• Health and Wellness

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 25, 2022

Shaq’s Got a Six-Pack! Shaquille O’Neal Loses 40 Pounds — Goes Topless for Gym Session

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Talk about “Shaq’tin a fool!” Shaquille O’Neal is going topless to show off the results of his dedication to health and fitness.

Shaq took to Instagram last week to share a video kicking off “Thot Daddy Thursday,” where he flexed his ripped abs and muscles around his at-home gym.

“#THOTDADDYTHURSDAY STARTS TODAY,” Shaq captioned the post.

 

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The post garnered praise from his followers with many applauding the NBA champion’s toned abs and oiled physique.

“Yeah Buddy, I see you hitting those Olympia Poses Big Bro,” one friend wrote.

“U Mean Thanos Thursdays,” added another.

The video revealed the results of Shaq’s weight loss journey that started after he looked in the mirror and didn’t like what he saw. The Inside The NBA host recently appeared on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive show where he took a light jab at his co-host Charles Barkley while opening up about what prompted his return to the gym.

“I was looking at myself and I had that Charles Barkley retirement body,” Shaq said.

“All right, I didn’t want my stomach over the belly anymore so I’m just like ‘Let me go ahead and get slim.’ ”

Since making the life-changing decision, Shaq developed a more fit and toned physique after losing close to 40 pounds.

“I was 401 pounds, now I’m 365,” he said. “I’m trying to take it back to 345 and I want to have muscles everywhere and I want to do underwear [Fruit of the Looms] with my sons.”

In December 2021, Shaq opened up to Men’s Health about his goal to lose weight after gaining weight during the COVID-19 quarantine in 2020. The NBA legend shared his hope to post a “topless selfie” for his 50th birthday.

Shaq didn’t get around to posting the topless selfie when he turned 50 back in March, but he has “Thot Daddy Thursdays” to make up for it.

• Celebrity News

by Atiya Jordan

October 25, 2022

Lil’ David Needs a Job: Jennifer Hudson’s Son Tries to Coax His Mom Into Buying Him $20K Sneakers

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Jennifer Hudson told a story about the time she got schooled by her teenage son when she tried to teach him about the value of money.

On a recent episode of her new daytime talk show, The Jennifer Hudson Show, the EGOT-winning actress and singer revealed that she is an active mother. Mama Hud said she plays “basketball, tennis, you name it” and is involved in all the activities with her babies. She also shared that she likes to lean into the perspective of the younger generation of “new people.”

“You think we’re supposed to teach them, but they be teaching me,” Hudson said.

Hudson told a story about her 13-year-old son, David Daniel Otunga Jr., wanting to go shopping for “gym shoes” one weekend. Hudson said she was shocked to find out that someone had purchased a pair of shoes for $7,000.

Hailing from humble beginnings, Hudson couldn’t fathom the price tag and recalled her early days in Chicago shopping for school shoes in Payless. She revealed that $100 name brand shoes did not interest her. She was satisfied with cheaper shoes because she believed it was her confidence that shined through her school outfits.

“As a kid, my brother and my sister loved gym shoes, and they would get the Jordans and name brands stuff,” Hudson said. “[I said] Mama, don’t worry about me, take me to Payless.”

While shopping with her son, Hudson said he selected a pair of Jordan 11 Retro OVO Grey Snakeskin, which normally amounts to about $20,000 at auctions.

“What do the shoes do?!” Hudson exclaimed to a laughing audience. “What it do? Is it going to drive me somewhere?”

“They need to learn the value is not in the shoe or the name of the shoe…,” she added.

Although the Grey Snakeskin didn’t find a home in the Hudson household, the famed artist picked out another pair for herself. But, her son revealed that they were fake. She was also stunned to discover the power of sneaker authentication.

These lessons aren’t without value as Hudson strives to set an example for her son. Her efforts continue in partnership with Mastercard’s Strivers Initiative which kicked off last year and her participation in the Mastercard’s Strivers Mentor Collective BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported.

• Women

by Atiya Jordan

October 25, 2022

Nicki Minaj Opens Up About Financial Literacy and Being a Black Mom Who Leaves Her Child a Legacy

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For Nicki Minaj, motherhood calls for a responsibility to create wealth for her son.

The New York rapper and singer recently sat down with Red Table Talk co-host Jada Pinkett-Smith to discuss the “biggest freaking blessing” of motherhood and the importance of leaving a financial legacy for her family, including her son.

With a net worth of $130 million, Minaj’s fortune comes from her music, film, and television appearances, and a long history of successful business investments, according to Money Check. From her first endorsement deal with MAC Cosmetics to owning a three percent stake in TIDAL, Minaj has consistently secured the bag.

Later into the conversation, Pinkett-Smith asked Minaj about her business savviness and how she learned financial literacy.

“I guess you just learn as you go, you don’t really get a formal lecture about it,” Minaj said.

“But it’s always in you,” she added. “Since I was young, I always loved the idea of common sense, number one, and women being in charge of their destiny. I always thought that was important. I loved hearing about queens from any part of the world, how they did their thing, and how they got to where they got.”

Continuing, Minaj opened up about the promise she made to herself as a kid that she wouldn’t be a woman who didn’t prepare for the future of her family. Minaj’s commitment stood strong as she expressed love for her son during the interview.

“I vowed I would never be one of these Black women, these men, these Black rappers that make all this money and then have nothing to leave for their kids. I would promise my family since I was a kid, ‘I’m going to get rich and buy you a house.’ I had all these big dreams, but it was always important to me what I was going to leave behind,” Minaj explained.

Minaj and her husband, Kenneth “Zoo” Petty, welcomed their first child on September 30, 2020.

• Sports

by Stacy Jackson

October 25, 2022

‘I Am Not Retired’: Serena Williams Says There’s a Big Chance She Will Return to Tennis

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Serena Williams revealed that she has not retired from tennis and that there is a big chance that she will be returning to the court.

During a conference in San Francisco on Monday, Williams revealed her thoughts about retirement while promoting her brand, Serena Ventures.

“I am not retired,” Williams said.

According to NBC News, the U.S. Open was not the tennis star’s farewell. She shared that the gap of time following the match felt unnatural.

“I still haven’t really thought about [retirement],” Williams said.

“But I did wake up the other day and go on the court and [considered] for the first time in my life that I’m not playing for a competition, and it felt really weird,” she continued.

“It was like the first day of the rest of my life and I’m enjoying it, but I’m still trying to find that balance.”

The 41-year-old revealed to Vogue in an essay published in August that she was evolving away from the sport.

 

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“[There’s] no happiness in this topic for me,” she wrote.

“The best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

However, even after receiving heartfelt tributes and waving goodbye at the end of the third round of what the world thought would be her final match, the top-ranking athlete has other plans for the future that involve stepping on the court once again.

“I have never liked the word retirement,” said Williams. “It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me.”

Williams is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, ranking #1 by the Women’s Tennis Association and a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion.

Journalist Jemele Hill returned to Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk and brought her mom along as they spoke openly about their family history of pain in an episode titled “I Saw My Mother Falling Apart.”

It was Jemele and her mother’s first interview together and things got emotional as the sports journalist and her mother, Denise, revealed the pain passed down in their family after Denise was abused, raped, and relied on drugs to cope with severe PTSD.

In a raw emotional conversation, Jada and Gammy open up about their own traumas and how the adversity Jada and Jemele experienced throughout their childhoods shaped the incredible women they’ve become today.

A clip shows Hill’s detailed response when Willow Smith asked how she noticed her mom was “slipping away” during her rough childhood.

“My mother got divorced. We were evicted from our home in Detroit,” Hill recalled.

“We had to live in a very rough neighborhood. In fact, the woman who lived next door, she got murdered.”

Hill said her mom was already suffering from PTSD from having been raped when all this chaos surrounded her family. The stress took a toll on Denise and “sent her into a spiral” Hill said.

An exclusive clip shows the moment Hill realized in her adulthood that she should seek therapy after her mother told her she was “angry.”

“I think she’s still angry,” Denise said of her daughter.

“I am not. I am not angry,” Hill jokingly replied back.

“But it’s funny about how I started going to therapy because my mother said,’ I think you’re angry and you just don’t know you’re angry, and maybe you need to see somebody,’” Hill continued. “I’m like, ‘I ain’t angry!’”

Hill says her curiosity developed after being told she was angry and that prompted her to seek professional help.

“Yeah, ’cause I was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ So I was like, ‘Well, maybe I shall start seeing somebody just to see if this is true,'” she explained.

After attending therapy, Hill still believes she was never angry.

“What I found out is, like, that I wasn’t angry,” she quipped.

“Oh, you were angry,” her mother said in response.

“I’m not angry,” Hill said with a smile.

The candid discussion comes as Hill’s highly anticipated memoir, Uphill: A Memoir, which follows the journalist’s turbulent rise to success, hits stores.

The episode will stream at 9am PT / 12pm ET Oct. 26 on Facebook Watch.

by Derek Major

October 25, 2022

Locked Out: Under 5% of Washington’s Cannabis Retailers are Black—They’re Demanding Answers

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Only 4% of cannabis retailers in Washington State are Black-owned, according to the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB).

Mike Asai, a Black entrepreneur from Seattle, remembers what it was like growing up during the War On Drugs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. “Growing up in Seattle, in the 80s, [if you] just simply had a joint you would get five years in prison,” the co-founder of Emerald City Collective, one of the first medical cannabis retailers in Seattle told King5.

“[I’ve] seen that happen with family and friends and acquaintances, you know, for just that.”

Asai and his friend Peter Manning joined a cannabis collective that included Seattle-based retailers and growers in the early 2000s. However, in 2015 the state legalized recreational cannabis forcing Asai and Manning to close their business and apply for new licenses.

The two men paid city and state taxes and held all the necessary licenses to operate and because they were among the first to do so, they believed it would be a matter of time before they could reopen. However, the state had other ideas when it locked Black business owners out by granting only 19 (3.4%) of the state’s 558 recreational cannabis licenses to Black applicants.

“There is zero African American ownership in the city of Seattle, and to be supposedly this progressive state, this liberal state, it’s not showing,” Manning told King5.

Black, Indigenous, and other minorities have begun fighting back, demanding answers and action from the LCB at public meetings.

Washington State commissioned two independent reports in 2016 and 2019 auditing the LCB’s enforcement program and allegations of racial discrimination and failure to provide educational resources for applicants and inconsistent information concerning cannabis law in the state that left many with rejected applications.

LCB Board member Ollie Garrett, one of the only LCB board members on the state’s Social Equity In Cannabis Task Force (SECTS), said she considers it a failure that there are currently zero Black-owned cannabis dispensaries in Seattle.

The Task Force recommended allocating 38 cannabis licenses specifically to people of color. However, according to state records, more than half of the licenses are in areas where cannabis sales are banned—something Manning found ridiculous.

“What are you giving me?” Manning said. “A license that says I have the right to sell cannabis? But I can’t sell cannabis because I can’t open up in this location because it’s banned. How’s that equity?”

The task force recently discussed giving licenses to businesses that previously owned medical dispensaries, including Asai and Manning, and will submit its final report and recommendations in December. For now, Asai and Manning said the public should be more aware of where the money they spend on cannabis ends up, adding that Black Seattle residents want Black-owned stores in their community.

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 25, 2022

Mary J. Blige Gets Emotional at Cancer-Fighting Initiative Roundtable at White House

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Mary J. Blige spent time with first lady Jill Biden at the White House on Monday as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce deaths from cancer.

Biden and Blige sat with cancer survivors and oncology experts for a roundtable centered around Biden’s “moonshot” cancer-fighting effort, USA Today reported.

Blige became emotional when sharing her own personal experiences with losing loved ones to cancer.

“So I’m convinced that if all my aunts, godmothers, and grandparents had seen campaigns like this,” Blige said before taking a long pause.

“Oh, God,” she said. “They would have a different outcome today.”

Blige has since dedicated time to raising awareness of the importance of preventative screenings and “reminding people that their health is your wealth and urging them to make it a priority,” she explained.

Biden hosted the event inside the State Dining Room at the White House as part of the Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot initiative. The latest roundtable is part of the American Cancer Society’s series of national roundtables on breast and cervical cancer.

The roundtables held at the White House are aimed at bringing together oncology experts to help improve the lives of people living with cancer and support their families.

“Mary, thank you for lending your powerful voice to this cause,” Biden told Blige after she shared her story.

There were about 100 attendees mostly decked out in pink in honor of breast cancer awareness.

“The Cancer Moonshot is about a future where we don’t have to be afraid of cancer anymore. And today, we are coming together to make that future real,” Biden said during the event.

“None of us can beat cancer alone, and it will take all of us putting patients and their loved ones at the center of their own cancer journey, from screenings to survivorship.”

Nipsey Hussle‘s beloved grandmother passed and his family shared the news on social media.

According to iHeart, the slain rapper’s grandmother, Margaret Mary Boutté died, and on the Instagram account for the family’s company, The Marathon Clothing, they honored her.

Against the backdrop of the Boyz II Men song, How Can I Say Goodbye to Yesterday, the caption read, “Margaret Mary Boutté
Granny 💙🙏🏽, as a montage of photographs plays.

 

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Nipsey’s girlfriend at the time of his passing, Lauren London, also acknowledged Boutte on her Instagram account referring to her as Granny Gran.

“Forever Honored. Granny Gran 💙🙏🏽,.”

 

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HipHopDX reported that Boutte recently witnessed her grandson, Nipsey, get his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during the summer back in August. She was able to take the podium and speak about her grandson. She reminisced about watching him grow up and seeing him become a successful rapper and businessman before his life was taken from him in March 2019.

“Nipsey was the love of my life, always very respectful,” Boutte said. “I miss him, but I look at his picture and remember all the wonderful times we had together. I thank my daughter for blessing me with Nipsey and [his siblings] Sami and Samantha. I love you all. He will never be gone in my heart. He lives forever.”

Nipsey mentioned his grandmother in one of his songs that featured John Legend. The track, Higher, which was a Grammy Award-winning song that appeared on DJ Khaled’s album, detailed Nipsey speaking about times with his grandmother.

“Look, look / My granny 88, she had my uncle and then / A miscarriage back-to-back every year for like ten / Pregnant with my moms, doctor told her it was slim / Was bed rode for nine months, but gave birth in the end.”

• Diversity, Equality, Inclusion

by Derek Major

October 25, 2022

Investing In Black Businesses Could Be The Key To Closing the Racial Wealth Gap

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The racial wealth gap between Black and White Americans is getting wider, but there is something Black people can do to help close it; invest in Black businesses.

The Black Information Network reports data from the Black Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) shows that while White Americans hold 13 times more wealth than Black Americans when it comes to the median wealth gap between Black and White business owners the gap between White Americans drops to just three times more wealth.

The number of Black Entrepreneurs has skyrocketed since the pandemic as Black men and women took their careers and finances into their own hands. However, many Black entrepreneurs and business owners still struggle with emergency cash on hand, credit and more.

Investing in Black businesses can help Black entrepreneurs with financial support and help them circumvent loans, grants and other forms of traditional financing that are out of reach for Black small business owners.

Investing in Black businesses can also help boost economic activity in the communities they’re located in. According to the CBCF Black-owned businesses in the U.S. have produced more than 1 million jobs and $165 billion in revenue.

Black businesses and racial equity were a particular focus during the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement which led to numerous large corporations that started grant programs, business accelerators and loans to small Black-owned businesses. Additionally, several prominent Black figures including tennis star Serena Williams and Rapper Black Thought have started Venture capital companies to invest in and support small Black-owned businesses.

Investing in small Black businesses also would help the entire U.S. economy. According to CitiGroup, discriminatory practices in banking, education and a range of other areas have cost the U.S. $16 trillion. In 2019 alone the U.S. gross domestic product totaled $19.5 trillion in 2019.

Despite the growth of Black businesses since the pandemic, they make up less than 3%  of US Businesses showing just how paramount it is that Black business owners are supported by Black people.

Legendary NFL receiver Terrell Owens has spoken out multiple times to address his financial mistakes throughout his career.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, the professional athlete is presently estimated to be worth about $500,000, a major decline from his former status of $80 million between his salary and endorsements.

During a previous interview with Insider, the retired athlete shared advice regarding money management and the consequences of making poor financial decisions. He specifically addresses the perspective of a professional athlete, stating that draft rookies need to be careful to not allow the flashy lifestyle to sway them into breaking their bank.

“At that time I got sucked into wanting to be like everybody else, the guys with the Mercedes and all the flashy cars and the jewelry,” Owens says. “I think those are some of the most idiotic purchases I think players can do, especially when they don’t have that money in the bank account to really pay for that stuff.”

Owens added that people who accept positions offering large signing bonuses or salaries have to be aware that taxes still have to be accounted for, and sometimes they can total out to more than half of people’s incoming finances.

“My advice to any fan or athlete out there: Just don’t live beyond your means. You definitely have to be smart,” he said.

Financial advisers and trusting someone else is not always a promising factor, especially for athletes since everyone does not have their best interest at the center of their duties. However he advises that it is a great option for those who do on not completely understand the intricacies of managing finances.

“Find somebody you feel that are experienced in that area to give you advice, ask them what do you think about this,” Owens says. “Don’t take anything for granted.”

Although financial advisers ensure that they will take care of their clients Owens stated the importance of paying close attention, learning, and being aware of all the money moves, having a confident understanding of all the reasons for your adviser’s decisions.

“I took it for face value and I got burned,” Owens said. “I can’t blame them totally because I had some responsibility in that myself, because I should’ve been able to really manage my finances just as well as they were doing.”

The wide receiver reportedly collected a total of $150,000 in fines for “excessive” celebration after scoring touchdowns.