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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…
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Tuskegee University Scientist Wins $1,100,000 Cancer Research Grant
Hadiyah-Nicole Green is in a league of her own. She was the second African-American woman to receive a doctorate in physics from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. And today she’s an assistant professor at Tuskegee University and stands as one of fewer than 100 black female physicists in the U.S.—in a field that is still dominated…
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No, Tyler Perry, People Don’t Dislike Your Work Because Your Characters Are Fat
I feel about Tyler Perry the way Spike Lee did before they both called a truce on bashing each other in the media, which is to say, with rare exception, I’m no fan of Perry’s work. I respect that many good people are Perry fans. Case in point: Perry has four shows on OWN, including…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
