorus,” Box recalls. It was a conscious effort by McBryde to find her lane in country music at a time when that rough-edged lane wasn’t acknowledged.
“I love the things that were represented sonically at the time,” she says, “but I didn’t have my Pat Benatar that I could turn to.”
They had that sound in mind as they addressed the frustrations that both McBryde and Box were experiencing in their love lives, where they tended to get involved with friends who turned out to be less-than-ideal partners. “Ashley and I were both in situationships, which we both pretty much stayed in back then,” Box says.
They wrote a power chorus first, sculpting it to McBryde’s formidable range, with a lyric that contemplated two people turning a friendship into something more. When they wrote the more subdued verses, they set up the scenario in the opening frame by picturing two people calling it a night, about to go their separate ways. And in verse two, they considered the results: “things gettin’ weird if it don’t work out.”
“I remember asking her and Randall, ‘Is it weird to say “weird” in a song?’” Box recalls. “Ashley was like, ‘I love it. Let’s just say it, because that’s what it is: weird.’” In the big picture, “What If We Don’t” is all about crossroads.
“That moment of making the decision to take the risk or not take the risk,” says McBryde, “is immediately followed up by, ‘Wow, I get to live with these consequences,’ no matter what they are.”
McBryde first recorded “What If We Don’t” for her 2016 indie album Jalopies & Expensive Guitars. The song didn’t come out quite the way she imagined it, and it never received any significant exposure.
Subsequently, Clay died in October 2018 from pneumonia in Pensacola, Fla., as a hurricane descended upon the city. McBryde always harbored regrets that “What If We Don’t” had not received the best possible opportunity, and as she prepped for her next album, she began inserting it into her live set, working it up with her road band, Deadhorse.
“We were out in support of Cody Johnson, so we were trying out new arrangements of a song that has been around a long time in front of 20,000 people a night,” she says. “What a great barometer to go, ‘Well, that worked’ or ‘Well, that didn’t work.’” She enlisted Brothers Osborne guitarist John Osborne to produce the next album, and he appreciated the work they’d already put in before they set foot in his Pinebox Studio on March 6, 2025.
“They really do their homework, and they come in with arrangements,” he says. “I love that, because I can focus on the nitty gritty from the word go.” Box attended the session and was impressed with how deep he went into that nitty gritty.
“John Osborne could go around to every instrument and show what he wanted to hear,” she says. “He could get behind the drums, and then he played the guitar, and he [was] just cool and laid back about everything. He really let Ashley be Ashley.”
McBryde sang live with Deadhorse on every take, knowing that any nuance might unlock something new in the band. While drummer Quinn Hill is behind them in live settings, the musicians were able to make him the visual focal point in the studio.
“I’m watching Quinn play drums like he’s digging a ditch,” McBryde says, “and I’m watching Caleb Hooper’s hair fall into his face — he can’t even see his bass — and it doesn’t matter; his fingers are just flying all over it. And [guitarist] Matt Helmkamp over here ripping solos as though it’s as easy as carrying a bag of chips.”
They treated “What If We Don’t” like a 1980s power ballad, allowing McBryde to take on a Joan Jett/Heart/Pat Benatar persona. “There isn’t a production big enough that she can’t absolutely compete with ease,” Osborne says, “so I went really hard with it, and she was all about it.”
When the band had the framework in place, Osborne overdubbed additional instrumentation, providing some extra guitar parts and thickening the sound with mini-Moog bass and a mellotron that laid synth tones underneath much of the production.
“In the bridge, I put in some really cool pizzicato stabs,” he says. “I grew up playing classical music, and I didn’t appreciate it when I was younger, but as an adult, I love listening to classical music, so I love using sometimes classical rhythms and counterpoints and approaches to sections to create energy.”
Everyone on the team agreed that “What If We Don’t” should be the next single, which reaffirms the friendship with Clay. “We feel him around all the time,” Box says. “It barely feels like he’s not here for it.”
The accompanying video is built roughly around the loss of McBryde’s highschool friend, and it’s notable that the girl has a boyfriend but expresses some sexual tension with McBryde’s character.
“That’s definitely by design, to leave that up to the viewer who the young person is most interested in because at that time, especially at that age group, you’re not sure,” she says. “A lot of the times you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I really enjoy hanging out with these two, and I can’t tell exactly.’”
Warner Records Nashville released “What If We Don’t” to country radio via PlayMPE on Jan. 22, assigning an official add date of Feb. 23.
It builds on several different friendships, incorporates the harder edge McBryde always envisioned for it, and allows her to pour herself into some strong emotions in a way that formal therapy never quite provided as she heals her past.
“I may have had a heartache or two when I wrote it,” she says, “but I didn’t have the tools to fully process everything that I was packing into that until now.”
A group of siblings who say they were abused by Michael Jackson have brought new child sex trafficking claims against the King of Pop’s estate.
Four of the five Cascio siblings — Edward, Dominic, Marie-Nicole and Aldo — alleged in a Friday (Feb. 27) federal lawsuit that Jackson raped and molested them as children over the course of more than a decade, including at his Neverland ranch and while on the road for the Dangerous world tour and HIStory world tour in the 1990s. The fifth sibling, Frank Cascio, has made similar sex abuse claims in a separate pending legal proceeding.
“Jackson groomed and brainwashed each plaintiff,” reads the lawsuit, filed by attorney Howard King. “After the abuse started, he isolated them emotionally, and sometimes physically, from responsible adults and from each other. He plied them with drugs and alcohol. He showed them pornography, including pictures of unclothed children, to normalize the abuse and desensitize them. He made them fear and distrust others by convincing them that not only his life, but also their lives and the lives of their family members, would be destroyed if anyone found out what he was doing to them.”
A lawyer for Jackson’s estate, Marty Singer, denied the Cascios’ allegations in a Friday statement and said the new lawsuit is a “desperate money grab” and “transparent forum-shopping tactic in their scheme to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars from Michael’s estate and companies.”
The Cascios, who grew up with Jackson and once referred to themselves as his “second family,” were previously staunch public defenders of the star against pedophilia claims. But after HBO’s explosive Leaving Neverland documentary in 2019, the five adult siblings began to claim they were all abused by the star as children.
Without admitting any wrongdoing, the Jackson estate signed a multimillion-dollar settlement with the Cascios in 2019 in exchange for a release of all claims and a promise of confidentiality. But the siblings have since sought to reopen the matter, leading the estate to bring extortion claims against Frank Cascio in arbitration in 2024.
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The arbitration spilled into California state court last year, with Frank seeking to void his family’s settlement because they were allegedly coerced into signing it without consulting independent lawyers or fully understanding its terms. The estate says this is completely false, and a California judge indicated at a January hearing that he’ll likely side with Jackson’s camp and uphold the deal.
Now, Frank’s four other siblings are trying this same argument in federal court. Their lawsuit alleges that after Leaving Neverland “deprogrammed” them from Jackson’s brainwashing, the estate took advantage of their trust to get signatures on a “deceptive and unconscionable document.”
Edward, Dominic, Marie-Nicole and Aldo are seeking a federal court order voiding the settlement, as well as unspecified financial damages for claims of child sex trafficking, negligence, infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and fraud.
“Plaintiffs reject the Jackson estate’s morally bankrupt efforts to control and silence them,” reads the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs bring this action to hold the Michael Jackson estate, its affiliates and the persons who control or work on their behalf accountable for Jackson’s conduct and their own wrongdoing.”
In a statement, King said the Cascios are seeking “fair compensation for more than a decade of abuse of an entire family,” and that they “hope their filing will embolden other victims and enablers to come forth and shake off the shackles of their silence.”
Singer responded in his own statement that the Cascios “spent decades defending and affirming Michael’s innocence” before changing their tune. The siblings stated during a 2010 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, for example, that Jackson was “never” inappropriate with them, and Frank wrote in a 2011 memoir, “Michael’s love for children was innocent, and it was profoundly misunderstood.”
Jackson, who died in 2009, was never convicted or held legally liable for any accusation of child sex abuse during his lifetime; he settled a civil claim in 1994 without admitting any wrongdoing, and he was acquitted at a criminal trial in 2005. But such allegations have continued to dog his legacy, most notably when Leaving Neverland amplified claims from two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, in disturbing detail.
The Jackson estate vehemently denies all claims of sexual misconduct and has called Leaving Neverland a “one-sided hit job,” suing HBO and getting the documentary removed from the streaming platform. Robson and Safechuck are continuing to litigate civil abuse claims against the estate.
Meanwhile, the estate has been extraordinarily successful at monetizing Jackson’s legacy. Despite the star dying with $500 million in debt, the estate has since generated more than $3 billion with catalog deals and new live shows exploiting the King of Pop’s intellectual property. The estate’s next project, the biopic Michael, is set for release next month.
The Jackson estate says it’s no coincidence that sex abuse accusers have come out of the woodwork now that it has deep pockets.
“Notably, these shakedown attempts come more than 15 years after Michael’s death, thus carrying no risk of being sued for defamation,” said Singer of the Cascio matter. “Sadly, in death just as in life, Michael’s talents and success continue to make him a target.”
Read the entire complaint here:
