Reba McEntire is getting hitched.

The country music star and her beau Rex Linn used the platform of the 2025 Emmy Awards to share the good news.

The happy couple are, of course, co-stars in the NBC sitcom Happy’s Place, in which McEntire plays the titular character Bobbie and Linn portrays the character Emmett.

McEntire confirmed their engagement during a red carpet interview with E! News when the reporter referred to Linn as the singer’s “fiancé.”

“We’re having a blast on ‘Happy’s Place’ and so glad to be here tonight,” she responded. In another giveaway, McEntire was spotted wearing a black ring on her left ring finger. A rep for McEntire confirms to Billboard that the couple are now engaged.

McEntire took the stage at the Emmys for the Golden Girls 40th anniversary tribute, for which she joined in to sing the theme song, “Thank You for Being a Friend,” alongside Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman. She also presented the award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series.

The loved-up pair started dating in 2020, news of which McEntire shared by way of her podcast Learning with Reba McEntire.

After calling him a “very, very sweetheart of a guy,” McEntire revealed how the affair blossomed during the pandemic. “We’ve been talking during the pandemic,” she explained at the time. “We had dinner with Rex, was it in January? And then February, on it was the Covid pandemic, and we were talking, texting, FaceTime. And that’s a really good way to get to know people.”

McEntire and Linn go way back, having reportedly met the set of the 1980 TV movie The Gambler.

The singer, actress and The Voice coach split from her husband of 26 years, Narvel Blackstock, in 2015. Prior to that, she was married to Charlie Battles from 1976 to 1987. Linn has never walked down the aisle.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert won outstanding talk series at the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday (Sept. 14), two months after CBS’s stunning announcement on July 17 that they were canceling the show. Stephen Colbert‘s win was greeted with a standing ovation at the Ovation Theater at L.A. Live.

Actually, Colbert received a standing ovation even before he won, when he presented the first award of the night. “While I have your attention, is anyone hiring?,” he joked. “’Cause I’ve got 200 very well-qualified candidates with me here tonight who’ll be available in June. I also brought my own resume with me tonight.”

When Colbert won the Emmy, later in the broadcast, he took the high road. “I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege of being part of the late-night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show.” He concluded his remarks with a comment that suggested he is looking to his post-CBS future. “If the elevator tries to bring you down, go cray and punch a higher floor.”

This was Colbert’s 11th career Emmy, but it was his program’s first win in that top category, following eight consecutive losses. Colbert’s previous show, The Colbert Report, won back-to-back awards in a predecessor category, outstanding variety series, in 2013-14. As an executive producer of the show, Jon Stewart won his 25th Primetime Emmy. He is closing in on the all-time Emmy winner, producer Sheila Nevins, who has won 31 awards.

The other nominees in the category were Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Daily Show.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! lost a top program award for the 14th consecutive year, though this year wasn’t really a fair contest. Many voters rallied behind Colbert for reasons that went beyond simply admiring his show. Jimmy Kimmel’s program was nominated three times for outstanding variety series and now 11 times for outstanding variety talk series.

The Daily Show was last year’s winner in this category. In addition, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart won 11 times and The Daily Show With Trevor Noah won once.

Comedian Nate Bargatze hosted the show, which, by coincidence, aired on CBS, the network that received industry ire for axing Colbert. (The three legacy networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – and Fox air the show on a rotating basis.)

Hermeto Pascoal, the eccentric and prolific Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger known affectionately as “The Sorcerer of Sounds” and “The Mad Genius,” has died. He was 89.

“With serenity and love, we announce that Hermeto Pascoal has passed on to the spiritual realm, surrounded by family and fellow musicians,” his family and team said in a statement late Saturday (Sept. 13) on Instagram.

The statement did not provide a cause of death or say where he had died.

Pascoal was an instantly recognizable figure with his mane of white hair and thick beard. He created music that defied fixed labels and blended jazz, samba, Brazilian popular music (MPB), bossa nova, chorinho and forro.

An accomplished pianist, accordionist and flautist, Pascoal also used more unconventional objects to produce sounds, including pints of beer, dolls, body parts, tea cups, and — perhaps most famously — live pigs.

On his 1977 album Slaves Mass, Pascoal squeezed a piglet to make it squeal for the opening of a track. A photo of him with the animal in his arms appeared on its back cover.

Born on June 22, 1936, in Alagoas, a state in Brazil’s poor northeast, his albino condition allowed him to escape working in the fields under the harsh sun. He taught himself to play his father’s accordion instead.

At age 14, Pascoal moved with his family to the port city of Recife, where he continued to develop his skills and performed on local radio stations.

He later headed to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. During the 1960s, he worked with drummer and percussionist Airto Moreira, who took Pascoal on tour to the U.S., where he met Miles Davis. Pascoal played on Davis’ 1971 album Live-Evil.

The meeting with Miles kickstarted an international career that continued well into Pascoal’s 80s.
“I was born music; I haven’t done anything without music,” he told Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo in 2024. “What I write on a toilet bowl is as important as what I write on any paper, because music is sacred.”

As noted by the Barbican, a London venue where Pascoal was due to play in November, the artist was known as an “iconic Brazilian composer” who created more than 10,000 compositions.

Tributes for Pascoal poured in after the announcement of his death.

“Brazilian music and culture owe a great deal to Hermeto Pascoal,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said Saturday on X. Pascoal’s “talent and tireless creativity (…) earned him international acclaim and influenced generations of musicians around the world,” he added.

Caetano Veloso said on Instagram that Pascoal is “one of the highest points in the history of music in Brazil.”

Pascoal leaves behind six children.