• BTS won Artist of the Year, Song of the Summer, and Best Male K-Pop Artist at the 52nd AMAs
• Cardi B swept hip-hop with three wins including Best Hip-Hop Album for Am I The Drama?
• Sabrina Carpenter took Album of the Year for Man’s Best Friend plus Best Female Pop Artist
• Queen Latifah returned to host 31 years after her first time co-hosting the show
• Karol G, BTS, and Twenty One Pilots delivered standout performances at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas

BTS are back — and they’re taking everything with them.

The South Korean megagroup won Artist of the Year at the 2026 American Music Awards on Monday night, capping a triumphant return to the AMAs stage with a sweep of all three categories they were nominated in. They also took Song of the Summer for “Swim” and Best Male K-Pop Artist, opening the show with a pretaped performance from their Arirang World Tour at Allegiant Stadium before storming the stage live midway through the telecast.

“Everyone is belting out their songs during commercial breaks,” Yahoo’s Taryn Ryder reported from inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. “I don’t know the last time I’ve seen anything like this at an awards show.”

Cardi B Made History

The Bronx rapper swept hip-hop clean. Cardi B won Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, Best Hip-Hop Song for “ErrTime,” and Best Hip-Hop Album for Am I The Drama? — her long-awaited sophomore album that debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 after seven years of fans waiting. With three Best Hip-Hop Song wins across her career, she’s now the most decorated rapper in AMA hip-hop song history.

Kendrick Lamar took Best Male Hip-Hop Artist off the strength of GNX, and SZA won Best Female R&B Artist for the second consecutive year.

Sabrina Carpenter’s Pop Coronation

Sabrina Carpenter claimed Album of the Year for Man’s Best Friend, plus Best Female Pop Artist and Best Pop Album — her first AMA victories ever. The sweep demonstrated the fan connection she’s built over the past year, one that’s translated into genuine chart dominance.

Bruno Mars reasserted himself in R&B with three wins: Best Male R&B Artist, Best R&B Song, and Best R&B Album.

K-Pop’s Takeover Is Complete

It wasn’t just BTS. KATSEYE won New Artist of the Year plus Best Music Video for “Gnarly” and Breakthrough Pop Artist in their first year of eligibility. HUNTR/X featuring EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami took Song of the Year for “Golden” and Best Vocal Performance. The K-pop and K-pop-adjacent presence across the winners list was impossible to miss — a sign of just how far fan-voted shows have tilted toward global audiences.

Queen Latifah Ran the Night

Queen Latifah hosted the 52nd AMAs, returning 31 years after she first co-hosted alongside Tom Jones and Lorrie Morgan in 1995. She wore a floor-length fur coat on the red carpet in 94-degree Vegas heat and brought the room together between a delightfully strange mix of performances: nostalgia from Hootie & the Blowfish and New Kids on the Block with Keith Urban and Billy Idol, balanced against the now of Karol G, Maluma, Teddy Swims, Teyana Taylor, and Twenty One Pilots.

The AMAs partnered with 11 military and veterans’ services organizations this year, with Latifah and Darius Rucker sharing tributes to active-duty service members throughout the broadcast.

BTS closed the night where they started it — center stage, holding the biggest trophy of them all.

The post BTS, Cardi B and Sabrina Carpenter Dominate the 2026 AMAs appeared first on Cream.

• Jonathan Anderson staged Dior’s Cruise 2027 collection at LACMA’s newly opened David Geffen Galleries on Wednesday night
• Sabrina Carpenter, Miley Cyrus, Anya Taylor-Joy, Al Pacino and dozens more stars filled the front row
• The 75-look collection drew on Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and classic Hollywood, filtered through Anderson’s modern lens
• Anderson is the first designer to oversee all of Dior’s divisions since Christian Dior himself
• The after-party at Chateau Marmont got so packed that Jeff Goldblum and Tracee Ellis Ross slipped out early

Jonathan Anderson didn’t just stage a fashion show at LACMA Wednesday night. He made a statement about what Dior is becoming — and what Hollywood still means to the world’s most storied couture house.

The setting alone announced the ambition. LACMA’s newly opened David Geffen Galleries — designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor — became a cinematic dreamscape for the hour, its monolithic curving cement walls draped in fog, vintage convertibles parked along the runway, streetlamps casting moody shadows as the bassline from Air’s “Sexy Boy” bounced off hard concrete. Convertible headlights washed over glitter-slicked gowns and metallic knits. It felt less like a fashion presentation than a film set someone forgot to stop rolling on.

The front row was, quite literally, a Hollywood power grid. Sabrina Carpenter — fresh off wearing custom Dior while headlining Coachella and a Dior dress made from Sabrina film strips to last week’s Met Gala — arrived in Look One from the runway itself, a buttery yellow ruffled dress. Anya Taylor-Joy kept it sleek in a little black dress. Miley Cyrus, newly blonde, went conspicuously casual in denim on denim, which, as it turned out, was entirely on theme.

Miles Teller, Mikey Madison, Macaulay Culkin, Tracee Ellis Ross, Taylor Russell, Miranda Kerr, LaKeith Stanfield, Jeff Goldblum, Jisoo, Greta Lee (cute parents in tow), Gia Coppola, Lauren Hutton and Dior executive Delphine Arnault filled out a crowd that also included industry heavyweights — Amazon’s Sue Kroll, UTA’s Dan Constable, producer Brian Grazer, director Sean Baker, composer Danny Elfman and costume designer Ruth E. Carter. Paul W. Downs and Macaulay Culkin both wore Anderson’s new New Look jacket, which has quietly become the menswear piece of the season for men and women alike.

And then there was Al Pacino, who arrived with his earbuds still in, radiating his signature curmudgeonly energy, utterly unbothered by the spectacle around him. Honestly, iconic.

The fashion house thoughtfully supplied everyone with little Dior blankets to ward off the evening chill. Because of course they did.

A Love Letter to Old Hollywood, Written in a New Hand

Anderson’s starting point was a specific, loaded moment in fashion history: Christian Dior’s costumes for Marlene Dietrich in the 1950 film Stage Fright. Dietrich, famously, had told Alfred Hitchcock and her Warner Bros. bosses, “No Dior, no Dietrich!” while negotiating for the couturier to dress her — and that iron-willed glamour became the collection’s spiritual backbone.

But Anderson didn’t simply recreate. The nipped-waist suiting, garden-party florals, feathers and furs were present in spirit, translated into something a woman would actually want to live in. Seventy-five looks walked the W.M. Keck Plaza, evoking Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn in shimmering, fringed, off-the-shoulder silhouettes — but distilled with wearability in mind.

The collection opened with a trio of gorgeous chiffon drop-waist dresses decorated with rosettes, setting florals as the throughline: a gown blanketed in California poppies, whimsical scarves resembling bouquets, bias-cut dresses sprouting petals and embroidery. Faux fur robe coats and feathered slipper shoes conjured a starlet’s boudoir. Some models wore dramatic feathered hats spelling out “DIOR” in large, stylized lettering — playful and architectural at once.

Denim ran through it all, building on Anderson’s Fall 2026 collection: fuzzy textured styles, ripped versions, crystal-embroidered takes. LaKeith Stanfield in distressed denim cargo shorts and jacket in the audience felt like a deliberate extension of the runway. Sharp Dior suiting got a California loosening — frayed tweed blazers, more louche Bar jackets, a houndstooth chiffon duster that was immediately covetable. Menswear leaned into film noir, with grey wool flannels and flannel coats featuring shadow patterns echoing venetian blinds.

A collaboration with L.A. artist Edward Ruscha added typography-covered casual shirting that grounded everything in place — this was unmistakably a Los Angeles collection, not a Paris fantasy of Los Angeles. Anderson also wove in knit capes with a glam-rock sensibility and fun accessories: single dangling crystal mesh earrings, whimsical bird- and bug-shaped minaudières.

The show was presented at magic hour, sun setting behind the palm trees, moody shadows stretching across the museum plaza. After Anderson took his bow, guests filed upstairs into the Geffen Galleries — taking in views over traffic-buzzing Wilshire Boulevard and a brand-new Dior billboard featuring Irish actress Alison Oliver, whose star is rising fast after her breakout as Isabella Linton in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. Oliver had also starred in the teaser video Anderson released ahead of the show, driving through a scene deliberately reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

The Designer Who’s Playing a Different Game

Anderson’s connection to Hollywood isn’t just strategic — it’s personal. He designed costumes for Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and Queer, and his instinct for cinema-inflected storytelling runs through everything he does. Wednesday night was his most fully realized argument yet that the house he now runs — the first designer to oversee all of Dior’s divisions since Monsieur Dior himself — is genuinely ready for something new.

The multigenerational energy in the crowd underscored it: Leslie Mann and Maude Apatow, Kimora Lee Simmons and Aoki Lee Simmons, stylist Elizabeth Saltzman and her son Charlie Walker, who modeled in the show. Old Hollywood and new Hollywood, sitting side by side under Dior blankets, watching the fog roll in.

The after-party moved to the Chateau Marmont, where Miranda Kerr and a wave of young Hollywood fashionistas filled the lobby until bodies were spilling out into the night. It got so packed that Jeff Goldblum and Tracee Ellis Ross quietly made their exits. The party, like the collection, had a life of its own.

The post Dior’s Star-Studded LACMA Show Was Pure Hollywood Magic appeared first on Cream.

• Madonna will world premiere a 10-minute cinematic visual for Confessions II at the 2026 Tribeca Festival on June 5
• The film, directed by TORSO (David Toro and Solomon Chase), is built around the first six tracks of the upcoming album
• A post-screening conversation with Jimmy Fallon will follow the premiere at the Beacon Theatre in New York City
• Tickets are available exclusively to Madonna Community members via unique digital access codes
• Confessions II — her first album in seven years — drops July 3 via Warner Records

A full month before the rest of the world gets their hands on Confessions II, Tribeca Festival is about to give a very lucky crowd the first real taste of Madonna’s new era — on a big screen, no less. The Queen of Pop will bring the world premiere of a cinematic visual work to the 2026 Tribeca Festival on Friday, June 5 at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, with the screening followed by an exclusive conversation between Madonna, directors David Toro and Solomon Chase, and Jimmy Fallon.

The project, directed by the New York-based photography and directing duo TORSO — partners in life and work — clocks in at over 10 minutes and is built around the first six tracks of her highly anticipated album, including lead single “I Feel So Free” and her collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, “Bring Your Love.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=sYPHaUs4Whc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The film unfolds as one continuous, unbroken piece — no cuts between songs, no chapters that feel like separate music videos. It’s described officially as “a single, continuous piece, weaving together interconnected, music-driven sequences into an immersive cinematic experience” that “gives physicality to the music” and “lives in the tension between control and surrender, between being seen and disappearing into a crowd.”

Each of the six songs gets its own chapter — “each one a sexy thriller, a dance delusion, an epic fever dream” — but the whole thing follows what the festival calls a “twisted dream logic,” blurring the lines between tracks the same way the album itself does. The result, per the official description, is “a transcendent journey that catapults the viewer through a f-ked-up night out that’s remembered not for what happened, but for how it felt.”

Madonna is ambushed, pursued, and ultimately worshipped by a roving squad of camera-wielding femmes. The film moves through bedrooms, club bathrooms, cars, arenas, and open nature — all the many sanctuaries where music actually lives. And through all of it, every thread leads back to the same place: the dancefloor.

What the Film Is Really About

Beyond the fever-dream visuals, the project digs into something more personal — the dualities that have defined Madonna’s entire career. Privacy versus publicity. Grief versus catharsis. Intimacy versus communion. Fandom versus collaboration. TORSO, whose work spans fashion runway films, commercial campaigns, and cinematic storytelling across live and digital environments, was tapped to translate all of that into something you can feel in a theater.

The cinematic experience is produced by Division, powered by Dolce & Gabbana.

Tribeca Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal made clear this wasn’t just a routine booking. “Madonna has spent decades proving that reinvention is its own art form,” she said in a statement. “Confessions II feels immersive, provocative, and completely of the moment, while still channeling the kind of nightlife mythology only she could create. We are thrilled to welcome Madonna back to Tribeca.”

And “back” is the right word. Madonna last appeared at Tribeca in 2008 for the premiere of I Am Because We Are, a documentary about children in Malawi orphaned by AIDS that she executive produced. Her connection to the festival runs deeper than just the New York City geography — Rosenthal told Billboard that a long friendship with Madonna’s manager Guy Oseary helped make it happen. “I’m really good friends with her manager, Guy Oseary, who has been with her almost as long as I’ve been with Bob,” Rosenthal said, referring to Tribeca co-founder Robert De Niro. “She’s got an album dropping and it lined up perfectly.”

The Album Behind It All

Confessions II arrives July 3 via Warner Records — Madonna’s first studio album in seven years and the long-awaited follow-up to her 2005 dance classic Confessions on a Dance Floor. She’s reuniting with the man who helped make that record a cultural moment: award-winning producer, songwriter, and DJ Stuart Price. The album is available for pre-order now, with vinyl, CD, and cassette editions all in the mix.

Tickets for the June 5 Tribeca premiere are available exclusively to Madonna Community members, accessible only through unique digital access codes — so if you’re in, you were already in.

The post Madonna Brings ‘Confessions II’ Visual to Tribeca appeared first on Cream.

• Sabrina Carpenter celebrates her 27th birthday on May 11, 2026.
• She has scored six top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including two No. 1s.
• Carpenter won her first two Grammys in 2025 for Short n’ Sweet and \”Espresso.\”
• Her seventh studio album, Man’s Best Friend, spawned the chart-topping single \”Manchild.\”
• She went from Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World to one of pop’s biggest global stars.

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Sabrina Carpenter is 27 today, and if the last two years are any indication, she’s just getting started.

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The pop star — who has racked up six top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, two Grammy wins, and a fanbase that hangs on her every lyric — is celebrating another birthday at the absolute peak of her powers. From “Espresso” to “Manchild,” Carpenter has spent the last couple of years rewriting what a mainstream pop breakthrough can look like: slow-built, sharply crafted, and completely undeniable once it arrives.

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From Maya Hart to Global Pop Star

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It’s easy to forget now, but Sabrina Carpenter spent years quietly building toward this moment. She first landed on the radar as Maya Hart on Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World, the beloved Boy Meets World spinoff that ran from 2014 to 2017. She was a fan favorite from the jump — funny, sharp, magnetic on screen — and was already balancing acting with a music career that most people outside her fanbase hadn’t fully clocked yet.

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She released album after album — Eyes Wide Open, Evolution, Singular: Act I and Act II, Emails I Can’t Send — steadily evolving her sound and growing her audience, even as mainstream recognition stayed just out of reach. Songs like “Feather” and “Nonsense” from the Emails I Can’t Send era gave hints of what was coming. Then came 2024.

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The Short n’ Sweet Era That Changed Everything

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“Espresso” dropped as a pre-album single and peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100. That was just the opening act. “Please Please Please” and “Taste” followed, giving Carpenter her first and second No. 1s on the chart. Short n’ Sweet didn’t just perform — it dominated, and at the 2025 Grammys, it took home Best Pop Vocal Album while “Espresso” won Best Pop Solo Performance. Two Grammys. First time nominated.

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She also spent a chunk of that era opening for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour, which introduced her to arenas full of people who became instant converts. Swift later tapped her as a guest vocalist on “The Life of a Showgirl,” the title track from Swift’s project of the same name, which peaked at No. 8 on the Hot 100 — adding yet another top 10 to Carpenter’s growing tally.

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Man’s Best Friend and the Manchild Moment

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Rather than coast, Carpenter came back in 2025 with her seventh studio album, Man’s Best Friend, and lead single “Manchild” shot straight to No. 1. The album has continued to perform, with tracks like “House Tour” finding their own lives with fans. A Grammy nomination for the album is already in the mix.

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Six top 10s. Two No. 1s. Two Grammys. A world tour. A perfume line — the Sweet Tooth collection, with scents like Me Espresso and Cherry Baby — and a Funko Pop modeled after the “Manchild” music video, thumbs-up pose and all. She is, by any measure, one of the biggest pop stars on the planet right now.

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Billboard is marking her birthday by asking fans to vote on her greatest hit so far — a question that, given the pace she’s moving, might look very different by the time she turns 28.

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“category”: “Music

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