Julia Fox is ready to open up to the public about her sexuality.

In a post on her TikTok Monday (July 8), the actress revealed that she identifies as a lesbian. Fox stitched a video from comedian Emily Gracin, who was talking about seeing “a lesbian with her boyfriend” and thinking to herself, “Aw, you hate that man! You literally hate him!”

Fox then popped on camera while walking down the street, saying that she understood exactly what Gracin meant. “Hey, that was me,” she said. “I was that lesbian. So sorry, boys, won’t happen again.”

This isn’t the first time Fox has spoken up about LGBTQ+ issues. In a cover story with Gay Times back in October 2023, the actress voiced her unequivocal support for the trans community. “As a cis woman, I feel like it’s absolutely my duty to empower and uplift trans voices and try to get people to understand that, trans, non binary or queer, at the end of the day, we are all human,” she said at the time. “It’s a cause that’s very near and dear to my heart, my best friend in the world [model Richie Shazam] is a trans woman and I was by her side during the transition.”

Fox first rose to prominence after her debut feature film performance in the 2019’s Uncut Gems, which earned her critical acclaim and nominations at multiple critics’ awards around the country. In January 2022, Fox confirmed that she was dating rap icon Ye (formerly known as Kanye West); the two eventually split up the following month.

Most recently, Fox appeared as a DJ at LadyLand 2024, an annual LGBTQ+ music festival in Brooklyn hosted by nightlife curator Ladyfag. Performing a brief, three-song set at the festival’s second night (June 29), Fox closed out her performance with a rendition of her debut electronic single “Down the Drain.”

Check out Fox’s coming out video below:

Shakira will perform at the Copa América final Sunday (July 14), CONMEBOL announced on Tuesday (July 9). It will be the first time that the Colombian hitmaker will perform at the oldest national soccer tournament. The artist will sing during halftime of the match, scheduled for 8 p.m. ET at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, where some 54,000 people are expected to attend.

“Shakira is an extraordinary South American star who has dazzled the entire world,” said Alejandro Domínguez, president of CONMEBOL, in a statement. “Her songs are sung and danced to in every corner of the planet, turning her art into a global phenomenon that crosses borders and is enjoyed by millions of people. We are sure that her performance at the Copa América USA 2024 will enhance the message of healthy passion and unity through sport.”

Her hit “Puntería” featuring Cardi B is the official song of TelevisaUnivision’s 2024 Copa América CONMEBOL coverage.

Held in the United States with the participation of 16 CONMEBOL and CONCACAF teams, the event began on June 20 and ends on July 14.

Known for her performances at major global events such as the Super Bowl and three World Cups, the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer is set to entertain with a mix of her classic anthems and new hits.

The Barranquilla-born superstar recently launched her 12th studio album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran in March. The album peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 2 on Top Albums Sales, among other chart achievements. Shortly after launching her latest album, Shakira delivered a pop-up performance to more than 40,000 people at Times Square on the TSX stage.

Looks like Ariana Grande‘s Eternal Sunshine is going to shine a little longer. On the latest episode of the Shut Up Evan podcast posted Tuesday (July 9), the 31-year-old pop star confirmed that an extended version of her Billboard 200-topping seventh studio album is for sure on its way — but fans will have to be patient as they wait for its release.

When asked about the possibility of a deluxe version — something she first teased in June on Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed podcast — Grande told host Evan Ross Katz that it was “definitely” in the works. “I definitely thought this album was perfect as it was, and I still kind of feel that way,” she said. “With time, I’ve been inspired to write more songs and inclined to do this deluxe. I’m really tempted to put a creative button on this storytelling, and I have a lot of ideas.”

“It’s an idea that’s become something I can’t not do,” she continued before teasing, “The final song on it is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.”

The downside, however, is that the Eternal Sunshine deluxe won’t be coming in the near future — Grande is still busy promoting the upcoming Wicked films, in which she stars alongside Cynthia Erivo, after all. “I don’t just want to slap the music onto what I already think is a perfect version of the album,” she explained. “I want to let it live in this current state a little while longer, take my time to execute my vision for this deluxe and make sure that it’s worth the wait and as special as I think it can be.”

“I’ll let it be a surprise, but I wouldn’t say any time super soon,” the Grammy winner added. “I’m also trying to navigate the timing of the Wicked of it all, because I really want to give my entire self to that when it’s time to shift gears. I’m working on it constantly, and I’ll have more information on timing soon.”

Grande had a similar answer when asked whether she’s planning to do live shows in support of Eternal Sunshine, another topic she previously spoke about on The Zach Sang Show. “I still want it too,” she reiterated to Katz. “It would be a really lovely idea to be able to trickle in some shows in between the two Wicked films. It’s for a multitude of reasons not going to be a tour in the way that I used to tour.”

“It would be a mini little sampling of shows, I think,” she added. “It’s something that my team and I are working on coming up with options for.”

BMI’s C-suite continues to grow with the appointment of Tom Kershaw as chief technology officer and Justin Rohde as chief transformation officer. The respective CTOs, both new hires with 40-plus years of experience between them, will report to BMI president and CEO Mike O’Neill.

Kershaw arrives from travel retail platform Travelport, where he served as chief product and technology officer for three years. Prior to that, he co-founded the open-source software organization Prebid.org and held executive positions at Magnite, Google, Ericsson and VERISIGN, among others.

O’Neill said Kershaw will lead BMI’s modernization efforts and work to “manage the opportunities and challenges of AI and create new avenues for affiliates and licensing partners to enhance their BMI experience through technology.”

Rohde joins BMI from Xplor Technologies, a financial services company where he pulled double duty as chief revenue officer and chief transformation officer. Prior to Xplor, he led product development at Integramed America and worked in strategy consulting at Bain & Company.

O’Neill called it the “absolute right time for our company to add the position of chief transformation officer, as we continue to accelerate our plan to maximize royalties and improve the service we provide to our creative community.”

BMI, acquired earlier this year by New Mountain Capital for an undisclosed sum, was founded as a non-profit in 1939 by a group of radio broadcasters as an alternative to ASCAP and transitioned to a for-profit model in 2022.

“Tom and Justin have the experience and leadership qualities to enable us to enhance and increase the value we provide to our songwriters, composers and publishers,” said O’Neill. “Working with our team, they will be instrumental as we carry out the key elements of our strategic growth plan, to continue to grow distributions, advance our technology and customer service and to seek new sources of revenue for our affiliates.”

The lyrics to hip-hop artist Kid Cudi’s 2009 song “Pursuit of Happiness” include the lines “I’ma do just what I want/ Looking ahead, no turning back.”

Those lyrics also serve as a musically freeing anthem for bluegrass artist and banjo virtuoso Trajan “Tray” Wellington, who includes a fleet-fingered, hip-hop-tinted bluegrass version of the tune on his seven-song project, Detour to the Moon, out July 12 via Mountain Home Music Company.

“I’ve always considered myself an explorer of the banjo. I always try to look at it as exploration within music and always pushing boundaries,” the 25-year-old Wellington tells Billboard. “I think within roots music, a lot of the time it can get stagnant and people feel like they have to do a certain avenue and appeal to this or appeal to that.”

Wellington grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and counts his grandfather’s CD collection as his first brush with musical infatuation. Initially, Wellington began playing electric guitar, until six months later he found a Doc Watson greatest hits CD in the collection, which inspired him to learn to flat pick guitar. Then Wellington’s middle school had a Mountain Music Club, where his teacher brought out a banjo and began playing the bluegrass standard “Salt Creek.”

“I had never heard anything like it,” Wellington recalls of picking up the banjo at age 14. “I fell in love with it, and pretty much immediately put the guitar to the side and began learning banjo.”

His proficiency on the instrument was apparent even before his graduation from East Tennessee State University’s prestigious Bluegrass, Old Time and Country program, as he had already won the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s 2019 momentum award for instrumentalist of the year while performing as part of the group Cane Mill Road (which also earned the IBMA’s momentum band of the year award that same year).

He followed with the independent EP Uncaged Thoughts in 2020, before signing with Mountain Home Music Company later that year. He’s since performed on the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass main stage, hosted the Momentum Awards ceremony and led banjo workshops at Merlefest and Gray Fox music festivals.

Wellington’s music has always carried within it the indelible influence of jazz music, and that is apparent again on his latest outing, with his bluegrass-meets-new age take on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” while nodding to bluegrass artist Bill Keith’s 1970s banjo-spotlighting rendition.

“When I was trying to work it out on banjo, I figured out this cool chord voicing for it,” Wellington says. “I was like, ‘This makes it sound almost like a new-age sound,’ so I tried to take that and make it sound even more spacey in a way. My fiddle player at the time, Josiah Nelson, knew ‘Caravan,’ so I asked him to play the melody of ‘Caravan’ over it and it just gave a totally different vibe from any other version I’ve heard.”

Elsewhere, he offers a stunning rendering of John Hiatt’s “Lift Up Every Stone,” but also melds these re-imaginings with originals such as “Spiral Staircase.”

His sound fuses his musically progressive probing with traditional bluegrass elements. In addition to Nelson, joining him are bassist Katelynn Bohn, drummer Mike Ashworth (of Steep Canyon Rangers), singer/guitarist Nick Weitzenfeld, steel guitarist DaShawn Hickman, vocalist Wendy Hickman and Americana artist Kaia Kate. Detour to the Moon was recorded at Arden, North Carolina’s Crossroads Studios, a recording space often utilized by bluegrass luminaries including Bryan Sutton, Lonesome River Band, Doyle Lawson, and Alison Krauss & Union Station member Barry Bales.

Wellington has also made considerable strides in dismantling musical boundary lines and stereotypes with his music. Most notably with his 2022 debut full-length album Black Banjo, Wellington has been a fierce advocate for increasing diversity and representation within the genre.

“With the Black Banjo project, No. 1 was the idea that Black people invented this music; they belong here,” he says. “No. 2, and one of the biggest things I would say I face sometimes — but not as much anymore — was people trying to tell me what I need to do with my music, like ‘You have to do this as a Black musician,’ or ‘You need to play some songs on the gourd banjo,’ or ‘You need to play these songs by these people from time to time. People feel the need to say that, but it’s a very one-dimensional way of looking at how to showcase Black art in this music. Really, the best way you can do it is letting these Black individuals have prime slots to showcase their talent. I just had to realize that I’m my own musician, with my own set of influences.”

He expanded on the mission of Black Banjo by teaming with three other Black roots musicians late last year — vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Kater, bassist Nelson Williams and fiddler/vocalist Jake Blount — to form the group New Dangerfield. They released their debut single, “Dangerfield Newby,” in April and Wellington says the group is prepping to release another song later this month and are set to head into the studio to record an album later this year.

“We’re four different artists that have different backgrounds, different sets of musical personalities and what we’re trying to do now is figure out how it all works together,” Wellington says.

He says he has seen representation grow in terms of artists of color within the genre, but there is still much work to be done in terms of representation within the bluegrass genre’s audience.

“When I very first started, I don’t remember seeing many people at all that were Black,” Wellington notes. “As I got older, I started realizing a lot more and was like, ‘It is weird how there are not many people that look like me in this music.’ But I think there has been more representation and I think a lot of organizations are doing work to make sure people feel welcomed. But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, especially within the audience spectrum, especially. I’d love to see that aspect of it grow. Musicians [are] one thing, but still, most places I go, like 95%, it’s primarily a white audience. And I think it’s as much of a mix of the musicians as well as the actual venues themselves, because there are certain places [where] just a bunch of people of different backgrounds don’t feel comfortable going. If you’re walking into a room that’s primarily white, as a person of color, you do feel like an outlier. It’s about making people feel welcome when they come in.”

While he works to advocate for greater diversity within roots music, and expand the genre beyond traditional boundaries, he also has a bucket list of artists he hopes to one day work with — including bluegrasser Billy Strings, Snarky Puppy’s Cory Henry, and singer Bella White.

“While I’m still building and still growing as an artist, I do feel like I’m getting to do a lot of cool things I’ve always wanted to do,” Wellington says. “I just got back from a short tour in Europe, and I was at the airport last night and had the realization, like, ‘Man, I started playing banjo at 14. And 14-year-old me would’ve never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing now.’”