A former Marilyn Manson assistant has once again revived her sexual assault lawsuit against the controversial rock star.

Ashley Walters’ civil claims against Manson (born Brian Warner) have ping-ponged through the courts since being brought in 2021, later dismissed, reignited on appeal and then again dismissed as untimely this past December. The whiplash continued on Monday (Jan. 26), when Judge Steve Cochran reopened the case due to a new California law.

Assembly Bill 250, which went into effect Jan. 1, opens a two-year window for alleged victims of sexual abuse to file otherwise time-barred lawsuits against their perpetrators. Judge Cochran ruled that this new window allows Walters to bypass the two-year statute of limitations for her claims, which allege Manson subjected her to “sexual exploitation, manipulation and psychological abuse” from 2010 to 2011.

“The motion for reconsideration filed by Ashley Walters on Jan. 7, 2026, is granted,” reads a brief court order. “Statute revives the claim. The court orders the dismissal ordered on Dec. 16, 2025, as to the entire action set aside and vacated.”

In a statement on Monday, Walters’ attorney Kate McFarlane of the firm Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai said they’re “thrilled” with the judge’s decision.

“Mr. Warner has tried time and again to avoid accountability for his abuse against Ms. Walters,” said McFarlane. “But now, time is no longer an obstacle Ms. Walters will be forced to overcome. AB 250 has created a path forward for her and so many women like her to finally hold their abusers accountable. We look forward to continuing to fiercely advocate for Ms. Walters until Mr. Warner finally answers for his abuse.”

Meanwhile, Manson’s lawyer, Howard King of King Holmes Paterno & Soriano, told Billboard that they are not done fighting against the revival of Walters’ claims.

“While Ms. Walters made several now-irrelevant claims about so-called workplace harassment, she has no pending claims for sexual assault as defined in the penal code, as would be required under the new law, nor is she permitted under the ruling to add new claims,” said King. “The undeniable fact is that Mr. Warner never committed any sexual assault which undoubtedly is the reason the district attorney declined Ms. Walter’s request that Mr. Warner be criminally charged. Going forward, we will seek dismissal of the amended complaint on the grounds the allegations do not fall within the scope of the new statute.”

Walters is one of several women who have accused Manson of sexual abuse in recent years, beginning when his former fiancée, Evan Rachel Wood, came forward with claims of grooming and sexual abuse on Twitter in 2021.

Numerous women then sued Manson for sexual assault, including Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco and model Ashley Morgan Smithline. Manson has denied all of the allegations, and prosecutors closed a four-year criminal investigation last year without charges.

Manson settled with Bianco in 2023, and Smithline ended up dropping her claims. Manson sued Wood for defamation over her online accusations, though a judge dismissed much of that case in 2023, and the singer ultimately agreed to pay his ex-fiancée $327,000 in legal fees.

Walters’ lawsuit has had a more complicated path. The former assistant’s 2021 claims, which alleged that Manson whipped her, forced her to stay awake for 48 hours by feeding her cocaine and “offered” her sexually to friends and associates, were dismissed by Judge Cochran as untimely in 2022.

A California appeals court revived the lawsuit in 2023, saying it might be fair game under the so-called delayed discovery rule since Walters claimed the trauma of these incidents caused her to suppress the memories for many years.

The appellate court sent the case back down to Judge Cochran for more litigation to see whether there was actual evidence of Walters suppressing her memories. The judge was ultimately unconvinced, ruling this December that the delayed discovery rule was inapplicable.

Judge Cochran said Monday, however, that his previous ruling is now moot as a result of AB 250 temporarily doing away with the statute of limitations for sex abuse claims. Manson’s team plans to keep challenging this determination, and a follow-up court appearance is set for March.

Goldenvoice is again launching a new dance music concept on the San Francisco waterfront, with the company announcing a forthcoming “seasonal club experience” called Club Darc.

The event will happen on select weekends from Friday, Feb. 27, through Saturday, May 16, at Pier 48, a waterfront space near the San Francisco Giants’ home of Oracle Park. These shows will be the first-ever electronic events to happen at Pier 48’s Shed A warehouse.

The first four announced Club Darc lineups feature a spate of house and techno artists including Chris Stussy, Peggy Gou, Michael Bibi, Mau P, The Martinez Brothers, Armand Van Helden, DJ Tennis playing b2b with DJ Seinfeld, a DJ set from Neil Frances, Ben Stirling, Silva Bumpa and Miguelle & Tons. Each night will feature four artists on the bill. See the schedule below.

Tickets for Club Darc shows go on sale here on Jan. 28 at 10 a.m. PT.

Goldenvoice, which also produces Coachella, has been heavily focused on San Francisco since 2022, when the company launched Portola on Pier 80. The festival has quickly become a new favorite of the U.S. dance circuit, with the company also recently producing standalone shows by Skrillex and Four Tet, John Summit and Swedish House Mafia at Pier 80’s warehouse space over New Year’s Eve.

“We’re very excited to bring yet another new dance music experience to the Bay Area with Club Darc,” says Danny Bell, Club Darc’s founder and the SVP talent Buyer at Goldenvoice. “Shed A at Pier 48 is the perfect venue to bring this vision to life — we’re going to transform the warehouse into our ideal club environment. Working alongside our partners at the SF Giants, our goal is to further the mission of making San Francisco a global hub for electronic music. We have a great lineup for our first season, and it’s going to be a blast!”

“We’re incredibly proud to see Pier 48’s Shed A evolve into a true music destination on San
Francisco’s waterfront,” adds the senior vice president of the San Francisco Giants Sara Grauf. “Club Darc marks an exciting opportunity to activate the historic Pier 48 with vibrant and diverse new programming.”

Zac Brown has scored a legal victory that will force his ex-wife, model and actress Kelly Yazdi, to return confidential business records she took amidst her divorce from the Zac Brown Band frontman in 2024.

Brown and Yazdi have been feuding in Atlanta federal court for years over sensitive financial and strategic documents belonging to Zac Brown Collective (ZBC), the company that controls Brown’s music rights, merchandise sales and wine brand, Z. Alexander Brown. Following a bench trial, Judge William M. Ray II ruled in Brown’s favor and entered a permanent injunction against Yazdi on Jan. 12.

“Unfortunately, the court cannot accept Ms. Yazdi’s assurances that she will not disclose the confidential information she possesses,” wrote Judge Ray. “Indeed, her very conduct in secretly taking confidential documents from ZBC when she knew she was leaving the company, coupled with her apparent animosity towards Mr. Brown reflected in her continuous social media posts, speak strongly to the possibility that she may act to harm Mr. Brown.”

The judge ordered Yazdi to immediately return the business records to Brown and barred her from disclosing any information from the documents going forward. In a statement shared with Billboard on Monday (Jan. 26), Brown’s lawyer Brad Beckworth said they’re “grateful for the court’s careful attention to the facts and law.”

“The evidence at trial showed that Ms. Yazdi betrayed Zac’s trust, took critical confidential information that didn’t belong to her, and used it to attack him publicly for her own gain,” added Beckworth. “The permanent injunction should put an end to it.”

Attorneys for Yazdi did not immediately return a request for comment. They have already begun the process of appealing Judge Ray’s decision.

Brown and Yazdi began dating in 2021 after meeting in Hawaii. Yazdi soon started working for Zac Brown Collective, first as a social media coordinator and then as executive vp.

The pair married in August 2023, but the union was short-lived; Brown initiated a divorce less than four months later. In early 2024, with divorce proceedings underway and Yazdi preparing to leave her job at Zac Brown Collective, she forwarded nearly 200 documents from her work email to her personal account.

Brown sued Yazdi in May 2024 over the documents, which included confidential financial valuations for Brown’s music catalog and wine brand, employee salary information, contractual terms for endorsements, touring data and music marketing plans. Brown alleged that Yazdi breached a confidentiality clause in her employment contract by taking these files.

Yazdi denied any wrongdoing, maintaining that she needed the documents for the divorce proceedings but never intended to share them publicly. But in his Jan. 12 ruling, Judge Ray said Yazdi has already used the records to “fuel her public attacks on Mr. Brown.”

The judge pointed to a series of 2024 social media posts on Yazdi’s accounts about butterflies — apparently a reference to Brown’s then-unreleased 2025 collaboration with Dolly Parton, “Butterfly.” According to Judge Ray, Yazdi’s posts featuring butterfly imagery, a butterfly-themed poem and the hashtag #ButterfliesDontBelongInNets coincided with the song’s original marketing dates specified in documents she had forwarded to herself.

“If Ms. Yazdi further uses or discloses any of the confidential information she took from ZBC, plaintiffs would suffer considerable harm, including salary disputes and loss of trust with employees, the loss of goodwill and business opportunities, damage to Mr. Brown’s and ZBC’s reputations, and harm to plaintiffs’ business dealings and relationships with third parties,” wrote the judge.

Judge Ray ultimately concluded that Yazdi did indeed breach her employment agreement, and an injunction is necessary to protect Brown’s business interests. The singer did not seek financial damages, meaning the injunction is the final step in the case before an appeal.

The former couple finalized their divorce in 2025. Brown is now engaged to jewelry designer Kendra Scott.

Moby posted a statement to social media on Monday (Jan. 26) offering advice on how people can respond following the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

“The question is not whether we should be outraged and horrified at what’s happening in the United States,” Moby says in the clip, “but rather what are we going to do about it.”

The longtime artist and activist then outlines his advice, telling people to protest, as it’s a “constitutionally established right and it’s a right that Trump and his administration are trying to take away from us.”

He then says to vote, “not just in the upcoming midterms, although that’s very important, but in all of the special elections that happen throughout the year.” He also advises to “stop supporting the scumbag corporations who support Trump and ICE. We all know who they are. Boycott them.”

The final pieces of advice are to support the politicians “who are dedicated to opposing Trump and ICE,” to support other activists and to practice self care, “so you can be a strong and healthy activist tomorrow and every day for the rest of your life. Be outraged, be horrified, but as Joe Strummer said, anger can be power if you know how to use it.” Watch the full video below.

Moby is one of a handful of electronic artists to acknowledge the violence unfolding in Minneapolis following ICE’s arrival into the city, with Seth Troxler also posting a video on Monday urging people to “love each other a bit more, because it’s getting really crazy and we just need to really be better and really have some empathy for everyone in this world.” Musicians including Olivia Rodrigo, Finneas and Billie Eilish have also spoken out, with Eilish on Monday (Jan. 26) asking “my fellow celebrities u gonna speak up?”

The Trump administration has claimed that the officer who killed Pretti was acting in self-defense, alleging that Pretti was threatening violence with his handgun, but multiple videos taken by witnesses on the scene show that Pretti did not appear to be holding his gun during the confrontation, and that a federal agent had already seemingly removed it from Pretti’s holster before the 37-year-old Minneapolis man was shot. Pretti’s family said that the ICU nurse had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota, according to the Associated Press.

Richard Marx croons his way onto Billboard’s jazz charts for the first time in a career as a lead recording artist that dates back almost 40 years. His new album, After Hours, debuts at No. 14 on Traditional Jazz Albums and No. 18 on the genre’s overall Jazz Albums chart (both dated Jan. 31).

The set earned 1,000 equivalent album units in the United States in its first week (Jan. 16-22), according to Luminate, the bulk from album sales.

“I pretended it was 1948 and I was a young songwriter pitching a song to Sinatra,” Marx told Billboard earlier this month of his mindset behind creating the self-released After Hours. The 13-song collection blends covers of such classics as “Summer Wind,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” and “Young at Heart” (as a duet with Rod Stewart) with originals including “Magic Hour,” which he co-wrote with wife Daisy Fuentes.

(Notably, Sinatra’s Ultimate Sinatra leads Traditional Jazz Albums for a 180th week.)

Marx’s chart history expands following his ascents on pop, adult, country, R&B and rock rankings, as a songwriter and/or recording artist. He boasts three No. 1s, among nine top 10s that he’s recorded, on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, having earned his leaders consecutively in 1988-89: “Hold On to the Nights,” “Satisfied” and “Right Here Waiting.” The latter two are from his album Repeat Offender, which ruled the Billboard 200.

On Adult Contemporary, Marx’s haul as a singer stands at four No. 1s, among 14 top 10s, with reigns in 1989-94 with “Right Here Waiting,” “Keep Coming Back,” “Hazard” and “Now and Forever.”

Marx first visited the Hot 100’s top spot as a backing vocalist on mentor Lionel Richie’s 1983 smash “All Night Long (All Night).” In 1985, his Kenny Rogers co-write “Crazy,” sung by the format icon, became Marx’s first of three Hot Country Songs No. 1s as an author. Keith Urban sang their co-penned leaders “Better Life” (2005) and “Long Hot Summer” (2011).

Having leaned on crunchy guitar anthems early in his recording career, Marx earned three top 10s on Mainstream Rock Airplay in the ‘80s, starting with his debut single, “Don’t Mean Nothing,” in 1987.

Additionally, “Keeping Coming Back” dented Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs in 1991. It features background vocals by Luther Vandross, with whom Marx teamed to write “Dance With My Father,” which, sung by Vandross, led Adult R&B Airplay for five weeks in 2003 and went on to win the Grammy for song of the year.

Marx has also penned Adult Contemporary-topping ballads for *NSYNC (“This I Promise You”) and Josh Groban (“To Where You Are”).

“I guess the reason that it didn’t translate into an album sooner was because the idea of doing a standards album never appealed to me, because I’m a songwriter,” Marx mused of After Hours. “So, even though I love to sing, and love to sing those songs, I [couldn’t] imagine doing a covers album of any genre, because that [was] just not that interesting to me. And, I just frankly wasn’t smart enough to come up with the idea to write half the album until a year and a half ago.

“The first song I wrote,” for After Hours, which Marx recorded with a 24-piece band, “was ‘All I Ever Needed,’ track two of the record,” he noted. “I wrote it so quickly and effortlessly. And then I wrote ‘Magic Hour.’ I was like, ‘Okay, this makes sense now.’ ”