Michael Jackson: Last News

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor After months of murmurs, news broke just before the long Memorial Day weekend that, according to unnamed sources, the surviving members of Queen were in the process of closing a deal for the legendary group’s catalog for a mind-boggling $1 billion. Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, was said to be the likely buyer. Three sources tell Variety the deal is in advanced stages — although another close to the situation says it is very preliminary — and that the billion-dollar price tag is “real.” However, exactly what is included in the package is not entirely clear. The deal “is Universal’s to lose,” two sources said — although Sony Music is said to be waiting in the wings — owing to the company’s longstanding relationship with the group, which signed with EMI in 1972 and remained with the company, which was acquired by Universal in 2011, throughout its career, However, in 1991 it signed a deal with Hollywood Records for U.S. and Canadian recorded-music rights only, which led to a later acquisition by the company of those assets — and therein lies one of the complicating factors.

The Broadway-bound revival of The Wiz, which will launch a national tour in Baltimore this fall, has cast Kyle Ramar Freeman (A Strange Loop) as the Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson (Apple+’s Sharper) as the Tinman, and former The Voice contestant Avery Wilson as the Scarecrow.

Jane Fonda had quite the late-night escapade.

Jane Fonda opened up about going skinny dipping with Michael Jackson.

“Plead the Fifth,” host Andy Cohen asked the “Monster-in-Law” star who “tried to pick you up once that you turned down.”She recalled exactly who that was: “The French director René Clément.”Clément — who died in 1996 — helmed the 1964 thriller “Joy House,” starring Fonda.“Was it a sloppy pass?” Cohen, 54, wondered.“Well, he wanted to go to bed with me because he said that the character had to have an orgasm in the movie and he needed to see what my orgasms were like,” the Golden Globe winner explained. “But he said it in French and I pretended like I didn’t understand.” The Bravo celebrity rated her experience on the show as “amazing, perfect.”“I have stories for you kid, we don’t have time,” Fonda winked, concluding her coy confession.Elsewhere on the late-night talk show, Fonda admitted that she once went skinny dipping with the late Michael Jackson, noting how “skinny” the “Thriller” singer appeared.

thriller night with Michael Jackson sometime in the early 1980s.“I saw Michael Jackson naked,” the “Grace and Frankie” star shared Monday on “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.”Fonda played “Plead the Fifth” on the Bravo show while promoting her new film, “Book Club: The Next Chapter.” During the segment, Cohen, 54, asks his guest three questions — and they can only plead the fifth once.After Cohen asked Fonda to name “one man in Hollywood that tried to pick you up once that you turned down,” she revealed she went skinny-dipping with Jackson, who died in 2009 at the age of 50.“Okay, I’m listening,” Cohen said as his jaw fell open. “Where’d you see him naked?”The two-time Academy Award winner said Jackson came to visit her on “a beautiful moonlit night” at her little cottage on the lake while she shot 1981’s “On Golden Pond.”“And you said, ‘Let’s skinny dip,'” Cohen guessed.“No, he did!” Fonda replied.“I think because he knew he was going to die young and I would talk about him, being naked,” she explained as the studio audience laughed.

MJ, the Broadway musical about Michael Jackson and featuring his many hits, has recouped its initial investment, producers announced today.

Peter Andre has gushed about his "incredible" night on Saturday, 13 May, when he paid tribute to the late Michael Jackson in concert at the famous London Palladium theatre.The 50 year old star joined forces with the National Philharmonic Concert Orchestra to celebrate the music of Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five at the concert.The dad of four posted a video to Instagram of him onstage singing at the event, which was taken by someone in the crowd. In the caption, Peter wrote: "Last night was incredible on so many levels. It was on my bucket list for celebrating 30 years to do this and that box is ticked.

I Want My MTV,” “completely destroyed. “I mean broken glass tables, broken televisions, a full wet-bar with every glass broken,” the book reveals.Loder’s room was junked as well.Though a smiling Loder denied doing it — MTV kicked in with Nirvana’s tour manager to cover some $30,000 worth of damage — Finnerty has her doubts: “I have a hard time believing Krist would ruin his room and then ruin Kurt’s room, too.”But that was then.

Marine veteran Daniel Penny was arraigned today on a single second-degree manslaughter charge in the May a subway chokehold death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely, the homeless Michael Jackson impersonator who had a history of mental illness.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor When Daft Punk launched its fourth and presumably final mission statement, “Random Access Memories,” into the atmosphere 10 long years ago, it was greeted with the kind of genre- and generation-spanning adulation that’s rare in any genre. At the time of its release, the supernova of cool around Daft Punk was so pervasive — and the hits from the album, particularly “Get Lucky,” were so ubiquitous — that it topped album charts all over the world, won four Grammys (including album of the year and best-engineered album) and got a whopping 8.8 score from Pitchfork, a publication that played no small role in the duo’s rise. Yet it was a drastic about-face for the pioneering duo, whose electronic and dance music of the previous 15-odd years had spawned countless influences and whose world-shaking 2006-7 tour basically spawned EDM. Fans expecting another electronic masterpiece instead they got a deliberately retro album that intentionally used the technology and recording techniques of the ‘70s and ‘80s to evoke the pristine, perfectionist grooves of Michael Jackson, Chic, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac and others — and even unfurled a yacht-rock flag on “Fragments of Time.” It has orchestras, choirs and a battery of top-notch musicians including pioneering funk guitarist Nile Rodgers, virtuoso bassist Nathan East, pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz and powerhouse drummer Omar Hakim. There are guitar solos, tinkling electric pianos, ‘70s funk bass, piledriving drums and even acoustic guitars. Bored with electronics, the duo “wanted to do what we used to do with machines and samplers, but with people,” said the duo’s Thomas Bangalter.

Meghan Markle has hired a bodyguard previously employed by Kim Kardashian, it has emerged.The guard, sporting some slick shades, was spotted trailing behind her and two friends on her hike near the Duchess's spectacular abode in Montecito, California, just hours after skipping the Coronation for her father-in-law King Charles. According to The Sun, the unnamed man previously served as a bodyguard for the popular reality TV star, 42, both before and after the shocking armed robbery incident in Paris in 2016, where £7 million of jewellery was stolen at her Paris hotel.

A heated argument between Usher and Chris Brown allegedly turned violent early Saturday morning, resulting in the “U Got It Bad” singer ending up with a bloody nose and bruised ribs.

The death of New York City subway rider and familiar Michael Jackson street impersonator Jordan Neely has been ruled a homicide, the city’s medical examiner said last night.

Snoop Dogg has revealed his feelings about AI technology creating music and mimicking the voices of pop stars.Currently, there is an AI-generated song going viral of Michael Jackson covering ’90s No Limit rapper C-Murder’s hit song, ‘Down 4 My N’s’.On Monday (May 1), the Long Beach rapper made his feelings on AI covers known, taking to Instagram to say that it has gotten “outta hand.” He posted a video of the audio to his Instagram feed, captioning the post with “Wow.”A post shared by snoopdogg (@snoopdogg)Fans were similarly shocked. The most popular comment read: “I’ve done a lot of things in my life I’m not proud of.

Matty Healy AKA the frontman from the UK rock band The 1975 is pretty famous in his own right.The 34 year old started the band back in 2002 with his high school mates but it wasn’t until 10 years later that Matty and co had their breakthrough and first big break. Fast forward a decade, and Matty is arguably one of the most prominent male figures in rock - both for his songwriting and his rock n roll antics. Not to mention his two year relationship with fellow British singer-songwriter FKA Twigs.

King of Horror 30 years ago. That’s what happened when Michael Jackson enlisted Stephen King to work on a short film tentatively titled “Is This Scary?” In it, the “Thriller” singer would play a man in a mansion who has to defend himself against an angry mob of townspeople accusing him of scaring their children.“People in this town felt that this person on the hill was weird and strange and scary,” says King in “Think Twice: Michael Jackson,” a new podcast available on Audible and Amazon Music. “And the kids were kinda like, ‘Yeah, we sorta dig this guy!’”But in an eerie twist, 12 days into shooting “Is This Scary?” — on Aug.

and women, ultimately marrying his bride Ernestine.Richard Wayne Penniman, who died in 2020, was many things, hence the revealing new documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything, directed and produced by Lisa Cortés (All In: The Fight for Democracy), who sought to capture the mercurial musician’s many contradictions and put into perspective his undeniable cultural impact.“I realized that in looking at Richard’s history, he’s like, I always say, a pendulum,” says Cortés. “He’s going back and forth. He’s out, he bursts on the scene.

Bubbles, Michael Jackson’s pet chimpanzee, turned 40 and celebrated with a party befitting the King of Pop’s pet.“He did get a cake — but it’s a special ape-healthy cake,” said Patti Ragan, founding director at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Fla., the “retirement home” where Bubbles has lived since 2005.“We frost it with mashed bananas and add a little bit of blue food coloring … and then we wrote his name in blueberries,” Ragan said. The theme, fittingly, was bubbles.“We had tubs of bubble bath.

Smokey Robinson has a lasting love for Diana Ross. The 83-year-old music icon opens up about his and Ross' longtime friendship, even claiming that they had a year-long affair during his first marriage to Claudette Rogers. When asked in an interview with whether he and Ross ever had «a thing,» he replies, «Yes, we did,» adding that it lasted «about a year.» «I was married at the time. We were working together and it just happened,» he shares. «But it was beautiful.

Smokey Robinson has lasting love for Diana Ross. Robinson, 83, is making a major confession about the pair's long-running friendship, claiming that he and Ross, 79, had a year-long affair during his first marriage to Claudette Rogers. Asked, point blank, in an interview with whether he and Ross ever had «a thing,» he replies: «Yes, we did» adding that it lasted «about a year.» «I was married at the time. We were working together and it just happened,» he shares. «But it was beautiful.