Drake has been ‘cutting checks’ for former porn star and alleged son
Despite doubts about his potential paternity, Drake is financially supporting a porn star and the son she claims is his.
The “Duppy Freestyle” rapper has been “cutting checks” to former adult actress Sophie Brussaux (née Roseé Divine) and son Adonis, TMZ reported Thursday.
Sources told the site that Drake, 31, has been sending Brussaux money since just before Adonis’ birth.
Rapper Pusha T referenced his potential paternity in diss track “The Story of Adidon” released Tuesday.
“Sophie knows better, ask your baby mother / Cleaned her up for IG, but the stench is on her / A baby’s involved, it’s deeper than rap / We talkin’ character, let me keep with the facts / You are hidin’ a child, let that boy come home / Deadbeat motherf—ker playin’ border patrol,” Pusha raps in the song. “Adonis is your son / And he deserves more than an Adidas press run, that’s real / Love that baby, respect that girl / Forget she’s a porn star, let her be your world.”
Drake was first linked publicly to Brussaux in January 2017.
In May 2017, Brussaux claimed she was pregnant with his child and alleged that Drake urged her to have an abortion. His rep denied her allegations at the time, telling TMZ, “This woman has a very questionable background. She has admitted to having multiple relationships. We understand she may have problems getting into the United States. She’s one of many women claiming he got them pregnant. If it is in fact Drake’s child, which he does not believe, he would do the right thing by the child.”
On Wednesday, a source close to Drake voiced serious doubts to Page Six about his paternity, but said that if he was, he’d step up and take care of Adonis.
A rep for Drake declined to comment on his baby mama drama Thursday.
While Drake has yet to speak about his potential fatherhood, he did address the blackface photo that went viral after Pusha T posted it on Instagram timed with the release of “The Story of Adidon.”
“This was not from a clothing brand shoot or my music career,” Drake wrote in an Instagram story Wednesday night. “This picture is from 2007, a time in my life where I was an actor and I was working on a project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and typecast. The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment … This was to highlight and raise our frustrations with not always getting a fair chance in the industry and to make a point that the struggle for black actors had not changed much.”
Missing National Guardsman Found Dead After He Was Swept Away in Maryland Flash Floods
39-year-old Eddison Hermond
(ELLICOTT CITY, Md.) — Searchers scouring a river Tuesday that runs alongside a historic Maryland town ripped apart by flash flooding found the body of a man last seen being swept away by brown waters racing downhill, gutting shops and pushing parked cars into bursting tributaries.
Volunteers and crews with trained dogs had been methodically hunting for 39-year-old Eddison Hermond who disappeared Sunday afternoon, following torrential rains that prompted destructive flash flooding in historic Ellicott City for the second time in less than two years.
On Tuesday afternoon, his body was located in the Patapsco River. He was the only person reported missing in Ellicott City — established in 1772 as a mill town surrounded by hills — where many now can’t get the roar of rushing floodwaters out of their heads.
“To have died helping somebody else is incredible. And I can’t even imagine the loss his family is suffering,” said Nicholas Johnson, owner of a store near the spot where Hermond vanished while trying to help a woman who had escaped through a window with her cat.
Hermond, of Severn, Maryland, was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a sergeant in the Maryland Army National Guard. He was described by those who knew him as an affable, generous man.
With waters receded, residents of the flood-prone Maryland town are facing another daunting comeback less than two years since another terrible flood deluged their beloved downtown, smashing inventory and ripping up floors and pavement.
Some people in Ellicott City’s historic downtown say they are determined to rebuild after Sunday’s devastation. Their hope: to pull together as a community once again and live up the nickname “Ellicott City Strong,” which many locals are now repeating as a sort of mantra.
Simon Cortes, owner of La Palapa Grill & Cantina, said it’s “a horrible time,” and his business took on about a foot (30 centimeters) of water. But he notes the quaint old town has been through it all before, and he’ll do his part to spur another revival.
“I feel like it’s our duty to make sure that we rebuild and open back up,” said Cortes, whose restaurant Hermond was visiting before being swept away by Sunday’s raging floodwaters.
Others are stretched to the breaking point by the floods, which tore up streets and swept away dozens of cars in the quaint downtown of historic 18th and 19th century buildings, which sit in a ravine some 13 miles (20 kilometers) west of Baltimore.
Another massive cleanup, serious economic losses and a daunting comeback couldn’t come at a worse time. Sunday’s torrential rains came just as the commercial district seemed to come back stronger than ever from a dreadful July 2016 flash flood that killed two people.
Getting flood insurance around old Ellicott City was a pricy proposition before. Now, people don’t even want to think about how much it might cost, on top of the debts they’re still paying from the last time their homes and businesses were destroyed.
Nathan Sowers, owner of the River House Pizza Co., an outdoor eatery in the old mill town’s business district, said that after all the hard work rebuilding from the 2016 flood, he’s feeling a bit overwhelmed at attempting yet another comeback.
“We’ll see. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time, a lot of energy,” he said, speaking near a bridge where several crushed cars were swept into a muddy tributary’s banks.
But Sowers said he saw other hard-hit locals laughing and joking about their troubles first thing Monday morning — a good sign the Maryland town will launch yet another rebirth.
But the bad news just kept coming following the torrential rains: On Tuesday morning, county authorities issued what they called a “precautionary health alert” after a sewage main broke about 2 miles (3 kilometers) away from Ellicott City’s historic main street.
The sewage overflow, which was first noticed early Monday, has been stopped. But as much as 500,000 gallons of sewage had already spilled and residents were being told to stay away from the affected area.
Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman has told reporters his immediate priorities were finding Hermond and assessing the condition of damaged buildings that housed shops, restaurants and families. That assessment work continued Tuesday.
“If you look at the devastation and the damage, I would certainly say it’s worse than 2016,” Kittleman said.
READ MORE——> https://www.yahoo.com/news/body-found-search-national-guardsman-175702337.html
‘Roseanne’ shows what the media got wrong about Trump voters
It took only a few hours for ABC and just about everyone else who was in business with Roseanne Barr to cut all ties to the comedian, saying they were shocked and outraged by her hateful tweeting. This had to be more laughable than any of the gags on her resurgent sitcom.
After all, Barr has never been anything other than what she is now: a talented and addled provocateur who will say or do almost any outrageous thing — butcher the national anthem, mock the Holocaust, run for president or prime minister of Israel — just to get people talking about her.
Sound like anyone else you might have seen on TV at any hour of the day or night?
And that, of course, was the point of bringing Roseanne’s irreverent sense of humor back to network TV. She was supposed to draw in all the same people who love President Trump, who resent all the elite consensus and political correctness and multiculturalism, and who just want someone — pardon the terminology here — to piss off all us snowflakes who watch “Silicon Valley” instead.
But then Roseanne flamed out all at once, publicly comparing a black confidante of President Obama’s to an ape (and a radical Muslim one at that).
Why? As the late New York City Mayor Ed Koch once shouted at me from a hospital bed, when I asked him to explain Rudy Giuliani’s apparent meanness: Why does the scorpion sting? It’s in his nature!
And so ABC becomes the latest media outlet to have waded into the boggiest swamp in American politics, only to reemerge shrieking in horror and running for higher ground.
You may remember a time, for instance, when you couldn’t turn on CNN without hearing the breathless exertions of a Trump apostle named Jeffrey Lord, who was supposed to speak for the unheard masses, even though none of the masses had ever heard of him.
That came to an abrupt end after he tweeted “Sieg Heil!” at a critic, not because he was a Nazi sympathizer, by any stretch, but because in his reading of history, I guess, American liberals and German Nazis were more or less interchangeable.
Look: It’s not that there’s anything wrong with ABC or CNN trying to broaden their appeal by going beyond the same old safe perspectives — I applaud that. It’s just that by trying to talk to a growing audience in American life, you can end up pandering to a dying one instead.
Ever since the 2016 election, I’ve heard people in Washington and Hollywood talk about how they need to better represent “the Trump voter.” This is, I suppose, a natural reaction to having missed something critical about where the society is headed.
The problem is that anytime you reduce a large chunk of the electorate to a label (“values voters,” “evangelicals,” “Trump voters”), you’re oversimplifying a more complicated reality.
READ MORE——-> https://www.yahoo.com/news/roseanne-shows-media-got-wrong-trump-voters-090009276.html
Elfen’s TBT Music Video of the Week Rebbie Jackson Centipede
Rebbie Jackson Centipede. You can tell she had a little help from her baby brother Michael!!
Elfen’s R&B 1984 TBT Rebbie Jackson centipede
Rebbie Jackson Self titled debut Album centipede release date October 1984
Let me see. There’s Michael, Tito, Randy, Jermaine and Marlon. And little sister Janet Jackson. These family members. All started young with their singing careers. And then there’s Rebbie Jackson Here’s her Bio….
Rebbie began her singing career in 1974, performing with her siblings in Las Vegas. The Vegas shows had initially begun in April, without Rebbie; due to a sprained ankle, Rebbie’s debut was postponed until June. Her five brothers were the main draws, with Rebbie, Randy, Janet, and La Toya serving as fillers for the performances.
When the Jackson 5 parted with their record label Motown in 1976, they signed to CBS Records and rebranded themselves as the Jacksons. Additionally, the brothers were signed to CBS-TV to star with their family in a variety series called The Jacksons. The shows premiered in June 1976 and featured all of the siblings excluding Jermaine, who had chosen to stay with Motown. The initial series run of the 30-minute programs was four weeks. Due to ratings success, more episodes were ordered in January 1977. The shows marked the first time that an African-American family had ever starred in a television series. The run of programs concluded shortly afterward.
Prior to the series, Jackson had thought of her singing as merely a private hobby. Her television experience as well as an early love of musicals motivated her to become a professional recording artist, and the show’s producer encouraged her to sing.
Jackson served as a backing vocalist for several musicians around this time, as well as a cabaret singer. She contributed her voice for songs by artists such as the Emotions, Sonny Bono, and Betty Wright before Jackson’s second pregnancy stalled her musical career for a short time.
Centipede Album
Following years of preparation, Jackson’s debut album Centipede was distributed in October 1984 by CBS Records, who had signed her as a solo artist two years previously. The album was only released once the singer had ensured that family life was secure and that she had spent time with her children during their important younger years. Centipede became a moderate chart success, reaching number 13 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 63 on its Top 200. The recording of the album had been a family affair; it involved several contributions from her relatives. Her husband Nathaniel Brown co-wrote the song “Come Alive Saturday Night” with two of his wife’s brothers: Randy and Tito. The latter Jackson also penned “Hey Boy” with his wife Dee Dee. The most successful song from the album was the million-selling title track, “Centipede”.Written, arranged, and produced by Michael, the song also featured Jackson’s famous brother and the Weather Girls on backing vocals.[14] It reached number 4 on the Black Singles Chart and was subsequently certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. “Centipede” marked Michael’s first effort at writing and producing since the release of his successful Thriller (1982).
Other tracks from Rebbie’s album included cover versions of songs by Prince (“I Feel for You”) and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (“A Fork in the Road”). The album received mixed reviews from journalists and music critics.According to the magazine Jet, Centipede marked Jackson’s emergence as a “legitimate recording artist” and “cleared the major hurdle of demonstrating that she [was] talented and marketable”. With the album, Jackson became the last of her siblings to embark on a recording career and the last in line to release hit material.
Rebbie later revealed that there was a lot of discussion at the time of the release of Centipede over whether she should use the Jackson surname professionally or not. To begin with, Rebbie did not want to use her pre-marriage surname, but later reasoned that it was silly to deny her heritage. Jackson explained that she did, however, compromise with the use of her family name on the Centipede album cover – “Rebbie is large and Jackson is small”.[14] She further stated that the success of siblings Michael and Janet had not been a hindrance to her, but served as an enhancement to her career. Rebbie added that she did not have to worry about “name recognition”.
Well that’s it for this TBT. Next week we gonna go way back to 1980. To hear some George Benson!! ??????????????
Donald Trump Says He Had a ‘Great Meeting’ with Kim Kardashian as They Pose in Oval Office
Ummm that’s all you got to write?
Donald Trump may have postponed his meeting with Kim Jong Un but he did meet another famous Kim: Kim Kardashian West.
READ MORE YAHOO—–> https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-says-had-great-002706072.html
Mom Blasts Southwest Airlines For Asking To ‘Prove’ Biracial Son Was Hers
I wonder if the woman was black if she’d been arrested?
A Southwest Airlines employee asked a college basketball coach over the weekend to “prove” that her biracial son was hers, the woman said Monday.
Lindsay Gottlieb, the head women’s basketball coach at the University of California at Berkeley, said she was flying from Denver to Oakland with her 1-year-old son, Jordan, when the airline employee requested his birth certificate.
Gottlieb said she didn’t have the official document, though offered his passport, which lists him as having a different last name.
“She said, well, how do I know that you’re the mother?” Gottlieb recalled to KPIX News. Gottlieb is white, and Jordan’s father is black.
READ MORE——-> https://www.yahoo.com/news/mom-blasts-southwest-airlines-asking-211443390.html
Weinstein indicted in sex case; lawyer says he’ll fight it
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein was indicted Wednesday on rape and criminal sex act charges, furthering the first criminal case to arise from a slate of sexual misconduct allegations against the former movie mogul.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said the indictment brings Weinstein “another step closer to accountability” for alleged attacks on two women in New York.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said he would “vigorously defend” against the indictment and ask a court to dismiss it. He called the allegations “unsupported” and reiterated that Weinstein strongly denies them.
The indictment came hours after Weinstein’s lawyer said the film producer would decline to testify before the grand jury because there wasn’t enough time to prepare him and “political pressure” made an indictment unavoidable.
“Regardless of how compelling Mr. Weinstein’s personal testimony might be, an indictment was inevitable due to the unfair political pressure being placed on Cy Vance to secure a conviction of Mr. Weinstein,” the statement said.
Weinstein, 66, learned of the specific charges and the accusers’ identities only after turning himself in Friday, according to his lawyers. Brafman said that with a deadline set for Wednesday afternoon for Weinstein to testify or not, prosecutors denied his request for more time.
Vance said the Weinstein camp’s “recent assault on the integrity of the survivors and the legal process is predictable.”
“We are confident that when the jury hears the evidence, it will reject these attacks out of hand,” Vance said in a statement.
Weinstein was charged Friday with raping one woman and committing a criminal sex act by compelling oral sex from another. A grand jury continued hearing evidence in the case, as it had been doing for weeks.
Defendants have the right to testify in a grand jury’s secret proceedings but often don’t, for various reasons.
Freed on $1 million bail and electronic monitoring, he is due back in court July 30, though that date may now be moved up in light of the indictment.
Beyond the two women involved in the case, dozens more women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to assault in various locales.
He has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex, and Brafman said Tuesday that Weinstein was “confident he’s going to clear his name” in the New York prosecution.
Brafman called the rape allegation “absurd,” saying that the accuser and Weinstein had a decade-long, consensual sexual relationship that began before and continued after the alleged 2013 attack.
The woman, who hasn’t been identified publicly, told investigators that Weinstein confined her in a hotel room and raped her.
The other accuser in the case, former actress Lucia Evans, has gone public with her account of Weinstein forcing her to perform oral sex at his office in 2004. The Associated Press does not identify alleged victims of sexual assaults unless they come forward publicly.
Vance, a Democrat, came under public pressure from women’s groups to prosecute Weinstein after declining to do so in 2015, when an Italian model went to police to say Weinstein had groped her during a meeting.
Police set up a sting in which the woman recorded herself confronting Weinstein and him apologizing for his conduct. But Vance decided there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat, ordered the state attorney general to investigate how Vance handled that matter.
#NetNeutrality: California Senate Approves Strict Open-Internet Protections for the State
The Federal Communications Commission is moving forward with its plan to repeal the net neutrality protections put in place by the Obama administration in 2015. That has not stopped lawmakers in California from taking action to protect the open internet in their state.
On Wednesday, the California State Senate approved a bill that would impose even stricter rules than those put in place by President Barack Obama’s FCC to protect net neutrality. As Ars Technica reports, the vote happened just ahead of the FCC’s planned repeal date of June 11, less than two weeks from now. The bill, S.B. 822, was introduced by state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, in January. It would include a lot of the same provisions as the 2015 federal protections—a ban on throttling, blocking content and paid prioritization. It would also include a ban on paid data-cap exemptions. In addition, the bill prohibits “misleading marketing practices and enacts strong disclosure requirements to better inform consumers,” according to an announcement from Wiener.
S.B. 822 passed the California Senate with a vote of 23-12. All of the votes to approve came from Democrats. The 12 nos were from Republicans.
Now the bill just has to pass the State Assembly—which has a Democratic majority—as well as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.
Lawmakers in the state of New York are considering a similar bill.
READ MORE——–> https://www.theroot.com/netneutrality-california-senate-approves-strict-open-1826437661?utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=theroot_facebook