Entertainment
Lego builds record earnings from botanical-themed bricks and brand deals

Lego toymaker saw its sales flourish in the first half of 2025, thanks to plant-themed bricks and partnerships with well-known brands like Formula 1 and the popular animated children’s series “Bluey.”
The Danish toymaker saw a 12% increase in revenue in the first six months of the year, compared with the same period last year, netting the company a record $34.6 billion in Danish kroner, or $5.44 billion U.S. dollars, Lego reported on Wednesday. Consumer sales also grew 13% over the same period.
“This growth is driven by our large and innovative range of products that continues to be relevant across ages and interests,” Lego CEO Niels Christiansen said in the company’s statement.
Lego also expanded its brick-and-mortar presence, opening 24 new stores from January to June. It now has a total of 1,079 stores worldwide.
Reached for comment, a Lego spokesperson referred CBS MoneyWatch to the company’s earnings statement.
Here are the new Lego sets that are boosting sales.
Botanicals collection
One of the company’s bestsellers so far this year is its Lego Botanical collection which has been steadily growing since it launched in 2021 with a flower bouquet and bonsai tree set. Lego’s latest plant-themed brick sets include hibiscus flowers, roses, succulents and more.
“The LEGO Botanicals theme was popular around shopping occasions such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day,” Lego said in its earnings statement.
Lego
Formula 1
Sets of Formula 1 race cars also helped fuel Lego sales in the first half of 2025. The toy company unveiled its partnership with F1 in 2024, and offers brick forms of all 10 official team cars in the prestigious racing series, according to its website.
Lego
Bluey
Brand deals with popular franchises such as Harry Potter, Star Wars and Fortnite have become a staple of the toymaker. In March, Lego introduced six Bluey playsets for kids ages 2-5, featuring figurines of the four main canine characters on the popular Australian animated children’s show.
Next year Lego will grow its partnerships with a multiyear collaboration with Pokémon, the Japanese franchise created more than 25 years ago that became a worldwide phenomenon.
Lego
LEGO sales soared during the COVID-19 pandemic as families stayed indoors. Since then, LEGO has held the title of the world’s biggest toymaker, according to market analysis firm Statista, ahead of U.S. companies Mattel and Hasbro — the respective makers of Barbie and Monopoly — and Japan’s Bandai Namco, maker of Tamagotchi pets and Power Rangers.
Lego, a family-owned company founded by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, began producing the iconic plastic toy bricks in 1949.
contributed to this report.
Entertainment
Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce’s shocking wedding plans revealed

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding plans have been revealed.
On Wednesday, an insider revealed to Page Six that the pop sensation and the NFL star plan to have a “casual” and “private” ceremony with family and close friends when they eventually exchange vows.
“It will be more casual than people think,” the source told the outlet a day after the couple announced their engagement.
Taylor and Travis announced their engagement on Tuesday, August 26, via a joint Instagram post.
“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the newly engaged couple penned alongside several photos showing Kansas City Chiefs star Travis proposing to Taylor.
Recently, Travis’ father, Ed, spilled shocking details about his son’s proposal to Taylor.
Speaking to News 5 Cleveland, Ed Kelce revealed that Travis’ proposal to the singer “didn’t go exactly as planned.”
He shared that the professional player wanted to make a proposal to Taylor a “big and special event.”
“He was going to put her off ’til this week, to, you know, make some grand thing, to make it a big special event,” said Ed.
Entertainment
‘Thunderbolts*’ director gets honest about creating grey characters

A superhero film is commonly about good guys, but not Thunderbolts*. It features a band of characters that falls into what may be called ‘grey areas.’
Jake Schreier, director behind the Marvel movie, explained the complex characters in an interview with Empire.
“You’re talking about a group of characters that have done a lot of bad things, and maybe are struggling with feeling good about themselves,” the filmmaker said.
However, the director noted, “There’s an element that does speak to mental health, and loneliness.”
“And how some of the darkness that we experience in our lives can’t be necessarily fixed, but can only really be made lighter through connection and finding others,” he shared.
As far as lessons are concerned, Jake said he learned from filming Thunderbolts* that “there are so many things that I didn’t know about before I started the film.”
He continued, “The biggest learning curve for me was the proportion of the action to the more emotional, character-driven scenes.”
The filmmaker noted, “And how, even though it’s more shooting days than I’ve ever had, they get eaten up quite quickly by the action stuff.”
“By the time we got to the end of it, it felt like, ‘Oh, now I feel like we get how to do this a little bit better,” he shared.
“(On Thunderbolts*) we’re in the middle of nowhere in Utah, in a gorgeous location, owning a road, and filming in 100-degree heat,” Jake added.
“Or finding yourself on the second-tallest building in the world. These are very special experiences,” the director concluded.
Thunderbolts* is streaming on Disney+.
Entertainment
Kid Cudi opens up about dark past with weed addiction

Kid Cudi is spilling how his relationship with marijuana has shifted after a past of heavy addiction.
In a recent chat with People, the rapper opened up about his readmission to rehab back in November 2024, which he also shared in his book Cudi: The Memoir.
“I just was in this place where I was abusing it,” Cudi said. “I was really abusing it. I was smoking maybe 15 blunts a day, wake up in the mornings, get high. It truly ruled my life.”
Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, revealed that he even got sober for two months before he restarted taking it in moderation.
“And now I just get after it at night or on the weekends when I have the free time and I’m just relaxing, but I’m not smoking nowhere near as much weed as I was smoking before,” he detailed.
“A joint lasts me all day, damn near. So my relationship has changed with that in a major way. And I’m just more interested in being sober a lot more and being more present.”
Cudi added that cutting back has improved his acting. “Because in this movie, I cried a handful of times and it was easy to get there because I was sober,” he said. “There’s no way I could have done this if I was high as s***.”
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