Chase Rice is stepping away from touring.

In a poignant, vulnerable social media post, the country artist confessed that he was “exhausted. I haven’t been able to be myself on stage in quite a while and really enjoy music and why I got into it in the first place… After 13 years it’s finally beat me up to the point where I need to step away for a while. I need to go live life so that I have more real experiences to write down.”

Other than a handful of dates, Rice won’t tour in 2026 and doesn’t give a timeline for his return. “It wasn’t even really a decision, it was something I know that I just have to do for myself,” he said. While he notes that he’s aware other artists take time off, “It’s new for me so it’s kind of a big deal in my life.”

Rice stresses, “This isn’t a goodbye thing or anything like that to be clear upfront, although it may feel like that,” but then later goes on to say goodbye to his band and crew, adding, “I hope we can all get together in the coming years and get back to enjoying life on the road again.”

Rice adds that he hopes the time off the road gives him “new experiences to put into songs that will make [fans] happy,” before signing off, “Until then, thanks for the ride.”

After self-releasing two sets of his own, Rice’s first major success came as a songwriter in 2012, when he co-wrote Florida Georgia Line’s massive hit “Cruise.” He then signed with Columbia, with his first album for the label, 2014’s Ignite the Night, hitting No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.

After switching to BMG’s Broken Bow Records, he landed two No. 1s on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart: 2018’s “Eyes On You” and 2020’s “Drinkin’ Beer. Talkin’ God. Amen,” which reunited him with Florida Georgia Line. In 2024, Rice exited Broken Bow and began releasing music independently, most recently putting out Eldora in September.

Billboard reached out to Rice’s publicist but did not immediately hear back.

His full post is below.

Years ago, moms everywhere entrusted their kids’ childhoods with the likes of Hilary Duff and Ashley Tisdale when they were both Disney Channel stars. But now, both women are moms themselves — and the dynamics between other parents can be a lot trickier than anything we saw in Lizzie McGuire or High School Musical.

Such was made apparent when Tisdale published an essay with The Cut — under her married name Ashley French — explaining why she’d removed herself from a “toxic” group of moms with whom she’d previously been friends. When fans started speculating that Duff had been one of the other mothers in the group, however, her husband, singer/songwriter Matthew Koma, entered the ring.

In a Tuesday post on his Instagram Story, the musician shared a spoof of the Suite Life of Zack & Cody alum’s essay, featuring a mock-up of Koma re-creating the photo of Tisdale sitting cross-legged used in the original piece. “When You’re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers,” the faux headline reads.

A sarcastic “sub-headline” reads: “A Mom Group Tell All Through A Father’s Eyes,” with Koma captioning the parody, “Read my new interview with @TheCut.”

Billboard has reached out to Tisdale’s rep for comment.

Koma married Duff in 2019, and the couple share three children. His post comes five days after The Cut published Tisdale’s essay, in which she recounts befriending a group of fellow working moms before feeling like they were intentionally excluding her from events and hangouts.

“Even though it had been decades since tenth grade, the experience of being left out felt so similar,” wrote Tisdale, who shares two kids with husband Christopher French. “I knew that I had to speak up for myself, just like I would want my daughters to do. So that’s exactly what I texted to the group after being left out from yet another group hang: ‘This is too high school for me and I don’t want to take part in it anymore.’”

Online sleuths quickly went back through photos of Tisdale and Duff together, linking them to a group of moms that also included Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor. However, TMZ reported Monday that Tisdale’s rep had denied that any of the aforementioned women were the subjects of her essay.

Muni Long alleges in new court papers that her former management team made her spend five days in a mental health facility when she should have been getting medical treatment for a lupus flare-up.

The Grammy-winning R&B singer is locked in a legal battle with Chaka Zulu and Jeff Dixon, music managers best known for their long partnership with Ludacris. The duo alleged in an October lawsuit that Long (real name Priscilla Renea Hamilton) has refused to pay more than $600,000 in past-due commissions after firing them.

But in a Tuesday (Jan. 6) countersuit, Long says she never signed a written management agreement with Zulu and Dixon. The singer claims she owes nothing to the managers and that they are, in fact, liable to her for breach of fiduciary duty and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

According to Long, Zulu and Dixon severely mishandled a flare-up of her chronic lupus condition in March 2024. She says that instead of taking her to a hospital for medical treatment, the managers forced her to spend five days at the Cleveland Clinic Indian River Behavioral Health Center.

“During that time, Hamilton was isolated and experienced excruciating pain and mental anguish from being forced to remain in a mental health facility instead of having her lupus condition treated,” reads the countersuit. “As a result of being placed in the wrong facility, Hamilton did not receive correct medical care, which had a long-term negative effect on her health. Neither Zulu nor Dixon visited or attempted to contact Hamilton while she was hospitalized.”

Long further alleges Zulu and Dixon did a poor job managing her career, missing key opportunities and even recommending that she turn down an offer to perform at Coachella last year.

“Zulu and Dixon continually failed to satisfy the rudimentary functions of a personal manager in the music industry,” write Long’s lawyers, Brian Caplan and Brett Van Benthysen from the firm Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt.

Long says she ultimately fired the managers in December 2024 after they tried to take credit for a performance her publicist had arranged. Now, she’s seeking unspecified financial damages.

A lawyer for Zulu and Dixon did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday (Jan. 7).