PASADENA, Calif. — Angela Bassett won entertainer of the year at Saturday's NAACP Image Awards on a night that also saw her take home an acting trophy for the television series “9-1-1.”
The Bassett-led Marvel superhero sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” won best motion picture at the ceremony, which was broadcast live on BET from Pasadena, California.
Viola Davis won outstanding actress for the action epic “The Woman King,” a project she championed and starred in. Will Smith won for the slavery drama“Emancipation,” his first release since last year's Academy Awards, where he slapped comedian Chris Rock on stage before winning his first best actor trophy.
“I never want to not be brave enough as a woman, as a Black woman, as an artist," Davis said, referencing a quote from her character in the film, which she called her magnum opus. “I thank everyone who was involved with ‘The Woman King’ because that was just nothing but high-octane bravery.”
“Abbott Elementary” won for outstanding comedy series. Creator and series star Quinta Brunson invited her costars onstage and praised shows like “black-ish” for paving the way for her series.
The 54 NAACP Image Awards were presented Saturday in Pasadena, California, with Queen Latifah hosting. Serena Williams received the Jackie Robinson Sports award, which recognizes individuals in sports for high achievement in athletics along with their pursuit of social justice, civil rights and community involvement.
The ceremony, which honors entertainers, athletes and writers of color, was hosted by Queen Latifah. Special honorees included Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union and civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
Female stories "have to be told by women, otherwise there's going to be a disconnect," says actress Meghan Rienks. The movie, which follows a group of high school girls who reunite to complete a bucket list, was created by women.
The former Fox News reporter Lauren Sivan says she was able to speak out against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein because she didn't rely on him for a job. But it was harder when it came to speaking out about her former boss Roger Ailes. "It was a lose-lose for any woman who wanted to come forward," she says.
The Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski threatened to sue the Academy after it voted to expel him from its ranks, calling the #MeToo movement "total hypocrisy." Jennifer Cunningham, a senior editor at the entertainment news site Bossip, said changes to the Academy membership rules don't help Polanski.
The entertainment company was trading down Wednesday morning, despite posting better-than-expected earnings on Tuesday. The biggest drag could be coming from "concern around ESPN and the decline in subscribers there," says Jason Ware, chief investment officer and chief economist at Albion Financial Group.
The actress says the greatest thing about playing the iconic Wizard of Oz character is her "transformation" through the show, which "challenges me as an actor." Cooper made her Broadway debut in the long-running hit musical last year.
Once people get over the name, they find that the show is actually "sexy, funny, and conversational," says the actor DeRon Horton, who plays Lionel Higgins on the Netflix series about race on campus at a fictional Ivy League university.
The Chrisley clan explains when to use phrases like "bless your heart" and "yonder." Season six of the USA Network show launched on Tuesday.
This year's theme was "Heavenly Bodies," inspired by the Catholic Church, giving celebrities plenty of room for fun interpretations.
The blockbuster hit from Marvel added hundreds of millions of dollars to Disney's bottom line in the second quarter, giving the company's movie studio business a 21 percent quarterly increase. The new "Avengers" movie and soon-to-be released "Star Wars" films will continue to help the media company's revenues, says Jack Kramer, co-founder and co-CEO of MarketSnacks.
The Google cheif Sundar Pichai opened the company's annual developer conference by addressing the burger emoji's misplaced cheese and the beer emoji's floating foam. It shows how seriously users take pictorial communication that Pichai would kick off his keynote by talking about emojis, says Jeremy Burge, chief emoji officer at Emojipedia.
