#MAGFAB: Mary J Blige for Glamour Mag Woman of The Year
Mary J. Blige Transformed Her Pain Into the Sound of an Era. Her Joy Sounds Just as Good
“We didn’t think hip-hop would ever make it to 50 years,” Mary J. Blige says definitively. Across our late-summer conversation about hip-hop, healing, and staying in the present, Blige’s voice is suffused with characteristic sincerity. “We thought it was gone be done, the way people were trying to cancel it and parents weren’t trying to hear it,” she says. “So it’s just a blessing and a miracle that it’s still around. And I feel good that I’m at the forefront of that, being the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul and R&B.”
Mary J. Blige Transformed Her Pain Into the Sound of an Era. Her Joy Sounds Just as Good
“We didn’t think hip-hop would ever make it to 50 years,” Mary J. Blige says definitively. Across our late-summer conversation about hip-hop, healing, and staying in the present, Blige’s voice is suffused with characteristic sincerity. “We thought it was gone be done, the way people were trying to cancel it and parents weren’t trying to hear it,” she says. “So it’s just a blessing and a miracle that it’s still around. And I feel good that I’m at the forefront of that, being the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul and R&B.”
Here, at the half-century mark for hip-hop, Mary J. Blige, 52, the woman who gave the genre its soul, is living life in the sunshine. The woman who invented honey blonde hair on honey brown skin has earned nine Grammy Awards and dozens more nominations, netted Academy Awards nods for music and acting, and sold 50 million units in music sales. Thousands of iterative moments from a life of exceptional promise and pain, and some extraordinary successes, are the roses and stones that have brought Blige to this hard-fought “now.”
And as we absolutely expect a girl from Yonkers, New York, to be, Blige is entrepreneurial too. She sells wine (Sun Goddess) and hoop earrings (the Sister Love collection, in collaboration with jewelry designer Simone I. Smith). In the spring, her annual, free Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit presented a “hip-hop at 50” celebration in Atlanta. This fall she rereleased her Christmas album, A Mary Christmas. In every arena, Blige is flowing.
“This is not an overnight success,” Blige says, especially animated, a preacherly quality to her delivery that is revelatory of the human spirit: persevering, triumphant, sometimes cast down but never destroyed. “This is not an easy thing, this new me, this new Mary. This is hard work. When you’re happy and you’re strong, and you’ve been…[as] miserable as I’ve been in life and went through as much hell, it’s easy to revert back to the residue. It’s easy to revert back to the past because that’s what you knew. Because you know the pain of the past will always try to pull you back.”
There’s always a Southern summer or two in the background of remarkable artists, and Mary J. Blige has several. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Blige, born in 1971, and her sister LaTonya spent the hot months between the care of maternal and paternal grandparents off Highway 17 in Fleming and Richmond Hill, Georgia. The setting was a sharp contrast to the eight-story, eight-building Schlobohm Houses in Yonkers, New York, where Blige and her sister moved with their mother after their parents’ divorce
Like most postwar housing developments, Schlobohm initially served white working-class communities. But as suburban communities flourished and attracted white residents and overwhelmingly denied black residents access, Schlobohm saw its resources, like regular maintenance and security, decline and disappear as whites moved out. The dramatic effect of their exodus and the concomitant neglect of the housing was evident when Blige and her mother and sister arrived in Schlobohm.
“It was not a great neighborhood,” Blige recalls. “It was actually an awful neighborhood for children, especially in the summer, especially for little girls.” The South provided a reprieve from Schlobohm until, as the story typically goes, the sisters outgrew the trip.
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#RHOA: Kandi Burruss Breaks Her Silence On Keith Lee’s Viral Review Of Her Restaurant!
After wildly popular food reviewer and TikTok creator Keith Lee shared his experience at Burruss' Atlanta restaurant, Old Lady Gang, Burruss chimed in with her own TikTok video.
Keith Lee's Review of Kandi Burruss' Old Lady Gang Has More Than 11 Million Views!
While visiting Atlanta with his family for a food tour, Lee attempted to eat at "Real Housewives of Atlanta" star Burruss' restaurant. We say "attempted" because as viewers saw, Lee began his video in his car as usual, but this time without any food.
Lee began his TikTok video explaining that while at a music festival with his family, he was approached by someone who works with Burruss who told him that they've been trying to reach him since he's arrived in Atlanta.
"He said he’d been constantly emailing me and constantly DM’ing me to come to Old Lady Gang,” he said in his video. “I got it, let’s try it and rate it one to 10.”
That's when viewers see the lack of food, which is an odd site for a food review video by Lee. Although, this exact thing happened at one other Atlanta restaurant, but we'll get to that later.
Lee went on to explain that he sent his family into the restaurant to get food so they wouldn't know it was for him. Anyone who follows him knows he gives honest reviews and doesn't want any special treatment, which could make his experience different than everyone else's.
After being told they don't do take out and there's over an hour wait to be seated, Lee decided to go into the restaurant himself.
"As always, I don’t want any special treatment. I wanna be treated like everybody else,” he said. “I pay for my food like everybody else. I’m a normal person. I’m a normal customer. Things like this is exactly why I do reviews the way I do.”
Lee was told his table will be ready in five minutes. And this was just after his family was told the wait is more than an hour.
"Again, my family just attempted to eat there less than two minutes ago. I then told her I changed my mind, was gonna go eat somewhere else," he said. “And I said, ‘God bless you’ and I walked out.”
The video got tons of attention and thousands of comments. But Burruss was nowhere to be found in the comment section.
Burruss shared a video on TikTok that gives some insight on her restaurant and the situation that went down.
"I'm about to speak on it. No, I'm joking. I'm not about to speak on it," she began her video. "I just really want to say, I do appreciate Keith Lee for stopping by our restaurant and trying to show us love. It is very unfortunate that we couldn't serve him and his family."
She went on to say, "he's right" about to-go orders and explained why they don't take to-go orders on the weekends.
"The simple reason is because we do love and appreciate the people who come and support our restaurant," she continued. "On the weekends, we get a lot of community support, people in our city that show up for us, as well as a lot of people from out of town. So, with that being said, we don't want to overwhelm our kitchen by having to, you know, have such long times for the people who are actually at the restaurant, plus having to do to-go orders."
While many of the video's viewers appreciated her explanation, some wanted her to address one particular moment of Lee's experience.
"But.. How do you go from an 1.5 hour wait for "regular customers" and seated immediately for Keith Lee?" one viewer wrote. Another added, "I was waiting on this to be addressed as well," and many others also had similar thoughts.
Lee visited many different Atlanta restaurants while visiting the area and had some interesting issues with a few. He started his video about The Real Milk & Honey in a similar way as Old Lady Gang's, with no food.
"I got it, let's try it and rate it 1 to 10," he said as he usually does. But this time, no food in his hands. "As you can see, I don't have any bag in my hands."
He went on to explain that he attempted to call in an order and they didn't take call-in orders. He then tried DoorDash and that didn't work out either. Lee's family went into the restaurant and they were told they are closed for deep cleaning, but they saw other people picking up food orders.
"Now, we have no idea if those people ordered beforehand or what the case is," he continued. He then explained that he then walked into the restaurant and was recognized and offered to serve them, but he respectfully declined.
Lee shared a recap video of his time in Atlanta that highlighted the "good and the not so good."
He summed up his experience at some of the restaurants and the ordeals he dealt with while trying to review them.
In his recap, he shared a clip of Cardi B talking about Lee's Atlanta food tour issues.
"I know that being a restaurant owner is a lot of hard work, and so many people have invested money in their restaurants," Cardi B said. "But I always find this - eating in Atlanta, it is such an event. You could barely order in Atlanta restaurants."
#MusicNews: SZA, Summer Walker, And Usher Lead 2023 Soul Train Award Nominations
#MusicNews: SZA, Summer Walker, And Usher Lead 2023 Soul Train Award Nominations
Announced today the 2023 Soul Train Awards nominations are dominated by SZA, Usher, and Summer Walker, with each clinching nine nods.
Following closely is 21 Savage with eight nominations. Meanwhile, Coco Jones and Victoria Monét each have six nods. Other notable mentions include Burna Boy, Chris Brown, Janelle Monáe, and October London, who secured four selections apiece.
According to the press release, this year’s event is set to break the mold by transitioning from its traditional ceremony setup to a “soulful party in Hollywood.” Slated for taping in a currently undisclosed Los Angeles venue, the show will air on Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. local time via BET and BET Her.
A standout contender, SZA’s SOS album was nominated for Album of the Year. The St. Louis native recently wrapped up the second North American leg of her tour to support the project. She’s the sole artist with two Song of the Year honors for her tracks “Kill Bill” and “Snooze.”
Meanwhile, Usher, Walker, and 21 Savage’s “Good Good” is the lone joint effort vying for the aforementioned category. The track, along with “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” by PinkPantheress and Ice Spice, is also running for Video of the Year and Best Collaboration.
Connie Orlando, EVP of specials, music programming and music strategy, shared, “This year, we are taking inspiration from these genres to innovate and disrupt the award show format while celebrating the legacy of Soul Train. We are proud of this year’s list of esteemed nominees and look to deliver an unforgettable night of soul with our new location, performances, and show moments.”
As of reporting, BET has not revealed who will receive the coveted Lady Of Soul or Legend Awards. Anticipated to come out soon, the network also has yet to announce the list of performers.
#HipHopNews: Megan The Stallion Leads 'D**ks: The Musical' Soundtrack With "Out Alpha The Alpha"
Megan Thee Stallion stepped into a new role in A24’s Broadway-inspired film, D**ks: The Musical. Slated to debut on Oct. 20, the rapper brought her own flavor to the character of Gloria.
Ahead of its release, the Houston Hottie dropped a record titled “Out Alpha The Alpha” from the soundtrack. Reflecting the persona she plays in the movie, the song saw the artist rallying women to join her in dismantling the patriarchy.
On the cut, Megan rapped, “These men, they hold all the cards, it makes me wanna spit. They always f**kin’ s**t up; they’re always makin’ a mess. But I’ma tell you the secret to my success. Men are all stupid, weak little boys. They’re not very smart; they just make lots of noise. They got their nose up my a**; they wanna be teacher’s pet.”
LISTEN HERE
On Tuesday (Oct. 3), composer Marius de Vries explained the casting curveball in a recent Billboard interview. He revealed that the track was completely rewritten when they found out who would be playing the character.
“So, we just wrote the song for a random actress that we imagined might be the kind of person that would be cast as Gloria. That person was not Megan Thee Stallion at all. So, when the casting conversation rolled out, and we learned that it would be Megan, we had this song — which was, I thought, really promising, but was in no way suitable for the force of nature that is Megan,” he explained.
Vries continued, “We sent over something that we thought was embarrassingly rough, but she was great. She rolled her sleeves up, turned the vocal around in a day. Then it was time to rehearse it; the choreographers had about 12 hours to put the whole routine together.”
Outside of D**ks: The Musical, Megan will also star in the seventh season of Netflix’s animated series “Big Mouth.”
FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted Of Fraud
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s spectacular rise and fall in the cryptocurrency industry — a journey that included his testimony before Congress, a Super Bowl advertisement and dreams of a future run for president — hit a new bottom Thursday when a New York jury convicted him of fraud in a scheme that cheated customers and investors of at least $10 billion.
After the monthlong trial, jurors rejected Bankman-Fried’s claim during four days on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court that he never committed fraud or meant to cheat customers before FTX, once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, collapsed into bankruptcy a year ago.
“His crimes caught up to him. His crimes have been exposed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon told the jury of the onetime billionaire just before they were read the law by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan and began deliberations. Sassoon said Bankman-Fried turned his customers’ accounts into his “personal piggy bank” as up to $14 billion disappeared.
She urged jurors to reject Bankman-Fried’s insistence when he testified over three days that he never committed fraud or plotted to steal from customers, investors and lenders and didn’t realize his companies were at least $10 billion in debt until October 2022.
The trial attracted intense interest with its focus on a fraud on a scale not seen since the 2009 prosecution of Bernard Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme over decades cheated thousands of investors out of about $20 billion. Madoff pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 150 years in prison, where he died in 2021.
The prosecution of Bankman-Fried, 31, put a spotlight on the emerging industry of cryptocurrency and a group of young executives in their 20s who lived together in a $30 million luxury apartment in the Bahamas as they dreamed of becoming the most powerful player in a new financial field.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said they engaged in one of the biggest frauds in U.S. history.
Prosecutors made sure jurors knew that the defendant they saw in court with short hair and a suit was not the man with big messy hair and shorts that became his trademark appearance after he started his cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research, in 2017 and FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, two years later.
They showed the jury pictures of Bankman-Fried sleeping on a private jet, sitting with a deck of cards and mingling at the Super Bowl with celebrities including the singer Katy Perry. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos called Bankman-Fried someone who liked “celebrity chasing.”
In a closing argument, defense lawyer Mark Cohen said prosecutors were trying to turn “Sam into some sort of villain, some sort of monster.”
“It’s both wrong and unfair, and I hope and believe that you have seen that it’s simply not true,” he said. “According to the government, everything Sam ever touched and said was fraudulent.”
The government relied heavily on the testimony of three former members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, his top executives including his former girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to explain how Bankman-Fried used Alameda Research to siphon billions of dollars from customer accounts at FTX.
With that money, prosecutors said, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate gained influence and power through investments, contributions, tens of millions of dollars in political contributions, Congressional testimony and a publicity campaign that enlisted celebrities like comedian Larry David and football quarterback Tom Brady.
Ellison, 28, testified that Bankman-Fried directed her while she was chief executive of Alameda Research to commit fraud as he pursued ambitions to lead huge companies, spend money influentially and run for U.S. president someday. She said he thought he had a 5 percent chance to be U.S. president someday.
Becoming tearful as she described the collapse of the cryptocurrency empire last November, Ellison said the revelations that caused customers collectively to demand their money back, exposing the fraud, brought a “relief that I didn’t have to lie anymore.”
FTX cofounder Gary Wang, who was FTX’s chief technology officer, revealed in his testimony that Bankman-Fried directed him to insert code into FTX’s operations so that Alameda Research could make unlimited withdrawals from FTX and have a credit line up to $65 billion. Wang said the money came from customers.
Nishad Singh, the former head of engineering at FTX, testified that he felt “blindsided and horrified” at the result of the actions of a man he once admired when he saw the extent of the fraud as the collapse last November left him suicidal.
Ellison, Wang and Singh all pleaded guilty to fraud charges and testified against Bankman-Fried in the hopes of leniency at sentencing.
Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last December and extradited to the United States, where he was freed on a $250 million personal recognizance bond with electronic monitoring and a requirement that he remain at the home of his parents in Palo Alto, California.
His communications, including hundreds of phone calls with journalists and internet influencers, along with emails and texts, eventually got him in trouble when the judge concluded he was trying to influence prospective trial witnesses and ordered him jailed in August.
During the trial, prosecutors used Bankman-Fried’s public statements, online announcements and his Congressional testimony against him, showing how the entrepreneur repeatedly promised customers that their deposits were safe and secure as late as last Nov. 7 when he tweeted “FTX is fine. Assets are fine” as customers furiously tried to withdraw their money. He deleted the tweet the next day. FTX filed for bankruptcy four days later.
In his closing, Roos mocked Bankman-Fried’s testimony, saying that under questioning from his lawyer, the defendant’s words were “smooth, like it had been rehearsed a bunch of times?”
But under cross examination, “he was a different person,” the prosecutor said. “Suddenly on cross-examination he couldn’t remember a single detail about his company or what he said publicly. It was uncomfortable to hear. He never said he couldn’t recall during his direct examination, but it happened over 140 times during his cross-examination.”
#RHOA: Kandi Burruss Breaks Her Silence On Keith Lee’s Viral Review Of Her Restaurant!
Keith Lee's Review of Kandi Burruss' Old Lady Gang Has More Than 11 Million Views!
While visiting Atlanta with his family for a food tour, Lee attempted to eat at "Real Housewives of Atlanta" star Burruss' restaurant. We say "attempted" because as viewers saw, Lee began his video in his car as usual, but this time without any food.
Lee began his TikTok video explaining that while at a music festival with his family, he was approached by someone who works with Burruss who told him that they've been trying to reach him since he's arrived in Atlanta.
"He said he’d been constantly emailing me and constantly DM’ing me to come to Old Lady Gang,” he said in his video. “I got it, let’s try it and rate it one to 10.”
That's when viewers see the lack of food, which is an odd site for a food review video by Lee. Although, this exact thing happened at one other Atlanta restaurant, but we'll get to that later.
Lee went on to explain that he sent his family into the restaurant to get food so they wouldn't know it was for him. Anyone who follows him knows he gives honest reviews and doesn't want any special treatment, which could make his experience different than everyone else's.
After being told they don't do take out and there's over an hour wait to be seated, Lee decided to go into the restaurant himself.
"As always, I don’t want any special treatment. I wanna be treated like everybody else,” he said. “I pay for my food like everybody else. I’m a normal person. I’m a normal customer. Things like this is exactly why I do reviews the way I do.”
Lee was told his table will be ready in five minutes. And this was just after his family was told the wait is more than an hour.
"Again, my family just attempted to eat there less than two minutes ago. I then told her I changed my mind, was gonna go eat somewhere else," he said. “And I said, ‘God bless you’ and I walked out.”
The video got tons of attention and thousands of comments. But Burruss was nowhere to be found in the comment section.
Burruss shared a video on TikTok that gives some insight on her restaurant and the situation that went down.
"I'm about to speak on it. No, I'm joking. I'm not about to speak on it," she began her video. "I just really want to say, I do appreciate Keith Lee for stopping by our restaurant and trying to show us love. It is very unfortunate that we couldn't serve him and his family."
She went on to say, "he's right" about to-go orders and explained why they don't take to-go orders on the weekends.
"The simple reason is because we do love and appreciate the people who come and support our restaurant," she continued. "On the weekends, we get a lot of community support, people in our city that show up for us, as well as a lot of people from out of town. So, with that being said, we don't want to overwhelm our kitchen by having to, you know, have such long times for the people who are actually at the restaurant, plus having to do to-go orders."
While many of the video's viewers appreciated her explanation, some wanted her to address one particular moment of Lee's experience.
"But.. How do you go from an 1.5 hour wait for "regular customers" and seated immediately for Keith Lee?" one viewer wrote. Another added, "I was waiting on this to be addressed as well," and many others also had similar thoughts.
Lee visited many different Atlanta restaurants while visiting the area and had some interesting issues with a few. He started his video about The Real Milk & Honey in a similar way as Old Lady Gang's, with no food.
"I got it, let's try it and rate it 1 to 10," he said as he usually does. But this time, no food in his hands. "As you can see, I don't have any bag in my hands."
He went on to explain that he attempted to call in an order and they didn't take call-in orders. He then tried DoorDash and that didn't work out either. Lee's family went into the restaurant and they were told they are closed for deep cleaning, but they saw other people picking up food orders.
"Now, we have no idea if those people ordered beforehand or what the case is," he continued. He then explained that he then walked into the restaurant and was recognized and offered to serve them, but he respectfully declined.
Lee shared a recap video of his time in Atlanta that highlighted the "good and the not so good."
He summed up his experience at some of the restaurants and the ordeals he dealt with while trying to review them.
In his recap, he shared a clip of Cardi B talking about Lee's Atlanta food tour issues.
"I know that being a restaurant owner is a lot of hard work, and so many people have invested money in their restaurants," Cardi B said. "But I always find this - eating in Atlanta, it is such an event. You could barely order in Atlanta restaurants."
#MusicNews: SZA, Summer Walker, And Usher Lead 2023 Soul Train Award Nominations
#MusicNews: SZA, Summer Walker, And Usher Lead 2023 Soul Train Award Nominations
Announced today the 2023 Soul Train Awards nominations are dominated by SZA, Usher, and Summer Walker, with each clinching nine nods.
Following closely is 21 Savage with eight nominations. Meanwhile, Coco Jones and Victoria Monét each have six nods. Other notable mentions include Burna Boy, Chris Brown, Janelle Monáe, and October London, who secured four selections apiece.
According to the press release, this year’s event is set to break the mold by transitioning from its traditional ceremony setup to a “soulful party in Hollywood.” Slated for taping in a currently undisclosed Los Angeles venue, the show will air on Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. local time via BET and BET Her.
A standout contender, SZA’s SOS album was nominated for Album of the Year. The St. Louis native recently wrapped up the second North American leg of her tour to support the project. She’s the sole artist with two Song of the Year honors for her tracks “Kill Bill” and “Snooze.”
Meanwhile, Usher, Walker, and 21 Savage’s “Good Good” is the lone joint effort vying for the aforementioned category. The track, along with “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” by PinkPantheress and Ice Spice, is also running for Video of the Year and Best Collaboration.
Connie Orlando, EVP of specials, music programming and music strategy, shared, “This year, we are taking inspiration from these genres to innovate and disrupt the award show format while celebrating the legacy of Soul Train. We are proud of this year’s list of esteemed nominees and look to deliver an unforgettable night of soul with our new location, performances, and show moments.”
As of reporting, BET has not revealed who will receive the coveted Lady Of Soul or Legend Awards. Anticipated to come out soon, the network also has yet to announce the list of performers.
#HipHopNews: Megan The Stallion Leads 'D**ks: The Musical' Soundtrack With "Out Alpha The Alpha"
Ahead of its release, the Houston Hottie dropped a record titled “Out Alpha The Alpha” from the soundtrack. Reflecting the persona she plays in the movie, the song saw the artist rallying women to join her in dismantling the patriarchy.
On the cut, Megan rapped, “These men, they hold all the cards, it makes me wanna spit. They always f**kin’ s**t up; they’re always makin’ a mess. But I’ma tell you the secret to my success. Men are all stupid, weak little boys. They’re not very smart; they just make lots of noise. They got their nose up my a**; they wanna be teacher’s pet.”
LISTEN HERE
On Tuesday (Oct. 3), composer Marius de Vries explained the casting curveball in a recent Billboard interview. He revealed that the track was completely rewritten when they found out who would be playing the character.
“So, we just wrote the song for a random actress that we imagined might be the kind of person that would be cast as Gloria. That person was not Megan Thee Stallion at all. So, when the casting conversation rolled out, and we learned that it would be Megan, we had this song — which was, I thought, really promising, but was in no way suitable for the force of nature that is Megan,” he explained.
Vries continued, “We sent over something that we thought was embarrassingly rough, but she was great. She rolled her sleeves up, turned the vocal around in a day. Then it was time to rehearse it; the choreographers had about 12 hours to put the whole routine together.”
Outside of D**ks: The Musical, Megan will also star in the seventh season of Netflix’s animated series “Big Mouth.”
FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted Of Fraud
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s spectacular rise and fall in the cryptocurrency industry — a journey that included his testimony before Congress, a Super Bowl advertisement and dreams of a future run for president — hit a new bottom Thursday when a New York jury convicted him of fraud in a scheme that cheated customers and investors of at least $10 billion.
After the monthlong trial, jurors rejected Bankman-Fried’s claim during four days on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court that he never committed fraud or meant to cheat customers before FTX, once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, collapsed into bankruptcy a year ago.
“His crimes caught up to him. His crimes have been exposed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon told the jury of the onetime billionaire just before they were read the law by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan and began deliberations. Sassoon said Bankman-Fried turned his customers’ accounts into his “personal piggy bank” as up to $14 billion disappeared.
She urged jurors to reject Bankman-Fried’s insistence when he testified over three days that he never committed fraud or plotted to steal from customers, investors and lenders and didn’t realize his companies were at least $10 billion in debt until October 2022.
The trial attracted intense interest with its focus on a fraud on a scale not seen since the 2009 prosecution of Bernard Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme over decades cheated thousands of investors out of about $20 billion. Madoff pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 150 years in prison, where he died in 2021.
The prosecution of Bankman-Fried, 31, put a spotlight on the emerging industry of cryptocurrency and a group of young executives in their 20s who lived together in a $30 million luxury apartment in the Bahamas as they dreamed of becoming the most powerful player in a new financial field.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said they engaged in one of the biggest frauds in U.S. history.
Prosecutors made sure jurors knew that the defendant they saw in court with short hair and a suit was not the man with big messy hair and shorts that became his trademark appearance after he started his cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research, in 2017 and FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, two years later.
They showed the jury pictures of Bankman-Fried sleeping on a private jet, sitting with a deck of cards and mingling at the Super Bowl with celebrities including the singer Katy Perry. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos called Bankman-Fried someone who liked “celebrity chasing.”
In a closing argument, defense lawyer Mark Cohen said prosecutors were trying to turn “Sam into some sort of villain, some sort of monster.”
“It’s both wrong and unfair, and I hope and believe that you have seen that it’s simply not true,” he said. “According to the government, everything Sam ever touched and said was fraudulent.”
The government relied heavily on the testimony of three former members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, his top executives including his former girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to explain how Bankman-Fried used Alameda Research to siphon billions of dollars from customer accounts at FTX.
With that money, prosecutors said, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate gained influence and power through investments, contributions, tens of millions of dollars in political contributions, Congressional testimony and a publicity campaign that enlisted celebrities like comedian Larry David and football quarterback Tom Brady.
Ellison, 28, testified that Bankman-Fried directed her while she was chief executive of Alameda Research to commit fraud as he pursued ambitions to lead huge companies, spend money influentially and run for U.S. president someday. She said he thought he had a 5 percent chance to be U.S. president someday.
Becoming tearful as she described the collapse of the cryptocurrency empire last November, Ellison said the revelations that caused customers collectively to demand their money back, exposing the fraud, brought a “relief that I didn’t have to lie anymore.”
FTX cofounder Gary Wang, who was FTX’s chief technology officer, revealed in his testimony that Bankman-Fried directed him to insert code into FTX’s operations so that Alameda Research could make unlimited withdrawals from FTX and have a credit line up to $65 billion. Wang said the money came from customers.
Nishad Singh, the former head of engineering at FTX, testified that he felt “blindsided and horrified” at the result of the actions of a man he once admired when he saw the extent of the fraud as the collapse last November left him suicidal.
Ellison, Wang and Singh all pleaded guilty to fraud charges and testified against Bankman-Fried in the hopes of leniency at sentencing.
Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last December and extradited to the United States, where he was freed on a $250 million personal recognizance bond with electronic monitoring and a requirement that he remain at the home of his parents in Palo Alto, California.
His communications, including hundreds of phone calls with journalists and internet influencers, along with emails and texts, eventually got him in trouble when the judge concluded he was trying to influence prospective trial witnesses and ordered him jailed in August.
During the trial, prosecutors used Bankman-Fried’s public statements, online announcements and his Congressional testimony against him, showing how the entrepreneur repeatedly promised customers that their deposits were safe and secure as late as last Nov. 7 when he tweeted “FTX is fine. Assets are fine” as customers furiously tried to withdraw their money. He deleted the tweet the next day. FTX filed for bankruptcy four days later.
In his closing, Roos mocked Bankman-Fried’s testimony, saying that under questioning from his lawyer, the defendant’s words were “smooth, like it had been rehearsed a bunch of times?”
But under cross examination, “he was a different person,” the prosecutor said. “Suddenly on cross-examination he couldn’t remember a single detail about his company or what he said publicly. It was uncomfortable to hear. He never said he couldn’t recall during his direct examination, but it happened over 140 times during his cross-examination.”
#WorldSeries2023: Texas Rangers win first World Series title with 5-0 victory vs. Diamondbacks in Game 5
It was a thriller until the late innings, when the Rangers' bats broke it open to clinch the title
After a disastrous bullpen game in Game 4, the Arizona Diamondbacks turned to ace Zac Gallen in hopes of forcing Game 6. The right-hander, who will likely receive Cy Young votes this season, entered the game on a three-game losing streak, most recently allowing three earned runs in a Game 1 loss.
Gallen looked different in Game 5. And by “different,” we mean “borderline unhittable.” He started with a 1-2-3 inning in 13 pitches. Then came another 1-2-3. And another. By the end of the fourth, Gallen had a perfect game going with a comically low 35 pitches.
The Rangers got their first baserunner in the fifth inning in the form of a Nathaniel Lowe walk, but they received nothing more. Gallen was pitching the game of his life, and the only consolation was that Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi was matching him in the one metric that mattered: The game was tied 0-0 after six innings.
But the fun part about baseball is that no matter how dominant a pitcher looks, all it takes is a few pitches for everything to fall apart. After not allowing a hit to the first 19 batters he faced, Gallen allowed three in a row. The first was an opposite-field grounder from Corey Seager.
The second was a double into the gap from Evan Carter, his ninth double of the postseason, which set an MLB record.
The third came from Mitch Garver, who was pushed into cleanup duty due to the loss of Adolis GarcÃa. Like the injured outfielder often did, Garver supplied the hit when the Rangers needed it most.
And that’s all it took.
Across five pitches, momentum shifted from the home team watching their ace’s historic performance to the road team counting down the outs. The first Rangers pitcher tasked with protecting the smallest lead possible was the perpetually rickety Aroldis Chapman, who kept it together in the seventh to the tune of two outs and one walk (a fine outing by his standards these days).
Josh Sborz, a pitcher designated for assignment before the 2021 season, was tasked with ending the seventh inning and covering the eighth and ninth, which he handled with no issue.
But before Sborz took the mound for the final three outs, the Rangers made things a little less tense.
Insurance runs are typically a good idea in a World Series elimination game. The Rangers got them in the top of the ninth, with some very unfortunate (for the Diamondbacks) help.
Josh Jung and Nathaniel Lowe opened the inning with leadoff singles off Arizona closer Paul Sewald, then Jonah Heim came through with another single … that turned into a backbreaker when D-backs defensive standout Alek Thomas straight-up missed the bouncing ball in center field.
Sewald got the next two batters out, but then Marcus Semien supplied the dagger for Texas with a two-run homer.
The Rangers signed Eovaldi in the offseason for performances in games such as this, and he delivered — in the most stressful way possible. The D-backs got the leadoff runner on base in the first. They got a runner to second in the second. They got runners on second and third in the third. They added a double in the fourth and loaded the bases in the fifth.
The result: zero runs.
The D-backs ended up going 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position in Game 5, with 11 runners left on base. Those are haunting numbers for a team whose entire offensive identity was built around getting on base, running fast and getting clutch hits.
Eovaldi wrapped up his start with a 1-2-3 sixth, his first perfect inning since the second inning of Game 1.
It might've been messy, but he did his job, and the Texas Rangers are champions.
Legendary and Controversial college basketball coach Bob Knight dies at 83
Bob Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball, has died. He was 83.
Knight's family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share that Coach Bob Knight passed away at his home in Bloomington surrounded by his family,” the statement said. “We are grateful for all the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate the continued respect for our privacy as Coach requested a private family gathering, which is being honored. We will continue to celebrate his life and remember him, today and forever as a beloved Husband, Father, Coach, and Friend.”
Knight was among the winningest coaches in the sport, finishing his career with 902 victories in 42 seasons at Army, Indiana and Texas Tech. He also coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1984.
The Hall of Famer cared little what others thought of him, choosing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to celebrate his 880th win in 2007, then the record for a Division I men’s coach.
Knight's family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share that Coach Bob Knight passed away at his home in Bloomington surrounded by his family,” the statement said. “We are grateful for all the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate the continued respect for our privacy as Coach requested a private family gathering, which is being honored. We will continue to celebrate his life and remember him, today and forever as a beloved Husband, Father, Coach, and Friend.”
Knight was among the winningest coaches in the sport, finishing his career with 902 victories in 42 seasons at Army, Indiana and Texas Tech. He also coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1984.
The Hall of Famer cared little what others thought of him, choosing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to celebrate his 880th win in 2007, then the record for a Division I men’s coach.
He was nicknamed “The General” and his temper was such that in 2000 it cost him his job at Indiana. He once hit a police officer in Puerto Rico, threw a chair across the court and was accused of wrapping his hands around a player’s neck.
His critics fumed relentlessly about his conduct, but his defenders were legion. There was this side of Knight as well: He took pride in his players’ high graduation rates, and during a rule-breaking era he never was accused of a major NCAA violation.
At Indiana, he insisted his base salary not exceed that of other professors. At Texas Tech, he sometimes gave back his salary because he didn’t think he earned it.
Knight expected players to exceed expectations on the court and in the classroom. He abided by NCAA rules even when he disagreed with them, never backed down from a dust-up and promised to take his old-school principles to the grave.
His disposition and theatrics, however, often overshadowed his formidable record, tactical genius and dedication to his players and the game, leaving behind a singular resume.
“He changed basketball in this state, the way you compete, the way you win,” Steve Alford, the leader of Knight’s last national championship team in 1987, once said. “It started in Indiana, but he really changed college basketball. You look at the motion offense and people everywhere used it.”
Long esteemed for his strategy and often questioned for his methods, Knight reveled in constructing his best teams with overachievers. As a hard-to-please motivator, he clung to iron principles, and at 6-foot-5 was an intimidating presence for anyone who dared cross him.
When Knight retired in 2008, he left with four national championships (one as a player at Ohio State) and as the Division I men’s record-holder in wins. He coached everyone from Mike Krzyzewski to Isiah Thomas to Michael Jordan. His coaching tree included Krzyzewski, who broke Knight’s wins record; Alford; Lawrence Frank, Keith Smart, Randy Wittman and Mike Woodson, Indiana’s current coach, among others.
“I have molded everything we do from practices to academics to community service and even how you should represent the school from that time,” Alford said. “Coach Knight had a lot to do with that.”
Robert Montgomery Knight was born Oct. 25, 1940, in Massillon, Ohio. His mother, whom Knight credited as his strongest childhood influence, was a schoolteacher and his father worked for the railroad.
Hazel Knight seemed to understand her son’s temperament. Once, when Indiana was set to play Kentucky on television, two of Knight’s high school classmates ran into her at a grocery store and asked if she was excited about the game, according to his biography, “Knight: My Story.”
“I just hope he behaves,” his mother remarked.
He played basketball at Ohio State, where he was a reserve on three Final Four teams (1960-62). He was on the 1960 title team that featured Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, two future Basketball Hall of Famers.
After a year as a high school assistant, Knight joined the staff of Tates Locke at West Point. In 1965, he took over as head coach at age 24. In six seasons, coaching the likes of Krzyzewski and Mike Silliman, his teams won 102 games and it was off to Indiana in 1971.
Knight quickly restored the Hoosiers’ basketball tradition with a revolutionary offense and an almost exclusively man-to-man defense. Most opponents struggled against his early Indiana teams, with the Hoosiers going 125-20 and winning four Big Ten Conference crowns in his first five seasons.
The run concluded with Indiana’s first national championship in 23 years. That 1975-76 team went 32-0, ending a two-year span when the Hoosiers were 63-1 and captured back-to-back Big Ten championships with 18-0 records. It remains the last time a major college men’s team finished with a perfect record. That team was voted the greatest in college basketball history by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association in 2013.
Knight won his second title in 1981, beating Dean Smith’s North Carolina team after NCAA officials decided to play the game hours after President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded earlier in the day. His third title at Indiana came in 1987 when Smart hit a baseline jumper in the closing seconds to beat Syracuse, one of the most famous shots in tournament history.
Knight spent five decades competing against and usually beating some of the game’s most revered names — Adolph Rupp, Smith and John Wooden in the early years; Krzyzewski, Rick Pitino and Roy Williams in later years.
The Olympic team he coached in Los Angeles in 1984 was the last amateur U.S. team to win gold in men’s basketball. And, to no surprise, it came with controversy. Knight kept Alford on his team while cutting the likes of future Hall of Famers Charles Barkley and John Stockton.
But winning and winning big was only part of Knight’s legacy. He would do things his way.
Other big-time coaches might follow the gentlemanly, buttoned-up approach, but not Knight. He dressed in plaid sport coats and red sweaters, routinely berated referees and openly challenged decisions by NCAA and Big Ten leaders. His list of transgressions ran long:
• Knight was convicted in absentia of assaulting a Puerto Rican police officer during the 1979 Pan American Games.
• He forfeited an exhibition game to the Soviet Union in 1987 when he pulled his team off the court after being called for a third technical foul.
• He told NBC’s Connie Chung in a 1988 interview, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Knight was answering a question about how he handled stress and later tried to explain he was talking about something beyond one’s control, not the act of rape.
• He was accused of head-butting one player and kicking his own son, Pat, during a timeout.
• At a 1980 news conference he fired a blank from a starter’s pistol at a reporter. During the 1992 NCAA Tournament, Knight playfully used a bull whip on star player Calbert Cheaney, who is Black.
His most famous outburst came Feb. 23, 1985, when Purdue’s Steve Reid was about to attempt a free throw. A furious Knight picked up a red plastic chair and heaved it across the court, where it landed behind the basket. Fans started throwing pennies on the court, one hitting the wife of Purdue coach Gene Keady. Reid missed three of his next six ensuing free throws.
“There are times I walk into a meeting or a friend calls to say, ‘I saw you on TV last night,’” Reid said on the 20th anniversary of the incident. “I know what they’re talking about.
Knight apologized the next day, received a one-game suspension and was put on probation for two years by the Big Ten. Intent on preventing such a thing again, Indiana officials chained together the chairs for both benches.
The iconic black-and-white photo of the incident remains a classic for Hoosiers fans and even became fodder for a television commercial with one of his old coaching rivals, former Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps. Knight for years joked he was merely attempting to toss the chair to a woman looking for a seat.
Fifteen years after the chair toss, Knight’s temper led to his downfall in Bloomington. Video surfaced of Knight allegedly putting his hands around the neck of player Neil Reed during a 1997 practice, a charge that prompted Indiana President Myles Brand to put Knight on a zero-tolerance policy following a university investigation.
Then, on Sept. 10, 2000, after winning a school-record 662 games and 11 Big Ten titles in 29 seasons, his time at Indiana came to a shocking end. While passing Knight in an Assembly Hall corridor, Indiana student Kent Harvey said, “Hey, what’s up, Knight?” Knight considered it disrespectful, grabbed Harvey’s arm and lectured him about manners. A few days later, Brand fired Knight.
Students protested by tearing down a goalpost at the football stadium, ripping a dolphin statue off a fountain and hanging Brand in effigy outside his home. Knight publicly condemned Brand’s leadership. Brand became NCAA president in 2002 and died in 2009 at 67 while still on the job. Neil Reed died in 2012 after collapsing in his California home. He was 36.
In 2003, he lashed out profanely after an ESPN reporter asked about his relationship with Alford, then the Iowa coach. The following year Knight received a reprimand after a verbal dust-up with David Smith, then the Texas Tech chancellor, as the two men stood at a grocery store salad bar.
He still won, too. In his first six years in West Texas, Knight led the Red Raiders to five 20-plus win seasons, a feat never previously achieved at the school. On Jan. 1, 2007, Knight won his 880th career game, breaking Dean Smith’s record with a win over New Mexico. Krzyzewski topped Knight’s mark in 2011, with his mentor broadcasting the game for ESPN.
For nearly two decades, Indiana officials attempted to make peace. Knight refused, even skipping his induction into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.
“I hope someday he will be honored at Indiana. That needs to happen. Somebody needs to make that happen,” Scott May, a starter on Knight’s 1976 championship team and an outspoken critic of Knight’s firing, pleaded as Knight stayed away. “I think they should name Assembly Hall after him.”
The ice finally broke in February 2020, a few months after Knight bought a new house in Bloomington. His first public appearance at Assembly Hall since the firing came at halftime of the Hoosiers’ game against rival Purdue.
Billed as a reunion between the coach and many of his former players, the halftime celebration became a sustained roar for The General. May and Quinn Buckner, who also played on Knight’s first title team, helped the aging coach -- no longer steady on his feet -- walk onto the court.
“When he moved back here, I knew he was in a good place,” said Wittman, who played on the 1981 national champs. “I knew he was happy here, living, and I told him you belong here.”
Knight didn’t speak to the crowd that day. It spoke to him.
“We love you, Bobby,” one fan shouted during a brief pause from the crowd, a scene that brought the steely Knight to tears.
Away from the court, Knight was an avid golfer who loved to read, especially history, and donated generously to school libraries at Indiana and Texas Tech. He would vacation in far-flung places to hunt and fish with family or friends such as baseball great Ted Williams or manager Tony La Russa.
Knight also made a cameo appearance in the 2003 movie “Anger Management” with Adam Sandler. In 2006, he starred in “Knight School,” an ESPN reality show in which 16 Texas Tech students vied for the chance to walk on to his team the following season.
A month after leaving Tech, Knight, who often lashed out at reporters, joined ESPN as a guest studio analyst during the 2008 NCAA Tournament. The next season, he expanded his role as a color commentator. The network parted with Knight in 2015.
He returned to public view in 2016, campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and kept a mostly low profile until returning to the campus where he became a household name.
“I was standing there, and he was coach Knight,” Wittman said, referring to Knight’s pregame speech in February 2020. “It was like he hadn’t left that locker room. The words he gave to those players before they went out on the floor, it was fabulous.”
Survivors include wife Karen and sons Tim and Pat.
Lil Nas X Faces Backlash Over Bloodied Tampon Costume For Halloween
Lil Nas X is being slammed for dressing as a bloodied tampon for Halloween. The 24-year-old rapper showed off his bizarre costume choice by posting a video to his Instagram that saw him walking away from a giant hairy vagina "sculpture" on the street while trailing a tampon string behind his outfit, which he paired with a blonde wig and knee-high white boots.
His comments section has been filled with outraged and disgusted posts, mostly from women, asking him everything from "Why?" to branding him disgusting. One said, "I enjoy this look but the fact that you personally have never experienced the stigma, shame or pain involved with having a period makes me pause and think… But why though?"
Another branded his move "misogynistic" while another critic hit out, "Gay men often think they can get a pass without realizing they can be equally misogynistic… it's not up to cis men to make light of things like this."
Yet another outraged fan said, "Lil Nas X dressing up as a bloody tampon is the most annoying thing I've seen tonight. He does nothing except romanticize things that give women pain." Another said, "As a woman, I feel disrespected by his actions. Lil Nas X is cancelled forever.
Lil Nas X, born Montero Lamar Hill, is renowned for his shock outfits, and famously covered his body with silver paint and crystals for the Met Gala 2023. Last month he was forced to arrive late to the premiere of his documentary "Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero" due to an alleged bomb threat during the Toronto International Film Festival.
The special screening at the event was intended to take place at 10 P.M. local time but as the rapper arrived at the premiere organizers were made aware of a phoned-in warning that was designed to target the Grammy winner for being "a black queer artist." The star's arrival on the red carpet was delayed by 20 minutes as security searched the Roy Thomson Hall theater before announcing there was "not a credible threat."
Lil Nas X, who publicly came out as a gay in June 2019, recently told Variety, "I feel like we live in a generation where black queer people really control culture, and they're helping really take the world to the next level."
#JUSTMARRIED! Joss Stone Reveals Nashville Wedding To Cody DaLuz
Josh has been working with Dave Stewart on the score for the stage show "The Time Travellers Wife" and she revealed she almost caught a bouquet of bridal flowers while in the audience for the production, so took it as a sign about her own nuptials. Speaking to 5 News' Tessa Chapman, she said, "OK, I'll tell you something magical, really truly. You know when she throws the flowers at the end?"
"They came to me and I almost reached out for them to catch the flowers, this is when she gets married and they do the whole thing and that's the end of the first act, and they sort of fell down here and there was an empty seat - the only empty seat in the whole place," she continued.
"And no one went to pick them up and I was like, well they were for me! So I picked them up and everyone was like, yay!!! Anyway, I went home to Nashville and we got married last Thursday. And I thought it was a good omen!" she added.
Even the production's director, Bill Buckhurst was shocked by her revelation. He exclaimed, "Did you? But you're married aren't you?" Joss replied, "No, I wasn't married." Bill said, "Wow, that's proper magic."
Joss responded, "I know I just thought, it’s gotta be a good sign. You know when you say when you do that and the person who catches it...I know I didn't catch it but I feel like that was part of the..." Bill noted, "Normally they don't got as far as row four so." Joss said, "I was so shy of them I was like 'oh my god' they're totally for me they're for me."
Mariah Carey Sued By Andy Stone Over 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' For Second Time
Mariah Carey appears to be facing another legal problem. The songstress, who released one of her hits titled "All I Want For Christmas Is You" back in 1994, has been sued by Andy Stone, who performs as Vince Vance, over that particular song for the second time.
In new legal documents obtained by several media outlets on Wednesday, November 1, the 54-year-old songstress, her co-writer Walter Afanasieff and Sony Music Entertainment in the Central District of California were named as defendants in a $20 million lawsuit from Andy and Troy Powers. The civil lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, October 31.
In the new docs, Andy demanded a jury trial and asked for the huge amount of money in damages. He, through his lawyers, also alleged "copyright infringement and unjust enrichment" over his own song, which is also titled "All I Want for Christmas Is You". His lawyers claimed that he co-wrote the song, which was released in 1989, in Nashville.
According to PEOPLE, the lawyers stated that Andy's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" song "received radio play" back in 1993. The track "became a hit on Billboard's Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart" one year later, which is the same year Mariah released her song.
The lawyers went to accuse Mariah of copying the "compositional structure" of Andy's track. However, they acknowledged that "the phrase 'all I want for Christmas is you' wasn't originated" by Andy. They further claimed that Mariah and her collaborators "undoubtedly had access" to Andy's track when her song was created "given its wide commercial and cultural success."
Elsewhere in the court documents, the lawyers reportedly wrote, "Defendants knew or should have known that 'All I Want or Christmas is You' could not be used in a musical work by Defendants without a license and/or songwriting credit, as is customary practice in the music industry."
This was not the first time Andy filed a lawsuit over Mariah's "All I Want for Christmas Is You". In June 2022, he filed a similar $20 million lawsuit in Louisiana. However, he dropped the lawsuit in November that same year, according to Billboard.
Usher’s Major Tease for Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Performance
“Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi spoke with Usher, who acknowledged how big it is going to be to headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show on February 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
He emphasized, “It doesn’t get any bigger.”
As for getting the call, Usher said, “When I got the call, I was like, ‘Man, I’ve been working really hard my entire career. The preparation didn’t start within the last two years of performing in Las Vegas. It really started 30 years ago, and my commitment to it and the journey that Ive taken musically is why I think I’m given that moment.’”
Usher got a congratulatory call from Jay-Z, who said, “It’s your magic moment. This is it. This is your Michael moment.’”
Usher admitted, “I was like, ‘That’s a lot of pressure, bro.’ But so many incredible artists that I respect played that stage, whether it was Beyoncé, Prince, you know even recent performances from, you know, artists. It’s like, ‘Wow, it’s the most compact 13 minutes of your life.’”
Usher didn’t reveal too much about what we’re going to see in those 13 minutes.
He hinted, “You’re going to get hit records... I do want to play the songs that people obviously recognize and the ones that I celebrate, I’ve been able to laugh, I have been able to cry, I have been vulnerable, I’ve been telling and honest… I found really great ways to help us communicate better through my music and that celebration is inside this curation.”
It looks like Usher will be joined onstage by someone special. He said, “I’ve also collaborated with a lot of people in the process, so… there’s a celebration there.”
Without saying more, he quipped, “I just gave it all to you. You gotta decode it.”
Some of Usher’s collaborations include “OMG” with Will.i.am., “My Boo” with Alicia Keys, and “Somebody to Love” with Justin Bieber.
When Mona asked him to blink twice if she named a correct person, he commented, “I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas, so I’ve worked on my poker face.”
Usher had to keep his big Super Bowl show a secret for weeks before it was announced!
He noted, “My family didn’t know. My sons did not know. I tried to tell my daughter. She just ran off. She didn’t care. I was like, ‘I got to tell you a secret.’”
Believe it or not, Usher did share his secret with Anna Wintour.
He explained, “I called her and I said, ‘Hey, I gotta tell you something,’ and I shared it with her early. And the first thing she says, ‘Well, what are you wearing?’”
Usher is “still working on those details,” adding, “If you’ve had the opportunity to come see my show, you understand it’s really a celebration of our culture, a celebration of what we’ve come from, a celebration of the places I’ve come from… I’m going to pull all of those things and then some into this performance.”
During his Las Vegas residency, Usher has performed in front of celebs like Doja Cat, Kim Kardashian, and Jennifer Lopez.
He said, “I get the pleasure of, you know, every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday doing shows to entertain an audience that came some flew from across, you know, across the pond to come and see me perform here and there in Las Vegas. It’s an honor… It’s a pleasure to have a catalog and also to have fans that are excited and I get a chance to entertain them.”
Before Usher's showstopping 13-minute performance at the Super Bowl, he’s teaming with Sanofi to create the 1 pledge movement for Type 1 diabetes early detection.
It is a campaign close to his heart since his son Usher Raymond V has diabetes. Of the moment he learned of the diagnosis, Usher said, “I was shell-shocked. I didn’t really understand it because my child was the first in our family to be T1D…
“It’s a journey that is something that I don’t take lightly for parents who I know will have to kind of live with this, but this is an opportunity for them to be prepared.”
Join Usher in making the pledge to get screened for type 1 diabetes: “Good Good” Singer Usher is having a moment with his Las Vegas show, his upcoming Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show, and now he is raising awareness for Type 1 diabetes.
“Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi spoke with Usher, who acknowledged how big it is going to be to headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show on February 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
He emphasized, “It doesn’t get any bigger.”
As for getting the call, Usher said, “When I got the call, I was like, ‘Man, I’ve been working really hard my entire career. The preparation didn’t start within the last two years of performing in Las Vegas. It really started 30 years ago, and my commitment to it and the journey that Ive taken musically is why I think I’m given that moment.’”
Usher got a congratulatory call from Jay-Z, who said, “It’s your magic moment. This is it. This is your Michael moment.’”
Usher admitted, “I was like, ‘That’s a lot of pressure, bro.’ But so many incredible artists that I respect played that stage, whether it was Beyoncé, Prince, you know even recent performances from, you know, artists. It’s like, ‘Wow, it’s the most compact 13 minutes of your life.’”
Usher didn’t reveal too much about what we’re going to see in those 13 minutes.
He hinted, “You’re going to get hit records... I do want to play the songs that people obviously recognize and the ones that I celebrate, I’ve been able to laugh, I have been able to cry, I have been vulnerable, I’ve been telling and honest… I found really great ways to help us communicate better through my music and that celebration is inside this curation.”
It looks like Usher will be joined onstage by someone special. He said, “I’ve also collaborated with a lot of people in the process, so… there’s a celebration there.”
Without saying more, he quipped, “I just gave it all to you. You gotta decode it.”
Some of Usher’s collaborations include “OMG” with Will.i.am., “My Boo” with Alicia Keys, and “Somebody to Love” with Justin Bieber.
When Mona asked him to blink twice if she named a correct person, he commented, “I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas, so I’ve worked on my poker face.”
Usher had to keep his big Super Bowl show a secret for weeks before it was announced!
He noted, “My family didn’t know. My sons did not know. I tried to tell my daughter. She just ran off. She didn’t care. I was like, ‘I got to tell you a secret.’”
Believe it or not, Usher did share his secret with Anna Wintour.
He explained, “I called her and I said, ‘Hey, I gotta tell you something,’ and I shared it with her early. And the first thing she says, ‘Well, what are you wearing?’”
Usher is “still working on those details,” adding, “If you’ve had the opportunity to come see my show, you understand it’s really a celebration of our culture, a celebration of what we’ve come from, a celebration of the places I’ve come from… I’m going to pull all of those things and then some into this performance.”
During his Las Vegas residency, Usher has performed in front of celebs like Doja Cat, Kim Kardashian, and Jennifer Lopez.
He said, “I get the pleasure of, you know, every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday doing shows to entertain an audience that came some flew from across, you know, across the pond to come and see me perform here and there in Las Vegas. It’s an honor… It’s a pleasure to have a catalog and also to have fans that are excited and I get a chance to entertain them.”
Before Usher's showstopping 13-minute performance at the Super Bowl, he’s teaming with Sanofi to create the 1 pledge movement for Type 1 diabetes early detection.
It is a campaign close to his heart since his son Usher Raymond V has diabetes. Of the moment he learned of the diagnosis, Usher said, “I was shell-shocked. I didn’t really understand it because my child was the first in our family to be T1D…
“It’s a journey that is something that I don’t take lightly for parents who I know will have to kind of live with this, but this is an opportunity for them to be prepared.”
Join Usher in making the pledge to get screened for type 1 diabetes: https://www.screenfortype1.com/take-the-pledge/
Britney Spears’ memoir sold 1.1 million copies in the first week of its release
Britney Spears’ memoir sold 1.1 million copies in the first week of its release
Britney Spears’ memoir “The Woman in Me” has sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. alone through its first week.
“I poured my heart and soul into my memoir, and I am grateful to my fans and readers around the world for their unwavering support,” Spears said in a statement released Wednesday by Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.
The sales figures include pre-orders, print sales, e-books and audiobooks. “The Woman in Me,” released Oct. 24, has been praised by critics as a compelling account of her rise to global fame and her ongoing struggles, notably the conservatorship that for years granted her father control of much of her life.
The singer’s highly-anticipated book, for which she did little publicity beyond posts on her Instagram page, was the top seller of last week. But it’s not the year’s fastest seller. Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare,” which came out in January, sold 1.6 million U.S. copies in its first week.
The audio edition of Spears’ book, read by Oscar-nominated actor Michelle Williams, appears a key factor in the book’s initial success. Williams’ reading of “The Woman in Me” has been highly acclaimed, and according to Gallery, is the fastest selling audio release in the company’s history. The publisher did not immediately announce a specific sales figure for the audiobook.
According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the print market, “The Woman in Me” sold just under 418,000 copies, far below first week Circana numbers for former President Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land” and former first lady Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” among other memoirs.
T.J. Holmes, Amy Robach announce podcast after ABC News exit over romance
The couple made it official in an Instagram post and said "Amy & T.J." will debut on Dec. 5 on iHeartRadio.
"How's this for Instagram official? #silentnomore," the post began.
"Hosts and executive producers Robach and Holmes are a formidable broadcasting team with decades of experience delivering headline news and captivating viewers nationwide. Now, the duo will get behind the microphone to explore meaningful conversations about current events, pop culture, and everything in between," according to a news release.
The pair were taken off the air and placed on a temporary hiatus in December 2022 after photos surfaced of them holding hands and spending time together.
While their relationship didn't violate company policy, according to ABC News President Kim Godwin, it was an internal and external "distraction."
The network named Eva Pilgrim and DeMarco Morgan as the new co-anchors for GMA3 which airs in the afternoon.
Shanquella Robinson’s family to file lawsuit against friends she traveled to Mexico with
Shanquella Robinson’s family is planning to file a lawsuit against six of her former friends who hindered the investigation of her passing. “The lawsuit will be against the six travel mates including the three who lied by omission by failing to disclose that someone had been beating Shanquella prior to her death,” attorney Sue-Ann Robinson told Newsweek.
Shanquella was found dead in October of 2022 at a rented villa she was staying at in San José del Cabo. The group initially claimed that she died of alcohol poisoning, but an original autopsy report revealed that the 25-year-old’s cause of death was “severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation.” Following her death, cellphone footage of Shanquella being brutally beaten, while naked, by another woman in a bedroom of the vacation rental went viral on social media. At least two other people were present during the altercation, and you can hear one of them saying, “Quella, can you at least fight back?” The clip caused outrage across the U.S.
As previously, back in April, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that after “clear deliberation,” no federal charges would be filed in connection to her death, citing that there was not enough evidence, despite the video that circulated the internet. “As in every case under consideration for federal prosecution, the government must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a federal crime was committed,” they said. “Based on the results of the autopsy, and after a careful deliberation and review of the investigative materials by both U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, federal prosecutors informed Ms. Robinson’s family today that the available evidence does not support a federal prosecution.” No suspects have ever been taken into custody regarding Shanquella’s death.
While talking to reporters, the North Carolina native’s grieving father revealed that he was disappointed. ”I’m frustrated about it to the utmost. Y’all put a hole in this father’s heart right here, sure enough have. I don’t know if God [is] going to be able to mend it. Their life is moving along, walking around here like they enjoy life, but this father is struggling each and every day,” he said.
Cher set to star in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year
Organizers of this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have nabbed the Oscar-, Emmy- and Grammy Award-winner for their 97th annual event. Cher will make her appearance just before the parade’s end, signaled by the arrival of Santa’s sleigh, parade organizers said.
This year’s parade will feature 16 giant character balloons, 26 floats, 32 novelty and heritage inflatables, 12 marching bands, 700 clowns and eight performance groups.
It’s a busy time for Cher, who is preparing to release a 25th-anniversary edition of her Grammy-winning album “Believe” and just dropped her first new album in five years, “Christmas.”
For the first time in its long history, the holiday tradition will begin at 8:30 a.m. ET, half an hour earlier than previous years, kicked off by multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-winner Jon Batiste.
There will be appearances by Bell Biv DeVoe, Brandy, Chicago, En Vogue, ENHYPEN, David Foster and Katharine McPhee, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, Jessie James Decker, Ashley Park with some Muppets from “Sesame Street,” Pentatonix, Paul Russell, Amanda Shaw and Alex Smith, and Manuel Turizo.
U.S. Olympic gymnastics silver medalist Jordan Chiles, U.S. track and field Paralympian Ezra Frech and U.S. Paralympic swimming gold medalist Jessica Long and Miss America 2023 Grace Stanke will also join the festivities.
Seven new balloon giants will join the lineup: “Beagle Scout Snoopy,” “Blue Cat & Chugs,” “Kung Fu Panda’s Po,” “Leo,” “Monkey D. Luffy,” “Pillsbury Doughboy” and “Uncle Dan.”
Broadway will be represented by performances from “& Juliet,” “Back to the Future: The Musical,” “How To Dance In Ohio,” “Shucked” and “Spamalot,” with an appearance by Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells of “Gutenberg! The Musical!”
Returning giant balloons include “Bluey,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “Paw Patrol,” “Ryan’s World,” “Pikachu,” “Ronald McDonald,” “Stuart the Minion” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
The Macy’s parade has been a traditional holiday season kickoff, and spectators often line up a half-dozen deep along the route to cheer the marchers, floats, entertainers and marching bands. The parade has lately asked icons to be the last guest before Santa, with last year Mariah Carey fitting the bill.
A marching band from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the scene of one of the nation’s worst school shootings, will represent Florida. Other marching bands this year will represent Alabama, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Texas.
Floats include ones from brands like Lego, “Peanuts,” “Baby Shark,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Sesame Street.”
The parade airs on NBC and streams on Peacock. Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker from “Today” will host, and a Spanish language simulcast on Telemundo will be hosted by Carlos Adyan and Andrea Meza.
AND FINALLY FROM “THE CRAZY PEOPLE SHOPPING AT WALMART” FILES
Cute Dress
This man is ready for an after party of ballerinas.
This man is ready for an after party of ballerinas.
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