The rumors are terrible and cruel, but honey … this one isn’t true. An alleged media plan outlining Travis Kelce‘s supposed publicity strategy in the event of a breakup with Taylor Swift has sent fans spiraling this week, but according to the football player’s reps, the whole thing is fake news — and they’re considering taking legal action against whoever made it up.  

In a statement shared with E! News Thursday (Sept. 5), Kelce’s reps at Full Scope Public Relations wholly denied that the papers circulating online — which bear the agency’s logo at the top and the title “Comprehensive Media Plan for Travis Kelce’s Public Relations Following Breakup with Taylor Swift” — have any validity.  

“These documents are entirely false and fabricated and were not created, issued, or authorized by this agency,” the spokesperson wrote. “We have engaged our legal team to initiate proceedings against the individuals or entities responsible for the unlawful and injurious forgery of documents.” 

Billboard has reached out to Full Scope and Swift’s team for comment. 

The statement from the athlete’s reps comes just ahead of his first Kansas City Chiefs game this season, which kicks off Thursday (Sept. 5). Kelce and his teammates will face off against the Baltimore Ravens at Arrowhead Stadium, where all eyes will be on the box suites to see if the “Anti-Hero” singer — who’s currently on break from her global Eras Tour — is in the building to support her boyfriend.  

By all accounts, the couple is going as strong as ever — and so is Swift’s interest in the NFL. According to Kelce, as well as Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the pop superstar has a new hobby of drawing up plays for the team to use on the field, though the tight end notes that she’s “a little biased” and tends to only make up on-field strategies for him.  

“She had just been so open to learning the game,” Kelce added on The Rich Eisen Show Sept. 3. “I think what makes her so good in her profession is that she’s so detailed in every aspect of it, from the words to her music and even the releases and the music videos and everything. She’s just so detailed and a part of it, that I think she was just curious about the profession.” 

Luke Combs, Jelly Roll and Zach Bryan will headline the 2025 edition of the Stagecoach Festival, taking place April 25-27 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. It will mark the first time that Bryan (April 25) and Jelly Roll (April 26) have served as headliners on the Mane Stage, while Combs returns for the first time to headline since 2022. 

Lana Del Rey — who is working on a country album titled Lasso, as she revealed at the Billboard x NMPA Songwriter Awards in February — will also appear at the festival. She joined Paul Cauthen at this year’s event for a duet of “Unchained Melody,” and headlined both weekends of Coachella earlier that month.

“Super pumped to be coming back to headline Stagecoach,” said Combs, in a statement. “It was one of the most memorable parts of the year when we did it in 2022, so really glad they’re having us back for round 2. We’re gonna have a blast.” 

Jelly Roll added, “Last year I got to play Stagecoach for the first time and it was incredible. And I didn’t just get to play. I got to hang out as a fan of artists I love and take my daughter to see some of the best entertainers in our format. Coming back to headline Stagecoach this year is a dream-but I’ll be attending as a fan this year as well, so get ready. See you in April.”

The festival announced its lineup as country music continues to experience a surge in popularity. “Country music is in a golden moment right now. The genre is hotter than it has ever been, and we are enjoying every moment of it,” Stacy Vee, vp of festival talent for Goldenvoice, told Billboard in an email interview. “It has been incredibly satisfying to be in a festival where so many different voices and styles of music are welcome. The world has been delivering us an abundance of phenomenal talent and the hardest part is having to choose who gets the slot.”

Two of this year’s hottest acts, Bryan and Shaboozey, have worked their way up to the Mane Stage, which is always a pleasure to see, Vee says: “Zach Bryan’s set at the Palomino Stage in 2022 was legendary and now he is headlining the Mane Stage. Shaboozey was such an exciting special guest last year and we’ll see him for a full set on Mane Stage.”

As usual, Stagecoach, which started in 2007, will feature a number of other non-country acts, including Backstreet Boys, T-Pain, Goo Goo Dolls, gospel singer Blessing Offor, Creed, Jewel, Nelly, Sammy Hagar, The Bacon Brothers and Tommy James & the Shondells (who also performed at the fest in 2017).

The Backstreet Boys have long been on Vee’s wish list. “I have literally dreamed of bringing them to the show for so long, I think it is going to hit so hard,” she says.

Among those also on the bill are Brothers Osborne, Chayce Beckham, Dylan Gossett, Flatland Cavalry, Koe Wetzel, Midland, Nico Moon, Scotty McCreery, Sturgill Simpson, Whiskey Myers and Tucker Wetmore.

Vee declined to answer a question about the continued paucity of country women available for top spots. Miranda Lambert headlined this year, Carrie Underwood in 2022, and Shania Twain in 2017. Lainey Wilson, who has not headlined the festival, last played in 2023. There are around 20 women playing among the 65 acts in 2025, including Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce, Anne Wilson, Crystal Gayle, Dasha, Alana Springsteen, Anna Avery, Nikki Lane and The Castellows.

General admission passes start at $579, while Corral Standing Pit passes that provide access to the standing room only pit area in front of Mane Stage start at $1,899. Corral Reserved Seating, which is for a seated area behind the Corral Standing Pit and other amenities, including access to the Corral Saloon and air-conditioned bathrooms, start at $2,299. Tickets go on sale Sept. 13.

Start your engines Little Monsters because we now know when Lady Gaga‘s seventh album will descend from pop heaven. According to a new Vogue cover feature, LG7 — as yet untitled officially — is due out in February, with the untitled first single due out in October.

“There’s a lot of pain associated with this adventure,” the singer told the magazine about the album. “And when I start to explore that pain it can bring out another side to my artistry. When I’m here at this studio [Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La], I’m relaxed and I am able to face my demons and what’s remarkable is… that’s the music. I’m able to hear it back.”

The profile opens at Rubin’s famed studio in Malibu — just down the road from Gaga’s home — where Gaga recorded 2016’s Joanne, as well as some of the music for the 2018 soundtrack to her feature film debut, A Star Is Born. It reveals that Gaga has spent “the better part of 2024 here” workin on both her new pop record and a second “surprise project” whose details have not yet been revealed.

Additionally, the very public enigma of a star reveals that her fiancé, Michael Polansky — to whom she got engaged in April after a day of rock climbing — was the one who pushed her to return to her pop roots. “Michael is the person who told me to make a new pop record. He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music,’” she said, with Polansky adding, “Like anyone would do for the person they love, I encouraged her to lean in to the joy of it. On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her; I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”

The writer then describes hearing a new, untitled, song from the upcoming album, writing that it is an “intense and ominous… old-school Gaga banger, unsettling but also buoyant.”

Earlier in the piece, Gaga noted that she’s feeling “so happy” and healthy these days, unlike during her Chromatica era. “That album was about an absolutely horrible time for me with my mental health,” she said. “I was in a really dark place. I struggled for, like, many years before that.” The album came out in Mary 2020, just months into the COVID-19 pandemic, when Little Monsters had to dance at home alone to the singles “Stupid Love” and “Rain on Me.”

After fracturing her hip during the Born This Way Ball tour ten years earlier — setting off years of muscle pain due to fibromyalgia — the pain-free Chromatica outing was a revelation. “Michael and I did that tour together,” she said. “I did it pain-free! I haven’t smoked pot in years. I’ve, like, changed. A lot. I feel like this new album, in a lot of ways, is about that time but from a place of happiness instead of misery. And now, Michael and I are really excited to organize our lives — and our marriage — around our creative output as a couple.”

Which, she said in an allusion to the music industry, was “really different than, like, doing what other people want you to do.”

In late May, Teezo Touchdown — clad in all-black leather, spiky silver nails piercing his shoulder pads — leaped across the stage of Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre. As he performed his groovy 2023 song “Mood Swings,” he screeched helium-pitched “Wee!” ad-libs mid-air, and a vibrant flower bouquet encasing his microphone swung along with him.

“A night at Lil Yachty’s house” inspired his mic setup, Teezo says today as he periodically munches on a raw orange carrot that matches the couch he’s lounging on. Teezo and Yachty were marathoning Morrissey music videos, and the way the former Smiths frontman nonchalantly swung a bouquet of flowers in the “This Charming Man” video “really influenced” Teezo — so much so that the avant-­garde 31-year-old rapper-meets-rock star eventually made it his own.

He has now whirled that microphone onstage at the country’s biggest arenas and stadiums, thanks to opening gigs for Tyler, The Creator in 2022 (after featuring on Tyler’s “RunItUp”) and Travis Scott in 2023 (after appearing on Scott’s UTOPIA track “Modern Jam”). “Being an opener is so hard,” Teezo admits — but he gained valuable perspective playing for early arrivers interested in the main act.

“I’m like the doorman welcoming you into Tyler’s crib, Travis’ crib: ‘Can I grab you anything? He’ll be down shortly. But while you here, let me entertain you,’ ” he explains. That attitude has also informed Teezo’s recent guest appearances on tracks by artists including Drake, Doja Cat and Don Toliver — A-list collaborations that launched him onto the Billboard Hot 100 with “Amen,” from Drake’s 2023 album, For All the Dogs, marking Teezo’s highest-charting entry, at No. 15.

“Teezo is your favorite artist’s favorite artist,” says his manager, Amal Noor, who has worked with him since 2019. “He respects these artists’ careers, and to know that they love him creatively is an amazing feeling.”

Following his own first headlining tour last spring, which came on the heels of his 2023 debut album, How Do You Sleep at Night?, Billboard’s 2024 R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Year is still coming to terms with his current level of stardom. “I can still go to Whole Foods and grab my six hard-boiled eggs or go to Paris and walk the streets, and no one bats an eye,” he says. “But on the other end, I’m on the biggest albums in the world, biggest tours.”

Long before he became Teezo Touchdown, the artist born Aaron Lashane Thomas followed in the footsteps of his father, a DJ and avid music collector, and started DJ’ing in the second grade, performing at friends’ parties, weddings and graduations in his hometown of Beaumont, Texas. “Every year, I would get something music-related for Christmas, but in seventh grade, I got this small box. There was a key inside to the studio that my dad had built for me upstairs,” he says. Teezo made his first song ever that day — and he still plays the piano riff at studios he visits “to call back to that kid on Christmas, like, ‘Look where you at right now.’ ”

Tragedy affected his trajectory early on. After his girlfriend was fatally shot in 2016, Teezo channeled his grief into his art, and in February 2019, he dropped the somber single “100 Drums,” which decried gun violence over a sample of Panic! at the Disco’s emo smash “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” Chance the Rapper and Trippie Redd both noticed, and the latter flew him out to L.A. for the first time the following month. Noor noticed, too: After seeing a clip of the “100 Drums” music video on a meme page, she also reached out to Teezo.

While spending time at his childhood home afterward, Teezo stumbled upon his father’s toolbox. “Punks are usually spiky. My dad had nails around the crib, and I was like, ‘This is going to be my spike,’ ” he says. In March 2020, Teezo asked his best friend to braid the nails into his hair for the first time, for his “Strong Friend” music video. “I think I was meant to find [the nails],” Teezo says, adding that he has comfortably slept with them in his hair multiple times.

His unorthodox image complemented his developing sound, which he now describes as “R&B with the boom of rock.” He didn’t think he could meld those genres until he saw the Afropunk festival’s Instagram post about Black rock band Living Colour and his producers, Brendan Grieve and Hoskins, played him a mashup of Craig David and metalcore band Killswitch Engage.

How Do You Sleep at Night? (released last September on Not Fit for Society/RCA Records) showcases Teezo’s genre-defying talents — from the garage punk-meets-R&B anthem “Too Easy” to the guitar-driven indie-rock jam “Impossible.” It failed to crack the Billboard 200, but Teezo only cares about the numbers for one reason: “I’m so obsessed with numbers because I just want to make my team proud. I’m proud because I’m making music and one person knows who I am.”

Drake called How Do You Sleep at Night? “some of the best music ever” when Teezo played it for him a month early. But ironically, Teezo’s profile expanded even further when Kendrick Lamar name-dropped him in the opening lines of his Hot 100 No. 1 Drake dis track, “Not Like Us” (“Nail a n—a to the cross/He walk around like Teezo”). Having just started his own tour (a “little bubble” filled with “loving fans”) at the time, “I made a decision that I wasn’t going to listen to any of the back-and-forth,” says Teezo, who claims to have somehow avoided listening to the inescapable “Not Like Us” in its entirety. “I’m seeing a mob mentality, and I don’t like division. Sorry I’m so kumbaya, but it’s all love over here.” The simple fact that both Drake and Lamar “know who I am… it’s still one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself. The kid in Beaumont, I’m pretty sure he’s jumping through the roof right now.”

Come October, Teezo will hit the road again on Don Toliver’s North American arena tour — an opportunity he initially hesitated to take because he wanted to focus on making his next album. But “[Don] was like, ‘Teezy, I’m telling you. If you know you got a tour coming up, it’s going to make you lock in.’ I needed a fire under me, and that was the fire.”

And it’s working: Teezo has already started on his next project. “The word that [we] keep bringing up is ‘undeniable.’ Everything that we’re making, is it undeniable?” he says. “If it’s not, put a red mark on it and let’s move on to the next.”

This story appears in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.

Oasis’ Liam and Noel Gallagher could not have chosen a better time to hit the road for their reunion tour — they don’t have to do press, they can skip the big festivals and they won’t be running into their ’90s Brit-pop rivals Blur.

Blur and frontman Damon Albarn already reunited last year and dropped a documentary in July, with plans to exit the road and go off-cycle in 2025. And instead of suffering through an NME interview or having to address their colorful history with TV host Graham Norton, the Gallaghers can just log on to Instagram and share a post with the band’s 3 million followers.

The on sale, covering 17 stadium shows — including three at the last minute due to demand — likely grossed $200 million to $225 million based on Billboard’s own calculations, conservatively estimating that each concert will gross $11 million to $13 million per show. Add in the two new shows the group announced earlier today — Sept. 27-28 at Wembley Stadium — and the potential gross jumps up to $209 million to $251 million for all 19 dates.

Those huge grosses are not possible in a festival setting. Unlike the brothers’ final show on Aug. 22, 2009, at the now defunct V Festival at Weston Park in the U.K., the economics of touring have changed so much in the last decade that the band is forgoing all festivals in 2025, according to their Instagram page. Instead, the Gallaghers are playing only headline stadium shows in the U.K, where they will make far more money — possibly eight to 10 times as much as they would appearing atop the bill for Coachella, Glastonbury or any other festival.

For the only announced leg of the tour so far, the band is playing gigs in huge stadiums like Dublin’s Croke Park, which holds 80,000 people. While prices for the current tour vary greatly, the average sticker price for the top 20 stadium shows of 2023 was $138.

That means that if Oasis can pull off all 19 concerts, the boys could stand to gross $209 million, or about $11 million per show, just on the average ticket price of $138, not including platinum and VIP. Compare that to festivals, where attendance typically fluctuates between 30,000 to 80,000 fans who on average spend $133 per day on a ticket, often buying a weekend pass for $399. With that number in mind, about 30,000 tickets sold would generate $12 million, while 80,000 tickets would generate $32 million in sales. Not bad — but that gate money would have to be split between all headliners and all other performers across the festival’s three days.

Stadium shows have other advantages over festivals. Using pricing tools, promoters can charge more money per seat, while the best festivals can do is upcharge for VIP sections. And unlike festivals, stadium concert promoters can easily add additional concerts based on demand. By asking fans to register in advance, promoters from SJM Concerts and Live Nation already have a decent idea of how many people want to buy tickets and can add shows based off those numbers.

That’s bad news for festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury, which have built their reputations on reunion tours. However, there are still plenty of superstar acts looking for platforms to rip through another gig. Last year, No Doubt — one of the biggest bands of the 1990s — played a reunion set at Coachella, along with their Long Beach reggae-punk brethren Sublime; French DJ trailblazers Justice; and Blur, who could probably have toured after their Coachella set but instead decided to make a statement high up the lineup on the world’s biggest festival stage.

Sure, Blur would have made more money grinding their way around the world on a multicity tour — but sometimes bands have different priorities, and a high-profile set at Coachella is a major milestone that many acts want. But when it comes to cashing in on a reunion toward the $100 million mark, there are just not enough festivals to generate that much money.