Jussie Smollett records are unsealed
Ajudge in Chicago on Thursday unsealed Jussie Smollett’s court records after media organizations asked that documents related to the Empire actor’s arrest be made publicly accessible.
The decision could allow public access to documents from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office that could shed light on why the office suddenly dropped all charges against Smollett in March.
Smollett was accused of staging a racist and homophobic assault against himself. After the charges were dropped, the court approved a request by Smollett’s lawyer to seal the case; several news organizations asked the judge to reverse that decision.
Smollett’s case captivated the American public earlier this year with one baffling twist after another. What started as mass outrage over a celebrity being targeted based on his race and sexual orientation turned into indignation at Smollett after the police concluded that he planned the attack himself in an effort to gain publicity. Smollett has maintained his innocence. The New York Times
Charlottesville teacher gets Tony
The special Tony Award that honours educators will go this year to a drama teacher in Charlottesville, Va., who has encouraged her students to explore their differences and heal riffs, especially following a deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in the city. Madeline Michel from Monticello High School will receive the 2019 Excellence in Theatre Education Award on June 9 at the Tony Awards in New York City.
Under Michel’s guidance, the school has mounted studentwritten shows such as A King’s Story, about a fictional Black Charlottesville teenager who is shot and killed by police, and #WhileBlack, about racial profiling. The Associated Press
Moby’s ‘creepy’ claim denied
Moby claims in his memoir,
Then It Fell Apart, that he once dated Natalie Portman — back when the Academy Award-winning actress was a student at Harvard.
It was among the less startling claims in the book, which also includes an unsettling account of him rubbing his genitals against Donald Trump at a boozy party years ago, but Harper’s Bazaar UK has published a denial by Portman.
“‘My recollection is a much older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school,’ Portman told us. ‘He said I was 20; I definitely wasn’t. I was a teenager. I had just turned 18.’ ” On Wednesday, Moby responded incredulously, posting a photo of himself, shirtless, his arm wrapped around a faintly smiling Portman. But the photo only corroborates that he once posed for a picture with a famous actress. The Washington Post
LGBTQ presence up in studio films
GLAAD says that LGBTQ representation is up for major studio films released in 2018, but that none included transgender characters.
Of the110 movies surveyed, 20, or 18.2 per cent, contained an LGBTQ character. This is a significant improvement from 2017’s all-time low of 12.8 per cent and the second-highest in the seven years that GLAAD has been doing the report.
In addition to the lack of transgender characters, the report says racial diversity of LGBTQ characters has also fallen off despite films like Crazy Rich Asians. The Associated Press