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Hip-Hop Lives Here
Long before Benny Blanco entered her life, Selena Gomez had her eyes on a handful of stars.
While speaking to W for the publication’s best performances issue published Friday (Jan. 3), the 32-year-old singer-actress shared that she “probably had too many crushes” when she was younger. “Jesse McCartney — when ‘Beautiful Soul’ came out — that was just life-changing for me,” Gomez said, giving one example.
“I loved Chad Michael Murray from One Tree Hill,” she continued. “I also just had crushes more in real life than on actors or musicians.”
Speaking of crushes, the Rare Beauty founder also opened up about her first kisses — on screen and off. Gomez has previously said that her very first smooch was technically with Dylan Sprouse during a guest stint on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, about which she told W: “It was really funny because both of us were so young. We were figuring out how to kiss. I had never done it, and I was so scared.”
But of her first kiss without cameras present, Gomez recalled, “My real-life one would probably be with a boy named Juan, and I was 14.”
The “Lose You to Love Me” singer’s W cover comes in honor of her performance in Jacques Audiard’s musical drama Emilia Pérez, for which she recently nabbed a Golden Globes nod for best supporting actress. Her costar in the film, Zoe Saldaña, as well as Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Zendaya, Paul Mescal and more also posed for the publication’s best performances package.
When Gomez did her interview for the issue, she wasn’t yet engaged to a certain pop-music hitmaker. Now, Blanco is poised to be the Wizards of Waverly Place alum’s forever celebrity crush after he popped the question in December.
The pair had, however, celebrated Halloween 2024 together before Gomez spoke to W, with the Spring Breakers star dressing up as Alice from Alice in Wonderland while her then-boyfriend went all out for a Mad Hatter tribute. “He used prosthetics!” Gomez gushed to the publication.
“Until this year, I hadn’t dressed up for Halloween since I was a kid,” she added. “We were invited to a party, so I had a reason to dress up … I think it’s safe to say we won best costume at the party.”
See Gomez on the cover of W below.
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The surviving members of Canadian progressive rock outfit Rush have reflected on their final tour, sharing their regrets that the tour didn’t extend to the likes of the U.K. and Europe.
Close to ten years on from their final run of shows, Rush bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson spoke to Classic Rock magazine about the group’s last gigs, apologizing to the British and European fans who didn’t get a chance to see them perform live.
“I’d pushed really hard to get more gigs so that we could do those extra shows and I was unsuccessful,” Lee said of the band’s R40 Live Tour. “I really felt like I let our British and European fans down. It felt to me incorrect that we didn’t do it, but Neil [Peart] was adamant that he would only do thirty shows and that was it.
“That to him was a huge compromise because he didn’t want to do any shows. He didn’t want to do one show.”
Rush’s R40 Live Tour kicked off in Tulsa, OK in May 2015, and featured a total of 35 shows across the U.S. and the band’s native Canada, ending in August of that year. Ultimately, while Rush’s dedicated fanbase called out for more dates to be added, these would become the final performances from the veteran band. Despite releasing their final album, Clockwork Angels, in 2012, Rush’s dissolution wasn’t confirmed until the death of longtime drummer Neil Peart in January 2020.
While Lee would detail the band’s final tour in his 2023 memoir, My Effin’ Life, he admitted to being very cautious in regard to how he discussing Peart’s death, but strived to be as candid as he could so as to give Rush’s audience the closure they wanted about the band’s end.
“I just kind of felt I owed an explanation to them, the audience,” Lee explained. “It’s part of why I went into the detail I did about Neil’s passing in the book, was to let fans in on what went down. That it wasn’t a straight line.
“This is how complicated the whole world of Rush became since August 1 of 2015 until January 7th of 2020 when Neil passed. Those were very unusual, complicated, emotional times. Fans invested their whole being into our band and I thought they deserved a somewhat straight answer about what happened and how their favourite band came to end.”
Lifeson also expressed his disappointment about Rush being unable to tour some of their favourite markets as part of their final run, noting that while Peart’s scheduling demands and health issues made further shows impossible, an additional “dozen or so” dates may have made the surviving members “a bit more accepting”.
“There was a point where I think Neil was open to maybe extending the run and adding in a few more shows, but then he got this painful infection in one of his feet,” Lifeson added. “I mean, he could barely walk to the stage at one point. They got him a golf cart to drive him to the stage. And he played a three-hour show, at the intensity he played every single show.
“That was amazing, but I think that was the point where he decided that the tour was only going to go on until that final show in LA.”
Having formed in Toronto in 1968 by Lee, Lifeson, and original members John Rutsey and Jeff Jones, Rush began to find widespread fame throughout the ’70s, with Peart replacing Rutsey following the recording of their 1974 self-titled debut.
While much of Rush’s touring was confined to the U.S. and Canada, the U.K. was their next most popular market, with European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands following behind. Curiously, Rush rarely ventured beyond these territories, with countries such as Australia never hosting the band on their shores.
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