← The Latest with Loren LoRosa
The Latest with Loren LoRosa
All Good News ( Tyler Perry's 250K Surprise and Brandy Gets a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame)
00:16:42
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This is an iHeart podcast.
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Guaranteed Human. I'm the homegirl that knows a little bit about everything.
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And everybody exclusive know she don't lie about that, right?
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Lauren came in hot. Hey, y'. All, what's up? It's Lauren LaRosa. And this is the latest with Lauren LaRosa. This is your daily thing on all things pop culture, entertainment news, and all of the conversations that shake the room, baby. Now today we are checking in behind the Grind. I literally just wrapped an interview for a song like, I wanted to call it like a docu series. I don't know what I would call it, but I'm working on something that is, you know, pretty special. It's something that has to do with my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, where I'm from. And I'm really excited about it. I want to do so much more this year of using the platform that I built here with the podcast and, you know, the platform that I've been welcomed into at the Breakfast Club to be able to, like, really make change and do good by people who need platform in order to do so. So, you know, utilizing platform almost like a advocate way. So I'm really excited for this new something that I have. I think it'll be really helpful to the people that we are in conversation with and it'll just, you know, be a door opening for. For the team here at the latest along the rose of the podcast. And you know, my team on, like, my. Because there's a lot of video content that'll be included just for us to really do something again that's like, impactful and that, like, moves the needle in a real way. Dealing with real things are actually happening to real people. It's a very in depth. It's going to pull at your heartstrings, but, you know, for a good cause. For a very good cause. So you guys will be hearing more about that soon. But yes, just. Just wrap up an interview for that. And now my wheels are turning about, you know, the ways that I can make this big and good and just, you know, just get the eyes on this new project that I'm so excited about that are deserved. So that's where I'm at. Checking in behind the scenes of the grind. My low riders. How y' all doing? How y' all feeling? What's going on out there? I know parents right now, kids are on spring break. You need a reprieve already you only a few days in. So hopefully the podcast, the latest can be just that because today we are talking about all Good news. So let's get on into the latest. So I just actually got off the phone with Tyler Perry's rep. So Chantal, who is a publicist for Tyler Perry, they gave me a call today because there's a report that is circulating via a local out of Atlanta that Tyler Perry's team and the thousand dollar gift cards that they issued to TFA agents are now being rejected and are being held by higher ups at the airport because of protocol measures that were not adhered by, by Tyler Perry. And you know, rules just around getting monetary things to TSA agents. Now I was told that this, this reporting was completely false. So over the weekend, Tyler Perry and King went to the Atlanta airport and they gave out $250,000 worth of gift cards, a thousand dollars a piece, to various CAK agents totaling $250,000. Now if you guys remember, we didn't cover this here on the podcast, but you may have seen some reports about it. But for those of you guys who have not out refresh your memory. About a week ago, Tyler Perry's team went to the airport with a large sum of cash and wanted to give cash out to all the TSA agents who were there and working and not receiving money. The TSA agents are not receiving money because of a government shutdown which, you know, as of yesterday was reported to not completely have come to a stop. But basically some agents are reporting they've been, they've received some retroactive paychecks. But from the report that I've seen, this kind of varies depending on where the agents are based. And you know, it's going to take some time to get to everybody, but they were working and not getting paid any money. So Tyler Curry was like, hey, let's go. Let's get them some cash direct. When they got there to hand out the cash, they were stopped. The reason why they were stopped was because they were not allowed to give cash on hand to any of the airport employees. It's just, there's just rules around gifting to employees and TSA agents. So Tyler Perry and team went back to the drawing board. I'm told that they worked with the TSA Assistant Federal Security Director and they worked with them very closely on Thursday of last week. And what they came up with was a gift card process. Now this gift card process made it where the TFA agents would receive the thousand dollars it would be allowed to be received. So Tyler Perry's team took all of those gift cards up to $250,000 worth to this federal security Director, this assistant federal security director, who then dispersed the gift cards to the TSA agent. So the reporting of anything other than that, what I'm being told on the record from Tyler Perry's team is not true. Now, I did just get off the phone with them, because I know prior to my reporting, there were reports that a security director is basically holding the gift cards because there's some sort of hiccup deal. Um, but Tyler Perry seemed as completely confused. Um, they. They are, you know, trying to get back in contact with the people that they work with, but they're like, there's no way this would be happening, because we came and did the $250,000 donation directly to that office that, you know, people are quoting as the office that is saying that this is not able to be dispersed. Someone would have given us a call, and no one had. So as of right now, exclusively, I could tell you guys that Tyler Perry team and Tyler Perry are telling me that they've been able to give out these gift cards via an assistant federal security director at the airport Atlanta. The Hartsco Jackson International Airport story is developing. I'm literally waiting on a call back just because they wanted to call and just poke around because they're confused. And that happened last week. Friday, we went through a whole weekend, and now Monday, there's a record, so. Which is very confusing because from what they understood, all of the gift cards were given on Friday. So I'll keep you guys updated there. Now, in other good news. Oh, my God. Brandy, our girl, the lyrical bible. Okay, the. The. The harmony bible has received her star on the Hollywood Walk. And it's not the odd, but y. I feel like this was long overdue. Like, I feel like she's had such a massive career and broken so many barriers and records and have amassed so much success that she should have been had a star on the Walk of Fame. But maybe that's just me feeling like that. But she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today in California with her family in attendance. And either Rae and Babyface spoke on her behalf. And Brandi also spoke as well, too. Let me listen to Brandi accept the star and just talk about how this is, like, a dream and anything's possible.
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Back then, I was just a little girl with a big dream, but growing up in Hollywood made those dreams feel close enough to touch. Seeing the stars on the Walk of Fame lit something in me. It made me believe. It made me affirm. Over my own life. I'm gonna sing my way onto one of These. And I did. That is what makes this moment so profound for me, so full circle, so sacred. I am beyond grateful.
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Let me tell y' all something, okay? Moesha literally was the one of the reasons I wanted to work in television. I met Megan Good the other day. Not met Megan Goode, but I saw Megan Goode the other day. She came by the Breakfast Club, and I was telling her, you on television. Brandi, Gabrielle Union. Like, y' all were the girls, especially Brandi and Megan. Good, Brandi. I'm trying to tell you guys, I used to sit up in my room. Sitting up in my room. No pun intended. I used to sit up in my room and write in my diary and talk to myself the same way Brandi did on Moesha when it came in. I wanted to be Moesha. I wanted to live in California. I wanted to go to school where Brandi went to school, and go hang out at the den and just, you know, be able to walk in the house and say, what's up? What's up, Uncle Frank? Like, I wanted that life because it was what you saw on tv, and it was cool. Like, her friends were like, you know, everybody had their thing and they were performing and they were open mics, and she was just young and trying to figure it out. And then she goes and becomes Cinderella with Whitney Houston. Brandi has literally been a living testament of representation matters. Before, that was, like, the cool thing to say. Literally, before that was a cool thing to say. So it was amazing to see her get her start on the Walk of Fame, but it was crazy at the same time because she was so, like, in awe and, like, shocked and taken aback. And I'm like, girl, you deserve about 4, 5, 11 of these. Okay, you have. Britney has literally inspired so many generations, and not just in television, but also in music as well, too. Let's take a listen to Issa Rae, who spoke at the induction ceremony, the Walk of Fame star ceremony. I thought it was so fitting for Issa Rae to speak, because when you think about representation in television and doing things your own way and storytelling and being, you know, the black girl in the space who's, like, really a black girl and really rapping for us and telling the stories that are near and dear to our heart, the new age version of what Brandi did with Moesha was Issa Rail insecure. Let's take a listen to Issa Rail.
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The first time I saw Brandi, I had no idea how much I needed to see Brandi. I was in fourth grade when I wanna be down came out, and that single was the first tape I ever bought. And when the brokenhearted remix came out on the school bus, I was so excited. When it came on in the radio. When it came on the radio and I was singing it, and I was sitting next to my crush and he was like, who sings this song? And I was like, brandy, proudly. And he was like, then let her sing it. So that was my first heartbreak. Thank you, Brandy, so much for that. Brandy is a star for so many reasons, but her transition to acting was a game changer. While her first official role was as Thea's daughter, and Thea, it was really Moesha that made me understand what was possible. It was the first show that I'd ever seen told from an ordinary black teenage girl's point of view, set in la, the same city I was born in. And we'll move back to that same year it premiered. Brandi made Moesha someone I wanted to be the friend, the girl I wanted to be. At a time when beauty standards on television look nothing like us. Brandi was the standard.
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And then, of course, Babyface had to pull up, okay? Because don't ever forget that my girl is the vocal bible, period. And if you have ever heard Brandi live on a stage, you understand why they call her that. You understand it not live, but seeing Brandi perform live in concert with Monica on the Boys Mind Tour, I remember watching her on that stage being like. And it's so effortless. Like, you know how sometimes the singers, you see them sing and it's like. It's like, all right. Like, you know, they hanging. You can see it, you can feel it. Brandi be hanging down and literally just be like, jokingly, like, belting out of tune real quick is so effortless. Like, I all the time think about whether talent like that, like Green Beat, Monica, you know, the girls of that generation, lyrically, vocal, vocally, sound wise, just the upper echelon of celebrity that they are. If that even, like, what we. I don't. I don't. A lot of things come back around. I don't know if we'll ever get there again. It was just a different time, man. Like, Brandi was acting, singing Broadway. Like, I don't know if we're ever get back there. Let's take a listen to Babyface. You gotta come in the music with Brandi.
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I'm so honored to be here and speak for you. When I think of the first time I met you, I think it was somewhere in 1995. We were on tour Boyz II Men and Baby Face. And you opened up. You were this little girl that was opening up and singing I want to be down. And I wanted to be down with you then because you were amazing. The voice that I heard, I didn't know that so much soul and so much. So much good feeling could come out of someone so young. It's like you had already been here before. And when I finally got the opportunity to actually work with you on the Waiting to Excel project, which I have to tell you, when Whitney and I sat down, we went over a list of who we wanted to be on the album, and yours was the first name that came up that she said, I want Brandy on it. And she said, because. And she said, because. You had one of the best voices she had ever heard for me. You have one of the best voices I've ever heard. You give one of the best feelings I've ever heard. The soul that's in your voice, the way you move your voice. You're like an athlete. The way you can move your voice. No one can do it the way you do it.
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So happy for you.
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Nobody can.
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Okay, Brandi, if you're listening, I've been saying it forever. I need to play you the biopic. Okay. Hey, Swin. Congrats, twin. So excited for her. Oh, my God. That is. It's a goal of mine as well, too. And people always talk about the Hollywood walk of fame. I think nowadays it's not as like, oh, oh, my God. Right. Depending on who you're talking to, because now people know that, like, okay, it's paid for, and normally it's paid for by something. So, like, people do it when, like, they have movies coming out and the movie budget will take care of it. I know Brooke. Brandy had. Brooke is my. Brandy has her book phases coming out. So I don't know if maybe the marketing budget around the book is making sure she gets her Hollywood walk of fame scar. Because it's a talking point. It's a marketing point. It's a, you know, it gets the people going. Evan brain needed that. Right? But it just puts you top of mind in the media and the press, and it's just, you know, something that just. It looks great, it feels great. It's a moment for people to celebrate you, but it's also. It's a great press moment. It's so positive, people then remember, you know, all of your accolades, and it funnels down to whatever you have going on currently. So Brandi has her new book phases coming, and now she has a Walk of Fame star. And thank God they didn't let Brandy get nowhere near that mark. I'm Laura LaRosa. This has been another episode of the Latest with Laura Nevrosa, your daily dig on all things pop culture, entertainment news, and all of the conversations that shape the room. I tell you guys all the time, y' all could be anywhere with any old body talking about all of these things, but don't choose me right here. I mean my low riders. I'll see you guys. We also counting down the Black Effect Podcast Festival, April 25th in Atlanta. I'll be hosting it. So I'll see you guys at the Black Effect Podcast Festival and in my next episode.
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Guaranteed human.