Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!!!


Happy Halloween Fam!!!

Enjoy the celebration and just be mindful that EVERYONE won't have the same agenda as you so be mindful, careful and alert....and have an AWESOME night!

I am on my way to Fort Lauderdale for some sunshine and Tuna Tartare!!! Can't wait!!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Michelle Obama Covers Glamour Magazine

Our First Lady rocks the cover of the November 2009 issue of Glamour Magazine, She also gives out a little dating advice.....

"“Cute’s good. But cute only lasts for so long, and then it’s, Who are you as a person? Don’t look at the bank book or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul. When you’re dating a man, you should always feel good. … You shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t make you completely happy and make you feel whole.”

I second that!

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Adam Lambert's New Album Cover

adam Photo Chopped & Screwed: Adam Lamberts Album Cover

I don't even know what to say.......I really don't.

Red Carpet Arrivals: Hollywood Film Fest & more.....

"Precious' Star Gabby Sidibe & Taraji P. Henson at the Hollywood Film Festival

R&B Vocalist Alyson Williams at The Thurgood Marshall Front Row Fashion Event

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Teyana Taylor and Raven Symone at Ne-Y0's 30th Birthday Bash

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Mary and Wendy jamming…



Sigh....I'm calling Monif C. right now......

Will "Precious" be a big hit or a colossal flop?

Morning fam! I found this article by Eugene Hernandez on Indie Wire and I gotta tell you it's fascinating stuff....He raises some interesting questions about all of the buzz surrounding Lee Daniels new film "Precious".....I thought I share an excerpt....Enjoy!

Btw....I am predicting that this movie will do PHENOMENALLY well at the box office.

Eugene Hernandez: “Precious,” $1 Million or $100 Million?
Lee Daniels and Gabourey Sidibe recently at the Toronto International Film Festival. Photo provided by the festival.

New York, NY, October 26, 2009—The folks at film sales and financing company Cinetic Media have an infamous parlour game they play in advance of a film opening in theaters. John Sloss and his colleagues each try to predict a movie’s theatrical box office. Clearly, the big film they’ll be prognosticating next is Lee Daniels’ “Precious,” which hits U.S. theaters next Friday (November 6th) - nearly ten months after it debuted at Sundance and was sold (by Cinetic) to Lionsgate.

In the wake of a triple award win at Sundance, recent audience prizes at fests in Toronto and Chicago, rousing screenings in Cannes and at the New York Film Festival, intensifying awards season buzz, and now a 5,600 word cover profile in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, hopes for the film keep getting bigger. But, can it meet these increased expectations?

It was January 16th back at Sundance this year, the first Friday of the festival, and in an aisle seat at the Racquet Club theater, I noticed “Precious” director Lee Daniels, and I noticed he wasn’t talking to anyone - just staring straight ahead. Nearby, against a wall with colleagues, was John Sloss. As the screening time approached, there was a strange lack of urgency to start the showing. A bit of a drama was unfolding behind the scenes because across town a delayed screening of Antoine Fuqua’s “Brooklyn’s Finest” at another Sundance venue was holding up some buyers. Sundance festival folks seemed anxious to get the movie started, but Lee, Sloss & company were stalling. I chatted with Lee who seemed cautiously optimistic about his new movie, but he and his reps feared that a bad first showing at Sundance - without the expected acquisitions execs in place for the whole film - would damage their chances for the right deal.

To read the full article CLICK HERE

Source

Mo'Nique Opens up about her weight issues to CBS

(CBS) It's showtime and Mo'Nique is pumped.

"The Mo'Nique Show," BET's new primetime hit, is part talk show, part party, and part revival meeting. Driving it all is Mo'Nique's message: Mo' classy, mo' sassy. Big without apology, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann. "I take pride in saying I'm a fat girl, fabulous and thick, fluffy and tender, full and tasty," Mo'Nique told Strassmann.

"Don't it just make you happy to say that?"
It certainly makes her audience happy - many of them big people themselves. "When you actually look on TV and you see someone who is just like yourself, it's a confirmation that 'It's OK for me to feel this way,'" an audience member told Strassmann.

"It's Mo'Nique!"
That message has fed a career that includes stand-up comedy, TV, music videos, books and movies. Who else has put on a beauty pageant for plus-size women? "I came up with the idea of a full-figured beauty pageant because for years all we had were those other pageants, y'all know, the skinny ones," Mo'Nique told her audience.

To read the full article CLICK HERE

Check out Mo's interview on CBS news:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Talk About It Today!! With Mo Stegall Featuring Sharon Quinn

Click here to listen to my interview about the modeling industry on Talk About It Today with Mo Stegall.....enjoy fam!

The Mo'Nique Show Party at The Sugar Bar NYC

I had an opportunity about a month or so ago to hang out with Mo'Nique & Co. at Ashford & Simpson's Sugar Bar in Manhattan....It was a party to celebrate the launch of her new late night talk show on BET. I had a blast (as I always do whenever I hang with Mo') and it was hilarious watching her get in touch with her inner singer, with Valerie Simpson proudly accompanying her on piano..... Btw....My girl looks friggin AMAZING (and she whispered something real special in my ear...shhh...!!!!) Continued success mama! And special shout out to Eric Bryant for the group pics and the kind words you shared with me that night. Enjoy the slide show fam!




Rip The Runway 2009 behind the scenes...(yeah I know it was in March..)

This is me cleaning out my files....forgive me it's been a rough year for me.....sorry for the delay in these posts (um...yeah...that means there are gonna be a lot more of these for a minute.)

Enjoy!

Wendy Williams Covers Bleu Magazine


Congrats to my honey, Bleu Publisher De'Von Christopher! Continued Success!!

Red Carpet Arrivals: Thurgood Marshall Fund Front Row Fashion Show and more....

Sherri Shepherd wore teal draped dress with gold strappy heels to the Thurgood Marshall Front Row Fashion Show

Raven Symone looking svelte at a United Nations Event honoring Tinkerbell.
Actor/Comedian Sinbad at the 12th Annual Mark Twain Awards

Rest In Peace Tony Nigel

I was very saddened to get this news regarding the death of artist/designer Tony Nigel via my facebook page.....so I am passing it on to all who knew him....I got the chance to reconnect with him at a chance meeting at Ginger Restaurant in Harlem a few years ago and I am so very glad I did...(I am including a few pics from my personal collection)....Rest In Peace my brother. If anyone gets any information on his memorial services, please let me know.
In Memory
Of
Tony Nigel


Please read the message below from Tony's wife Elaine:
This is my little loved family... Quin is 20 months old, was born on the February 14 2008, he is the gift Tony left for me. I will keep Tony's facebook for a little while, to be able to keep in touch with all of u, i am expecting to come soon with his ashes and make a little ceremony with all of you and and spread his ashes on the top of a building in Harlem, the place he loved most in NYC. Let's keep in touch. let's pray for his soul be in peace cause my BIG was a peace in my life.
love to all of u.
Elaine




Famed Fashion Designer/Artist,Tony Nigel
passed away yesterday,October 24 in city of Brussels in Belgium.
Rest in Peace,Tony!
Please remember Tony's wife Elaine and young son Joaquin in your prayers and thoughts.




Friday, October 23, 2009

Gabourey Sidibe makes the cover of The NY Times Magazine!

precious

Precious star, Gabourey Sidibe, covers the New York Times Magazine. The highly anticipated movie comes out in November. If you haven’t seen it already, Check out a sneak peek below...

Actually I am personally LOVING the B&W Shots!! The whole cast looks great!

Robert Maxwell for The New York Times

Lee Daniels, left, is the director of "Precious." At right, Mo' Nique, generally known for stand-up, takes on a tough role in the movie.


Robert Maxwell for The New York Times
Click here to read the NY Times article that accompanies the beautiful photos!

I don't know about you all fam....But I am chomping at the bit to check this flick out!! I predict it's gonna be a blockbuster!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

"Precious" - The New York Times Preview.....

From The NY Times:

At the Cannes International Film Festival in May, in the loud, chaotic bar at the Martinez Hotel, Lee Daniels seemed, as he often does, both ecstatic and nervous. He jumped, he slumped, his mood changing from giddy to anxious. He was the only black man in the crowded bar, a fact that he mentioned and then brushed away. He was dressed unremarkably in a loose, untucked shirt and slouchy khaki pants, but his hair, an electric corona of six-inch fusilli-like spirals, demanded notice. Although Daniels will be 50 this year, he has the bouncy, mercurial energy of a child. The previous night, at the gala screening of his movie “Precious,” which he directed and helped produce, he greeted the audience by saying, “I’m a little homo, I’m a little Euro and I’m a little ghetto.” The crowd cheered.

Daniels knows what he’s selling: his films combine street-smart bravado with an art-house sensibility. “Precious,” the harrowing story of a 350-pound illiterate teenage girl who is pregnant for the second time by her father and horribly abused by her mother, is shot in an almost-documentary style interspersed with fantasy sequences. (It opens Nov. 6.) Like most independent films, it is character-driven, and at its heart is a spirit of understanding. When Precious’s plight lands her in a special school, she blossoms: the audience’s initial rejection of Precious, even repulsion at the sight of her, slowly gives way to a kind of identification.

At Cannes, the film received a 15-minute standing ovation. “They wouldn’t stop clapping,” Daniels told me as he gulped a vodka. “I’m a director — after six minutes, I’m saying, please sit down. But I’m also a producer, so I’m thinking, what’s the record? Can we break the record for the longest standing ovation at the festival?”

Just a few months before its premiere at Cannes, “Precious” won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival, including a special jury prize for Mo’Nique, who plays Precious’s monstrous mother. Graphic as the film is, it is less so than “Push,” the 1996 novel on which it is based. Written by an African-American poet and writer known as Sapphire, “Push” relied on intentionally misspelled, broken and slangy English to convey Precious’s sense of despair and rage. The novel mixes poems by Precious with sexually extreme scenes, like those in which she is forced to perform oral sex on her mother. It is almost relentlessly bleak: when Precious discovers she is H.I.V.-positive, she is certain of her imminent death. Daniels’s movie, by contrast, offers a greater sense of possibility. He doesn’t ignore her disease, hardships or struggles, but he also liberates her from them. Precious is a stand-in for anyone — black, white, male, female — who has ever been devalued or underestimated.

To continue reading this article: Click Here

Source

Tyler Perry & Ntozake Shange?

Word on the street is that Tyler Perry recently acquired the rights to Ntozake Shange's legendary book "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf"....



And in case you're wondering.....yeah fam....I already went out and bought my copy....started studying weeks ago......mmm..hmmm

Preparation is KEY!

Rosie O'Donnell & Kelli Carpenter parting ways?

A little while ago, The National Enquirer said that Rosie O's partner in pussay, Kelli Carpenter, moved out of their home and shuffled off to Manhattan. At the time, Rosie didn't say much about the rumor. Well, now she's talking to USA Today and says the two are having problems. Doesn't it make you sad in the heart thinking about Rosie's strap-on collecting dust because Kelli isn't around to give it a little attention? That one was for Donald Trump.

When asked about the gayelle drama, Rosie O said, "We're a family. We will remain a family forever. And we are working on our issues. Kelli and I love each other very much and we are working on our issues. Those are the only words I am ever going to say. Ever. And that is something that has been agreed upon by all parties. But everything's fine and everybody's good and we're still both raising them together. We will both continue to parent them and we're friendly and everything's all right."

Wanna read more? Go HERE

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Roxanne Shante Apologizes for Lying about her PhD....

"I would like to thank my long time fans and supporters for your continued support. I am humbled and grateful to all of you for that. Without going into all of the details as of right now, I would like to apologize that this story regarding my post recording career has caused such a ruckus. The entire story will be revealed at a later time.

Throughout my career and life, I have been faced with many challenges, both professionally and personally. Like all of you, I am human, and may have not made the correct decision all the time. And, like anyone else, I would like to think that my entire life or career is not judged by one error or mistake.

It is very easy to criticize someone and I have left myself open to criticism. That is fair. There are plenty of people that will attest that I have done a lot for them. It seems though, that negativity gets more attention than positivity.

All I can say to that, is before you level any further criticism and cynicism, walk in my shoes. I am making this statement to apologize to the people that truly care about me for any angst that this situation has caused, and to thank them for their continued support. I am proud of what I have been able to do for so many others, and would like to let those persons know that I will continue to be there for them no matter what.

I am proud that during my twenty plus years as a pioneer in the Hip-Hop industry, to have opened doors for those who came after me, such as MC Lyte, Salt N Peppa, and Queen Latifah to name a few. I will have no further statement in regards to this matter at this time."

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J Hud, David Otunga & David Jr.: First look at their People Mag Shoot!

Jennifer Hudson & family sat down with People Magazine recently for a photo shoot....check out some of the shots below....Beautiful family y'all!



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NYC's Mice LOVE Junior's Cheesecake Too!!!! YUCK!

Did y'all see this mess on the news today? I KNEW there was a good reason I never liked those damn cheesecakes at Junior's...Lol...that crunchy black stuff they put on the bottom has ALWAYS reminded me of cat litter droppings....YUCK YUCK YUCK!!

A mouse at the Brooklyn Juniors Cheesecake Restaurant.
A mouse at the Brooklyn Juniors Cheesecake Restaurant.

"I am not my size.." says Glee's Amber Riley

amber rileyAmber Riley's character Mercedes Jones is sort of the Jennifer Hudson of Fox's "Glee," a sitcom about the go-go world of high school music and theatre. She's cute and spunky with a glass-shattering. She also happens to be full-figured. Amber recently spoke to Life & Style magazine about body confidence.

“You’re not your dress size, you’re not your shoe size, you’re not your pants size," she said. "If I’m going to wear a name tag, it’s going to say ‘Amber Riley,’ not ‘Fat Girl’!”

Amber also spoke to the mag about fashion, which is one of her passions. She said that she loves shoes and prefers shapely silhouettes instead of "plus-size clothes that look like a tent."

To read more about Amber Riley CLICK HERE

SOURCE

Angie Stone's New Album "Unexpected" drops Nov 24th!



R&B Star's New Album is 2nd for Legendary Soul Label Stax Records

R&B/soul luminary Angie Stone has never shied away from pushing her own limits and the limits of her music. With each new recording, with each next step in her career, she has consistently hit the world with something it didn't see coming. Her new album, Unexpected, set for release on November 24th from Stax Records (a division of Concord Music Group), encompasses a diversity of styles and influences that Stone has distilled over the years – rap, R&B, soul, funk and more – and weaves them together in a narrative that addresses life's ups and downs, but ultimately strikes a redemptive chord.

"I wanted this album to be something different," says Stone, whose 2007 Stax debut, The Art of Love & War, was her first album to top Billboard's R&B/hip-hop chart. "I didn't want to make the kind of neo-soul record I had made in the past. That would have been repetitive."

But in the midst of mapping this new direction, Stone encountered a shock that even she didn't see coming. Mid-way through the recording process, her father – Stone's spiritual anchor and creative mentor since her childhood in South Carolina – passed away very suddenly. "It was totally unexpected," she says, "and that's where I came up with the title of the album. I really didn't think I could finish the project, because I was so grief stricken…I had to do a lot of the vocals a second time. I had to lean on my dad's wisdom and energy, and try to be open to what he would have wanted me to do in order to finish the songs. I can say that his spirit was literally there in the studio with me, and I'm grateful for that."

Out of this tragedy comes Unexpected, the next step forward for Stone, a stretch beyond whatever limits – real or perceived – she might have been facing when the project began. From the get-go, the quick and funky title track – with its backbeat inspired by Sly Stone's 1971 hit, "Family Affair" – warns the listener to "Prepare yourself for just about anything." Equally energetic is the album's first single, "I Ain't Hearin' U," a song that decries rumor and gossip. The track is co-written by vocalist and songwriter Juanita Wynn, Stone's collaborative partner for several years.

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Red Carpet Arrivals: The 2009 Angel Ball & More from Black Girls Rock! and more....

Glad to see my curvy girls are STILL holding down on The Red Carpet!! WORK IT DIVAS!!!

Denise Rich hosted her 2009 Angel Ball to Benefit Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation last night at NYC’s Cipriani’s Wall Street. Jennifer Hudson looked great on the red carpet and was there to perform.

Sherri Shepherd (Sherri!, The View)


J.Hud chats backstage with Natalie Cole

Former "View" Co-Host Star Jones

BET's CEO Debra Lee made an appearance.

Jennifer Hudson hit up the 2009 Whitney Museum Gala at The Whitney Museum of American Art in NY last night.

Jenifer Hudson in Versace.

Whoopi Goldberg


The leopard print is back! Wendy Williams made an appearance on the red carpet with her leopard print accessories, and her Giuseppe Zanotti for Balmain crystal-encrusted boots.

Queen Latifah, and Black Girls Rock! Awards founder, DJ Beverly Bond, posed on the red carpet.

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Lisa Raye and her beautiful curvy daughter Kaienja

(Who knew she had a curvy daughter? Gotta give her some love here!)