Sean “Diddy” Combs still has some people in his corner.
In a recent interview with Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM show Radio Andy, Mike Tyson revealed that the incarcerated mogul asked the retired boxer to talk to President Donald Trump on his behalf. Cohen asked if the two were “buddies” and if Iron Mike was “surprised by what happened with him.”
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“Yeah, I’m friendly with Puff,” he said. “I was surprised that they went through so many lengths to get him. They used a 110-year-old rule to get him. That case 110 years ago, but they used it to get him. Can you imagine that? They took a 110-year-old case to get him a couple of months, a couple of years ago.”
He was also asked if the two have been in touch since he’s been in prison, and that’s when he said he was asked by Diddy to pass something along to President Trump.
“Well, I spoke with him once on the phone, yes,” Tyson said. “He wanted me to give a letter to the president.” Cohen then asked, “And did you give a letter to the president from him?” To which Tyson replied, “I did what he told me to do, yes.”
The “110-year-old rule” Tyson is referring to is The Mann Act of 1910 which prohibits the trafficking of women and the transporting of prostitutes.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that Diddy reached out to the president with a letter. Earlier this year, during an interview with The New York Times, Trump said that the embattled mogul asked for a pardon through a handwritten letter, but told Newsmax that it may be “difficult” to pardon him because Combs criticized him while he was running for office back in 2016.
Diddy, who is currently serving a 50-month sentence on prostitution-related charges, is set to be released on March 8, 2028, barring any changes.
You can check out the clip below.
ROSÉ got some screen time at Bruno Mars‘ Los Angeles concert on Wednesday night (Oct. 7) — and SoFi Stadium was more than happy to see her.
During the final Los Angeles stop of Mars’ The Romantic Tour, the BLACKPINK star popped up on the venue’s big screen as part of the show’s “Angel Baby Cam” segment. The fan-favorite bit is essentially Mars’ flirtier take on a Kiss Cam: During “God Was Showing Off,” a camera scans the crowd for women to feature on the big screen as Mars serenades them, dances with them from the stage and plays up the moment for the stadium. ROSÉ danced along, blew kisses toward the crowd and smiled as thousands of fans cheered her on.
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The moment progressed from a cute concert cameo to a brief sing-along. As ROSÉ appeared onscreen, the SoFi Stadium crowd began chanting along to “APT.,” her 2024 collaboration with Mars. The song’s recognizable hook turned the brief appearance into something of a mini-reunion for the two artists, who have spent the past two years sharing one of pop’s biggest collaborative hits.
“APT.” debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 2024, giving ROSÉ her first top 10 as a soloist and making her the first female artist prominent in K-pop to reach the chart’s top 10. For Mars, the song was his 20th Hot 100 top 10.
The timing comes as both stars are flourishing in new eras of their careers. Mars released his fourth studio album, The Romantic, in February, making it his first solo album since 2016’s 24K Magic. The nine-track set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, giving Mars his second leader on the chart.
Meanwhile, ROSÉ recently kicked off her next solo era with “New Trick,” released Sept. 18. The upbeat pop-rock track follows her debut solo album, Rosie, and represents a brighter, more playful turn from some of the emotional pieces on that project. The song was also co-produced by Amy Allen, who also worked with ROSÉ on “APT.”
View ROSÉ’s Angel Baby Cam cameo below.
Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker sparked concern this week when he posted a picture of himself on a gurney in what looked like a hospital room. And while Barker didn’t offer any additional information in his first post, on Wednesday (Oct. 7) he provided some additional context on what sent him to the OR.
“I had surgery yesterday,” Barker, 50, wrote in an update on his Instagram Story in which he reclined in his hospital bed with wife Kourtney Kardashian laying right beside him. “My arm, hand and fingers have been numb since a show I played last month,” he added, without saying which show it was or if this was a new issue.
“I did a nerve test Monday after my show and turns out I needed a cubital tunnel release to fix the nerve,” he explained, of the surgical procedure used to treat a pinched nerve in the elbow that typically causes numbness in the hands or weakness/poor function in the hands.
Barker explained that he “wanted to get ahead of it and get it over with so that I can keep playing the way I play for a long long time. Should be good in a few weeks,” he promised. The post ended on a funny note, with Barker adding in an aside, “not sure why my wife looks so happy about this,” in reference to Kardashian’s smile in the snap.
This isn’t the first time the drummer has had a hand or arm issue to deal with. Back in 2023 he underwent surgery to repair torn ligaments and a dislocated ring finger he sustained during rehearsals, which led to Blink postponing some tour dates. In addition, in 2018, he developed dangerous blood clots in both arms, a staph infection and cellulitis, which also forced the group to call off some dates.
Barker will have time to heal as Blink are on a break from the road, with plans to return next year with a handful of European festival dates in June at Rock For People in Czechia, Rock im Park, Rock am Ring and Waldbühne in Germany, as well as I-Days IPPODROMO SNAI SAN SIRO in Italy, before wrapping up at Plentitude Arena in Paris on June 15.
It’s coming around round again. At least, that’s what Powderfinger fans are hoping for.
The Australian rock favorites have been dormant since 2010, when the Brisbane five-piece put a lid on their career with a farewell tour, one that shifted more than 200,000 tickets.
Something is stirring. Earlier in the week, a cryptic Instagram account popped up with the handle @thereturnoftheelectrichorsemen, a reference to “(The Return of) The Electric Horseman,” the closing track on the band’s 1996 album Double Allergic.
There, the admin shared proof of billboards in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, emblazoned with a code and Powderfinger lyrics. Eagle-eyed observers noted the account has five horse emojis in its bio, one for each of its band members.
The plot thickened on Thursday (Oct. 8), with an email from the band’s HQ featuring the same cipher, written in white over a striking red background, along with a perplexing free verse (see in full below). It’s the same story on Powderfinger’s official Website and social accounts, which have been scrubbed – save for the one, mysterious red letter.
Whether it’s a new Powderfinger release, a reissue campaign for the 30th anniversary release of Double Allergic, or a reunion proper, time will tell. The answer might be found in the final sentence of the text “Everything else is a variable. Add enough time to enough variables and something extraordinary happens…”
Hailing from Brisbane, the ‘Finger, as they’re affectionately known in these parts, was one of the elite bands of their era, earning the distinction 18 total ARIA Awards, and closing out their career with five successive No. 1 albums, a run that started with 1998’s Internationalist.
The last of those leaders was 2009’s Golden Rule, the band’s seventh and last studio album. The five ex-bandmates — Bernard Fanning, Ian Haug, Darren Middleton, John “JC” Collins and Jon Coghill — remain good friends, and briefly reunited in 2020 for “One Night Lonely,” a special virtual concert which raised more than A$500,000 for music industry charity Support Act and mental wellbeing support service Beyond Blue. The musicians recorded their spots independently, due to the social distancing rules of the time.
In August 2023, the lads gathered in their hometown for a fan-event and Q&A celebrating the 20th anniversary of their fifth album Vulture Street. The Vulture Street reissue was a smash, as it returned to No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, creating a record for the longest stretch of time for a homegrown album to march back to the top of the leaderboard.
Unreleased, the band’s compilation of studio tracks unearthed from sessions recorded between 1998 and 2010, peaked at No. 2 on the ARIA Chart in 2020.
There’s still a lot of love in these parts for Powderfinger. When triple j’s first-ever hottest 100 of Australian songs was counted down in July 2025, the rockers nabbed the highest overall entry count with three songs — four, including Fanning’s solo effort “Wish You Well,” which came in at No. 57.
To date, the band’s biggest international hit was “My Happiness,” which in 2001 crashed Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart, peaking at No. 23.
Read Powderfinger’s cryptic message in full:
Time keeps the ledger.
Every rehearsal. Kilometre. Flight. Soundcheck. Stage. Encore. Album. Failure. Accolade. Conflict. Audience.
Every year. Every minute. Every second.
The numbers never stop.
They accumulate.
They become evidence.
Not fame. Not hype. Not headlines.
Time.
Everything else is a variable. Add enough time to enough variables and something extraordinary happens…
It’s been more than 10 years since Rihanna’s last album, ANTI, which has spent over a decade on the Billboard 200, but the Navy is still starving to hear what Rihanna has in store if she does decide to shift the music landscape with some new tunes.
RiRi hosted a TikTok Live for her Fenty Beauty brand on Wednesday (Oct. 7), and while promoting some of her new products, she took a fan question, which asked her to estimate the amount of unreleased songs she has in the vault.
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Rihanna used some Fenty Beauty math to reveal she has “at least” 170 songs in the stash ready to go at the moment.
“If there are 10 products in a vault, then I have at least 17 vaults,” she said. Doing some quick math to solve Rihanna’s equation, 17 times 10 equals the 170 songs she’s cryptically referring to.
Rihanna’s partner, A$AP Rocky, who shares three kids with the beauty mogul, divulged that Rih was back in the studio and actively recording during an August interview with Jason Lee.
“Yo, she in the studio right now,” he begrudingly disclosed. “Yeah, I said it. Sorry, babe. Like, bro, she working. She cooking, no funny sh–. Damn, I’mma get in trouble for this.”
There hasn’t been much noise when it comes to Rihanna’s plans for new music. Rih’s last release came in 2025 and saw her contribute to the Smurfs Movie soundtrack with “Friend of Mine.”
ANTI arrived in 2016 and spent two weeks atop the Billboard 200. Rihanna returned to the stage in July as part of Jay-Z’s Extra Innings show at Yankee Stadium and performed “Run This Town” and “Bitch Better Have My Money.”
Don Toliver has enjoyed a banner year that’s included a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, an arena tour, and now he can add a pair of Drake collaborations to his résumé.
Toliver joined forces with Drizzy for “Cold Shoulder” and “Solar Eclipse,” the latter of which interpolates Ella Langley’s record-breaking Billboard Hot 100 smash “Choosin’ Texas.” After premiering in Drake’s FOMO stream in September, the pair of collaborations landed on the OVO rapper’s HABIBTI (FOMO) deluxe on Oct. 2.
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As a longtime admirer of Drake, the Houston native reflected on having the chance to team up with Drizzy at this point in his career, and the moment lived up to the hype for Toliver.
“This record to me was just really everything I could possibly ever want. I grew up in [Comeback Season Drake]. So Far Gone, I love that album. It’s one of my favorites,” he said in a Grammy Museum interview with Heran Mamo in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Oct. 6). “I come from that and I just thought that song in particular [‘Solar Eclipse’] was everything I could probably ever want from a collab from us.”
Toliver continued: “That particular type of song, everything was beautiful. It all played out how it was supposed to play out. I thought it was incredible.”
After all 18 tracks from Toliver’s OCTANE album landed on the Hot 100, along with his “Griddle” collaboration with Yeat, he’ll look to add to his chart tally with the pair of Drizzy songs.
The 31-year-old kicked off his massive year with OCTANE in January, which notched Toliver his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. He then embarked on the Octane World Tour, taking over arenas across North America. Drake popped out as a special guest at Toliver’s Toronto tour date in August, where he debuted several ICEMAN cuts live.
Toliver isn’t done just yet either, as he’s continued to tease his OCTANE follow-up, NITROUS, which he’s still working on.
Listen to “Cold Shoulder” and “Solar Eclipse” below.
Dan Reynolds and Minka Kelly’s four-year relationship has reportedly come to an end.
The Imagine Dragons frontman and Ransom Canyon actress have split, People reports. A source close to the former couple told the publication that the breakup happened recently. Billboard has reached out to representatives for Reynolds for confirmation.
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The split comes only months after Kelly and Reynolds made their red-carpet debut as a couple at the 2026 Museum of Contemporary Art Gala in Los Angeles on May 30. Kelly later shared photos from the evening on Instagram, calling it “Date night.”
The pair, who were first linked in 2022 after being introduced by a mutual friend, largely kept their relationship out of the limelight. Still, they did share some snapshots of their life together. In July, Kelly posted photos from a Disneyland trip with Reynolds and his four children, captioning the carousel, “No place I’d rather be.” She also shared a loving birthday tribute to Reynolds that month.
Their relationship also crossed into each other’s creative spaces. Reynolds appeared as cattle buyer Billy Brinks on the first season of Kelly’s Netflix drama Ransom Canyon, and Kelly later said she had hoped to find a way to bring his character back for the second season. Reynolds also helped Kelly learn piano for the role, she told People.
Before they met in person, Reynolds said the two connected by exchanging their creative work. Apparently, Kelly shared some pieces from her memoir Tell Me Everything, while Reynolds sent her music he was working on. That early exchange helped establish a connection between the two that eventually bloomed into a four-year romance.
Throughout their relationship, Reynolds was also balancing life as the frontman of Imagine Dragons. The band has remained a major force on the Billboard charts, with hits including “Radioactive,” “Demons,” “Believer” and “Thunder” becoming defining songs for the group’s career and discography. They’ve also had plenty of albums hit the Billboard 200, with their most recent 2024 album Loom debuting at No. 22 on the Billboard 200.
Reynolds shares four children with his ex-wife, Aja Volkman, and he previously spoke about taking a careful approach to Kelly’s relationship with his kids, saying they had grown to love her.
Tom DeLonge was just another San Diego Padres superfan on Tuesday night (Oct. 6) when he made his way to Petco Park to watch his favorite team try to avoid elimination in game three of their NLDS playoff with the dominant Milwaukee Brewers.
But, as is customary at home games for the Padres, when the home team is in the lead going into the eighth inning, the stadium announcer cranked up Blink-182‘s “All the Small Things” to get the crowd hyped. Except this time, DeLonge got a bit emotional about the sweet tribute to his band, who formed just outside of San Diego in Poway, Calif. in 1992.
Right on time, the strains of the No. 6 Billboard Hot 100 hit bubbled up in the bottom half of the eighth on Tuesday — which the home team entered with a 4-3 lead — and the Fox Sports cameras caught lifelong Padres booster DeLonge getting a bit misty-eyed hearing the 43,000-plus fans sing his song back to him.
As DeLonge nodded his head and got emotional, the on-air broadcast team set the scene for viewers at home. “What a cool moment, here in San Diego … Blink-182, especially for those of us of a certain age, we all know they have an extensive, very impressive catalog of late 90s, early 2000s pop-punk music,” said the announcer. “But to be in the ballpark when 43,000-plus are singing one of your biggest hits to you … can’t imagine the feeling.”
And right on time, as the camera panned to the crowd waving their yellow rally flags and DeLonge bopping along with a look of pride on his face, one of the other game callers added, “that’s gotta be like a musician’s World Series right there.” Smiling, DeLonge then spun his own yellow towel and, on cue, shouted the iconic line “Work sucks! I know” right into the FS1 camera while throwing up the metal hand sign.
DeLonge has never been shy about supporting his home team, who have never won a World Series and last made it to the championship in 1998, when they were swept by the Yankees. In the past, he’s grabbed the mic to lead sing-alongs to “All the Small Things,” thrown out first pitches and even released exclusive Padres merch in collaboration with his To the Stars brand.
For the record, the Padres held on to that lead and won the game 4-3; game four is tonight (Oct. 7) at Petco Park.
Sam Smith’s new album is about the gooey good stuff, home, and a happy place. It’s title, though, might be a blunder.
The Grammy Award-winning British singer and songwriter stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a dive into Smith’s fifth and latest album, Hazel Eyes (via Capitol Records).
Smith co-produced the collection, a first, with Simon Aldred (Avicii, Liam Gallagher) and David Odlum (Glen Hansard, Josh Ritter). Three years in the making, “all this music came with me,” Smith says of their travels from London to their new home, New York.
“It’s about my relationship. It’s about love.” And it’s about “something soft.”
Confession time. The title was a whoopsy. “I thought hazel eyes were brown, like hazelnut,” Smith admits. Hazel is actually an unusual, multi-colored eye type that features a mix of brown, green, and gold or amber hues. Hazelnut, however, is closer to the earthy brown they were looking for, the color of the eyes the album was written about. Smith only realized the error four months ago, when the album campaign was shot and everything was in motion.
“All my clothes were brown for the whole album campaign. It’s a nightmare,” Smith says with a laugh. “It should’ve been called Hazelnut Eyes. I’m changing the definition.”
After 2023’s Gloria, which gave Smith a third U.K. No. 1 and which the artist describes as “very intense and naked and gay,” Hazel Eyes finds the Brit in a different groove. “I just wanted to be with my friends. And just around real instruments and singing from my heart and my soul. And this is what it sounded like.”
Smith continues, “It’s been beautiful writing about love from, like, a happier place. But I was always nervous that I would be able to reach… layers of emotions if you were to fall in love. But that was because I’d never been in love. And when you’re really in love with someone, there’s still ups and downs, especially when you’re dating me because I’m very dramatic.”
Smith finds it easier to write sad songs now that they’re in a solid relation. “I feel like I can pull more emotion out because I feel safe at home and good.”
Across their career, Smith boasts four top 10 appearances on the Billboard 200 chart, including a leader with 2017’s The Thrill Of It All, and seven top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100, including a No. 1 with “Unholy,” a collaboration with Kim Petras. The soul singer also holds two Guinness World Records, five Grammy Awards, more than over 64 million equivalent album sales, and 57 billion career streams.
In support of the new era and intimacy of the record, a next live direction. Rather than arenas, Smith is continuing the To Be Free global residency, which kicked off last fall at Brooklyn’s Warsaw and has included runs at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
“After the last five years,” they explain, “I’ve changed a lot in the public eye. And I think I wanted a chance to look at people in the eyes and kind of see what my audience had become.”
Collaborators on the new album, which dropped in late August, include Feist, Shahzad Ismaily, Moose, and TwoCity Chorus. The 28-member vocal collective perform on the recording “Oh Mother,” and joined Smith for a live performance of it for Wednesday night’s episode of The Tonight Show.
Watch Sam Smith’s interview and performance below.
Jack White is speaking out after President Donald Trump made controversial remarks about Los Angeles and San Diego during a campaign rally in Nebraska.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday (Oct. 6), the White Stripes co-founder directly addressed Republicans and conservatives living in the two Southern California cities, asking how they felt about Trump supposedly suggesting that Iran could attack them.
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“Hey republicans and conservatives that live in L.A. and San Diego; how do you feel about your Fuhrer recommending that the cities you live in get attacked?” White wrote alongside a screenshot of Trump’s remarks. “Click the video I reposted and watch for yourself. Listen to the cult members CLAPPING and cheering for this.”
White then anticipated how Trump supporters would respond to his statement, writing, “Let me take a wild guess: it was a joke, owning the libs, insert cult rhetoric here, etc.”
“The allegiance these people have to this corrupt felon is so laughable and ignorant,” he continued. “That’s right, a U.S. ‘President’ that recommended that two major cities in our country be bombed because they don’t give total allegiance to his ego.”
Trump made these remarks on Monday night (Oct. 5) during a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, while discussing the ongoing U.S. conflict with Iran and the impact of the war on prices. Trump described the economic consequences as “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe” before saying, “They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay.” The crowd could be heard cheering following the comments.
The White House has pushed back on the interpretation of Trump’s remarks. Communications director Steven Cheung and the administration’s rapid-response accounts argued that Trump was discussing the potential threat Iran could pose if it were able to develop a nuclear weapon, rather than advocating for an attack on American cities.
White, however, rejected that framing in his post.
“Imagine any other President or elected official in history saying this,” he wrote. “False flag incoming anyone? Just wait till next month when he begins enacting illegal measures to not allow democracy at the polls to prevail when the right lose badly in the midterm elections.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Worst American of All Time,” he concluded, adding the hashtag #TWAAT.
View the full post below.