Comedian Jermaine Fowler Lands In New Drama Film Titled ‘Sorry To Bother You’!
Jermaine Fowler
Jermaine Fowler, who executive produces and stars in the CBS comedy, Superior Donuts, joins the cast of the Boots Riley drama film, Sorry to Bother You. He joins the previously-announced cast, led by Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson. Forest Whitaker is among the film’s producers. The film will chronicle the journey of black telemarketer with self-esteem issues, as he discovers a magical key to business success (making his voice overdubbed by a white actor), propelling him to the upper echelons of the hierarchy just as his activist comrades are rising up against unjust labor practices. When he uncovers the macabre secret of his corporate overlords, he must decide whether to stand up or sell out.
Bill Cosby Plans Post-Mistrial Tour On How To Avoid Sex Crimes Charges
Less than a week after a mistrial was declared in Bill Cosby’s criminal case for the 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand, the actor shamelessly is getting ready to go on the road to teach people how to avoid being charged with sex crimes.
“We have received hundreds of calls from civic organizations and churches who want to hear Mr. Cosby speak at town halls about the issue of criminal justice, how the deal he was given was taken away and the Willie Horton style ad that got the current D.A. in office and after Mr. Cosby,” Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt told Deadline today, confirming remarks he and fellow flack Ebonee Benson made on Alabama local TV earlier Thursday (see video below). “These organizations fear for young men and women today; this is bigger than Bill Cosby,” Wyatt added.
“We have just started talks this week, but Birmingham is going to be one of the cities, perhaps Chicago and Detroit, lots of places,” Wyatt said of the tour that starts in July, which could come as the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office continues to move forward with a planned new trial by the end of the year. Wyatt had no comment on questions about the appropriateness or optics of such a tour by Cosby, who would have to register as a sex offender among his punishments if found guilty in a new trial.
The PR rep was reprimanded by the judge in the Norristown, PA, courtroom for his remarks to the media during the trial that ended on June 17 after more than 50 hours of deliberations by the ultimately deadlocked jurors. Cosby, who turns 80 next month, faces more than 10 years in jail if convicted on three felony charges of second-degree aggravated indecent assault that the Montgomery County D.A. Kevin Steele still is charging the actor with.
Steele’s office had no response about the announcement of the planned tour, but another lawyer representing several other women among the dozens and dozens who have said that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them sure did.
“Mr. Cosby’s so-called workshops appear to be a transparent and slick effort to attempt to influence the jury pool from which jurors will be selected for his second criminal trial,” Gloria Allred said Thursday. “Mr. Cosby should understand, however, that this is not about optics,” added the attorney, who was in Judge Steven O’Neill’s courtroom every day of the June 5-starting trial.
“It is about evidence, and according to news reports at least 10 jurors out of 12 voted to convict him on one felony count,” Allred said, noting the anonymous interview that ABC News had with a former juror Wednesday after O’Neill made public the names of the previously sequestered jury of seven men and five women and the six alternates. Despite being told not to by the judge, other juror and alternates have revealed details of their intense deliberations to the media.
“Under the circumstances, Mr. Cosby should not be conducting sex assault workshops, but if he does do them then the best advice he can give to those attending is that if you do not drug and sexually assault women, then you need not worry about being charged with a crime,” she added.
While admitting in a 2005 deposition he gave former Temple University employee Constand several blue Benadryl pills that night at his Philadelphia area mansion in January 2004, Cosby always has said the incident was consensual.
Elected late last year partially on a campaign promise to prosecute Cosby, Steele arraigned the actor in December 2015 just before the Keystone State’s statute of limitations for sex crimes expired. It is the only criminal case against the actor despite more than 60 women accusing him of drugging and sexually assaulting them over the decades.
Source: Deadline
Sharon Leal To Star In New CBS Drama Titled ‘Instinct,’ Replacing Khandi Alexander
Sharon Leal
Sharon Leal just booked a co-starring role in an upcoming CBS drama. She will star alongside Alan Cumming and Bojana Novakovic in Instinct, which will debut midseason.
In the first iteration of the pilot, Khandi Alexander was cast in the role. Alexander has now departed from the project.
Based on the upcoming book by James Patterson and directed by Marc Webb, Instinct centers on Dylan (Cumming), a former CIA operative who has since built a “normal” life as a gifted professor and writer but is pulled back into his old life when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer on the loose. Alexander will play Lizzi’s (Bojana Novakovic’s) police superior.
Leal was last seen on television screens during a stint in Supergirl, and she also starred in The CW’s Hellcats. This year, she also landed the lead in an untitled drama pilot from Jenny Lunet.
Source: Shadow & Act
WATCH: The Trailer Premiere Of ‘Survivor’s Remorse’ Season 4!
The highly-anticipated Season 4 return of STARZ Original comedy series “Survivor’s Remorse” is set for Sunday, August 20th at 10PM ET/PT. The upcoming season will include ten half-hour episodes and include guest stars: Isaiah Washington, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Neal McDonough and DJ Khaled to name a few.
“Survivor’s Remorse” Season 3 averaged 3.0M viewers per episode among all reportable platforms, +30 percent vs. Season Two and +58 percent vs. Season 1. The series is a top-6 scripted program on cable among African-American viewers and a top-4 weekend program on cable among African-American viewers.*
In the upcoming Season 4 of the Mike O’Malley-created comedy series, Cam Calloway thought he’d finally reached the top when he signed his massive contract to play basketball in Atlanta. But the higher you reach, the farther you have to fall. His success has impacted the lives of everyone in his life and that kind of change comes with unintended and far-reaching consequences. The past that he has been desperately trying to avoid comes rushing back with a vengeance and family secrets threaten to destroy everything he has worked so hard to achieve. Plus, Cam’s mom, Cassie Calloway, is dating the man who pays him to wear sneakers.
“Survivor’s Remorse” follows the life of Cam Calloway, played by Jessie T. Usher, a hard working, young basketball star who is thrust into the limelight after signing a multi-million dollar contract with a professional basketball team in Atlanta. Cam moves to Georgia with his cousin and confidant Reggie Vaughn, played by RonReaco Lee, to begin the journey to superstardom. The two confront the challenges of carrying needy family members who are along for the ride and their strong ties to the impoverished community where they were raised. Cam, Reggie and an unforgettable group of characters wrestle with the rewards and pitfalls of stardom, love, and loyalty.
Returning alongside Usher and Lee are cast members Erica Ash as M-Chuck, the sister of Cam Calloway; Teyonah Parris as Reggie’s wife, Missy Vaughn; Tichina Arnold as Cassie Calloway, Cam’s mother; Robert Wu as Da Chen Bao Cassie’s boyfriend; and Meagan Tandy as Cam’s girlfriend, Allison Pierce.
Mike O’Malley, Emmy-nominated actor for his role on “Glee,” serves as executive producer and showrunner for “Survivor’s Remorse.” Tom Werner, Chairman of the Boston Red Sox, and LeBron James executive produce with Maverick Carter, sports marketing executive and LeBron James’s business partner at SpringHill Entertainment; Paul Wachter, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Main Street Advisors, Victor Levin (“Mad Men,” “Mad About You”) and Hilton Smith (“Hung,” “Deadwood”).
Source: Shadow & Act
Jamie Foxx Talks About How Tough It Is To Date At His Age And More!
While Jamie Foxx has been romantically linked to Katie Holmes for some time now, he recently implied that he was a single man when discussing his love life.
The Baby Driver star appeared on Friday’s episode of the U.K.’s The Graham Norton Show and admitted that dating isn’t as easy as it used to be now that he’s nearing 50. “It’s tough out there. I am getting older but people think I am younger,” he said. “I was at a club the other night and a group of girls shouted my name. I was like, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ and they said, ‘We go to school with your daughter!’ You have to be so careful.”
Foxx added, “When I was asked the other day by a 20-something girl how old I was, she looked at me as though 49 was a terminal disease!”
While he is careful not to spill too much about his personal life, he did reveal that his youngest daughter, Annalise Bishop, loves his celebrity status. “She loves all that Hollywood stuff. Someone gave me a convertible Rolls Royce to drive and she loved it with the roof down driving down Sunset Boulevard,” the Oscar winner recalled. “When we got near Soho House I said, ‘We’ve got to put the roof up because it looks terrible arriving like this.’ And, just as I put up the roof up she shouted out, ‘Jamie Foxx is in the House!'”
“I think I will have to give [Annalise] different information than I had to give my oldest,” he shared. “I said, ‘Babe, not all the love is real. There’s going to be some others that are thrown into it.’ But that’s the fun part of it, is taking what you know , what you’ve gone through and being the person who is the male perspective to tell your daughter, ‘This is what they’re going to do… he’s going to say this but he’s trying to do this so don’t have none of that.’”
Source: Entertainment Tonight
The Humor Mill Partners With Laughly For New ‘Life After Def’ Series About HBO’s ‘Def Comedy Jam’!
Several years ago The Humor Mill launched a comedy series titled Life After Defwhich was an inside look into the lives of comedians who performed on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam, the comedy show which was infamously known as the groundbreaking show that debuted in 1992. If you recall, it was hosted by then new actor/comedian Martin Lawrence and the show was THE premiere platform to watch tons of comedians who no one had ever heard of, who was hysterically funny, and from the urban communities across the country.
As you probably already know, Def Comedy Jam introduced us to many comedians that we know as household names today, including Bernie Mac, DL Hughley, Steve Harvey, Sheryl Underwood, Chris Tucker, Joe Torry, Mike Epps, Earthquake, Tony T. Roberts, Sommore, and many more.
Urban comedy was new to the scene for cable television at the time and if a comedian performed on DCJ, it definitely affected your career in one way or another. For one, you could ALWAYS use that as a label (so to speak) on when you performed at other comedy clubs across the country, and you could command more money for a performance.
What wasn’t said was the other side effect if your performance wasn’t funny then you created some new problems for your career path, and hence the birth of the Life After Def series. Now with the new appLaugh.ly and our new podcast partnership, we delve deeper into the insights of the show. In the new series, we talk to many people who performed on the show as they expose us to the highs and lows and how it affected their career.
In case you are wondering who is Laugh.ly, well, simply put, it’s a comedy streaming service which has an extensive library of comedians’ stand-up sets, including Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, Louis C.K., Hannibal Buress, George Carlin, and Chris Rock just to name a few.
Laugh.ly, created by CEO Dave Scott, formerly a comedian, is also an entrepreneur with a background in e-commerce and marketing automation. Scott had the idea for app lovers who are familiar with platforms such as Spotify and Pandora, to listen to comedy in the same manner. He also had the idea for a new platform for comedians to have a new stream of income in an era where fewer people are buying CDs or DVDs, as they are watching sets online through streaming services like Netflix and HBO Now. Laugh.ly offers the consumer the ability to listen to comedy, and it even suggests other comedians that the listener might like based on the last comedy performance that they liked and rated. It’s being compared to as the Pandora for comedy, as it can create personalized stations of comedy while offering on-demand listening.
With the partnership between Laugh.ly and The Humor Mill the podcast will debut a new interview every Wednesday and as expected we will have some great interviews as many people will tell some great (and not so great stories) about their journey.
Dave Chappelle To Host Rihanna Diamond Ball; Kendrick Lamar Set To Perform
NEW YORK (AP) — Dave Chappelle will host Rihanna’s annual charity event in September and Kendrick Lamar will perform.
The singer’s organization, The Clara Lionel Foundation, will hold its third Diamond Ball on Sept. 14 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.
Rihanna said in a statement Tuesday she’s “thrilled that the incomparable Dave Chappelle will kick things off as the official host” and said Lamar, whom she has collaborated with, “will take the stage for an unforgettable performance.”
The Grammy-winning pop star founded The Clara Lionel Foundation in 2012 in honor of her grandparents Clara and Lionel Braithwaite. It promotes education and arts globally.
Past Diamond Ball participants include Brad Pitt, Kevin Hart, and Lionel Richie.
Steve Harvey Talks Candidly About ‘Family Feud’!
Check out the interview conducted by Blacktree Media as they sat down with Steve Harvey to discuss the new season of Family Feud.
Here’s the interview below;
Source: Blacktree Media
EXCLUSIVE: Steve Wilson Quits The DL Hughley Show- Find Out How And Why!
This past Monday, if you happened to be listening to The DL Hughley Show, the syndicated radio show in over 40 markets across the country, you heard a shocking statement from co-host Steve Wilson as he quit while he was on air, and shocked the radio industry to its core- as no one saw this coming at all.
According to our sources, it seems that things were not as happy as meant to be believed behind the scenes.
In case you missed his sign off, here it is below;
Anyway, it seems that Wilson has been a very disgruntled employee for a while and our sources say that he was extremely fed up with treatment towards him from the staff, namely Hughley, which seems to have been going on for a while.
As a matter of fact, our sources forwarded us this statement that Wilson supposedly sent out on Monday.
Read the excerpt below;
David (Kantor),
After a lot of thought, advice and prayer I’ve come to a tough decision that it’s time for me to leave the DL show.
I appreciated the opportunity to work with you BUT unfortunately, I no longer can work in the hostile environment that we discussed in Oct 2014. I tried to work through it, but after 3 years of tolerating disrespect, lies on my character, drama and no room for growth, it’s best for me to leave.
Thank you again for the opportunity, David. I hope our paths cross in the near future in a better light.
All the best to you and yours.
Steve Wilson
FORMER – Co-Host of the DL Hughley Radio Show
What’s next for Wilson? Well, sources again state that Wilson has been contemplating suing the DL Hughley Radio Show but right now he supposedly wants to re-group and unwind from his situation and decide at a later date what he intends on doing. We are not too sure if he plans on continuing in radio but our sources stated that opportunities are being presented to him since he left on Monday.
Urban One (formerly Radio One) and The DL Hughley Show has yet to comment.
*** Updated DL Hughley, of The DL Hughley Show responded to the story and stated to us about the Steve Wilson statement; ” When no one else basically wanted to hire you or work with you and I give you an opportunity anyway, and all I want you to do is work hard, if that makes me a bad fella, then I guess I am a bad fella.”
Stay tuned as this story is still developing.
‘Atlanta,’ ‘This Is Us,’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Lead TCA Awards Nominations
COURTESY OF FX/NBC/HULU
“Atlanta,” “This Is Us,” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” each netted four nominations for the 2017 Television Critics Association (TCA) Awards, the media organization announced Monday.
The TCA Awards recognize outstanding television programming in the 2016-2017 season, honoring actors, producers and programs in a variety of categories, including news and information, youth, reality, drama and comedy.
For the second consecutive year, HBO is in the lead with 12 nominations; FX has 11; Netflix has 10; NBC has seven; Hulu has four; ABC and PBS have three; Amazon, Disney and Showtime each have two; and A&E, AMC, BBC America, CBS, CNN, ESPN, and TBS finish with one.
“This was truly a landmark season for diversity in television, and the TCA nominations reflect this. Our members have chosen a variety of series that celebrate and represent a wide spectrum of performances,” said TCA President Amber Dowling. “With so many great programs—both new and returning—it was a real challenge for our members to whittle these nominees down. We’re excited to see which programs and performers make the cut as voting now gets underway to determine the TV standouts of the 2016-17 season.”
The winners will be announced at the invitation-only presentation on Saturday, August 5, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Read the full list of nominees below.
INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA
Sterling K. Brown, “This Is Us,” NBC
Carrie Coon, “The Leftovers” & “Fargo,” HBO & FX
Claire Foy, “The Crown,” Netflix
Nicole Kidman, “Big Little Lies,” HBO
Jessica Lange, “Feud: Bette And Joan,” FX
Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Hulu
Susan Sarandon, “Feud: Bette And Joan,” FX
INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY
Pamela Adlon, “Better Things,” FX
Aziz Ansari, “Master of None,” Netflix
Kristen Bell, “The Good Place,” NBC
Donald Glover, “Atlanta,” FX
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep,” HBO
Issa Rae, “Insecure,” HBO
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, “Fleabag,” Amazon
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS AND INFORMATION
“Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” TBS (2016 Winner in Category)
“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” HBO
“The Lead With Jake Tapper,” CNN
“O.J.: Made in America,” ESPN
“Planet Earth II,” BBC America
“Weiner,” Showtime
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN REALITY PROGRAMMING
“The Circus,” Showtime
“The Great British Baking Show,” PBS
“The Keepers,” Netflix
“Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” A&E
“Shark Tank,” ABC
“Survivor: Game Changers,” CBS
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUTH PROGRAMMING
“Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” PBS (2016 Winner in Category)
“Doc McStuffins,” Disney Junior
“Elena of Avalor,” Disney Channel
“Odd Squad,” PBS
“Sesame Street,” HBO
“Speechless,” ABC
OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM
“Atlanta,” FX
“The Crown,” Netflix
“The Good Place,” NBC
“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Hulu
“Stranger Things,” Netflix
“This Is Us,” NBC
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES AND SPECIALS
“Big Little Lies,” HBO
“Fargo,” FX
“Feud: Bette and Joan,” FX
“Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life,” Netflix
“The Night Of,” HBO
“Wizard of Lies,” HBO
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA
“Better Call Saul,” AMC
“Stranger Things,” Netflix
“The Americans,” FX (2015 & 2016 Winner in Category)
“The Crown,” Netflix
“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Hulu
“This Is Us,” NBC
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY
“Atlanta,” FX
“black-ish,” ABC (2016 Winner in Category)
“Fleabag,” Amazon
“Master of None,” Netflix
“The Good Place,” NBC
“Veep,” HBO
PROGRAM OF THE YEAR
“Atlanta,” FX
“Big Little Lies,” HBO
“Stranger Things,” Netflix
“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Hulu
“The Leftovers,” HBO
“This Is Us,” NBC
NETWORK TALLY
HBO – 12
FX – 11
Netflix – 10
NBC – 7
Hulu – 4
ABC – 3
PBS/PBS KIDS – 3
Amazon – 2
Disney Channel/Disney Junior – 2
Showtime – 2
A&E – 1
AMC – 1
BBC America – 1
CBS – 1
CNN – 1
ESPN – 1
TBS – 1
PROGRAM TALLY- (denotes shows with more than one nomination)
“Atlanta,” FX – 4
“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Hulu – 4
“This Is Us,” NBC – 4
“Big Little Lies,” HBO – 3
“Feud: Bette And Joan,” FX – 3
“Stranger Things,” Netflix – 3
“The Good Place,” NBC – 3
“The Crown,” Netflix – 3
“Fargo,” FX – 2
“Fleabag,” Amazon – 2
“Master Of None,” Netflix – 2
“The Leftovers,” HBO – 2
“Veep,” HBO – 2
