Fans of the Netflix show Heartstopper can rejoice: More of the show is on the way, and Nick and Charlie’s story will get a proper ending, according to Deadline. Netflix has approved a Heartstopper movie—starring and executive-produced by the series’ leads, Joe Locke and Kit Connor, and directed by Wash Westmoreland—which will be the series finale.
In the finale, Nick (Connor) and Charlie (Locke) are inseparable; however, with Nick preparing to leave for university and Charlie finding new independence at school, the reality of a long-distance relationship begins to set in.
Musical icon Diana Ross was announced as the headlining act for this summer’s Stern Grove Festival 2025 in San Francisco, KTVU noted. Ross will take the stage on Sunday, Aug. 17, for The Big Picnic Weekend, opposite Damian Marley and Stephen Marley, who will headline the event the previous day. The Pointer Sisters had previously been announced; rounding out the summer series are acts like queer musician Orville Peck and LGBTQ+ band Sleater-Kinney, Lyrics Born, Phantogram, Girl Talk and Chromeo.
And the first-ever Outloud Music Festival will take place June 21 in Boston, per Billboard. The event (at The Stage at Suffolk Downs) will feature its inaugural headliners—trans pop singer Kim Petras and drag star Trixie Mattel (performing her DJ set)—alongside other queer artists joining throughout the day, including Flo Milli, Rebecca Black, G Flip, Frankie Grande and more. This will be Petras’ second Outloud gig of 2025, as she will also be performing at the organization’s fourth annual music festival at WeHo Pride on May 31, alongside headliners Lizzo and Lil Nas X.
Prime Video has canceled the Laverne Cox-led show Clean Slate, which premiered Feb. 6, after one season, The Hollywood Reporter noted, citing Deadline. Series stars Laverne Cox and George Wallace, as well as their fellow co-creator Dan Ewen, broke the news in a guest column on Deadline. Cox, Wallace and Ewen called the series—which was legendary producer/writer Norman Lear’s final completed work—a “labor of love,” and a “seven-year effort” that “was gone in a puff of server exhaust.” Cox and Wallace brought the show to Lear, the sitcom dynamo behind shows such as All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Lear died in December 2023 at 101 years old.
SPOILER: The top four finalists of the Emmy-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race—Jewels Sparkles, Lexi Love, Onya Nurve and Sam Star—took to the stage in the season 17 finale before Cleveland resident Nurve edged Sparkles for the crown, per a press release. In the finale, Sparkles and Nurve went head-to-head in a lip-sync to Lady Gaga’s smash hit “Abracadabra.” Nurve (real name: Justin Woody) received a $200,000 grand prize presented by the theater ticketing app TodayTix. Sparkles received a $25,000 prize courtesy of Anastasia Beverly Hills, which also tipped Love and Star $10,000 each in recognition of their drag excellence throughout the season. In addition, Miss Congeniality Crystal Envy received $10,000, presented by Olay Body. Last but certainly not least, RuPaul presented EGOT winner Liza Minnelli with the Giving Us Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals for their dazzling contributions to entertainment.
Also regarding RuPaul’s Drag Race, 18 queens will return for All Stars 10—the largest-ever group of contestants to appear on a single season in franchise “her-story,” EW noted. A major new twist to the All Stars format will bring back eliminations following All Stars 9’s exit-less edition. Each of the new All Stars 10 cast members will enter the competition in three groups of six, with each individual group competing only within its own bracket across three episodes; after each three-episode installment, the top three queens with the highest number of points won across challenges will advance to the final round. After that, the top queens will compete in a two-episode round of further competition before a final lip-sync smackdown on the Grand Finale will determine the winner of a $200,000 prize and a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. Some of the competing queens will include Olivia Lux, Ginger Minj, Denali, Mistress Isabelle Brooks, Acid Betty, Aja and Jorgeous.
The City of West Hollywood is recognizing April 21-27 as Lesbian and Queer Women’s Visibility Week, per the WeHo Times. In part, the city planned to display the Lesbian Pride Flag in medians along Santa Monica Boulevard and West Hollywood City Hall; also, the globe lanterns above Santa Monica Boulevard will be lit in pink, orange and white to reflect shades of the Lesbian Pride Flag. On Sunday, April 27, the L-Project will host a Lesbian and Queer Women’s Visibility Week WeHo Mini Film Fest showcasing diverse stories and voices of lesbian and queer women as well as non-binary people; Black Rainbow Love and MANEKI: A Full Lesbian Short will be among the projects shown.
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence—about the legendary LGBTQ+ singer-songwriter—will be out on Video On Demand on April 29, a media release announced. Among Ian’s hits were “Stars,” “Jesse” and the iconic “At Seventeen.” With the release of her album Breaking Silence, she started to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. According to the release, “While she embraces her Jewish upbringing, upholds feminist values, and advocates for LGBQT+ rights, her story and music transcend the boundaries of identity politics, making her career a universal story relatable to all.”
Tony winners Sarah Paulson and Wendell Pierce will announce the nominations for The 78th Annual Tony Awards on the morning of May 1, a press release noted. The nominations for The 78th Annual Tony Awards will be announced live from Sofitel New York on the Tony Awards official YouTube page; a selection of categories will be revealed live on CBS Mornings. This year’s Tony Awards will return to the legendary Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Hosted by Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner and three-time Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo, The American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards will broadcast live to both coasts on Sunday, June 8. A limited number of tickets to the show are now on sale to the general public; ticket prices begin at $595 for seats in the second and third mezzanines, and are available for purchase at TonyAwards.com and Ticketmaster.com.
Queer actress Kristen Stewart (Twilight; Love Lies Bleeding) married longtime partner Dylan Meyer in Los Angeles on Easter Sunday, People noted. TMZ, which broke the news, initially reported that the pair wed at Stewart’s L.A. home; however, People learned that the intimate wedding ceremony actually took place at the Mexican restaurant Casita Del Campo. The simple wedding was attended by a close group of family and friends, including Ashley Benson and her husband, Brandon Davis. Stewart and Meyer went Instagram official with their relationship in October 2019 and became engaged in 2021.
Stevie Nicks’ upcoming album is inspired by her awkward interaction with Prince after the Purple Rain premiere, EW noted. Nicks later went to the party after the premiere to talk to Prince, who was waiting to hear what she thought of the film. “He goes, ‘Well, did you love it?'” she remembered. “And I’m like, ‘I only saw the first half!’ And he’s like, ‘Why?’ ‘Because you slapped that girl [Apollonia’s character]!’ And I said, ‘But I brought you a gift. It’s a really beautiful 24-carat necklace with little gold hearts on it, and here,'” she continued. “And he [said], ‘I don’t want your necklace.'” Nicks said Prince then uttered a dramatic quote that served as the jumping-off point for a track on her upcoming album: “You always bring me a gift. You never bring me you.” Nicks wrote her 1983 single “Stand Back” after she heard Prince’s “Little Red Corvette,” and eventually got the legend to help her finish the track in the studio; in addition, she has also said Prince’s smash “When Doves Cry” was inspired by her own “Edge of Seventeen.”
Lady Gaga announced that she will be bringing her Mayhem Ball to Los Angeles for four nights and San Francisco for three shows, per Variety. These seven added concerts will take place in the Golden State in late July and early August, not long after the U.S. leg of her international outing kicks off in Las Vegas. Some fans assumed that a non-compete clause with Coachella might have prevented the concerts from being revealed when her first round of U.S. dates was announced almost a month ago; some of the other stops will include Mexico City, Singapore, Las Vegas, Chicago, Toronto and NYC.
Queer comedian/writer Julio Torres told The Guardian that he thought, when he worked at Saturday Night Live, that musician Shawn Mendes was an intern. Torres added, “I think I was confused by his very confident presence. And my mind went to, like, God, these NYU kids just think they own the place. But no, he was the star of that week or whatever.” During the interview, Torres also admitted that he’s never eaten eggs (as he’s vegan); he adores the film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which stars Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan and Rihanna; and that his biggest fashion crime was “the brief period in my life where I wanted to wear what everyone else was wearing.”
The late legendary gay UK singer George Michael has been nominated for the prestigious Ivor Novello Award in the Most Performed Work category recognizing his contribution as the songwriter of WHAM!’s beloved holiday classic “Last Christmas,” per a press release. Michael remains the only individual songwriter in history to receive the prestigious Ivor Novello “Songwriter of the Year“ award three times—in 1985, 1989 and 1997. In 1985, at just 21 years old (when he composed “Last Christmas”), he became the youngest recipient of an Ivor Novello Award. Overall, he is a 13-time nominee.
In celebration of WorldPride 2025, Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington (GMCW) will present a two-week International Choral Festival, where choruses and groups will perform pop-up concerts with GMCW at venues all around the D.C. metro area, according to DC Theater Arts. Each day of the event, which will run May 22-June 8, audiences will experience performances by GMCW’s own ensembles—Potomac Fever, Rock Creek Singers, Seasons of Love, GenOUT Youth Chorus and 17th Street Dance—alongside guest choruses from across the country. Some of those other groups include the Asian Rainbow Chorus (from NYC), 7th Son (Charlotte, North Carolina), Tonewall (NYC), Sacred and Profane Chorus (Berkeley, California), On That Note! (Hartford, Connecticut), Vox Dominae (Charlotte, North Carolina) and Major Minors (Nashville).
Pop star JoJo Siwa has made new realizations about herself while being part of Celebrity Big Brother UK, per HuffPost. Siwa has been confronting deeper truths—particularly around her gender identity. “I feel, like, so queer, do you know what I mean? I think that’s the thing,” she said. “I’ve always told myself I’m a lesbian, and I think being here I’ve realized: ‘Oh, I’m not a lesbian, I’m queer,’ and I think that’s really cool.” Siwa embraced the fluidity of sexuality and then concluded that she’s switching from the L in LGBTQ+ to the Q.
In Vernon Hills, Illinois, the official launch of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Lake County took place, per The Daily Herald. More than 30 people representing a dozen Lake County school districts were among those attending the event by the Lake County Regional Office of Education Foundation. (Parton was there in the form of a cutout.) The Imagination Library started in 1995 as a flagship program of The Dollywood Foundation, a nonprofit organization. Parton appeared in person in December 2023 when the Imagination Library officially was launched in Illinois by Gov. JB Pritzker.
A Madonna video has garnered 1 billion YouTube views—and it may not be one that some people thought would be her first, according to AOL. Madonna’s 1986 hit song “La Isla Bonita,” from her album True Blue, became the seven-time-Grammy-winner’s first music video to hit 1 billion views on the platform. The video was directed by Mary Lambert, who almost helmed videos like “Like a Virgin” and “Material Girl.” “La Isla Bonita” got a new lease on life in part due to a series of TikTok trends; more than 200,000 videos have been posted to the song’s sound in the past year, with users often soundtracking their fashion and vacation videos with the tune.
Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building; Emilia Perez) received the 2025 Woman of the Year award at the annual Billboard Latin Women in Music event, Billboard announced. The two-hour special, set to be held in Miami, aired April 24 exclusively on Telemundo. Previous Women of the Year honorees at Latin Women in Music include Shakira and Karol G. Musically, Gomez has 42 entries on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, including her first No. 1 hit, “Lose You to Love Me” (2019).
The Queer Screams film fest makes its third annual return on Aug. 1-3 at Portlan’s Clinton Street Theater, and this year’s VIP Guest will be Chucky/Child’s Play franchise creator Don Mancini, Bloody Disgusting noted. Mancini will be honored at the fest with the 2025 Queer Screams Career Achievement Award: Honoring Significant Contribution to Queer Horror Cinema & Culture. The festival is currently accepting film and screenplay submissions through May 15.
Following the band’s performances earlier this year in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Vancouver, Edmonton, Boston and New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, Heart announced an additional run of dates as The Royal Flush Tour 2025 continues, a press release noted. This next leg will see the band embark Aug. 8 at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, Washington, and continue through Aug. 30 at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, New York. Some of the other stops include Moline, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; San Diego; and Akron, Ohio, while a few of the previously announced performances will take place in Highland Park, Illinois (Ravinia); Orlando, Florida; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Detroit. Heart has released 16 studio albums, seven live albums, eight compilation albums and 64 singles (including “Barracuda,” “Never” and “Alone”).
Entitled Mamie Exposed! The Life and Loves of the Last Blonde Bombshell, the first authorized doc on Hollywood blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren is in the works, per a press release. Production is currently taking place in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California, and will be completed by the end of the year. Said Van Doren (who is executive-producing the film), “I have been fiercely private my whole life, and at ninety-four I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and reveal intimacies, secrets, and never before shared moments from my incredible life as the last original Hollywood blonde bombshell.” Van Doren, one of the “Three M’s”—Mamie, Marilyn (Monroe) and (Jayne) Mansfield—rode the crest of the “blonde bombshell” craze, and is the only one to have survived to age 94. (The other two died in their 30s.)
Heads of State—an action-comedy starring Idris Elba, John Cena and Priyanka Chopra Jonas—will premiere globally on Prime Video July 2, per a press release. The film is an action-packed comedy about the U.S. president (played by Cena) and the UK prime minister (played by Elba), who must set aside their rivalry to thwart a global conspiracy and save the world. The film will co-star Chopra Jonas, Carla Gugino, Jack Quaid, Stephen Root, Sarah Niles, Richard Coyle and Paddy Considine. Cena and Elba previously worked together on the comic-book film The Suicide Squad.
Based on the best-selling global video-game franchise, Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment will release the eight-episode Fallout: Season One on Blu-ray & DVD on July 8, per a press release. A limited edition 4K UHD Steelbook will also be available exclusively at Amazon; the 4K UHD Steelbook and Blu-ray sets will both include a set of six collectible art cards (available while supplies last). Fallout stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), Aaron Moten (Emancipation), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks) and Walton Goggins (The White Lotus).
Nicole Scherzinger treated the audience of her Broadway show Sunset Boulevard after the matinee performance was canceled due to technical difficulties, per Just Jared. The Olivier-winning actress initially went on stage with co-star Tom Francis to apologize to the crowd and announce the cancellation. However, she then decided to sing her Act One song “With One Look” using a bullhorn that house management found in the theater, and with her phone playing the backing track.
Katy Perry had to cancel her concerts in Guadalajara, Mexico on May 1-2, according to Yahoo! On Instagram Stories, the “Fireworks” singer wrote, “Sadly, I learned that the construction of Arena Guadalajara will not be complete for their scheduled shows next week, which includes mine on May 1 and 2. … I will be thinking about how I can create something special for the fans in Guadalajara in the future. I love you ALL.” The setback came amid the constant backlash the singer recently faced for her role in the Blue Origin all-women crew’s flight to space, along with Gayle King and Jeff Bezos’ partner, Lauren Sanchez. And there’s more bad news for Perry, as similarly named fashion designer Katie Perry has sued the singer in an Australian court, per Yahoo! News. The designer claims the singer’s tour merchandise infringed on her trademark and damaged her brand.
Lena Dunham (Girls) and singer Carly Rae Jepsen are bringing a musical adaptation of the 1999 rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You to Broadway, Variety revealed. Jepsen is co-writing the score with producer Ethan Gruska (with whom she worked on her most recent album, The Loveliest Time) and Dunham is set to co-write the book with acclaimed playwright Jessica Huang. A press release noted, “’10 Things I Hate About You,’ a retelling of William Shakespeare’s 1594 play ‘The Taming of the Shrew,’ launched the careers of Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and showcased a breakout performance by Alison Janney.” The adaptation’s creative team also includes the two-time Tony-winning director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon; music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator Tom Kitt, who is also a two-time Tony winner; and Shucked and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical producer Mike Bosner.
Justin Bieber appeared to cut ties with his own fashion brand, Drew House, People noted. “I Justin Bieber am no longer involved in this brand. Drew House doesn’t represent me or my family or life,” he wrote of the brand, which he co-founded with his former stylist Ryan Good in 2018 and launched January 2019. However, according to TMZ, Good (also Bieber’s former road manager) hasn’t spoken with the singer in more than a year—and that Bieber’s closeness with Churchome pastor Judah Smith was a reason, as Good felt Churchome was a cult.
The Fyre Festival—that infamous music event founded by Billy McFarland and Ja Rule that was the subject of two separate documentaries—is getting a new life as a music streaming service, per Deadline. The deal came shortly after it emerged that the second version of the festival—set to take place in Playa del Carmen, Mexico—was postponed indefinitely. The service is slated to launch on the TruBlue streaming service (co-founded by Shawn Rech and former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen) on Thanksgiving.
Kanye West is claiming he and a now-jailed male cousin sexually experimented with each other when they were kids, per TMZ. Apparently, it’s an experience he’s turned into a new song (“Cousin”), believing it contributed to both of their journeys. West sings about finding adult magazines as a kid, noting the publications he found in his late mother Donda’s possession were gay ones. The rapper added that he eventually showed the mags to his cousin and they re-enacted the male-on-male kissing scenes—leading West to eventually perform oral six until age 14.