Megan Moroney and Morgan Wallen were never officially dating, or exclusive, as far as their fans know. But there was definitely something between the two country stars a few years ago when they were linked following the release of Moroney’s suggestive “Tennessee Orange,” a love song about a Georgia girl who falls in love with a charming Tennessee man that hit No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 2022.

“I think Morgan is great and his new album [I’m the Problem] is great,” Savannah, Ga. native Moroney told People magazine about the latest album from Sneedville, Tennessee’s Wallen, 32. “Him and I are still friends.”

Moroney, 28, said she is well-aware that people love to dig into the unspoken meaning behind her lyrics, telling the magazine that she is focused on “being honest” in her songs. “I never let the possibility that people might speculate who [a song] is about, stop me from writing about how this situation made me feel,” said the singer. In “Tennessee Orange” Moroney calls to tell her mom — and warn her dad — that “I met somebody and he’s go blue eyes/ He opens the door, and he don’t make me cry/ He ain’t from where we’re from, but he feels like home/ Yeah, he’s got me doing things I’ve never done.”

At the time, fans speculated about the possible Wallen link to “Tennessee Orange,” after the country stars started commenting on each other’s Instagram posts. In a 2024 Call Her Daddy podcast appearance Moroney said the pair “never exclusively” dated and wouldn’t confirm that the song is about Wallen, who she met right before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic when she was a senior in college.

“We were friends for a long time. We were not just friends. And now we’re friends,” she explained at the time. “I feel like he’s a very private person. We weren’t exclusively dating ever and I think that both of our schedules… when we tried to hang out it was like, ‘OK, we have this one day of the whole month where we’re both maybe in town and then the other has something going on.’”

Between her song, the Instagram comments and Wallen’s 2023 One Thing at a Time song “Tennessee Fan” — about him meeting a sorority girl from Alabama who rolls her allegiance over to Tennessee after he takes her to a Vols college football game — fans had lots of thoughts on their potential love affair.

And though Wallen has not spoken in public about their connection, in a 2022 interview with SiriusXM’s The Highway in 2022, Moroney confirmed that the Vols shirt she wore in a promo photo for “Tennessee Orange” belonged to Wallen.

The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated Dec. 6, a couple true chart heavyweights duke it out for the top spot.  

Stray Kids, DO IT (JYP/Republic): A new five-track mixtape wouldn’t be a particularly big threat from most artists to take down the record-setting new album by the biggest pop star in the world. But when it comes to the Billboard 200, Stray Kids isn’t most artists. Between albums, EPs and mixtapes, the Korean pop octet has launched seven sets onto the Billboard 200 since 2022 — and all seven of them have debuted at No. 1. The Kids haven’t missed the top spot yet.  

Now, they look to go eight-for-eight with DO IT, the five-track set officially being called the group’s new mixtape, released last Friday (Nov. 21). The release, which offers both a regular version and a “Festival Version” of its title track as its bookending cuts, got off to a strong streaming start, with each of its four new tracks debuting on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart. (“Do It” remains on the listing four days later.)  

But as is usually the case with Stray Kids, physical sales will likely provide the biggest chunk of the album’s overall first-week consumption. To that end, the group has made DO IT available in a wide array of formats — including seven CD variants, all featuring collectibles (some randomized). There’s also four total webstore-exclusive download versions of the mixtape, each of which adds its own “chat” bonus audio tracks with the bandmembers.  

Will it all be enough for the Kids to unseat Republic labelmate Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, which has reigned for the first seven weeks of its release? Well, in its seventh and most recent week at No. 1, Showgirl amassed 93,000 total equivalent album units. The group’s last Billboard 200-topper, this September’s full studio album KARMA, bowed with 313,000 units. The shorter DO IT might not post numbers quite so robust, but if it’s anywhere in range of that number — well over triple what Showgirl posted in last week — it’s going to be pretty challenging for Swift to make up the difference.  

Wicked Movie Cast, Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good — The Soundtrack (Republic/Verve): Even without a new Stray Kids project, it would still be far from smooth sailing for Swift’s blockbuster on the Billboard 200 this week. Showgirl also has to compete with perhaps the year’s most-anticipated movie soundtrack (and yet another fellow Republic release), with the accompanying OST to blockbuster film musical sequel Wicked: For Good also debuting on Friday — featuring musical contributions from co-stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, as well as cast members Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum and more.  

The set has also gotten off to a solid start on DSPs, with a number of songs debuting on the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart — most of which have stuck around throughout the week, most notably Erivo and Grande dueting on the “For Good” title track. The album should also sell well to the musical’s (and stars’) many obsessive fans, particularly with seven vinyl and four CD variants available for purchase, one of the latter also coming signed by Erivo and Grande.  

Does For Good also have a strong chance at a six-digit debut? If the performance of the original Wicked: The Soundtrack is any indication, then yes: That set bowed with 139,000 units in December 2024, with 85,000 of that number coming in sales. This set may come up a little short of that, with the musical’s first half containing some of its more traditionally beloved songs, like “Defying Gravity” and “Popular.”  

But this new set does have the benefit of a pair of new compositions: the Erivo solo “No Place Like Home” and Grande solo “The Girl in the Bubble.” And it also now has a historic box office bow for the movie it accompanies — not to mention Thanksgiving weekend (and Black Friday) coming up — meaning that if it doesn’t get to 100k this week, it very well still might in week two.  

The last time Simon Cowell saw Liam Payne was a year before the former One Direction singer and solo star plunged to his death in a fall from the third-story balcony of a Buenos Aires hotel on Oct. 16, 2024. Speaking to the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast this week, Cowell described their final meeting and the conflicted feelings he’s struggled with in the time since about his role in thrusting the 31-year-old singer into global fame.

“I saw him a year before this happened. He came over to my house. We talked about his son and being a dad,” Cowell said Cowell said in a Rolling Stone Music Now podcast (Payne talk begins at 40-minute mark) about their discussion of Liam’s now seven-year-old son, Bear, with former partner Cheryl Cole. “I remember saying, ‘Music is not everything, by the way. You’re in a position where you can decide when you want to put something out and when you don’t want to put something out. But don’t let it run your life anymore. Find something else that you’re passionate about that will bring you happiness.’”

Stuck on the question of what, if any role, he played in Payne’s post-fame struggles, Cowell — who put Payne together with fellow solo X Factor UK contestants Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik in 2010 to form the group after Liam’s previous unsuccessful solo attempt on the show — said he still wonders about that himself.

“You ask yourself that question: ‘Could I have done anything more? What would’ve happened to Liam if he hadn’t been in the band?’ I don’t know,” Cowell said. “All I know is having spoken to his mom and dad recently, all they kept telling me was he was so proud of what he had achieved. That music and succeeding to him was everything. Absolutely everything… I wish I could turn back the clock, of course, to that day he came to my house. When I spoke to him that day, if I’m being honest with you, I felt really good about him. I thought, ‘Wow, you seem in a really good place.’”

Cowell, who noted that he keeps in touch with some of his former musical charges, but not all, gave Payne some advice about life in general that day and about being a dad during their three-hour hang. “I didn’t feel worried about him after he left,” said Cowell. “But then of course when I heard the news, probably the only person apart from when I lost my mum and dad, when it hit me really, really bad, someone who’s not family. This is really, really tough.”

Pod host Brian Hiatt asked Cowell if he read any of the comments attempting to cast blame on the America’s Got Talent host for what some fans claimed was his part in Payne’s death and whether that unfounded finger-pointing was hurtful.

“I don’t read any of this stuff because if I did, you would just torture yourself,” Cowell said about speculation based on truth and innuendo. “The idea that you are essentially responsible for somebody’s life 10 years after you’ve signed someone? You can’t do that. You can’t live with them. I always say to anyone, ‘I’m always here if you need me.’”

He clarified that when Payne reached out to him that last time it wasn’t because he said he was in distress, but because he wanted to get together with his mentor and early supporter who he missed chatting with.

“You have that worry for anyone who’s young, whatever career they go into,” Cowell said about his thoughts on the potential pitfalls of young stardom and the ravages of social media on young minds. “Particularly now, I think the world had genuinely never known a time where everything is so divisive in a really bad way. I think social media has made people more unhappy than happy,” he added, noting he “switched off” his cellphone eight years ago for that very reason.

After news of Payne’s death spread, Cowell posted a loving note to Liam on Instagram, writing, “You never really know how you feel about someone until a moment like this happens. Liam, I am truly devastated. Heartbroken. And I feel empty. And I want you to know how much love and respect I have for you. Every tear I have shed is a memory of you.”

Most artists probably wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a diss from Eminem, but Lil Yachty wears it like a badge of honor.

Em took a shot at the Atlanta rapper on 2018’s “The Ringer” when he rapped, “Get this f—kin’ audio out my Audi yo, adios/ I can see why people like Lil’ Yachty, but not me though/ Not even dissin’, it just ain’t for me/ All I am simply is just an emcee.”

Seven years later, Yachty reflected on getting name-dropped by Em during an appearance earlier this month on Tea Time W/ Raven & Miranda.

“Eminem actually dissed me, but I thought it was amazing. If you say my name, it’s like, you could’ve said anyone’s name,” Yachty said. “So, you’re saying my name? I’m like, ‘That’s kinda fire.’ I was like, ‘You could’ve said anybody and you said me?’ Am I the top of the nobodies? I wasn’t mad at it all, I was like, ‘Fire!’ I’ll take it any day of the week.”

Yachty was one of the faces of the SoundCloud generation of rap that exploded in the mid-2010s. He faced backlash at times, as some classified his bubblegum trap as “mumble rap.”

The ATL native is far from the last and not nearly the first public figure to have Eminem throw a lyrical jab in their direction. At the time, Yachty tweeted out that he was cool with being dissed by Slim Shady.

“Lmao me personally I think it’s fye Eminem took a shot at me.. I f–k wit Eminem,” he wrote on Twitter in 2018, per HotNewHipHop.

“The Ringer” landed on Em’s Kamikaze album in 2018 and the Platinum track peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Watch Lil Yachty’s interview and listen to “The Ringer” below.

While ugly Christmas sweaters have become an annual holiday tradition, they’re not in the dress code for every festive event.

Jimmy Fallon finds that out the hard way in his latest Christmas song, the twangy “Ugly Sweater,” featuring Nashville newcomer Carter Faith. The song and video will debut on the Thanksgiving episode (Nov. 27) of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, but Billboard has the first sneak peek for you right now.

It all starts out as a classy affair in the clip, with Faith in a gorgeous off-the-shoulder red cocktail dress and an Aperol spritz in her hand, surrounded by similarly formal friends. “But I found out when you opened the door,” she sings — just as Fallon makes his entrance in a goofy red-and-green-striped sweater covered in scattered appliqués of a giant treble clef, Santa and his reindeer, and the words “FA LA.”

“I was the only one in an ugly sweater,” Fallon sings in a deep twang as he awkwardly makes his way through the party. “Red in the face, it don’t get better/ Pretty clear I’m no trend-setter/ I’m the only one in an ugly sweater.”

The song was written by Fallon and produced by Dave Cobb, and will be released by Republic Records. Watch the preview below:

Fallon is no stranger to holiday music, bringing cheer to Billboard’s charts over the years with seasonal tunes and albums, including his debut Christmas album Holiday Seasoning. Released in 2024, the set spent eight weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Comedy Albums chart and jingled to a No. 2 peak on Top Holiday Albums.

Fallon has also gifted Billboard’s lists with holiday jams like 2021’s “It Was a (Masked Christmas)” (with Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion, a No. 38-peaking hit on Pop Airplay); 2022’s “Almost Too Early for Christmas” (with Dolly Parton, No. 30 on Adult Contemporary); 2023’s “Wrap Me Up” (with Meghan Trainor, No. 2 on Adult Contemporary and a top 40-charted hit on Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay); and 2024’s “Holiday” (with Jonas Brothers, No. 1 on Adult Contemporary) — Fallon’s first No. 1 on a radio airplay chart and a top 40 hit on Adult Pop Airplay.

Faith was Billboard‘s Country Rookie of the Month in March, when she signed a music publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group Nashville. She released her debut album, Cherry Valley, via MCA Nashville in October.

You can watch the full premiere of “Ugly Sweater” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night (Nov. 27) at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC and streaming on Peacock. It’s a very musical episode, as the night’s guests also include Ed Sheeran, Brad Paisley and Joe Keery (aka Djo).