EDGE: Bark of Millions draws inspiration from queer figures throughout history. Where did the original idea come from?

TM: Well, I had done a show called A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, a durational performance art concert where I sang 240 songs from the American canon. What I realized through performing all of those songs was that very few of them, maybe three, were actually intended for queer people. A lot of them were written by queer people, but most were created through a heterosexual, cisgender lens.

When I finished that project, I realized that my whole life, I had been listening to the radio and translating almost every song I heard into a queer experience. There have been centuries of omission, erasure, and oppression that have required queer people to constantly stretch themselves toward the dominant culture. And I thought, let me do my bit to change that.

So I called up Matt Ray and asked if he would make a new show with me where we would write many, many, many songs inspired by queer people throughout world history. We started with 50 songs, and now we're up to 57, although the book includes the first 50.

At its heart, the project is an attempt to heal a little bit from all that omission and to explore what queerness is, simply to wonder about it through song. One thing I've learned from being a singer is that songs help us understand our humanity. So, if we're missing all of these songs about queerness, are we also missing a big part of who we are?

The Daughters of Bilitis had a mission to add to what they called "the living library of the deviant theme." And I thought, Yeah, that's what I want to do. I want to be part of that effort, to add to that living library and hopefully inspire other people to do the same.

As far as I know, in the history of songbooks, there has never been a queer songbook published by a major publisher. That's kind of unfathomable to me, although, given the history of queer erasure, I suppose it also makes sense. I've looked, and I haven't found another one. So it's shocking that this may be the first.

EDGE: You’ve described the work as responding to the omission and erasure of queer people from history. Did you discover a particular person or story while creating the show that completely surprised you?

TM: I mean, a lot. Some of the people are world-famous, like Audre Lorde or Oscar Wilde, and some are simply the queen down the street who I happen to know, meet, or encounter. I wasn't approaching this as a historian. I leave that to the historians. And I wasn't really thinking of it as representation, either. I don't even know how to represent myself in a song, let alone another person or an entire demographic.

What I wanted was for the songs to be acts of wondering about queerness, about queer spirituality, courage, defense, trauma, love, and community. That was really the larger exploration.

And yes, I discovered things about people I've known for most of my adult life, everything from something simple they once said to how they died, who they loved, or what they had to keep secret. But I also discovered people and stories I had never encountered before.

One of the people who inspired a song is Shwe Shue in Myanmar, who is genderqueer. She runs a beauty parlor in a small shack, and it has essentially become a community center for queer people. People from Yangon come to her little shack to hang out and have created this safe place for themselves. It's quite remarkable.
It's hard to say whether this exploration helped me find her story or whether life brought the story to me and then the song was inspired by it. I don't necessarily know which came first. But that's the kind of story that so many people simply don't know about.

We also recently wrote a song inspired by Area Scatter, a Nigerian woman who was assigned male at birth. According to her story, she went into the woods or jungle one day and emerged as a woman, and the town blessed her, believing it was a great blessing from the earth. That feels incredibly profound, particularly when you consider the realities queer people face in Nigeria today.

So, yes, I'm constantly discovering things about these figures, these people, and even these myths. Some of the songs are inspired by queer mythology.  I also didn't know about Tu'er Shen, the Taoist deity associated with same-sex love. I even visited Tu'er Shen's temple in Taipei and spoke with the people who run it.

It's fascinating to discover how much is out there for us to explore, consider, and wonder about.

EDGE: With so many queer figures and stories to choose from, how did you decide whose lives would inspire songs?

TM: Well, one of the things I've always said is that this is an open-ended project. This is Volume One, and maybe in 20 years we'll publish Volume Two. And then maybe we'll pass it on to somebody else to continue. There really is no end to the project because all of the songs are inspired by different queer people from throughout world history, and that's an enormous well to draw from. The more historians teach us about these people and bring their stories to light, the more songs there are to be written.

The idea was never for the project to end, and that actually freed me from having to ask, Who's more important? Whose story needs to be told? Instead, we can simply follow the people and stories that inspire us.

And sometimes that's someone like Donald Gallagher, this queen who lives down the street from me and has a rainbow beard. He's just a delight. Every time he walks into a room, you know you're in the right place because everyone's face lights up. He's simply a wonder.

So we wrote a song inspired by Donald because it's fun to do that, too, to celebrate the people who may not be famous historical figures, but who light up a room and bring joy to the people around them.

Mackie, the celebrated fashion and costume designer, died at age 87 on Sept. 14 at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California.

The certificate states that Mackie fell and sustained an injury on Sept. 11 at the home of Joseph McFate, his longtime design director.

A representative clarified to Us Weekly that Mackie was staying in the guest house at McFate’s home and that a healthcare professional was with him when he fell.

The representative also said Mackie had pneumonia both before and after his hospitalization.

Pneumonia and the certificate

The newly reported details add to the initial public account of Mackie’s death: the Associated Press reported on Sept. 14 that his publicist said he died from pneumonia.

Us Weekly’s account distinguishes the immediate causes listed on the certificate—subarachnoid hemorrhage and blunt head trauma—from pneumonia, which it says was recorded as the official cause of death.

The available reporting does not establish further medical details about the relationship between the injuries, the hemorrhage and Mackie’s pneumonia.

The certificate also records that Mackie was cremated on Sept. 17 and that his remains were scattered at sea off the coast of San Diego County, California.

A career in fashion and costume

Mackie’s designs helped define the glamour associated with television and entertainment, and he was known for creating costumes for performers including Cher and Carol Burnett.

The Associated Press reported that Mackie designed for a broad range of entertainers, among them Marilyn Monroe, Diana Ross, Madonna and Barbra Streisand.

His work with Burnett included costumes for “The Carol Burnett Show,” while his later television work included “The Sonny and Cher Show.”

Among the designs the Associated Press highlighted was the curtain dress worn by Burnett in a parody of “Gone With the Wind,” a costume later placed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Mackie’s career also extended to stage productions, including “The Cher Show,” for which he won a Tony Award, according to the Associated Press.

The Associated Press reported that he received nine Emmy Awards and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Tributes and what remains known

Mackie’s representatives announced his death on the day he died, saying he had spent his 87 years pursuing his dream of being a fashion and costume designer.

Cher and Burnett later shared tributes to the designer, whose work was closely associated with both performers.

The new certificate information has been reported by Us Weekly, Deadline and the New York Daily News, with each account attributing the details to the document obtained by Us Weekly.

Those reports consistently describe the certificate’s immediate-cause listing, the Sept. 11 fall and Mackie’s death three days later, while also noting the previously announced pneumonia.

The Welsh actor made the remarks in an interview with "The Telegraph" published October 2. Fox News and the "Daily Mail" reported on them October 4, linking his comments to questions about political expectations of gay people and the relationship between identity and acting roles.

What Evans said

“Just because you are gay yourself doesn’t mean you have to be woke,” Evans said, according to "The Telegraph". He added: “Your sexuality is one part of who you are, but our opinions on society and life differ in every single person.”

Evans said his gay friends do not all share the same outlook, telling the newspaper: “I’ve got very woke gay friends and very unwoke gay friends. We don’t all agree on the same thing.”

The reports frame the statement as a rejection of the assumption that LGBTQ+ identity automatically entails a particular set of political beliefs. Evans’s remarks describe his own view; they do not establish what gay people generally believe, nor do the reports provide polling or other evidence about political attitudes among LGBTQ+ communities.

Identity and acting roles

The interview also addressed Evans’s experience playing characters whose sexuality differs from his own. He said he had played mostly straight, masculine roles during his career and had enjoyed doing so.

Evans argued that limiting gay actors to gay characters would have restricted his own opportunities. At the same time, he acknowledged a lack of opportunities for gay actors to play gay characters and for transgender actors to play transgender characters, according to the coverage of his interview.

He also said that he believed the time had passed for prominent Hollywood actors to play transgender characters, and that such roles should no longer go to them.

The comments put two points alongside each other: Evans’s opposition to restricting performers to roles that match their identities, and his view that transgender performers should have greater access to transgender roles. The reports attribute these positions to Evans; they do not describe a new industry policy or a formal change to casting practice.

The project behind the discussion

The interview took place as Evans discussed "The Party", an upcoming ITV drama. Fox News connected his comments about identity and politics to the show, while the BBC separately reported that Evans had found himself a leading role in the drama.

The available coverage does not suggest that Evans was announcing a political affiliation or endorsing a specific party or policy. Rather, his quoted comments challenge the expectation that sexuality should determine a person’s views on society and life.

They’re distressed by news that a female actor — the Oscar-winning Meryl Streep — will be voicing the role of Aslan the lion in “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew.” Aslan is considered a literary representation of Jesus Christ in the seven Narnia books by British Christian author C.S. Lewis, published in the 1950s. The books depict the lion as male, with a glorious mane.

Filmmakers routinely take license in adapting books — compressing timelines, combining characters and more. Gerwig herself is resetting “The Magician’s Nephew” from around 1900 to the 1950s.

The casting of Streep doesn't necessarily mean that Aslan will be depicted as female. But to conservative Christian critics, even the possibility of portraying a divine Christ figure as anything but male goes beyond artistic license. They deem it an attack on their faith, noting that the Bible and ancient creeds speak of God the Father and Jesus as the Son of God.

“This is a well-known ploy of the enemies of God, to subvert and destroy symbols of Christianity in an effort to win a war of attrition for the heart of the culture,” wrote Seth Udinsky in a column for the Christian Post, an evangelical news website. He contended that Gerwig is turning Aslan “transgender,” citing a newly released photo from the movie’s promoters, depicting the lion with rainbow-tinted whiskers.

Similar comments, and rebuttals, appear in numerous replies to Netflix's posting about the casting on Instagram.

Some Lewis scholars and aficionados are taking a wait-and-see approach. The Netflix production is scheduled for theatrical release in February.

Kat Coffin, a New York-based writer and scholar of Lewis, said she has questions about the casting decision but added: “I am far more disturbed by the people who are violently opposed and angry at the idea that the incarnation of God could be anything even hinted toward feminine.”

Gerwig wanted a ‘profound but not pretentious’ voice

Gerwig, in public statements, hasn’t addressed the gender question directly, but did say she saw Streep as one of the few actors who could meet her criteria for Aslan’s voice.

“I wanted someone who was profound but not pretentious, who had gravitas but not morose self-seriousness,” Gerwig said. “Someone who could communicate depth and pathos as well as joy and delight. I wanted someone who was older than 70, so there was a wisdom of experience, but who also had the capacity of fresh wonder, like a child. And also to be one of the greatest actors to ever do it.”

Gerwig said she first read “The Magician’s Nephew” as a child, falling in love with the story and its enchanted world.

Gerwig is known for bringing feminist interpretations to her acclaimed movies "Barbie” and “Little Women,” also based on intellectual properties that have long been popular with children.

Further raising hackles is a report in the movie magazine Empire that Gerwig took inspiration from the pop artist David Bowie, known for his gender ambiguity, in depicting the lion with different-colored eyes and “bold red-striped visage.”

“The Magician’s Nephew” — published in 1955, eight years before Lewis’ death — tells the story of two children, Digory and Polly, who are sent to parallel worlds by evil magic. They ultimately arrive in the newly created, fantastical land of Narnia, but they inadvertently bring with them the evil witch, Jadis. In this and subsequent Narnia books, Aslan leads his young followers in combating and defeating evil.

Critic says Gospel themes can't be treated like ‘The Odyssey’

For Ted Baehr, having a woman portray Aslan is a direct challenge to Christian doctrine on the nature of God.

Baehr is founder and publisher of Movieguide, which advises Christian parents on what to watch.

“This movie could do very well, but the better it does, there’s a lot of Christians who will be concerned for their children and grandchildren,” said Baehr, who led a company that produced a 1979 animated television version of another Narnia book.

Baehr praised Gerwig’s directing skills but said she may not understand the issue's importance to many Christians. While Lewis said his Narnia books are not allegories, they do closely parallel biblical stories and concepts. Baehr said they can’t be adapted as readily as the recent Christopher Nolan movie “The Odyssey” did with Greek myth.

"The Gospel is not a myth," he said.

The criticisms reflect the deep bond that many Christians, particularly evangelicals, feel with Lewis, who promoted Christian teachings and themes through fiction and nonfiction.

Narnia has a broad reader base, with reported sales of 120 million books worldwide since the first volume's publication 75 years ago this month. Its Christian readers feel a particular sense of ownership.

“I know a lot of people who are genuinely concerned, because the original stories mean so much to them,” said Christin Ditchfield Lazo, an author of books on Lewis.

The Narnia series has “had a profound impact on the lives of millions of people — especially people of faith, who love the spiritual truths in these stories and want them to be faithfully represented,” she said.

Ditchfield Lazo urged Christians to reserve judgment.

“There’s a huge difference between a woman voicing a male character and the director changing the gender of the character,” she said. “It could be problematic, but we won’t know until we see the film.”

She noted that men and women have often played or voiced each others’ roles, from Shakespearean drama to modern animations.

Lewis family statement supports Gerwig's work

Many evangelicals did embrace the early 2000s movies based on the first three Narnia books, with actor Liam Neeson providing the deep, masculine voice of Aslan.

Coffin said that God has been portrayed with feminine characteristics in other literary works — including Narnia itself, where Aslan also appears as a lamb with a “sweet milky voice.”

“I would describe that as a feminine presentation,” Coffin said.

A statement from the family of Lewis’ late wife, Joy Davidman Gresham, praised Gerwig for her “sincere passion” for the Narnia works.

“We saw this enthusiasm during our visit to the set in London,” said the statement, provided by Netflix. “We are thrilled to be working with such a talented and accomplished director and production team, and are keen to continue working with them on future projects.”

The C.S. Lewis Co. — holders of Lewis intellectual property rights and producers on the film — stated: “It’s incredibly moving to see how deeply Greta Gerwig has embraced C.S. Lewis’ world, and infused ‘Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew’ with joy, heart, and genuine love for the story.”

Boone said he had no separate backstage bathroom and did not realize the restroom available to him was shared with the audience. “Anyone in the audience could be in the bathroom I was in, and I didn’t know that,” he said, according to "People" and "Billboard".

He recalled being in the middle of using the restroom when someone came in. Boone said he initially assumed the person was a friend and did not turn around; after hearing a gasp, he realized it was a fan.

The singer described his pants as being “fully at my ankles” and said the fan recognized him. Boone said he asked whether the fan was coming to the show, then pulled up his clothes and shook the fan’s hand before washing his own.

Boone characterized the encounter as awkward and said he was “horrified.” He also described the fan as understanding and said they had a pleasant interaction after the initial surprise.

When the incident took place

The encounter itself was not recent. Boone said it happened about two and a half years before he recounted it on the podcast, during the first show of a tour, according to "Billboard" and "People".

"Billboard" noted that the encounter occurred during the early stages of Boone's touring career, long before his transition to major arena shows. In the interview, Boone did not identify the specific venue, city, or date of the bathroom encounter, emphasizing instead how early it was in his performance history.

The distinction matters: the new development is Boone’s public retelling in a podcast interview, while the bathroom encounter he described dates back roughly two and a half years. Reports published Oct. 2 by "People", "Billboard" and "Entertainment Weekly" all describe the same interview and recounting.

What remains unclear

The published accounts do not establish where the concert took place, the identity of the fan, or the venue’s restroom arrangements beyond Boone’s recollection that the bathroom was shared with audience members. Those details should not be inferred from the tour description alone.

Katie Rose Clarke will play Parton, reprising the role from the musical’s Nashville production. Carrie St. Louis will portray Parton as a young singer-songwriter seeking a break in Nashville, and 11-year-old Norah Nunes will play “Little Dolly,” representing Parton’s childhood.

John Behlmann will play Carl Dean, Parton’s husband, and Gabriel Ebert will portray country performer Porter Wagoner, an early collaborator who introduced Parton to a national television audience.

The five-person announcement identifies the principal roles, rather than a complete company roster; Deadline said additional casting and other production details would be announced later.

From Nashville to Broadway

The show is scheduled to begin previews at Broadway’s St. James Theatre on Dec. 7, with opening night set for Jan. 19, 2027. The opening date would have been Parton’s 81st birthday, a connection also reported by Billboard and USA Today.

Before its Broadway transfer, the musical had its world premiere in Nashville, Parton’s hometown. The production tells Parton’s story through her words and songs, and its score includes new music as well as familiar hits such as “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “9 to 5.”

Parton shared the book-writing credit with Maria S. Schlatter, while Bartlett Sher is directing. The production’s music team includes music supervisor Stephen Oremus, music director Charity Wicks, orchestrator John Clancy, and musical consultant Kent Wells, among other collaborators.

A student-ticket plan

Alongside the casting news, the producers announced a plan, developed with the New York City Department of Education, to make 30,000 free tickets available to New York City public school middle and high school students during the show’s first year on Broadway. Consequence also reported the proposed ticket initiative, noting that further details were still to come.

The announcement adds an education-access element to a production centered on Parton’s life and music. Its scale and eligibility are specified in the initial reporting: the plan covers 30,000 tickets for public middle and high school students in New York City during the musical’s first Broadway year. The reports do not yet provide details about how students or schools can obtain the tickets.

A production shaped by Parton’s choices

The casting announcement presents Parton’s involvement as central to the Broadway production: multiple outlets report that she personally chose the five performers before her death. Clarke’s return from the Nashville production connects the upcoming Broadway staging with the show’s earlier incarnation, while St. Louis and Nunes are assigned distinct stages of Parton’s life.

The production is scheduled to open in January 2027, following its December preview performances at the St. James Theatre. Until further casting and ticketing information is released, the announced five leads and the student-ticket plan are the principal new details confirmed in the Oct. 2 reports.

“I think my understanding is that queerbaiting is when someone is falsely portraying themselves as queer,” Innanen said. He added that Paul Baker is “pretty fluid to the core” and said that quality had resonated with people.

Innanen also acknowledged that some viewers had criticized the storyline for placing a bisexual or fluid man in a heterosexual relationship. He said the love triangle felt accepted, natural and true to the character, concluding: “I think that there wasn’t much queerbait to him.”

PinkNews and Elite Daily published coverage of the remarks on October 1. Both reported that Innanen’s comments came in the "Variety" interview and highlighted the tension he described between Paul’s relationships with women and men.

Paul Baker’s storyline

"Variety" describes Paul Baker as a newer member of the show’s central friend group and says that the second season places him at the center of a love triangle involving Issa, played by Amita Rao, and Anton, played by Owen Thiele. The interview characterizes Paul as “sexually fluid” and describes the relationships as part of the season’s story.

The coverage distinguishes the character’s on-screen sexuality from Innanen’s identity: "Variety" frames the question around Innanen as a straight actor portraying Paul, while the character is sexually fluid. PinkNews likewise reported that distinction and described the criticism as focused partly on a fluid male character being involved in a relationship with a woman.

In the interview, Innanen said some viewers had told him that Paul’s story helped them learn about their own sexuality. He recalled people saying they had discovered they were fluid rather than bisexual, and described feeling a “representative responsibility” while being glad the experience could be represented.

Those comments describe what Innanen said viewers shared with him; they do not establish how widely the character’s storyline has affected audiences. The interview provides no audience survey or broader measure of the show’s impact.

What the coverage establishes

The reporting supports a specific account of Innanen’s position: he does not think Paul Baker’s story amounts to queerbaiting because the character’s fluidity is explicit and shapes the plot, while acknowledging that viewers questioned a fluid male character’s involvement with a woman. The comments are Innanen’s interpretation of the term and of the show’s character—not a ruling on the meaning of queerbaiting or proof that every viewer agrees with his assessment.

Elite Daily also situated the discussion within broader online debate about queerbaiting and cited a dictionary definition emphasizing the deliberate teasing of LGBTQ+ characters or relationships while keeping their identities ambiguous. That framing differs from Innanen’s brief explanation, which focused on someone falsely presenting themself as queer. The sources therefore document his answer and the criticism he acknowledged, rather than a shared definition of the term.

Innanen’s interview also touched on what might come next for Paul and Anton. He said he hoped there would be stability for the pair, while noting he did not know whether that would happen. The interview did not confirm a future storyline.

“Crisco,” the country star's 11th studio album, is a collection of boogie-forward tracks, buoyed by sweeping strings and what sounds like a wink from the dance floor. It's out Friday.

“I’ve spent a lot of my career with fiery songs and heartbreak songs and this record just has a lot of joy on it, and I think that’s just where I am right now in life, too,” Miranda says.

The title track is almost a mission statement: “Baby, we’ve been cookin’ with Crisco/Ain’t we mixin’ country and disco/Stir it around, give it a spin/And it’s a rhinestone world we’re livin’ in.”

“I’ve just never explored that before. I really am a Merle Haggard girl, you know what I mean? I just love three chords and the truth,” says Lambert. “I just felt like I, maybe at this point, earned the creative freedom to try something fun and try something different.”

Lambert has reasons to be smiling

The album release caps a special few months that include getting seven Country Music Association Awards nominations, a disco ball-filled performance at the Academy of Country Music Awards that got attendees up and boogying, and making history as co-writer of the crossover-smash “Choosin’ Texas.”

That tune sung by Ella Langley has gone six times platinum, been crowned Billboard’s official 2026 Song of the Summer and helped her become the only woman to simultaneously hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts. It was just named the longest-running No. 1 hit in the U.S.

“We never would have thought just sitting there, on a back porch with a couple of beers and guitars, writing a country song, that it would take over like it has,” Lambert says.

“I’m thrilled that ‘Choosin’ Texas’ is a country song and the world is loving it. Like that makes me happy. I’ve dedicated my entire adult life to country music so that alone is like so much happiness for me.”

Lambert and Langley wrote “Choosin’ Texas” with Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor. It's a song exploring what it feels like when someone is falling out of love with you and Lambert can only guess why America has fallen so in love with it.

“It kind of feels like something fresh, but something you’ve also heard before. When you hear it, you’re like, ‘I kind of want to sing along to this, even though it’s the first time you heard it.’ You know what I mean?”

Lambert co-produced Langley’s album “Dandelion,” the first time she's produced another artist, something she says she enjoyed. Langley returns the favor by being featured on the swaggering opening “Crisco” song “Snakeskin Boots.”

“I think the reason that we are drawn to each other is because I see a lot of my young self in her,” Lambert says of Langley. “She’s definitely a pistol. She’s fiery. She knows exactly what she wants. She’s a true artist and songwriter and she’s an inspiring person to be around.”

Lambert also has good news about another fellow country artist, squashing any lingering beef she had with Kacey Musgraves. The two collaborated on “Horses and Divorces” — “Maybe we’re more alike than we think,” they sing — on Musgraves' new “Middle of Nowhere” album.

Miranda points to the “crazy grind of this business” for prompting ebbs and flows in their relationship and the stress during “early stages of your career, trying to really plant your feet in the ground, plant your stake in the ground, and say, ‘This is my spot.’”

“Sometimes it gets tricky when you're navigating that with other female artists and it was really cool to just come together and talk about it and it's, as we say, whiskey under the bridge now.”

‘Crisco’ and how disco and country fused this time

“Crisco” came to life after she and Chris Stapleton wrote and recorded the lovely “A Song To Sing,” their version of “Islands in the Stream,” which earned two Grammy Award nominations.

“We wrote this song a few years ago and it really opened up my mind to exploring different sounds. I think it set us on the path to explore more and got me really curious about parts of country music I hadn’t explored yet, which eventually inspired the entire record,” she says.

The video features Lambert and Stapleton in matching red suits at a roller rink. If you look carefully, you'll see she's wearing a pair of Dolly Parton’s hoop earrings lent out by the late superstar and he's got on a Kenny Rogers necklace.

“I feel like I’ve got to thank her a little bit for this record because that song, that video, that whole day, having a little piece of her around me all day, definitely inspired me for this whole project.”

Grammy Award-winning songwriter Natalie Hemby, who has cut some 40 songs with Lambert over 20 years collaborating, co-wrote and played on five tracks this time, including “Snakeskin Boots.”

“Every record has just been completely different from the next, but I would say this is the most fun era that I’ve had, as far as writing for a project of hers,” says Hemby. “Her star is just shining so bright, as big as Texas, if you will.”

Miranda says country music is in a great spot right now, reminding her of the 1990s when there was something for everyone and a lot of female artists.

“There is finally room for everyone,” she says. “We’re not fighting for like only 30 spots on the chart. And people find music all different kinds of ways now. That has allowed for there to be all kinds of voices out there within our genre.”

Clarkson made her case during the show’s “I Don’t Think So, Honey” segment, where she offered a brief argument about AI. She said she was “very into it artistically” and enjoyed experimenting with it, but objected to AI artists “competing on a chart with humans.”

“I think there should be a separate chart,” Clarkson said. She described AI as “welcome to the table” and said it could enable people who “maybe can’t do certain things” to create music.

Her position, as reported from the podcast, was not a call to exclude AI from music altogether. Instead, she argued that human and AI-generated work should be distinguishable and that each could have an audience. “We can’t lose human,” she said, while adding that “there could be an appetite for both.”

Clarkson compared the prospect of AI artists competing against human performers to robots competing with people in the Olympics, asking rhetorically who would throw an object farther. The analogy framed her objection as one of categories and comparison, rather than a rejection of all AI-assisted creativity.

A debate over categories and disclosure

Clarkson’s comments arrive as the music business grapples with how to identify and account for songs made with AI. On August 25, "Billboard" said it was committed to greater transparency around AI use, including identifying songs using AI on its charts and in its editorial coverage.

That announcement described an identification and transparency approach; it did not announce that AI-generated music would be placed on separate charts. "The Hollywood Reporter" likewise reported that AI-generated music had not been banned from "Billboard" and noted the publication’s commitment to identifying songs that use AI.

The distinction matters: labeling a song’s use of AI can inform audiences and chart readers, while assigning AI-generated music to a separate chart would change how those songs are ranked against one another. Clarkson’s comments addressed the latter question, but her proposal does not itself establish a charting policy or indicate that "Billboard" will adopt one.

"Billboard" said that greater transparency from artists and creators, combined with reliable tools for identifying AI-generated music, would be important to its effort. It also pointed to the development of tools and initiatives, including Luminate’s announced AI-detection program.

The chart question therefore involves more than a proposed division between human and AI work. Identifying the presence of AI, deciding how much AI use merits a label, and determining which songs qualify for a given chart are related but separate issues; the sources reporting Clarkson’s remarks and "Billboard"’s policy announcement describe transparency commitments, not a settled universal standard.

What Clarkson said—and what she did not

Clarkson described AI’s potential in broad, positive terms, saying it could be “really cool and creative” and pointing to its possible use by people who may not be able to do certain things without such tools. She also said AI was not going away and praised its use in scientific work.

At the same time, she said she did not want AI artists competing with human performers on the same chart. Her proposed solution was a separate ranking, allowing listeners to engage with both forms of music without treating them as directly interchangeable in a single chart category.

The available reporting does not establish that Clarkson’s comments were a formal policy proposal to a chart company, nor does it report a response from "Billboard" to her specific suggestion. Her remarks were made in a podcast conversation, and the separate-chart idea should be understood as her stated view rather than an announced industry change.

For now, the contrast is between Clarkson’s preference for separate chart categories and "Billboard"’s stated commitment to disclose AI use in its charts and coverage. The conversation highlights an unresolved question for the music industry: how best to make AI’s role visible while ranking music made through different creative processes.