Universal Music Group (UMG) said on Thursday (June 4) it repurchased 14.1 million of shares of its stock following moves by Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square to offload the investment firm’s entire 80-million share stake in UMG after the record company’s board rejected Pershing’s offer to take over the company.

UMG acquired the ordinary shares at a price of 17.66 euros ($20.48) per share, according to a release from the company, for a total consideration of 250 million euros ($290.9 million). UMG’s share price was 18.36 euros ($21.32) on Thursday morning New York time, up from an earlier trading-day low of 17.99 euros following yesterday’s news of Pershing’s sell off. UMG’s share price has fallen 6.5% over the past five trading days since its board rejected Ackman’s bid.

The share repurchases put something of a bow on the end of UMG’s five-year relationship with Pershing Square and Ackman, who spent three years on the company’s board and who once described his feelings about the company as “love at first sight.”

UMG has been buying back shares as part of an effort to address its under-performing share price. The board granted permission to buy back up to 1 billion euros, of which UMG had, as of May 29, repurchased €147,128,995. UMG said the 250 million euro share repurchase announced Thursday does not come out of the initial planned 500 million euro buyback program but is pursuant to the additional 500 million euros worth of repurchases that were authorized in May.

Ackman had submitted a non-binding bid to merge UMG with a Pershing vehicle and move its primary stock listing to the U.S. on April 7 in a deal that valued the company at 55.55 billion euros ($64 billion). On May 27, Bolloré Group CEO Cyrille Bolloré urged the company not to accept Ackman’s bid, saying during a meeting of Bolloré’s shareholders that, “We think the price is not there at all.” As of Dec. 31, 2025, Bolloré Group owns 18.4% of UMG shares, representing nearly 40% of shareholder voting rights, and the family overall owns around 28% of UMG stock.

Without Bolloré’s support, UMG said its board rejected the merger offer on May 29, with a press release saying that Pershing’s offer “fundamentally and materially undervalues UMG and will not deliver superior value creation.”

If accepted, the offer would have moved UMG’s primary stock listing from Euronext Amsterdam to a U.S.-based exchange. Ackman had been pushing for the company to move to the U.S. stock market since 2024.

At one point in Power Ballad, the latest music-focused film from director John Carney, a record executive tells a fading boy band star, played by Nick Jonas, not to worry about plagiarism accusations from a little-known singer, played by Paul Rudd. After all, he says, “Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ.”

While Carney’s movie is aimed at a wide audience, that line is going to resonate with a very specific subset of them: music lawyers. It’s a legendary axiom of the trade going back decades — the idea being that if you get popular enough in the music business, somebody is eventually going to sue you for a cut.

“Anything to get lawyers laughing at the cinema,” Carney jokes while speaking with Billboard about Power Ballad, which hits theaters nationwide this Friday (June 5).

Like all his films, Power Ballad mines human drama from the world of music. The critically-adored Once (2007) showed the power of music to heal and connect people; his Sing Street (2016) used it to anchor a coming-of-age story. This time, Carney’s found his story in a type of conflict that the music industry has come to know all too well in recent years.

Rick Power (Rudd) is a middle-aged wedding singer who sees his heartfelt song stolen by Danny Wilson (Jonas), an ex-boy bander trying to become a solo star. As it climbs the charts, Rick becomes obsessed with proving the track was his original creation, but nobody believes him — not his band, not his lawyers, maybe not even his wife. Danny flatly denies it, and there’s no evidence to prove him wrong.

That’s a story that’s played out many times in the real world, where music stars are regularly hit with copyright lawsuits and legal threats over sound-alike songs. Some are valid, filed by artists who have genuinely had their material copied by a bigger name; many others are not, claiming plagiarism in little more than similar vibes or basic chords.

“I know a lot of musicians and songwriters, and I think every one of them past a certain level success or fortune or fame gets one or two of these claims, so it was in my world for a long time,” Carney says about the inspiration for the plot. “Then it started to show up in the newspapers more and more.”

Back in 2022, Dua Lipa was accused of stealing her mega-hit “Levitating” from a little-known Florida reggae group in a case that was later dropped. Later that year, Ed Sheeran won a high-profile trial over claims that his chart-topping “Shape of You” copied a song called “Oh Why” by a smaller artist named Sami Chokri. Then in 2023, Post Malone settled with a studio musician who claimed he’d helped create the smash “Circles” during an all-night jam session and then been denied credit. There have been countless more examples both before and since.

While Power Ballad features a few lawyers and some spirited threats over the phone, it mostly avoids an outright legal battle — a move Carney tells Billboard made sense for the story he was trying to tell. “We didn’t want to do a courtroom drama,” he says. “That might be very interesting [but] I’m not the guy to direct that. We decided to write a hopefully more kind of a timeless story: how an artist feels when they feel they’ve been ripped off.”

In this case that ripped-off artist is Rudd’s Rick, an American living in Ireland who once had stadium-sized ambitions as a young man but has now settled for playing weddings and living a happy life with his wife and teenage daughter. The alleged thief is Jonas’ Danny, an ex-boy band member who apparently missed his Justin Timberlake or Harry Styles moment and is now at risk of getting dropped by his label if he can’t find a solo hit quick.

After a chance encounter at a wedding, Rick and Danny spend a hazy night together drinking, smoking and jamming on each other’s songs, including Rick’s ballad “How to Write a Song (Without You).” Everyone leaves the night happy — until six months later, when Rick hears the song blaring over loudspeakers at a mall, turned into a pop song that’s revitalized Danny’s career.

As the track tops the charts and Rick fixates on proving he wrote it, his life begins to fall apart. But the singer, who once dreamed of pop stardom for himself, simply cannot bring himself to give up the fight. Those big emotions are what power Carney’s movie, and they, too, are rooted in real-life fights — where accusers often spend years of their lives and rack up huge legal bills on doomed pursuits of recognition.

“Researching the project, it made me realize that you could, and I’m sure plenty of people have, kind of die on the altar of getting remuneration and credit for their thing. But it’s not worth it,” Carney says. “You don’t want to lose too much of your present life on earth fighting for something for too long.”

In the real world, of course, many of those accusers are simply wrong. Whether they’ve cynically made their claims to win a payout or genuinely believe their song was copied, the majority of song-theft cases end in defeat. Judges often rule there’s no evidence a pop star ever even heard the allegedly-copied song, as one did in 2024 in a case against Megan Thee Stallion. In other cases, like one against Katy Perry, courts say the songs share only basic “building blocks” like chords that everyone is free to use.

What makes Power Ballad so fun is that the audience knows from the outset that Rick is actually right. Because of how such cases typically play out, the whole world is predisposed to dismiss him — to think he’s just another kook who came out of the woodwork with a wild conspiracy theory about a pop song. But like many of the people who bring those kinds of allegations, Rick is desperate to understand why Danny didn’t give him credit, and to be believed.

For Carney, himself a longtime musician who has been putting songs on screen for decades, that’s an “endlessly interesting” topic that was worth exploring. “I think I’ve been on both sides of the thing,” he says. “I’ve never been in a courtroom, but I’ve been emotionally invested with various people — in who did what and who deserves what.”

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Get ready for a bloody good time. We are just days away from the premiere of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat, the long-awaited sequel and third season to Interview with the Vampire.

Taken straight from the pages of Anne Rice’s vampire book of the same name, the new season follows the more than 250-year-old vampire Lestat de Lioncourt’s rise to fame as an immortal rock star and the frontman of the band The Vampire Lestat. The new season is set to air on Sunday (June 7) at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC. New episodes will air weekly on Sundays.

The show is serious about its music roots, so serious, in fact, that a Spotify page was launched for the fictional character Lestat, as well as five singles, including “Your Biggest Fan,” “All Fall Down” and “Long Face.”

How to Watch The Vampire Lestat Online, at a Glance:

Fans of Rice’s book and the adapted show have been waiting for this new season to be released since season two of Interview with the Vampire wrapped in 2024. With new music, glitzy costumes and fangs galore, The Vampire Lestat is sure to be a hit.

Starting on June 7, you can watch The Vampire Lestat online with Sling TV.

When Does The Vampire Lestat Air?

The season three premiere of The Vampire Lestat will air on Sunday, June 7, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Where to Watch The Vampire Lestat Online

You can tune in to the vampire rocker show on AMC. Keep reading for more details on how cord-cutters can watch online with Sling TV.

How to Watch The Vampire Lestat With Sling TV

Sling Blue

A subscription to Sling Blue, which comes with AMC, gets you access to watch The Vampire Lestat online. This plan focuses more on entertainment-based channels. Starting at $45.99 a month, you can watch live TV, local networks such as ABC and Fox (in select markets) and cable networks including Bravo, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, E!, Fox Sports, FX, MS NOW, National Geographic, SYFY, TLC, BET, CNN and Vice.

Sling Orange

You can stream the vampire show with Sling Orange, which comes with AMC. This subscription is best for sports and family entertainment. The plan is $45.99 a month. However, Sling Orange offers passes for one, three and seven days starting at $4.99, letting you trial before committing to anything. This comes in handy since Sling does not offer free trials.

Once you’ve paid for your chosen plan, you’ll get access to live TV, cable networks such as ESPN, ESPN2, Freeform, TLC, ID, VICE, Disney Channel, Nick Jr., Lifetime, Food Network, History Channel, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Travel Channel and more.

Sling Orange + Blue

If you can’t decide on which subscription is best for you, Sling also offers an Orange + Blue plan that bundles the best of both services into one. Sling Orange + Blue — which comes with AMC — gets you access to The Vampire Lestat, plus live TV and local and cable channels, starting at $60.99 a month. You can watch many cable networks, including ESPN2, FS1, Lifetime, FX, A&E, Bravo, BET, Cartoon Network, Fuse, CNN, Food Network and MSNBC.

Please note: Pricing and availability depend on your local TV market. You can learn more about Sling TV here.

More on The Vampire Lestat

This new show builds upon happenings from the Interview With the Vampire, with returning characters such as Armand, Daniel Molloy and Louis de Pointe du Lac. Jennifer Ehle, who plays Gabriella de Lioncourt (Lestat’s mother) and Sheila Atim playing Akasha, are new additions to the franchise.

Lestat’s band, The Vampire Lestat, transformed the Beacon Theatre in New York for one night on June 2, 2026. Led by actor Sam Reid, who plays Lestat, the faux band performed all of its new tracks, composed by Daniel Hart. The event served as a kickoff for the new show. Fans in attendance were treated to an early screening of the season three premiere.

Olivia Rodrigo is once again making it clear where she stands when it comes to ICE as it carries out mass deportations and aggressive raids under the Donald Trump administration.

In her Dazed cover story published Thursday (June 4), the pop star began by saying she thinks “part of being an artist is sharing how you feel with other people,” which she believes should include political beliefs. “I don’t have a political science degree. I’m not the most educated person on planet Earth, but I like to try and stay up to date on things and share how I feel,” she said.

Rodrigo went on to recall what she was doing when she first discovered that the Department of Homeland Security had used one of her songs — “All-American Bitch” — to soundtrack a video glorifying ICE on social media last year. “I was just scrolling on my phone,” she told the publication. “It was so deeply disturbing to see that propaganda, and the fact it was my song in there made me feel even more enraged.”

The moment led to one of her most outspoken moments, with the singer commenting on the DHS video in November, “don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda.”

A few months later, the department would respond in a statement to Billboard: “We suggest Ms. Rodrigo thank them for their service, not belittle their sacrifice.”

But Rodrigo is holding her ground. “What they’re doing is so awful and barbaric and cruel,” she told Dazed. “I am really sad to be in a country that thinks that’s OK.”

In a response to her most recent remarks, a DHS spokesperson told Billboard, “America is grateful all the time for our federal law enforcement officers who keep us safe. We suggest Ms. Rodrigo thank them for their service, not belittle their sacrifice.”

The interview comes a little more than a week ahead of the Grammy winner’s third studio album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, arriving June 12. Its first two singles, “Drop Dead” and “The Cure,” debuted at No. 1 and No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

See Rodrigo on the cover of Dazed and photos from the shoot below.

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When West Tennessee musician Phillip Lemmings discovered in 2005 that his wife was pregnant, he faced a crossroads.

He played guitar and mandolin in a five-piece country band, Forty5south, that had released two albums. But with his daughter, Lakelin, due to arrive in May 2006, it meant the family would have two kids under the age of three. Staying out on the road with a job that was an economic drag no longer made sense, so he quit the band, and Forty5south broke up.

Phillip remained friends with the group’s lead vocalist, Ash Bowers, who became a successful songwriter-producer (Matt Stell, George Birge). As Lakelin hit her teen years, she demonstrated real talents as a songwriter and singer, and Phillip lobbied Bowers periodically about her potential. When she reached age 17, Bowers started pulling her into writing sessions and crafting songs that fit her voice and story. With “Get Around Boy” — her first single released to radio — Lakelin, now 20, picks up professionally where her dad left off.

“It’s a real full-circle thing,” she says matter-of-factly.

The Lemmings home-schooled their children, which allowed Lakelin to see much of America in an RV. 

“We were able to enjoy our childhood and travel and do all the things,” she says. “I was really thankful.”

Her songwriting efforts required travel, too. She continued to live in Henderson, Tenn., and routinely drove 135 miles for co-writing appointments with Bowers in Nashville. Mike Mobley (“Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On,” “Easy”) became one of their collaborators, and when the three of them explored her story, she mentioned breaking up with a guy back home to devote her attention to her career.

“You see a little tear in her eye,” Mobley says, “just enough there to go, ‘Yeah, she’s still caught up on the boy.”

That comment didn’t become a song that day, but before their next appointment — June 6, 2024, at Bowers’ Wide Open Music in Nashville — Mobley spent more time connecting the dots between her travel and the sacrifice of relationships that often accompanies a touring lifestyle. He came back to their next writing session with an idea.

“I just started picturing her driving across the country, chasing her brand-new life, and meanwhile, [the memory of] this first love from back home riding shotgun the whole time,” Mobley says. “He’s still getting around because he’s going with her emotionally.”

That turned into a title, “Get Around Boy,” and he brought an opening line for the chorus, about a “beach out in California,” plus a semblance of a chorus melody to that next writing session. They turned it into an audio travelogue, and began listing places at least one of them had visited. She had traveled to 30 states, so it was easy finding locations she knew firsthand. In fact, the only one they incorporated in the song that she hasn’t experienced is Sedona, included because it rhymes loosely with California.

They took some liberties with her real-life story, projecting in the verses that the relationship had been expected to lead to marriage, and that she anticipated he’d be waiting. By the final verse, she discovers he is, in fact, marrying someone else, guaranteeing he remains in her rearview. And yet, the bridge emphasized, his memory was “still so close.”

“By the time we got to that bridge,” Mobley says, “I realized the whole song was just this push and this pull between chasing a life she wants and missing the life she had.”

To personalize it further, they inserted a couple West Tennessee references into the final chorus. They dropped in a Beale Street lyric and namechecked “Walking in Memphis.” They also indicated his memory’s travels were “not too bad for a plowboy.” That’s a subtle nod to the late Eddy Arnold, who was born in Henderson and was nicknamed “The Tennessee Plowboy.”

“In our downtown area, there’s a big sign and stuff, and a description of him and what he did,” she says. “So he’s still alive and well here in Henderson.”

They recorded a guitar-and-vocal work tape, with Mobley playing six-string. He added an intro riff on the fly, based on the chorus melody, and Bowers later overdubbed a programmed kick drum. It was one of the songs that helped her secure her Quartz Hill recording deal the following spring.

Lakelin didn’t record it initially for the label, but when the company held showcases at Eric Church’s club, Chief’s, last year during Nashville’s CMA Fest, she worked up the song with her band.

“Everybody inside the label over the next week or so mentioned that ‘Get Around Boy’ sounded like a hit,” Bowers says.

They recorded it at Nashville’s Sound Stage, owned by Black River, which represents Kelsea Ballerini, who made a surprise appearance. She wandered in unexpectedly that day with then-boyfriend Chase Stokes on a sort of mini-tour for a small group. Ballerini gave Lemmings props for a sparkly pair of boots Lakelin had chosen to give her a bit of an uplift that day.

“A little sparkle,” Lemmings says, “is never bad.”

The studio band understood the vibe from the work tape and settled into a framework that gave “Get Around Boy” a hopeful mood without calling attention to itself. The instrumental intro riff was replayed on electric guitar, instead of acoustic, and Sol Philcox-Littlefield crafted a solo that took a trip in just a few bars.

“Sol is so good,” Bowers says. “Every time I’ve ever been in the studio with him, he’ll give me a handful of options, and it’s really hard to pick which one. But we did have a conversation [that] this works because it does feel like a bit of a journey.”

Lemmings recorded her final lead part at the Couch Room, a Music Row studio owned by Eric Torres, who sang background vocals. The song had been shaped specifically for her, so it posed little trouble, outside its ambitious chorus.

“It’s a pretty big chorus, but it’s also very strategic,” she says. “It moves around a lot — the melody goes up and down — so getting that right and really nailing the pocket on those [melodic hills] was a little challenging.”

The writers hadn’t recognized that the travelogue motif and midtempo pace made “Get Around Boy” similar to the Tim McGraw song “Everywhere,” though several programmers made the comparison on her radio tour. They also said it was her best bet as a single, and Quartz Hill founder Benny Brown agreed.

“Obviously, he’s had plenty of hits,” Lemmings says. “He knows.”

“Get Around Boy” was shipped to country radio via PlayMPE on April 13. Promoting it has given Lakelin the opportunity to get around herself, using some of the same roads her father traveled during his time in Forty5south. And she carries his story everywhere she goes, doing the same sort of work that he dropped when she arrived.

“I crushed his dreams,” she says. “Now we’re chasing mine together.”