Regina King Opens Up About Her Son’s Suicide

Regina King has said she has come to terms with her son’s 2022 suicide. “I respect and understand that he didn’t want to be here anymore. And that’s a hard thing for other people to receive, because they did not live our experience, did not live Ian’s journey,” King told Good Morning America. However, she also noted that his death would always be with her. “I know that I share this grief with everyone, but no one else is Ian’s mom. Only me. And so it’s mine, and the sadness will never go away. It’ll always be with me. And I think I saw somewhere, ‘The sadness is a reminder of how much he means to me,’ you know? Happy sorrow.”

King’s son, Ian, killed himself in 2022. He had struggled with depression for many years. “Of all the things that we had gone through with therapy, psychiatrists, and programs, and Ian was like, ‘I’m tired of talking, Mom,’” King reflected. The interview, which is King’s first major discussion of Ian’s death, has been met with an outpouring of love from fans.

Read More: Angela Bassett Wins 1st Oscar, Kisses Regina King In Celebration

John Wall Reveals What Stopped Him Taking His Own Life

Elsewhere, John Wall has revealed that he “put a gun to his head” on two separate occasions while battling depression. However, the former NBA star revealed that it was the thought of his two sons that prevented him from pulling the trigger. Wall told the story in order to highlight the seriousness of mental health struggles and to encourage anyone going through the same thing to seek help.

Wall was a mainstay of the Wizards for a decade after the team drafted him first overall in 2010. However, the Wizards being the Wizards, the team never succeeded in building a team around Wall despite his star power. The team made four postseason trips in ten years despite Wall blossoming into a five-time All-Star. Wall was dealt to Houston for Russell Westbrook. However, Wall has been out of the NBA since the 2023 offseason.

Read More: John Wall Admits His Time With Rockets Was “Beyond Trash”

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Regina King Plays Political Icon Shirley Chisholm in New Trailer for ‘Shirley’

Regina King Plays Political Icon Shirley Chisholm in New Trailer for ‘Shirley’

Political icon Shirley Chisholm has a new high-profile biopic coming to Netflix, and the streamer has dropped the first trailer for Shirley, starring Hollywood icon Regina King.

The film is dropping on March 22 and, as reported by Shadow and Act, is being directed and written by John Ridley, who has directed King in the past.

The official logline reads, “SHIRLEY tells the story of the first black Congresswoman and political icon, Shirley Chisholm, and her trailblazing run for president of the U.S. It chronicles her audacious, boundary-breaking 1972 presidential campaign.”

Now get this: Shirley is an ensemble film, and the star-studded cast includes the late, great Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christina Jackson, Michael Cherrie, Dorian Crossmond Missick, Amirah Vann, W. Earl Brown, Brad James, Reina King with André Holland and Terrence Howard.

Producers are Regina King, her sister, Reina King; Ridley; Anikah McLaren; Elizabeth Haggard; and John Ridley. Both Jeff Skoll and Ted Gidlow serve as executive producers.

The post Regina King Plays Political Icon Shirley Chisholm in New Trailer for ‘Shirley’ first appeared on The Source.

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Regina King Directing Pilot for Mara Brock Akil’s Adaptation of Judy Blume’s ‘Forever’ for Netflix With Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr. Set to Star

Regina King Directing Pilot for Mara Brock Akil’s Adaptation of Judy Blume’s ‘Forever’ for Netflix With Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr. Set to Star

Academy Award nominee Regina King is directing the pilot for a Judy Blume adaptation of the novel Forever. They just tapped Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr. as the leads. The project is a part of Mara Brock Akil’s overall deal.

As reported in Variety, this adaptation was created by Brock Akil, and in addition to directing the pilot, King will serve as executive producer. Officially, the series is described as “an epic love story of two Black teens exploring romance and their identities through the awkward journey of being each other’s firsts, set in Los Angeles, 2018.”

Simone plays Keisha Clark, a “young, confident, smart, and fiery track star with clear dreams for life after high school.” Cooper is playing Justin Edwards, who is described as “a young man who is a nerd at heart disguised in an athlete’s body.” Variety notes that Justin desires to play division 1 basketball and yearns for success beyond “his already successful parents.” The “Love,” says the synopsis, “will lead him to who he truly is.”

The series was picked up by Netflix back in 2022, and this is the first series to come out under Brock Akil’s aforementioned overall deal. In addition to creating the series adaptation of the 1971 Judy Blume book, Brock Akil will serve as showrunner and executive producer along with Blume. The other executive producers are Susie Fitzgerald, Sara White, Reina King, Shana C. Waterman, and Erika Harrison.

Simone is best known as a series regular on Greenleaf for OWN and starring in the Apple TV+ new series Manhunt. Cooper starred in On the Come Up, Sanaa Lathan’s directorial debut. Good for both of them!

The post Regina King Directing Pilot for Mara Brock Akil’s Adaptation of Judy Blume’s ‘Forever’ for Netflix With Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr. Set to Star first appeared on The Source.

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Regina King Leads Star-Studded Cast as Shirley Chisholm in Netflix’s Upcoming Film ‘Shirley’

Regina King Leads Star-Studded Cast as Shirley Chisholm in Netflix's Upcoming Film 'Shirley'

Academy Award-winning actress Regina King is set to portray trailblazing politician Shirley Chisholm in the upcoming Netflix film Shirley. The film will release on March 22, 2024.

The star-studded cast includes Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christina Jackson, Michael Cherrie, Dorian Crossmond Missick, Amirah Vann, W. Earl Brown, Brad James, Reina King, André Holland, and Terrence Howard.

The logline reads:

SHIRLEY tells the story of the first black Congresswoman and political icon, Shirley Chisholm, and her trailblazing run for president of the U.S. It chronicles her audacious, boundary-breaking 1972 presidential campaign.

Directed and written by John Ridley, the film is produced by Regina King and Reina King, Anikah McLaren, and Elizabeth Haggard. Serving as executive producers are Jeff Skoll and Ted Gidlow. The project promises to provide a compelling exploration of Chisholm’s groundbreaking political journey.

With a powerhouse ensemble and a team led by accomplished director John Ridley, “Shirley” is poised to bring the inspiring and impactful story of Shirley Chisholm to life on the Netflix platform.

The post Regina King Leads Star-Studded Cast as Shirley Chisholm in Netflix’s Upcoming Film ‘Shirley’ first appeared on The Source.

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Regina King Remembers Her Late Son as a ‘Guiding Light’ on His Birthday

Regina King Remembers Her Late Son as a 'Guiding Light' on His Birthday

Regina King remembers her late son, Ian Alexander Jr, on Instagram, a year after he committed suicide.

Ian would have turned 27 this year. On Instagram, King shared a video of her letting off an orange sky lantern, sharing an emotional tribute.

“January 19th is Ian’s Worthday,” King wrote. “As we still process his physical absence, we celebrate his presence. We are all in different places on the planet…so is Ian. His spirit is the thread that connects us. Of course orange is your favorite color…Its the fire and the calm

“I see you in everything I breath. My absolute favorite thing about myself is being ….Regina the mother of Ian the GodKing. Continue to shine bright,my guiding light.”

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Regina King Named Co-Chair of the Met Gala

Regina King

The Met Gala is set to return and will have Regina King as a co-chair. The high fashion event is set for Monday, May 2, bringing together celebrities and fashion elite together at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

According to Vanessa Friedman of The New York Times, King will co-chair the even with Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Honorary chairs will include Anna Wintour and Tom Ford. The theme for the 2022 event will be “Gilded Glamour.”

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‘The Harder They Fall’ Is A Better Music Video Than Western Movie

Contrary to some of the chatter online surrounding the release of Netflix’s new movie, The Harder They Fall, multiple hip-hop generations have a strong affinity for the Western. Consider that one of rap’s earliest music videos, Juice Crew’s “The Symphony,” revolves around a Wild West theme. Another, Kool Moe Dee’s “Wild Wild West,” made the connection plain, as did Will Smith’s redux over a decade later on the soundtrack of the film of the same name.

So it’s no surprise that The Harder They Fall — directed by Jeymes Samuel, aka The Bullitts, a musician and music video director for Jay-Z, one of the film’s producers who also appears on the excellent soundtrack — plays more like a long-form music video in the vein of Beyonce’s The Gift than it does genre staples like A Fistfull Of Dollars or The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Although it’s an important film in terms of representation of Black cowboys — who were actually just as prevalent as any other ethnicity — its true strength is as much in its soundtrack and visuals as its off-kilter storyline and mixed-bag performances.

Intriguingly enough, The Harder They Fall is far from the first movie to feature Black cowboys. In fact, it’s not the first one on Netflix this year, nor is it Samuel’s first effort. Those distinctions go to Concrete Cowboy and They Die By Dawn, respectively, although the former was a modern movie rather than a Western and the latter saw limited distribution (although, intriguingly, it also featured a strong emphasis on music, with Erykah Badu playing the same role as Zazie Beets, Stagecoach Mary, and featured another alumnus of The Wire in the late Michael K. Williams, playing Nat Love).

And while there has been much emphasis placed on the true-life inspirations of characters like Mary, Nat, Rufus Buck, Cherokee Bill, and Bass Reeves, the actual story of the films plays out more like the plot of Tombstone, with little of these real-life characters’ actual histories represented here. It’s not quite an affront to fictionalize real peoples’ lives to tell a historical fantasy, but it does feel a bit self-indulgent. The story, such as it is, doesn’t really need to use the names and likenesses of real people, and while it may generate interest in them, so too might have just playing their individual stories straight.

Meanwhile, the story itself is quite thin and feels almost like it was pulled together by committee, culling hot topics from Black Twitter without really putting much effort into making the pieces fit. Particularly, Rufus Buck’s motivations seem like a hazy reference to Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Idris Elba’s performance is almost sublimated by the overall focus on Jonathan Majors’ Nat Love and his quest for revenge against Buck, and the film’s biggest emotional twist comes in way too late, after a set of diversions that add nothing to its forward momentum other than possibly providing a small bit of revenge fantasy. That’s fine, but if it detracts from the emotional story you want to tell, it’s really unnecessary.

But the story and the performances feel almost secondary to the visuals. They’re beside the point. The point appears to be to set right the erasure of Black people from the grandiose history of the American West. To that end, Samuels goes to lengths to portray his characters as intelligent, savvy, and beautiful, shooting them against picturesque tableaus of deserts, forests, and steppes. While things tend to get a little bland whenever the characters come to a town, a sequence featuring Stagecoach Mary’s saloon could almost fit in on MTV in its heyday.

Likewise, the film’s soundtrack peppers in classic and contemporary soul and reggae cuts to highlight the characters’ travels and the action scenes. Dennis Brown’s “Promised Land” blares over a scene of Rufus Buck’s gang riding into town, Seal’s “Ain’t No Better Love” soundtracks part of the climactic shootout, and Barrington Levy belts “Here I Come” and “Better Than Gold” as Samuels’ camera glides over twirling six-shooters, swirling gunsmoke, and galloping horses. It almost feels like the cursory storyline beats are just breaks between the bits that The Bullitts really wanted to get to: The musical set-pieces that nearly do enough to justify the film’s existence on their own.

I’d go so far as saying that they could have just been the movie without needing a story, like The Gift and other, similar films that have become almost de rigeur for a certain class of prestige artist — like Jay-Z, whose “Moonlight” video Samuels directed, likely leading to the mogul’s funding of this endeavor. I’m not the first to notice this; Okayplayer’s Latesha Harris noted as much in her own review. Films like The Harder They Fall are needed, but what’s needed more is to get beyond the need for surface representation and to actually tell stories worth telling. The movie can also be a guidepost as well, pointing out how to make those stories look and sound as pretty as possible.

The Harder They Fall is streaming now on Netflix.