A year and a half after Cher won a legal victory preserving her right to publishing royalties from her songs with Sonny Bono, Sonny’s widow Mary Bono is now challenging the ruling on appeal.

Mary has been fighting in court to stop paying royalties to Cher under the so-called termination right, under which artists and their heirs can win back control of intellectual property decades after signing it away. But a California federal judge ruled last year that termination rules do not apply to Sonny & Cher’s 1978 divorce settlement, which gave Cher a permanent 50% cut of publishing revenue from 1960s hits like “I Got You Babe,” “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.”

While U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt ruled in Cher’s favor back in May 2024, the decision wasn’t made official until a final judgment entered this past November. Mary Bono’s attorney, Daniel Schacht, appealed that judgment to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday (Dec. 22).

Termination rights have become a hot topic in music law in recent years. Incorporated into the federal Copyright Act, the legislative provision allows artists who sign away their publishing or master recordings to claw back those ownership rights after 35 years.

Last year, Sony Music and Universal Music Group (UMG) both reached class action settlements with musicians who wanted to regain control of master recordings. And this past May, Salt-N-Pepa sued UMG for rejecting the legendary hip-hop duo’s attempt to exercise their own termination rights.

In the Cher case, which dates back to 2021, Mary Bono argued that she should be able to invoke her termination rights to cancel Sonny’s assignment of royalties to Cher in the divorce settlement.  

But Judge Kronstadt ruled in 2024 that the divorce agreement was a contract for financial compensation, not a grant of intellectual property that is subject to termination. “A right to receive royalties is distinct from a grant of copyright,” the judge wrote.

Mary’s attorneys will now challenge this reasoning at the Ninth Circuit. At the time of the ruling, Schact told Billboard that Judge Kronstadt “got the law wrong on copyright terminations” and that the decision set a dangerous precedent for the music industry.

“His ruling, if left standing, would hurt songwriters and creators by allowing not just former spouses, but also publishers and labels, to circumvent the Copyright Act and keep shares of royalties even after terminations,” Schact said back in 2024.

Schact did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday, nor did Cher’s lawyers.

Beyoncé owned the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 2 when she finally won her long-awaited album of the year trophy for Cowboy Carter. Queen Bey now boasts a whopping 35 Grammys, the most of anyone in Grammy history, but she isn’t the Destiny’s Child alumna who’s poised to make history at next year’s ceremony.

Michelle Williams, who joined the Destiny’s Child lineup in 2000, is nominated alongside her Death Becomes Her castmates for best musical theater album at the 2026 Grammys. Should Williams triumph, Destiny’s Child will join The Beatles as the only groups in history where every member of its longest running/most commercially successful lineup won Grammys for work outside of the group. This stat excludes duos, supergroups (e.g., Cream, Boygenius), collectives (e.g., Parliament-Funkadelic, Snarky Puppy) and splinter groups (e.g., Isley-Jasper-Isley). Notably, both Destiny’s Child and The Beatles secured multiple Grammys as groups before each member began their solo journeys.

Williams is nominated for best musical theater album as one of six principal vocalists on the original Broadway cast album for Death Becomes Her. The other nominated vocalists on that album are Taurean Everett, Megan Hilty, Josh Lamon, Christopher Sieber and Jennifer Simard. The other nominees in the category are Maybe Happy Ending (Marcus Choi, Darren Criss, Dez Duron and Helen J Shen, principal vocalists); Just in Time (Emily Bergl, Jonathan Groff, Erika Henningsen, Gracie Lawrence and Michele Pawk, principal vocalists), Gypsy (Danny Burstein, Kevin Csolak, Audra McDonald, Jordan Tyson and Joy Woods, principal vocalists); and Buena Vista Social Club (where no principal vocalists are nominated; only producers).

This Grammy nomination marks Williams’ first outside of Destiny’s Child, despite years of success in the gospel music field, including 2014’s seven-week Hot Gospel Songs chart-topper “Say Yes” (with Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland). Rowland has earned four Grammy nominations for her solo work, including a win for best rap/sung collaboration for “Dilemma” (with Nelly) in 2003.

Although Destiny’s Child debuted in 1998 as a quartet comprised of Beyoncé, Rowland, LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson, the latter two were cycled out for Williams and Farrah Franklin at the turn of the century, with the group settling into its defining trio lineup a few months later. In the 25 years since, Destiny’s Child has reunited at the 2013 Super Bowl Halftime Show, Beyoncé’s 2018 headlining Coachella set and the final night of Queen Bey’s Cowboy Carter Tour — always as the trio of Bey, Kelly and Michelle.

One of the most legendary musical acts in history, The Beatles boasts 10 competitive Grammys, most recently winning best rock performance for “Now and Then” in 2025. In 1968, The Fab Four won album of the year for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a category in which each member has been individually recognized with at least a nomination.

John Lennon’s sole solo Grammy win comes from his 1981 album of the year triumph alongside Yoko Ono with Double Fantasy. Eight years prior, in 1973, George Harrison and Ringo Starr won solo trophies thanks to The Concert for Bangladesh snagging album of the year — Harrison as the lead artist on the triple-disk album, Starr as a featured artist. Harrison has won three additional Grammys separate from his Beatles work. Sir Paul McCartney has won eight Grammys outside of The Beatles, though he is, surprisingly, the only ex-Beatle not to have won album of the year apart from The Beatles. (He has received three album of the year nods for solo LPs, plus one as the leader of Wings.)

Given the varying trajectories of solo careers, few groups even approach Destiny’s Child and The Beatles in this regard. Country trio Lady A (formerly Lady Antebellum) comes close, with Hillary Scott snagging trophies for work outside the group (she won two contemporary Christian Grammys in 2017). Don Henley also won solo Grammys for “The End of Innocence” (1990; best rock vocal performance, male) and “The Boys of Summer” (1986; best male rock vocal performance), separate from his Eagles work. Finally, of the longest lasting and most commercially successful Genesis lineup (Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins), just Collins earned Grammys for his work outside of the band. He won eight times between 1985 and 2000. Peter Gabriel, who was a part of the Genesis lineup in the ’70s, almost matches Collins’ haul with seven solo Grammy victories of his own.

After dodging HUNTR/X’s “Golden” to hold onto the title of longest-running Hot 100 No. 1 single by a girl group with its own “Independent Women, Part I,” Destiny’s Child will find out if the group ties The Beatles’ impressive record in just more than one month.

Final-round Grammy voting runs through Jan. 5. The 68th annual Grammy Awards will be presented on Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

Spanish pop singer Nil Moliner enjoys sharing a particular Christmas tradition from Catalonia with his nephews — one that used to amaze him when he was a child: the Tió de Nadal. The practice involves taking a piece of log and covering it with a blanket, decorating the visible end with a smiling face and leaving food for it on the nights leading up to Christmas. On Dec. 24, the magic happens: The children in the house hit it with sticks while they sing, and the log “defecates” gifts and sweets from under the blanket.

“It poops presents!” Moliner says with a laugh. “It’s a bit scatological, but we Catalans are a little like that.”

This is just one of many cherished traditions and memories shared by some of the artists who participated on Dec. 15 in the Billboard No. 1s España concert, the first collaborative event between Grupo Starlite and Billboard, held at IFEMA Madrid.

Omar Montes, for example, shared that during Christmas, his grandmother gets the whole family to sing. “She sings a lot,” he said. “She sings songs by Isabel Pantoja, and my mom too.” The celebration continues after dinner, when “we take out a Bingo game that my grandmother bought back in the ’90s,” he shares before adding humorously, “and I always end up winning because I always cheat!”

Some artists also recalled the Christmas gifts that made them the happiest during their childhood, most of them related to music. “The first one that really impacted me was a karaoke machine, and I went crazy,” India Martínez reveals. “When I was a bit older, around 13 years old, I got my flamenco guitar, and it was like, ‘Oh my God!’” With it, she wrote her first songs.

For the great Cuban jazz musician Chucho Valdés, the gift that brought him the most joy as a child was “the book with Beethoven’s 32 sonatas,” which he received from his father, legendary pianist Bebo Valdés. Another pianist who delighted the audience at the Billboard No. 1s España inaugural show was American Arthur Hanlon, who recalled the “little piano” his father brought home for Christmas when he was 6 years old and how that day left a lasting impression on him. “My dad’s best friend was a professional pianist,” Hanlon shares. “He sat down and started playing, and I was there, as a child, in a trance.” (Editor’s Note: Hanlon is married to Billboard’s chief content officer of Latin and Español, Leila Cobo.)

Held as part of the Starlite Madrid concert series, Billboard No. 1s España, which brought together more than 5,000 attendees, featured performances by more than a dozen stars from Spain, the Americas and beyond, including Pablo Alborán, Rosana, Yami Safdie, Rozalén, Vanesa Martín and violinist Ara Malikian.

Learn more about how these artists celebrate Christmas, and watch a couple of them sing their favorite Christmas carols, in the video above.

Vice President JD Vance praised Nicki Minaj for her surprise appearance Sunday (Dec. 21) at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, where she also called him an “assassin” before realizing her blunder.

Vance gave Minaj credit for a point she made while in conversation with Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, about how uplifting one community doesn’t mean she’s belittling another.

“Nicki Minaj said something at Amfest that was really profound. I’m paraphrasing, but she said, ‘just because I want little black girls to think they’re beautiful doesn’t mean I need to put down little girls with blonde hair and blue eyes,” Vance wrote on X Monday (Dec. 22).

He continued to praise the rapper for rejecting those in the world who push narratives to pit people against one another. “We all got wrapped up over the last few years in zero sum thinking,” Vance added. “This was because the people who think they rule the world pit us against one another. @NICKIMINAJ
rejects that. We all should.”

During Minaj’s interview with Erika Kirk, the rap star showed a ton of love to President Donald Trump as well as VP Vance, championing them both as “amazing role models” before awkwardly referring to JD Vance as an “assassin.”

“Dear young men, you have amazing role models like our handsome, dashing president and you have amazing role models like the assassin JD Vance, our vice president,” she said before realizing her gaffe. (Charlie Kirk was a polarizing conservative activist before he was shot and killed Sept. 10 in what Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called a “political assassination.”)

Erika Kirk quickly came to Minaj’s defense and reassured her following the mistake. “Trust me, there’s nothing new under the sun that I have not heard. So you’re fine,” she said. “I love you.”

Kirk continued: “She’s an amazing woman. She has a soul and a heart for the Lord and words are words. But I know her heart and it doesn’t even matter. And you say what you want to say because I know your heart.”

Sunday wasn’t Nicki Minaj’s first speaking engagement in a political forum in recent months. In November, Minaj spoke out at a United Nations event to voice her concerns with the alleged persecution of Christians happening in Nigeria.

Watch Minaj’s full appearance at AmericaFest below.