Travis Scott makes a dramatic entrance in the new trailer for Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The first look at Scott’s character came during a minute-long teaser that debuted during Sunday’s AFC Championship game between the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos.

In the brief scene, Odysseus’ son, Tom Holland’s Telemachus, asks, “what do you know about my dad?,” while Jon Bernthal’s Menelaus howls, “who has a story about Odysseus? Huh? You? You, you have a story?”

Cut to Scott, banging a staff on a wooden table to command the attention of the room full of men about 20 seconds into the minute-long preview. “A war, a man, a track — a trick to break the walls of Troy,” Scott’s character intones ominously amid images of Matt Damon’s Odysseus putting on his helmet to prepare for battle and hiding along with his men inside the massive Trojan Horse that will surreptitiously ferry the elite group of warriors inside the walls of Troy.

Amid scenes of Odysseus and his men torching the city during their nighttime raid, Scott shouts, “…burning, screaming to the ground.” Though the Scott footage was widely shared after the spot first aired on Sunday night, at press time it did not appear that Universal Pictures had made it officially available online — with a number of links taken down due to copyright violations — and spokespeople for Universal Pictures and Scott had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment.

In addition to Damon, the film due out on July 17 will also feature Anne Hathaway as Odysseus’ wife Penelope, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron as Circe, filmmaker Benny Safdie as Agamenon, John Leguizamo as Eumaeus and Mia Goth as Melantho.

Nolan and Scott first collaborated in 2020 when the MC recorded “The Plan” for Nolan’s sci-fi movie Tenet. In a GQ interview that year, Nolan said that Scott’s voice “became the final piece of a yearlong puzzle. His insights into the musical and narrative mechanism [composer] Ludwig Göransson and I were building were immediate, insightful, and profound.”

After the twisty film’s release, Scott posted a handwritten note Nolan sent him praising the rapper’s video for the song “Franchise,” which played before some Tenet IMAX screenings. “Love the video (shot on film, no less!),” Nolan wrote at the time. “I can’t wait to hear it on the IMAX speakers, and see those sheep stampede across the giant screen as part of a Travis/Tenet/Travis Sandwich! Great work.”

Scott has previously been seen/heard on TV as the voice of Rhyme-a-saurus in 2021’s Trolls Holiday in Harmony Christmas special on NBC and as Zion in director Harmony Korine’s experimental 2023 action movie Aggro Dr1ft.

The adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic familiar to most high school students was shot entirely with IMAX cameras and is Nolan’s follow-up to his atomic bomb inventor biopic Oppenheimer, which grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide and scored seven Oscars, including best picture and best director for Nolan.

Billie Eilish is calling out other A-listers for staying silent about the chaos unfolding in Minneapolis amid ICE’s ongoing presence in the city.

In a Monday morning (Jan. 26) post on her Instagram Story, the pop star shared a photo of herself looking quizzically at the camera. “hey my fellow celebrities u gonna speak up?” she wrote over the snap.

Shortly prior, Eilish had reshared a couple of posts about the death of Alex Pretti, whom an ICE agent shot and killed Saturday (Jan. 24) during an immigration enforcement operation. The Donald Trump administration has claimed that the officer 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.

The nine-time Grammy winner’s brother and frequent collaborator, Finneas, shared his take on the situation in a video, which Eilish reposted on her Story. “The conservative argument that allows school shootings to continue has always basically boiled down to, ‘We have to protect the Second Amendment,’” the visibly heated producer says in the clip. “Every argument I’ve seen for why Alex Pretti’s death was justified yesterday is like, ‘Well he had a gun.’”

“Shut the f–k up!” Finneas continues in his video. “This guy was being beaten to a pulp on the ground. He didn’t draw his weapon. He had a weapon on him legally. And they still shot the f–k out of him!”

Both Eilish and Finneas have been vocal in their opposition to ICE’s continued occupation of Minneapolis, which has now resulted in two civilian deaths. A few weeks prior to Pretti’s death, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in the city; similarly, the Trump administration claimed that the officer in that incident, Jonathan Ross, had been acting in self-defense, while witness footage contradicted that he’d been in danger.

“We’re seeing our neighbors being kidnapped, peaceful protesters being assaulted and murdered, our civil rights being stripped,” Eilish said while accepting the 2026 MLK Jr. Beloved Community Award For Environmental Justice on Jan. 17, adding that many Americans “no longer feel safe in our own homes or in our streets.”

One star who has joined Eilish in speaking out is Olivia Rodrigo, who also posted about the violence unfolding in Minneapolis over the weekend. “ICEs actions are unconscionable but we are not powerless,” she wrote. “our actions matter. I stand with Minnesota.”

Kid Cudi is hitting the road this year. The Grammy-winning rapper announced the dates for an extensive 2026 North American outing on Monday (Jan. 26), the 33-show Rebel Ragers tour, which is slated to kick off on April 28 at the Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre before hitting arenas and outdoor sheds across the U.S. and Canada and wrapping up at the North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre on June 27.

Cudi will have plenty of company on the outing, including special guests M.I.A., Big Boi, A-Trak, me n ü, and Dot Da Genius presents GLKPRTY w/ Powers Pleasanton across select dates. Tickets for the Live Nation-produced tour will be available beginning with an artist pre-sale beginning on Tuesday (Jan. 27) at 10 a.m. local time, followed Citi and Mastercard pre-sales on Tuesday beginning at 11 a.m. local. There will be additional pre-sales throughout the week ahead of the general on-sale that kicks off on Friday (Jan. 30) at 10 a.m. local time; click here for additional ticket information.

According to a release, the Rebel Rangers tour will span Cudi’s entire discography, from his breakthrough hit, “Day ‘N’ Nite” from his debut album, 2009’s Man on the Moon: The End of Day, to “Mr. Rager” (from 2010’s Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager) and other fan favorites, as well as songs from his most recent LP, last year’s Free. Cudi has pledged to donate $1 per ticket sold to the Big Bro Foundation, which works to guide, uplift and empower youth facing mental health challenges.

Check out the dates for Kid Cudi’s 2026 Rebel Ragers North American tour below:

+with special guest M.I.A

#with special guest Big Boi

^with special guest A-Trak

%with special guest me n ü

*with special guest Dot Da Genius presents GLKPRTY w/ Powers Pleasanton

This podcast episode is part of the Billboard editorial staff’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list. Find our accompanying Sabrina Carpenter essay here, and all the rest of our essays and podcasts related to the list here.

Sabrina Carpenter had a year for the ages in 2024, breaking through to the highest levels of pop stardom with a blockbuster album, three smash hit singles, best-selling arena tour and total cultural ubiquity, and ending up our No. 2 Greatest Pop Star of that year. Fans expected that she would likely spend 2025 still cruising off the successes of that era, but instead, she jumped right back in — kicking off another full album cycle while still in the late throes of the previous one — and confirmed herself as again not just one of the year’s great pop stars, but one of the leading lights for the entire decade.

This Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast looks at how Sabrina Carpenter ended up at No. 6 on our list — thanks to a year where she kept extended her winning streak with another chart-topping, Grammy-nominated album with at least one chart-topping, Grammy-nominated single, and more touring and media omnipresence. (You can find Meghan Mahar’s essay on Carpenter’s still-busy year here.) Today, Song vs. Song podcast co-host and Sabrina Carpenter megafan Lina Morgan joins host Andrew Unterberger to recount the giddy rush of one of the era’s great pop stars continuing to push for a second straight year of dominance, with some of her greatest releases and achievements yet, even with a couple mini-controversies clouding her latest All-Star season.

While reliving her 2025, we ask all the most pressing questions about the year in Sabrina Carpenter: Is Man’s Best Friend actually a better album than Short n’ Sweet? Is the rest of the Recording Academy really just jealous of Jack Antonoff? Are we missing out by not getting her performing at the CMA Awards? Why does she keep relegating some of her best songs to her deluxe editions? Is she setting herself up for failure with the reported upcoming Alice in Wonderland musical? (Should she be remaking Moonstruck instead?) And perhaps most importantly: As great as her 2025 was, do we still inevitably view it as being a little in the shadow of her wildly successful 2024?

Check it out above, along with a YouTube playlist of some of the greatest moments of Sabrina Carpenter’s 2025 — all of which are discussed on the pod — and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for complete podcast coverage of this year’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list!

And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:

Transgender Law Center

Trans Lifeline

Destination Tomorrow

Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe

Also, please consider giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on 5Calls.org.

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 2025 all the next two weeks. Last week, we revealed our Honorable Mentions artists for 2025 as well as our Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year artists. Now, we reach No. 5 on our list with a defining pop star of the decade who capitalized on her 2024 momentum with a similarly spectacular sophomore superstar season: Sabrina Carpenter.

Listen to our Greatest Pop Stars podcast discussion about Sabrina Carpenter’s year going back-to-back here, and find the rest of our updating top 10 list with all our corresponding essays and pods here.

As she’lll tell you herself, Sabrina Carpenter is a “Busy Woman” — and if there was any doubt remaining as to her superstar-level productivity, she squashed it in 2025. After dominating the headlines and charts with songs from her 2024 LP Short n’ Sweet (she was our No. 2 Greatest Pop Star of that year) it seemed like she had done everything fans could possibly want. But in 2025, she defied all expectations, nearly matching the dominance of her breakout year across the globe. 

The year started off slowly by Sabrina’s (extremely high) standards. After concluding the U.S. leg of the Short n’ Sweet Tour in November of 2024, Carpenter took some much needed “down” time. Or so we thought: In reality, she was gearing up for two massive moments: the Grammy Awards and the announcement of Short n’ Sweet (Deluxe). The former came to fruition on Feb. 2, where Carpenter dazzled the audience with a show-stopping mashup of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” before taking home two awards for best pop solo performance and best pop vocal album; and the announcement of the latter came “as a thank you for giving [this album] 2 Grammy’s” just two days later.

The sequel was released on Feb. 14, adding another five songs to the SNS universe: four more originals (“15 Minutes,” “Couldn’t Make It Any Harder,” “Busy Woman,” and “Bad Reviews”) plus a new version of Hot 100-topping hit “Please Please Please” featuring the legendary and fellow sassy blonde Dolly Parton. The tracks brimmed with Carpenter’s usual songwriting prowess and sauce, giving her more songs to perform on tour — and all four brand-new cuts debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, led by “Busy Woman” at No. 27. She capped off the month by expanding her tour with an additional U.S. leg and another live broadcast booking: SNL50: The Anniversary Special, where she and Paul Simon performed a duet of “Homeward Bound.”

March was Europe’s chance to get a “Taste” of SnS. The month kicked off with the Brit Awards, where Carpenter received the global success award and left both the British guard and Millie Bobby Brown hot and bothered with a mashup of “Espresso” and “Bed Chem.” Then, from March 3 to April 3, Carpenter toured Europe’s biggest and most iconic venues, including The O2 in London and Accor Arena in Paris, with opener and U.K. native Rachel Chinouriri. As she surprised and delighted fans with performances of her new songs, more “Juno” positions and surprise song covers of legends like ABBA and Madonna.

Sabrina stepped offstage in Stockholm and took to other platforms: consoles and Louis Vuitton heels. The superstar (though not a gamer herself) became the face of Fortnite’s Season 8 Music Pass, giving fans the chance to soundtrack their gameplay experience with her songs and use her likeness in her signature heart-cutout corset as their player skin. Players embraced the comedy of shooting at each other and dancing together while dressed as pop’s princess — but was less glowingly received at the Met Gala, where she (semi-controversially) appeared in a pantless look curated by Louis Vuitton creative director and fellow musician Pharrell Williams. 

Just when fans thought that the SnS era couldn’t get any sweeter, June came along and set the bar even higher: The Grammy winner headlined Primavera Sound on June 6 and — what felt like only “15 Minutes” later — started another rollout with the release of “Manchild” on June 8: just shy of four months after releasing SnS Deluxe. The twangy, eye-rolling anthem became Carpenter’s second Hot 100 No. 1 and first-ever No. 1 debut, supported by an ‘80s inspired music video that playfully depicted Carpenter hitchhiking through the wild west of hetero dating. Are these men “stupid/ Or is it slow?/ Maybe it’s useless,” the pint-sized pop star pondered in the surreal-skewing visual as she barreled down highways on rollerskates, splashed in a pool with a shark and both fired and dodged bullets, all while wearing Daisy Dukes and towering heels.

As if debuting one of the top 10 songs of the summer wasn’t enough, Carpenter followed its release with an official album announcement in June, sharing that Man’s Best Friend would be released in two months’ time. Fans were thrilled by the prospect of new material, skeptics wondered if it was happening too quickly, and everyone on the internet had an opinion… but not about the music. Instead, the conversation evolved into discourse, inspiring thinkpieces from everyone from Facebook moms to the ladies of The View. Can a woman be considered a feminist if she releases an album where she’s posing on all fours and pawing at a man? Was the photo empowering? Degrading? Ultimately, Carpenter compromised a little bit, giving fans a safer alternate cover option, but the original artwork already did its job of igniting controversy ahead of the release.

The conversation turned into pure excitement as MBF arrived in August. Fans were spoiled with 12 tracks of retro-inspired, plushy pop — and as the rollout suggested, the tracks painted a greater picture of Carpenter’s arduous dating experience, brought to life with production and writing support from acclaimed collaborators Jack Antonoff, John Ryan and Amy Allen. The tracklist followed lead single and opener “Manchild” with the second single of the era: “Tears,” a disco-era throwback with a Rocky Horror-inspired video that showcased the star’s acting chops alongside Academy Award-nominated actor Colman Domingo. 

Despite some initially mixed reactions, the court of public opinion ultimately decided that MBF was a big win — and the numbers said the same. Carpenter’s seventh studio album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 366,000 equivalent units earned in its first week. All 12 tracks concurrently landed in the top 40 of the Hot 100 (“Tears” being the highest at No. 3). And even if the songs were not as omnipresent as SNS hits like “Espresso,” Carpenter was still seemingly popping up everywhere in the year’s final third to support the album: charming Nardwuar at Record Safari in Los Angeles; calling for trans rights onstage at the VMAs with a performance of “Tears”; performing double duty as host and performer on SNL; and day drinking with Seth Meyers, to name a few.  

And while Carpenter was starring in a generational media blitz, she was preparing to take the stage again for the aforementioned U.S. tour leg and final stretch of the Short n’ Sweet Tour. She powered through 17 dates across 6 cities, all completely sold out, including five consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden in New York and six shows at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles with support from a slate of rising stars who all benefitted from the tour boost: Ravyn Lenae, Amber Mark and now-Grammy-nominated Olivia Dean. More celebrities were arrested to introduce “Juno” and fans were treated to songs from MBF as official set list additions and surprise songs. The by-then-14-month-and-72-show long tour officially wrapped on November 23 – an experience which, in an Instagram post, Carpenter shared was “everything [she] dreamt of making [since] she was young.”

But if there is one thing we have learned about Sabrina Carpenter, it’s that “Goodbye” doesn’t necessarily mean ‘goodbye.’ Fans already have a plethora of things to look forward to: the superstar has already been announced as a Coachella headliner; a Grammy Awards performer and 6x nominee; star of the Disney+ reboot of “The Muppet Show”; and co-chair of the Met Gala. And, to close out the year, Santa Sabrina signed off with the official release of “Such a Funny Way,” on December 24th, previously only available as a MBF bonus track, scoring one final Hot 100 hit on the year for her troubles. What more could fans ask for? We don’t know — but if 2024 and 2025 are any indication of how Carpenter continues to maneuver, we know that her fans will continue to be fed.

Listen to our Sabrina Carpenter Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 podcast discussion here, check back for our No. 4 artist Tuesday, and stay tuned all next week as we roll out the top five of our list — leading to the announcement of our No. 1 Greatest Pop Star of 2025 on Friday, Jan. 30!