If there’s one thing Brad Paisley can relate to it’s the mortal fear a performer has when their voice just won’t cooperate after they’ve gone too hard. That’s why when his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, felt her voice failing at her annual Alzheimer’s Association event in 2022, his first thought was “man, she’s overdone it.’ Because I only had my own experience to deal with,” the singer told People magazine in a cover story.

“I remember thinking, ‘You are going to be fine. Give a few days and it’ll come back,’” he recalled telling the Father of the Bride star, who said she first noticed her voice pitching higher more than five years ago. Over the next two years, Paisley readily admitted that he “stepped in it so much” during the time when his wife could barely speak above a whisper.

Paisley leaned into what he knew, or thought he knew, asking Kimberly to project, clear her throat and counseling her to, “‘learn to power through it.” Looking back, though, he’s realized he was “so stupid and naive” to give such advice. As it turns out, a few months after that event, Kimberly was diagnosed with a partially paralyzed vocal cord and had to undergo surgery to correct it.

While his initial tough love tips were not super helpful, Paisley did come up with a fun, somewhat silly solution to Kimberly’s inability to be heard above a whisper, even in her own home. “It was really hard because she would yell upstairs, ‘Hey, boys, come downstairs, dinner’s ready,’” and they could never hear her,” Paisley said of their sons, Huck, 17, and Jasper, 15.

For Christmas, Paisley gave Kimberly a bright pink megaphone she could bust out when she needed to call the boys. “It was one of the kindest things Brad did for me — it was really hilarious and so necessary,” she said. “I started using it immediately. He is so good at keeping me laughing.”

She said the boys also tried to help out, always eager to step in to be a voice for her. She recalled being at events where, if they noticed that someone she wanted to talk to was walking away and she couldn’t call out, they would go fetch them for her. “They’re used to assisting me, which is really sweet,” she said.

In an accompanying video, Kimberly noted that “so much of our personality” is expressed in our voice, especially for an actor/public speaker like her, who uses her voice as part of her “value system.” So, when it wasn’t there, she wondered, “who am I?”

Though she has battled back since her surgery in August, Paisley said it was “heartbreaking” to watch his wife — who “lives to talk to to people” — struggle to be heard. “Seeing her fight to figure it out was amazing. There was never a moment where she was just going to give up. It was inspiring,” he said.

Watch the People magazine cover story interview below.

Dualtone Music Group president and partner Paul Roper died on Tuesday (Dec. 17) following a battle with cancer. Roper was 45.

A statement from Nashville-based Dualtone Music Group noted, “Paul’s vision and unwavering commitment continues to define the heart and soul of Dualtone. He led Dualtone and his team with dedication, authenticity, humor, and kindness and he will be terribly missed by all of us…Paul Roper’s legacy of kindness, integrity, and deep love for music will continue to inspire us all.”

Roper, a graduate of Sewanee: The University of the South, joined Dualtone Music Group in 2002 as an intern and rose through the ranks to become president and partner. He also played an essential role in signing artists and overseeing the release of more than 200 albums, championing projects by The Lumineers, Gregory Alan Isakov, Mt. Joy, Shakey Graves, Shovels & Rope, Brett Dennen, Wilder Woods, Guy Clark, June Carter Cash and others. Many of those albums and artists would earn Americana Music Awards wins as well as Grammy Awards nominations and trophies.

In 2022, Roper was included in Billboard’s annual Indie Power Players executive list.

Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers said in a statement, “When we started touring in our 15-passenger van, we used to park at the venue and bide our time until it was time to load in. We didn’t have money for hotels and we’d usually be splitting Subway sandwiches or Clif Bars between us. I’ll never forget when Paul Roper showed up to the parking lot behind the venue in Nashville and met us with beer and pizza. It was a small gesture on his side, but a massive one to us. I’ll never forget that.”

Roper is survived by his wife and their four children. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Corner to Corner in Roper’s memory.

For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard will be counting down our editorial staff picks for the 10 Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 all this week — you can see the artists we’ve already counted down, plus our Honorable Mentions, Comeback of the Year and our Rookie of the Year artists all right here. Now, at No. 4, we remember the year in Chappell Roan — who after many years of knocking on the door of pop stardom, finally broke it down in spectacular and uningnorable fashion.

Back in 2023, while filming her “HOT TO GO!” music video in her native Missouri, Chappell Roan told a curious onlooker, “I’m just a singer, nothing crazy.” While that statement would seem like a wild undersell now, at the start of 2024, it still tracked. While her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, dropped in late September and drew rave reviews from numerous critics (including our own), it moved a modest 77,000 album equivalent units by 2023’s end, per Luminate.

What a difference a year makes. Not only has Roan earned her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 since then, but she’s placed seven singles on the chart, including one No. 4-peaking smash (“Good Luck, Babe!”); she netted six Grammy nominations at the 2025 ceremony, including in each of the Big Four categories; drew record-setting crowds at festivals; and saw Midwest Princess reach No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, earning a whopping 1.88 million album equivalent units in the U.S., through Dec. 12, according to Luminate. Since then, it’s been all rise, no fall.

As with many who seemingly enjoy overnight success, it took Roan years, tears and hard work to get where she is now, which she tipped to in her acceptance speech for Top New Artist at the 2024 Billboard Music Awards. “This has taken a long time to be a new artist,” she quipped with a chuckle.

True enough. Roan originally signed with Atlantic in 2015, dropping one EP in the course of her five years on the label before being dropped from its roster. Continuing to hone her craft while working a variety of day jobs (barista, nanny), Roan began to realize that her differences from the pop pack actually made her stronger. “Once I let go of trying to be this very well-managed, put-together pop girl, it felt like everything just fell into place,” Roan told Billboard in 2022. “I leaned into the fact that my looks were tacky, and very obviously using fake diamonds and Gucci knockoffs. I leaned into my queerness for the first time. When I did that, the songs got easier to write, the shows got easier to design, and my aesthetic was finally there.”

If Roan’s campy, liberated DIY aesthetic was calcified by 2022, then 2023 saw her songcraft reach rarefied levels of confessional rawness, queer joy and delicious bawdiness – which attentive pop fans and critics caught on to (we placed Midwest Princess in the top 15 of our year-end staff picks album list). And 2024 was the year the world finally caught up to what she was doing.

Although several of her future Hot 100 entries had already been released as singles before 2024 started (“Pink Pony Club” dropped in 2020), it was her April single “Good Luck, Babe!” that put her over. Co-written with queer pop whisperer Justin Tranter (Halsey, Janelle Monae) and previous collaborator Dan Nigro (whom she’d met during her time at Atlantic, way before his breakthrough with Olivia Rodrigo), it’s a sublime, sophisticated piece of sapphic catharsis that appealed to seemingly everyone. Whether you like your pop songs belted from stadiums, rumbling throughout a sweaty warehouse or seeping out of a cellphone while you lie in bed, you were probably vibing to this song at some point this year.

New converts quickly sought out Midwest Princess for more, and Amusement Records (an Island imprint) wasted little time trotting out follow-up singles culled from it, with six of its tracks gradually infiltrating the Hot 100 this year. Two of them, “HOT TO GO!” (No. 15) and “Pink Pony Club” (No. 26), became essential 2024 anthems, with the former spawning parodies from Saturday Night Live, “Weird Al” Yankovic and this year’s touring production of The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show. More importantly, its “Y.M.C.A.”-esque choreography inspired throngs of fans to gleefully dance along at festivals from San Francisco to Chicago to New York City.

Speaking of, when was the last time you can remember a pop singer delivering a music festival performance that had the entire internet talking? While her Coachella set created buzz in April (hard to beat leopard-print tights and an “Eat Me” shirt), Roan’s Governors Ball spot in June was a fitting fantasia for Pride Month. Decked out in Lady Liberty drag (she’s been vocal about drawing inspiration from drag queens), Roan performed an instantly iconic set that had folks in a FOMO coma for days. She followed it up by (NBD) setting an all-time attendance record for a day crowd at Lollapalooza in August – and she wasn’t even a headliner.

Televised performances at the 2024 VMAs and on SNL demonstrated to those at home that Roan has an impressive set of pipes, an inventive aesthetic and a visual clarity that we haven’t seen from a new pop star since Lady Gaga burst onto the scene in the late ‘00s. Perhaps that’s no coincidence. Like Mother Monster, Roan grew up inspired by queer culture, found liberation in gay bars and has used her platform to speak out on LGBTQ rights when they’re under fire. But even Gaga never went quite as far as the magic trick Roan pulled off on “Red Wine Supernova.” 

As is true for many pop stars (but women in particular), with increased visibility came increased scrutiny – and creepiness. On Aug. 23 via her socials, Roan criticized some fans for “predatory behavior” and “nonconsensual physical and social interactions,” begging people to respect her space. “If you’re still asking, ‘Well, if you didn’t want this to happen, then why did you choose a career where you knew you wouldn’t be comfortable with the outcome of success?’—understand this: I embrace the success of the project, the love I feel, and the gratitude I have. What I do not accept are creepy people, being touched, and being followed.” 

Despite Roan anticipating potential backlash to her statement and preemptively shooting down that logic (as well as turning off the comments section on that Instagram post), some folks still took umbrage. It seems that despite a solid decade of conversation about the ways in which news media, entertainment media and social media can (and often do) negatively affect an artist’s well-being, there’s no shortage of individuals who view celebrities predominantly as punching bags or punchlines and not people.

Roan also caught some flak for – gasp – refusing to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president (although that didn’t stop the Harris-Walz campaign from trotting out a camo hat suspiciously close to her own merch). Although she soon clarified that she fully intended to vote for the Democratic candidate in the November presidential election (“Obviously, f–k the policies of the right, but also, f–k some of the policies on the left! That’s why I can’t endorse”), some commentators faulted her for not enthusiastically endorsing Harris considering the election stakes. But let’s be real: a Roan endorsement was never going to make any difference (many celebrities did endorse Harris with little to no demonstrable payoff), and she is far from the only Gen Z liberal who voted Democrat despite feeling let down by the party. (If pressuring pop stars into feigning fealty to the Democratic Party – instead of inspiring them to get excited over a candidate — continues to be an election year strategy? Well, good luck, babe!)

All that being said, for every online commenter with a complaint (and the more popular a musician gets, there will always be people with gripes and grievances) there were plenty of fans, artists and supporters who had her back. When Roan pulled out of both All Things Go festivals, explaining that “things have gotten overwhelming” and “I need a few days to prioritize my health,” the response from ticket holders was bummed but empathetic. As an attendee at ATG at the Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, everyone I spoke to was disappointed but fully in support of her decision to place her well-being above a concert. And the drag queen dance party that took over her time slot – which included RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Yvie Oddly and NYC queen Beaujangles – turned an otherwise rainy, dreary day into an unfettered explosion of LGBTQ joy.

Beyond drag shows (and there were a LOT of Chappell Roan lip syncs at drag shows this year), Roan’s influence on LGBTQ culture was inescapable in 2024. Like Pat Benatar look-alikes at Ridgemont High, people in Chappell Roan-inspired looks held space at countless LGBTQ clubs, concerts, parades and festivals this year. (My favorite was a group of 15 people rocking 15 different Roan looks at a Greenwich Village gay bar for their friend’s 20-something birthday). Hell, sometimes the Chappell Roan look-alike in a gay bar was Chappell Roan, as was the case when the “Pink Pony Club” singer swung by Manhattan’s Pieces to catch a Queen 4 Queen drag show in June.

From the Billboard charts to countless memes to karaoke rooms, Roan’s music seemed everywhere in 2024 – but even after the 100th time, “HOT TO GO!” remains fun as hell, “Pink Pony Club” still gallops away with your heart and “Good Luck, Babe!” soars to the stratosphere. These songs are built to last, and that’s a testament to her hard work and distinct artistic vision. 

With that in mind, it’s crazy to think that we haven’t even been gifted with a brand-new Chappell Roan single since she’s reached this level of success. On SNL in November, Roan debuted “The Giver,” an as-of-yet unreleased song with a country lean. (No shocker there: slow it down and toss in a steel guitar and “Casual” is a honky-tonk weeper.) 

Was it a taste of what’s to come — is Roan joining the stampede of pop stars going country? Or is it a total outlier, a sonic feint before she strikes out elsewhere? Who knows! But if 2024 is any indication, next year should prove to be a lot more interesting for having Chappell Roan camping up our popular culture. But then again, she’s just a singer. Nothing crazy. 

Check back later today for our No. 3 Greatest Pop Star — and then come back for the announcement of our top two Greatest Pop Stars of 2024 on Monday, Dec. 23!

Benny Blanco has had a week to process his engagement to Selena Gomez, but he’s still in disbelief.

Seven days after the couple announced that the producer had popped the question — to which the singer-actress, of course, said “yes” — Blanco said he’s still reeling from the news. Reposting Gomez’s week-old Instagram post about their engagement on his Story Wednesday (Dec. 18), the “Eastside” musician wrote, “still can’t believe it.”

In her post, the Only Murders in the Building star had shared photos of her marquise-cut engagement ring, as well as a photo of Blanco kissing her on the cheek. “forever begins now..,” she’d written in her caption.

After starting out as musical collaborators — with Gomez, J Balvin and Tainy guesting on Blanco’s “I Can’t Get Enough” in 2019, and the producer working on the Rare Beauty founder’s “Single Soon” in 2023 — the Emilia Pérez star and Blanco have been in a relationship since midway through last year. They went public with their romance that December, and have been open about wanting to start a family together.

When Gomez shared the news of their engagement, dozens of famous friends flooded her comments section with congratulations. “yes I will be the flower girl” wrote Gomez’s longtime bestie Taylor Swift, while Cardi B added, “Waiiiitttt hold on 😱😱😱😱😱❤️❤️❤️”

Blanco also shared behind-the-scenes footage of his proposal, which took place on a soundstage made up to look like a park. The couple dined on Taco Bell — one of Gomez’s favorite food places — and clinked champagne glasses while sitting on a picnic blanket.

“We go all out for each other,” Blanco said of Gomez in his November People‘s Sexiest Men Alive interview. “One time Sel was like, ‘Oh, I want to take you on a date.’ We drove somewhere and she had rented out a whole botanical garden for me. She also likes something so simple. For Valentine’s Day, I got her Taco Bell, I made her movie-theater nachos, I found her favorite pickles from Texas and I deep fried them for her. Then [I had] all her candies and Hot Cheetos.”