In a recent interview promoting her first European tour since 2011, Janet Jackson made controversial comments about US Vice President Kamala Harris that stunned fans. Now she is apologizing for the misunderstanding.

Janet Jackson has lived within the UK for eight years, near her ex-husband, billionaire Wissam Al Mana, with whom she shares their 7-year-old son, Eissa. But the gap from the US has kept her somewhat out of touch with American politics.

During an interview with The Guardian’s Nosheen Iqbal, Jackson repeated a standard Republican talking point, falsely claiming that Harris is “not black” and has a “white father.”

“You know what they supposedly said? She’s not black. That’s what I heard… she’s Indian” – Jackson he noticed.

Iqbal, who’s of Indian descent, quickly corrected her, saying, “Well, she’s both.”

Undeterred, Jackson replied, “Her father is white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. They told me they found out her father is white.”

Contrary to Jackson’s claims, Harris’ father shouldn’t be white.

Donald Harris, a Jamaican-born retired Stanford University economist, is black and of mixed descent, stemming from the Caribbean’s history of slavery and colonization.

How reported According to the Irish Times, one in every of his ancestors, and great-grandfather Hamilton Brown, was an Irish slave owner.

When corrected, Jackson responded, “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t want to answer that question because I really, honestly, I don’t know. I think it’s going to be chaos either way,” referring to the high-stakes election fallout.

Jackson’s comments sparked widespread criticism on X, formerly generally known as Twitter, with many fans expressing disappointment.

The “Rhythm Nation” singer, known for her anti-racism activism, has gone viral with users criticizing her for spreading misinformation.

One user X he said“We need to hold an internal family meeting!”

Other as well as“So she is loudly and proudly uninformed… what a shame.”

Third he commented“I miss the days before social media, when we didn’t know how stupid celebrities were.”

Another fan he tweeted“Janet Jacksonnnnnn! Whyyyyy!”

The criticism got even worse, with one person suggesting her late brother Michael Jackson could be upset together with her comments: “How embarrassing.”

How embarrassing. 😳 photo:twitter.com/yw76wcKDTO

— Viral Trends Spot (@ViralTrendsSpot) September 21, 2024

Some consider her views could also be influenced by her brother, Randy Jackson.

Randy, who’s 4 years older and her partner in Rhythm Nation Records, is a staunch Trump supporter. In 2020, he tweeted: “My friend sent me this and I thought it was really important to watch – ‘I voted for Biden but this changed my mind about Trump.’”

My friend sent me this and I assumed it was price watching – “I voted for Biden but this changed my mind about Trump” https://t.co/Q0OuZg6dc2 By @YouTube

— Randy Jackson (@randyjackson8) October 31, 2020

Randy’s daughter, Stevanna Jackson, who starred within the Nickelodeon series “Zoey 101,” allegedly criticized her father’s political beliefs on her Instagram Story, stating, “You’ve always been on the wrong side of history. As a father, as an uncle, as a brother, as a husband, as a friend.”

She continued: “That’s the saddest thing about you… Even your legacy won’t remember you fondly.”

In 2020, Randy Jackson endorsed Trump’s campaign. He continues to be very near Janet. They live and work together in London. See what Randy’s daughter, Steveanna Jackson, needed to say about her father after he endorsed Trump… photo:twitter.com/FFzJV03Rc4

— Jackson Family Timeline (@JacksonDynasty_) September 21, 2024

On the Jackson Family’s Timeline, a longtime Jackson fan who caught the story 4 years ago noted his disappointment with the singer’s song “Pleasure Principle” statement“I just wish Janet wouldn’t do any more interviews if it’s just going to be a repeat of Randy’s MAGA crap.”

After 1000’s of tweets about Jackson’s comments about Harris, the singer finally responded.

A press release was made Buzzfeed through her manager, Mo Elmasri.

“I deeply respect Vice President Kamala Harris and her accomplishments as a Black and Indian woman. Janet apologizes for any confusion and recognizes the importance of accurate representation in public discourse.”

The statement concluded: “We appreciate the opportunity to address this matter and remain committed to promoting unity.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Most New Yorkers, Lin Manuel Miranda argues, answer the next query: When was the primary time you watched “Warriors”?

“I saw it when I was 4, an unsupervised teenager. My friend’s older brother had a VHS tape. There were no adults around,” he told the Associated Press. “Everything you’re afraid of as a New Yorker, growing up in the city, is in that movie.”

The 1979 cult classic follows a street gang that moves from the Bronx to their Coney Island turf on an all-out assault. The group is wrongly accused of murdering one other gang leader, Cyrus of the Gramercy Riffs, who’s in search of peace.

October 18 Miranda — in her first full musical after “Hamilton” — and award-winning actor and playwright Eisa Davis will release “Warriors”, a musical concept album inspired by the film, with some significant changes.

Lauryn Hill is their Cyrus, and their Warriors gang is made up entirely of ladies, played by Kenita Miller, Sasha Hutchings, Phillipa Soo, Aneesa Folds, Amber Gray, Gizel Jiménez, Jasmine Cephas Jones, and Julia Harriman.

It’s not a one-to-one story, and it’s definitely not an easy gender swap. “My sense of New York, which I think really comes out in this album and was sparked in the movie Warriors, is a real dream of unity and peace,” Davis says. “And that was something I really felt we could relate to.”

The interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

AP: How did this project come about?

MIRANDA: It was a movie that lived in my brain before I even began forming memories. And then a friend from college sent me an email in 2009 after “On the Heights” got here out. He was working as an assistant to one in every of the producers of the movie, Larry Gordon, and he said, “‘Warriors’ the musical, what do you think about that?” And I wrote him an in depth email about how that may never work. But he got me in, just by asking the query. And so, , years had passed and I had just finished my first show on “Hamilton,” and I believed, “What do I want to do next?” And “Warriors” was already there, like he raised his hand and said, “You’ve been thinking lowly of me since 2009.”

I noticed in a short time that I wanted to write this with someone, and someone smarter and cooler than me. I believed of Eisa. Eisa and I actually have been friends for “Passing Strangely” and “In the Heights” were on Broadway the identical season in 2009, but we had never really worked on anything together before. And so in early 2022, I took her to the basement Drama Book Store and he said, “Warriors? A musical?”

She had never seen the movie, and I had seen it too over and over. So we form of met one another halfway and began writing seriously.

AP: Why an album?

MIRANDA: The proven fact that it is so intensely visual for you, once you listen to it, it’s like, “Why an album?” Most of us cannot afford to watch that much theater growing up. … And even the forged albums that I loved growing up, I never saw those shows. … But I listened to those forged albums and connected the dots and created the show in my head. … There’s an important tradition of musicals that started off as concept albums. I believe of “Jesus Christ Superstar” what I consider to be the gold standard. “Evita” even recently “Hadestown” which is one in every of my favorite recent shows, began its life as a song series.

And I used to be really curious should you could even tell that story. Because I believe the toughest thing for me about adapting an motion movie right into a musical is that the motion sequences and the songs are fighting for a similar space. So what do you do? Doing it as an album, you’ll be able to musicalize those things in loads of ways. There are times once we’re stretching out time and isolating a moment, and there are occasions once you hear the music and, like, you are hitting the sound effects.

The second thing that was really exciting was the chance to delve into the secrets of writing music by being within the studio with talented musicians and working with a producer. Musical theatre writers work in a extremely specific way, where we sit in a room by ourselves and then we try it on actors and we get it back and we try it again. And I wanted to improvise with musicians.

Featured Stories

DAVIS: I also think it has to do with our aesthetic being more pop—a hybrid of pop and musical theater. … For something as iconic as that movie, it is a shorter path to making an album.

It’s also a extremely exciting narrative challenge to see how we are able to actually tell a complete story on this sung way, with these small scenes.

AP: What did the gender swap of a number of the principal characters make possible?

MIRANDA: It was a coin flip that made me think, “I think I understand why this might be interesting to write about.”

I just got out of “Hamilton”, Gamergate took place online. … The anonymous web trolls were just saying, “I don’t think women should be in video games. Here’s her f—— home address.” And that form of act, the chaos of deciding to destabilize someone’s life and then going back to the pc, the very first thing that went through my mind was Luther shooting Cyrus and pointing on the Warriors and saying, “They did this.” And now the Warriors have the remainder of the night where every gang thinks they broke the truce and are fighting for their lives due to actions of 1 person with a gun. I made that connection and I believed, “Well, if the Warriors are women, how does that change the narrative?” It complicates it in a extremely compelling way at every point.

DAVIS: I believe it is so necessary to think about this – this can be a group of ladies that nobody believes. Everyone is accusing you falsely, as Lin says, and what are you doing? What are you trying to do?

And after all, the best way we divide it’s that there’s each this drive home, but there’s also still the likelihood (of peace). And so getting back to that dream of peace is so crucial.

But I also think it was really necessary to proceed down that path and make certain that ladies didn’t just step in and do the male stuff.

AP: How did you get there? Lauryn Hill on board? She’s a really fitting Cyrus.

DAVIS: She symbolizes that, right? If she wanted to, she could exit and tell everybody to stop fighting, and people would listen, because that is what Ms. Lauryn Hill has done along with her artistry and authority for all these years. And it was her way. We had to have her, what I mean? There was no plan B, no plan B in any respect.

MIRANDA: I contacted her manager a little bit over a 12 months ago and said, “I’m working on it.” She said, “Lauren is a huge fan of Hamilton, so send us what you have in mind.” Eisa and I rigorously wrote our letter and just stayed in contact along with her manager for a complete 12 months, never having a plan B, texting one another, until in the future we had a Dropbox file with all these harmonies.

AP: Are there any ambitions for theatrical adaptation? Or a movie?

MIRANDA: We haven’t any cinematic ambitions on this regard. … We created our musical love letter to a movie that already exists. We hope that once you listen to this album, you imagine the story and the way it happens.

If there’s a world for stage life, like a stage adaptation of this album, that may be very exciting to explore. And should you imagine something really unbelievable, we now have created a really difficult problem for ourselves.

___

The Cast of “Warriors”

CYRUS: Lauryn Hill

COCHISE: Kenita Miller

COWGIRL: Sasha Hutchings

FOX: Phillipa Soo

CLEON: Aneesa is folding

AJAZ: Amber Grey

REMBRANDT: Gizel Jiménez

SWAN: Jasmine Cephas Jones

MERCY: Julia Harriman

Shaunie and her current husband, Pastor Keion Henderson, are each divorced, and their previous marriages ended with their children.

The “Basketball Wives” star has five children with her ex-husband, Shaquille O’Neal, while Keion has a daughter with his ex-wife, Felicia Henderson.

On the September 20 episode of Cam Newton’s “Funky Friday” podcast, Pastor Henderson explains his role with Shaunie’s children and divulges his relationship with her, the previous NBA star.

Towards the top of the nearly two-hour-46-minute video, Henderson explains how he and Shaquille work together to be present and supportive of Shaq and Shaunie’s children.

“We went to Me’arah’s graduation party and we went out on the field with her,” he said, referring to Shaq and Shaunie’s youngest child. He continued, “When she announced what school she was going to, we talked about when he was going to speak and when I was going to speak. I mean, bro, me and him. We both know there’s nothing to fight about because everything that happened happened before we met.”

Shaunie and Shaq were married from 2002 to 2011 and had six children of their very own.

Shaunie’s son, Myles, was young when she began dating Shaq, who had a daughter, Taahirah, each from previous relationships. Together they raised 4 children, Shareef, Shaqir, Amirah and Me’arah, within the O’Neal home.

During their marriage, Shaq filed for divorce from Shaunie in 2007, but before it was finalized, the 2 managed to reconcile and ultimately called off the divorce.

This only lasted about two years before Shaunie filed for divorce in 2009, and the couple tied the knot in 2011. Both Shaq and Shaunie later revealed that his infidelities contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.

But with all that behind her, the “Basketball Wives” executive producer remarried in 2022 to Henderson, senior pastor of The Lighthouse Church and Ministries.

Further explaining his relationship with Shaq, he told Newton, “He’s a grown man, I’m a grown man. He’s always respected me. I’ve always respected him. I think he would say the same thing. Nothing but love. No problems. Grown men don’t do that.”

“So we talked. We had events together. We’re good. We’re cool,” he added.

Henderson was married to his ex-wife Felicia Henderson for nine years, and the 2 had one daughter and two children, to whom he was a stepfather. So when it comes to determining his role in Shaunie’s kids’ lives, he already has some experience within the patchwork family department.

He said, “You have to know what a child needs. Because my wife’s kids, some of them were old enough — they didn’t need a father, they needed a friend. So I’m not walking in the door trying to be their father. They understand that.” When Henderson and Shaunie married, 4 of her five children were already adults — Me’arah turned 18 earlier this 12 months.

Knowing that almost all of Shaunie’s children were already adults, Henderson developed a technique for constructing relationships with them. “I learned what each child needed individually and I transformed myself into that void,” he said. “The problem with most people is they try to fill the corners where the furniture is. You just have to be what they need.”

“So I became what they needed,” he said, and it seems his strategy worked. He continued: “Our relationship is amazing. When I say amazing, I mean amazing. I’ve never had a problem, a side note, a line, ‘that’s not my daddy.’ We’ve never had one of those moments in our relationship history.”