omarion
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Former B2K lead singer Omarion, who has his own successful solo career, is about to take on a new challenge. According to Deadline, the 38-year-old will soon star in “Involved” a dramedy based on his own life coming to the AMC Network-owned streaming service, Allblk (formerly the Urban Movie Channel).
The streaming site is also holding a national casting call for the series co-lead, which will be taking place at the 27th Annual American Black Film Festival, June 14-18 in Miami Beach.
According to the report, Omarion will play a singer named OB Sharp who has been a boyband superstar since childhood. Now on the verge of a worldwide tour, he secretly wants to leave the group to be a more present dad and have a better co-parenting relationship with his child’s mother, who lives in his guesthouse with her new boyfriend.
Actor Lance Gross (House of Payne) will serve as the celebrity reader for the casting call for the role of 31-year-old Shayla Williams who plays OB’s ex-girlfriend.
To further complicate matters, OB gets into a romantic entanglement with Maya—one of his best friends and still has to deal with Shayla, mother of his daughter as well as a myriad of business ventures and drama.
“Just like multi-hyphenated entertainers Jamie Foxx, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith who all have influenced and inspired me and a whole culture, Involved is intended to inspire, shift and impact the culture of American society’s thinking and understanding of special family dynamics. There is no better way for us to learn about and observe these cultural diversities than through the medium of entertainment,” Omarion told Deadline.
He will exec produce the series alongside co-creators Tommy Morgan Jr., Kevin G. Boyd and Deji LaRay. The pilot is being written by Kevin G. Boyd and directed by Bentley Kyle Evans, who will serve as co-showrunners. Michelle Le Fleur will also exec produce alongside AllBlk’s SVP of Development & Production Nikki Love and the company’s general manager, Brett Dismuke.
Dismuke told Deadline, “Omarion is an expert storyteller across multiple mediums, and we could not be more excited to further our partnership by helping him bring this story to life on AllBlk. As a leader in programming by and for Black voices, we know our audience will appreciate such an intriguing and compelling story.”
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Source: Bernard Smalls / @PhotosByBeanz
In today’s episode of Boooooy, Y’all Have GOT To Be Smarter Than This, a woman recently learned on national television that she is not, in fact, engaged to R&B singer Omarion.
A woman who goes by the name Simone was a recent guest on Dr. Phil. She became a guest after her friend got frustrated with her because she refused to believe the man she had been communicating with since October 2020 was lying about being the former B2K member and absolutely lying about making her his fiance.
Simone admitted that she never received the engagement ring “Omarion” supposedly bought her because they had never met in real life because O-naw-rion’s “manager wants me to pay $3,000 to meet him.”
Look, I never want to see anyone fall victim to an internet scammer, but if it never occurred to Simone that no rich celebrity is going to need her to pay three racks to get him flewed out, maybe this was a lesson she was just desperate to learn the hard way. Clearly, Simone never watched The Tinder Swindler on Netflix.
To make it worse, Simone admitted she wasn’t even sure if the man she had been talking to for more than two years even sounded like Omarion.
“I talk to him every day,” Simone told Phil, who responded by asking, “Does it sound like him?”
“To me, I can’t really tell ’cause I only know his voice by vocals and him singing,” she answered. “I can’t really tell it’s him…his exact voice.”
Now, sis’.
According to Blavity, Simone finally came to glory on the fact that she is not engaged to the You Got Served actor, nor has she been in contact with him, once Phil brought the real Omarion’s real manager on the show to confirm it.
And just in case even that wasn’t enough to convince her (because if she hadn’t figured it out by now, who knows what TF it will take) Omarion himself made a video appearance on the show to deliver the bad (but absurdly obvious) news.
“I heard about today’s show, and I definitely want to share this important message with my fans and the viewers,” Omarion said. “It’s crazy how far these people will go to convince and manipulate my fans to think that they’re actually speaking with me. From sending fake driver’s licenses and passports, even FaceTiming them, claiming that there was a bad connection when they’ve never even seen me.”
“I’m so sorry, Simone, I haven’t been speaking with you online, and we are not in a relationship,” he continued. “You haven’t sent me any money. I want everyone to be aware that if someone is online claiming to be me and asking for money that you are not speaking with me. I would never do that.”
In addition, Complex reported that Omarion posted a message to his Instagram account urging his fans to “be smart” because “so many people have stories saying they spoke with me online.”
“I don’t take advantage of people,” he continued. “I respect and appreciate people who support me.”
And for the record, Dr. Phill knows he’s wrong for continuing to exploit people like this. Every tragic person doesn’t need to be a source of entertainment, regardless of how much they should have damn well known better.
Omarion just wants his fans to be safe online.
A recent guest on Dr. Phil was invited to come on the show after being catfished by a person online pretending to be the singer, requesting money from her and even asking to marry her.
The fan, a woman named Simone, shared that the catfish’s “manager wants me to pay $3,000 to meet him.” Despite never meeting in real life, the person Simone spoke with asked to marry her, leading her to believe Omarion purchased a ring for her hand in marriage. Simone revealed that over the two years that she and Omarion’s impersonator started talking online — they first began having conversations in October 2020 — she spent $300 on a fake fan club membership, while her friend sent around $4,500 to the scammer during the duration of their relationship.
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After the episode aired, Omarion took to his Instagram Stories to share a word of caution to his followers. “Be smart family,” Omarion said in an Instagram update shared shortly after the episode debuted. “So many people have stories saying they spoke with me online. I don’t take advantage of people. I respect and appreciate people who support me.”
In addition to the note, Omarion appeared on the episode to share a message with the Dr. Phil audience.
Coming up for the star is the release of his forthcoming album, Full Circle: Sonic Book One, scheduled to arrive in May.
See Omarion’s Instagram Story before it disappears here, and see a preview of the episode below:
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