Black is beautiful. Just ask Lancôme — if you insist. The lovely Lupita Nyong’o was just named brand Ambassadress for Maison Lancôme. So by summer, we’ll begin to see her face in their campaigns for their wide range of beauty products. That means her delicate yet resilient cheekbones, flawless complexion, skin tone and the eyes that project so much intelligence and heart, will be on buses, TV ads, magazine spreads, all of it. We love it, don’t we?
Franchise Lehmann, general manager of Lancôme International, had this to say: “Both talented and committed, true to her African beauty, and showing a great curiosity and open-mindedness in her career choices, Lupita is by essence the Lancôme woman. A strikingly beautiful and intelligent woman, serenely but strongly living her life her own way, Lupita has this special kind of aura both enlightening and deep.”
The Kenyan actress, who also holds Mexican citizenship, joins a small club of other true beauties, including Penelope Cruz, Julia Roberts, and Kate Winslet.
Maybe I’ll have to break down and start adding Lancôme products to my lineup of foundation, powders and eye shadows. I’ve been eyeing the Lancôme walls at Sephora for sometime, anyway. Looks Ike I’ll be trying out some summer shades. 🙂
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The other day I was stepping off the train in Manhattan, and caught a glimpse of a recognizable figure out of the corner of my eye. She was Melyssa Ford, the former hip hop music video regular, who gave that genre some of the most overtly sexualized representations of women in that cultural genre. Well, Melyssa’s all grown up now as a residential real estate broker, and she’s also featured in “Blood, Sweat and Heels,” a reality show that follows the lives of six ambitious career women moving through elite professional and social circles in New York City.
Like most women on reality TV they had their disagreements, but the group fractured into two cliques rather early on in the 8-episode run. The Louds have Ford, Micah Hughes and Daisy Llewellyn.
The other women, Geneva Thomas, Brie, and Demerita, came to be known as the Prouds. Strange, how such a small group could manage to split even further, but we all know that New Yorkers are known for their intense personalities, so I guess some splintering was bound to happen.
In a certain way Season 1 was a bit too much for me. The louds could have toned down the drinking and cavorting — I could have done without the sight of Micah Hughes flashing her panties at a professional cocktail event — and they need to learn to admit when certain behaviors are over the top, embarrassing or frightening for others, or possibly dangerous.
The louds were a handful at times, but the prouds had far worse traits in my view judgemental, condescending and sniping. Demetria is about as warm and approachable as a serrated knife. Brie said in one confessional that Micah losing her father wouldn’t be the same as her losing her own dad, since Micah didn’t have her father in her life a lot anyway. She also laid into Micah a couple of times, calling her a sloppy drunk and — “the other woman.” She really sucker punched Micah on the latter, because she knows Micah was deceived in that situation. I thought Elsa was the ice queen of our times! Brie didn’t want to be friends with the woman, fine. But do she have to gratuitously disembowel her, too? And Geneva Thomas always seemed to go after Daisy Llewelyn with a vaguely familiar simmering resentment. Every so often during gatherings, like at the failed yacht summit and the reunion special, Geneva lashed out at Daisy with the flick of the hand and rudely telling her to “shut up.” During the reunion special Geneva talked about how she and Daisy were friendly colleagues, as fashion writers, but that dynamic changed, or rather Daisy changed, after taping started for the show. Maybe Daisy did cut that friendship loose, but these things happen among adults who are on the move. I don’t know if that was Geneva’s issue, but if it is, she should get some perspective and move on. Otherwise, cut it out, because it makes her look like a shrew, and no one likes those. It was also on the catty side for the prouds to trivialize the budding friendship between Melyssa, Daisy and Micah as nothing more than an enabling relationship. Write haughty and self-important indeed.
So yeah, I hope they get a new batch of “prouds” eventually. When I get home from work, write out bills, get Baby to bed, and fire up my computer to unwind, I need to see something relaxing. More creativity at work, more of the what’s involved in putting together a fashion feature, rather than people viciously laying waste to each other. Take me around to New York’s best bars, clubs, associations and whatnot, as much as possible. There was even some peace making, to the credit of Daisy, Melyssa and Demetria.
But if I’m going to come back for a Season 2, I’ll need Bravo TV to stop serving up more of the same bad behavior, and I’ll need the women to stop giving it to them.
You fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me, the saying goes. What are we to make of our gatekeepers in mass media who keep handing victories to a woman with no discernible talent — except making a public spectacle of her sex life, heading up a cottage industry based on a vulgar life, and cashing on an extremely short-lived marriage?
You’ve all probably seen that the April issue of Vogue features a portrait of Kanye West and his fiancee Kim Kardashian. People everywhere are in an uproar that their beloved standard bearer of fashion, style and class would stoop to such depths add to let Miss Kardashian occupy the same space as pop culture royalty — Audrey Hepburn, Beyonce, Naomi Campbell, Cher, Michelle Obama, and Rihanna.
You can read all about the scorn being heaped on this couple, from fiery indignation to flip indifference, all over the Web. I see a couple of things going on here. The first is that Kim could not carry the cover alone, now that she is just past the prime of her career as a sex worker and fame monger. She had to share it with her repellant, self-anointed pseudo-messiah of a fiance. (Even tough I’ll admit that he is legitimately super talented.) Even Miley Cyrus was going to have her own Vogue shoot, until she incurred public contempt with her frenzied masturbating at some award show. If Vogue could defend its integrity from the likes of her, then how could it drop the ball when it came to the brunette?
Which brings me to my second point. The mighty Vogue has fallen far indeed if its resorting to two of the trashiest public figures to compete in the lineup at the newsstands. Neither woman is so striking or iconic that they really define the best sensibilities of their times, generally the reason people are chosen for the cover of Vogue. And their infamy supersedes any legitimate talent. Yes, Kim has her millions of minions of twits following her micro blog. She has the show, the fashion business and all the other trappings of a career born from a sex tape. And Miley is a singer. But neither one, as far as I can see, is an undisputed icon of fashion, or heading in that direction. Yet the most revered publication of fashion, style and beauty was actually going to reward both women with a cover. And wasn’t it a couple of months ago that Kanye was throwing a hissy fit over Michele Obama getting her second cover before his fiance got hers?
It really says a lot about how mystified the decision makers are in mass media about their audiences to keep foisting this woman on people. She got a TV show, treating us to her entire gold-digging family. Then Tyler Perry cast her in his movie last year, “Temptation,” but that didn’t help it at the box office, and now Ms. Wintour has put Kim Kardashian on the cover of her magazine. Will it work, though?
Let’s all take this lesson: As important as Vogue is in its own world, it upholds shallow and meaningless values in the bigger picture. We shouldn’t be overly concerned that the publication decided to feature Kim ahead of say, Lupita Nyong’o. (Had to work her in somehow!) It’s a sign of the times, and my sense is that it won’t pay off for the publication in the long run.
Aside from the YouTubers who post tutorials of Kim’s hair and makeup looks, or devotees of her reality show, who is going to treasure that issue of the magazine? The general public is reacting to Kimye like — symbolically enough, given her history — a rash that flares up every now and then but is never really cured.
Maybe I’m wrong and Kanye ended up giving an insightful interview. Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I think we’ll just see more of the same antics from these two. Until someone else inexplicably decides to reward their off putting behavior.
I often think of “marriage” as the oldest business deal in human existence. Tina Turner’s recent wedding to Erwin Bach alerted me to the importance of … bringing an estate planner and tax advisor into the negotiations.
When Tina married Erwin, her partner of 25 years deep, I’m sure that love had something to do with it. But these two have been in a committed relationship for such a long time, even setting up house in Zurich for the last 15, I wondered what finally motivated her to take this step. Especially after reading decidedly anti-marriage comments (for herself) that she gave to Oprah in 2006:
‘People often ask me why don’t I marry,’ she said. ‘I have love. I have a good life. I don’t need to interfere with that. For some people, marriage means “You’re mine now.” That can be the beginning of the failure of a relationship.’
She added: ‘Psychologically, something happens when someone says, “You’re my husband or wife. You can’t do this or that.” It’s about ownership. That freedom that two people loving each other and wanting to be together – and being able to leave if anything is wrong – is gone.
‘Neither Erwin nor I feel the need to get married. We’ve been together for 18 years. What would marriage give me that I don’t already have? Marriage would be about pleasing the public. Why do I need to please the public if I’m already pleased?’ —
After reading that, I figured that Erwin and Tina either had a major turn in their thinking about the institution that was so useless to them just seven years ago. What changed their minds? Not to be overly cynical, but I’ve been reading a lot of estate planning, financial planning and tax planning articles lately, for family business of my own, and I’m tempted to think that Tina and Erwin realized that a Swiss marriage recognized in her native country conferred certain tax benefits and would make the transfer of property easier should one of them … leave us.
Maybe they had just wrapped up their annual or semi-annual appointment with their financial advisor — we should all do those annual check-ins — and discovered the tax and estate planning advantages of tying the knot.
In the U.S. for instance, spouses are the default beneficiaries on a host of financial contracts. For instance, you might be on your second marriage and have a will that clearly directs your current spouse or somebody else to receive your IRA benefits, but IRA beneficiary rules trump that. So unless you name that person in your IRA documents, and your ex’s name is on the IRA documents, guess who gets the money. Not your new boo. Did you know that?
Of course, none of this is any of my business; nor did I feel like digging through Swiss tax or estate planning rules to shore up my theories. But 10-plus years of financial journalism have absolutely ruined the way I look at celebrity news. None of those nosy accounts of short marriages, serial marriages, hookups, baby mamas and new boos hold my attention without some thought to the financial planning nightmare their accountants and lawyers have to deal with!
Well, I wish them all the happiness they and their lawyers can stand. It was certainly a lesson to me to straighten up my financial house.
No really. They’ve had a 25-year head start, so I hope the next 25 are bliss. And in any case, TIna Turner is an inspiration to women to need to leave horrible relationships, start afresh and find a new song for a new life!
Joy bells are ringing over the French courtside–our were–after Halle Berry married her beau Oliver Martinez last weekend.
The entertainment reporters gave a beautiful, though spare, description of the ceremony.
The Hollywood stars tied the knot at the Chateau des Conde, a Renaissance chateau in the Burgundy countryside, about one hour outside Paris. The ceremony was brief, performed by the local mayor, and attended by close family and friends.
(I won’t post links to external stories, because some of the comments have been tacky and rude.)
Warm congratulations are definitely in order for them. I know, I was skeptical about this cat at first. But he seems to be bringing Halle good things.
Wish them all the best, and their two kids, who seem to be well cared for.
On that note, let the miserable, carping harridans — who have no personal stake in Halle’s life — be silent.
Note: I posted from my phone while commuting, so getting a photo in was a challenge. I’ll try again this evening.
Update: After hunting around to find a couple of decent photos from Halle’s wedding, I decided to give up. In any case, you’ve probably already seen all that will be released. She wanted something without paparazzi intrusion, it’s what she was entiteld to, and that’s what she got. I rather like this idea of discreet, tasteful and elegant celebrity weddings, and photos released after the fact. I hope more starlets follow the example of Halle and Mellody when they get married.
Well look at this. Vanity Fair magazine has decided, in a rare move, to feature a Black woman on its cover. Kerry Washington, the “Scandal” lead actress whose star is burning bright appears in her glory submerged in a pool in a white swimsuit.
Aside from the fact that Kerry herself is stunning on the cover and throughout the inside spread, and the article is probably well written, I scarcely care. My recent post “A Scandal-Free Life” accounts for just a small part of the apathy.
Although Kerry Washington deserves a lot of credit for her hard work paying off, the timing is all wrong and disingenuous. Kerry is really hot this year, thanks to her television work and the film “Django Unchained,” and she should have been featured in February’s Hollywood issue. Instead they decide to honor this woman’s career surge and influence on pop culture by giving her a summer issue. August is traditionally the skinniest on most magazines’ publishing calendars, coinciding with vacation travels. Fewer readers means lower advertising spending and smaller issues. Also, advertisers sometimes hold back for the traditionally fat September issues, when everyone is back from holiday and are focused on fashion again.
But aren’t you being a little sensitive, Paige, you ask, especially when Beyonce was on the cover of the Italian VF (April)?
Well, no. Vanity Fair completely ignored a stellar list of Black Americans for their 2012 covers. I wasn’t expecting some overexposed starlet to lead an issue, nor did I think VF should degrade itself by giving to me “straight, no chaser.” But Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston were all the subjects of lengthy features in 2012, yet they were all tucked inside. Gabrielle Douglas was tucked inside, too, but that was more understandable. They don’t seem to focus heavily on sports figures, but prefer popular American actors, musicians, heirs and heiresses with some kind of mystique. When you pass over all three of the Black Americans with the most undisputed mainstream appeal in modern times, you are absolutely in the wrong. The only person missing from their list of slights was Will Smith.
The most puzzling to me was the June 2012 issue, with Whitney. The feature itself sounded like it was written by someone who never heard of her, and was squeezing this in as a freelance assignment between gigs for OK! and People. Marilyn Monroe, who has been dead 50 years, made the cover because of some previously unpublished–until that issue–nude photos of her. For goodness sake! It’s sad that Marilyn died so young and all, but she was known as more of a sex symbol, not a real actress, and she never won any major awards in her discipline. Unlike Whitney who shared Marilyn’s mixed legacy of substance abuse, but managed to haul home enough awards to fill a small apartment.
That’s how Vanity Fair carries on. They’d to anything to stock the newsstands with a mainstream representation of America, even if it means running a rehashed profiles of late actors like Grace Kelly, Ms. Monroe and obsessing over love letters between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Now there have been a couple of Black men on Vanity Fair’s cover in recent years–half-naked athletes. Draw your own conclusions.
So once again, I dropped a piece of pop culture because of the narrow way the gatekeepers chose to handle things. I might pick up a copy of August’s Vanity Fair, just to read what Ms. Washington has to say on the chosen topics. She probably doesn’t mention her marriage, because of the lead time on planning those issues. But I know that aside from being diverted by some of her films, which I’ll own up to enjoying, I find less and less that I want to influence me.
As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, Mellody Hobson married her longtime beau George Lucas. This is the only wedding photo I could find of this super successful, connected, discreet (darnit) couple. The coverage of this widely popular couple was so positive and sweet, I’m inclined to think the public likes them best of all. LOL.
I love the bead work on her dress. And blue roses? Reminds me of that Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie.
I hope they have a lifetime of health and happiness, and of course there will be fans who say, ‘May the force be with you!’
I recently started watching a prime time network television show anchored by a smart, ambitious and beautiful Black woman. Her beauty, talent and mainstream appeal make it a landmark program. Almost any woman can relate to and be proud of her, and she’s nowhere near boring. The show is “Julia,” from the 1970s eponymous series, and I’ve been pulling up and viewing old episodes from Netflix and on the Web.
You probably thought I was going to say Olivia Pope, the charismatic, influential, and smartly dressed crisis manager of ABC’s “Scandal,” which wrapped its second season last month.
Alas, no. I’m not a gladiator, nor do I care to be one after witnessing some of the rather cheap and degrading turns of events in Olivia Pope’s life. Not only is she portraying a mistress, but the supposed love of her life is a controlling, self-pitying drunk who downs scotch in his morning showers before pursuing his daily agenda of brooding, stalking her, isolating his close allies and wife, while finding time to murder a Supreme Court justice. Is this the best that a woman like Olivia Pope can do?
Making matters worse is the treatment she receives at the hands of that soulless Cyrus Bean, who is supposed to be a longtime friend and her bodyguard-boyfriend Jake (again, she had no choice in this matter. Fitz called the shots). In one episode Olivia found herself representing a client who had a past extramarital affair with Fitz’s Supreme Court justice nominee to replace the one he killed. (That guy deserves to know how that seat on the court was vacated.) Anyway, they find themselves on opposite teams, professionally, and when Cyrus tries to get Olivia to back down, she says she’s non-partisan. To which he replies ‘Is your vagina non-partisan?’ Excuse me?! Why is it OK for him t be so foul and vulgar to her? A mere two weeks or so after Olivia had no answer to the utterly degrading comment that Fitz made to her in the hallway after an angry closet tryst.
Olivia on the case.
And then at some other point, Jake and Olivia get into some kind of misunderstanding, and he sends her flying across his kitchen floor, knocking her head and landing her in the hospital, unconscious. This is nothing less than abuse, a beat down of a professional Black woman who is taking an unusual share of licks from a string of white men. I know this is for a late evening TV drama, but it’s a bit much! When Fitz tried to make a play to get Olivia back in a recent episode, the last one I watched, and she howled at him to “earn me!” I almost laughed in her face. Why should Fitz go to the trouble of earning her when she’s been slowly giving away her integrity on many occasions, in compromising and belittling situations–for the past two years?? I doubt viewers are going to see it that way, though, especially after a long day’s work in this economy where they would rather not process any of the glaring and obvious symbolism embedded in that show beyond the next Tweet.
I dislike ‘Scandal’ because it centers around a very sick relationship. Extramarital affairs are rarely romantic, epic love stories. ‘Scandal’ tries to justify the affair by making the injured spouse a cold, mercenary ambitious woman, but how will Ms. Rimes deal with Fitz being a mean drunk, his creepy stalking, and the fact that he murdered a Supreme Court justice? Kerry Washington is doing little more than donning designer clothes to rehash the Jezebel stereotype while Ms. Rimes infuses the whole situation with soft porn.
So what is the lead actress to do? Give back her 2012 NAACP Image Award? Oh, n o. That would foil Ms. Rimes’ decision to wait until after the trophies had been handed out to oversee Olivia Pope’s ever more degrading experiences. She’s not Ivy League for nothing! At the risk of sounding trite, I think that if people are going to be offended by the show, then they should just turn it off.
Television shows have a long history of portraying women as mistresses and Jezebels of some kind, and if Black actresses want to make their mark, they’re going to have to take on roles that are complex, and not squeaky clean. I get it. The reality is that Blacks still flinch at story lines around fictional people like Olivia Pope–or in any other super villainous role. Maybe we prefer to see ourselves portrayed like noble characters to a large degree. Not saints, not saviors of the world, but with a recognizable streak of goodness. A character who is complex, but makes sense in some way. Also, older Black professional women still carry memories of being mistaken for service workers and prostitutes as they passed through upscale hotels and department stores, despite wearing their designer suits.
This Olivia Pope makes no sense to me at all. She’s a smart woman, brilliant even, but the relationship cycle is getting old. If people really believe that Olivia Pope is a trailblazing television character, with any landmark importance to racial history in the U.S., then they need to read more. I don’t feel like it’s a landmark program or that Olivia Pope is an important character or that Kerry Washington–in this specific role–has done anything important for anyone. This is entertainment on the cusp of late night TV that takes advantage of its time slot to pedal trash in the name of internal and external conflict. (And yes, I am aware that Ms. Carroll herself praised Ms. Washington in a recent TV interview. We are all allowed our opinions, and I respectfully disagree on that point.)
It’s easy to find noteworthy Black female leads on sitcoms and dramas, if that is important to you as a viewer. Diahann Carol gave us the beautiful and smart single mother Julia and there are others, if you look. When the third “Scandal” season premiers in the fall, I probably won’t replace it with another TV program. I’ll probably spend time doing something productive, or reading and trying to become my own version of noteworthy woman in my tiny sphere.
It’s time to send warm congratulations to actress Halle Berry once again, because she is pregnant with her second child. She and her fiance Olivier Martinez announced the news over the weekend, and could welcome their baby in October.
I remember reading about Berry’s first pregnancy with intense interest several years ago, partially because our daughters are born in the same year, about six months apart.
We were both having our first kids, we were in the same age group (and still are), and we pretty much worked throughout carrying, so I felt like we had just a couple of experiences in common. I also liked the way she articulated the advantages of mature motherhood, and that Mother Nature really got it backwards. Our fertility should increase as we mature, not drop off!
Well, I definitely rooted for a safe pregnancy and delivery for her. As Nahla grew up and her parents separated, I wondered if Nahla would be it for Halle. Now Nahla will have a sibling, and Halle will have the bigger family that she wanted.
Certainly I wishI had a second pregnancy to track along with Ms. Berry’s this time. But who knows? I’m still younger than Ms. Berry, so hopefully, there’s still time for me to get pregnant again and compare pregnancy notes!
The Houstons: On Our Own reality TV series wrapped up a couple of nights ago, leaving behind unfinished story lines and failing to convince a creeped out, skeptical viewership, at least on my part, about the wisdom of doing this. I didn’t watch much of the 14 hours of programming that they cobbled together raiding Bobbi Kristina’s psyche over the death of her beloved mother, but I followed the show through secondary means, like recaps and commentary from vloggers like the ladies below.
Does following the series second hand like that give me the right to form harsh opinions about the show? Oh yes it does! Think of it as reading customer reviews at Amazon.com before you put a product into your online basket. In any case, some of my opinions were formed firsthand. I skimmed through the first couple of episodes, which covered Mother’s Day weekend. There was a family brunch, a service at New Hope Baptist Church, which Krissy did not attend, and a visit to Whitney’s grave that forced me to walk away from my computer. I couldn’t watch that baby sit on the ground in that cemetery and cry over her dear mother, nor could I handle Cissy make an emotional case for her baby’s baby to keep in touch with her. So the computer watched itself while I stepped into the other room and folded some laundry.
The problem with this show was that it exploited Whitney’s death so that Pat could fulfill the reality show that she had been developing for some time. This wasn’t a documentary about a musical family, because there were not enough active, working musicians honing their craft and making things happen, like on “Braxton Family Values.”
• We didn’t get enough of Cissy or Dionne Warwick.
• We didn’t get to go into Damon Elliot’s studio.
• Gary kept his exceptional tenor to himself for the most part.
• CeCe Winans dropped in for only one measly episode, and there wasn’t even a family singalong at that beautiful white grand piano at Pat’s house. What’s it there for? To hold up picture frames? Krissy doesn’t seem to be proficient at piano, judging by the meeting that she had with Ricky Minor at one point in the series, and the fact that you never saw her play. That was surprising, given the first-rate musical heritage and connections she was surrounded with growing up. Even Bobbi Kristina’s father is a talented songwriter, one has to admit. In the same class as Ike Turner and Chris Brown, two other legitimately talented musicians, who were railroaded by the media.
So without much songwriting, album making or shows, aside from the heavy lifting that Cissy did for rehearsals for the BET Awards tribute and her clips from Gospelfest (that was me waaaay back in the last row at the back of the house, BTW!), what was the point of broadcasting a show about a family of Houstons? All we saw, aside from the contrived pseudo-dramas that fill up reality TV air time, were images of Krissy in the emotional throes of grief, Krissy being taken for granted by that feckless young man that Whitney took in, and Krissy getting very bad advice from cousins and uncles to reconcile with her father.
I don’t want to spend a lot of time criticizing Black men, partly because they’re making it way too easy, but let me just say that young adult children like Bobbi Kristina do not have an obligation to strive for a relationship with a poor parent. In fairness to his convoluted denials that he hit Whitney, let’s lay aside the conflicting reports about how she sustained a deep cut on her left cheek in Capri, reports from witnesses of her screaming for help from inside her limo during an argument in a mall parking lot in Hawaii, and the revelations that Whitney was cussed out in front of her mother and father in law, and then spat on in front of her child. All of that, including his lengthy rap sheet, are in the past. If the guy is still getting DUIs, and doesn’t pick up his daughter’s calls, then distance is required. Whoever it is, bloggers or whoever, who feel that his presence would be a good influence on her life now … need to wise up and stop interfering. They are training Bobbi Kristina to lower her standards and somehow accept the poor behavior from the first male role model in her life, which could carry over to her accepting wretched treatment from the men she chooses later. And didn’t the vloggers get incensed over an incident where the stray sped off in “his car,” (probably financed with Houston dollars) leaving Krissy somewhere at an event? I saw a preview clip of Krissy sitting on the ground in the night hunched over a phone trying to call this dude. Is this what Whitney would want for her baby, and for it to be on blast like that? This is not a good pattern, it should not be encouraged, and it should not be worked out on national TV and on the Web for everyone to see. Like her dearly departed mother said to Oprah in 2009 “some things are better left unsaid.” And where are the grown men in her life to grab that boy by the collar and make him apologize to her? *Sigh*
If I want to witness family dysfunction, missteps and tragic judgment calls, I could walk down one of the particularly ragged streets in my city, or ride mass transit or something. I won’t be subscribing to cable for this display of nonsense, mainly because they’ve connected it to the name of my first and foremost favorite pop singer. I wish I could say with confidence that the show is over and done with in its current form, as it should be. But I have the feeling that Robert Sharenow, the executive vice president of programming at Lifetime, will let this trash live another season, because he and other network brass seem desperate to race our collective national intellect to the bottom of the gutter in pursuit of ratings and ad revenue. After all, they have to come up with a way to beat Bravo TV’s housewives flipping tables, starting brawls at country clubs and working stripper poles, right?
I hope Bobbi Kristina follows all of Ricky Minor’s advice. She could be a polished, strong contralto with a flourishing career. Add her voice type to her grandmother’s soprano in her prime, and her mother’s mezzo-soprano, and she could complete the packet of Drinkard voice types. Then the music could go on, and she could begin to control her own narrative, instead of leaving it to others.
Pop of Color 