openentrance – What’s Really Going OnWhat’s Really Going On

A new online poll has named Tyra Banks as the hardest working person in showbusiness. A model, talk show host and television presenter, Banks has become a minimogul since stepping down from the catwalk in 2006. Banks beat American Idol host and DJ Ryan Seacrest, Jennifer Lopez, Heidi Klum and Sean `Diddy’ Combs to claim the top spot on Parade.com’s annual Summer Pop Culture poll.

The poll also claimed Oprah Winfrey as the celebrity most people would like as a next-door neighbor and Nicole Richie beat Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise to become the celebrity with the Most Improved Reputation. Meanwhile, voters chose Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer as the Most Unlikely Couple and Halle Berry beat out Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Alba to claim the Hottest New Mama crown.

  

R&B superstar Beyonce Knowles is set to receive a $1 million paycheck this October for playing at the Bermuda Music Festival in October.

AND

Retired supermodel Tyra Banks has been immortalised in wax at the Washington, D.C. branch of Madame Tussauds.

Model turned TV talkshow host Tyra Banks dedicated her Daytime Emmy Award to talk show “Queen” Oprah Winfrey hailing the TV powerhouse as her “inspiration,” even though she failed a lie detector test earlier this year about being jealous of Oprah.  Banks scooped the gong for Outstanding Talk Show in the Informative category, beating off stiff competition from ‘A Place Of Our Own’ and Winfrey’s protege ‘Dr. Phil.’

When she was presented with her award, Banks was full of praise for the veteran presenter.  She says, “I want to thank Oprah Winfrey for her inspiration.  She is the queen.  She will always be the queen.”

Now this is how things are supposed to be.  The younger generation showing respect and giving praise to those that paved the way for them.  It’s a shame that we have young rappers taking shots at some of the pioneers who got hip hop to where it is or NBA players “freestyling” and calling themselves better than Hall of Famers.

At the end of the day we are all standing on the shoulders of those that came before us.  Most of us do what we love because someone before us inspired us. It either happened through personal contact or we saw and admired what they did and their passion for it. So we developed our own passion and set goals to expand on what they started.  Let’s get back to respecting what came before us, and allowing what comes after us to develop and grow.  Ludacris said it best in a verse of ‘Freedom of Preach,’

Don’t get me wrong, I know some people got a image to hold
But those who criticize the youth might just be gettin too old
We still travellin through life, findin what’s right or wrong
I know some folks may not agree or even like this song
But I’m just speakin MY truth, cause I heard it sets you free
And my conversation’s with God, even though he speaks through me
I’m smarter cause of my daughter, and I’m NOT too dense
I’m 28 years old, it just now started makin sense.

Video From Tyra Show

Can’t say that I blame her. Tyra took a lie detector test on her show today and when asked if she was jealous of Oprah, she said “No.” When the results were revealed, it showed she was lying.

Watching that clip I was expecting Oprah to come running out the back yelling “I’m not that babies mama.” The lie detector tests need to stop.

Source

BET held their 1st annual BET Honors awards over the weekend and the winners were:

-Entrepreneur. Janice Bryant Howroyd, CEO, ACT*1 Personnel Services

-Corporate citizen. Richard D. Parsons, chairman, Time Warner

-Education. Cornel West, professor of religion and African-American Studies, Princeton University

-Media. Tyra Banks, executive producer, America’s Next Top Model and The Tyra Banks Show

-Public service. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

-Entertainment. Alicia Keys, singer/songwriter

Alicia Key’s said “For me, I’m just a girl still from Harlem, and here I am, It’s a tremendous feeling to do what you love and for people to love what you do. … People are honoring me for doing what my heart tells me to do, (and that is) so fulfilling.”

As far as I know, Richard Parsons is the last remaining Black Chairman of a Fortune 100 compnay. He was previously CEO as well, but stepped down from that post at the beginning of the month.

 This will be one of the few decent shows that you can tolerate on BET.

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The Ethel Waters Show, a variety special, appears on NBC in 1939. It is the first time an African American appears on television. Ethel Waters was the first black Superstar who opened all the theatrical doors hitherto closed to black performers of her day, to attain the towering position she reached as a headliner. She fought hard and long to achieve solo star status in the white world of vaudeville, night clubs, Broadway theater, radio, films and television. More than any other black performer of the century, Ethel Waters was a woman of the theater, and the celebrity she attained in maturity as an actress tended at times to overshadow-at least in memory-the importance of her accomplishments and influence as a singer.

It was Waters’ struggles that opened the doors for many of today’s superstars such as Beyonce, Mary J. Blige and Tyra Banks, to name a few.

Also on this date: 

1864 Congress votes that Black soldiers should receive equal pay.    

1921 Georgianna R. Simpson became the first Black woman to receive a PhD from the University of Chicago.

1970 Cheryl Adrienne Brown wins the Miss Iowa pageant and becomes the first African American to compete in the Miss America beauty pageant.