R&B singer Ray J was arrested early Thanksgiving morning, according to jail records and a police spokesman.
The 44-year-old artist — whose legal name is Willie Norwood — was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats, according to Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Mike Bland.
Jail records show Norwood was arrested around 4 a.m. by officers from LAPD’s Devonshire Division, which patrols parts of the San Fernando Valley including Chatsworth and Northridge.
Bland could not provide details on the incident or say exactly where Norwood was arrested. He was released on $50,000 bond a few hours after his arrest, according to jail records.
The younger brother of actress and singer Brandy, Norwood is best known for the tracks “One Wish” and “Sexy Can I.” He was sued for defamation in October by his ex-girlfriend, Kim Kardashian, over comments he made in a TMZ documentary.
AN AUSSIE superfan who lunged at Ariana Grande on the red carpet has been kicked out of Singapore and banned from returning to the country for life.
Johnson Wen, 26, was jailed for nine days for being a public nuisance and has now been officially “barred from re-entering Singapore”, the country’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority confirmed.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
Johnson Wen accosted the star at the premiere of Wicked: For GoodCredit: Reuters
Her co-star Cynthia Erivo immediately rushed in and physically wrestled him away.
The prankster has a history of disrupting concerts and celebrity appearances, including jumping on stage at Katy Perry’sSydney concert in June.
Fans online accused Wen of re-traumatising Grande, who has spoken about suffering PTSD after the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, which killed 22 concertgoers and injured hundreds more.
The court heard Wen had tried twice to force his way into the premiere.
After being removed the first time, he made a second attempt to jump the barricades before security pinned him to the ground.
He later posted bizarre videos thanking Grande “for letting him on the carpet” and declaring he was “free”, only to be arrested the next day.
Wen pleaded guilty to the public-nuisance charge.
Judge Christopher Goh said Wen was “attention seeking” and foolish to believe he wouldn’t face consequences.
Grande has not commented, but Erivo later told NBC she stepped in instinctively: “I just wanted to make sure my friend was safe … You never know with those things.”
Ariana Grande appeared shaken by the incidentCredit: GettyWen was locked up for nine days and has been described a ‘serial intruder’Credit: Instagram / @pyjamamann
RAPPER Donald Glover has revealed he cancelled his tour because he suffered a stroke on stage.
The actor, 42, previously told how he needed to focus on his “physical health” when he scrapped the North American gigs in September 2024.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
Childish Gambino revealed on stage that he cancelled his tour last year due to having a strokeDonald Glover performs under the stage name Childish GambinoCredit: RedfernsLast year, he cancelled both his North American and UK gig dates during his The New World TourCredit: Getty – Contributor
Glover, who performs under the stage nameChildish Gambino, initially shared the unfortunate news he was cancelling to his 2.5 million followers on X.
After he then called off the UK tour leg for The New World Tour, he told fans he needed surgery – but did not reveal why.
Now he has told how he suffered a stroke – and how medics also found a hole in his heart.
He spoke out at the Camp Flog Gnaw Festival at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last night, after performing a set.
He told the crowds: “I had a really bad pain in my head in Louisiana, and I did the show anyway.
“I couldn’t really see well, so when we went to Houston, I went to the hospital, and the doctor was like, ‘You had a stroke.
“And the first thing I thought was like, ‘Oh, here I am still copying Jamie Foxx’ [the actor who suffered a stroke in 2023].
“That’s really like the second thing. The first thing was like, ‘I’m letting everybody down.’”
He then added how more medical woe was to come and said: “I broke my foot, they found a hole in my heart.
“So I had this surgery, and then I had to have another surgery.
“They say everybody has two lives, and the second life starts when you realise you have one.
“You should be living your life how you want. If we have to do this again, it can only get better.”
HEALTH BATTLES
After canceling his UK tour in 2024, the star released a brief statement.
He said “After my show in New Orleans, I went to the hospital in Houston to make sure of an ailment that had become apparent.
“After being assessed, it became clear I would not perform that night, and after more tests, I could not perform the rest of the US tour in the time asked.
“As of now I have surgery scheduled and need time out to heal.”
He continued: “My path to recovery is something that I need to confront seriously.
“With that said, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the remainder of the North American tour and the UK and European dates.
“Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase.
“I want nothing more than to bring this show to the fans and perform.
“Until then, thanks for love, privacy and support.”
The New World Tour started on August 11 2024 in Oklahoma and wrapped up in New Orleans on September 7th.
Childish Gambino was due to perform in Lyon, France, on October 31st.
Followed by a number of other shows in Italy, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Belgium.
RETIREMENT
The New World Tour was the sixth and final scheduled tour by Childish Gambino.
Earlier this year the singer revealed his plans to retire.
“It really was just like, ‘Oh, it’s done,’” he told The New York Times in July 2024.
“It’s not fulfilling. And I just felt like I didn’t need to build in this way anymore.”
“I’m not 25 anymore, standing in front of a boulder like, ‘This has to move,’” Donald said.
“You give what you can, but there’s beauty everywhere in every moment. You don’t have to build it. You don’t have to search for it.”
The 42-year-old told how he had suffered a stroke on stage while doctors had also detected a hole in his heartCredit: GettyHe previously told how The New World Tour was his sixth and final tourCredit: Redferns
Two more former employees are taking legal action against Motown legend Smokey Robinson and his wife Frances Robinson, adding their allegations of sexual assault against the singer to a $50-million lawsuit filed earlier this year.
The women who sued the spouses in May for sexual assault and failure to pay overtime filed a motion last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking to amend their initial complaint to include new claims from a fifth housekeeper and a man who detailed the couple’s cars. They both alleged separate incidents of Robinson grabbing their hands to touch his erect penis while they were working at his Chatsworth residence.
Robinson’s attorney Christopher Frost dismissed the latest round of allegations in a statement shared with multipleoutlets but did not immediately respond to a Los Angeles Times request for comment Thursday. Frost said the two accusers — identified in court documents as Jane Doe 5 and John Doe 1 — are part of “the same group of people who have conspired together against the Robinsons and are laying out their claims for maximum adverse publicity.”
Frost, who previously dismissed the original May complaint as an “ugly method of trying to extract money from an 85-year-old American icon,” remained firm in those views. “This group of people, who hide behind anonymity, and their attorneys seek global publicity while making the ugliest of false allegations,” Frost told TMZ.
The plaintiffs’ motion outlined the proposed changes for the amended complaint, describing the alleged sexual assault that Jane Doe 5 and John Doe 1 faced during their tenure. Jane Doe 5 is described as a housekeeper who worked for the Robinsons in 2005 until 2011. She took a leave of absence because of a work-related injury but returned around 2007.
According to the motion, Jane Doe 5 says the singer (real name William Robinson Jr.) often called her from the second-floor bathroom and asked him to scrub his back. The Grammy-winning artist would allegedly turn to face her with an erect penis while he was showering before turning again for her to scrub his back. She alleges that on more than 10 occasions, he grabbed her hand in an attempt to force her to touch his erection. She “would strongly resist by forcibly pushing his hands away, and would escape from the bathroom,” the motion said.
Resources for survivors of sexual assault
If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual violence, you can find support using RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Call (800) 656-HOPE or visit online.rainn.org to speak with a trained support specialist.
Allegedly, Robinson often walked around the house naked and would rub his elbow against Jane Doe 5’s chest. This prompted her to get a breast reduction in 2015, years after she stopped working for the celebrity spouses. She claims the singer propositioned her for sex numerous times, including after declining to rehire her when he suggested she “accompany him to a nearby hotel.”
Jane Doe 5 also seeks legal action against Frances Robinson, whom she accuses of perpetuating “a hostile work environment.” She alleges Frances blamed her for getting injured while cleaning the home’s chimney and told her to keep working despite it. Jane Doe 5 accused Frances of failing to take “appropriate corrective action” to prevent her husband’s alleged sexual misconduct and echoes previous claims that Frances screamed at employees and “used ethnically pejorative words and language.”
She also repeats previous allegations that the spouses, who married in 2022, failed to pay minimum wage or overtime, echoing claims mentioned in the original lawsuit.
The motion described John Doe 1 as a more recent employee, who was hired in 2013 to detail the couple’s cars and other related services. He was subject to Smokey Robinson’s “sexually harassing conduct” shortly after he began working for the couple, the motion alleged. John Doe 1 said the singer would often appear at his workplace outside the home wearing only underwear and “would then touch and fondle his erect penis” in “plain view.” The artist allegedly made suggestive gestures and remarks, including beckoning John Doe 1 to join him in an “interior room” by his workspace.
Though John Doe 1 rejected the singer’s repeated advances and urged him to “put some clothes on,” in 2022 the musician grabbed his accuser’s hand and attempted to put it on his erection, the motion said. John Doe 1 “immediately withdrew, turned away and left.”
He claims the Robinsons ended his services shortly after the incident, but about a year later, they requested that he return. Smokey Robinson allegedly continued appearing “partially clothed, touching himself” and making sexually suggestive remarks, the motion said. John Doe 1 “experienced humiliation, emotional distress and ongoing fear for his safety and dignity.” He ultimately stopped working for the singer and his wife after learning of similar allegations from former employees.
John Doe 1 is not seeking action on wage-related counts but rather for claims including sexual battery, assault, gender violence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
A hearing for the motion is set for Jan. 6, and a trial for October 2027.
Last December, Ravyn Lenae stood in the street and pointed her phone at herself to film a TikTok set to her song “Love Me Not.”
“Me after linking with him one last time cause I’m not bringing him into 2025,” she captioned the video — a cutesy kiss-off to a guy she’d clearly decided was holding her back from where she was meant to go.
Nearly a year later, it appears the singer was right: In early April, “Love Me Not” — a swinging, lightly psychedelic soul number about a hot-and-cold lover — gave Lenae her first entry on Billboard’s Hot 100; a week later, she made her debut at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Several months after that, she performed to an enthusiastic crowd at Lollapalooza just before “Love Me Not” peaked at No. 5 in mid-August.
Now, with one of 2025’s biggest hits under her belt, Lenae, 26, is winding down her breakout year by opening for Sabrina Carpenter as Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour wraps up this week with six sold-out shows through Sunday at Crypto.com Arena.
“A lot of this period has been me asking other artists, ‘Is this how it normally is?’” Lenae tells me on a recent evening. “How do you balance the social aspect and the online aspect and the touring with also staying highly creative?”
Not to mention tending to a personal life.
“What’s that?” she asks with a laugh. “That’s literally nonexistent.”
The runaway success of “Love Me Not,” which has been streamed more than 700 million times on Spotify, is no doubt what’s put the breathy-voiced Lenae before many listeners for the first time. (A remix featuring Rex Orange County has another 164 million Spotify streams.)
At one point as the song was blowing up, she responded to a fan on TikTok who’d been surprised to learn that Lenae is Black — “Y’all didn’t read the name Ravyn Lenae and think, ‘Oh, that’s a Black girl?’” the singer asks in the clip — then went ahead and clarified that also she’s not British, as some evidently had assumed.
Yet “Love Me Not” actually comes a decade into a career that began while Lenae was still in high school. She signed to Atlantic Records at age 16 and soon was touring and working in the studio with the likes of SZA and Steve Lacy; “Hypnos,” her debut LP, came out in 2022 and made Pitchfork’s closely watched list of the year’s best albums.
“I’m pretty conceited about the fact that I’ve loved Ravyn for as long as I have,” says the singer and actor Reneé Rapp, who like Carpenter took Lenae out on the road this year as an opening act. Rapp discovered one of Lenae’s early EPs when she herself was in high school and has been a fan ever since. “I’m like, ‘You bitches are new, and don’t get me wrong — I’m so happy you’re here. But let’s get it right: I was boots on the ground first.’”
To Rapp’s ears, Lenae’s airy soprano “has this beautiful ping at the top that I’ve only ever heard in Minnie Riperton,” she says. “She’s just like a little fairy. She floats around, and her voice does the same thing.”
“Love Me Not,” which is still hanging out in the upper reaches of the Hot 100, is from Lenae’s sophomore album, “Bird’s Eye,” which came out in August 2024. She recorded the song with the producer Dahi, who’s known for his work with Kendrick Lamar and Vince Staples; Dahi started the track years ago with Anderson .Paak then put it in a drawer before he’d finished it.
“At the time, I was really into MGMT,” Dahi says, referring to the alternative rock duo whose dreamy-jangly guitar sound echoes throughout “Love Me Not.” With Lenae, he pushed the song toward classic R&B — “something that would be played on ‘Happy Days’ or some s—,” he says — but retained a spacey vibe that keeps it from feeling rooted in any specific era or genre.
Lenae says her goal was to create something “soulful and Black but that transcends time and race”; the result can be heard in a lineage of enduring hard-to-classify hits like Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” and Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” that charm listeners across demographic lines.
“If you don’t like ‘Crazy,’ there’s something wrong with you,” Lenae says as a pedicurist exfoliates her feet in a West Hollywood hotel room. It’s the end of a long day that began with an early-morning flight from New York, where Lenae performed with Kali Uchis on “The Tonight Show” and at Madison Square Garden. Now, after a photo shoot, she’s changed into gray sweats to sneak in a moment of self-care during our chat.
“With the heels I’m wearing all the time, you can see the corns,” she says, looking down to check out the pedicurist’s progress. “I wonder what Beyoncé’s feet look like. ’Cause if mine look like this? She’s putting in work.”
Though “Love Me Not” was singled out by critics right away, the song really took off late last year after a DJ posted a viral TikTok that mashed it up with Solange’s “Losing You” as part of a series exploring “euphoric” breakup songs. An admiring post on X by SZA — “One of my fav albums this year,” she wrote of “Bird’s Eye” — helped bring more attention to Lenae’s music.
Ravyn Lenae in West Hollywood.
(Ian Spanier / For The Times)
The singer grew up in Chicago, where her mother’s parents landed in the late ’70s as immigrants from Panama. That’s their house on the city’s south side in the music video for “Love Me Not,” which Lenae directed and which shows her and her younger sister dancing just outside the bedroom where Lenae slept as a kid.
“I knew this song would be a lot of people’s introduction to me, so I wanted them to immediately jump into my world,” she says. “My grandparents are very shy people, and when my grandma saw the video, she was like, ‘Oh, Ravyn, baby …’”
Singing at talent shows as a 12-year-old, Lenae wanted to be a “a mix between Alicia Keys and Beyoncé,” as she puts it; later, she learned to perform Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and Rihanna’s “Take a Bow.”
“I was like, ‘I’m-a win ’em over with this one,’” she says of the dramatic ballads. “I’m sure I sound crazy on video.”
Lenae, who went on to study at the Chicago High School for the Arts, came to understand that the soft lilt of her voice distinguished her from those powerhouses; she found inspiration in “the sensuality and the femininity” of music by Diana Ross, Patrice Rushen and Janet Jackson, whose “All for You” album — released in 2001, when Lenae was 2 — would become a touchstone.
“There’s a lot to win by not being the loudest in the room,” says Rapp.
Lenae moved to L.A. in 2020. Her first year here was rough, she says — she missed her mom and felt the burden of a bank account with $100 in it. “I remember some crying in the shower,” the singer says now.
Her 2022 song “Skin Tight,” a yearning flirtation she wrote and recorded with Lacy, registered as a turning point; so did the success of Lacy’s quirky soul-rock hit “Bad Habit,” which topped the Hot 100 on its way to Grammy nominations for record and song of the year.
“That was a historical moment for artists like us that have been working at it for a long time — Black artists who’ve always been a little to the left of what was going on,” Lenae says. “Steve going No. 1 showed there really are no rules and that there’s space for all of us.”
Beyond “Love Me Not,” highlights on “Bird’s Eye” include an intimate acoustic number, “From Scratch,” that Lenae says she and Dahi modeled on Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo’s “Nothing Even Matters”; the lush and whispery “Dream Girl,” which features input by Jackson’s longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis; and “Bad Idea,” a percussive electro-funk jam that interpolates Bow Wow and Ciara’s early-2000s “Like You.”
“All those Ciara hits, I had the choreo down,” Lenae says.
The album also contains the tender yet mournful “One Wish,” which Lenae wrote about her dad not being around as she was growing up.
“I never, ever thought I’d talk about that publicly, but I think I was just at a point in my life where it felt natural,” she says. “And me and him had just started reconciling, so it was very top of mind.” She invited her father to come to L.A. to appear in the song’s video, which depicts a young girl running after a car as a man angrily drives away; the day after the shoot, they went to Roscoe’s and had a long talk about her childhood.
“Yesterday was his birthday, and I forgot,” she tells me. “I felt horrible, but then I was like, Should I feel horrible? I go back and forth with it all the time.”
Lenae is extremely close with her mother, who’ll sometimes join her on the road “just to spend time with me or hold my hand — to sleep in the same hotel bed,” she says. “That’s the person I know I can keep counting on.”
After this week’s dates with Carpenter, Lenae will head east for a handful of shows on iHeartRadio’s Jingle Ball tour — one more chance to build upon “Love Me Not’s” Top 40 breakthrough. Then she and Dahi plan to focus on finishing her next album.
So far, Lenae says, it’s shaping up to be “a little more punchy and explosive” than “Bird’s Eye.” One of the new songs is about her mom; Lenae played it for her when she was here visiting not long ago.
“I had the lyrics up, and as she was reading it, she looked up at me and there was a tear in her eye,” she recalls. “Then we started bawling together. I think that one might end up her favorite.”
Before FKA Twigs could discuss her upcoming album, “Afterglow,” she needed a matcha.
The British singer-songwriter had first answered a Zoom call from the backseat of a dimly lit car in New York, where she confessed to running on “2% personality.” She explained that she had flown in that morning from London and had spent the day promoting her upcoming movie, “The Carpenter’s Son,” a biblical horror co-starring Nicolas Cage.
Luckily, only a few minutes into the interview, the singer born Tahliah Debrett Barnett spotted a familiar matcha spot coming up on her route. In a split-second decision, she runs into the cafe, eager for a caffeine boost, and orders everything matcha she could get her hands on — a hot lavender matcha latte, a matcha soft serve and matcha-flavored pudding.
“Oh, we’re gonna be buzzing,” said Twigs, who laughs a bit about how she hasn’t eaten much that day and decided to exclusively consume matcha desserts. After making it back to the car and indulging in a few sips, she declares, “It feels like I have my personality back. That was quite an authentic experience.”
With a revived glint in her eyes, she was ready to debrief “Afterglow,” the unexpected continuation of her third studio album, “Eusexua.” The 37-year-old singer released “Eusexua” in January as both the namesake of her record and a term she coined to describe a transcendent state of being.
Now, less than a year later and set to be released the same day as “The Carpenter’s Son,” her latest album is meant to “beautifully unravel” the questions of humanity she presents on “Eusexua.”
From the start, she says, she knew that “Eusexua” was something bigger than a singular album — equating it to an era. Inspired by Prague’s underground rave culture, the record itself is centered around life’s purest experiences. Over tattered drum and bass patterns, retro-futuristic crescendos and ephemeral melodies, Twigs attempts to bottle the way dance music makes her feel. Lyrically, she embraces a childlike wonder, shares her vulnerabilities and indulges in sweet nothings — all with the intention of capturing what it means to be a person.
Where “Eusexua” is “the bird’s eye view of the human experience,” Twigs says, “Afterglow” is meant to capture humanity through a more direct lens, where feelings are unfiltered and instantaneous. Changing this viewpoint was something that came to her with ease.
“Sometimes when you’re creating something, it feels like you’re rubbing against something or you’re pushing something uphill. But with this project, it didn’t feel like that. It was flowing naturally,” said Twigs.
Most of “Afterglow” was made post-“Eusexua” from the comfort of her home studio in Hackney, London. Despite “Eusexua’s” successful release, she couldn’t shake the feeling of still having more to give.
“I can’t explain it. Sometimes you put out an album, and then it feels like you need to stop for a while,” said Twigs. “But with ‘Eusexua,’ it felt like it was still growing. The message was still spreading, and people still wanted a deeper understanding of what it was.”
For over a decade, Twigs has been known to cushion her albums with a few years between each release. Her debut, “LP1,” released in 2014, was followed by “Magdalene” in 2019 and “Eusexua” in 2025. She also released a mixtape, called “Caprisongs,” in 2022. On each project, she bears a new side to herself, often diving headfirst into the depths of her identity, love life and womanhood. Uncovering raw emotions, like loss, lust and jealousy, she’s able to capture their complexities through erratic rhythms, unorthodox mechanics and a trance-like ambiance.
FKA Twigs performs at Camp Flog Gnaw in November 2019.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Before becoming a musician, she found success at an early age as a professional dancer. In her late teens and early 20s, she appeared as a dancer in music videos for artists like Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Kylie Minogue. To this day, she relies on dancing and bodily movement as an essential part of how she understands music.
“When you dance, it’s really good to know the rules and the fundamentals, like with ballet. But once you know ballet, then you can mess it up and let go. You can dance with more freedom,” said Twigs, in between bites of her matcha pudding. “That’s kind of what ‘Afterglow’ is. It’s ‘Eusexua,’ but it’s wild, sensual and irresistible. It’s meant to quench a thirst.”
Since she’d laid out the groundwork with her previous release, she approached its follow-up with a carefree sense of freedom. The 11-track album is meant to be a concept album of sorts, detailing the aftermath of a night out. From the feeling of fresh air after leaving a sweaty dance floor to the drunken temptations of texting an ex-lover and the inevitable rush of not wanting the night to end, Twigs proves she has the “afters” down to a formula.
Leaning into a slightly less alien soundscape than the one heard on “Eusexua,” the singer indulges in a masterful form of electronic edging — never going the predictable route. On songs like “Slushy” and “Predictable Girl,” she intertwines a menagerie of robotic, spacey sirens with tinges of Jersey club beats and ’90s-influenced R&B chords. While on equally hypnotic tracks like “Cheap Hotel” and “Sushi,” she commands the heavily-layered soundscape with an intoxicating sense of recklessness.
“Sometimes I go out to reset my brain a little bit. Obviously, I love what I do so much. I love being an artist. But sometimes, it just gets unnecessarily stressful,” explains Twigs, who touches on the complications of fame with the track “Wild and Alone,” alongside fellow British pop music innovator PinkPantheress.
“So when I go out, it makes me put everything into perspective and realize what’s really important in my life, who I want to be and who I want to be around.”
Powered by these realizations, she’ll continue to lose herself in foggy nightclub dance floors, masses of sweaty bodies and blinding strobe lights. But she says, when it comes to making art, there’s one thing she’ll never lose sight of.
The only thing that can affect her creative output, she says, is “whether you’re telling the truth or not, and how honest you’re being.”
Elliot Zwiebach was 62 years old when he sang in front of a live audience for the first time.
The retired reporter had always loved show tunes, but he’d never considered singing in public before.
“I sang for my own amusement, and I wasn’t very amused,” he said recently.
But one night, after attending a few open mic nights at the Gardenia Supper Club in West Hollywood as a spectator, he got up the nerve to step onto the stage and perform a tune backed by a live band.
For his first song, he picked the humorous “Honey Bun” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific.” It was frightening and he didn’t sing well. And yet, the following week he came back and did it again.
Newbie Ian Douglas, left, and longtime singer Elliot Zwiebach look over a sign-up sheet at the Gardenia’s long-running open mic night.
Sixteen years later, Zwiebach, now 78, is a core member of what the event’s longtime host Keri Kelsey calls “the family,” a group of roughly 25 regulars who sing jazz standards, show tunes and other numbers from the Great American Songbook at the longest-running open mic night in L.A.
“It’s very much like a community,” Zwiebach said on a recent evening as he prepared to sing “This Nearly Was Mine,” another song from “South Pacific.” “Everyone knows everyone.”
For 25 years, the small, L-shaped Gardenia room on Santa Monica Boulevard has served as a musical home for a diverse group of would-be jazz and cabaret singers. Each Tuesday night, elementary school teachers, acting coaches, retired psychoanalysts, arts publicists and the occasional celebrity pay an $8 cover to perform in front of an audience that knows firsthand just how terrifying it can be to stand before even a small crowd with nothing more than a microphone in your hand.
“You are so vulnerable up there with everyone staring at you,” said Kelsey, who has hosted the open mic night for 24 years and once watched Molly Ringwald nervously take the stage. “But it’s also the most joyous experience in the world.”
Director and acting coach Kenshaka Ali sings “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” by Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
The singers are backed by a live, three-piece band led by guitarist Dori Amarilio. The rotating group of musicians — a few of them Grammy winners — arrive not knowing what they will be playing that night. Some singers bring sheet music, others chord charts. And there are those who just hum a few bars and allow the musicians to intuit the key and melody enough to follow along. Poet Judy Barrat, a regular attendee, usually hands the evening’s piano player a copy of the poem she’ll be reading and asks him to improv along with her.
“It’s totally freeform,” said Andy Langham, a jazz pianist who toured with Natalie Cole and Christopher Cross and often plays the Gardenia. “I read the stanzas and try to paint pictures with the notes.”
Keri Kelsey, singing “Mack the Knife,” has hosted the Gardenia’s open mic night for 24 years.
The Gardenia, which opened in 1981, is one of the few venues in L.A. specifically designed for the intimacy of cabaret. The small, spare room has table service seating for just over 60 patrons and a stage area beautifully lit by an abundance of canned lights. Doors open at 7 p.m. on Tuesday nights, but those in the know line up outside the building’s nondescript exterior as early as 6 p.m. to ensure a reasonable spot on the night’s roster of singers. (Even though there is a one-song-per-person limit, the night has been known to stretch past 12 a.m.) Nichole Rice, who manages the Gardenia, takes dinner and drink orders until the show starts at 8:30 p.m. Then the room falls into respectful silence.
Pianist Andy Langham and guitarist Dori Amarilio perform live music accompaniment for each open mic participant at the Gardenia.
“This is a listening room,” said singer-songwriter Steve Brock, who has been attending the open mic night for more than a decade. “I’ve been to other rooms where I’m competing with tequila or the Rams. Here, when anyone goes up in front of that microphone, everyone stops.”
On a recent Tuesday night, the show began as it always does with an instrumental song by the band (a piano, guitar and upright bass) before an opening number by Kelsey. Dressed in a black leather dress and knee-high boots, she had this time prepared “Mack the Knife.” “This may be one of the loungiest lounge songs ever,” she said. “Maybe that’s why I really like it.”
People begin to line up outside the Gardenia at 6 p.m. to get a spot for the Tuesday open mic night.
The first singer to take the stage was Trip Kennedy, a bearded masseur who performed “The Rainbow Connection” in a sweet tenor. When he finished, Kelsey shared that she was cast as an extra in “The Muppets Take Manhattan.”
“It was the most ridiculous thing,” she said, filling time as the next singer consulted quietly with the band. “I was a college student who dressed up as a college student for the audition.”
Dolores Scozzesi, who sang at the Hollywood Improv in the ’80s between comedy sets, performed a moody arrangement of “What Now My Love.” “This is a [chord] chart from 2011,” she told the audience before she began. “I want to try it because these guys are the best.”
Monica Doby Davis, an elementary school teacher, sings the jazz standard “You Go to My Head” at the Gardenia.
Zwiebach performed a medley of two Broadway hits, “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” (which he altered to “his face”) and “This Nearly Was Mine,” easily hitting all the notes. After, his young friend Ian Douglas, a relative newbie who started attending the open mic night in the spring, sang the jazz standard “You Go to My Head.” Zwiebach praised the performance.
“I know that song very well and you did a great job,” he said.
Monica Doby Davis, who once sang with the ’90s R&B girl group Brownstone and now works as an elementary school teacher, also performed “You Go to My Head.” Although she had left the entertainment business decades ago, she said finding the Gardenia open mic night 13 years ago “brought music back to my life.”
Tom Nobles, left, sings alongside bassist Adam Cohen, center, and pianist Andy Langham at the Gardenia.
There were many beautiful, intimate moments that night, but perhaps the best was when Tom Nobles, an actor and retired psychoanalyst in a purple knit cap and thick plastic glasses, forgot the words to “Lost in the Masquerade” by George Benson.
He stumbled for a moment, a bit perplexed, before turning to his friends for help.
“Whoever knows the words, sing it with me,” Nobles said to the crowd.
Quietly at first and then louder and stronger, the whole room broke out into song.
We’re lost in a masquerade. Woohoo, the masquerade.
EXCLUSIVE: Twinne-Lee Moore played Porsche McQueen in Hollyoaks over a decade ago and the actress turned singer has hinted at a potential return for a reunion with her on-screen family
Dan Laurie Deputy Editor of Screen Time
06:00, 02 Nov 2025
Hollyoaks could set to welcome back a familar face to the fictional village.
Twinnie-Lee Moore played Porsche McQueen from Novemebr 2014 until December 2015.
The character highlighted the issues of sexual abuse in children and other storylines included a failed marriage when her husband had various affairs.
During her time on the Channel 4 soap, Twinnie-Lee was nominated for the British Soap Award for Best Newcomer and an Inside Soap Award in 2015 for her powerful portrayal.
Since leaving Hollyoaks, Twinnie-Lee has swapped Yorkshire for Nashville to embark a career as a country pop singer-songwriter.
However, the TV star has hinted that a return to Hollyoaks could be on the cards after catching up with her on-screen family at the soap’s 30th anniversary celebration last month.
Speaking to Reach PLC, Twinnie-Lee said: “It’s been a whole decade and it’s so lovely to see everybody.
“The McQueens are obviously my favourite family and I was very honoured to be part of it and it brings back a lot of memories.”
When asked about a potential Porsche McQueen comeback, she added: “You’ll have to ask the writers about that.
“I’m currently in Nashville doing my music. I did pitch to them if they did want to come and do a Nashville series. She [Porsche] did leave on a cruise so you never know.”
Porsche was last seen on screen on Christmas Eve 2015 and Twinnie-Lee revealed that fans still message her a decade later about her character.
She explained: “It’s so wild because people even now still message me about Porsche. I posted something and everyone was like ‘omg come back’, ‘when you coming back’.
“She was such a great character to play, made a real impact and very relatable.”
Last year, Twinnie-Lee returned to the small screen in Emmerdale as Jade Garrick, an illegal gambling and underground fighting manager who Ross Barton (Michael Parr) and Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle) worked for for a small number of episodes.
Speaking about her new role at the time, the soap star said: “My life has been a bit crazy recently juggling music and acting with lots of back and forth between Nashville and Yorkshire but I’ve been loving it!!
“I’ve loved being back on screen, especially as the show is shot in Yorkshire, being able to be home with family and go to work on such an iconic show has been nothing short of amazing! The whole team has been so welcoming and really supportive.”
Hollyoaks airs Monday to Wednesday on E4 at 7pm and first look episodes can be streamed Channel 4 from 7am
The marriage between Arcade Fire’s indie-rocker spouses Win Butler and Régine Chassagne has flamed out.
The longtime collaborators and romantic partners split “after a long and loving marriage,” the Canadian “Reflektor” group announced Thursday in a statement shared on social media. Butler, 45, and Chassagne, 49, married in 2003 and will “continue to love, admire and support each other as they co-parent their son,” the band said.
Four people came forward about their alleged experiences with Butler in a report published by Pitchfork in August 2022. Three women alleged they were subjected to sexual misconduct between 2016 and 2022 when they were between the ages of 18 and 23. The fourth, gender-fluid accuser alleged Butler sexually assaulted them in 2015 when they were 21 and he was 34.
Amid Pitchfork’s report, Butler denied the misconduct allegations in a statement and said he “had consensual relationships outside my marriage.” Chassagne, who gave birth to her son with Butler in 2013, remained firm in her support for her now-estranged husband in 2022. The “Sprawl II” singer said, “I know what is in his heart, and I know he has never, and would never, touch a woman without her consent and I am certain he never did.”
She added at the time: “He has lost his way and he has found his way back. I love him and love the life we have created together.”
Arcade Fire rose to prominence in the 2000s for its anthemic rock, cementing its place in the Montreal indie scene with its Grammy-winning 2010 album “The Suburbs.” The group has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards and has played some of music’s biggest stages including the Coachella and Lollapalooza music festivals. The group released its seventh album, “Pink Elephant,” in May.
Thursday’s statement clarified that Butler and Chassagne’s “bond as creative soulmates will endure, as will Arcade Fire.” The estranged spouses will also continue their charity work in addition to caring for their child.
“The band send their love and look forward to seeing you all on tour soon,” the statement said.
Times staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.
