Anyone who was introduced to Darren Criss through his role on Glee was in for a special treat Sunday night (Oct. 18) at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where the Emmy- and Tony-winning actor reunited with co-star Chris Colfer to perform together for the first time in more than a decade.

Criss joined Glee during season 2 in 2010 to play Blaine Anderson, the lead singer of the Dalton Academy Warblers and love interest (and eventual first boyfriend) for Colfer’s Kurt Hummel. On Sunday, when Criss made his debut at the iconic venue with two back-to-back performances, Colfer was among an impressive lineup of surprise guests who hit the stage.

But before Colfer arrived, Criss teased the crowd by attempting to sing one of Kurt and Blaine’s most memorable duets all by himself: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” from the season 2 episode “A Very Glee Christmas,” which peaked at No. 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 2010. “I’m gonna do my best to sing both parts,” he told the audience, launching into the impossible solo duet. A few lines in, though, the crowd started cheering when they saw Colfer emerge.

“Hey, Darren!” Colfer casually said, to which Criss responded: “It’s been awhile!” In fact, the pair hadn’t performed together in more than a decade, given Glee wrapped its seven-season run back in 2015.

“Do you know the words to this?” Criss prompted Colfer, who assured him: “I do.”

Watch the sweet reunion below:

In addition to the Colfer surprise, other surprise guests included Alan Cumming for ABBA’s “Does Your Mother Know”; Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo for “Lost Boys Life,” an original song Criss wrote and recorded with his late brother, Chuck Criss, for their band Computer Games; Sarah Hyland for “Suddenly Seymour” from Little Shop of Horrors; as well as her Modern Family co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson for Adele’s “Someone Like You.”

Even before Criss was on Glee, he made a name for himself as a University of Michigan student by co-creating A Very Potter Musical, a Harry Potter-themed musical that went viral online. On Sunday night, he performed “Goin’ Back to Hogwarts” from the show joined by an ensemble of acclaimed stage performers, including Glee’s Alex Newell (Shucked, Once on This Island), Jak Malone (Operation Mincemeat), Natasha Hodgson (Operation Mincemeat) and Andrew Barth Feldman (Dear Evan Hansen, Little Shop of Horrors).

He returned to the Glee world one last time for Sunday’s shows by performing with a local youth choir for Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” and Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream,” two songs he famously covered on the Fox musical comedy, as the grand finale.

Since his time on Glee, Criss has gone on to win an Emmy and Golden Globe for his role in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story as well as a Tony for Maybe Happy Ending.

LL Cool J has finally explained himself.

The rap legend and actor stopped by 7PM in Brooklyn With Carmelo Anthony, and toward the end of the interview, he was asked by co-host Kazeem Famuyide about the infamous hand gesture he made toward Booker T during an appearance on WWE’s Smackdown back in the early 2000s.

“They didn’t have to tell me. I already knew,” he said after Melo asked him if the WWE staff told him to create his own signature move. “I’m the ‘Ax Man.’ It’s like an executioner that licks his ax before he chops your head off and all that. I was bananas. I was there five minutes, look at that. I just went with the vibe. I’m vibin’.”

He then added that specific move is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things he has in his repertoire. “I’m just nuts, man. Ya man is nuts. I do what I wanna do. I’ll own it,” LL continued. “I’m crazy, I do all of it on purpose, but I got better sh– than that in the cut. This is just the start, this ain’t nothin’. I’m wondering where the good stuff is at. That ain’t nothing, I’m way past that.”

For what it’s worth, he did address the gesture in 2023 after someone on X asked him what it meant. “It means I’ll lick the blood off my blade after I chop your head off,” he tweeted. “Who wants it? Haha.”

LL was on Smackdown in 2002 to promote his film Rollerball.

You can watch the full conversation below.

After telling fans on night one (Oct. 16) at the Hollywood Bowl that it had “always been a dream” of hers to play the iconic Los Angeles venue, Miley Cyrus hit back at critics of that performance during her second show on Sunday night (Oct. 18).

“I’ve never heard that I don’t put my heart into something,” Cyrus told the audience at her second Hollywood Bowl show, according to a video of her comments posted on X by The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t know if any of you heard that. That somebody was doing commentary to get clickbait on their video talking about my show on Friday night, but I’m a lot of things, yeah, and we’re not even going to entertain that.”

Though she didn’t refer to a specific complaint, the comments were seemingly in reference to videos that claimed Miley (the singer recently changed her stage name to a mononym) was not fully present and did not sing all the words at her first full concert in four years.

“You all have been with me long enough to know that anytime I’m doing something meaningful that’s gonna be a stepping stone in my life, in my career to become the artist and the person that I want to be,” she said. “You know that it’s been controversial. And the controversy, you know, it used to be a lot of fun. It still can be. I can be pretty melted. I love that about me. I actually used to live my life pretty hard. Because life’s hard, so I thought I had to get hard. … But, you know, I didn’t enjoy my life as much when I was living hard. I love pouring myself into something.”

Then Cyrus got real about the difficulty of getting back on stage to perform after so many years and her decision to step back from the rigors of major tours.

“It is hard for me to stand up here and do this show,” Miley added. “It does not come as natural as it once did to me before. Because, like all of us, we change, we evolve, we grow, and we find what gets to come with us. What continues to fit. And you all are more to me than an experiment. That is absolutely not what this is. This is not an experiment of you. This is an experience for me. You all make the experience possible. The only way that I get to test my personal boundaries, my limits, what I think I can do …”

The singer got real, admitting that before coming out to perform the Bass Persuades ballad “Orbit” to open Sunday night’s show, she had already convinced herself that the gig wasn’t going to happen. “I was gonna run away, but never would I leave you all sitting in these seats unfulfilled from a show.” The latter got the crowd chanting “Miley! Miley! Miley!”

Miley then made her intentions perfectly clear: “I can take a lot, but one thing I will not stand is any question about where my heart is when I’m on the stage. Not one. I am fully present,” she said. “The only thing that I have is this moment with all of you. And so to make it clear, I’m here with you right now.”

The two shows are the only live events Cyrus has planned to promote Bass Persuades. She opened the run on Friday with a selection of songs from the new album, as well as a moving tribute to her late godmother, Dolly Parton. The singer said one of the biggest reasons she wanted to play the Bowl was that it was the only place she saw Parton perform live.

“Me and Dolly are eternal,” she said, noting that she can feel Parton’s presence now more than ever. “I’m going to see her again and I can’t wait, because I f–king miss her.” Friday’s set also included a cameo from collaborator/opening act Model-Actriz as well as one from the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, who performed his band’s “Do You Realize??” as well as “Karen Don’t Be Sad” from their joint 2015 Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz project.

Western Sydney drill group ONEFOUR will go home to Penrith for a world-premiere show with the 25-piece Penrith Chamber Orchestra. Made Men runs Jan. 22 and 23, 2027, in the Concert Hall at The Joan, presented by Penrith Performing & Visual Arts and Sydney Festival.

The production reimagines ONEFOUR’s catalog over two nights. They will be backed by young classical musicians from across the region who have trained through the Penrith Conservatorium. Tickets go on sale Thursday (Oct. 22) at 9 a.m. local time, and Sydney Festival’s discounted-ticket initiative will cover a limited number of premium seats.

“This is a Western Sydney story, told in Western Sydney, for the people who live here,” Penrith Performing & Visual Arts CEO and artistic director Toby Chapman said in a statement. He framed the project as a celebration of the region’s range, from contemporary rap to classical strings.

ONEFOUR come from Mount Druitt and are widely credited with putting Australian drill on the map. Their debut album, Look at Me Now, came out June 13, 2025, with guests including Headie One, The Kid Laroi and Mabel. The group’s publicist says it reached No. 2 on the ARIA albums chart and that the group has more than 400 million streams.

Their 2020 EP Against All Odds reached No. 7 on the ARIA albums chart. It also gave its name to the Netflix documentary ONEFOUR: Against All Odds, which premiered at SXSW Sydney in October 2023. The film chronicles their rise alongside the canceled shows and police scrutiny that shadowed it. The group’s first headline Sydney show came only in September 2025, at City Recital Hall.

Made Men is the second recent Western Sydney booking for Sydney Festival’s partnership with Penrith Performing & Visual Arts. It also fits a wider push by local arts bodies to pair hip-hop acts with classical ensembles.

Made Men — ONEFOUR & The Penrith Chamber Orchestra (world premiere):

Friday, Jan. 22, 2027 — Concert Hall, The Joan, Penrith
Saturday, Jan. 23, 2027 — Concert Hall, The Joan, Penrith

Following Taylor Swift‘s Saturday night performance in Los Angeles, where she played a song from The Life of a Showgirl live for the first time, the superstar arrived in Kansas City to take in the Chiefs-Chargers game Sunday night (Oct. 18).

Swift was in good company in a suite at Arrowhead Stadium, with pals Caitlin Clark and Este Haim by her side. Travis Kelce’s mom, Donna, was also in attendance; Swift was seen giving her mother-in-law a hug.

She went luxury designer-casual in red in support of the Kansas City Chiefs, who played the Los Angeles Chargers. Swift’s outfit was built around a bright red Louis Vuitton turtleneck bodysuit, which she paired with black bottoms and her matching red signature lip.

Swift surprised the audience at the 2026 Academy Museum Gala with the live debut of “The Fate of Ophelia” during a short set on Saturday. Though it’s been more than a year since the Showgirl single’s release, fans had yet to see her perform “Ophelia,” or any track from the chart-topping collection, until this weekend. She also performed “I Knew It, I Knew You,” plus longtime hits “Blank Space” and “Love Story.”

The Life of a Showgirl returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week. The album returned to the top after Swift added four new bonus tracks — “Patient Zero” (which also got the music video treatment), “Pink Clouding,” “Cleveland!” and “Babylon” — to a deluxe edition of the original LP in a late September 2026 release. It’s now accumulated a total of 15 nonconsecutive weeks on the chart.

“Housewife,” the just-released new single from Tate McRae, tops this week’s new music poll.

Listeners voted in a poll published Friday (Oct. 16) on Billboard, choosing McRae’s song about providing the life she wants to live herself, as their favorite new music.

The track rose above new releases from Olivia Rodrigo with Chappell Roan, Ashe, U2, Zach Bryan and more on the poll, landing a solid 51% of the vote by closing time on Sunday.

“Housewife” arrived on Friday, with the Canadian singer delivering a track she’s previously said is about “a woman who can’t be contained.”

“I just wanna make a lot of money, be my own housewife,” she sings. “You, you, you, you could be the one I’m calling honey/ Be my sex on the side/ You, you, you, you/ Acres of open stars, headlights of prеcious cars, life imitating art/ I, I, I, I, I just wanna make a lot of money, bе my own housewife.”

McRae shared lots of behind-the-scenes photos from the “Housewife” music video shoot on Sunday, noting on Instagram that she has “so many pics from this day” on her camera roll that “idek what to post!!!!!!!”

She’s slated to perform the song, which is expected to appear on her upcoming fourth studio album, at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on Sunday night (Oct. 18).

Coming up behind “Housewife” on Billboard‘s poll are Olivia Rodrigo’s “Expectations” remix with Chappell Roan, with nearly 35% of the vote, followed by Ashe’s The Girl of Your Dreams album and U2’s new song “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

See the final results of this week’s poll below.

Eminem has defended his decision to collaborate with longtime friend Kid Rock, after their new team-up drew backlash from some fans over the two artists’ opposing politics.

The rapper appears on “Heal My Faith,” a track from Kid Rock’s new faith-based album Halfway 2 Jesus, released Friday (Oct. 17). Hours after the album arrived, Eminem addressed the pairing on social media. “Not about choosing sides, just choosing to make music with my old friend,” he wrote. “Praying for all of us.”

The collaboration had surprised some of Eminem’s fans given the two Detroit artists’ well-documented political differences: Eminem endorsed Kamala Harris at a 2024 Detroit rally and has criticized Donald Trump on tracks including “Campaign Speech,” while Kid Rock is among Trump’s most prominent supporters in music. Eminem addresses that divide directly in his verse. “From shock rap to the rock rap, my homie and me / He is my brother, not my political enemy,” he raps, before calling for unity across party and religious lines.

Kid Rock, who has been friends with Eminem for roughly four decades, spoke about the collaboration in an interview with Billboard. “I really didn’t want to drag him into my political world,” he said, adding that the two discuss politics “a little bit, not a ton.” He described the album as being “about forgiveness and second chances” and an attempt to “heal some of the division in our country.” Kid Rock also noted that Eminem was initially announced for a different track, “7 Sins,” before the two decided to keep their collaboration to a single song; that slot ultimately went to Lil Wayne.

The two have a long history together. Eminem featured on Kid Rock’s 1998 song “F— Off” from Devil Without a Cause, and Kid Rock appeared in the video for Eminem’s 2013 single “Berzerk.” Both rank among the best-selling artists in Billboard history — Eminem has notched 10 No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and five No. 1 hits on the Hot 100, while Kid Rock broke through with his diamond-certified 1998 breakthrough Devil Without a Cause and scored a Hot 100 top 10 with “All Summer Long.”

Iron Maiden will return to North America in 2027 for the third and final leg of its Run for Your Lives tour.

The heavy metal legends announced the 2027 dates Friday (Oct. 16), extending their 50th-anniversary trek after previously planning to take a break from live performances next year.

“As many of our fans know, Maiden were planning on taking a break from live performances in 2027,” Maiden bassist Steve Harris said in a statement. “But we’ve been enjoying this last leg in the USA and Canada so much that we all had a chat and decided we should take the show to parts we missed, particularly the North West and South East. It just seems fair to our many fans there who have given us tremendous support for so many years.”

The Live Nation-promoted tour begins April 14, 2027, at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington, and concludes May 11, 2027, at UBS Arena in Belmont Park, New York.

Bullet For My Valentine and The Raven Age will join the trek as special guests, marking the first time since 1983 that Iron Maiden has toured with two other British bands on the bill.

After the North American run, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees will perform at two U.S. music festivals: Sonic Temple in Columbus, Ohio, on May 14 and Boardwalk Rock in Ocean City, Maryland, on May 16.

The 2027 dates “will definitely be the last” of Maiden’s Run for Your Lives tour, according to a press release. The trek will have played 107 shows by the time it concludes.

“We can’t get everywhere but we can try!” Harris continued in his statement. “Also, we have always enjoyed playing the many great festivals that are in Europe and wanted to experience a couple more in the USA which we will do at the end of the tour in Columbus and Maryland. At festivals you are not just playing to your own fans so it’s always a challenge and we all love a challenge!”

Tickets go on sale to the general public Oct. 23, following an artist presale beginning Monday (Oct. 19). Additional presales will take place throughout the week.

See Iron Maiden’s Run for Your Lives North American tour dates below:

April 14: Tacoma Dome (Tacoma, Wash.)
April 16: Rogers Arena (Vancouver, British Columbia)
April 18: Moda Center (Portland, Ore.)
April 20: Toyota Amphitheatre (Wheatland, Calif.)
April 22: North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre (Chula Vista, Calif.)
April 24: Glen Helen Amphitheater (San Bernardino, Calif.)
April 26: Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre (Phoenix)
April 28: Dos Equis Pavilion (Dallas)

May 1: Benchmark International Arena (Tampa, Fla.)
May 2: iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre (West Palm Beach, Fla.)
May 5: Lakewood Amphitheatre (Atlanta)
May 7: Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek (Raleigh, N.C.)
May 9: The Meadows Music Theatre (Hartford, Conn.)
May 11: UBS Arena (Belmont Park, N.Y.)