James Hetfield pulled off a proposal for the ages last week. The Metallica frontman popped the question to girlfriend Adriana Gillett on Friday (March 13) during a scuba diving excursion. Hetfield, 62, shared a snap from the special moment on Metallica’s Instagram, which featured an image of the singer/guitarist underwater in a mask and scuba gear holding up a sign reading: “Adriana Gillett Will You Marry Me?”

Floating next to him in the clear blue water was fashion designer Gillett, 45, holding up the ring box and making a thumbs-up with her left hand. The caption? “She said yes!”

Gillett also shared the good news on her Instagram, reposting the same pic and writing, “The BEST birthday trip surprise 🎉Swimming with whale sharks on Friday the 13th 👀 with the most unique, special, and romantic proposal a Pisces could ever imagine 💍 In a sea full of fish, we caught each other 🩵 Thank you God for putting us together 🐋🦈.”

Hetfield filed for divorce from his wife of 25 years, costume designer Francesca Tomasi, in 2022, with whom he shared two daughters, Cali, 27 and Marcella, 24, and a son, Castor, 25. The Metallica frontman and London native Gillett reportedly began dating in 2023.

The happy couple will have a few months to enjoy newlywed status before Metallica cranks up their three-year-old M72 world tour again on May 9 with a show at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece, followed by a May 13 show in Bucharest, Romania and a May 19 stop in Chrozow, Poland. After the summer run of European and U.K. dates, Metallica will kick off their 24-show run at Las Vegas’ Sphere on Oct. 1.

It’s a supersized week when it comes to new country songs with an embarrassment of riches from superstars Luke Combs and Lainey Wilson, newer artists like Colton Bowlin and long-absent fan favorites such as Jo Dee Messina.

Contemporary Christian artist Brandon Lake continues to be the duet partner of choice for country artists who want to share their faith and his duet with Bailey Zimmerman is another heartfelt entry in his crossover canon.

We already wrote about Carly Pearce and Riley Green’s sultry new duet, as well as Kacey Musgraves’ wry new track, so we’re leaving them off here, but they are songs well worth seeking out.  

Check out Billboard’s roundup of some of the best country, bluegrass and/or Americana songs of the week below.

 Luke Combs, “I Ain’t No Cowboy”

With two songs– “Days Like These” and “Sleepless In A Hotel Room”–  from his new album still nestled in the top 10 of the Country Airplay chart, superstar Combs gives one more tease from The Way I Am before it drops on Friday (March 20). It’s a broken-hearted ballad co-written by Combs, Jake Mears and real cowboy Cody Johnson. Lots of horse and cowboy imagery sets the scene for a doomed romance that just may have succeeded if Combs “could’ve been more like John Wayne” and “roped her heart back in.”  Instead, he’s watching as “she saddled up and she kicked up a cloud of dust,” leaving him with nothing but regrets.

Lainey Wilson, “I Can’t Sit Still”

The reigning CMA entertainer of the year returns with a rollicking stomp of a song where the frenetic music perfectly matches the driving lyrics. “I’m an outside dog on an inside leash” she declares as the frustration of anyone trying to hold her down grows. “I ain’t caught my breath since I took my first/ so I guess I’ll rest when I’m in the dirt,” she sings.  The escalating “running and gunning” bridge adds to the heart-racing pace. Wilson wrote the song with longtime collaborators, Trannie Anderson and Dallas Wilson, as well as Aslan Freeman.

The lyrics seem especially appropriate given that Wilson’s first major movie, Reminders of Him, opened Friday and the documentary Lainey Wilson: Keepin’ Country Cool premieres at SXSW this week (and debuts on Netflix April 22).  While the song may be autobiographical, anyone who has felt the internal pressure to keep pushing will relate.

Bailey Zimmerman and Brandon Lake, “Just Believe”

Hot off collaborations with Jelly Roll (“Hard Fought Hallelujah”) and Cody Johnson (“When A Cowboy Prays”), top contemporary Christian artist Lake joins Zimmerman for this inspirational mid-tempo track about never giving up. The two trade verses with Lake’s soulful, powerful vocals leading the way here, as Zimmerman convincingly promises: “There’s a good thing coming.” An uplifting ode to never giving up and letting your faith guide you through troubled times, “Just Believe” is destined to become a motivational rallying cry. It’s a stand-alone track not on Zimmerman’s current album, Different Night Same Rodeo.

Tucker Wetmore, “Sunburn”

Just as the weather is turning warmer and spring break starts, Wetmore delivers the heat with this laid-back tune about a love that’s not meant to last but sears hot while it does. “You hit me like a heat wave/ we stayed up all night all day/ waves crashin’ outside like a thunder/ your body on mine like a sunburn,” he sings with casual charm. This one, written by Ryan Hurd, Jaxson Free and Daniel Ross, is going to be the soundtrack for beach flings all summer long.  As tongue-twisting “Brunette” still climbs the Country Airplay chart, Wetmore is aiming for radio domination with this fun one-two punch.

Jo Dee Messina, “Some Bridges”

It’s been a decade since ‘90s hitmaker Jo Dee Messina has put out an album (though plenty folks discovered her through Cole Swindell’s massive 2022 hit, “She Had Me At Heads Carolina,” which interpolated Messina’s 1996 smash, “Heads Carolina, Tails California”), but now she’s back and as potent as ever. She’s grown wise during her absence, sharing in this smoldering, ‘90s-redolent track that some bridges are worth burning, despite the adage. Messina, who co-wrote the song with Kat Higgins and James T. Slater, sounds like she never left, and is full-throated as ever. After a few one-off songs over recent years, “Some Bridges” is the opening salvo of Bridges, which will arrive this summer.

Colton Bowlin, “Time For Sale”

There’s a lived-in feeling to Bowlin’s songs with truths unspooling gently through the lyrics backed by his genial guitar picking. “I’m no better than any other man/ I was born a sinner and I’ll die that way, I guess/ But I tried on my own to do some things right/ To me, I’ve done too much bad to get by,” the Kentucky native confesses matter of factly in the latest track from his new album, Grandpa’s Mill, which came out Friday (March 13). Bowlin worked with David Ferguson, who’s produced such artists as Tyler Childers and Sturgill Simpson, and he shares a stripped-down, no-fuss point of view with those Americana stars.  

Stephen Wilson Jr., “Gary”

After Wilson debuted “Gary” on November’s 2025 CMA Awards, the tribute to a blue-collar worker who leads a life of quiet desperation, developed a cult-like following. It peaked at No. 38 on the Country Airplay chart, but became a fan favorite and a cornerstone of his live show. It seems only fitting that actor Gary Sinese, beloved as Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump, would star in the video that dropped Sunday (March 15). The video turns him in a bit of a Robin Hood with a storyline not in the song, but ends on the same sad conclusion hinted at in the lyrics… parakeet and all.

Hilary Duff has always had an audience — but that doesn’t make being seen any easier.

In an exclusive clip from Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals, the singer gets candid about the complicated experience of releasing deeply personal music after more than a decade away. In the clip, which premieres ahead of the Tuesday (March 17) episode of the Josh Scherer-hosted YouTube series, Duff reflects on the double-edged nature of fame.

“If I hadn’t been in the public eye for so long, people wouldn’t pick apart the lyrics and know exactly what I was talking about; they might be able to connect to them in a different way,” she says. “But since I’ve been a public person since I was 10 years old, everybody knows my family and everybody assumes what we’ve been through.”

Despite that vulnerability, Duff says making the music felt necessary — and freeing. “Being able to be truthful and make music and just say what’s bouncing around in [my head] is a different experience than the girl who was making music and hoping it was on the radio,” she says in the clip.

The conversation centers on Luck… or Something, Duff’s sixth studio album and her first in more than a decade, which arrived Feb. 20 via Sugarmouse Inc./Atlantic Records. Co-written and produced entirely with her husband Matthew Koma and collaborator Brian Phillips, the 11-track set explores themes of anxiety, abandonment and the weight of a life lived publicly. The Lucky Me Tour, a world tour in support of the album, kicks off June 21 in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals is a food-focused interview series from the creators behind Good Mythical Morning, in which host Josh Scherer prepares guests’ ultimate final meals as they discuss life and death. Previous guests have included Tom Hanks, Post Malone, Meghan Trainor and Jason Kelce.

luck… or something debuted in the top 10 across four Billboard album charts, bowing at No. 2 on Top Album Sales and No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Metamorphosis, Duff’s 2003 breakthrough, topped the Billboard 200, while 2005’s Most Wanted also debuted at No. 1 on the chart.

Watch Duff speaking about making her new album Luck… or Something, on Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals below.

The songwriting team behind “Golden” made history at the 98th Academy Awardson Sunday (March 15) — and then were abruptly played off the stage before they could finish saying so.

“Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters won Best Original Song at the 2026 Oscars, becoming the first K-pop song to win in the category’s history, the first song with more than four writers to win, and the first best song winner where all of the writers would not receive an individual trophy.

The song has seven credited writers — EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu-Han Lee (also known as Yuhan), Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo and Teddy Park.

EJAE, who provides the singing voice of Rumi in the film, led the acceptance speech in tears. “Growing up, people made fun of me for liking K-pop, but now everyone is singing our song and all the Korean lyrics,” she told the Dolby Theatre crowd. “This award is not about success. It’s about resilience.”

When Yuhan stepped to the microphone to follow, the orchestra immediately struck up, his mic was cut and the broadcast went to commercial. The audience responded with audible boos.

Backstage in the press room, EJAE made sure her fellow winners got to say what they had come to say. Yuhan thanked “our families, and 24, and our fellow IDO members,” calling it “an incredible honor.” Sonnenblick, who had been seen jumping defiantly onstage trying to speak before the group was ushered off, delivered his speech in full. “My family, some of them here tonight — my husband is here tonight,” he said.

“Everybody who worked on this movie, all the animators, it was a real collaboration across the board.” He added: “Part of the movie is about looking at someone that you had been taught to hate and to fear, and starting to trust, maybe love them. A movie is like a village, and we’re lucky to be up here right now, but there’s so many people who have made this what it is.”

The Motion Picture Academy limits Best Original Song to no more than four individual statuettes. For songs with five or more co-writers, the writers must sign an agreement to share a single trophy should they win. The cutoff drew immediate backlash on social media, with fans pointing out the group had just made Oscars history.

The win was one of two for KPop Demon Hunters on the night. The film, Netflix’s most-streamed title ever, also took home Best Animated Feature, with directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans accepting the award.

“Golden” was the 18th Best Original Song winner in Oscars history to have previously hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. EJAE, Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna performed the song live during the telecast, one of only two original song performances of the night.