culture

According to a new documentary set to air on the BBC, Nat King Cole’s white Hollywood neighbors terrorized the singer and his family with racist and hate-filled acts, including killing their dog and burning the n-word onto their lawn, The Independent reports. Nat King Cole: Afraid of the Dark reveals the hostility that the Cole…

After a bit of a scandal that involved a keynote speaker invite and a rescinding of said invitation, paralyzed football player Eric LeGrand delivered an impassioned commencement speech to his fellow Rutgers graduates Sunday, the Associated Press reports. LeGrand, who suffered an injury during a 2010 game that left him paralyzed, took to Twitter a…

Rihanna’s wristband caused a chain reaction that raised over $80,000 for the Los Angeles Police Department. Last week at a Los Angeles Clippers game, the pop princess, who was wearing an LAPD wristband, just happened to be seated next to Los Angeles Police Commission President Steve Soboroff, who of course wanted to take a selfie…

A Michigan man savagely beaten by five men after he accidentally struck a 10-year-old boy with his truck has been released from the hospital some six weeks after the attack, the New York Daily News reports. Steven Utash, a tree trimmer, was driving in Detroit on April 2 when a 10-year-old boy slipped from the…

I was 18 years old when I first felt powerless. I stood, frozen, as a gun was pointed at my head. I was demeaned and called unprintable names. The victim of abuse and sex trafficking, I was repeatedly violated and tortured and then blamed for it all. On April 15 that powerless feeling returned. That was the…

With Sunday’s unexpected release of their Bonnie and Clyde-style short film, Run, Jay Z and Beyoncé may have created enough distraction to slam shut the doors of elevator gate. Besides the Carters, the stylish, four-minute film features a blockbuster cast, including Don Cheadle, Guillermo Diaz, Emmy Rossum, Blake Lively, Rashida Jones, Kidada Jones, Sean Penn…

Saturday Night Live mercilessly lampooned the Solange and Jay Z elevator fight during the show’s season finale. In the comedy sketch, Solange was not attacking her brother-in-law, but trying to remove a spider off his shoulder. This was not the first time the show parodied the family, well, Beyoncé. Just weeks ago, they released a…

Just days after announcing that Oprah Winfrey’s OWN would chronicle Michael Sam’s every move for a documentary series, officials said Friday that the project has been placed on hold indefinitely, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Last week, Sam made headlines when he became the first openly gay player to be drafted by the NFL’s St.…

It was a horrifying discovery when Jerome Murdough was found dead in his Rikers Island jail cell after malfunctioning equipment caused temperatures to skyrocket to nearly 100 degrees in February. Now, officials say the death of the 56-year-old former Marine may be emblematic of a growing problem in jails across the nation as the inmate…