Candice Frederick

Sean Combs with Jamal Barrow at the 1998 Grammy Awards.
Arnaldo Magnani via Getty Images
Among the conspiracy theories and actual allegations against disgraced media mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, the details that have maybe been on people’s minds the longest concern the night he and then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez were arrested after a 1999 nightclub shooting in New York.
That’s in part because while Combs also went on trial for the shooting, it was Jamal Barrow aka Shyne, a 19-year-old promising ...

Peruse any streamer for Black horror films on Halloween (or any time of the year), and you might notice a good stretch of hit movies from the 1990s: “Vampire in Brooklyn,” “Tales From the Hood,” “Eve’s Bayou,” “Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight,” “Candyman” and so on. You might also realize that by the end of the decade, their success faded — until 2017’s “Get Out.”
What led to the string of releases in the first place? A number of things, according to Mikal Gaines, an assistant professor of...

Jeff Hiller, left, and Bridget Everett appear in a scene from the final season of "Somebody Somewhere"
Sandy Morris/HBO
April 2020 to January 2022: That was the era when TV did somewhat of a soft relaunch of the “very special episode,” a type of storyline that ran rampant on ’90s series in which writers felt compelled to add An Important Message every so often. Think of the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” episode about Will and Carlton getting arrested despite not doing anything illegal.
In some wa...

Actors Cooper Koch (left) and Nicholas Chavez as Erik and Lyle Menendez in a scene from "Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story."
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
Not a day has gone by in the past several weeks that the words “Menendez brothers” haven’t appeared at the top of a social media timeline or in a news headline. It’s, well, almost like we’ve jumped into a time machine back to 1993, the year that Court TV broadcasted Lyle and Erik Menendez’s trial for the murders of their parents Kitty and Jo...

Rhiannon Adam for HuffPost
Rhiannon Adam for HuffPost
Culture Shifters Oct. 22, 2024
When Sean Combs' Case Demanded A Nuanced Report, Cheyenne Roundtree Stepped Up
Written By Candice Frederick Photography by Rhiannon Adam
The Rolling Stone investigative journalist reflects on navigating trolls online, bringing truth to light and the unfortunate state of Black media.
This profile is part of our Culture Shifters series, which highlights people who are changing the way we think about the world a...

Tara Pixley for HuffPost
Tara Pixley for HuffPost
Culture Shifters Oct. 22, 2024
BET+ Was A Streaming Underdog. Diarra Kilpatrick Changed That.
Written By Candice Frederick Photography by Tara Pixley
The "Diarra From Detroit" star talks about navigating the stigma attached to the platform, mobilizing for Kamala Harris and liberating herself as a Black storyteller.
This profile is part of our Culture Shifters series, which highlights people who are changing the way we think about the world aro...

In his debut feature, "Exhibiting Forgiveness," writer-director Titus Kaphar set out to challenge himself with a story drawn from his own life. He gained so much more.
Illustration: Jianan Liu/HuffPost; Photo: Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Titus Kaphar has a hypothetical for me.
“Maybe you have a challenge with your father because he was a reasonable, kind, loving man — and all of a sudden he started supporting Trump and you watched him change,” the writer-director tells me while contempla...

Left to right: Natane Adcock, Damon Dash, Aaliyah, Jay Z, Sean Combs and Jennifer Lopez at Combs' Fourth of July party on July 2, 2000, in East Hampton.
Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
In today’s era of misinformation, it’s not especially unusual to see a flurry of conspiracy theories and other unenlightened discourse on social media. That issue is only amplified, concerningly so, when it comes to criminal cases involving high-profile figures.
The latest instance of this is in response to r...

There’s something about “Piece by Piece” that is a bit off.
It’s not the fact that the new movie on the life and career of megaproducer Pharrell Williams is done entirely in Lego animation (that’s actually an intriguing concept in theory) or that Lego Pharrell often goes on lengthy, Deepak Chopra-esque tangents.
It’s that “Piece by Piece” feels disingenuous and — at risk of reigniting a decade-old backlash against Williams calling himself “New Black” and saying he “doesn’t blame other races f...

With their performances in "The Substance," "The Last Showgirl" and "Conclave" at the Toronto International Film Festival, Demi Moore, Pamela Anderson and Isabella Rossellini make great cases for why older female actors should not be ignored.
Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Focus Features/TIFF
TORONTO — It seems like every year an actor who fell out of the mainstream for a few years — or perhaps a decade or more — has an “-aissance.” Matthew McConnaughey had the McConaissance. Brendan Fraser ...

Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan star as Roy Cohn and Donald Trump in "The Apprentice."
Pief Weyman
TORONTO — Donald Trump trying to put a gag order on incendiary stories about him isn’t exactly breaking news. The former president and the truth have never been allies.
Take, for instance, Trump’s presidential debate on Tuesday against Vice President Kamala Harris, when he claimed he is not involved with the much-maligned Project 2025, despite information to the contrary. Or the many times Trum...

Actor Joe Morton looks back on the legacy of his first leading role as a formerly enslaved alien, which both defies and reflects the nuances of identity politics in writer-director John Sayles' 1984 film.
Illustration:Jianan Liu/HuffPost; Photo: Alamy
Every few years or so, the term “post-racial” boomerangs back into the zeitgeist, bringing with it the myth of a supposed utopia where racial woes no longer need to be brought up — much less rectified.
Just last month, Salon published a piece su...

Ahead of her new movie, "The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat," director Tina Mabry reflected on the Black film canon, Hollywood's failure to support complex, independent cinema and her early inspirations growing up in Mississippi.
Illustration:Jianan Liu/HuffPost,Photo:Getty Images,Dana Hawley, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
“I think there kind of needs to be a little bit of a come-to-Jesus moment for us as an industry to say, ‘What are we doing?’”
I’m about an hour into a candid conver...

The late Lou Pearlman, who exploited '90s and '00s bands like *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, is the main subject of Netflix's latest true crime docuseries, which retreads old information and offers no new context.
Mark Weiss via Getty Images
“As soon as ‘Boyz II Men’ hit, we started emulating everything they did.”
Those are the words of 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey in Netflix’s 2021 docuseries, “This is Pop.” Lachey’s remark, in an episode examining the impact of the “Motownphilly” crooners...

A superb Mia Goth and Giancarlo Esposito capture the sleaze and wild ambition of '80s Hollywood in writer-director Ti West's concluding chapter of his popular slasher series.
Justin Lubin
In the opening scenes of 1990’s “Pretty Woman,” Julia Roberts’ character Vivian Ward, a sex worker in Hollywood, rehabs well-worn black thigh-high leather boots with nothing but a safety pin and a magic marker, pairing them with a blue-and-white spandex cutout dress and a short blonde wig. It’s resourceful, ...