The Kelly Clarkson Show won outstanding daytime talk series at the 2026 Daytime Emmys on Friday (Oct. 30), though its star, Kelly Clarkson, lost outstanding daytime talk series host to Sherri Shepherd for Sherri.
Clarkson won in one or both of those categories in six of the show’s seven seasons on the air. She has won a total of nine Daytime Emmys in seven years – five in the talk series category and four for talk series host – compared to three Grammys in a recording career which has lasted more than 20 years. Clarkson wasn’t present at the ceremony, which was held at the Hollywood Palladium for the first time.
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Clarkson recently made headlines for an incident at a curiosity shop in Brooklyn where she maintained that she was treated poorly. But “Birdgate” had no bearing on the outcome here. There is just one round of Daytime Emmy voting, which determines both the nominations and the eventual winner. That round closed on June 10, four months before the incident.
The Kelly Clarkson Show won three other awards this year – best directing for a daytime studio non-fiction series; outstanding sound mixing and sound editing for a live daytime program; and outstanding art direction/set decoration/scenic design for a daytime program.
Ray Chew won outstanding music direction and composition for a daytime program for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. His award was accepted by his wife, who explained that he was busy working on Dancing With the Stars. Chew has also served in music direction capacities on American Idol, Saturday Night Live, the Emmy Awards, the BET Awards and the Grammy Awards’ Premiere Ceremony.
Keke Palmer won her first Daytime Emmy – outstanding daytime short form program as producer of Glam Through the Ages. Palmer has won two Primetime Emmys, for Keke Palmer’s Turnt Up With the Taylors and the reboot of Password.
Tracee Ellis Ross won outstanding travel and adventure program for Solo Traveling With Tracee Ellis Ross. It’s her first Emmy Award (Daytime or Primetime) following six Primetime Emmy nods for ABC’s blackish. Ross’ legendary mom, Diana Ross, has yet to win an Emmy.
Off Script With The Hollywood Reporter won outstanding arts and popular culture program, beating a pair of programs produced by their sister brand, Variety – Variety & CNN Actors on Actors and Variety Studio: Actors on Actors.
Star Jones won her first Daytime Emmy in a 35-year TV career – outstanding daytime personality – daily for Divorce Court, which she won alongside Corey Jovan. Jones thanked two late legends who she described as “her two mentors – Johnnie Cochran, who taught me about justice, and Barbara Walters, who taught me to ask the tough question.”
General Hospital won outstanding daytime drama series for the sixth consecutive year – and 19th time overall, both records. Runner-up for most total wins in the category is The Young and The Restless, with 11 wins.
Genie Francis received a lifetime achievement award to celebrate her soon-to-be 50th anniversary playing Laura Spencer on General Hospital. Her co-star on that show, Anthony Geary, the other half of the Luke & Laura storyline which took daytime drama to new heights in the early 1980s, died in December 2025. He was remembered in the In Memoriam segment alongside critic Gene Shalit and such other actors as June Lockhart and Sally Kirkland.
This is the second year in a row that the Daytime Emmys didn’t air on linear TV. Instead, the ceremony streamed live on the NATAS YouTube channel at YouTube.com/@theemmys andwatch.TheEmmys.tv.
The full list of winners is available on the Daytime Emmys’ website. Here are the nominees in the two talk show categories and other categories of special interest to the music community, with winners marked.
Outstanding Daytime Talk Series
3rd Hour of Today, NBC
The Drew Barrymore Show, CBS Media Ventures
WINNER: The Kelly Clarkson Show, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
Live With Kelly and Mark, Disney Entertainment Distribution
Today With Jenna & Friends, NBC
The View, ABC
Outstanding Daytime Talk Series Host
Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Ana Navarro — The View, ABC
Kelly Clarkson — The Kelly Clarkson Show, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
Tamron Hall — Tamron Hall, Disney Entertainment Distribution
Jennifer Hudson — The Jennifer Hudson Show, Warner Bros. Television [Telepictures]
WINNER: Sherri Shepherd — Sherri, Debmar-Mercury
Outstanding Daytime Personality – Daily
Mona Kosar Abdi, Derek Hough, and Terri Seymour — Extra, Warner Bros. Television [Telepictures]
Cassie DiLaura, Denny Directo, Kevin Frazier, Rachel Smith, and Nischelle Turner — Entertainment Tonight, CBS Media Ventures
Scott Evans, Zuri Hall, Kit Hoover, and Mario Lopez — Access Hollywood, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
WINNER: Star Jones & Corey Jovan — Divorce Court, FOX
Outstanding Daytime Personality – Non-Daily
Joy Behar, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Ana Navarro — The Weekend View, ABC News Live
Derrick Campana — The Wizard of Paws, BYUtv [Nomadica Films|The Dodo|Vox Media Studios]
WINNER: Giada De Laurentiis — Giada in My Kitchen, Prime Video [Butternut]
Keke Palmer — Glam Through the Ages, KeyTV Network
Joseph Rosendo — Joseph Rosendo’s Steppin’ Out, PBS [Joseph Rosendo Presents]
Eva zu Beck — Superskilled With Eva zu Beck, National Geographic
Outstanding Music Direction and Composition for a Daytime Program
Beyond the Gates, “Episode 103,” CBS; Music Supervisor: Ashley Neumeister; Music Composers: Daeus Cannon, Kurt Farquhar, Zuberi Mackson, and Joshua Mosley
Have Guitar Will Travel World, “The Shetland Sound,” American Public Television [Have Guitar Will Travel World, LLC]; Music Supervisors: Kevin Doherty and Andrea Engleson; Music Composers: Mark Allen and John Rodrigue
The Kelly Clarkson Show, “Episode 5033,” NBCUniversal Syndication Studios; Music Director: Jason Halbert
Let Frankie Cook, “Getting the Band Back Together,” Tastemade [Linguine Pictures]; Music Composer: Luke Celenza
WINNER: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, NBC | Peacock [Done & Dusted]; Music Director: Ray Chew
Outstanding Sound Mixing and Sound Editing for a Prerecorded Daytime Program
Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi, “Wild Atlantic Way North, Ireland,” PBS [Sauce & Liver Productions, LLC]; Production Mixer: Daniel Gaughran; Sound Editor: Jenna Escalera
Dream of Europe, “London Part 1 with Abbey Road Studios,” PBS [Dream of Italy Productions, LLC]; Production Mixer: Jeff Ingram Watson; Re-Recording Mixer: Jonathan Taft; Sound Editor: Chuck Barney Smith
Expedition Unknown, “The Man-Eating Lions of Kenya,” Discovery Channel [Ping Pong Productions]; Re-Recording Mixer: Ian Howard; Sound Supervisors: Mike Curtis and Freddie DiPasquale; Supervising Sound Editor: David Miraglia
Forever Young with Dr. Pablo Prichard, “Wheel of Age,” NBC [Hearst Media Production Group | Agency X]; Supervising Sound Editor: David Barnett
WINNER: Long Way Home, “Lost in Lapland,” Apple [Long Way Productions]; Re-Recording Mixer: Tristan Powell; Sound Supervisor: Tim Boylan; Sound Editors: Will Chapman and Patrick Fripp; Dialogue Editor: Claire Ellis
Outstanding Sound Mixing and Sound Editing for a Live Daytime Program
The Bold and the Beautiful, “Episode 9658,” CBS [Bell-Phillip TV Productions, Inc.]; Production Mixers: J. Aaron Lepley and Tommy Persson; Boom Operators: David Golba and Justin LaMont; Re-Recording Mixer: Brian Connell
The Jennifer Hudson Show, “Episode 4039,” Warner Bros. Television [Telepictures]; Audio Supervisor: Mike Stock; Music Mixer: Josue Pena; PA Mixers: Phil Gebhardt and Tig Moore; A2s: Liza Tan and Ron Thompson; Boom Operator / Band A2: Isaiah Reyes; Monitor Mixers: Liz Cabral and Carlos Torres
WINNER: The Kelly Clarkson Show; “Episode 5007”; NBCUniversal Syndication Studios; Music Mixer: Robert Venable; Front of House Mixer: Omatali Beckett; Associate Music Producer: Rachel Orscher; Audio Supervisor/ Production Mixer: James Slanger; Monitor Mixer: Bob Lewis; Music A2: Bryon Smith; Production A2s: Rebecca Malsburry and Rosa Howell Thornhill
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, NBC | Peacock [Done & Dusted]; Production Mixers: Greg Acker, Paul Adams, John Ariz, Jay Carrie, Mel Cubero, Frank Duca, Will Finan, Brian Flanzbaum, Josh Flower, Ricardo Gomez, Burton Ishmael, Ultan Molloy, Efrain “Alex” Ortega, Chris Prinzivalli, Alex Raytses, Brian Ready, Sasha Rosario, Tayler Stendel, Ryan Stotts, Yuri Suzuki, Al Theurer, Gianluca Trombetta, and Dave Winslow; Audio Supervisors: David Chessman, Steven Giampaolo, and John Karwecki; Pre-Production Mixer: Katie Reif; Music Mixers: Charles Campbell, Michael Cruz, Michael Fortunato, Peter Gary, Carl Glanville, Mike Hetzel, and Joel Singer; Front of House Mixers: Chris Acker, Jack M. Goodwin, KC Hoffman, Robert Lapp, Jorge Silva, and David Swanson; PA Mixers: Jim Van Bergen and Bob Selitto; A2: Amanda Wong
The Young and the Restless, “Episode 13260,” CBS [Sony Pictures Television]; Production Mixer: Andrzej Warzocha; Post-Production Mixer: Dean Johnson; Boom Operators: Joseph Lawrence and Giovanni Meza; Audio Assists: Godofredo Galvez and Gereald Rojo II; RF Operator: Denise Palm Stones
Outstanding Arts and Popular Culture Program
Beyond the Gates: Welcome to the Neighborhood, An Entertainment Tonight Special, CBS Media Ventures
WINNER: Off Script With The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter [IFC]
Variety & CNN Actors on Actors, CNN Digital|Variety
Sustaining a living as an indie rock band for 15 years, in this century, in this economy, is no small feat. But DIIV, who have seen their share of inner turmoil and ridden the waves of industry change, have not just survived. The band founded and fronted by Zachary Cole Smith is arguably in its most interesting era to date – restlessly creative and willing to challenge themselves (and us) while wisely keeping one eye on the bottom line. Consider their heavy, monolithic turn on Deceiver (2019); 2024’s hypnotic and deeply socio-political shoegaze of Frog In Boiling Water; and now, a pivot of a different sort: candy-colored art, memorable hooks, bright melodies and wry (and occasionally hopeful) takes on the world abound on the new ZIRP!
That comic-book styled acronym of a title stands for Zero Interest Rate Policies, the post-recession cheap money that led to a handful of obscenely rich tech entrepreneurs but left many others poorer, only widening the Western wealth gap. ZIRP!’s cover art depicts a pink, red and white distorted American flag, the stripes as arrows pointing decidedly downward. DIIV have lost none of the anti-capitalist fervor that fueled Frog, but while that album marinated in soupy polemic, ZIRP! is immediate, kinetic and singalong sweet. When guitarist Colin Caulfield holds a mock Rolling Stone with the headline “DIIV Goes Pop!” in the video for the irresistible “Trillions,” they’re only half kidding. An August announcement of the new LP trumpeted DIIV as avatars of “The New Alternative” – wait for it – “a new genre for music’s optimized VC-funded super deluxe remixed AI-enhanced algorithmically perfected wild west 2020s, where a million streams is great, a billion even better and a trillion well within reach.”
So while Smith, Caulfield, Andrew Bailey and Ben Newman are leaning into pop sounds, this is still a wickedly smart, reflexively ironic band who delivers the medicine with a spoonful of sugar.
On “Trillions,” Smith, with Auto-Tuned breeze, rattles off a wish list of material dreams that any fan of rich-get-richer capitalism might desire: gold floors, a boat, “some kind of big ol fucking plane,” adding crucially the zero-sum rot of “and I win and you lose.”
“The Crash,” a power pop rave-up, gleefully calls for billionaires to be thrown in an alligator pit. There’s hope, too, for a societal reset in “Dare Me” and in a redemptive closer, “Idiot In the Sky.” If there is anything underpinning ZIRP!, it’s the notion of rebirth and a rebuild – of the band and, in a very literal sense, for the singer.
Cole Smith is no stranger to hurdles. I spoke to him at length for Billboard in 2017 about his struggles with addiction and the long road to sobriety. But nothing compares to January 2025, when Cole, his wife Dani and their young son Roy lost their home and most of their belongings in the devastating Eaton Fire that tore through Altadena, north of Los Angeles.
That horror informs at least two of the songs on ZIRP!: “Us Against You” and “When The Glow Came For Us,” whose lyric recalls digging through embers for salvageable belongings. Only months after the fire, Cole and Dani welcomed a second child. That emotional roller coaster makes what he and DIIV have accomplished – turning around a new album in record time for the band – all the more remarkable. Through donated and borrowed gear and in a rented Chinatown painting studio, they started anew, jamming and writing. One day at a time, with new urgency and purpose, DIIV reconnected with some of what made them such an electric and engaging outfit all those years ago.
Billboard spoke to Cole Smith a week before the release of his latest ode to rebirth, ZIRP!
You’ve been playing about half the album on these recent shows. “Kid” “The Fountain” and “Trillions” are out there, but are the others going over well, even before release?
They really are. Part of the goal of the record was to make songs that were fun to play live. Frog was such a slow and claustrophobic record, and I love that record, but it made the live shows a bit more brooding. And so we wanted to reintroduce the more fun, up-tempo, fast, cathartic element of previous records. So we played “My Star” and “The Crash” and people were going crazy.
It’s been two and a half years since Frog and if I am not mistaken, that’s the quickest turnaround in between records that DIIV have ever had. Which is made all the more remarkable considering what you and your family went through for the past year and a half.
In terms of the timeline, DIIV has always had this trajectory of… it’s always felt that if we want to take the band more seriously, then striking while the iron is hot is important. But also we wanted to throw away some of the preciousness and perfectionist tendencies as had on Frog, and so working quickly really helped us do that. But it is all related to the fire in the sense that DIIV has always been a band that had to work through adversity a bit. And so having this hard reset, personally, was something that allowed me and made it easier to pivot, ’cause it was like, “OK, there’s new gear, there’s a new sensibility around – what is the band? What are we doing?” And having that reset was this moment where I really took stock of what role the band serves in my life and what I enjoy about it, and about music. And having this sense of fun and play was so essential – it’s why everybody gets involved in music in the first place.
And a new baby arrived in the midst of it all.
Yeah, with the baby, Sid, being born around that time too – all that stuff, from the moment the house burned down we were really living in the kids’ world. “We just have to keep everything on the level for you guys.” It was this momentary thing of, “Right now we’re doing this, right now we’re doing this.” And that’s the way that they operate. It’s like, “What’s happening right now? Let’s play, right now!” So being in the moment like that and not having to fixate on the zoomed-out world that Frog did or the real tragedy that we were actively experiencing, and just trying to get through the moment that was in front of us, as it was, was a cool approach to making music. ‘Cause it allowed us to play with stuff and embrace the moment and just serve the song, in a room as a group of people with smiles on our faces.
The album bio talked about you guys as part of “The New Alternative” and with so many things DIIV that felt tongue-in-cheek, but also sincere in a way, about wanting to embrace a more pop side. The word “mainstream” came up a lot, like, “They’re ready for the mainstream!” How seriously or performance art should we consider ZIRP!?
It’s definitely both at the same time. That the line between earnestness and irony is a really fun one to walk. A really fun thing to blur. Obviously [producer] A.G. [Cook] is the master of that, for sure, and it was part of what attracted us to him. The bio was an exercise in playing with that marketing and going over the top. There’s irony, for sure, but it’s just as earnest too. “Trillions” is a good example of that: the song is pretty tongue-in-cheek, but it’s also completely earnest in a sense, in that we want to be able to make a living from our work. For us, “trillions” is just a living wage. That’s our trillions, and we want that.
“Trillions,” is special. I love how it’s prefaced by “some kind of” – because it sounds like just some kid dreaming…
Yeah, you don’t know what you want, you just want it all! And it’s the idea that no amount of success is ever enough. But the video and the whole treatment and this absurdity and satire – it’s also real. And it’s part of the mythology of capitalism in American culture that is so in the DNA of the record itself.
You guys are too smart and tapped into the world to ever embrace safe and anodyne pop, and I think truly mainstream pop plays much safer than you do. So it was interesting to me to see “pop” and “mainstream” repeated in that bio.
The pop artists that we’re really interested in, whether it’s Charli xcx, who was making her record at the same time with A.G., or a band like MUNA being so pop in a way but also so politically outspoken or the idea of “The New Alternative” was to take stock of – I mean, you saw it happen – the ‘90s co-opting of “alternative” in this very corporate way. It never really recovered from that, and the alternative charts feel like such a corporate space. In thinking through all the different implications of the word “alternative,” you know the Margaret Thatcher saying, “There’s no alternative to capitalism”? Thinking of alternative in that sense, as an anticapitalist, anti-corporate word, it was fun to apply that to alternative music, and be like, “We need an alternative to ‘alternative.’”
So what was it that drew you to A.G. Cook in the first place? I was thinking of his Britpop triple album and the faux websites he created with it, like “Witchfork.” That seemed very DIIV.
I’ve been a fan of A.G.’s for long time, since the old days in New York. There was this parallel scene happening in London that seemed to be so brash and forward-thinking and smart. It always appealed to me. There was this record he made with Finn Keane [as the duo] Thy Slaughter. It’s this really bizarre futuristic and cool rock record, with crazy guitar solos that are actually a vocal that’s through a distortion pedal – the production is insane, the songs are insane. Really cool project. That was part of it. And then the big one for me was Britpop, especially disc two of Britpop. The song “Bewitched” was one where I was like, “This is such a futuristic rock sound.” It’s so clean and complex with so many sounds and so much movement. So that was a huge part of it. And definitely, our “Soul-net” website [a dystopian parody promo for Frog In Boiling Water] and his “Witchfork” existing at the same time, it was pretty clear that we were kindred spirits musically and culturally. I could tell that we would have fun in the studio, and be able to understand that drive to seek a new sound, constantly.
And did you? He seems like a guy with very strong ideas, and I know creative democracy is really important to you guys. With Frog there were some disagreements you had to work through.
This time was really not marked by disagreement, because of partially the pace of making everything and being in the moment, having fun. It was just more freewheeling. And then A.G. was just this trusted collaborator, who would be like, “This song needs a guitar part, here’s a guitar.” And we’d just make something up on the spot, in front of him. And pushing us in a way that we really wanted to be pushed. We had originally approached him with this very destructive process, where we were like, “Take these songs, and fucking rip ’em apart!” And then he was like, “No, let’s make it together.”
Even before the fire, had you guys already talked about, “We want to make a pivot with this next record.” Did you already have some things written at that point?
We had maybe one demo? “My Star” [a rocker, for Cole’s son Roy] was the first song that we wrote – I got the band together in my garage in Altadena, and we just had fun making music, really for the first time since Frog. We were like, “This is great! Let’s do this every single day! Let’s meet up tomorrow.” And that day that they came over was the day of the fire. So, a couple hours later, it was all gone. And so then it was this new perspective.
“The Crash” is the first place on the record where the real politics kicks in – “billionaires screaming in an alligator pit” and “everybody loses when the shareholders win” – but again it’s delivered in this fun, power pop way.
That song came from, I had been listening to – and still am, a lot – The Prodigy. And they do this synthesis, the drum and bass or electronic worlds meeting the rock world and hip-hop, all so cohesively. That was part of the exercise early on, incorporating more elements into our sound. I feel like with that song, or the songs from the Frog era or even before that, some of these things would be really radical ideas. But these are now popular ideas. I think that there is a strong anti-billionaire, populist sentiment. These ideas are held by way more people now.
You see the recent protests in France, anti-ICE protests here and it feels maybe like an inflection point, yet I wonder sometimes if we get carried away with thinking that and then things settle back into the status quo.
Yeah, I mean there definitely is a spirit of violent revolution on this record. “Us Against You,” “The Crash,” “Evangelizer” – that’s a huge part of the record. But also, really wanting to address hope and the spirit of rebuilding in the aftermath of that. And so there is a lot of hope and positivity there. But I do feel like that [revolution] is a pretty popular sentiment at this point.
For sure. You close the record with “Idiot In the Sky” which is a beautiful song and also feels to me like a prayer, in a sense, for another world, a restart. We could call it revolution. Maybe a rebirth.
That is the hope on the record, for sure. But I also think the record itself represents hope for us, too. The hope of having fun, and just being able to make music together. I feel like it’s baked into the music too, this sense of, like you said, rebirth.
Turnstile played a concert for Palestine, Sudan and Lebanon at the Washington Monument. And I’m sure you followed the whole Macklemore saga.
Mm-hmm.
And yet for every artist like those guys I feel like there are 50 who don’t or won’t — and maybe have legitimate security concerns — about speaking out. Do you think it’s a chilling time for people to use their platforms to speak out?
First of all, it’s really brave that there are artists willing to put their money where their mouth is and really take risks. For me, the most exciting moments in music are when artists take risks. And having the courage to really put your personal livelihood at risk, to speak about what is important to you or injustice, is really necessary. And I have so much respect for artists who do that, and no respect for artists who don’t. It just feels like…cowardice to shy away from that. Maybe there’s artists who just believe in nothing. Or are so privileged or sheltered that they haven’t given two thoughts to the world outside their front door. But for artists who do have beliefs and refuse to voice them and stand up to the corporate overlords, or whatever it may be, that’s cowardice only. And it makes me sad. But respect to people like Macklemore and MUNA and Fontaines – tons of artists – who have really put their money where their mouth is.
As ZIRP! is about to drop, compared to other DIIV records, what feels most different about this time?
Tons of things are different, but it does feel like there is a real palpable excitement around our music, which we definitely felt on the first album [2012’s Oshin] because it was this new, buzzy thing, and there was all this hype and excitement. In a sense, we’ve been chasing that feeling for 15 years. And, obviously it’s different, but it does feel like for the first time since then there is this excitement and it feels really good. When we’re this far into our career, and have put all our eggs in this basket, and we walk offstage and the security guard is like, “You guys were f–king awesome!” That feels so good, to feel like we’ve made and are continuing to make the right decision, to just push ourselves and stubbornly refuse to either tune out or just rest on our laurels. To continue to have that mindset that we had in the beginning of trying to chase what is exciting to us. And finding that it excites other people is amazing.
This week, Billboard’s New Music Latin poll — curated with key recommendations by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors — features new music including albums by Daddy Yankee (La Postal) and Wow Popy (Mundial). It also spotlights fiery collaborations such as Los Dos de Tamaulipas and Frontera on “Piquito”; Santana and Natalia Lafourcade on “Hermano”; and new Latin couple La Joaqui and Tiago PZK on “Obsesión,” produced by Ovy on the Drums.
Most notably Yami Safdie and Maluma teamed up for the first time on “Felicidades” — a cumbia-pop fusion that celebrates a person who walked out of a toxic relationship. On the catchy collab, both the Argentina songstress and Colombian superstar encourage those who are back on the market to embrace their self-worth and new, single life. “Congratulations on having made the best decision of your life […] because it truly is better to be alone than to live a fake love,” goes the empowering chorus.
Daddy Yankee surprised fans with the release of his new studio album La Postal, a 15-track set that includes collaborations with Cardi B, Myke Towers, and Danny Ocean, among others. From pop to bachata to reggaetón, the Puerto Rican artist — who is The Latin Recording Academy’s 2026 Person of the Year — delivers feel-good and romantic songs.
“I wanted to tell the real story of love: what we experience, what we feel, and what we often don’t know how to express. A love that isn’t always perfect or fake. A love that is raw and real, with its moments of happiness, its contradictions, its wounds, its goodbyes, and its healing,” the artist said in a press statement. “This album comes from the real experiences we go through in a relationship: true love and true heartbreak, without filters and without pretending. It talks also about the love of family, the discipline of loving yourself and the love that comes from having faith. These are stories I have lived, witnessed and carried with me.”
Also dropping new music this week are Emilia and Codiciado. Which release this week do you think is best? Give these new albums a spin and vote for your favorite new Latin music release below.
Editor’s Note: The results of the weekly New Music Latin poll will be posted if the poll generates more than 1,000 votes. This poll closes at 11 a.m. ET on Monday (Nov. 2).
Olivia Rodrigo got involved in the Ohio gubernatorial race while stopping in the state’s capital Columbus on her Unraveled Tour on Thursday (Oct. 29).
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During her set at the Schottenstein Center supporting the Billboard 200-topping 2026 album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, the singer donned a white T-shirt that read: “Dr. Amy Acton for Governor.” As captured in footage from the show, Rodrigo made a point of highlighting the top and giving a thumbs-up to the camera beaming images to the arena’s big screens.
Acton also took note of the gesture, sharing a photo of Rodrigo’s political fashion choice on Instagram and writing, “Ohio loves you, @oliviarodrigo !”
The pop star’s show of support comes with just a few days left until Tuesday’s (Nov. 3) midterm election, which will decide who will replace term-limited Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. President Donald Trump has been traveling around the country in recent weeks to drum up support for Republican candidates including for Acton’s opponent, billionaire tech mogul and brief DOGE department co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy recently faced bipartisan backlash for airing an ad starring Acton’s mother, from whom the Democratic politician has been estranged for more than 40 years after Acton’s then-stepfather was charged with raping her as a young child nearly 50 years ago, according to NBC News. Without discussing the rape case, Acton’s mother calls her daughter a liar in the ad and urges Ohioans not to vote for her.
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Anton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said in a statement of the ad — which both Ramaswamy and Trump have stood by even as it has drawn bipartisan rebuke and been dubbed one of the most “vile” ads of an already very contentious, costly midterm election season. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants,” Sterns adds.
Rodrigo has long been vocal about her political views, particularly reproductive freedoms, which are under constant attack from conservative lawmakers. She recently raised $20 million for women’s charities via her inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival, where Headcount was on site to register attendees to vote.
The midterm election is set to take placeon Tuesday, deciding the outcomes of many local elections as well as 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats, with Democrats tipped to make major gains in the House as voters nationwide have soured on the high gas and commodities prices spurred by Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran. Information on how to vote in your state is available here.
As America was reeling from the unthinkable horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the No. 1 album in the country was a chaotic, incredulous and absolutely incendiary alt-metal LP — full of songs that protested war, questioned authority and insisted listeners wake up to the disorder surrounding them. System of a Down didn’t write or record Toxicity with 9/11 or any of the events that followed in mind, but it became one of the timeliest soundtracks for the moment, as the Hollywood quartet of Armenian descent made the unlikely jump to stardom with its confrontational blend of crushing riffs, gorgeous harmonies, off-kilter humor and straight-faced politics.
This month on the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, we’ve returned with another mini-series spin-off of our usual Vintage Pop Stardom series, titled Vintage Almost-Pop Stardom. All October, we’ve been welcoming on some of our favorite guests (and one or two first-timers) to look at a quintet of really interesting artists during years in which they brushed against pop stardom, but perhaps never quite got all the way there (at least in this country). This week, we end the series with the brilliant Craig Jenkins of Vulture talking about System of a Down’s whirlwind 2001, where the band became controversial chart-toppers with music and rhetoric that was transfixing at the time, and has only gotten more resonant (and more popular) in the quarter-century sense.
Along the way, we answer all the most pressing questions about 2001 System: What circumstances allowed this thrashy, arty, explicitly challenging form of metal to get in the mix for the top of the Billboard charts? Did the band’s combustibility — and the very different personalities of its four members — end up feeding its music? How much did the Clear Channel Memorandum actually affect the airplay of “Chop Suey”? How do we feel about Serj Tankian’s polarizing “Understanding Oil” essay and how he handled the blowback from it? Was it a big deal for Toxicity to be named SPIN’s No. 1 album of 2001? And perhaps most importantly: Will the band ever record new music again?
Check it out above — along with a YouTube playlist of some of the most important moments from System of a Down’s 2001, all of which are discussed in the podcast. And subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!
Find Craig’s work at Vulture here, and follow him at Bluesky here.
And finally, as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:
Lucky Daye sits down with Billboard News to talk about his new album Aloud!, including the Brazil sabbatical that helped clear his mind, shaped the project’s passion and rhythm and influenced songs such as “Nowhere Fast” and “Fly U Out.” He also opens up about collaborating with heavy hitters such as Pusha T, Muni Long and Leon Thomas, his dream collab list and how he balances moving with intention in today’s content-first music industry.
Plus, Lucky shares what fans can expect from his 2027 tour, teases a potential holiday EP and plays a game of Lucky Daye’s Lucky List, from his front-to-back album pick to the best advice he’s ever received.
Lucky Daye: It wasn’t my day that was saved, but I felt good that I saved a day.
Tetris Kelly: Wow, so you actually are Lucky, your damn self.
Lucky Daye: You might be my friend for life. Hey, what’s up y’all? I’m Lucky Daye, and this is Billboard News.
Tetris Kelly: Hanging out in the studio with Lucky Daye. How you doing, my friend?
Lucky Daye: I’m great. I’m great. Thank you for asking.
Tetris Kelly: Of course. I’m happy you’re here. You know, we’re here to talk about the album Aloud!, but I gotta tell you where I’m gonna start. I gotta start with Brazil.
Lucky Daye: OK.
Tetris Kelly: You took a sabbatical in Brazil.
Lucky Daye: I did.
Tetris Kelly: A personal … Why was that a decision you made? And I … And we … Let’s dive into that.
Lucky Daye: It’s just, for me, Brazil comes off as a harmonious place. It’s … It represents a lot of the passion that I feel, that I have to kinda lock in when I’m kinda, like, at home. So when I leave and go there, it’s kinda like I can let go, I can let loose. I feel accepted. I feel free. I feel like no one’s looking at me trying to judge me. They just experiencing me. So, um, just that freedom, you know, and that, that har- it gives you a harmonious feeling and it’s nice to go back there and grab it to, like, clear my mind. You know what I mean? Like a good cleanse.
