Bebe Rexha appeared on an upcoming episode of That’s My Jam, where she blew the competition away with a hilarious yet equally impressive cover of Rihanna‘s “Only Girl (In the World).”
Sitting beside her fellow game show contestants Anthony Anderson, T-Pain and Ryan Tedder, Bebe Rexha was called up to the microphone by host Jimmy Fallon, who instructed her to pull a lever to see which challenge she had to take on.
The wheel landed on “Nonsense Karaoke,” in which the contestant sings a well known song, but the lyrics are replaced with ridiculous, new lyrics.
Rexha was up for the challenge of performing the “nonsense” version of RiRi’s 2010 hit — and Fallon even set up a wind machine to get her in the zone.
“So could you help me steal / My favorite hoodie back from that girl?” Rexha belted in the goofy new chorus, as Fallon danced around behind her. “I left my other one up in the club / I find that I don’t like Impressionist art / Homely petulant squirrel.”
That’s My Jam is a music and comedy variety game show that draws inspiration from the most popular Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon games, including Launch the Mic, Air Guitar, Don’t Drop the Beat, Perfect Mash-Up, Wheel of Impossible Karaoke and Slay It, Don’t Spray It.
Watch full episodes of That’s My Jam on Peacock, which you can sign up for here.
The zesty “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is the breakout hit from Encanto, but it’s not the song from the film that members of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will be considering when they vote to determine this year’s nominees for best original song.
Instead, they’ll evaluate “Dos Oruguitas,” a Spanish-language acoustic ballad that had special meaning for Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote both music and lyrics for all of the songs in the film. It’s the first song he wrote entirely in Spanish.
“I really had to go out of my comfort zone,” Miranda told The Los Angeles Times. “My task was to write a Colombian folk song that feels like it’s always existed. … It was important to me that I write it in Spanish, rather than write it in English and translate it, because you can always feel translation. … I was really proud of it. I felt like I pulled it from a deeper place within myself.”
Both songs are listed on the Billboard Hot 100, but “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is way ahead. The track, credited to Carolina Gaitan, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz & Encanto Cast, vaults from No. 50 to No. 5 in its second week. “Dos Oruguitas,” credited to Sebastian Yatra, debuts at No. 83.
Yet “Dos Oruguitas” (Spanish for “Two Caterpillars”) is the only Encanto song that Miranda and the team at Walt Disney Animation Studios submitted for Oscar consideration. It made the shortlist of 15 songs that are vying for a nomination. The five finalists will be announced on Feb. 8.
This isn’t the first time that the biggest hit from a film wasn’t the one that was submitted for Oscar consideration. Here are other times something like this happened.
Grease, 1978: Olivia Newton-John’s “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” which received an Oscar nomination, was a big hit, peaking at No. 3 on the Hot 100, but there were two bigger hits from the soundtrack. Newton-John and John Travolta’s “You’re the One That I Want” and Frankie Valli’s “Grease” both reached No. 1. John Farrar wrote both “Hopelessly” and “You’re the One That I Want.” Barry Gibb wrote “Grease.” This was the second year in a row that Gibb was passed over for an Oscar nod. None of the Bee Gees’ songs from Saturday Night Fever were nominated for the 1977 award. Newton-John performed her spotlight ballad on the Oscar telecast in April 1979 — and slayed! (“Hopelessly” lost to the disco classic “Last Dance.” Donna Summer’s performance of that song on the Oscar telecast was also stellar.)
Mary Poppins, 1964: “Chim Chim Cheree” won the Oscar, but it wasn’t the biggest hit from the soundtrack. “Chim Chim” bubbled under the Hot 100 at No. 123, but the tongue-twister “Super-cali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious” peaked at No. 66. Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman wrote the entire song score. Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke declined to perform the song on the Oscar telecast in April 1965 (on which Andrews won an Oscar for best actress for her performance in the film). Instead, The New Christy Minstrels performed “Chim Chim.” Later that year, Andrews invited the ensemble to perform the song with her on her NBC special The Julie Andrews Show, an Emmy nominee for outstanding variety special.
In addition, there are many cases where the biggest hit from a film wasn’t eligible for an Oscar because it wasn’t written for the film. Here’s a sampling:
Country Strong, 2010: Gwyneth Paltrow’s title song from this country-themed film reached No. 81 on the Hot 100. Sara Evans’ “A Little Bit Stronger” did even better, hitting No. 34. But neither of those songs was written for the film. One that was, “Coming Home” (also performed by Paltrow), was nominated. Paltrow performed it on the Oscar telecast, but it lost to Randy Newman’s “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3.
The Bodyguard, 1992: Dolly Parton wrote and recorded “I Will Always Love You” in 1974, 18 years before Whitney Houston’s steel-belted version became a blockbuster hit in The Bodyguard. Two other songs from that film, “I Have Nothing” and “Run to You,” received Oscar nominations, but both lost to “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. Parton had been nominated for best original song for 1980’s “Nine to Five” and would be nominated again for 2005’s “Travelin’ Thru,” but this is the one that would almost certainly have won if it had been eligible.
The Rose, 1979: Amanda McBroom’s “The Rose,” a No. 3 smash for Bette Midler, wasn’t eligible because McBroom didn’t write it for the film. She had written it a year or two earlier in response to her manager’s suggestion that she write “some Bob Seger-type tunes.” Midler was the first artist to record the song, but the Academy are sticklers on this point. As a result, Midler didn’t get a chance to perform it on the Oscar telecast, though she was a best actress nominee for her performance in the film. McBroom did, however, win a Golden Globe for the song. Their rules are a little looser.
Tiffany Haddish was arrested Friday (Jan. 14) and charged with driving under the influence, authorities said.
The actor and comedian was detained after Peachtree City Police got a call about 2:30 a.m. regarding a driver asleep at the wheel on a highway, Assistant Police Chief Matt Myers said in a news release. An officer saw a vehicle matching the caller’s description and stopped Haddish as she pulled into the yard of a residence, Myers said.
Haddish later posted $1,666 bond and was released from the Fayette County Jail, Myers said. He did not release any information about a possible court date.
A spokesman for Haddish did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Haddish was the breakout star of the smash comedy Girls Trip and has starred in such movies as The Kitchen, Night School and Like a Boss. She’s also written the New York Times best-seller The Last Black Unicorn and hosted the popular television show Kids Say The Darndest Things. In 2020, Haddish won the best comedy album Grammy for Black Mitzvah.
Peachtree City is located about 40 miles (63 kilometers) south of Atlanta.
Steven Van Zandt knew Ronnie Spector, who died Jan. 12 at the age of 78, for more than 40 years. But even before they met, her music was an integral part of his life. As leader of The Ronettes, Spector’s dynamic, powerful delivery and instantly recognizable vibrato imprinted on his soul.
More than a decade after The Ronettes’ heyday, Van Zandt produced a handful of records featuring Spector, igniting a friendship that lasted until her death. Their work in the mid-’70s, as she was coming out of her divorce from producer Phil Spector and trying to find her footing again in the musical world, helped bring her out of retirement.
“She never changed throughout all of her adversity,” Van Zandt tells Billboard. “She was just an eternal 16-year-old teenager. I would run into her, off and on for the last 40 years, and she just never changed. She’s always had that bubbly kind of optimism, no matter how weird things got.”
Van Zandt says there are around 35 songs performed by Spector from all stages of her career in rotation on The Underground Garage, the SiriusXM radio station created and curated by Van Zandt. On Saturday, his salute to Spector will begin running on the station.
For Billboard, he narrowed his favorites down to five, revisiting why the tunes meant so much to him. His only regret? That the pair didn’t make a full album together. “I was happy to know her and proud to know her, but really honored to work with her,” he says. “I wish we’d done more.”
1. “I Wonder,” The Ronettes (1964)
It was, I think, the third Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector composition after “Be My Baby” and “Baby, I Love You.” There’s easily 10 or 12 classics I could choose from The Ronettes, but “I Wonder” is just one of my favorites. When it comes to The Ronettes’ stuff, I don’t know if I could really necessarily distinguish one from the other. They’re just phenomenal, fantastic compositions, productions and arrangements. … It’s hard to analyze [her voice]. It was more powerful than you would expect. She was a tiny girl, really. And it was a little bit more powerful than you would expect. She had that particular vibrato that was kind of uniquely hers. You can hear how many people were influenced by it.
2. “(The Best Part of) Breakin’ Up,” The Ronettes (1964)
That’s Phil Spector again, but with [co-writers] Pete Andreoli and Vince Poncia. So that was a little bit of a change-up. … She just does what every great singer does, which is you are making the audience believe that you have written that song, you have lived that song, that song is completely autobiographical, straight from your soul to the vinyl. … It’s only the great singers that have that ability to convince you. You feel like you’re just kind of peeking into a 16-year old teenager’s bedroom and she’s just looking out the window. That obviously carries an innocence with it automatically that’s just completely natural, but [she] somehow [had] the sophistication to be able to sing the songs in a way that is really above [her] age. It’s an interesting combination.
3. “You Mean So Much to Me,” Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes with Ronnie Spector (1976)
It is extremely important because it was a song [written by Bruce Springsteen] that got her out of retirement after the legendary toxic marriage. She basically had quit at that point and had lost her confidence and really felt like she would never go back onstage. So that was a really important transitional record. [Producing her] was a nervous moment. [Laughs] You can’t help but feel a little bit responsible at that point. You’re dealing with not just a friend, but you’re dealing with history. That was the first time that I dealt with somebody who was already famous, you know?
4. “Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” Ronnie Spector & The E Street Band (1977)
I’m definitely cheating. [Laughs] That was an extraordinarily important record. It finally gave her the rest of her confidence back. And from there on, she would get back onstage and stay onstage after that. But it also was a very important moment for the E Street Band, who were in some trouble at that moment. [Bruce Springsteen was barred from recording during a legal battle with his ex-manager and couldn’t work with or pay his band.] Steve Popovich was one of my best friends. He was the guy who signed the Jukes and he said, “Let’s do a session with the E Street Band.” He just had started Cleveland International Records and he said, “I’ve got the perfect song from Billy Joel.” It was a tribute to Ronnie and The Ronettes and Spector. This was a marriage literally made in heaven. That was only the second record I ever produced and I’m very proud of that. You do feel the weight of history and you want to rise to the occasion.
5. “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” Ronnie Spector and The E Street Band (1977)
This was the B-side of “Say Goodbye to Hollywood.” I wrote it for her, which was kind of personal at the time. [Van Zandt and Spector were in a relationship.] A little bit of an extra sort of excitement about her singing a song that I actually wrote. It’s an extra motivation and inspiration. I was talking to Jeff Barry about this last night — he’s going to be on our special — knowing that that voice is going to be doing your song really does affect you and you’ve got to rise to that occasion and you’ve got to bring your A-game and so you do. [When she first heard it,] it was a moment that was special. Yeah, we had our moments.
Kelly Clarkson opened the Friday (Jan. 14) episode of her eponymous talk show with a soothing cover of The Pretenders‘ 1995 rendition of “Angel of the Morning.”
Wearing a sleek, black belted maxi dress, Clarkson belted the lyrics of an illicit love affair she just can’t shake. “Just call me angel of the morning, angel/ Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby,” she sang in the soaring chorus, backed by her full band.
The song, originally written by Chip Taylor in 1967, was recorded by many artists besides The Pretenders, including the 1968 original recording by Merrilee Rush, plus Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone, Olivia Newton-John, and, most famously, Juice Newton in 1981. It’s also appeared in more than a dozen films and TV shows, including Girl, Interrupted, Jerry Maguire, Modern Family, Charlie’s Angels, The Leftovers and Charlie Wilson’s War.
Newton’s rendition of “Angel of the Morning” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart dated April 11, 1981, where it spent three weeks atop the chart.
In her most recent “Kellyoke” numbers, Clarkson has also covered Prince‘s “Kiss,” Sharon Van Etten‘s “The End of the World,” “She Used to Be Mine” from Broadway’s Waitress, Rod Stewart‘s “Forever Young,” “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins, and more.
Watch Kelly Clarkson sing “Angel of the Morning” below.

