Latest news with #ThePretenders
Forbes
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Who Won ‘The Masked Singer' 2025? See The Stars Unmasked In The Finale
Pearl on 'The Masked Singer' season 13. In The Masked Singer 2025 finale, only four contestants made it to the final episode with hopes of being crowned the winner: Pearl, Boogie Woogie, Mad Scientist, and Coral. The final episode of Season 13, which aired on May 7, began with judge Rita Ora performing a cover of Chappell Roan's anthem 'Pink Pony Club," with finalists Boogie Woogie, Coral, Mad Scientist Monster and Pearl also joining in. After each finalist sang, the studio audience and juding panel (consisting of Ora, Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy and Robin Thicke) voted for their favorite performance. The two contestants with the fewest votes were unmasked, while the remaining two performed once more before a winner was announced. Keep reading to find out who won The Masked Singer 2025 and the identities of the three other finalists. NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - JUNE 07: Gretchen Wilson performs onstage during the 2024 CMA Music festival ... More at Nissan Stadium on June 07, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/WireImage) Pearl was crowned the winner of The Masked Singer Season 13 and was revealed to be country singer Gretchen Wilson in the finale. One major clue to the singer's identity came when she showed off a pair of sparkly pants gifted to her by Dolly Parton. 'It's a pair of pants for the record books,' Pearl said. 'Not only did my idol Dolly Parton give them to me, but I also got to perform with her while I was wearing them.' While names like Faith Hill, Kacey Musgraves, Madonna and Shaina Twain were floated around as possible identities for Pearl, ultimately, only Thicke guessed correctly. "I am floored," the country singer said finding out she'd won. 'I almost hit the floor.' Before her her identity was unmasked, Pearl spoke in her clue package about her laid-back, unapologetic personality and the challenges she faced at the start of her career. "Every time I've put on this Pearl costume I think it's so strange that I pulled off being this bejeweled princess," she explained. "It's so unlike me. I'd say the hoodie and sweatpants is more in line with who I am. What can I say? I'm gritty, raw, unapologetic. I've always been that way. And a lot of times, especially when I was first starting out, it stood in the way of my success." Wilson also recalled one moment early in her career when, during a performane for a record exec, she thought he wrote down 'no,' when he'd actually written down 'now' – and wanted to sign her then and there. 'After all these years, I think people still don't know what I'm capable of until now,' Pearl added. In the finale, Pearl sang 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' by KT Tunstall, earning praise from Jeong, who called the contestant 'the Meryl Streep of Masked Singer.' Her second cover was 'I'll Stand by You' by The Pretenders. During the show, host Nick Cannon announced that each finalist would receive a phone call from a loved one after their performance. Pearl's call came from her daughter, who told her 'how unbelievably proud I am of you," bringing Pearl to tears. Boogie Woogie on 'The Masked Singer' season 13. Mad Scientist Monster chose to sing a cover Sugarland's 'Stay,' which Thicke called the 'best vocal of the season.' He also received a heartfelt ring from his parents, who expressed their support. 'You've done a great job doing something totally different and wish you the best as you go forward and want you to go ahead and knock this thing out of the park and win it,' his dad said. Ahead of his big reveal, the contestant shared his love for the outdoors. 'I grew up on and near the waters and I love fishing with my dad still to this day.' While Billy Ray Cyrus and Sam Hunt came up as potential names, Mad Scientist Monster was revealed to be Florida Georgia Line's Brian Kelley. NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - NOVEMBER 07: Brian Kelley attends the 2023 BMI Country Awards at BMI ... More Nashville on November 07, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo byfor BMI) Coral delivered a rendition of Audrey Hepburn's classic 'Moon River' and received an supportive call from her dad. 'No matter what happens tonight, you really already won,' he told her. 'I'm just so incredibly proud of you. Watching you on stage, I cannot help but remember that young girl singing and dancing to Broadway songs in our living room thinking that maybe her big dreams are possible." While the judges guessed names like Hilary Duff, Selena Gomez, Hailee Steinfeld or Rachel Zegler, Coral turned out to be Disney Channel and Zombies star Meg Donnelly. INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 29: Meg Donnelly attends the 2025 Billboard Women in Music at YouTube ... More Theater on March 29, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic) Boogie Woogie performed George Michael's 'Freedom! 90," with McCarthy telling him he 'brought the house down.' Meanwhile, his phone call was from one of his daughters. 'Daddy, you need to win! You're doing such a good job," she told him. Boogie Woogie said that he wanted to show his kids that 'positivity and sincerity can win.' As the second finalist, he returned to the stage to sing Lewis Capaldi's 'Love the Hell Out of You." While the panel tossed names like Darren Criss, Andy Samberg or Ryan Tedder, Boogie Woogie turned out to be none other than 'Honey, I'm Good' singer-songwriter Andy Grammer. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MAY 10: Andy Grammer attends the 27th Annual Power of Love Gala hosted by Keep ... More Memory Alive on May 10, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo byfor Keep Memory Alive) All episodes of The Masked Singer are streaming on Hulu.
Express Tribune
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
'The Masked Singer' season 13 winner revealed after finale showcases season's top vocal performances
Country music star Gretchen Wilson was revealed as the winner of The Masked Singer season 13 after a tightly contested finale that aired on 7 May 2025. Competing as Pearl, Wilson delivered the final performance of the evening with a rendition of "I'll Stand by You" by The Pretenders before being crowned the champion. The finale opened with judge Rita Ora performing 'Pink Pony Club' by Chappell Roan, joined on stage by finalists Pearl, Boogie Woogie, Coral, and Mad Scientist Monster. Each contestant shared personal reflections in their clue packages before taking the stage for their performances. Pearl impressed with a powerful version of KT Tunstall's 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,' prompting judge Ken Jeong to call her 'the Meryl Streep of Masked Singer.' The first elimination was Mad Scientist Monster, who revealed himself as Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line. Coral, unmasked as Disney Channel actress Meg Donnelly, followed. The final sing-off featured Pearl and Boogie Woogie, with the latter performing Lewis Capaldi's 'Love the Hell Out of You.' After votes from the studio audience and panel, Pearl was declared the winner. Before removing her mask, Boogie Woogie revealed his identity as singer Andy Grammer. His clue—a breast cancer ribbon—was a tribute to his late mother. Pearl's clue came in the form of sparkly trousers gifted by Dolly Parton, marking a milestone performance with her idol. She was then unmasked as Gretchen Wilson. Reflecting on the victory, Wilson said, 'I almost hit the floor!' Season 13 of The Masked Singer is now streaming on Hulu.
ABC News
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Antony Green on Take 5: Meet the music-lover behind the numbers
Millions of Australians know Antony Green AO as "that election guy", "the number cruncher" or maybe even by his official title, ABC's chief election analyst. But after more than 30 years, Green is Over that time, he's become one of the ABC's most trusted on-air figures, respected by the public and politicians alike for his impartiality, attention to detail and ability to interpret real-time data and translate it into accurate electoral predictions. Photo shows A drawn hand touching a record on a bright orange background with 'take 5' in white large letters over the top Green has An avid-music lover, Green is, perhaps unsurprisingly, full of trivia, facts and anecdotes about music history and the stories behind his picks — which include tracks from rock bands Traffic and The Pretenders, as well as a solo track from Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley, an early cut from Simple Minds and inescapable 90s hit 'Things Can Only Get Better'. "I do dig back [now]," he says. "I'm one of those people who knows every bit of detail of the Beatles records and 60s stuff, who was in what band. That sort of stuff interests me." Antony Green's Take 5 songs: Traffic — The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys The Pretenders — Up the Neck Pete Shelley — Telephone Operator Simple Minds — I Travel D:Ream — Things Can Only Get Better He's also fascinated by the technical elements of music as much as its end sound, whether that be Pete Shelley's electronic turn post-Buzzcocks, what he calls the "Dusseldorf doof doof" of Kraftwerk, or simply the process of tuning a piano. "Two of my regrets in life: one, not learning [another] language, and two, not learning any musical instruments," Green says. "I go on YouTube and watch people explain why this song works, or that song works. Why does this key change really sound fantastic to the ear? That sort of stuff fascinates me." He does admit that his taste tapers off after 1990, though down-tempo French duo Air are an exception. "That's just an age thing," he says. Loading YouTube content A life-long love affair with music Green arrived at Take 5 with his credentials at the ready — rocking an original 'exploding heads' jumper from triple j's launch in 1981. "Because it's covered with all these lines all over the place, it was a great thing to wear if you had to clean the bathroom or paint," he laughs. "It still fits, yes." Green also remembers listening to Double J's Loading YouTube content "It was a couple of years later I became a more regular listener," he says. "There was lots of the comedy stuff in the morning, which I didn't always get. It was But he credits the station with helping him broaden his tastes — though he leans towards the Euro-disco, New Wave sound. "I'm always taken by a track which has got a rhythm," he says. Photo shows ABC election analyst Antony Green Election The ABC's election guru reflects on the past 36 years at the national broadcaster in the final days before covering his last big poll on-air. Does this mean Green was clubbing back in the day? "No, I wouldn't have gone to many dance parties over the years," he says. "I think the last one I went to was somewhere in London in about 1996… Dannii Minogue sang and Kylie Minogue was presenting or something, and I [was] thinking, 'Why am I here?' "I'm from that era before everyone just got into a groove and you had this beat going, and people would mix tracks in and out. My partying time was before that; you might actually stop between songs. They wouldn't necessarily try and mix them together in the same way that became so popular." Loading YouTube content Nowadays, Green says listening to music — albums in full — is one way he relaxes. Another is cycling. He has multi-week rides through Southern Portugal and Andalusia in Spain planned for later this year. And on Saturday night, after he calls the election, there's no rest or Dusseldorf doof doof planned. "I might have one drink," he says. "I'll be very boring for the party afterwards." Take 5 with Zan Rowe airs each Friday at 10am, with new podcast episodes each Friday morning.
The Independent
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
19 hit songs hated by the musicians who wrote them
Songwriters spend their whole lives trying to hone and craft their music in such a way that it will strike a chord with listeners, but sometimes they just end up getting on their own nerves. Often it's the song that becomes an artist's most popular hit that can drive them to frustration, especially if they start to feel like their entire oeuvre has become reduced to a one-hit wonder punchline. Whether it's Nirvana hating the scent of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', or Radiohead getting the creeps from 'Creep', here are 19 songs that wound up winding up the musicians who wrote them. Oasis – 'Wonderwall' (1995) Liam and Noel Gallagher are clearly thrilled to be getting the band back together for new shows (not to mention the associated payday), but the brothers may not be quite as excited as their fans about one particular singalong moment. Back in 2008, while promoting Dig Out Your Soul, Liam Gallagher remarked of their new record: 'At least there's no 'Wonderwall' on there. I can't f***ing stand that f***ing song! Every time I have to sing it, I want to gag.' He particularly lamented the song's cultural predominance in the United States, adding: 'Problem is, it was a big, big tune for us. You go to America, and they're like: 'Are you, Mr Wonderwall?' You want to chin someone.' In a rare example of sibling agreement, Noel also isn't the biggest fan of the song. He said in a 2017 interview: ''Wonderwall' has become a worldwide hit, and I will get stopped all over the world, in any city you care to name, and people will sing 'Wonderwall'. I don't particularly like that song – I think 'Cigarettes & Alcohol' is a far superior song.' Kevin E G Perry Billy Joel – 'We Didn't Start The Fire' (1989) It's his biggest song, yet Billy Joel's distaste for the melody of 'We Didn't Start the Fire' goes back almost to the time of its release. 'It's really not much of a song,' he said in 1993, sitting at the piano for a filmed interview. 'If you take the melody by itself, terrible. Like a dentist's drill.' While he hasn't said he hates the entire song, more than 10 years later, he went on The Howard Stern Show and called it 'probably the worst musical thing I've ever written' before demonstrating the tune on the piano. Roisin O'Connor The Pretenders – 'Brass in Pocket' (1979) The Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde famously said the band's most popular hit, 'Brass in Pocket', would be released 'over my dead body'. 'I did not like it at first,' she told American Songwriter in 2019, reserving praise for the catchy riff created by their original lead guitarist, James Honeyman-Scott, who died of a drug overdose in June 1982, aged 25. Hynde later said she felt as though the track 'didn't know what it was', adding: 'I thought it sounded like it was trying to be a Motown song, but it didn't quite make it for me.' Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up It seemed she was on her own, however, as the song remains one of the bands biggest to date, reaching No 1 in the UK and No 6 in the US. 'I enjoy singing it these days,' Hynde said. 'If someone wants to hear it, it's always a pleasure… But the best thing about the song is that it always reminds me of Jimmy Scott. He was a fantastic guitar player.' ROC Charli XCX – 'Break the Rules' (2014) The British artist is regarded as one of the most innovative pop stars around, setting trends with her Grammy-winning 2024 album Brat. While she's spoken about how proud she is of Brat, she's been less favourable towards some of her earlier songs. In 2017, for instance, she told Q magazine that she 'made some rash decisions' with her second album, Sucker, singling out the single 'Break the Rules'. 'That was so bad. I hate it,' she declared. 'I wrote it at a writing camp … and I was like, 'Whoever sings this song is an idiot.'' In 2018, she told The Guardian that parts of Sucker felt 'fake' when she listened back to it: 'It was definitely a confusing experience, after 'Fancy', when things didn't really go my way,' she said. 'I didn't become, like, this huge big artist or whatever. That was definitely hard at points for sure.' ROC Guns N' Roses – 'Sweet Child o' Mine' (1987) 'Sweet Child o' Mine' gave the band their first and only No 1 single but guitarist Slash was never a fan. 'I was f***ing around with this stupid little riff,' he recalled to Q magazine in 2005. 'Axl said, 'Hold the f***ing phones! That's amazing!'' Turning the riff into an actual song proved challenging. 'Writing and rehearsing it to make it a complete song was like pulling teeth,' remembered Slash. 'For me, at the time, it was a very sappy ballad.' KP Madonna – 'Like a Virgin' (1984) Madonna is never shy of opinions, not least when it comes to her own music. The queen of pop has disowned her own hits on a number of occasions, including in a 2008 interview with New York's Z100 FM where she claimed she'd need to be paid 'like $30m or something' to sing 'Holiday' or 'Like a Virgin' again. A year later, she doubled down on her 'Like a Virgin' stance: 'For some reason people think that when you go to a restaurant or you are going shopping that you want to hear one of your own songs. It's usually 'Like a Virgin' - and that is the one I don't want to hear.' Fortunately for fans, Madonna has continued to perform the song live, most recently during her world Celebration tour. ROC Nirvana – 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' (1991) A classic example of a band setting out to write a hit and succeeding well beyond their expectations. 'I was trying to write the ultimate pop song,' Kurt Cobain told journalist David Fricke in 1994, adding that he was heavily inspired by the loud-quiet-loud dynamics of Pixies. When the song became a monster success on radio and MTV, Cobain began to refuse to play it live or else intentionally butchered it. 'Once it got into the mainstream, it was over,' he remarked. 'I'm just tired of being embarrassed by it. I'm beyond that.' He was self-aware enough to know that his loathing came because of the song's success, not despite it. 'The reason it gets a big reaction is people have seen it on MTV a million times,' he pointed out. 'It's been pounded into their brains. But I think there are so many other songs that I've written that are as good, if not better than that song, like 'Drain You'. That's definitely as good as 'Teen Spirit'. I love the lyrics, and I never get tired of playing it. Maybe if it was as big as 'Teen Spirit', I wouldn't like it as much.' KP Bruno Mars – 'The Lazy Song' (2010) Kudos to the artist who can own up to releasing a truly terrible song, which is (sort of) what Bruno Mars did a few years ago. Posting to X (Twitter), he shared a video of himself looking very unimpressed and captioned it: 'When someone tells me they actually like 'The Lazy Song'.' Released in 2010, the track is a reggae-lite earworm of the nursery rhyme variety, branded by one critic as 'the most annoying' of the year, along with Mars's other track, 'Marry You'. ROC Warrant – 'Cherry Pie' (1990) The story of how the glam rock anthem 'Cherry Pie' was baked is a tale as old as time. The second album by LA rockers Warrant was about to come out but the label insisted it didn't hear a single and wanted something more like Aerosmith's 'Love in an Elevator'. Frontman Jani Lane quickly wrote and submitted 'Cherry Pie', and Columbia Records couldn't have been happier. 'All of a sudden, the album's called Cherry Pie, the record's called 'Cherry Pie', I'm doing cherry pie-eating contests…,' Lane recalled to VH1 in 2006. 'My legacy's cherry pie. Everything about me is cherry pie. I'm a cherry pie guy. I could shoot myself in the f***ing head for writing that song.' By 2007, however, Lane was feeling more circumspect. 'I'm happy as a clam to have written a song that is still being played and still dug by so many people,' he told a radio interviewer. 'It's hard enough to write a song, let alone one that sticks around.' KP REM – 'Shiny Happy People' (1991) Included on REM's classic album Out of Time and the band's first top 10 hit in the UK, this upbeat single was also considered as a potential theme song for Friends before frontman Michael Stipe turned the sitcom down. The lyric of the chorus was lifted from a translation of a Chinese government propaganda poster published after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, while the song itself was the band's attempt to write a bubblegum pop song. Stipe has since described it as being 'primarily written for children'. The frontman also openly said the song has 'limited appeal' to him but always stopped short of outright denigrating it. 'I try to never say anything bad about the songs I don't particularly like, because there might be somebody out there who hears it to whom the song means everything, and represents something in their life that is essential,' he said. 'I don't want to take that from them.' KP Radiohead – 'Creep' (1992) Radiohead's debut single launched them into the public consciousness, but they went years without playing it live. In fairness, recording the song hadn't been their idea in the first place – producers Sean Slade and Paul Q Kolderie encouraged them to do so, and the band ended up using enough elements of the 1974 Hollies hit 'The Air That I Breathe', written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood, that they were eventually required to share the songwriting credit. In recent years, the song has started to worm its way back into their setlists. 'It's a good song,' guitarist Ed O'Brien told Rolling Stone in 2017. 'It's nice to play for the right reasons. People like it and want to hear it. We do err towards not playing it because you don't want it to feel like showbusiness. But we started throwing it in last year.' Frontman Thom Yorke added: 'We only did it once or twice this year. The first time I'm feeling the fakes we'll stop. It can be cool sometimes, but other times I want to stop halfway through and be like, 'Nah, this isn't happening.'' KP Led Zeppelin – 'Stairway to Heaven' (1971) Robert Plant was in his early twenties when he sat down to add lyrics to Jimmy Page's idea for the epic song that became 'Stairway to Heaven'. As he got older, he began to view his efforts more critically. 'If you absolutely hated 'Stairway to Heaven', no one can blame you for that because it was so... pompous,' he told Q in 1988. 'Lyrically, now, I can't relate to it, because it was so long ago. I would have no intention ever to write along those abstract lines any more.' That same year, he added in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: 'I'd break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show, I wrote those lyrics and found that song to be of some importance and consequence in 1971, but 17 years later, I don't know.' KP Willow – 'Whip My Hair' (2010) In the years after Willow Smith released her debut single, aged nine, she often spoke about it in regretful terms: 'For so long, I wanted to condemn that time of my life and forget it, just kind of push it under the rug,' she told L'Officiel in 2021. Part of this was to do with the onslaught of attention she received as the song made its way into the charts, causing her to suffer panic attacks: 'That was crazy,' she told The Independent in 2022. 'I was brainwashed into thinking, 'No, you're being a brat, suck it up.' Then I grew up, and I realised it was something that needed to be dealt with.' However, more recently, she's come to recognise that the themes in 'Whip My Hair' echo those heard in her more recent, rock-influenced work, ones 'centred around self-love and the universe and our humanity's divine path, about expressing oneself and being unapologetic,' she said. 'I listened to 'Whip My Hair' not too long ago, after many years, and realised that it's the same message.' ROC Metallica – 'Escape' (1984) 'Escape' was a late addition to Metallica's second album Ride the Lightning, and frontman James Hetfield was never truly won over by the hastily written song. The band had never once played it live before they performed the album in full at their own Orion Music + More Festival in 2012. 'This is groundbreaking right here,' Hetfield told the audience. 'This is historical for those of you who might know what's coming up next. The song that we never wanted to play live ever is now on the setlist. We're not afraid, we just hope it is good. And we'll do our best. You can sing along if you want, all right? That might help.' KP Beastie Boys – 'Fight For Your Right (To Party)' (1986) Beastie Boys member Mike D later recalled that their rabble-rousing hit 'Fight For Your Right (To Party)' was written in 'about five minutes' in the art-filled Michael Todd Room at the Palladium nightclub in New York. If they intended the song to satirise a certain jock-y, bro-y, segment of their fanbase, that message got lost in translation. 'The only thing that upsets me is that we might have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different,' Mike D complained in 1987. 'There were tons of guys singing along to ['Fight for Your Right'] who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them. Irony is often missed.' KP Cyndi Lauper – 'The Goonies 'R' Good Enough' (1985) The 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' star has admitted in interviews that she 'hates' the song released in support of Steve Spielberg's 1985 film, The Goonies. 'I think she felt it was an infringement on her creativity, which I agreed with,' music supervisor Joel Sill told the Willamette Week of a tussle over the original song name, which was simply, 'Good Enough'. 'But all of us had a bigger responsibility to the movie. It was a big investment we all had in utilising the music to sell the film, and the film would then sell the music.' Lauper apparently pushed back on changing the lyrics to make them more heavily reference the film, but relented (albeit unhappily) on changing the song title. However, in recent years she appears to have conceded to fan demand when it comes to performing the track live, as it has appeared on some of the setlists for her recent farewell tour. ROC Pink – 'Don't Let Me Get Me' (2001) Pink's cry-for-help single 'Don't Let Me Get Me' was critically acclaimed and an international chart hit when it was first released, but a decade later the song's creator had completely had enough of it. 'I wish I could burn that song and never sing it again!' she told the Los Angeles Times in 2012, although she did manage to laugh about it. KP The Who – 'Pinball Wizard' (1969) 'Pinball Wizard' is regarded by many as the centrepiece of The Who's 1969 concept album Tommy, but it's held in somewhat less regard by the man who wrote it, Pete Townshend. 'I knocked it off. I thought, 'Oh, my God this is awful, the most clumsy piece of writing I've ever done. Oh my God, I'm embarrassed. This sounds like a music hall song,' he recalled later. 'I scribbled it out and all the verses were the same length and there was no kind of middle eight. It was going to be a complete dud, but I carried on.' KP Ariana Grande – 'Put Your Hearts Up' (2011) These days Ariana Grande is a pop behemoth. With over 98 billion global streams the Florida-born singer is one of the most listened-to artists in the world, but her transition from Nickelodeon child star to musician didn't get off to the smoothest start. Her debut single 'Put Your Hearts Up', co-written by 4 Non Blondes' Linda Perry, was a bubblegum pop song that Grande later told Rolling Stone she felt was 'inauthentic and fake'. She added: 'For the video, they gave me a bad spray tan and put me in a princess dress and had me frolic around the street. The whole thing was straight out of hell. I still have nightmares about it, and I made them hide it on my Vevo page.' KP
The Independent
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Bafta viewers praise David Tennant's second stint as host: ‘This is how you open an awards show'
Not every joke can be a winner – but David Tennant 's second stint as Baftas host has been mostly approved by viewers. Celebrating the best in British film, the 2025 Bafta Film Awards took place on Sunday (16 February) with Hollywood's brightest stars descending upon London's Royal Albert Hall. Tennant, 53, returned to host the ceremony for a second time, making a splash in a bedazzled suit. The Doctor Who star got off to a show-stopping start, performing a musical opening number in which he sang a rendition of 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)' by The Pretenders, with appearances from James McAvoy, Anna Kendrick, Selena Gomez, and Colman Domingo, all of whom chimed in from their auditorium seats. Elsewhere, he earned a laugh when he referred to Donald Trump as a villain and likened the US president to 'Beetlejuice'. Less of a hit, however, was the actor's joke about Putin, which reportedly earned a groan from the star-studded crowd, which included Selena Gomez, Timothee Chalamet, Pamela Anderson, Soarise Ronan, and Hugh Grant. Speaking to the audience, Tennant referenced the nominated film Anora, which follows the story of a sex worker in Brooklyn who falls in love with a Russian oligarch's son. 'We have to mention Anora, the tale of a young woman falling in love with the son of a Russian Oligarch,' he said. 'Where would normal people even meet someone like that – Putin-der?' he joked, in reference to the Russian president and the dating app Tinder. Elsewhere in his monologue, Tennant made fun of the length of some of the films, asking: "If you do win, please keep your speeches the opposite to your films, nice and short." He said: 'In Conclave Stanley Tucci plays Cardinal Bellini, which makes a lot of sense, because if anyone knows how to whip up an excellent Bellini.' "You look like you've all had a couple of shots of The Substance," he also joked. The Substance is a body horror film where Demi Moore's fading Hollywood icon takes a black market drug to enhance her appearance and revamp her career.
