20/05/2026

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World Cup half-time show o Madonna, Shakira, BTS to perform during break period of final match

FKA Twigs. – IMDBPIC

M ADONNA, Shakira and K-pop megastars BTS will headline a Super Bowl-style half-time show at the World Cup final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, organisers recently said. Coldplay’s Chris Martin is curating the show, which is a first for a football World Cup final. The biggest-ever World Cup, with 48 teams, kicks off on June 11 in the US, Canada and Mexico. Fifa president Gianni Infantino announced in March last year that there would be “the first-ever half-time show at a Fifa World Cup final”. He did not say at the time who would be performing or how long the show and half-time would take. “This will be a historic moment for the Fifa World Cup and a show befitting the biggest sporting event in the world,” he said on Instagram. The move mirrors the show held during the final of the 2024 Copa America in Miami when Colombian star Shakira performed at half-time at the Hard Rock Stadium. There was also a half-time show at last year’s Fifa Club World Cup final, also at MetLife Stadium, which stretched the break in excess of the regulation 15 minutes. Infantino added Fifa also planned to “take over” New York’s T i m e s Square on the final

BRITISH music star FKA Twigs is to play Josephine Baker in a new biopic of the Roaring Twenties icon who became a hero of the French Resistance and the American civil rights movement. The movie will tell the “incredible story of the magnificent, incomparable” dancer and singer, its producers said at the Cannes Film Festival. Born into grinding poverty in St Louis, Missouri, Baker became one of the first global superstars. But she refused to perform before segregated audiences in the US and spent much of her life in France. She was the first black woman to be given a place in the Pantheon where France’s national heroes are buried, after helping the French Resistance during World War II and also spying on the Nazis for the British and US intelligence services. FKA Twigs, who is also a singer and choreographer, said Baker’s“extraordinary legacy is such an inspiration to me and to so many people”. “I cannot wait”to bring“her fight, her love, her losses, her talent and her heroism to the big screen”, the Grammy winner added. As well as aiding the Allied fight against fascism, Baker was a leading voice against racial discrimination in her homeland and spoke alongside Martin Luther King Jr at the 1963 march on Washington. The movie by rising French director Maimouna Doucoure of Cuties fame will start shooting later this year. Producers StudioCanal said they had worked with Baker’s sons Jean-Claude Bouillon Baker and Brian Bouillon Baker on the script. – AFP Singer FKA Twigs to play anti-racist icon Josephine Baker

Madonna. – AFPPIC

weekend of the World Cup. Shakira last week teased the new official song for the 2026 World Cup, releasing a brief video of the track filmed at Brazil’s iconic Maracana Stadium. The singer – who also created the 2010 World Cup anthem Waka Waka – announced the song, titled Dai Dai in a post on her Instagram account. In the 67-second video, Shakira appears on the pitch at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro where she recently performed in a free concert at the city’s Copacabana Beach before two million people. Holding the “Trionda”, the official match

ball of the 2026 World Cup, Shakira performed excerpts of the song in English, joined by

dancers dressed in the colors of teams including US and Colombia. The song was produced with Nigerian artiste Burna Boy and was released last week. The clip, also shared by

Shakira. – PICS FROM IMDB

the Fifa World Cup account, ends with the message: “We’re ready!” Shakira has a long association with the World Cup, performing at the 2006 and 2014 World Cup finals in addition to producing Waka Waka for the 2010 tournament. – AFP

BTS.

Conan O’Brien to host Academy Awards for third consecutive time

COMEDIAN Conan O’Brien will return to host the Academy Awards in 2027 for a third straight year, broadcaster ABC recently said, after the former late-night TV host drew positive reviews and helped lift Oscars viewership from pandemic-era lows. Viewership for the Oscars telecast reached a five-year high in 2025 with 19.7 million viewers when O’Brien hosted for the first time. The audience dropped to 17.9 million this year, according to ratings data from Nielsen. ABC announced O’Brien’s return during a Walt Disney presentation to advertisers in New York. Disney owns ABC and Hulu, which will stream the next Oscars ceremony

in March. The 63-year-old O’Brien, an Emmy winning comedian, is best known for hosting the late-night talk shows Late Night with Conan O’Brien , The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien and Conan . He currently hosts the HBO Max travel show Conan O’Brien Must Go and the podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend . Viewership for awards shows has been declining for years as TV audiences have shifted to streaming and social media. The ceremony hit a low point in 2021 with roughly 9.5 million viewers. The Oscars show will move to YouTube in 2029. – Reuters

O’Brien is credited with boosting Oscars viewership. – IMDBPIC

An image of the real-life Baker. – WIKIPEDIAPIC