Rihanna look-a-like to replace Stacey Dash on ‘Single Ladies’
Rodney Ho of AJC’s Radio & TV Talk reports that VH1 has found a replacement for popular ‘Single Ladies’ star Stacey Dash who departed the show under suspicious circumstances last season.
Ho reports that actress Denise Vasi, 28, will step in to replace the 45-year-old Dash.
According to the blogs, Dash left the show following the debut season after an argument with her co-star LisaRaye McCoy, who some say was upset that Stacey was stealing the spotlight.
Whether Vasi, who bears a striking resemblance to Rihanna, will be warmly received by McCoy remains to be seen.
Vasi played Randi Hubbard on “All My Children” until the show ended this fall on ABC. Her other TV credits include HBO’s “How To Make It In America” and USA’s “White Collar.” She is also a model, according to Ho.
According to VH1, the show will return to Atlanta to shoot season two in January and will air in the early summer. Vasi is cast as Raquel, a close friend of Keisha (LisaRaye McCoy). Raquel is a savvy business woman from a prominent Southern family on a quest to discover passion, according to the press release. Source
Ex-McDonald’s Cashier Cleared of All Charges in Assault Case
The word came down in a hushed Manhattan courtroom on Friday. At 4:30 p.m. prosecutors announced to the media that a NY grand jury cleared ex-McDonald’s cashier Rayon McIntosh of all felony assault charges connected with the savage beating of two female customers that was caught on tape.
“I’m just glad to be home,” McIntosh, 31, told DNAinfo after being released from Rikers Island Friday night. “I feel elated, I feel splendid.”
The case was a flash point for angry Americans who have grown wary of the national media portraying criminals as victims in cases such as this.
McIntosh, who served 11 years in prison for manslaughter, was fired from his job after the incident took place at a Greenwich Village McDonald’s in July. He spent the next seven weeks in a Rikers Island jail cell praying and awaiting his fate.
“We were begging them to get security,” McIntosh told DNAinfo.com by phone early Saturday morning. “The McDonald’s itself is a problematic store. It has a high, concentrated number of people every day. “In the Village, it’s crazy.”
The restaurant’s owner, Carmen Paulino, told DNAinfo that she hired security to patrol the restaurant every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. After the incident, which occurred early on a Thursday morning, she hired additional security for Wednesday nights as well.
But police sources told DNAinfo after the incident that McDonald’s management chose not to hire off-duty NYPD officers to patrol the restaurant because it “wasn’t in their financial interest.”
The Moment When Katie Couric Copped a Feel On Beyonce’s Baby Bump (Video)
It was one of those astonishing moments when a celebrity is caught on national television like a deer in the proverbial headlights. It occurred when ABC anchor Katie Couric, who was interviewing the cagey singer Beyonce, reached over, and without warning rubbed the baby bump that has been at the center of controversy for months.
Beyonce appeared startled as she reached down reflexively when Katie copped a feel. “I’m sorry, am I allowed to do that?” Katie asked as she snatched her hand back.
When a woman caresses another woman’s baby bump, the moment usually passes quickly between the two women.
But Katie’s hand returned to groping Beyonce’s baby bump a second time — as if Katie wasn’t confident that what she felt the first time was actually a human baby.
It was clear that Katie was performing a tactile examination of Beyonce’s baby bump, which was first introduced to the world in September at the MTV VMAs. Prior to that, no one knew the 30-year-old was pregnant.
Judging from Couric’s reaction afterwards, it was clear that she still had her doubts that Beyonce’s baby bump was real. But Couric never expressed those doubts on the air. We wish we could have been a fly on the wall when Katie told her friends what she really thought about the baby bump!
Watch the interview after the break, courtesy of @Yardieiz4life!
Wendy Responds to Criticism That She Was Too Harsh On the Kang
Talk show Diva Wendy Williams came under fire from fans of “The Kang” T.I. after he appeared on her show Thursday with his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris to promote their new reality TV show, T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle.
During the interview, Wendy grilled T.I. on the touchy subjects of his past arrest on drug charges and his incarceration for violating his probation. A tense T.I. repeatedly interrupted Wendy’s line of questioning, telling her “Life has moved on.” (Watch the video here)
After the show, Wendy uploaded a video to her blog and facebook page giving her unique perspective on the tense verbal exchange between herself and T.I.
“What part of ‘you are an ex-con’ doesn’t he understand?,” she said. “I get middle America, he’s trying to change his image. He shoulda thought about that before they arrested them…for real. I like T.I. I like his wife, Tiny. But you can’t have it both ways, sir. You go on ‘The View’ and other shows and give it up but what is it? I’m too familiar with you so that you don’t want to give it up here?”
But the nervous tension flying between T.I. and Wendy on the set wasn’t the only topic of conservation on social networks and the blogs on Thursday.
Sisters in particular bristled when a self-confident T.I. gently told his wife to “pause” as she was about to answer one of Wendy’s probing questions.
T.I. hushed his wife because the question involved rapper 50 Cent — a man — and T.I. thought that he — a man — was better qualified to handle it. No real man would sit quietly while his wife spoke on another man’s drama.
It was one of those television moments that lent itself to ridicule and scorn from females on Twitter.com who long ago lost respect for Black men.
Happy Birthday, Keri Hilson!
Singer/songwriter Keri Hilson, the only celebrity with the courage to stand up to Beyonce, turns 29 today! We wish her a Happy Birthday and we hope she has many more!
Photos: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images
Eddie Long Denies Stepping Down As Pastor of New Birth
During a surprise announcement from the pulpit on Sunday, troubled prosperity preacher Bishop Eddie Long announced he was taking time off as pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
“I’m going to take a little time off to work with my family,” Long said Sunday. “I’m still your pastor. You’ll still receive my direction,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “You’ve given me some weeks to take care of some family business.”
The “family business” that Long seemed to be referring to were conflicting reports that his wife of 21 years, Vanessa G. Long, had sought to terminate their marriage.
On Thursday afternoon, Mrs. Long filed for divorce, saying her decision had been reached “after a great deal of deliberation and prayer.” The divorce was announced in a press release early Friday morning. But by Friday afternoon, Eddie Long’s own publicist released a statement attributed to Mrs. Long stating she was calling off the divorce.
A few hours after that statement was released, the media received word that the divorce was back on again.
T.I. wants you to know that . . .
Rapper T.I. (seen above in a photo dated Aug. 24, 2010) took to his Twitter page today to dismiss allegations that he was arrested in an early morning drug bust in NYC. T.I. and Tiny were in NY to appear on the Wendy Williams Show.
Photo: Splash News Online
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