An electric violinist who was part of Will Smith’s Based on a True Story tour last year has brought a lawsuit accusing the star of sexual harassment and retaliation.

Brian King Joseph, a violinist who came in third place on season 13 of America’s Got Talent in 2018, claims in a Tuesday (Dec. 30) civil complaint that he was fired from Smith’s international trek after reporting that someone had broken into his hotel room and left sexually suggestive materials.

“Defendant’s actions caused plaintiff severe emotional distress, economic loss, reputational harm and other damages,” reads the lawsuit. “Plaintiff was also harmed as a result of the stress of losing his job his health deteriorated causing major physiological damage. Plaintiff suffered from PTSD and other mental illness as a result of the termination.”

Joseph met Smith in November 2024 and was later invited to join the actor and rapper on tour supporting his comeback album, Based on a True Story. The violinist says he grew close to Smith and spent time alone with the star, who allegedly told him, “You and I have such a special connection that I don’t have with anyone else.”

Things supposedly got dicey this past March, when Smith’s tour crew was in Las Vegas for a show at the House of Blues before their official summer kickoff. Joseph claims he returned to his hotel room one night to find various odd items, including a bottle of HIV medication, an earring and a note reading, “Brian, I’ll be back.”

According to the complaint, Joseph feared that he was about to be the victim of sexual assault. While Joseph does not overtly accuse Smith of orchestrating this alleged break-in, he connects the incident to their prior relationship.

 “The facts strongly suggest that defendant Willard Carroll Smith II was deliberately grooming and priming Mr. Joseph for further sexual exploitation,” reads the lawsuit. “The sequence of events, Smith’s prior statements to plaintiff, and the circumstances of the hotel intrusion all point to a pattern of predatory behavior rather than an isolated incident.”

The violinist claims he reported this incident to Smith’s management, as well as hotel security and local police. Joseph was fired four days later, with a member of Smith’s management team allegedly blaming him for fabricating the hotel break-in story.

Now, Joseph is suing for sexual harassment and retaliation. He’s seeking an unspecified amount of financial damages from both Smith and his company, Treyball Studios Management.

An attorney for Smith, Allen Grodsky, told People on Thursday (Jan. 1) that Joseph’s allegations are “false, baseless and reckless.”

“They are categorically denied, and we will use all legal means available to address these claims and to ensure that the truth is brought to light,” added Grodsky, as reported by People.

RAYE has earned the first No. 1 of 2026 on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart with “WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!” (Jan. 2). The song was first released in September and has waited 14 weeks to hit the top spot.

The London-based singer-songwriter benefits from a number of festive classics dropping from the Official Singles Chart, with data from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 counting towards this week’s chart update. Her song jumps 47 places to No. 1, but spent much of the final weeks of 2025 inside the top five.

“WHERE IS MY MUSBAND!” is RAYE’s second U.K. chart-topper following the success of 2023’s “Escapism.” which featured 070 Shake, and her 20th top 40 single overall across her decade-long career.

Taylor Swift is also among the artists to benefit from festive classics departing the chart as “The Fate of Ophelia” rebounds to No. 2. Her album The Life of a Showgirl was recently named as the U.K.’s biggest album in 2025 despite its October release date.

Dave and Tems’ “Raindance” hits a brand new peak at No. 3 in its 10th week on the Official Singles Chart. The song appears on the former’s third LP The Boy Who Played The Harp which hit the No. 1 spot back in October.

Olivia Dean’s sensational breakout period stretches into 2025 as she claims four spots in the top 20 of the Official Singles Chart: “So Easy (To Fall In Love)” hits a new peak at No. 4; Sam Fender collaboration “Rein Me In” is up to No. 5; former chart-topper “Man I Need” lands at No. 6; and “A Couple Minutes” closes at No. 20.

A decade on from its release, Zara Larsson’s 2015 hit “Lush Life” reaps the rewards of a viral dance trend to lift 41 spots to No. 9 this week. The track initially peaked at No. 3 upon its release.

Haven’s “I Run” is up to No. 10, despite growing controversy around its alleged use of artificial intelligence in the song’s production. The song faced accusations from Jorja Smith’s label FAMM that her voice and likeness had been used to train the model that provided the song’s original vocal take. It was subsequently replaced with a new part by Kaitlin Aragon, and the duo has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Smith’s likeness.

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The Eagles aren’t ready to say farewell quite yet. After a global trek around the world for its Long Goodbye tour, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers decided not to take it easy, and instead, moved their stay at the “Hotel California” to take up residency at the Las Vegas Sphere.

Demand to see the Eagles has surpassed that of the amount of dates, which has led the rock band to extend its Sphere stay for a seventh and “final” time in 2025 — especially after the rave night-one review., but it they didn’t stop there. The Eagles residency will now go until to March 2026, giving fans even more chances to see the rock band perform in the new year.

With a long list of Las Vegas residencies to choose from, the Sphere offers a visual experience unlike any other stage, and offers a multi-sensory experience that promises to bring the Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping band’s music to life. Plus, last-minute tickets to the Eagles live at the Sphere are still available for previously announced dates.

Ticketmaster is the official ticketing platform to buy Eagles tickets online, with options starting at $396 at press time, but if the desired date or number of tickets you’re looking for isn’t available, there are additional cheap tickets sites including resale platforms you can check out.

How to Get Cheap Tickets to the Eagles’ Sphere Residency Online

Below, ShopBillboard put together a list of affordable Eagles Sphere ticket options, including exclusive discount codes that can save you up to $500.

You can find Eagles Sphere tickets on StubHub from $430 and take advantage of the site’s filters to find the best tickets available. Choose from the number of tickets needed, price and even have estimated fees included in the cost, so there are no hidden surprises. Plus, each purchase is protected by StubHub’s FanProtect, which you can learn more about here.

Vivid Seats has Eagles Sphere tickets from $330 and help you determine the best offers available by labeling what dates have deals. You can even save $20 off orders of $200+ when you use the code BB2024 at checkout. When sifting through tickets, you can sort by the price as well as if the offer is from a site SuperSeller (sellers who are highly-rated and experienced) as well as the seat(s) are in the front of your desired section.

Your purchase will also be covered by the Vivid Seats Buyer Guarantee, which can you read more about here.

Seat Geek is another affordable option to find cheap Eagles Sphere tickets with options as low as $338. The resale ticketing site uses a ranking system with a scale of 1-10 to show which options are the best deal. Tickets marked a one are considered the worst deal whereas options rated a 10 are considered the best deals. Bonus offer: First purchases are eligible to receive $10 off orders of $250+ when you use the code BILLBOARD10 at checkout.

Gametime promises to be the go-to destination for the cheapest last-minute tickets to the Eagles Sphere residency and more live events. Right now, you can find options for as low as $344, and score an extra $20 off purchases of $150+ when you enter the code SAVE20 at checkout. Found cheaper options on another site? The Gametime Price Guarantee will give you 110% of the difference back when you show proof to the resale site.

You can find cheap Eagles Sphere tickets on Ticketnetwork starting at $363. You can also get $150 off purchases of $500+ when you use the code BILLBOARD150 at checkout or $300 off orders of $1,000+ when you use the promo code BILLBOARD300. To help find the best options, the site provides an interactive map that lets you see how many tickets are left in each section in addition to being able to pick exactly where you want to sit and sort options based on price per ticket.

The Full Eagles’ Sphere 2026 Residency Dates (Updating)

Check below to see the remaining Eagles Sphere dates for 2026.

Over the course of five fright-filled seasons, Stranger Things has had a knack for picking just the right song, at just the right time, to accompany some of the sci-fi horror series’ most action-packed moments. And, because the show took place in the 1980s, of course this week’s finale had to pay tribute to one of the eras most dominant pop superstars: Prince.

Some folks in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region thought for sure that the era-appropriate song that might help bring the season five story to a close would be something from beloved indie rockers The Replacements. There were two reasons for this theory: number one, WSQK DJ Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) suggested in the next-to-last episode that the Paul Westerberg-led band’s music would be the perfect monster-fighting soundtrack. Plus, co-star Finn Wolfhard (who plays Mike Wheeler) has optioned the rights for a big-screen adaptation of the biography Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements, which he plans to direct and co-write.

But, alas, in the final two-hour goodbye that dropped on New Year’s Eve, show runners the Duffer Brothers opted for two songs from Prince’s iconic 1984 Purple Rain album, both of which were perfectly placed, and, to hear them tell it, incredibly long shots to be approved by the late pop star’s estate. (Warning: the following contains spoilers about the Stranger Things finale.)

“Once we came up with the idea that the record was going to be the trigger for the bomb, we knew we needed an epic needle drop, and so many ideas were thrown around,” Ross Duffer told Netflix editorial site Tudum about the scene where Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) rigs a record player to play side B of Purple Rain, which opens with “When Doves Cry,” in the lead-up to the most dramatic moment to date.

“I think there’s nothing really more epic than Prince,” Ross Duffer said of the siblings’ search for an album that started off with a celebratory song (“Let’s Go Crazy”) and then ended with one that had the appropriate dramatic gravitas (“Purple Rain”). “Prince lined up perfectly for us.”

“When Doves Cry” was the spot-on emotional pump-up in the run-up to the bomb’s remote triggering, when the gang takes off to escape the collapse of the interdimensional bridge, before the switch to the more emotionally churning Purple Rain title track as viewers are left to ponder Eleven’s (Millie Bonnie Bongiovi) fate. The only issue was the biggest issue: getting Prince’s music approved for TV is kind of impossible.

Ross said the brothers had never spent so much time talking about a musical cue for the show as they did for that sequence of events and what made their final choice even more alluring was that you pretty much never hear Prince’s music licensed for TV or movie soundtracks. “It just has not been used,” he said. “[Prince’s] estate does not generally allow that song to be licensed outside the Purple Rain movie.”

But for the Duffers, using “Purple Rain” was so exciting “because I think it summed up the emotion of the moment,” Ross Duffer said, with brother Matt noting that thanks to Kate Bush — whose “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” got a massively unexpected chart glow-up in 2022 thanks to its vital placement in season four of the series — the pair were able to secure the Prince rights.

When the Duffers said they wanted to feature the two songs in the finale, Matt Duffer said, “we were told that it was a real long shot, so we just crossed our fingers… Thank God they agreed.” In addition to the Prince songs, the finale episode, “The Rightside Up,” also featured tracks from Fleetwood Mac (“Landslide”), the Pixies (“Here Comes Your Man”), Iron Maiden (“The Trooper”), Cowboy Junkies (“Sweet Jane” cover), Etta James (“At Last”), Queen (“Who Wants to Live Forever”) and David Bowie (“Heroes”).

Noah Kahan had a lot to celebrate when the calendar flipped to 2026 this week. In addition to performing for a massive crowd at the Glastonbury Festival in the U.K. and filming a documentary about his rocket ride to international stardom, the singer also married his longtime girlfriend in an intimate ceremony in his native Vermont in August.

The “No Complaints” singer counted his good fortune and blessings in an Instagram post on Thursday (Jan. 1) in which he raised a glass to toast the past and the future. “28 was change and adaptation and understanding and growing and trying to go backwards and forwards at once and coming to terms with and accepting and being filled with gratitude and wondering why this happened to me and feeling left out of something important and trying to find the bottom of a never ending landfill,” he wrote in the run-on sentence message.

He continued, “and making the little guy proud and taking it all in and never turning my head away from the windshield even when I was terrified of the road in front of me and god I hope 29 teaches me even half as much.” Kahan celebrated his 29th birthday on New Year’s Day.

At press time the singer only has a handful of live dates on tap for 2026 so far, including a slot at the Out of the Blue Festival in Cancun, Mexico (Jan. 8-11) and this summer’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, TN on June 14.

Kahan launched a TikTok account in December where he’s been sharing snippets of new music and, on New Year’s Day, wrote a heartfelt letter to fans wishing them a happy new year and promising that “it feels like I’m coming out of hibernation” this year, appearing to tease a possible follow-up to his breakthrough third studio album, 2022’s Stick Season.