celebrity news
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Cookies, the cannabis and lifestyle brand founded by multifaceted entrepreneur Berner, and The Freak Brothers, a comic book and animated series, are joining forces in a new partnership. Via the new collaboration, Cookies and The Freak Brothers are releasing a limited-edition CookiesSF clothing capsule, along with a hefty infused preroll and more.
As Berner continues to expand his empire, the launch of the new LSD Joint coincides with the rapper joining the voice cast of The Freak Brothers series, which also stars Tiffany Haddish, Woody Harrelson, John Goodman, Pete Davidson, and others.
The LSD Joint, which drops on 420 Eve (April 19), is a 2.5g infused preroll point that speaks to fans who grew up with the comics and those indoctrinated to the brand via the animated series. The LSD Joint comes in a glow-in-the-dark tube and is adorned with a scannable QR code that unlocks related artwork.
“We felt like ‘LSD Joint’ was an appropriate name for our collab given the Freak Brothers are from the ’70s, from San Francisco, and this joint is EXTREMELY strong. We will be dropping our collab with the Freaks on 4/19, available at all of our California stores,” said Berner, co-founder and CEO of Cookies. “I love that the animated show is so weed-friendly and done with class. I’m incredibly excited to announce that I am joining the Freak Brothers show alongside an epic cast.”
Courtney Solomon, Freak Brothers’ CEO and show Executive Producer, added, “We’re excited to welcome Berner to the show. His proven track record of innovation and his authentic love of cannabis culture is a perfect marriage with the Freak Brothers. We look forward to a long collaboration together.”
It may come as a surprise to some but considering that the animated series spawned from The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in the late 1960s, they have never collaborated in the wider cannabis space despite the deep connections to that world.
This is the first-ever official cannabis product for The Freak Brothers, so we wanted to lean into the cool trippy Bay Area heritage shared by both brands while producing a product the Freaks themselves would have loved to spark up,” said Greg Goldner, Head of Brand & Strategy for Freak Brothers.
Seasons 1 and 2 of The Freak Brothers are available on Tubi now. Learn more about the show here.
Learn more about Cookies here.
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Photo: Cookies/Freak Brothers
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Tyler Perry may not have been able to seal the deal during the brief time when Paramount Global was toying around with the possibility of putting BET Media Group up for sale, but the TV and film mogul has struck a multi-year deal with the network that will ensure his content has a home there for the foreseeable future.
According to Variety, the Mea Culpa writer and director’s deal with BET includes the renewal of eight of his shows for BET and its BET+ streamer, including Tyler Perry’s Sistas, which is coming up on its eighth season, as well as Tyler Perry’s The Oval and Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living, which are both going into their sixth seasons. Tyler Perry’s House of Payne has also been renewed for its sixth season on BET, which came after the previous six seasons that aired in syndication on TBS.
“Scott Mills and his team at BET have been incredibly supportive throughout our time working together, and I’m excited to continue bringing these stories to the screen. I’m grateful to our loyal audiences for watching week after week and engaging these stories,” Perry said in a statement.
Mills, BET Media Group’s president and CEO, appears to be equally excited about the network’s continued relationship for Perry, and he sang the entertainment mogul’s praises in a statement of his own.
“Tyler Perry is simply without rival as a creator of content that powerfully resonates with audiences across genres, formats and platforms,” he said. “Our programming partnership with Tyler – undoubtedly the largest deal ever in the industry with a Black creator – has been hugely successful; delivering the number one series across all TV among Black audiences and five of the top 10 series on cable among Black viewers. We are thrilled to extend our extraordinary relationship with Tyler and to continue to be the home of the largest and most diverse collection of new Tyler Perry content for years to come.”
So, congratulations to Tyler Perry for, once again, proving himself to be one of the kings of Black entertainment on the big and small screens. Salute!
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It’s starting to seem like today’s celebrities are learning the hard way that when you deal with women (well, anyone) you meet off of Instagram or OnlyFans, it’s not necessarily going to be a one-and-done affair. Kai Cenat has become the latest student of how cold the game can get when you play around with the wrong one, but he’s not taking it lying down (at least not like he did at one point with her).
According to Vibe, the world-famous social media influencer is allegedly being extorted by an OnlyFans model, Layla Red, who is looking for a bigger payday in exchange for her secrecy pertaining to their sexual encounter. Apparently, Red has been asking Cenat to cough up $5,000 (on top of the $5,000 he’d allegedly already paid her) or she’d go public with their “relationship.” To show that she wasn’t playing, the OF content creator “leaked” a picture of a naked Kai sleeping in her bed after one of their “baby-making sessions.”
Trying to avoid looking like a simp to his millions of fans, Cenat went on the offensive and refuted the notion that he came out of pocket for $5,000.
Per Vibe:
However, Cenat went live on Sunday night (April 14) debunking the OF content creator’s claims and threatening to take her to court due to her breaking a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that she supposedly signed.
He also shared a transcript of his Apple Pay transactions, showing proof that he never paid her five stacks for sex, but only $50 for her Uber ride.
In response, Red also shared a screen recording of her own which apparently shows a message from Cenat sending over $5k via Apple Pay.
After Red tried to drop her receipts, Kai Cenat went digital age petty on the model and informed everyone that he purchased her name domain so that any time someone Google’s her name, they’ll be directed to “all of her lies,” instead of her OF link, Vibe reports.
That’s pretty damn clever.
Continuing to fight for his good name, Cenat continued to troll Red on his Live and let viewers witness just how messy things can get when you try to come for him and his money. That man really seems unbothered by the situation. Just sayin’.
Check out the posts below, and let us know your thoughts on the situation in the comments section.
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It seems G. Dep is looking to resurrect his music career. He says he is looking to reconnect with Diddy despite his pending legal issues.
As reported by HipHopDX the Harlem, New York, native was recently released after serving over 10 years in prison for a robbery-turned murder. In December 2023, his 15-years to life sentence was commuted by Governor Kathy Hochul and he was released earlier this month. Now, as a free man he has conducted multiple interviews with various media outlets. Recently, he spoke to Fox 5 New York about his plans post prison and recording new music.
He also made it clear that the public shouldn’t be so quick to condemn Diddy when it comes to his ongoing legal issues. “I’m like, ‘When? When did that happen?’” G. Dep said. “We were in the studio for months on end with each other. So I don’t know where this is coming from. People should give people the benefit of the doubt. If somebody just saying that you did something, you know people can say anything.” He then went on to directly address the Bad Boy Entertainment executive saying “[I] got a lot of songs, bro. I’m looking for you so we can get some type of musical situation going.”
You can watch the G. Dep interview below.
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The single most sacred rule in MAGA world is to never go against “The King” so when Reacher star Alan Ritchson spit some hot facts about Cheeto Jesus, Trump’s cult 45 came right for him on social media.Earlier this month the man who’s been campaigning to be cast as the next Batman in James Gunn’s rebooted DCU made his feelings known about the current Republican nominee for President of The United States in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter calling him a “rapist and a con man” and wondered aloud how people of the Christian faith follow such an obvious charlatan saying “Christians today have become the most vitriolic tribe. It is so antithetical to what Jesus was calling us to be and to do,” he explains. It also upsets him that some Christians have so closely aligned with former President Donald Trump. “Trump is a rapist and a con man, and yet the entire Christian church seems to be treat him like he’s their poster child and it’s unreal. I don’t understand it.”
He’s not wrong. The man who faithfully follows his Christian beliefs is asking what we’ve all been asking these past few years: How do y’all follow a man who’s the literal embodiment of the seven deadly sins?? Didn’t the Bible say something about the antichrist pretending to be a man of God and fooling everyone into following him and committing an insurrection, etc.?
While many in MAGA nation didn’t take notice of the swipe that Ritchson took at both Donald Trump and his “Christian” followers, Trump sycophant, Sebastian Gorka addressed the issue during an interview on his radio show, America First and put a big orange target on his back. According to the Huffpost, listeners spread the word about Ritchson’s criticism and took to social media to air him out and call on their fellow Trumpians to join in on the campaign of hate against the Hollywood star but at the same time others have come to show support for his views and he might’ve made a few new fans along the way.
Per Huffpost:
During his five-minute-plus rant, Gorka told Ritchson to “shut your pie hole” when it comes to “political views” and “keep doing your play acting.”
Many conservatives seemed incensed by Ritchson’s remarks and vowed to boycott “Reacher,” which follows a brawny vagabond ex-Army police officer with a taste for vigilantism.
While the backlash from the MAGA sect was loud, there were also plenty of people who applauded the star for speaking his mind.
We want Alan Ritchson to be The Batman now. Just sayin.’
What do y’all think of Alan Rtichson calling out Donald Trump and his Christian followers? Let us know in the comments section below and peep reactions in the gallery.
8. Snowflakes gonna Snowflake.
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The passing of Mister Cee shocked the Hip-Hop community when the news went wide earlier this month, and now new details are emerging. The family of the legendary DJ has spoken via a statement to reveal the cause of death to the public.
All Hip Hop exclusively obtained a statement from the family of DJ Mister Cee which provided context on the sudden loss.
From All Hip Hop:
On behalf of the Lebrun, Wilson, Calixte families we want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support for our brother, uncle, nephew Calvin “DJ Mister Cee” Lebrun in the wake of his untimely passing. It’s a huge loss for our entire family, the borough of Brooklyn and the entire Hip Hop Community. The Medical Examiner of NYC determined that his cause of death was Diabetes related coronary artery/kidney disease. Details about the public funeral service will be announced shortly. We ask that you please respect the family’s privacy during this extremely difficult time. Thank you.
Mister Cee was an instrumental figure in Hip-Hop, working with the likes of Big Daddy Kane, and was key in bringing Biggie Smalls, better known as The Notorious B.I.G. to the masses. Cee was also an on-air personality and a working DJ who routinely toured and hosted events.
An announcement of a public memorial service is said to be forthcoming.
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The renowned artist and Harlem, New York, native Faith Ringgold, who blazed a trail for Black women artists for decades, has passed away.
On Saturday (April 13), the iconic artist Faith Ringgold, whose work as a multimedia artist and author left indelible impacts on other Black artists and museums, passed away at her home in Englewood, New Jersey, after a bout of failing health, according to her daughter Barbara Wallace. Ringgold was 93 years old. The news of her passing was first reported by her assistant, Grace Matthews.
Ms. Ringgold’s artwork is a fixture in many museums and institutions around the world including the Guggenheim Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the American Craft Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. Her artwork, delved from her own experiences and inspiration from Tibetan quilt art, stood forth as highly personal and riveting.
Ringgold became known for her “story quilts” which conveyed the depth of Black lives and particularly the joys and the strife of Black women. “I think of quilts as the classic art form of Black people in America,” she said in an interview in 2005. “When African slaves came to America, they couldn’t do their sculpture anymore. They were divorced from their religion. So they would take scraps of fabric and make them into coverlets for the master and for themselves.”
She was born in Harlem, New York, in 1930 as the daughter of a seamstress and dress designer – the two would go on to collaborate on her future works. Ringgold taught art in the New York public school system while launching her career as a painter. She also fought for inclusion in museums for Black and women artists beginning in 1968. “I became a feminist out of disgust for the manner in which women were marginalized in the art world,” she said to the New York Times in 2019, adding: “I began to incorporate this perspective into my work, with a particular focus on Black women as slaves and their sexual exploitation.”
Ringgold also created several public works, including the “Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines” mosaic murals found in the 125th Street subway station in her native Harlem. She also became a children’s book author and would be the recipient of numerous awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim fellowship in addition to honorary doctorates.
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It looks like Will Smith is officially out of the doghouse as far as fans are concerned. Years after alienating millions of his supporters for slapping Chris Rock, Smith is once again feeling the love and adoration whenever he takes the stage these days.
His latest surprise appearance came courtesy of J Balvin during his set at Coachella Sunday night (April 14) and much to the delight of the crowd, Will Smith burst on the scene in his Men In Black attire and performed the title track from the smash 1997 film. Why that song was chosen is anyone’s guess. Smith does have a few other songs that people would’ve grooved to like “Welcome To Miami,” Summertime” or even “Gettin’ Jiggy With It,” but nah, they decided “Men In Black” was the one.
According to Variety, the song turned out to be the right choice as not only did the crowd approve, but also appreciated the entire theme that overtook the stage for the surprise cameo.
Per Variety:
The appearance was brief but memorable, capping a UFO-themed set and concluding with Balvin being dragged off by black-suit-clad dancers as Smith pulled out a “Neuralyzer,” the famous memory-eraser device from the film.
Balvin returned for another song, however, and rocked energetically through a rousing version of his hit “In Da Ghetto” with his troupe of dancers, who were clad in comically stereotypical alien costumes, green with big black eyes.
Balvin’s concerts are always heavily thematic, and the interstellar theme was present throughout. It opened with a mock-1950s newsreel about an alien invasion (in English, with Spanish subtitles), eventually revealing that the alien was… Balvin, who then arose on a platform from beneath the stage, underneath a giant mock-UFO that looked like a cross between the evil spaceship in the film “Nope,” a pointer from a Ouija board and a cushioned toilet seat.
Who knew J Balvin was such a big Men In Black fan? We sure didn’t. Either way it was cool to see Will Smith back in his bag and getting love from the crowd. Whether or not that love once again extends to Chris Rock is anyone’s guess, but we wouldn’t bet on it.
Check out Will Smith’s performance at Coachella, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Gunna has seemingly moved on from his connection to Young Thug and the wider YSL collective, and a new development in the ongoing RICO case has emerged. According to a fan account on X, formerly Twitter, Gunna will not take the stand in the case.
@ThuggerDaily, an account on X that has been following the YSL RICO trial and offering up-close accounts of the matter, shared the latest news around Gunna via the social media network. The account noted that prosecutors will not call the A Gift & a Curse artist to the stand.
“The State has CONFIRMED that Gunna will NOT be called to the witness stand in the Young Thug & YSL RICO Trial,” @ThuggerDaily wrote. “The judge ordered the state to cut down their list of 700+ witnesses to the ones that they currently intend to call.”
They added,” Their new list of ~200 witnesses names multiple co-defendants who took pleas as witnesses they want to call, but no Gunna. The state not calling him shouldn’t come as a surprise to people who were following the case, but the confirmation is good to have. Will tweet the full list later today.”
The full list of the state’s witnesses can be viewed in the tweet below. As far as we can tell, this is as accurate a report as there can be although we are looking into the details on our end as well. There are several notable names on the list, including Birdman, Rich Homie Quan, YFN Lucci, and more.
Gunna into an Alford plea in 2022 which signaled that he solely plead guilty to one racketeering conspiracy charge but remaining steadfast in his innocence.
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New reports are continuing to develop in the Sean “Diddy” Combs sex trafficking matter that is the target of a federal investigation. Cassie, who many feel began the deluge against Diddy, is reportedly working with investigators in the case.
TMZ reports that sources close to the case informed them that Cassie has been in contact with the authorities connected to the federal investigation into the alleged sex trafficking and assault charges Diddy currently faces. Cassie’s cooperation adds to others who have stepped forward to offer what they know about the matter.
What was interesting in the report is that Cassie had been reportedly working with the investigators for weeks long before the
orchestrated raid of Combs’ homes.
Other women have also come forward to cooperate but those names aren’t known to the public. The details of the conversations haven’t been revealed but it seems that much of what has come out so far is being repeated.
The outlet adds that they weren’t able to determine if producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones spoke with the authorities beyond filing the lawsuit that named Yung Miami, Daphne Jo, and others.
As of now, Jones has not been charged with a crime and is not on the run as had been widely reported.
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