More from Ronda Racha Penrice
Kamala Harris Focuses on Key Campaign Talking Points at Essence Festival, While Rep. Maxine Waters Shows Fiery Support for Biden
Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t directly address the fallout from President Joe Biden’s poor performance during his live CNN Presidential Debate with former president Donald Trump over a week ago when she spoke during an interview at the 30th Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans Saturday evening. Nor did she address Biden’s sit-down conversation with ABC […]
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‘Clipped’ Boss on If the Sterlings Paid for Their Sins, Why LeVar Burton Was in the Sauna and How Barbara Walters Helped Shelly Sterling
[This story contains spoilers from the FX limited series Clipped.] Adapting true narratives is often a tricky proposition. And it gets even trickier when it’s as unbelievable and unprecedented as the fallout from 80-year-old Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s viral racist comments against Black people back in 2014 — just as Instagram and Twitter […]
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The Ladies of ‘Clipped’ on Playing V. Stiviano, Shelly Sterling and Re-Creating the Iconic Barbara Walters Interviews
FX on Hulu’s limited series Clipped is certainly a surprise watch of the summer. Based on the viral Los Angeles Clippers scandal a decade ago, Clipped, the screen adaptation of the hit ESPN 30 for 30 podcast The Sterling Affairs, takes a fly-on-the-wall approach (similar to HBO’s now-canceled Lakers series Winning Time, but with a lot more fireworks) to dive into […]
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Jussie Smollett Debuts New Feature, Denzel Washington Hints at Break From Acting at American Black Film Festival
Jussie Smollett declared he was weary of trying to explain away his past troubles while Denzel Washington foreshadowed an impending break from being in front of the camera during the just-wrapped American Black Film Festival, which also brought out stars including Issa Rae, Kenya Barris and Kerry Washington. The festival, held in Miami Beach’s South […]
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How ‘The Ms. Pat Show’ Heals Lingering Wounds in Season 4
Ms. Pat could never be June Cleaver. Nor does she have to be. That point is made in the very first episode of The Ms. Pat Show’s recently released eight-episode fourth season. During her signature stand-up routine kicking off each episode of the BET+ series (the comedy is based on its star’s stand-up material), Patricia […]
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Yara Shahidi Reflects on Closing Out ‘Grown-ish’
Taking cues from The Cosby Show’s iconic spinoff A Different World but updated for some 30 years later, Grown-ish, the Black-ish spawn premiered on Freeform in January 2018 by following Yara Shahidi’s Zoey Johnson, Dre (Anthony Anderson) and Bow’s (Tracee Ellis Ross) firstborn, to college. Similar to its predecessor, Grown-ish tackled many controversial topics, including […]
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‘BMF’ Showrunner, Stars and 50 Cent Share Insight on Season 4 After Finale
During a recent Emmys FYC conversation in Atlanta with BMF showrunner Heather Zuhlke, stars Demetrius “Lil Meech” Flenory Jr., Da’Vinchi, Michole Briana White and Russell Hornsby — who respectively play Big Meech, Terry, and Flenory matriarch and patriarch Lucille and Charles — and executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, who had been less active with […]
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Former President Obama Celebrates the End of Hollywood’s Historic Strikes During Surprise Appearance at ‘Rustin’ Screening
“It’s great to see even more of you since the strikes are over,” former president Barack Obama told a full house during his and former first lady Michelle Obama’s surprise appearance at a special screening of their Netflix biopic Rustin. Held in the Oprah Winfrey Theater at the National Museum of African American History and […]
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Why the Missing and Marginalized Are the Real Stars of NBC’s Hit Drama ‘Found’
Months before Found made good on NBC’s decision to move it from a midseason to fall premiere, its creator Nkechi Okoro Carroll and star/producer Shanola Hampton, best known for Shameless, could hardly contain their enthusiasm. “I knew I wanted to do in my next project something that had meaning or purpose,” the Shameless star revealed during a set visit in Atlanta […]
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Jada Pinkett Smith Didn’t Realize Will Smith Hit Chris Rock Until She Was Told “He’s Not Going to Press Charges”
NBC wasted no time getting into the “why” of its exclusive sit-down interview with the polarizing Jada Pinkett Smith for Jada’s Story: An NBC News Special With Hoda Kotb. The broadcast began with an image of Pinkett Smith’s husband, Will Smith, hitting Chris Rock during the 2022 Oscars and Pinkett Smith voicing her disbelief in […]
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How Aunjanue Ellis Found Her Groove In ‘Justified: City Primeval’
Justified: City Primeval may not be the show some expected to find Aunjanue Ellis in this summer. But the draw in playing attorney Carolyn Wilder was not the Justified brand’s cult status. Instead, the original source material is what intrigued her most. “I’m always interested in stories in film and television that have been adapted from books. So […]
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How Ms. Pat’s Raw Truth Fueled a Hit Sitcom, an Emmy Nom and Praise from Norman Lear
The real-life struggles that The Ms. Pat Show draws its material from seem more ripe for a gritty, sobering drama than broad, punchline-driven comedy. Poverty. Drug addiction. Childhood abuse. A criminal past. It doesn’t exactly scream out laugh-a-minute. But its star, Patricia “Ms. Pat” Williams, long ago found that using comedy to plow through life’s […]
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