Author: Rap Hooks

Travis Kelce understands why Prince William was trying to shake him off from the royal family’s photo op with Taylor Swift.

On the episode of New Heights posted Wednesday (Oct. 28), the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Jason Kelce reacted to the future King of England telling Graham Norton that he’d tried to move Travis “out of the photo” when the prince snapped a selfie with the pop star and his two eldest children in 2024. “I get it, man,” the younger Kelce brother said with a smile. “I think we all get it.”

“I was just a boyfriend at that point,” he continued. “I wasn’t her husband yet. We don’t really know if this is gonna last, so it’s kinda just, ‘Move out of the way real quick so we can keep this photo forever.’”

“‘Hopefully this doesn’t go south,’” Travis also joked. “‘Otherwise, this photo is not gonna be as good.’”

Though the prince may have had something else in mind, the selfie he did get with son Prince George, daughter Princess Charlotte, Swift and Travis actually ended up being even more historical than it would’ve been without the football player in frame. Taken during the 14-time Grammy winner’s run of Eras Tour shows in London, the group photo ended up being the first snap with Travis that Swift ever posted on her account.

“I hadn’t appreciated the significance, and actually, I was trying to move him out of the photo,” William quipped of the selfie being Swift and Travis’ hard launch on the Friday (Oct. 23) episode of The Graham Norton Show. “But Travis kept coming back in, and I couldn’t work out why he kept coming back in. I was trying to move him out so it was just me and Taylor and the children.”

Luckily, Travis knows it’s not personal. He even offered to send the royals an edited version of the pic after Jason suggested they could Photoshop him out. “I gotta ship that to him,” the Grotesquerie star joked. “Just send it to Buckingham Palace. You think it’ll get to him?”

The episode comes as the 2026-27 NFL season is ramping up, with the Chiefs winning all but one of their games so far. (They lost Oct. 25 to the Seahawks, after which the Seattle team shaded Swift and Kelce on social media.) The musician has been in attendance at every one of Kansas City’s home games so far, most recently appearing in her suite at Arrowhead stadium alongside Este Haim and Caitlin Clark to cheer the team on against the Los Angeles Chargers on Oct. 18.

As always, Swift is also keeping busy with her own career. After scoring her 16th career No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Patient Zero” from her massive The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore deluxe, she recently attended the Academy Museum Gala and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame gala, where she became the youngest person to ever be inducted at age 36.

Watch the new episode of New Heights below.

It was a frightfully entertaining night on Dancing With the Stars on Tuesday (Oct. 27) when the show got into the Halloween spirit a few days early on a “Horror Movie Night”-themed episode. And nobody nailed the combination of scares and flawless steps more than Glee alum Harry Shum Jr. and his professional dance partner Jenna Johnson.

Shum hit the stage in a blood-soaked white shirt and tie, his face dripping with viscera as Johnson stalked him across the floor in a look inspired by the Saw horror franchise. Dancing to 2WEI’s cover of Britney Spears’ 2004 hit “Toxic,” the pair did a high-energy contemporary routine full of daring lifts, spins and one impressive move where Johnson sat on Shum’s shoulder and then lay down flat to form a human “T” shape.

The acrobatic routine rushed to a conclusion with Johnson grabbing Shum and ripping off his tie, sending the actor crashing to the ground, convulsing, as each attempt to get up was met by his partner repeatedly shoving him down with her foot. The dance ended on the creepiest of notes, with Saw‘s Billy the Puppet rolling onto the stage on his squeaky tricycle.

The dance clearly landed with the judges, with guest adjudicator Shirley Ballas saying she’d “never seen anything like it” and Bruno Toniolo dubbing it “perfect,” leading to the first 40/40 perfect score of the season so far.

Because there was no elimination during last week’s “Dedication Night,” two stars were sent packing on Tuesday, marking the last dance for The Bachelorette‘s Tyler Cameron and his partner Sharna Burgess — who did a Dracula-themed Viennese waltz to Annie Lennox’s “Love Song For a Vampire” — and Savannah Bananas player Jackson Olson and professional partner Emma Slater, who did a Joker-inspired routine to Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life.”

DWTS airs live on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+ and streams the next day on Hulu.

Watch Shum and Johnson get “Toxic” below.

Pittsburgh rocker Donnie Iris, best known for his 1981 No. 29 Billboard Hot 100 new wave hit “Ah! Leah!” and his 1970s Hot 100 No. 2 song “The Rapper” with the group the Jaggerz, has died at 83.

The news was shared by Donnie Iris & the Cruisers drummer Joe Vitale Jr., who wrote, “Tonight, I have some very sad news to share. Many of you may already know about this, but today my boss and friend Donnie Iris passed away at the age of 83,” in a Facebook post on Monday (Oct. 26). “At the first full show I performed with them in 2021, right before we went on stage, Donnie turned to me and gave me a huge hug. He always had an infectious smile, incredible energy and a wonderous personality. After you meet him, you honestly just love him. You could just sit and talk with him, laugh with him. He was King Cool.” No cause of death had been announced at press time.

A beloved staple of the Pittsburgh music scene, Elwood City native Iris was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2023 shortly after his 80th birthday show, later canceling several shows and continuing to perform until announcing his retirement from the stage earlier this month after a final gig at Citizens Live at The Wylie in Pittsburg on Sept. 28.

“After much thought, and in light of recent health issues, I have made the difficult decision to retire from future concert performances,” Iris wrote on Oct. 9. “Music has given me far more than I could ever put into words. From the earliest days to every chapter of my life, your support has been a constant source of joy and inspiration.”

Dominic Ierace was born on Feb. 28, 1943 in New Castle, Pa., and got his start in grade school singing at weddings and talent contests. The man who would grow up to be dubbed Pittsburgh’s King Cool of Rock and Roll first played with the doo-wop group The Fabutons in high school, then with the R&B/rock cover bands the Tri-Vels and Donnie and the Donnells while at Slippery Rock State College, before dropping out to pursue a music career. He found success pretty quickly with “The Rapper” from his group The Jaggerz, a swinging rock tune about a smooth-talking dude who uses a series of smarmy lines to pick up women at bars. The song he recorded for Gamble Records (formed by future Philly soul legends producers/songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff) for the band’s sophomore album, 1970’s We Went to Different Schools Together, rose all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

After The Jaggerz split a few years later, Iris joined the group Wild Cherry — two years after they scored their most well-known hit, “Play That Funky Music” — to help them in the studio and play live guitar on the road. He performed on their 1979 album Only the Wild Survive, and then split the group with keyboardist Mark Avsec to form Donnie Iris and the Cruisers, which also featured guitarist Marty Lee Hoenes, drummer Kevin Valentine and bassist Albritton McClain.

The group hit pay dirt with their 1980 debut on Midwest Records, Back on the Streets, which featured their breakout hit “Ah! Leah!,” a longing tune about romantic obsession on which he sings, “Leah, it’s been a long time, you’re such a sight/ You’re lookin’ better than a body has a right to/ Don’t you know we’re playin’ with fire?/ But we can’t stop this burnin’ desire.” The album topped out at No. 57 on the Billboard 200 chart and spawned the band’s biggest-ever chart hit, the doo-woppy “My Girl,” which topped out at No. 25.

The group’s follow-up, 1981’s King Cool — which would help give Iris his beloved nickname — reached No. 84 on the chart and would be the last LP from the band to break the top 100 on the album tally; 1982’s The High and Mighty reached No. 180, 1983’s Fortune 410 ran up to No. 127 and 1985’s No Muss… No Fuss reached No. 115. The band, whose sound mixed power pop punch with new wave synths, was dropped by label MCA in 1984, after which they released No Muss on indie HME. Valentine and McClain split just before the LP dropped, setting off decades of revolving lineups centered around Iris and stalwart keyboardist Avsec.

The group charted a few more times in their post-MCA years, including a Nov. 91 Hot 100 slot for the song “Injured in the Game of Love” in 1985, their final significant chart hit; that song also peaked at No. 28 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.

Iris released another half dozen albums with the Cruisers through 2010’s studio swan song, the Christmas album Ah! Leluiah! and continued touring with the group in the Pittsburgh area and beyond until his final gig last month.

Listen to some of Iris’ biggest hits below.

Who needs Christmas tree ornaments when you’ve already got all the sparkle you need? Ariana Grande raises the question through her shimmering new Swarovski holiday musical campaign, which the iconic jewelry brand unveiled Tuesday (Oct. 27).

Soundtracked by a theatrical orchestral arrangement that switches back and forth between jazzy and classical styles, the minute-long video opens with the pop star in a white suit and top hat, outfitted with many silver gems and brooches. She then leads a group of similarly dapper-looking backup dancers in a routine on a grand staircase before the scene switches to Grande in a princess gown surrounded by pink feathers.

Other scenes in the sequence show Grande poking her head inside a festive dollhouse to hand a present to its miniature residents and channeling her inner ballerina in a Swan Lake-inspired sequence. At the end, the video cuts to the Wicked actress watching the ad in a theater, cheering as the credits roll before winking at the camera.

Grande has been the face of Swarovski since July 2024 and has starred in a number of seasonal campaigns for the brand, including visuals for Valentine’s Day, summer and one called “Ariana Grande’s Fantasy Garden Comes to Life.” “I cannot wait to embark on this journey and to inspire others to embrace their own unique sparkle,” she stated when the partnership was first announced.

The Grammy winner is currently on a break from the public eye since the conclusion of her Eternal Sunshine Tour in September. Her rep announced she’d be taking time away from the spotlight in August amid a spike in public scrutiny stemming from her physical appearance in the “Petal” music video. Billboard later confirmed that Grande still planned to do promo for her upcoming film, Focker-in-Law, as well as her brands, including R.E.M. Beauty.

Watch Grande sparkle in Swarovski’s new holiday campaign above.

50 Cent is suing Rick Ross‘ ex-girlfriend over “highly offensive” social media posts about his 14-year-old son, including “sexually degrading” insults and a “fabricated medical diagnosis.”

In a lawsuit Monday (Oct. 26) in Los Angeles federal court, attorneys for the rapper (Curtis Jackson) accuse Tiallondra “Tia” Kemp of defamation over her posts last week about Sire Jackson, in which she claimed he had autism due to conduct by his mother, Daphne Joy, when she was pregnant with him.

“Ms. Kemp shamelessly used the label ‘on the spectrum’ as a pejorative slur hurled at a child to humiliate him and his family. But autism is not shameful,” 50 Cent’s lawyers write. “What is shameful is fabricating a diagnosis for a private child, inventing a sexually degrading cause for it, and broadcasting both to a mass audience.”

The star’s lawyers say the offensive comments, under an Instagram photo of Sire and his parents, were made as part of an effort “to settle a score with his father” via a “a mass-audience campaign of falsehood and sexual degradation.”

“This action arises from a grown adult’s deliberate decision to use a young child as a prop and a punchline in order to wound the child’s father,” 50 Cent’s lawyers write. “S.J. is a minor and not a public figure.”

Monday’s federal lawsuit, obtained and first reported by Billboard, builds on a case filed earlier that day in Florida court, in which 50 accused Kemp of cyberstalking and harassing Sire. That case, which also seeks a restraining order, was first reported by TMZ.

According to the new California lawsuit, the full caption under Kemp’s original post of Sire and his mother read: “Btchhhh azzzz @50cent U wanna play? U have NO room to post anyone’s child when urs on the spectrum and the reason being this hoooo was still swallowing 10,000 gallons of CUMMM when she was pregnant.”

Kemp’s comments appear to have been in response to posts earlier this month in which 50 Cent trolled Ross over an alleged assault on his 21-year-old son, whom he shares with Kemp. The rapper posted an image of the suspected assailant’s mugshot and joked that he would bail him out.

Kemp later repeated her claims several times, according to 50 Cent’s lawyers, including in more posts and a red carpet interview in which she called the teen “slow” and claimed he “can’t talk.” The rapper’s lawyers say they sent her a cease-and-desist letter, but to no avail.

“Defendant has given no indication that she will stop,” they write. “If anything, her ongoing conduct confirms that she intends to continue her campaign of defamation, harassment, and bullying against a minor, absent court intervention.”

In technical legal terms, the lawsuit accuses Kemp of defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It was filed by 50 Cent on behalf of Sire, who is identified only by his initials because he is a legal minor. The lawsuit is seeking at least $6 million in damages.

Kemp did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard. In a response on her TikTok page, she called the star “15 Cent” and seemed undaunted by his legal actions: “Don’t play with me b***h about your lawyers,” she said. “You can’t bully me, b***h.”