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Category: Entertainment

  • ‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘Marty Supreme’ Take Top Honors at Location Managers Guild International Awards

    ‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘Marty Supreme’ Take Top Honors at Location Managers Guild International Awards

    “One Battle After Another” and “Marty Supreme” took top honors at the Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) LMGI Awarda.

    The LGMI Awards were handed out on Saturday night and honor the use of filming locations across motion pictures, television, commercials, film commissions, and special achievement categories. 

    Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” won outstanding locations in a contemporary feature film. It was shot across California’s Humboldt County, Sacramento, Stockton, Eureka, Arcata, San Diego and El Paso, Texas. Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme” won outstanding locations in a period feature film for its work across New York City, greater New York, the Hudson Valley, New Jersey and Tokyo.

    “Pluribus,” “Fallout” and “Black Rabbit” were the television winners. “Pluribus” was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Montana, Nevada, and Spain, and won outstanding locations in a contemporary television series. “Fallout,” shot in California’s Dumont Dunes, Mojave Desert, Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita,” won outstanding locations in a period television series. Filmed around New York City, including Brooklyn and Manhattan, “Black Rabbit” won outstanding locations in a tv anthology, movie or limited series. 

    Four-time Emmy-winning director and writer Vince Gilliga received the Eva Monley Award for his dedication to storytelling through location over his career and his most recent work on “Pluribus.”

    Mike Fantasia, location manager of films including “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming” was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award. 

    “Celebrating our LMGI winners was a truly remarkable experience,” Nancy Haecker, LMGI Awards Chair, said. “The ceremony was a powerful celebration of achievement, filled with inspiring moments and well-deserved recognition, beautifully capped by the genius of Vince Gilligan. Each of this year’s winners is incredibly deserving, and it was a distinct privilege to honor their talent, dedication, and outstanding contributions to our industry.”

    Winners list below.

    OUTSTANDING LOCATIONS IN A CONTEMPORARY FEATURE FILM

    “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros. Pictures)

    Michael Glaser / LMGI, Michael Wesley / LMGI, Rich Heichel / LMGI

    OUTSTANDING LOCATIONS IN A PERIOD FEATURE FILM

    “Marty Supreme” (A24)

    Matthew Kania, Ross Brodar / LMGI

    OUTSTANDING LOCATIONS IN A CONTEMPORARY TELEVISION SERIES

    “Pluribus” (Apple TV+)

    Christian Diaz de Bedoya / LMGI, John O’Connor, Priscila Calero, Jorge Noguerales,

    Yanira De Armas, Will Brewster

    OUTSTANDING LOCATIONS IN A PERIOD TELEVISION SERIES

    “Fallout” – Season 2 (Amazon Prime Video)

    Mandi Dillin / LMGI, David Park / LMGI

    OUTSTANDING LOCATIONS IN A TV ANTHOLOGY, MOVIE OR LIMITED SERIES

    “Black Rabbit” (Netflix)

    Paul Eskenazi, Joel McGlumphy

    OUTSTANDING FILM COMMISSION/ OFFICE

    Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission: “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros. Pictures)

    Cassandra Hesseltine

    OUTSTANDING LOCATIONS IN A COMMERCIAL

    TOYOTA TRUCKS: “They Don’t Read Reviews”

    Alexandra Gibson / LMGI, Christina Conway / LMGI

  • Janie Bradford, “Money (That’s What I Want)” Songwriter, Dies at 87

    Janie Bradford, “Money (That’s What I Want)” Songwriter, Dies at 87

    Janie Bradford, the onetime receptionist for Berry Gordy who co-wrote the R&B classic “Money (That’s What I Want),” the first big hit for the founder of Motown Records, has died. She was 87.

    Bradford died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after an extended illness, her family announced.

    Bradford also co-wrote “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby,” which Marvin Gaye took to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969, and songs for other artists including Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, the Four Tops and Martha & the Vandellas.

    She later served as head of writer relations for the Motown publishing company Jobete.

    Born on June 2, 1939, in Charleston, Missouri, Bradford was inspired to be a writer after her idol, poet Robert Frost, visited her high school.

    While living in Detroit with her sister, Clea, she became neighborhood friends with singer Jackie Wilson, who had just charted with his first solo single, the 1957 party anthem “Reet Petite.” Wilson invited her to meet Gordy, one of the song’s writers, and she gave him a collection of her poetry.

    After Gordy had launched the Tamla and Motown labels in 1959, he hired Bradford as a receptionist. One day, as Gordy was working on a song, Bradford joined him at the piano to add her own verse — “Your love gives me such a thrill, but your love don’t pay my bills. Gimme some money, baby!”

    The song, of course, would become “Money (That’s What I Want).” First recorded by Barrett Strong, it peaked at No. 23 on the Hot 100 and helped cement Tamla/Motown as hit-makers. It would be covered by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Flying Lizards, The Supremes, Boyz II Men and Charli XCX, among many others.

    “Janie was there with me from the very beginning, before there was even a Motown, and she will always hold a very special place in my heart and in the Motown family,” Gordy said in a statement.

    “Janie was smart, clever, witty and fun. She was also talented and determined. In those early days, everybody did what was needed to be done, and Janie was no exception. She became Motown’s first receptionist, but her talents quickly took her far beyond that desk.”

    Bradford’s credits also included “Contract on Love,” recorded by Little Stevie Wonder, Wells’ “Your Old Standby,” Diana Ross’s “I Am Me” and The Supremes’ “Time Changes Things” and “We Should Be Closer Together.”

    After some 25 years at Motown, Bradford in the 1990s founded the Heroes and Legends Awards, an event that over 30 years honored music icons and presented scholarships to those pursuing higher education.

    “Her annual gatherings always felt like old home week because Janie kept that wonderful sense of family alive,” Gordy said.

    In June, she was inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.

    Survivors include her husband of 55 years, Wardean; her children, Lance and Nicole; her daughter-in-law, Carolyn; and her grandsons, Bradford and Austin.

  • Before ‘The Pitt,’ There Was ‘St. Elsewhere’

    Before ‘The Pitt,’ There Was ‘St. Elsewhere’

    Though it was never an outright hit, St. Elsewhere punched way above its weight in terms of the careers it helped launch and a style that set the template for medical dramas that followed it. The show can also boast one of the more memorable series finales in TV history.

    Created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, St. Elsewhere followed the staff and patients at a struggling Boston hospital over six seasons on NBC, from 1982 to 1988. Like its fellow NBC show Hill Street Blues (both were from MTM Enterprises), St. Elsewhere pioneered a new kind of storytelling. Hospital dramas that came before it focused mainly on a lead character whose personal struggles didn’t interfere with their work and presented the health care system as orderly and well functioning (see Marcus Welby, M.D., Trapper John, M.D.). St. Elsewhere instead took a grittier tack, with overlapping, serialized stories and medical professionals who had complicated lives and sometimes could not save patients ­— traits that are recognizable in its successors, from ER to Grey’s Anatomy to The Pitt.

    When the series debuted, that style was seen as a barrier to success: Reviewing the show in November 1982, THR critic Richard Hack wrote, “So real and graphic is the drama being presented here that we cannot believe that 20 million people across this country will find it entertaining enough to flip to.”

    Nonetheless, St. Elsewhere would win 13 Emmys over its run, including six for its fourth season in 1986. It was nominated for best drama series in all six seasons, though it never took home that honor.

    Three of the show’s regulars — William Daniels, Bonnie Bartlett and Ed Flanders — won acting Emmys for their roles. Equally impressive was the show’s eye for emerging talent: It helped kick-start the careers of Denzel Washington, Mark Harmon and David Morse, as well as comedian Howie Mandel, playing against type in a dramatic role.

    The 1988 series finale cemented St. Elsewhere’s place in TV lore by suggesting that the entire show may have taken place inside the imagination of Tommy Westphall (played by Chad Allen), the autistic son of Flanders’ Dr. Donald Westphall. It was perhaps the most audacious choice an already groundbreaking show ever made.

    This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

  • Taylor Sheridan Accused of Stealing ‘Yellowstone’ From 2016 Pitch in Copyright Lawsuit

    Taylor Sheridan Accused of Stealing ‘Yellowstone’ From 2016 Pitch in Copyright Lawsuit

    Writer Lauren J. Salkin has accused Taylor Sheridan of stealing his marquee series “Yellowstone” from her 2016 pitch in a lawsuit filed on Friday. 101 Studios, Paramount and Elevate Entertainment are also listed as defendants.

    Reps for Sheridan, 101 Studios, Paramount and Elevate Entertainment did not immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment.

    In the court documents, obtained by Variety, Salkin alleges that she pitched her own sprawling Western drama, “Sovereign Nation,” to Sheridan’s management company, Elevate Entertainment, in 2016, only to be told: “Taylor thanks you very much for your interest. Unfortunately, he’s unavailable for TV projects.” The suit then claims that “Yellowstone” was greenlit at Paramount “within months” of her rejection.

    “Sheridan, however, was not ‘unavailable for TV projects,’” the suit reads, “Instead, he and others used Salkin’s copyrighted works to develop Yellowstone. On June 20, 2018, Paramount Network aired its first episode.”

    The lawsuit lists several “specific expressive choices” that “Yellowstone” allegedly lifted from Salkin’s “Sovereign Nation.” Those elements, the suit states, include “a tribal casino functioning as the institutional center of political and development power; a signature confrontation staged in the tribal chairman’s casino office over expansion beyond reservation boundaries; the use of trust land, the absence of zoning restrictions, and a 99-year lease structure as the concrete mechanism for that expansion; and recurring master-plan imagery deployed to dramatize the struggle for territorial control.”

    Salkin’s lawyers also claim that she “proposed” Danny Huston and Gil Birmingham for “Sovereign Nation” in her pitch deck. Both were later cast in “Yellowstone” and played “materially parallel structural roles: Birmingham as the tribal political leader whose authority and development strategy run through the casino, and Huston as the outside development power broker who supplies the political or commercial path for that expansion.”

    The suit later states, “When the works are objectively compared, the same coordinated design repeatedly appears: casino-centered institutions organize political power; the same unusual land-development mechanisms propel the conflict; parallel scenes perform the same dramatic functions; and the same actors appear in materially parallel roles. These are not merely convergences of a shared genre. Taken together with access and timing, they support a strong inference of copying.”

  • Meghan Markle Reportedly Dropped From Consideration to Join Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’

    Meghan Markle Reportedly Dropped From Consideration to Join Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’

    Meghan Markle‘s reported casting in Guy Ritchie‘s The Gentlemen has been withdrawn, according to Tina Brown, who reported that the decision came after intense backlash in the U.K.

    In a column published Saturday on Substack, Brown, the former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, wrote, “I learned this morning that the casting of Meghan Markle in season 3 of Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series The Gentlemen has been withdrawn. The backlash in the UK was so intense, it became untenable to go forward. This does not bode well for Meghan’s acting comeback in the UK.”

    The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Markle’s representative and WME, which represents both Markle and Ritchie and didn’t receive comment.

    THR also reached out to Brown, who said she stands by her reporting. Brown is the author of two bestselling books about the British royal family.

    The report comes a day after THR learned that the Duchess of Sussex was in advanced discussions to join season three of The Gentlemen, which films in the U.K. Her role was being written for the third season, which has not yet been renewed.

    Season two of The Gentlemen premieres Sept. 3 and stars Theo James. Ritchie, who created the series, which was adapted from his 2019 film of the same name, met Markle through mutual acquaintances, THR was told. Netflix declined to comment.

    Markle’s potential role in The Gentlemen would have marked the Suits star’s return to acting after she stepped away from the profession in 2017 when she got engaged to Prince Harry. The couple recently revealed that they are moving back to the U.K., with Brown reporting that Markle’s potential acting role was a significant factor in the decision.

    The couple also have a history with Netflix. After moving to California in 2020, Prince Harry and Markle signed an overall deal with the company, resulting in several docuseries, including Harry & Meghan, Polo, and With Love, Meghan. The deal downgraded to a first-look deal last year. Earlier this year, Netflix announced that it was exiting Markle’s lifestyle brand.

  • Dale Morris, Titan of Nashville Management Who Forged Superstar Careers for Kenny Chesney and Alabama, Dies at 89

    Dale Morris, Titan of Nashville Management Who Forged Superstar Careers for Kenny Chesney and Alabama, Dies at 89

    Dale Morris, one of the leading names in the ranks of Nashville music managers, who helped build up superstar careers for the group Alabama and then Kenny Chesney nearly from scratch, died Friday at 89. A representative said Morris died in his sleep.

    “He lived a big, bold, beautiful, blessed life, and I’m holding onto that right now,” said his protege and eventually managerial partner of many years, Clint Higham, president of Morris Higham Management. “It’s the end of an era.”

    Morris met the fledgling Alabama in 1989 while heading up Dale Morris & Associates and played a massive role in making the group the most successful band in the history of country music, with 33 No. 1 hits in the 1980s and ’90s, along with a huge touring career that led to their being named Entertainer of the Year three times by the Country Music Association and five times by the Academy of Country Music in the mid-’80s. Alabama’s meteoric rise saw the group being credited for being early in country music to adopt some of rock’s touring production values, finding rock-star-level success as well.

    Lightning struck twice for Morris, as he oversaw the rise of Chesney from a country also-ran into the genre’s most reliable stadium-filler, who was named Entertainer of the Year four times in the 2000s by both the CMAs and ACMs, and who has enjoyed 32 No. 1 Billboard country smashes.

    Other Morris Higham Management clients included Martina McBride, Old Dominion, Jake Owen, Gretchen Wilson, Barbara Mandrell, Dailey & Vincent, Carley Pearce, Brantley Gilbert and Big & Rich.

    Said Higham, “He was larger than life, and never met a dream he couldn’t build. Dale Morris gave me my first internship, and I never wanted to go anywhere else. He saw things in people, in me, in Kenny, and inspired everyone to reach beyond what we thought possible. Maybe it’s how much he loved life, loved his family, loved us.”

    Dale Morris

    Morris Higham Management

    Before taking on management, Morris began his career as a songwriter, reaching the top 5 in 1967 with a cut by Johnny Paycheck, “Don’t Monkey With Another Monkey’s Monkey.” He was inspired by that hit to move from South Carolina to Nashville and to set up an agency shingle, with Billy “Crash” Craddock as his first client.

    He received the T.J. Martell Foundation’s Tony Martell Lifetime Entertainment Achievement Award in 2014 (at which he is pictured holding his trophy alongside Chesney, at top).

    Higham rose to become Morris’ partner after starting as an intern. In 2018, the two of them sold their company to Paradigm Talent Agency.

    In an interview with Pollstar that year, Morris said, “We’ve elected to stay small rather than to try to sign every act in the world. That way we were able to do what we were able to do and book and manage. Everybody seemed to be happy. We never signed contracts with any of the acts we represented. You come with us and if you want to leave us tomorrow, pay us what you owe us and out the door you go. That’s been our policy for at least 45 years.”

    Morris was married to his wife, Earline, for 68 years. He was preceded in death by a son, Tim. Survivors include the couple’s daughter-in-law, Jennifer, grandchildren Zack, Colton (and wife Mary Blair), Nick (and wife Shelby) and Kendall, and great grandchildren Mary Dee and Gus.

    “We’re so blessed to have had 90 years with him as the patriarch of our family,” said Zack Morris. “Thank you to our music industry family and to his vast community of friends in Nashville, Boca and beyond for loving him all these many years.”

    A celebration of life is being planned for this fall, with details to be announced in the weeks ahead.

  • Austrian Director Sandra Wollner’s ‘Everytime’ Wins Best Film at Sarajevo Film Festival

    Austrian Director Sandra Wollner’s ‘Everytime’ Wins Best Film at Sarajevo Film Festival

    Sandra Wollner’s “Everytime” continued its winning streak at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where the Cannes Un Certain Regard winner took home the Heart of Sarajevo for best narrative feature film.

    The Austrian director’s third feature was the unanimous choice of a jury headed by two-time Academy Award nominee Emily Watson, which said in its citation: “Moments of cinematic grace float through this mesmerically elastic and transcendental grief-soaked ghost story.”

    “Everytime” follows a mother, young daughter and teenage boy who, united by tragedy, embark on a trip to the Canary Islands for a family holiday that never happened. Under the glow of the coastal sun, past and present begin to quietly overlap. 

    Following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Variety’s chief film critic Guy Lodge praised Wollner’s “poised, haunting” drama, noting that it “confirms the Austrian director’s formidable formal control and imagination, and should be her most widely distributed work to date.”

    The Heart of Sarajevo for best director went to Georgian filmmaker Ana Urushadze for “Supporting Role,” another festival darling that scooped two prizes in Rotterdam earlier this year. In another unanimous choice, the jury members said they were “enchanted by [Urushadze’s] irreverent blending of the banal and the oneiric, and her refreshing curiosity for meaning in life and cinema.” 

    Variety’s Beatrice Loayza was likewise swept up by the “mesmerizing effect” of the director’s moody, meandering drama, which follows “a lumbering movie star on a surreal and wryly melancholic soul-search” on the streets of Tbilisi.

    The award for best actress went to Eva Kostić for her lead role in “17,” the debut feature from North Macedonian director Kosara Mitić, about a teenager on a class trip wrestling with the aftermath of a sexual assault. The jury heralded her performance as “raw, visceral and deeply instinctive” and the “fearless emergence of a young talent,” adding “She brings an extraordinary emotional truth to the role, announcing the arrival of an actress with a rare and powerful voice.”

    Best actor honors went to Adrian Văncică for “You Don’t Belong Here,” Romanian filmmaker Florin Şerban’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner about a respected doctor whose world is shaken when he discovers his son is a suspect in the murder of a Roma man. The jury praised Văncică “for a performance marked by tenacity and understated rigor, in which the actor consistently serves a story directed in long and wide shots.”

    The Heart of Sarajevo for best documentary feature went to directing duo by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić for “To Hold a Mountain,” a story of sisterhood and solitude in the Montenegrin highlands. The film, which won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the Grand Prix at Poland’s Millennium Docs Against Gravity, was hailed as “an unforgettable journey” by the documentary jury, which said in its citation: “With astonishingly epic cinematography this touching portrait of two extraordinary women and a disappearing way of life enchanted us.”

    Here’s the complete list of awards for the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival:

    NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM

    Best Narrative Feature Film: “Everytime,” Sandra Wollner 

    Best Director: Ana Urushadze, “Supporting Role”

    Best Actress: Eva Kostić, “17” 

    Best Actor: Adrian Văncică, “You Don’t Belong Here”

    DOCUMENTARY FILM

    Best Documentary Feature Film: “To Hold a Mountain,” Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić 

    Best Short Documentary Film: “Holy Defiance,” Karla Jelić 

    Special Jury Award: “The Ferry Flows,” Zhora Papoian 

    NARRATIVE SHORT FILM

    Best Narrative Short Film: “Nobody Said Anything,” Tamara Todorović 

    Special Mention: “Porkatal,” Sis Gürdal 

    STUDENT SHORT FILM 

    Best Student Short Film: “Unwellness,” Réka Pinczés 

    SPECIAL AWARDS

    Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality: “17,” Kosara Mitić 

    Special Mention: “Don’t Ask Me if I Killed,” Helena Maksyom 

    Special Youth Perspectives Award: “Skateboarding is Not for Girls,” Dina Duma

    Katrin Cartlidge Foundation Award: Lana Daher  

  • Olivia Rodrigo Releases ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-Inspired Song, ‘Serena Joy,’ in a Tiny Run of CDs, With Digital Drop to Follow

    Olivia Rodrigo Releases ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-Inspired Song, ‘Serena Joy,’ in a Tiny Run of CDs, With Digital Drop to Follow

    It was already clear Olivia Rodrigo is in full feminist mode these days, with her all-female music festival, Daisy Chain Fields, set to take place in California’s Orange County next Saturday. But it’s perhaps even clearer now that Rodrigo is releasing a non-album track, “Serena Joy,” named after a prominent character in “The Handmaid’s Tale” who comes to regret her complicity with a repressive patriarchy.

    “Serena Joy” was released Friday as a very limited-edition CD single, with only 500 units pressed, all of them available exclusively at a single record store, Analog Music Shop in Tustin, Calif. (The store reported Friday night that all 500 copies had sold through.)

    Of course, the song won’t be heard exclusively in Orange County CD players for long. Analog Music Shop — which so far seems to be the only source of official information about the track — reported that Rodrigo’s plan is to send it out wide to the world on Monday.

    The existence of a song titled “Serena Joy” had already been confirmed by Rodrigo in June, after fans spotted the title in a studio photograph listing 18 songs that were under consideration for her “You Look Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” album.

    Asked about it in a video interview with Etalk two months ago, Rodrigo smiled and said, “I actually really love [“Serena Joy”]. It didn’t fit on the album. The record was very much a chronicle of a relationship — beginning, middle and end. But I hope that it’ll be a part of something else down the line.”

    On Friday morning, Analog Music Shop posted about the song and its exclusive availability. “When we heard that Olivia Rodrigo was bringing an all-women music festival to Orange County, we were honestly just excited to see something this special happening right here in our hometown” (using “hometown” loosely, but close enough, since Tustin is adjacent to Irvine, where Daisy Chain Fields is taking place). “As one of the closest record stores in the area, we wanted to find a way to support Daisy Chain Fields.”

    The message continued, “We knew Olivia had a track record of supporting record stores, but we were still taken aback when we heard the news: Olivia is releasing a new song ahead of Daisy Chain Fields called ‘Serena Joy,’ and she wants the physical CD copies to be exclusively sold at Analog Record Shop. And the best part… She’s giving it to us 3 DAYS before anyone else can hear it. Three days early. More than anything, we’re grateful for what this represents: An artist building a stage for women in music and raising funds for women and girls. An artist willing to support a local independent record store. And a hometown getting to be part of something really special. That means a lot to us.”

    No one had to wait to hear or at least see the lyrics, at least, since they were printed right on the front of the CD, in images disseminated by the shop. Inevitably, the music itself was leaked, although takedown orders were issued.

    The lyrics do not mention the Serena Joy character or any other overt “Handmaid’s Tale” references, but with that as the title, the meaning of verses that might otherwise seem vague can be seen in fairly clear focus.

    “Yeah, it’s all for the cause / For the good of us all / And if you close your eyes / Then it can’t be your fault,” Rodrigo sings at the outset, in cautionary-tale lyrics. “Here’s a tower we built / Painted gold on the walls,” she adds in the lines that follow, possibly alluding to the popularity of literal gold-leaf in certain circles in the current age.

    The key recurring lyrics: “If they do it to them / They’ll do it to you / If they do it to them / They’re gonna do it to you.” Those are the clearest referrals to the “Handmaid’s Tale” character, who is one of the few women who seems to have a position of power in the patriarchy that has taken over a future America, yet who comes to find that she will be just as oppressed and endangered as any woman under the system she helped build.

    As Margaret Atwood writes of Serena Joy in the novel that inspired the television series: “She doesn’t make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn’t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she’s been taken at her word.”

    Many fans reacting online to the new song were down with the thought of Rodrigo stretching her political wings a little in song, even if most were in agreement that it would have been a poor fit with the tight relationship focus of “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.”

    “Forget hot girl summer we’re entering our dystopian propaganda era,” wrote one fan commenting on the song’s Genius lyrics page. Wrote another, along similar lines, “Hot girl summer into fascism fall.”

  • Former Child Actress Raquel Lee Alleges Disney Negligent in On-Set Sexual Abuse

    Former Child Actress Raquel Lee Alleges Disney Negligent in On-Set Sexual Abuse

    In a new court filing, the former child actress Raquel Lee alleges she was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by a Disney worker during production of The Poof Point, a 2001 Disney Channel original movie. The suit, which doesn’t name the perpetrator, accuses the studio of negligence.

    Lee, who was 14 years old at the time, claims that a “middle-aged, male employee who was involved in the filming of the movie” groomed and then assaulted her, first on multiple occasions in his room at a hotel where the cast and crew were staying during production in Salt Lake City and then later on a flight back to Los Angeles. In addition, the alleged assailant “regularly whispered sexually explicit and harassing comments” into her ear while on set and “used hugs to get close to her.”

    The complaint contends that this misconduct was done “in plain view of the cast and crew and could be heard by the sound technicians managing the cast’s microphones” — yet “no one at Disney intervened.” The filing also asserts that the man “regularly made sexually explicit jokes and commentary on the set” around minors, including “sexually explicit comments about” Lee’s body. (In addition, she was allegedly allowed to be separated from her on-set guardian “for the vast majority of each day.”)

    Lee notes that her professional performance soon noticeably declined and that multiple Disney executives attacked her “changed behavior and trauma response,” accusing her of “being ‘out of control,’ causing the movie to go ‘haywire,’ ‘need[ing] Jesus,’ having ‘a demon inside her’ and engaging in sex acts with a member of the crew at the age of 14.” The litigation adds, “Disney threatened to, and did, cancel” her role in a then-forthcoming production with the studio.

    Lee is represented by Doug Wigdor, a prominent plaintiffs’ employment and sexual-misconduct lawyer. He has previously represented Cassie Ventura against Sean “Diddy” Combs; Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel housekeeper who accused then-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault; and multiple women who alleged misconduct by Harvey Weinstein.

    Both Wigdor and Disney declined to comment on the litigation.

    The complaint contends that Lee’s experience was part of a long pattern at the studio: “This is not the first time that Disney has enabled a sexual predator to target and abuse vulnerable victims.” Wigdor’s filing cites a litany of previously reported accusations of predatory misconduct over decades which have been connected to the company.

    Shortly after The Poof Point, Lee went on to recur as a voiceover artist on the animated Disney Channel animated sitcom The Proud Family, and recently participated again in its Disney+ revival, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. She also worked with the company when she appeared on FX’s Snowfall in 2019.

    In addition, Lee participated in the hit 2024 docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, in which she reflected on her treatment as a Black performer on Nickelodeon’s The Amanda Show. She didn’t levy her The Poof Point claims in the docuseries, which became a cultural phenomenon for its focus on alleged misconduct against child actors. However, after its airing, she noted that Drake Bell’s discussion of experiencing on-set sexual abuse was “retraumatizing” for her.

  • Bill Maher Puts Hunter Biden in the Hot Seat: ‘I’ve Seen You With Your Dick Out’

    Bill Maher Puts Hunter Biden in the Hot Seat: ‘I’ve Seen You With Your Dick Out’

    After enduring years of character assassinations by the right, Hunter Biden is in the throes of a chaotic media blitz that’s included Twitter-trolling, posting on Substack and appearances on a number of far-right podcasts, from Hitler worshipper Nick Fuentes and Russia stooge Tucker Carlson to conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. Is Joe Biden’s wayward son trying to land a lucrative podcast deal or taking one last stand to clear his name as his father battles cancer?

    Whatever the reason, the latest stop on Biden’s no-holds-barred media tour saw the 56-year-old sit down with Bill Maher on his HBO series “Real Time” Friday night. And their conversation got off to a rollicking start.

    “Your obituary, the third word will be ‘laptop.’ I know everything about the laptop — more things than I want to know. I’ve seen you with your dick out. I’ve seen you with a crack pipe in your mouth. My question: Are you running for president?” cracked Maher, opening things.

    “I’m here to announce…,” joked Biden, before adding, “No, I haven’t [thought of it]. Here’s my thing: If I announce for president then someone should check to see if I’ve relapsed.”

    Throughout their chat, Biden appeared nervous but prepared, opening up about his seven years of sobriety and saying he’s been out there speaking because “there are 50 million Americans that are still sick and suffering every day from addiction, and I get to go out there and I get to speak to them.”

    Maher, meanwhile, mostly treated the Biden offspring with kid gloves, even telling him at one point, “I think I would say to you what I said to Charlie Sheen: You did some bad things, but I don’t think you’re a bad guy.” (Charlie Sheen pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex, among other things.)

    Biden also acknowledged his “privilege” and argued that the money he made while his father was vice president was “a fraction of a penny” compared to what the Trump kids have made while their father was president.

    “Just to put it in perspective: In the last 500 days of this administration, Don Jr.’s company has taken in $3.4 billion in Department of Defense contracts. He got a $640 million loan pushed through by the Whtie House… and that’s just a fraction of it,” explained Biden. “Forget about what they’ve done with cryptocurrency, which is a bank where they were able to go and launder their money, which is an abomination, and that doesn’t even include what Jared is doing and Ivanka is doing. He gets paid $100 million in fees by the Saudis alone for a $6.5 billion fund that he controls that’s all Gulf State money, and he’s our unelected, unappointed emissary to the Middle East for a war that nobody asked for.”

    When it comes to his father Joe, who is currently suffering from Stage 4 prostate cancer, Biden said he’s apologized to him “every day” for his mistakes and it’s “one of the greatest heartaches of my life,” adding, “I can never make up for that.”