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Christine Beatty Hopes Reality-TV Show Will Help Her Escape Shadow of Scandalous Affair With Detroit Mayor
Before 2008, Christine Beatty, as the chief of staff to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, was a celebrated strategist with a promising future in politics. That changed the morning the Detroit Free Press published the private, intimate text messages that Beatty and Kilpatrick exchanged on their government-issued phones during their six-year extramarital affair. The fallout was…
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Were My Ancestors in an Interracial Love Triangle?
My research into my family origins reveals that in the 1680s, Maudlin Magdelen Magee, an Irish woman who was married to a white man, George Magee, had a baby girl by an enslaved African man, Sambo Game. The Magees had come to Somerset, Md., from Ireland, and had two sons of their own when Maudlin…
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BET Co-Founder Bob Johnson Is Engaged; Initially Proposed to His Fiancee on Their 1st Date 5 Years Ago
We know that Valentine’s Day isn’t for a few weeks, but when a man proclaims that he’s “found the absolute, unequivocally right person for me,” that ought to get some attention. Especially if that man is BET co-founder Bob Johnson, the first African-American billionaire. Johnson has become engaged to Lauren Wooden, a 36-year-old doctoral student.…
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MTV Caught Itself Shading Destiny’s Child Member Michelle Williams While Trying to Big-Up Michelle Obama
MTV plays too much. There’s a photo up on the network’s Instagram account that photoshopped a photo of Michelle Obama into a Destiny’s Child photo. The first lady replaces Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams. “Michelle was always my favorite Destiny’s Child,” the caption reads. The post originally appeared on the Instagram page for SaintHoax—a self-described…
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This Mara Brock Akil Interview Begs the Question, Why Do Shonda Rhimes’ Casts Get More Accolades Than Akil’s?
Mara Brock Akil’s interview during Chicago Ideas Week, recently posted to YouTube, began pretty normally. She described how she got her start in screenwriting. Akil, a The Root 100 honoree and the mastermind behind hit TV shows like Girlfriends, The Game and Being Mary Jane, went to journalism school but soon found that she wanted…
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Camille Cosby Wins Emergency Motion to Delay Deposition
A Massachusetts judge ruled that Camille Cosby would not be deposed Wednesday in a defamation case brought by seven accusers against her husband, CNN reports. The Cosby matriarch’s deposition had been scheduled for Wednesday, but her legal team filed an emergency motion for a stay just days before she was set to make her statement. U.S.…
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Janet Jackson Is Reportedly Undergoing Tests for Throat Cancer
Janet Jackson is reportedly getting tests done to determine if she has throat cancer, Yahoo! reports. Remember that Jackson recently postponed her Unbreakable World Tour and put out a statement in October saying that she had to rest her vocal cords. Then, in December, she posted this on Facebook: “I need you to know, I…
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Watch: Netflix Teases The Get Down, New Musical Series About Hip-Hop in the 1970s
There are a few things that are very, very promising about this new musical series The Get Down, which will chronicle the goings-on of a group of South Bronx teenagers in 1970s New York City as they dabble in the elements that gave birth to hip-hop. One, it’s an original series of Netflix—the same online video…
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Pa. Councilman-Elect Prohibited From Taking Office Because of 1993 Felony
More than two decades ago, McKeesport, Pa., Councilman-elect Corey Sanders faced a drug conviction. Sanders pleaded no contest to two felony drug counts in 1993 and was subsequently sentenced to, and served, four years in prison. On Monday, Sanders wasn’t allowed to be sworn in as a councilman in McKeesport, the Associated Press reports. In…
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Watch: 3 Things We Learn From the New Trailer of Toni Braxton’s Unbreak My Heart TV Biopic
Lifetime recently released an extended trailer of its Toni Braxton Unbreak My Heart biopic that’s coming out later in January. It’s no secret that Braxton, one of the queens of R&B soul, has had a storied journey to the top of the charts and has endured a lot of bumps and bruises along the way. Here…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
