Clarice Taylor, who played Bill Cosby’s mother on The Cosby Show, died on Monday at age 93, her rep says.
She succumbed to heart failure and was surrounded by family when she passed.
Taylor earned an Emmy nomination in 1986 for her recurring role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable’s mother, Anna Huxtable, on the long-running sitcom.
A performer on stage, radio, TV and film for over five decades, the actress was a member of the New York stage group, the Negro Ensemble Company, and helped to pave the way for African-American actors in the early 1960s.
Her own big break came that decade when she landed the role of Harriet, David’s grandmother, on Sesame Street. She also starred alongside Liza Minelli in 1970’s Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon and played Grady’s Cousin Emma on Sanford and Son.
Taylor is survived by her two sons, William and James, and her five grandchildren.
Shaquille O’Neal announced on Twitter that he is retiring after 19 seasons in the NBA.
“We did it. 19 years baby. I want to thank you very much,” O’Neal said in a video posted on his Twitter account. “That’s why I’m telling you first. I’m about to retire. Love you. Talk to you soon.”
Click HERE to watch the video of O’Neal announcing his retirement.
O’Neal was selected with the first overall pick by the Orlando Magic in the 1992 draft.
The 39-year-old won three NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and one with the Miami Heat. He also played for the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics.
Sean Kingston’s injuries from a Miami jet ski crash should be healed in about six weeks, two sources close to the hip-hop artist told CNN Tuesday.
Kingston, 21, suffered a broken jaw, fractured wrist and water in his lungs, according to the sources, who both asked not to be identified since they were not authorized to speak to the media.
A publicist for Epic Records, which distributes his music, issued a statement Tuesday morning saying Kingston was in “critical but stable condition” in the intensive care unit of a Miami hospital.
Cassandra Sanchez, 23, was riding on the Sea Doo jet ski with Kingston when it crashed into a Miami bridge Sunday night, according to an accident report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Sanchez was also injured and hospitalized.
Kingston had just bought the jet ski days before, as he was moving into a new house in Miami, one of the sources said.
His life vest apparently fell off during the crash, causing Kingston to sink below the water, according to witnesses.
“They were calling us over, telling us, ‘He’s drowning, he’s drowning,’ ” said Carmen Rivera, who was boating nearby with her husband Jonathan Rivera and friend Jimmy Vega. The three rescuers were interviewed by CNN affiliate WSVN-TV.
“We jumped in the water to help him keep his head above water,” Vega said.
“I pushed him up, and he was vomiting what seemed like water, and then there was some blood coming out,” Jonathan Rivera said.
Recording artist Trav, who visited Kingston at the hospital Monday, told CNN he was “very responsive.”
Trav’s newest song “Up and Down,” which releases Wednesday, features Kingston.
The Miami-born artist changed his name from Kisean Anderson to Kingston to reflect his Jamaican heritage.
Jennifer Hudson has radically changed her image by dropping more than 80 pounds as a Weight Watchers spokeswoman, but she can’t seem to land a seven-figure book deal.
The Oscar- and Grammy-winning actress/singer and her William Morris agent, Mel Berger, have been shopping a book proposal to major publishers for four years about Hudson’s weight struggle and her eventual transformation from a size 16 to 6.
But while Hudson’s weight struggle and self-help tips are marketable, sources say because of her $1 million-plus demand for the deal, publishers are holding out for the full story about her coping with the horrific slaying of her family.
Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donnerson, her older brother, Jason, and her 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, were killed in October 2008, allegedly by her brother-in-law, William Balfour, who was indicted for murder.
Hudson has rarely commented on the tragedy. During a February appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show, she struggled to speak about it and started crying as she said, “My mother right now would say to me, ‘Why are you always crying? Stop crying. You’ve got to keep going.’ ”
Sources say the 29-year-old “Dreamgirls” star met with a prominent newsmagazine journalist last December to discuss penning a memoir about the tragedy. But she backed out after the meeting, telling our source, “It’s just too soon.”
Another publishing insider told us: “It was disappointing. Her book about her diet is really appealing and wonderful. But if you spend a lot of money on the book deal, you want it to sell. With no talk of her family, we didn’t think it was worth it.”
Multiple publishing houses have made bids on the weight-loss book, but no publisher yet has met the asking price, the insider added. Hudson’s rep told us, “I have no further comment, but your reporting is accurate.”
UPDATE2: “Sean Kingston is now stabilized and has moved from the trauma unit to ICU,” Kingston’s publicist says. “Sean’s family thanks everyone for their prayers and support during this time.”
MIAMI BEACH -rapper Sean Kingston was treated at Ryder Trauma Center after the personal watercraft he was piloting smacked into the Palm Island Bridge near the MacArthur causeway Sunday night.
Jorge Pino, a spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife commission, a good Samaritan saw the accident and helped pull Kingston from the water
Miami Fire Rescue spokesperson Ignatius Carroll said Kingston had a passenger on the Jet ski who was also taken to Ryder for examination.
It’s not known how serious the injuries are, but Carroll said both Kingston and his passenger were reported in stable condition.
Kingston’s parents joined their son at the hospital.
Hip-hop singer Trav, who features Kingston in his latest song, said he visited Kingston at the hospital.
Latest UPDATE:2
“He is good in stable condition,” Trav told CNN in an e-mail.
Kingston’s publicist at Epic Records, Joseph Carozza, issued a statement Sunday night confirming Kingston “was in an accident.”
“No further details are available at the moment. He and his family thank everyone for the well wishes,” the statement said.
UPDATE:1
Kingston was in critical condition. His passenger’s condition was unknown.
Gil Scott-Heron, the musician, poet, author and hip-hop pioneer who wrote ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,’ has died in New York at age 62. The sad news was revealed on Twitter by his UK publisher. The cause of death is currently unknown.
One of America’s greatest cultural figures of the 1970s and an inspiration to generations since, Scott-Heron had been in fragile health for many years as a result of a decades-long battle with cocaine and HIV infection.
Scott-Heron was renowned for his vivid combination of music and poetry, defining new ways of incorporating spoken-word artistry within ambitious sonic settings right up until his death. He was a key figure in post-civil rights articulation of Black America, calling himself “an interpreter of the black experience,” while his early works were a clear forerunner to hip-hop. Scott-Heron looms as large in the music of contemporary stars such as Kanye West (who largely based ‘Who Will Survive in America?’ on ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ on Scott-Heron’s sampled voice and music) as he did on Public Enemy’s Chuck D more than 20 years ago.
Scott-Heron’s music and words are arguably in greater circulation than ever before. ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ — definitively recorded in 1971, and notoriously used by Nike in 2007 — is his best known song, elevated to catchphrase status despite being an all-encompassing attack on both societal complacency and false revolutionaries. He is also well known for 1974’s ‘The Bottle,’ one of his biggest chart successes, which dealt with the evils of alcoholism while scoring big in discos at the time.
He broke a prolonged absence from recording with ‘I’m New Here’ in 2010, produced by Richard Russell, the head of British-based XL records. Despite his ill health and troubles with the law, Scott-Heron played many shows to audiences who were far too young to have heard him in his 1970s prime. This year, XL released a remix of that album by the xx’s Jamie xx entitled ‘We’re New Here.’
Scott-Heron, largely in partnership with musical partner Brian Jackson, who shares credit on many classic albums, released an incredible run of music during the 1970s. His combination of dense spoken-word pieces with spiritual jazz gradually transformed into more sung lyrics covering a wider range of topics over R&B and funk grooves. If ‘Revolution’ and ‘The Bottle’ are characteristic of his early, youthful righteousness, later jams like 1977’s ‘We Almost Lost Detroit’ about a near meltdown in Michigan and 1981’s ‘B-Movie’ are fine examples of the latter.
Born in 1949 in Chicago, Scott-Heron grew up in Tennessee with his grandmother, a period much recounted on ‘I’m New Here.’ Moving to New York after he finished school, he initially found success as an author before releasing his first record ‘Small Talk at 125th St. and Lennox’ on the esoteric jazz label Flying Dutchman in 1970.
Partnering with Jackson, they quickly developed a spacious sound over which Scott-Heron recounted the state of Black America while social and economic conditions worsened. His political commentary was explicit and, nearly 40 years later, sometimes sounds overly of its time. Nevertheless, the quality of the music ensures that these songs remain highly provocative.
Scott-Heron’s growing cult status led him to be the first artist signed to Arista Records and one of the first musical guests on ‘Saturday Night Live’ (at the insistence of host Richard Pryor). Later in the decade, he became a prominent anti-nuclear activist and appeared in the film ‘No Nukes’ in 1979 alongside Bruce Springsteen, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Carly Simon, and Jackson Browne.
After releasing ‘Moving Target’ in 1983, Scott-Heron gradually withdrew from touring as rumours of cocaine and crack use began to circulate. The 1990s were a dark time which yielded very little new music, save for the so-so ‘Spirits’ in 1993, in which he took rappers to task for not fulfilling their social responsibilities.
For nearly a decade and a half, most of the news surrounding Scott-Heron was bad: arrests, jail spells and infection with HIV. However, his books continued to be reissued and fans, though distraught at this anti-drug crusader’s battle with drugs, health and societal pressures, continued to keep the faith that he would recover enough to make new music. ‘I’m New Here’ and its subsequent tour found him haggard and of slurred voice, but were both very warmly received.
Scott-Heron remained wry to the last, explaining on an ‘I’m New Here’ track that “If I hadn’t been as eccentric, as obnoxious, as arrogant, as aggressive, as introspective, as selfish as I am — I wouldn’t be me.”
A star of Miami’s poetry and spoken word scene, Will “Da Real One” Bell , was gunned down outside his North Miami business early Sunday, police said.
Bell, whose performances have been featured on Def Poetry Jam, had just closed The Literary Cafe and Poetry Lounge on Northeast 125th Street at about 12:40 a.m. and was walking to his car nearby when another car occupied by at least two men pulled up beside him, said Lt. Neal Cuevas of the North Miami Police Department.
A man leapt out from the passenger seat and fired multiple gunshots at Bell, who died on the scene, Cuevas said. The men then fled in the car, but did not take any of Bell’s possessions, which included cash and jewelry.
“We don’t have a motive right now,’’ Cuevas said.
Witnesses offered differing descriptions of the suspects’ car color as being both light and dark.
Bell’s performances at the club, where he interacted with the audience, have been posted on YouTube. Sunday, his fans began to post comments: “R.I.P. Will,” one read.
Police ask that anyone with information on this crime contact the North Miami Police Department 305-891-8111 or Crimestoppers at 305-371-TIPS
A 30-year-old model celebrating her birthday at an Atlanta hotel plunged to her death Saturday after she and a pal crashed through a 10th-floor window while “play wrestling,” authorities said.
Lashawna Threatt’s lifeless body was found on a sunroom roof about five stories below the W Midtown Hotel room.
Rescuers discovered her friend, who tumbled off that same roof, on an outdoor patio.
The friend, identified by friends as Ciara Williams, was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition with several broken bones.
“They were play wrestling and the next thing you know, they went toward the window and through the window and out they went,” said Paul Guerrucci, commander of the Atlanta Police Department’s homicide unit.
Witnesses told cops the petite women were merely horsing around before they fell out of the window about 3:15 a.m.
“According to the witnesses, there was no arguing during the hours leading up to this, either, so it’s really a tragic accident,” Guerrucci said.
Threatt, who appeared at liquor promotions and in print ads, leaves behind a 15-year-old daughter.
“She was extremely charismatic. She could talk to anyone,” said her pal, Jomarys Castillo.
Threatt started the night at a restaurant with about 20 friends. Afterward, a small group went to the hotel for an after-party.
“They had just gotten in the hotel and were having a good time,” said Passionate Chonvill, who is friends with both women, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“My friends who were there said it was so random. They literally just fell out the window. They are two small girls and I am trying to figure out how the hell, two small girls could break a window like that.”
Guerrucci would not say whether alcohol might have played a role in the accident. Authorities were waiting for blood test results.
TJKS prayers and thoughts go out to Lashawna’s family:
Plus-size model Mia Amber Davis has passed away at age 36. No cause of death has been given. According to TMZ.com, Davis had knee surgery to treat an old college basketball injury in L.A. the day before she died:
Hours later — [her husband] Mike [Yard] says he got a phone call from Mia’s cousin informing him that she was taking Mia to the hospital because Mia had been suffering from a bout of dizziness.
Soon after, Mike says the unthinkable happened — he got another phone call informing him his wife had passed away.
The beauty was best-known for her work with Ashley Stewart, being the face of Jill Scott’s Butterfly Bra, a cameo in the movie “Road Trip,” and serving as Creative Editor-at-Large for Plus Model Magazine.
Editor Madeline Jones wrote in a blog post on Wednesday:
Mia was a super model and industry leader because it was her love for the women she represented that kept pushing her when the industry itself did not embrace her. Anyone else would have given up, but Mia remained steadfast in her career, knowing that she was not just doing it for her own benefit, but for women of all ages. Never one to put anyone down, Mia was about lifting up people and connecting them with others to help them on their journey and never asking for anything in return.
In a statement for The Huffington Post, Jones said: “Davis was a wonderful wife, caring daughter and loyal friend who will be missed dearly. The PLUS Model Magazine family is deeply saddened by the loss of our sister and want to thank our readers for their support and prayers. Our June issue will feature Mia on the cover as a very special tribute to our angel.”
Davis appeared on CNN back in 2009 to discuss obesity in America. She told Campbell Brown and MeMe Roth, “Sizeism is the last acceptable prejudice….We’re targets, but yet we’re invisible everywhere else. The media doesn’t showcase overweight people, overweight women are not seen in Hollywood. It’s like, why are we being targets but we’re invisible everywhere else?”
She added, “If you are gay, you can ‘play’ straight. If you are a certain religion, you can ‘play’ another religion. You can’t hide the fact that you’re overweight and nor do we want to. I’m proud of the way I look, I’m proud of my body. I’m proud of all of my friends and the hard work that we do to maintain our curves.”
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