Author: Shekari Philemon

For more than three decades, Brandy has been one of the most recognizable voices and faces in American entertainment. Now, in her memoir Phases, written with journalist Gerrick Kennedy, she is finally telling the version of her story that the public never got to see. It is a portrait of a girl from Mississippi who grew up inside a machine that demanded perfection and rarely asked how she was doing. The book covers her path from church choirs to sold-out arenas, from her self-titled debut album to starring as the first Black Cinderella, and through a series of personal crises…

Timing, as they say, is everything. On the same day that Amanda Batula and West Wilson publicly confirmed their romantic relationship, Ciara Miller made her own kind of statement without saying very much at all. Miller posted an Instagram video from the Season 2 premiere of the AppleTV+ series Your Friends and Neighbors, where she worked the red carpet interviewing cast members. The content itself was light and breezy. The caption was anything but. Miller chose to accompany the post with the words, “If you can’t trust your Friends and Neighbors, who can you trust?” a line that landed with…

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has denied a request by Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner to seal portions of a 2023 settlement agreement tied to a long-running legal dispute with Ray J, according to a court document filed on March 30. The ruling adds a new and very public chapter to a saga that has followed Kardashian for nearly two decades, and it signals that the courts are not especially sympathetic to the idea that one of the world’s most famous families needs extra protection from public scrutiny. Judge Steven A. Ellis found that Kardashian and Jenner…

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he expects the United States to wind down its military campaign in Iran within two to three weeks, telling reporters at the White House that the mission had largely been accomplished and that other nations should take responsibility for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The remarks came hours before the White House confirmed he would address the nation Wednesday night with what it described as an important update on Iran. Trump framed the conflict in decisive terms, arguing that Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons had been eliminated and that a new government was now…

There are experiences that reshape a person permanently, dividing life into everything that came before and everything that followed. For Brandy Norwood, that moment arrived on a December morning in 2006 on a stretch of Los Angeles freeway she had driven countless times before. Nearly two decades later, she is writing about it for the first time in her new memoir Phases, released on March 31. The book describes the moments leading up to the accident with striking clarity. Brandy recalls being focused and clear-headed, treating the drive along the 405 freeway as the routine it had always been. There…

Few careers in American entertainment have covered as much ground as Eddie Murphy’s. Stand-up comedian, television star, action hero, animated franchise anchor and dramatic actor, Murphy has spent more than four decades proving that genuine versatility is not a marketing phrase but a lived reality. On April 18, that career will be celebrated in the most formal terms Hollywood has to offer, when Murphy receives the 51st AFI Life Achievement Award at a gala tribute at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Netflix announced on March 31 that it will serve as the streaming home for the ceremony, marking the first…

NYAFF, the New York African Film Festival, is back and this time it is bringing the cosmos with it. Now in its 33rd year, NYAFF runs May 6 through 12 at Film at Lincoln Center, before spreading across the city through the end of the month. Fourteen feature films and 25 short films make up a lineup that feels less like a program and more like a declaration. This year’s NYAFF theme, “As the Stars Sow the Earth,” anchors the selection in something deeper than geography. The films gathered here trace a lineage of artists and leaders who imagine a…

Something has shifted in how fashion brands choose their collaborators. Over the past two years, partnerships with museums, editorial institutions, auction houses and literary figures have multiplied in ways that feel less like opportunistic co-branding and more like a deliberate repositioning of how brands want to be understood. The goal, in many cases, appears to be cultural authority, and the institutions being courted have plenty of it to offer. What makes this wave of collaborations worth examining is not simply the branding logic, though that is clearly present. It is what these partnerships reveal about fashion’s appetite for context. A…

For years, moderate red wine consumption has been associated with cardiovascular benefits, most often attributed to its antioxidant content. But a growing body of research suggests the alcohol itself may have very little to do with why red wine supports heart health, and that its non-alcoholic counterpart delivers essentially the same protective effect. A cardiovascular disease researcher and associate professor in food chemistry has been investigating what actually makes red wine beneficial for the heart, and his findings point to a specific class of molecules present in both versions of the drink equally. That discovery has meaningful implications for anyone…

While her TLC bandmate Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas remains at the center of a political firestorm over donations made to Trump-aligned organizations, Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins is making one thing unmistakably clear. She has never been in that lane, and she never will be. People close to T-Boz say her political and social views have never been a secret. Over the years she has spoken openly about issues including sexual health awareness, HIV advocacy, LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement, positioning herself consistently as a voice for communities that often go unheard in mainstream conversations. A stance that goes back…