Christina Aguilera winking at the camera as part of Grindr’s new partnership with the singer. – Photo: Grindr, via Instagram.
Christina Aguilera has partnered with Grindr as part of the promotion for her upcoming headlining set at San Francisco’s Portola Music Festival on September 20. According to a September 15 announcement from the LGBTQ app, Aguilera — dubbed Grindr’s new “wingwoman” — will lend her voice as a notification alert, letting users know they’ve got a message from a potential match.
From September 15 to 22, Grindr will swap its iconic “bloop” notification for the opening notes of Aguilera’s 1999 No. 1 hit “Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You),” promoting her Portola performance in the process.
The new sound will roll out automatically for U.S. users, but only if they’ve downloaded the latest update (Version 25.15.10) and enabled the “sound” toggle under notifications.
“Portola, Grindr, and me? That’s a threesome I can get behind,” Aguilera quipped in a statement. “When that ‘Come On Over’ sound hits at the festival, or wherever you’re celebrating, I hope things get spicy!”
In an Instagram video promoting the collaboration, Aguilera sits in a chair while three gay assistants prep her for Portola. When she hears her own voice repeatedly singing “Come on Over,” she gets flustered, asking, “Guys, what the fuck is that?” Each assistant then abandons her to check their Grindr DMs.
Looking straight into the camera, Aguilera then coyly asks, “Hi, gays, are you ready to ‘Come on Over’?” and winks.
Aguilera has long been celebrated as an LGBTQ ally, with her 2002 hit “Beautiful” embraced as a queer anthem. In a 2017 Pride Month “love letter” for Billboard, she thanked her queer fans for their unwavering support and the impact they’ve had on her career.
“Starting out in my career, there was a lot of uncertainty for me as to who I was and where I fit in,” she wrote. “So many labels and so many of society’s rules telling me how I should be and what I should be. Yet even in my earliest years, when I wanted to scream and jump out of my own skin for not fitting the perfect pop star mold, there was a small group of friends that stood by me and still do today. My own little gay inner circle filled with dancers, choreographers, and glam folks that to this day remain my best friends in the world.
“As my career moved forward and I began making music that spoke to my pain and struggles, there were fans who came out to me with stories that literally lifted me up,” she continued. “Those were all my LGBTQ fans who through thick and thin stand with me daily. My fighters, my heroes, the reason I love what I do.”
She also recalled a fan who tattooed her face on his own to cover a scar from a stabbing, after being harassed and targeted for being gay — drawing inspiration from his perseverance, much like the broader LGBTQ community has had to overcome obstacles and attacks.
“Please know that to me you all represent the daily driving voice that tells me to keep going, to triumph against all odds, and to celebrate being unique,” she wrote. “Because being unique doesn’t make us different from anyone else — it just makes us more special.”
Police in Paris, France, have arrested a homeless Tunisian migrant accused of killing four men whose bodies were later found in the Seine River. The case began on August 13, when a commuter spotted a corpse floating in the river. Investigators subsequently recovered three more bodies from the same stretch of water.
Autopsies confirmed all four victims were men. At least two had been strangled, though forensic experts could not determine the exact cause of death for the others, according to The Times. Police are investigating the four deaths as homicides.
Organizers of the annual Nashville Pride Festival & Parade have launched a fundraiser to help sustain future events after several longtime sponsors withdrew their support.
In an Aug. 20 press release, Nashville Pride said sponsorship revenue is down $270,000 from previous years.
Nearly 40% of the festival's longtime sponsors withdrew support for this year's Pride -- some just days before the festivities kicked off in late June -- according to Nashville Public Radio station WPLN. Among them were Bridgestone Americas, a presenting sponsor for 11 years, and Nissan, which ended its presenting sponsorship after four years.
"It was kind of confusing," David Archuleta says, recalling the time roughly 16 years ago when he was first asked to write a memoir. "What am I supposed to talk about? I'm 18 years old, and I feel like I'm just starting my journey, and you want me to write a memoir now?"
That memoir, Chords of Strength: A Memoir of Soul, Song, and the Power of Perseverance, was written by Archuleta with Monica Haim and published by an imprint of Penguin Group in 2010. He was barely an adult at the time, and it had only been two years since he competed on American Idol, becoming the season seven runner-up.
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