Category: Entertainment

“Did you guys listen to any new music during the week, maybe?” Addison Rae asked the packed main stage crowd at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival before throwing on a purple hoodie and launching into her 2025 single, “Headphones On.”

When the Grammy-nominated singer hit the lyrics, “I compare myself to the new IT girl,” she paused and looked over to another part of the stage, revealing singer Olivia Rodrigo. The moment was met with huge cheers from the large crowd. The 23-year-old, wearing a baby pink bra top and jeans, joined Rae to continue singing “Headphones On.”

The pair then performed Rodrigo’s new single, “Drop Dead,” which was released Friday. “Oh my god, I might drop dead,” Rae squealed, hugging Rodrigo as she hyped the crowd up for the performance.

“Drop Dead” serves as the pre-release single for her upcoming album, You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. Rae joined the Guts singer during its live debut.

Rodrigo announced her highly anticipated third album earlier this month. She posted the news on social media with the album cover, which pictures Rodrigo swinging upside down in a baby pink dress. The singer had been teasing the follow up to her 2023 album, Guts — which earned her a Grammy nomination for album of the year — for weeks before confirming that it would finally release June 12.

“My third album ‘You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’ is out June 12th,” the singer said in her social media announcement post. “I am so proud of this record and I can’t wait for you to hear it.”

Weekend two of Coachella has already proven to be full of A-list, surprise guests. Pop star Sabrina Carpenter wowed the audience at her Friday night headlining set by bringing out Madonna. The pair even performed a rendition of Madonna’s “Like A Prayer.” The hit song came back into the zeitgeist late last year after a video of Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie dancing to the track went viral.

Justin Bieber is set to return as the headliner for Saturday night’s Coachella program. Karol G will close out the festival with a Sunday night headlining set.

Charlize Theron is weighing in on Timothée Chalamet‘s earlier comments about ballet and opera, calling them “very reckless” and defending the art forms.

In an interview with The New York Times published Saturday, Theron spoke about the physical and mental demands of dance while discussing her own experience.

“Dance is probably one of the hardest things I ever did. Dancers are superheroes. What they put their bodies through in complete silence,” the Mad Max: Fury Road star said, prompting the reporter to joke, “Sorry, Timothée Chalamet.”

“Oh, boy, I hope I run into him one day,” Theron replied. “That was a very reckless comment on an art form, two art forms, that we need to lift up constantly because, yes, they do have a hard time. But in 10 years, AI is going to be able to do Timothée’s job, but it will not be able to replace a person on a stage dancing live. And we shouldn’t [expletive] on other art forms.”

The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Chalamet’s reps for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

“Dance taught me discipline. It taught structure. It taught hard work. It taught me to be tough. It’s borderline abusive,” she continued. “There were several times that I had blood infections from blisters that just never healed. And you don’t get a day off. I’m literally talking about bleeding through your shoes. And that’s something that you have to practice every single day, the mindset of just, you don’t give up, there’s no other option, you keep going.”

Chalamet first sparked backlash in February during a Variety and CNN town hall with Matthew McConaughey. During the chat, the Marty Supreme star was asked whether audiences are still interested in slower-paced movies.

He responded saying he wouldn’t want to be involved in an art form that “no one cares about,” noting ballet and opera as examples. “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey! Keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore,’” Chalamet said with a laugh. “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there … I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I’m taking shots for no reason.”

His remarks drew criticism from members of the opera and ballet communities, as well as other celebrities.

The moment even became a punchline at last month’s Oscars, where host Conan O’Brien joked, “I’m told there are concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet community,” before adding to Chalamet, “They’re just mad you left out jazz.”

Andrew Lloyd Webber is opening up about his road to sobriety, telling The Times in a new profile that he is a recovering alcoholic.

“I am a recovering alcoholic,” the composer told the outlet in an interview published Saturday. “Sixteen months ago I decided that I needed help and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Lloyd Webber previously announced he stopped drinking while producing the Broadway production of School of Rock in 2015 and 2016, though he told The Times that he “started to drink secretly.”

“I was doing what they call ‘white-knuckling’, without any backup, and I started to worry that I wasn’t being creative,” he said. “And I thought, ‘But I’ve said to everybody that I’m not drinking.’ So I started to drink secretly.”

The EGOT winner explained that he “started getting into a downhill spiral and about 18 months ago the family were in a desperate state.” Lloyd Webber added, “My wife was feeling she couldn’t go on.”

He then checked into a clinic, which The Times noted “didn’t work,” which led him to attend an AA meeting in Switzerland, and more in the U.K. Upon attending meetings, Lloyd Webber said he “adored” AA.

“People had always said, ‘Oh no, you wouldn’t like that.’ And you get this thought that it’s a load of meth drinkers coming in off the streets. Not at all,” he said. “What I love about it is, you go into a room and everybody’s equal. I’ve made friends that I wouldn’t have thought possible.” 

Lloyd Webber attends meeting everyday, and he recalled a turning point when a fellow attendee was describing the “stupidity” of addiction. He explained, “It was about the ludicrous lengths you go to, the hiding and the pretending.”

“When you’re a wine drinker, you don’t think of yourself as… well, alcoholics drink spirits,” he said. “That was the shocking thing for me, when I realised that I was drinking vodka to hide it.”

Lloyd Webber was asked if he wrote any of his acclaimed musicals while drinking, to which he responded, “Probably not a lot, but I can think of a couple of songs that have been hits where I’d definitely had a glass of wine and thought, that was all right.” However, the outlet noted that there are things he does not remember from over the years.

“I’m lucky that nothing did go very wrong. I haven’t had some frightful accident. But then you begin to think of the near misses,” he said, adding that he believes some people may have avoided working with him “because word gets around.”

“I thought that I was getting away with it,” said Lloyd Webber. “The thing is, I am deeply sorry and I can only apologize to people if I made a mess.”

Nicole Kidman says she’s seen the public response to her training to become a death doula, but she finds the act of supporting people and their families in their final moments together “beautiful” and “very important to me.”

“I did this talk recently where I said I’m expanding into learning to be a death doula, which seemed to have people confused or intrigued,” the actress and producer told a Philadelphia audience at the Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center on Saturday as part of HISTORYTalks 2026, a live speaker series produced by The History Channel. 

After describing wanting to help people and families be present and navigate their final moments together, she described the work of a death doula as “really fascinating. It’s very beautiful, and you have to be a certain personality to be able to do it. But I found out that I’m actually that personality. It’s very important to me. There is always suffering, but if there are people there who can help with that, help those final stages be less painful — if you feel the connection in your heart, then that’s lovely. So that’s what I’m exploring.”

Kidman shared her thoughts on the practice after discussing the experience of learning that her mother had passed away in September 2024 while the actress was being honored at a film festival. “I’d won best actress at Venice Film Festival. This seems to be such a common theme through my life. I was about to go on stage, and I found out my mother had died. I went right back to the room in Venice, got into bed and was completely devastated,” she recalled. Kidman said she found herself not knowing how to function or move forward as her mother “was so much a part of my existence, so the idea of being there at that particular moment was harrowing.”  

“I remember getting into a boat in the canal, and literally at night trying to find my way to the airport, and then turning around and going, I can’t even do this. And then went back into the bed, and I was alone. My husband wasn’t there. My children weren’t there. I’d gone to win an award. What should have been a beautiful thing, ended up with that,” she continued. “But there is the contrast of life, and that’s what I always say to people. I say that’s when I know I’m resilient. That’s when I know I can survive pretty much anything.”

The Scarpetta and Nine Perfect Strangers star and producer noted that in her relationship to life and art, “I don’t think I ever sought peace. I sought exploration of the human condition,” and that she also considers herself not a celebrity but a worker. “I’m a worker bee, I love to be in the world working, and I love to provide work if I can for others, and I love to do the work.”

Kidman was just one of the speakers during the annual day-long conversation series that explored the connections between politics, comedy, entertainment, sports and American history through the lens of leadership and legacy. The event was hosted as part of a larger, year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America and in conjunction with Comcast NBCUniversal. As such, Kidman also addressed her own historical relationship to the country. 

“I came here and [have] lived in so many different places, and my work was so transient, so I have seen so much of the United States,” said the actress, who was born in Hawaii, lived in D.C. for several years growing up, has lived in California, and Nashville, where she raised her children with Keith Urban. “I love that I’ve seen it in a very specific way. I’ve seen all elements of it filming in different states, living in California, but also my ex-husband traveled on a tour bus all over America. It’s actually extraordinary because of the people. You meet people. I feel so much a part of this country, not through just birth, but through actually existing here.”

As part of that larger conversation, Kidman spoke about her journey not just with death or with working and living in America, but with becoming a producer later in her career. During the chat with moderator Hoda Kotb, Kidman recalled moving to Nashville while pregnant, becoming a mother, and wondering if she would officially retire from acting. She pointed to her mother, who encouraged her to not “completely give up” the thing she had been doing since she was 14. Kidman said it prompted her to ask, “Well, what can I do that isn’t as taxing on me so that I can be present for my child? And producing suddenly became a much, much more interesting road.” It would lead her to Rabbit Hole. 

“I read a review of a play called Rabbit Hole, which was about the loss of a child, and I thought, what a wonderful thing to do having just given birth — this is how strange I am to go and to do a film about the thing I am most terrified of — to go and connect to the people that I now have such deep compassion for and want to understand and want to help,” she told the Philadelphia crowd. No one wanted to give us money. It was a $3.5 million film. We had to beg for every cent. But we got it made. It was scrappy, and it was a passion, and that was the beginning of my producing career.”

It would also be the first step into a future of centering women in film and TC on- and off-screen. “There’s so many more opportunities. I have two shows right now where primarily it’s women in the director’s seat, the writer’s seat, the showrunner’s seat, and stories about women. That 20 years ago was not the case. So that is enormous change,” she told Kotb. “The percentages are still incredibly low, comparatively. I think we’re still looking at in terms of female directors 14 percent. Maybe it’s 16 percent now. It’s good to say those numbers because I think people think it’s all fine now. No, it’s still such an enormous gap. But I’m making changes [with] women who have the position to go, ‘I can greenlight this, I can get this made, and I want to put a female at the helm. How do I do that?’ I can say that’s what I want, and that’s actually the grassroots change.”