Just when you thought Simon Cowell was leaving the show after Season 9, Ellen DeGeneres and Kara DioGuardi are also out of the picture, according to reports. Could Randy Jackson be next?
If you missed out report at PRAYZEHYMNOnline.comearlier this week - before the tabloids lit up with the latest changes on FOX’s hit reality TV show – you missed a set of prophecies. Most in which came true.
After Simon Cowell’s departure from ‘American Idol’, we knew a shift was bound to take place with the judges’ panel. Funnygirl Ellen DeGeneres, only appearing on last season, decided to call it quits; citing that the show “wasn’t a good fit” for her. Now the shakedown is getting very zesty now that Kara DioGuardi, just days after Ellen’s exit, has been fired (yes, fired), according to a TMZ report. Rumors are now circulating that Jennifer Lopez, one of our cheat list contenders, and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler are being approached to fill in the empty seats. By next week, the details will get a bit more organized and defined.
Check out our list of contenders still in the running for America’s Next Top Model Judge by clicking here.
Make sure you vote for your favorite celebrity in our recent poll (see right panel). Even if you haven’t watched the show since Clay Aiken lost to Big Rube, who would you like to see on the AI panel?
Coming this December, pop singer Justin Timberlake will be bringing his “sexy back” using his latest creation: his own Justin Timberlake clothing line. Set to land at mega retail giant Target, it will debut in stores and on www.target.com from December 19 until January 22. Just in time for the holiday season.
William Rast, a clothing line designed by the pop icon and his childhood friend Trace Ayala, will focus on JT’s love for denim and will reveal custom-made jeans, outerwear, denim jackets and sportswear for both men and women. It will be a limited edtion in the casual William Rast collection and promises to be an economic alternative from Rast’s high-end conventions (a pair of jeans can run up to $229). Let’s hope the quality of JT’s more afforadable line is decent.
Former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice and Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin perform together on stage at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia for a charity benefit concert.
A very rare event: The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, who happens to be a proud Democrat and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who worked aside President George W. Bush for eight years, on stage together. For a concert. A rare experience indeed, but it’s all true.
The two paired up for a benefit for arts education at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, PA; raising well over $582,00. The event, an idea that sprung from Franklin’s imagination, sparked criticisms from both political and musical avenues, but all eyes were glued to Rice’s musical abilities as she introduced to Franklin’s musical audience that had the gift of a classical pianist. Rice played with the Philadelphia Orchestra as an opening act for Franklin, and leapt into a parade of classics and Franklin’s “I Say a Little Prayer,” “You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman” and “Respect.”
The Washington Post had this to say of Rice’s duties:
She acquitted herself honorably in a single movement — the slow one — of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, K. 466. Her playing may have been a little foursquare, a little obedient, but that really wasn’t the point. Taking the personal risk of going out onstage, playing respectably in public as a political figure, Rice sends a message about the sustaining power of a love of music that should be tremendously inspiring to people of any political stripe.
Franklin also used the moment to revive her interest in classical music – something she has been pursing since her Grammy fill-in for Pavarotti. She leapt into works from Handel using a bit of a soulful arrangement. Ronald Isley also joined in on the musical experience to offer a duet with the Queen on “The Way We Were.” The two even exchanged a few stories of their early days in the ’60’s – now a prominent fixation in setting up the classic Barbara Streisand song.
A few mistakes were made. Aretha Franklin closed the evening with “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” which she called “the national anthem.” She called the Philadelphia Orchestra the “Philadelphia Symphony.” Aside from that and her diva-licious way of upstaging Rice with remarks like “You didn’t think she could play it, right?,” the evening turned out to be a moment of musical bi-partisanship that the entire Senate would’ve enjoyed.
Alicia Keys! Before you tie the knot, you might want to take a couple of minutes and look at the press this week.
The two, now expecting a child, were supposed to marry this past weekend but the marriage was postponed for undisclosed reasons. But her fiance Swizz Beatz, a well-known music producer and MC, is being shrugged through the mud for his previous priorities. He already has two children from two different women but news finally drops about a third child. The woman, a struggling UK actress named Jahna Sebastian, gave birth to Beatz’s baby in 2009. She claims he pays $1500 a month in child support, based on a court order, but has since stopped in payment.
In a letter posted to DimeWars, a friend of Jahana Sebastian’s shared further details pretaining to any child support:
“Jahna has maintained independent parental responsibility for two years trying to reach Swizz Beatz personally but received no response. She then sought attorney’s help and filed petition in July 2009. Swizz first time paid child support in September 2009 starting with $1500.”
Rumors are also sparking over a rash decision by Keys to liquidate her management and by putting herself in charge of…you guessed it…herself.
Alicia Keys’ new fiance Swizz Beatz appears to already be getting involved in her career.
Recent reports claim the pregnant songstress dumped her manager Jeff Robinson – and insiders say it was Swizz who persuaded her.
‘Swizz definitely played a huge part in killing him off,’ an industry insider told Page Six.
Robinson had been charging the pop star a 25 per cent commission for some time. When she was an undiscovered, he was paid even more, up to 33 per cent, Page Six’s source insists.
‘She got smart – and got a smart boyfriend – after years of people around her telling her she was crazy to let this continue to happen,’ the source added.
Swizzy spoke with People magazine about the foiled marriage. “The wedding is not this week. People are very creative [with gossip], but it’s cool. We have fun with this stuff.” He also spoke on behalf of his fiance’s decision to drop her manager. He said, “I am one trillion percent not managing my fiancee. “I’m not a manager.”
Seems like Swizz is a very busy, busy man. He’s not only populating the world with his seed but he’s already rumored of controlling the wealth of his soon-to-be wife.
Ted Haggard preaching at an introductory worship service of his new church, St. James Church in June 2010.
Ted Haggard, the former pastor of Colorado’s mega-church New Life Church and former leader of one of the largest evangelical movements in the country, is back in the news.
Since he departed ways from his church after church officials ordered him to resign, the embattled preacher has been trying to bounce back from his public fall. It was a fall that no church expects or wants to experience, but it was one that altered Haggard’s faith, his lifestyle and his career. Even for his family, his wife Gayle opened up about her struggles to the man she thought she knew and allowed the public access to her next batch of decisions. She choose to remain married with him. And with two years since his departure from the church he founded and going through the media circus of explaining his infidelities and betrayals on Oprah, CNN, NBC and any network willing to give him the celeb countenance of a fallen star on TMZ, Haggard is talking once again. About his new church. About his new lease on life. And his own confessions. Above all, he told Wall Street Journal that he felt he “over-repented” for the multitude of lies he fabricated to his church, his wife, family and to the media.
That’s probably because now Haggard - the Focus on the Familyadvocate that preached the sins of homosexualty while practicing those same actions in his private life - is going through his own period of reconciliation and restoration.
Haggard, 54, told CNN this month, “Three and a half years ago, I lost my faith to the point that I believed that God could ever use a guy like me. I was the chief of sinners.”
He isn’t perfect. And he’s quick to confess that. He told Wall Street Journal proudly that he “cuss[es] now.” In a sermon, he asked a friend whether anyone noticed he had said “hell” and not in a Biblical context. In the same WSJ article, he compares himself with other public heroes who fell hard from moral substance. “”Tiger Woods needs to golf. Michael Vick needs to be playing football. Ted Haggard needs to be leading a church,” he said. In response to all of the media attention he received from the scandal, he claims he “over-repented” and accepted too much guilt for his failures.
In response to his homosexual tendencies, Haggard believes he has been cured and no longer has homosexual thoughts; asserting he hasn’t had “any counseling regarding sexual issues since four months after the crisis. He told CNN in a previous report that he still struggled with same-sex temptations. “I believe in life-long development. I think people are changing and developing all the time.”
In a public press release posted on www.tedhaggard.com, Haggard outlines the mantra for his newly-designed “inclusive” ministry:
“St. James Church is for anyone, and I do mean anyone: Democrats, Republicans and those who go to Tea Party rallies. If you are straight, gay, or bi, I want to walk through the Scriptures with you. If you are black, white, Hispanic, native American, or a confusing combination, you are welcome here. Those working to overcome their sex or drug addictions, St. James is for you….Adulterers, Ex-cons. Everyone is welcome.”
So Haggard has gone from being a top tier evangelical to a fallen disgrace, from a recovering heterosexual to a pastor sporting an “inclusive” banner for a church theme. This process proves that Haggard is absolutely right when describing people – especially himself. He is changing and developing now more than ever. But it is those changes that raises hard questions. If he hadn’t been caught and exposed, would all of this would have ever happened? What if he had adopted an “inclusive” theology at the peak of his evangelical prowess?
In the end, Haggard, now with 200 members congregating at their temporal location of the Pikes Peak Center in Colorado Springs, looks even more suspicious than ever. Although he doesn’t identify himself as being gay or even bisexual, he turns his back on his former condemnations and instead welcomes them. Probably the biggest sign of religious foolery is how one man who depended on ministry to pay the bills is back in business but with a totally new message. And all of this changed overnight because of one accident. We wish Haggard the best, but in all honesty – he looks even more lost in his quest of finding the real Ted Haggard. He’s all-inclusive, still married, still wrestles with homosexual arousals (whether he admits it or not) and now he confesses he “over-repented.” Throughout my personal scavenger hunts through the Bible, I’ve never run across a thing as “over-repentance.” Right now things doesn’t look all bad for Haggard, but he has a long way to go to reaching the maximus he had when he operated the big church on the hill that currently sits eleven miles away from his recent supplant. Nothing’s worse that seeing an ex-evangelical/converted liberal theologian desperate for immediate cash flow.
NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ opened up its show one weekend in early 2006 with SNL alum Maya Rudolph murdering the Star-Spangled Banner by using all of the vocal characteristics and affectations of Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Beyonce’, Anita Baker, Shakira and then some. It’s just simply hilarious and a powerful pun at how pop divas take something so ordinary and turn it into a once-in-a-lifetime event.
By the way, you may need to know: the girl can REALLYsing…even though it’s all for comedy. It’s in the genes. She is the daughter of the late R&B singer Minnie Riperton.
VIEW ‘SNL’ VIDEO FEATURING MAYA RANDOLPH BELOW: (HQ)
Byron Cage, Donnie McClurkin and Ted Winn sing "Marvelous" at the Walter Hawkins Musical Tribute concert at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, Cali. Photography by Rebecca Bains Matthews.
gmc, the abbreviated Gospel Music Channel, aired their befitting special to the late Walter Hawkinson Sunday night. With very little commercial interruption, A-list gospel artists hit the Paramount Theater stage in Oakland, Cali. to pay tribute in song to their departed musical inspiration.
Karen Clark-Sheard delivered a zesty rendition of “He’ll Bring You Out,” with Kurt Carr directing the Love Center combined choirs.Donnie McClurkin stormed through a hearty remake of “Marvelous” with Byron Cage and Ted Winn providing their harmonies on the opening verses. R&B diva Ledisi was also present to add her sweet soul to the unforgettable ballad “Be Grateful.” Tramaine Hawkins offered kind words to Walter and reflected on his amazing songwriting abilities, before soaring through classics like “He’s That Kind of Friend” and “Changed.” BeBe Winans, Marvin Winans and Mary Mary added their contemporary styles to the Hawkins Family’s 1980 hit “What Is This?” Kathy Taylor-Brown, known for her recent remake of Myrna Summers’s “Oh How Precious,” dug deep into the Deep South traditional gospel well for “Special Gift.” On the closing finale’, Bishop Paul S. Mortonopened “Thank You” in Walter Hawkins style, with Mary Mary joining in for their Yvette Flunder-styled ad-libs. Kevin Bond, David Blakely, Jonathan Dubose and Richard Smallwood were also present; helping design the musical backdrop to the festive evening.
No word if the special will re-air on gmc, but by popular request it may become a reality.
Wouldn’t it be nice if this same tribute with all of those great names in today’s gospel arena released this on CD as a befitting tribute to one of Gospel’s great icons? I think so.
WATCH RAW VIDEO OF KAREN CLARK-SHEARD SINGING “HE’LL BEING YOU OUT” AT THE WALTER HAWKINS TRIBUTE CONCERT
WATCH RAW VIDEO OF LEDISI PERFORMING “BE GRATEFUL” AT THE WALTER HAWKINS TRIBUTE CONCERT
Bret Michaels’s changes of becoming Simon Cowell’s replacement on FOX’s “American Idol” may be cut to a nil after police authorities found marijuana and other illegal drugs on the rocker’s two buses Wednesday night while traveling to a tour destination.
After being pulled over for a ”lighting violation” by a DeKalb County, Ind. Sherriff’s deputy, K-9 dogs spotted the drugs and other unidentified controlled substances on both buses. Citations were then issued out, according to reports.
A representative of Michaels told Billboard.com that “officers on the scene claimed there were no trailer tag lights. No arrests were made. Mr. Michaels allowed an open search of the buses and everything was handled in a professional manner.”
Longtime frontman for glam rock band Poison, Michaels, 47, recently became the winning contestant on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice 3while also facing a health scare from a brain hemorrhage in May 2010. A hole in his heart was also discovered during latter diagnostic tests. During this time, Michaels started petitioning to win Simon Cowell’s place on FOX’s flagship show American Idol. He has since recovered and has released a new album, Custom Built, which debuted at #14 pop and #4 rock on Billboard.
While touring in the Alps, seven-time Grammy-award winning jazz singer Al Jarreau was hospitalized on Friday after suffering respiratory problems in the mountains; forcing him to cancel a number of performances. He was then forwarded to Marseille by helicopter on Saturday.
According to hospital authorities, Jarreau, 70, will stay hospitalized for three or four more days and will receive careful monitoring. His managers expect for him to undergo more tests before returning to his touring next week.
Jarreau is known for recording hits songs as “We’re In This Love Together,” “Mornin”” and for scoring a Top 30 hit with the theme song for the ABC-TV series Moonlighting. He has also won Grammy awards in three separate categories (jazz, pop and R&B).
Ex-USDA boss Shirley Sherrod speaks out on ABC's The View about the drama surrounding her resgination and the heat surrounding its politics and racism.
If you aren’t aware of the cloud of drama circulating former White House staff member and ex-USDA worker Shirley Sherrod in the last couple of days, you have been sleeping under a rock.
Shirley Sherrod is getting her story out anyway she can, through the news media, by appearing on ABC’s hit daytime show The View and even going head-to-head with Roland Martin on CNN. She is clearly a victim of political groupthink and conservative baiting in this entire scenario. Evidence of this is starting to formulate this conclusion after the White House and the National Association of Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who attacked her for a spliced sound byte of a speech she delivered at a small NAACP Freedom Fund gathering in March, offered their apologizes to her. The tape was poorly edited by conservative blogger Andrew Brietbart, which finds him taking an epiphany of a story meant to mend racial harmonies and altered to make Sherrod look…well…you guessed it….prejudice.
The story’s backdrop in Shirley Sherrod’s NAACP speech focuses on her confrontation with a poor white farmer desperate for help. Not employed with USDA at the time, she expressed her frustration in not helping poor black farmers and now being faced with a “fresh” opportunity to help a white farmer on the verge of losing his home. All she could do was send him to a lawyer, who she recommended. The lawyer not only didn’t help the farmer but didn’t care less with his situation, probably because he was poor. She eventually becomes the Good Samaritan and helps the farmer, in any way possible, from not losing his home. She concludes the story that being poor has no color and that all races, both black and white, are in this fight together. What was not put in the spliced video, an important moral, was this excerpt: “Working with him [the farmer] made me see that it’s really about those who have versus who have not. And it could be black and it could be white, it could be Hispanic, and it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people. Those who don’t have access the way others have.”
Officials of the White House asked and forced her to resign after right-wing pundits and the now-bamboozled NAACP put pressures on them to make a quick and rational decision regarding Sherrod’s employment. Since the apologizes have now surfaced from NAACP chariman Ben Jealous and from the White House, some are beginning to question why and how the NAACP failed to watch the entire tape and defend her and leaping too quickly to defend President Barack Obama and the White House’s decision to terminate her. Since then, the NAACP has retracted their earlier statements and are now qucikly molding themselves to be Sherrod’s mouthpiece for justice.
For Shirley Sherrod, her media days have grown longer and wider as she maps out her campaign against the injustice delivered her. She appeared on ABC’s The View on Wednesday to talk about the fiasco and to answer questions surrounding how she was asked to resign. All eyes were on Republican supporter co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck during the interview, but Sherrod ended all right-wing spoils when she told her story of how 1) she was telling a story that was done back in the ’80’s before she was hired by the White House 2) she was not able to help the poor white farmer in the story because she was not in the position to 3) she was forced to quickly resign after they placed her on administrative leave while in transit to her work office and to do so on her Blackberry.
Although she did get an apology from the White House, Hasselbeck asked Sherrod if she heard from President Obama. Sherrod responded, “No, I haven’t.”
“Do you expect to?”
“Probably not,” Sherrod finally answers.
Roland S. Martin, syndicated columnist and CNN contributor and occasional analyst on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, also enters the landscape of drama by his failure to retract his early condemnations of Sherrod. While on the air, Sherrod and Martin are embroiled in a heated debate surrounding the Sherrod speech. At one point in the segment when he asserts that people shouldn’t make “decisions to help people more or less based on preconceived notions”, Sherrod is frustrated and “pops off “ proclaiming “I don’t know what world he was living in the eighties…he’s dead wrong.” She continues, “He’s coming from a different world.”
Martin took to his Twitter account to justify his statements and to throw ice on the heated debate. Clearly, Martin may need to bring down his rising ego levels and, like the White House and the NAACP did, apologize for his actions. We all were a bit too quick and irrational to condemn Sherrod after hearing the spliced tape. Now that the whole truth has finally leaked out, we know that Sherrod is facing an even bigger demon.
UPDATE: Roland S. Martin quickly issued an apology today via the Tom Joyner Morning Show. These are his words: “What I want her to know and anybody else, is what I previously stated and written. Did I make a snap judgment against her based upon the comments originally reported, yes. Was it wrong to do so, yes. And I clearly would have come to a far different conclusion had I seen the entire forty-five minute speech and for not doing that, am certainly sorry”.
WATCH THE TWO PART VIDEO OF HER APPEARANCE ON THE VIEW – WHICH ALSO FEATURES THE ORIGINAL SPLICED VIDEO AND EXCERPTS OF THE VIDEO NOT SHOWN
FOR THOSE CURIOUS TO HEAR THE ENTIRE SHIRLEY SHERROD SPEECH, WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW (NOW POSTED AT NAACP’S YOUTUBE PAGE)
WATCH THE CONFRONTATION FEATURING ROLAND MARTIN AND SHIRLEY SHERROD ON CNN by clicking here. CNN decided to disable embedding this video since Martin is a paid staffer with CNN
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