Tina Fey was crossing her fingers that Kendrick Lamar wouldn’t win best live variety special at the Emmys on Sunday (Sept. 14), but only because of how it might have affected her next pickleball date with Drake.

While presenting the category at the 2025 ceremony, the comedian joked about her supposed conflicts of interest surrounding that night’s nominees for the award, which included both Dot’s record-breaking Super Bowl Halftime Show performance and Saturday Night Live‘s 50th anniversary special. “I am in an awkward position tonight, given my personal relationships to the nominees for outstanding live variety special,” Fey told the crowd, wringing her hands.

“Two of the nominees involve SNL, where I worked for nine years, so if they win, people might think I just opened the envelope and said, ‘SNL!’ out of habit,” she continued. “If Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime special wins, I’m really going to hear it from Drake. And Drake and I are supposed to play pickleball tomorrow.”

The actress’ quip earned a round of laughs from the crowd, who almost certainly remember how Lamar and Drizzy’s bitter feud played out last year. After the two rappers unleashed several diss tracks aimed at each other in 2024, their rivalry culminated in the Compton native directly calling out his nemesis in front of millions during the Halftime Show in February, staring right into the camera while performing Billboard Hot 100-topper “Not Like Us” and taunting, “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young.”

With that in mind, Fey added, “Really, the only safe outcome for me would be the Beyoncé Bowl — so, as always, thank you, Beyoncé!”

As it turned out, the Mean Girls creator had nothing to worry about as far as her pickleball buddy was concerned. SNL50: The Anniversary Special ended up winning the prize over Lamar and Beyoncé’s Netflix special, as well as the 2025 Oscars, which were also nominated.

While accepting the award, SNL creator Lorne Michaels told the crowd, “I won this award for the first time 50 years ago, in 1975. I was younger and I had a lot of dreams — and not one of those dreams was that I’d still be doing the same show for the next 50 years, however, here we are.”

And while Lamar didn’t snag the Emmy, he still has a lot to show for his showcase at the 2025 Super Bowl. After performing hits such as “Humble” and “DNA” and multiple tracks from his GNX album, the rapper walked off the field at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome with the most watched Super Bowl Halftime Show of all time under his belt, earning 133.5 million viewers — more than the actual game itself.

Even stars get starstruck. When Billboard caught up with White Lotus season three cast member Tayme Thapthimthong on the red carpet at Sunday night’s (Sept. 14) Emmy Awards, the actor who portrayed soft-spoken security guard Gaitok wasn’t afraid to admit that taking on his most high-profile role to date alongside K-pop royalty LISA from BLACKPINK was a bit anxiety-producing.

“Working with LISA was amazing, I was extremely star-struck in the beginning when I met her at the cast dinner,” he said. “She’s so nice. Over the seven months that we filmed together we just got to become such good friends. And it’s always nice to reunite with her, whether it be in Thailand or here.”

Asked to name his favorite LISA songs, Thapthimthong chose the Future collab “Fxck Up the World” and her Tyla team-up, “When I’m With You,” while explaining that there was also plenty of music on set during filming. The pair shared a lot of scenes together in the show, and he said LISA often brought her portable speaker to the green room so they could jam out to their favorite Afrobeats songs, which, of course, included a lot of Tyla, as well as Burna Boy and WizKid.

Another one of LISA’s co-stars, Natasha Rothwell, also chatted up the K-pop superstar’s acting chops at the Emmys — where the show was nominated for 23 Primetime Emmys, but went home with just one win, for original main title theme music — where she answered Billboard‘s questions alongside co-star Dom Hetrakul. 

While Rothwell also called the rapper/singer’s work “amazing,” with Hetrakul praising LISA as “very talented,” nodding to the singer’s “years” of training in the K-pop world as preparation for the role. “It’s her first debut in her acting and [she’s just] plain and simple natural. Just seamless,” he said.

Watch Billboard‘s chat with Thapthimthong above.

Throughout every moment of my career in the music business, only one thing has been constant: change. We’ve seen it with the shift to digital, with streaming, and now we’re facing it again with generative AI. I hear the same fears we heard then — that a machine is gonna steal the soul of the art. I understand the concern. But let me be straight with you: This thing isn’t here to replace artists. It’s here to help them soar to even higher levels of artistry.

Think of gen AI as the ultimate creative partner. It’s no different from the drum machine that gave hip-hop its signature sound, or the sampler that changed the game. This isn’t just about making things easier; it’s about opening up a new world of creative possibilities. An artist can now create a dozen versions of a record, find the perfect hook, or get the lyrics just right, all while keeping their hands on the wheel of their creative work. 

The question isn’t whether AI will shake things up. That’s already happening. So, the real question we must ask is, “How do we use this technology to make ourselves unstoppable?” Every artist, songwriter and producer has an opportunity right now to channel their creative gifts in new ways — to grab these tools and create something uniquely their own — that lays the foundation for the next 10, 20, 30 years of their careers. That is the opportunity. The goal isn’t to avoid being replaced; it’s to use every tool at your disposal — including gen AI — to elevate this art form and take it to new heights.

And we’re already seeing it — artists and filmmakers are creating jaw-dropping cinematic-quality music videos with the help of these tools. We’re talking legendary artists like Wu-Tang Clan, who created their full-length music video “Mandingo” earlier this year using Google’s Veo — or Teyana Taylor, who created mind-blowing scenes for her new musical short film Escape Room using our filmmaking tool Flow. These are some of the most creative folks in the industry, and they’re running with these tools — they’re not standing on the sidelines.

So, how do we get there? We shift our mindset. Instead of only focusing on what we may lose, we focus on what’s being created. And that’s not to negate the real concern artists have about protecting the integrity of the art. But let’s be clear: While new technology has always brought about disruption, fans have a knack for connecting with authenticity. AI isn’t going to be a replacement for that — artists must continue to bring their true selves to their work, otherwise, fans will see right through it.

I’ve been in this game for 40 years. I’ve seen it all — and as a music guy who loves a good fight, I can tell you every single one of those shifts was scary as hell. But they were also thrilling. And this is no different. The best way forward is to keep an open mind, an open conversation, and a relentless focus on the creative. We’re all in this together, and the future of music is not about protecting the past. It’s about building a better, more creative, and more lucrative future. This is our moment as an industry to seize the opportunity in this shift and lead the way into the next era of music together.

Lyor Cohen is an American music industry executive who has helped shape the evolution of the music business over the course of his career and is currently the global head of music at YouTube and Google.

The team that produced the 2025 Grammy Awards experienced a big disappointment when the nominations for this year’s Primetime Emmys were announced on July 15 and Music’s Biggest Night wasn’t on the short-list for outstanding variety special (live). The Grammys had been nominated in that category in five of the previous seven years.

Only one awards show was nominated in that category this year – and it was, unsurprisingly, the granddaddy of all awards shows, the Oscars. The other nominees were Beyoncé Bowl, The Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show Starring Kendrick Lamar and a pair of SNL50 celebrations – The Anniversary Special (which won) and The Homecoming Concert.

Here’s something that may provide some consolation for Team Grammy – the 2025 Grammys were the only awards show to win multiple awards across the three nights of the 2025 Primetime Emmys – the main telecast on Sunday (Sept. 14) and two Creative Arts ceremonies on Sept. 6 and 7. The Grammys won outstanding choreography for variety or reality programming for a specific routine – Doechii’s musical performance – and also outstanding lighting design/lighting direction for a special. Doechii performed “Catfish” and “Denial Is a River” on the Grammys as part of an extended sequence focusing on each of the eight best new artist nominees.

This marked the first time in 12 years that the Grammy telecast has won two Primetime Emmys in a single year. The 2013 show won awards for sound mixing and costumes.

The only other awards show to win a Primetime Emmy this year was the Oscars, which won outstanding production design for a variety special.

The Grammys have never won in the top variety program category – now called outstanding variety special (live). This year’s show aired less than a month after wildfires devastated wide swaths of Los Angeles, calling the feasibility of even putting on a show into question. The Grammys, which aired on Feb. 2, combined traditional awards show elements with emotional appeals and fundraising efforts.

Note: Conan O’Brien: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor also won one Primetime Emmy – outstanding variety special (pre-recorded). While that’s a prestigious award, that’s not a traditional awards show with winners and, um, non-winners.

This year’s Primetime Emmys honored programs that aired between June 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025.

Ben Winston, Raj Kapoor and Jesse Collins were executive producers of the 2025 Grammys for Winston’s Fulwell 73 Productions. Trevor Noah hosted the show for the fifth year in a row. Hamish Hamilton directed. David Wild served as writer.

Liam Gallagher is mourning the death of his friend British boxing legend Ricky Hatton. Following the passing of the 46-year old former champ, Oasis singer Liam took to X to pay tribute to Hatton, writing, “Absolutely devastated to hear the news about RICKY HATTON it was an absolute honour to know him and carry his belts RIP CHAMP LIVE FOREVER.”

According to the BBC, the world champion nicknamed “The Hitman” was found dead in his home in Greater Manchester early on Sunday (Sept. 14), with officials not considering his passing suspicious. Hatton was a boxing legend, winning 45 of 48 professional bouts across a 15-year career and holding world titles as both a light-welterweight and welterweight. The boxer who retired in 2012 ran up a peerless record of 43-0 before losing to fellow legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 2007.

Like the Gallaghers, Hatton was born in Manchester and was a lifelong supporter of his hometown and its cultural legacy. He squared the circle on their shared background in 2008 when Liam and brother Noel carried Hatton’s world title belts into the ring ahead of the boxer’s Las Vegas bout with Paulie Malignaggi.

Speaking about his friendship with the Gallaghers years ago, the Daily Mail quoted Hatton saying, “Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a boxing world champion, support [local soccer club] Man City and listen to Oasis. But I became a four-time world champion in two weight classes, ended up boxing at the Etihad Stadium in front of 55,000 people, and became mates with Noel and Liam Gallagher over the years.”

NME reported that in July Hatton attended one of the first Oasis reunion shows in Cardiff and later posted a picture of himself with Noel Gallagher and some friends at Heaton Park in their hometown of Manchester, as well as at a show in Dublin.

In one of his final public appearances in August, Hatton was recorded at a bar in Tenerife in the Canary Island at a bar joining the house band for a cover of Oasis’ signature hit “Wonderwall” as well as crooning a karaoke version of the band’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger” at a bar in Spain.

Oasis’ sold-out reunion tour marched on over the weekend with a pair of shows in Mexico City as the outing prepares to hop back over to London for another pair of shows at Wembley Stadium (Sept. 27-28), before launching dates in South Korea and Japan in October.

Check out Liam Gallagher’s tribute to Hatton below.