Country singer Zach Bryan has married Samantha Leonard

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Country singer Zach Bryan has married Samantha Leonard

2026-01-03 03:26 Last Updated At：03:30

NEW YORK (AP) — Here's to a lifetime of pink skies: The irreverent country singer Zach Bryan is married.

Bryan, 29, confirmed the news in an Instagram post shared Thursday. Beneath a photo of him holding his bride, Samantha Leonard, 28, he wrote the caption, “tougher than the rest,” a reference to the Bruce Springsteen song of the same name. In the next slide of the two-frame carousel, Bryan shared a short clip of him covering the song.

It is unclear when the couple started dating or got engaged. Rumors of their relationship hit social media in August, when Leonard posted a picture of the pair embracing on a boat on her official Instagram account.

Bryan shared a tribute to Leonard on his Instagram account a few months later, in October, writing, “Today is your birthday and I love you, Samantha Marie. To the only woman who can hike six miles in Chanel flats, skydive over the alps and catch a bigger fish than me all in the same day,” he wrote. “Hope your day was as graceful as you are.”

A representative for Bryan confirmed the marriage but did not provide additional comment.

Bryan's 2023 self-titled album debuted at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200. At the time, the trade publication reported that the release moved 200,000 units in its first week. His duet with Kacey Musgraves from the album “I Remember Everything” earned Bryan his sole No. 1 hit. AP named the collaboration one of the year's best songs.

His last album, 2024's “The Great American Bar Scene” peaked at No. 2.

Bryan is scheduled to release his sixth studio album, “With Heaven On Top,” next Friday.

Box Office: ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ tops charts and ‘Obsession’ grows in second weekend

After nearly seven years away from the big screen, a new Star Wars movie drew healthy but not record-breaking crowds to global theaters this weekend. According to studio estimates on Sunday, “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” made $82 million in ticket sales from 4,300 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. By the end of Monday’s Memorial Day holiday, it’s expected to have earned $102 million domestically and $165 million globally.

It exceeded opening weekend expectations for the movie, a continuation of Disney+ spinoff series “The Mandalorian,” but it’s also on the low end of Disney-era Star Wars releases, closer to “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” which made $103 million over the four-day Memorial Day frame in 2018. While “Solo” was considered a disaster, the metrics around “The Mandalorian and Grogu” are a little different.

The production budget for “Solo” was in the $300 million range, while “The Mandalorian and Grogu” was made for significantly less — a reported $165 million, not accounting for marketing and promotion costs. It makes the journey to profitability more likely, especially when factoring in positive audience scores. Although critics were mixed to negative on the movie (it currently carries a 63% on Rotten Tomatoes), ticket buyers overall gave it an A- CinemaScore. Boys under the age of 13 are especially high on the movie: They gave it an A CinemaScore and a perfect five on PostTrak. Parents also gave it a five out of five.

The Jon Favreau-directed movie stars Pedro Pascal as the titular bounty hunter and puts him and his tiny green companion on a mission to save Jabba’s son Rotta the Hutt, who is voiced by Jeremy Allen White.

“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” could also be graded on a bit of a curve because of the streaming component, both that it started as a series, and that it will eventually end up as a value add on Disney+, which was only about a month old when the last Star Wars movie, “The Rise of Skywalker,” debuted in December 2019.

Star Wars as a brand is in a time of transition under its new leadership team of Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan; Earlier this year it was announced that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who produced “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” was stepping down after 13 years. The question for the industry is whether audience interest in Star Wars on the big screen might have cooled slightly, and if next year’s “Star Wars: Starfighter,” starring Ryan Gosling, will provide a definitive answer. Until then, the hope is that strong audience and exit scores will propel word-of-mouth generated enthusiasm in the coming weeks.

Word-of-mouth certainly helped Curry Barker’s relationship horror movie “Obsession” defy the standard box office trajectory and do better business in its second weekend. The Focus Features had an astonishing 30% uptick in ticket sales, earning $22.4 million from 2,655 theaters. The studio, which acquired the microbudget movie for some $15 million, is projecting that it will have made $28.2 million by the end of Monday, bringing its running total to $58.5 million. It snagged the second-place spot, while “Michael” landed in third place with $20 million for the three-day weekend. The Michael Jackson biopic has now earned $782.4 million.

“Obsession” also did better than the new horror movie “Passenger,” a Paramount Pictures release with Melissa Leo, which grossed an estimated $8.7 million from 2,534 locations. It’s expected to earn $10.5 million over its first four days. The movie received poor reviews from both critics (44% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (B- Cinema Score).

The mix of movies this year didn’t hold a candle to last year’s record Memorial Day weekend, which was led by Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” and “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.” The overall four-day frame this year will net out around $211 million, down about 36% from last year’s $330 million. It’s also far from the disastrous 2024 Memorial Day weekend box office, a 30-year low, when “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” opened.