Antonio Stallings | Showbiz Cheat Sheet Writer

Inside Torrei Hart’s 2025 Net Worth After Her Divorce From Kevin Hart: Did She Sign a Prenup?

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 04:38:00 +0000

Kevin Hart and his ex-wife Torrei Hart ended their relationship after Kevin realized he wasn’t mature enough or committed enough to maintain their marriage. After their split, fans heard rumblings that Kevin only had to pay a small percentage of his income to Torrei once the divorce was finalized. The small payout led to speculation that Kevin and Torrei must’ve signed a prenup when they married. So how has their divorce affected Torrei’s finances today?

Torrei Hart once addressed rumors that she and Kevin Hart had a prenup

Celebrity Torrei Hart | Leon Bennett/FilmMagic

Torrei might not be able to buy two mansions next to each other like Kevin, but she’s still a millionaire. At least if Celebrity Net Worth proves correct. The publication estimated that Torrei accumulated $5 million throughout her career. Much of her earnings came from her own projects. Torrei not only moved to California to support her husband’s entertainment career but also to expand her own.

She’s featured in a few films like American Bad Boy and But Deliver Us From Evil. Additionally, Torrei has made money off of her businesses like Heavenly Hart Haircare and her Youtube comedy channel Pretty Funny Fish. She’s taken her comedy on the road, too. Torrei Hart’s recent No Hart Feelings tour might’ve netted her some money.

However, it’s unclear how much her divorce affected her income. It also seems that Kevin’s unfaithfulness had no bearing on what he had to pay Torrei. If TMZ’s reports are accurate, Kevin was ordered to give her $175,000. Since he was worth $9 million at the time, the deal was seen as a bargain for the actor. As a nice bonus, Kevin allegedly gifted Torrei an Escalade, too. The perceived one-sided nature of the deal inspired the theory that Kevin benefitted heavily from a prenup. In a resurfaced interview with Theybf (via By Her Own Rules), Torrei tried setting the record straight about the rumors.

“There was no pre-nuptial agreement. Kevin and I have known each other ever since we were very young, and we genuinely loved each other. I knew Kevin when we both had very little. We built our love, our marriage, our family, and the Hart Empire from scratch together,” Torrei said.

She claimed that she simply grew tired of dragging the legal and financial drama surrounding her divorce. So if Torrei did receive a relatively small compensation from her ex-husband, it was by her own accord.

“A majority of the court’s final decision came from me simply being tired of going to court and fighting battles over money and material things. I’m a hardworking black woman; I know how to hold my own. In the end, the legal drama and the money drama were not worth it,” Torrei said.

Torrei Hart told Kevin Hart he couldn’t put her in his standup anymore since she wasn’t making money off the material

Torrei confided that her own aspirations and dreams took a backseat to Kevin’s. Kevin, who initially received feedback to quit comedy, exceeded expectations, while his then-wife focused on their family. But after the divorce and once their children were older, Torrei started focusing on her career again. With more freedom and time at her disposal, she saw the opportunity to live the life she gave up in her twenties.

“I got married young, so I feel like my 20s … I was robbed of my 20s and so I’m kind of living my life reversed,” she said in an interview with The Culture Club. “I’m doing a lot of things now that I wish I would have done when I was younger because I sacrificed for my ex-husband then I had kids. I sacrificed for my kids, so now is my time.”

Given her new approach to life, Torrei won’t tolerate certain things from Kevin anymore, especially when it doesn’t benefit her. The Borderlands star often referenced his wife and their relationship when doing his comedy specials in the past. But it seems Torrei wasn’t a fan of her ex-husband’s material, and confronted him about it.

“None of that money is coming to me anymore, [so] stop putting me in the jokes”, she demanded to Kevin.

Mariska Hargitay Once Named the ‘Law & Order SVU’ Episode That Was a True Departure From the Show

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 03:41:00 +0000

Law & Order SVU has had plenty of intense episodes throughout its history, including some so difficult that they changed its star’s DNA. But Hargitay named one SVU episode she believed took the show in a direction it never went before.

Mariska Hargitay felt this episode was a different kind of ‘SVU’

Mariska Hargitay | Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Even after more than 25 years on the show, SVU was still able to surprise and impress Hargitay with its storytelling. But perhaps very few episodes affected the veteran like “Something Happened” did, which was the seventh episode of season 17 of the show. The episode delved deep into the trauma of Hargitay’s Olivia Benson, who tried to help the victim of a heinous crime overcome her own.

But the crime victim, who was played by Melora Waters, wasn’t entirely who she claimed to be. The crime wasn’t as black and white as it seemed, allowing for plenty of twists and turns in the episode. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Hargitay praised “Something Happened” for experimenting with SVU’s familiar formula.

“The episode is utterly tragic and complex and human,” Hargitay said. “I thought that was so powerful, the complexity of this human being and showing what this kind of trauma does and how it affects people. It was a real departure from what we’ve done…. Obviously the material was so painful and dark, and it was just a very different kind of SVU and a different kind of relationship that Benson never has with the victim.”

Hargitay further praised the episode for adding even more layers to Benson, who was on a relentless hunt for the perpetrator of the crime. The fact that SVU was still able to enrich Benson with strong character development was a testament to the series’ quality.

“You think, where is this character going to go after 19 years? And I think that was the beauty of it. Benson has this need for justice — that’s her human flaw,” Hargitay said. “She needs to fix it. She needs to seek justice, and many times at the sacrifice of herself. I think this was the epitome of that — this little perfect microcosm of who she is, of what she is willing to do, to give, to do her job, to dig as deep as she can, and the lengths, the willingness of self-sacrifice. This was really her stopping at nothing to find out who the attacker was.”

Why Mariska Hargitay and Melora Waters were terrified of acting out the scenes in ‘Something Happened’

SVU has featured many talented guest stars, some who considered being on the show life-changing. But Waters seemed to be a guest star who left one of the most unforgettable impressions on Hargitay. So much so that Hargitay considered working alongside Waters one of her favorite experiences as an actor.

“One of the most brave actresses I feel like I’ve ever worked with, and so pure. We were so deeply connected…. She’s an incredible artist and so thoughtful in the conversations that we would have and the depths she could go to and the analogies she would invoke. The show deals with the cheetah and the antelope, and it turns out, as things would go, that she’s also a painter and had painted a cheetah in heat two years before. She sent me the picture. There were so many bizarre and deep connections, like we were meant to do this. We talked so much about maybe one day performing it as a play,” Hargitay said.

But despite “Something Happened” being as dark of an episode as it was, Hargitay and Waters kept the mood on set lighthearted between them. But joking around behind-the-scenes was also a defense mechanism to cope with the pressure the episode put on them.

“Melora and I joked every day because we were so terrified. We were terrified of doing justice to these scenes, which, of course, is so exciting and where you want to be, certainly, 19 years in,” Hargitay added. “I was so grateful to be terrified. I was so grateful to be scared, and so grateful to be that engaged. When you, 19 years in, are still staying up at night worrying about the work the next day, going, ‘Can I do this material justice?’ It was so layered, and so complex for Olivia to try to put these pieces together, because she is a victim first.”

Angelina Jolie Felt Her Dad Jon Voight Almost Sabotaged Her Relationship With Her Son Maddox

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 02:47:00 +0000

Angelina Jolie’s relationship with her father Jon Voight was once so bad that her ex-husband Brad Pitt needed to help mend it. But before then, Jolie believed her father crossed a line that couldn’t be undone when he almost ruined her relationship with her first son.

Angelina Jolie once felt that Jon Voight’s emotional outburst could’ve cost her Maddox

Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie | Lester Cohen/WireImage

Jolie has more often than not had a very turbulent relationship with her father Voight. The two have reconciled several times in the past. But for one reason or another, the reconciliation was often brief, and they were back to being at odds with each other again.

In 2002, Voight gave one of his most candid interviews about his feelings towards his daughter. He expressed concern over her mental state, which he felt developed soon after she was born. Additionally, he lamented over the fact that he couldn’t get Jolie the help that he believed she needed.

“Really I haven’t come forward and addressed the serious mental problems she has spoken about so candidly to the press over the years, but I’ve tried behind the scenes in every way,” Voight once told Access (via Entertainment Weekly).

He further confided that Jolie wouldn’t let him see his grandchild Maddox, further straining their relationship.

“That is the greatest pain,” he said. “I’d love to help out with the baby.”

But Voight might’ve been many who misinterpreted Jolie’s behavior back in her younger years. The Tomb Raider star didn’t take kindly to her father’s words. For one, she didn’t appreciate her father going so public with his opinions.

“I don’t want to make public the reasons for my bad relationship with my father. I will only say that, like every child, [brother] Jamie and I would have loved to have had a warm and loving relationship with our dad. After all these years, I have determined that it is not healthy for me to be around my father, especially now that I am responsible for my own child,” Jolie said in a statement.

But perhaps more importantly, Jolie was upset over Voight attempting to portray her as mentally unwell. The actor already received criticism for adopting Maddox by some in the media. If Voight’s statements were taken too seriously, Jolie shared that they could’ve had severe ramifications for her and Maddox.

“The most difficult thing, in him doing that, is that it could have affected my relationship with my child,” she once said according to The Guardian. “They could have decided: ‘He’s right, she’s crazy, let’s remove that child from her custody’. And that’s unforgivable.”

Jon Voight eventually met Angelina Jolie’s children

Jolie wouldn’t keep Maddox away from Voight for long, however. Eventually, she wouldn’t just introduce Maddox to his grandfather, but all of her six children. Speaking with Marie Claire (via E! News), Jolie gave an update on her relationship with Voight, and revealed how he got along with his grandkids.

“He’s met the kids and they’ve met him, and I think that’s important that they can do that,” Jolie said. “We’re in each other’s lives, but we don’t, as a rule, discuss the past. When my mother passed, I had to be the one to call him and tell him. I was going to write it in a letter because I hadn’t spoken to him in six years, but I realized that I had to make a phone call. We spoke for about two minutes. I wasn’t calling to take care of him. I was calling to pass on information. So it was a very brief conversation.”

Voight also commented on Jolie’s kids as well, assuring the Daily Mail that he was still in contact with them and that they were doing well. Being in his grandchildren’s lives, and watching them age and mature, reminded Voight of raising his own children.

“It’s just amazing to have kids and watch them grow. You realize the preciousness of time and how short our lives are really. Kids don’t know that. When they’re young, they think life is endless and they’re always anxious to get to the next age,” Voight said.

Angelina Jolie Once Explained Why She Was Sad When Her Son Maddox Said Her First Word

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 04:43:00 +0000

Angelina Jolie’s son, Maddox, has always lived a very private lifestyle, so there are surprising things most might not know about him. What audiences have learned about Maddox has usually come from his mother, who’s been candid about raising him on occasion. In one interview, Jolie even gave insight on what it was like to hear Maddox speak for the first time. But although the moment was a joyous occasion, she admitted that the memory couldn’t help but make her a bit sad.

Angelina Jolie was all alone when Maddox reached this milestone

Angelina Jolie | JB Lacroix/FilmMagic

Having Maddox gave Jolie a lot of memories to cherish. She recalled very vividly stumbling onto her son when she was visiting an orphanage in Cambodia. She took Maddox in after forming an immediate bond with him after failing to do so with other kids at his orphanage.

“I didn’t feel a connection with any of them,” she once told Vanity Fair (via People).

“They then said, ‘There’s one more baby.’ That’s when she saw Maddox lying in a box suspended from the ceiling. “I cried and cried,” Jolie added.

Although Jolie was in a relationship with Billy Bob Thornton when she took home Maddox, the pair would eventually break up. Jolie would raise Maddox as a single mother for a while. This meant she had to enjoy some of her most memorable moments with her son alone.

“There were so many times with Mad when he was growing up that I’d be up in the middle of the night, exhausted, rocking him. Nobody was there—except for friends—who saw me exhausted, who appreciated my efforts,” Jolie once said according to Live Journal.

She admitted that she was also a bit disappointed she had no one to celebrate with when Maddox started speaking.

“Nobody was there whom I could look at or explode in excitement with when Mad said his first word,” she said. “That was a bit sad. It made me very close to Mad but there’s the joy now of waking up in the middle of the night, like last night, and looking at the other exhausted parent, sharing the burden and learning, smiling about a child’s new tooth and just enjoying children. As a woman, having a partner who appreciates you as a mom, who remembers your history with your children is special.”

“Even though I had Maddox, I didn’t have a family somehow,” she added.

Angelina Jolie recently cried when Maddox reached this other important milestone

A lot has changed since Jolie first picked up Maddox from his Cambodian orphanage. She adopted and gave birth to a few other kids, which she and Pitt would raise together before their shocking divorce. Nowadays, Maddox and his siblings are all grown up, with some of them already college students. Maddox was first of many kids that Jolie had to send away to school. The Wanted star seemed to get even more emotional saying goodbye to Maddox than when she first heard him speak. This time, she couldn’t help but shed tears at watching him leave the nest.

“Oh my god, like, embarrass-your-children ugly cry,” she told ET. “I also just at some point had the big [sun]glasses. The amount of times I turned and waved… I do know it was the one moment in my life… I think I turned around six times before the airport just kind of [disappeared]. And he sweetly stayed and kept waving, knowing that I was gonna keep turning around. You could feel he knew he couldn’t leave.”

“It’s nice to know that he knows how much he’s loved. But yeah, I miss him. I miss him,” she added.

‘Love Is Blind’ Star Taylor Had a Strange Feeling About Daniel Before Meeting Him in the Pods

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 03:41:00 +0000

Love Is Blind fans have gotten to know the season 8 cast very well over these past few weeks. Like in many other seasons, some couples seemed to have gotten along in the pods better than most. One of those couples was Taylor and Daniel, who initially had less drama between them than some of the show’s other contestants. But this changed when Taylor actually met Daniel outside of the pods. In a recent interview, Taylor delved a little further into her Love Is Blind experience.

Why Daniel stood out to Taylor compared to her other dates

Taylor hoped her luck in the pods would’ve been better than it was outside in the real world when it came to dating. Speaking with Access, she shared that she’s tried finding romance in all of the usual spots lovers typically cross paths. But the strategy never panned out.

“I have just tried everything when it came to dating. Dating apps, mutual setups, the bar scene. The gym. You name it, I have tried it. And it, nothing was working,” she said.

After getting an offer from the Netflix show, Taylor decided to test if love could really be blind. Initially, she seemed to find the person she was looking for in Daniel. But he wasn’t the only date she was set up with in the pods. Taylor described what her dating process was really like on the Netflix series before her scenes were edited. She also asserted that she had a strong sense about Daniel even before meeting him.

“There was a small part that wasn’t included on that first day. I was dating in the hallway. So, on day 1 we dated everybody. It was a little bit of a speed-dating scenario,” she remembered. “And I think Daniel was twelfth of the day out of the 16 men. And I was dating in the hallway, and Meg was next to me. And I said to her, ‘I have a strange feeling about this next date.’ And she said, ‘Oh, manifest it, girl, go for it.’ And I walked in, and it was Daniel. So, that party, already, I walked in with, like, this elevated sense of something special coming.”

She mentioned that the fact Daniel proposed to her within a minute of their first meeting helped validate her feelings at the time. Compared to other dates she’d experienced in the past, her chemistry with Daniel required little work to develop. Which was a positive sign for Taylor that he was the real deal.

“Obviously, I was hopeful. But not really sure if I would walk away engaged. But, I mean, everything aligned with us. I never had it be that easy and effortless with someone, so it was an undeniable connection,” she said.

Taylor spiraled after her wild Daniel theory

So far, some fans have felt Love Is Blind has been lacking in both diversity and drama. Although it might be too late to deal with the former, there might be a little drama between Taylor and Daniel after all. The season 8 cliffhanger for the first batch of episodes left off with Taylor questioning if Daniel already followed her on Instagram before they knew each other in the pods.

When Taylor further marinated on the thought, she began to wonder if Daniel knew what she looked like the entire time. The last episode ended with Taylor interrogating Daniel about it, and Daniel denying he’d ever followed her Instagram. Although some sympathize with Taylor’s theory, and even think it was possible, others believe she was just looking for an excuse to end her relationship with Daniel. Taylor offered her perspective on the matter.

“I’ve gotten a ton of people reaching out saying, ‘Why would that matter?’ Well, the whole premise of the show is we don’t know what each other looks like. I’ve judged others on their looks in dating in the past, and that same judgment has been put on me. So, I wanted to have that completely removed from the situation. So, the thought that he did know what I looked like was very scary, because it compromised everything,” she said.

But Taylor shared that she’s an overthinker, which she revealed early on in the show, which also played a huge role in her suspicions. Because of this, and having to re-familiarize herself with life outside the pods, her thoughts admittedly wandered into some extreme places as a result.

“I was spiraling,” she said. “I do that a lot.”

Taylor has claimed that the incident was blown out of proportion and dramatized on the show. But whether or not that means she and Daniel actually made it down the aisle remains to be seen.

Kevin Hart Felt He Messed up His First Marriage Because of His Age

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 02:36:00 +0000

Kevin Hart almost put his current marriage in jeopardy after he was caught being unfaithful. Before he was Eniko Hart’s husband, he was previously married to Torrei Hart. However, Hart took responsibility for the dissolution of his first marriage.

Kevin Hart admitted to making mistakes in his first marriage

Kevin Hart, Torrei Hart, and Jackie Long | Michael Schwartz/WireImage

Hart and his ex-girlfriend, Torrei have a deep history together. They met at the Community College of Philadelphia as young adults, and it wasn’t long before the two grew close. Torrei was with Hart before he became famous, taking a front-row seat to his rise to stardom. Although their relationship didn’t last, Torrei confided that she still cared about the comedian.

“We met when we were 19 and 20 and came up together, moved out to LA together. I knew him when he was selling sneakers before he ever hit the stage. I’m so proud of him; I really am. I have nothing bad to say about him. We went through what we went through. Couples go through stuff all the time. We were young. But as far as everything else, he stepped up to the plate to make sure I am OK,” she once said in an interview with Us Weekly.

The True Story star and Torrei would go their separate ways in 2010. Years after their divorce, Hart reflected on his marriage with his first wife in an interview on Chelsea Handler’s Netflix show Chelsea. He blamed his inexperience at the time for ruining his relationship with Torrei.

“I was young on my first marriage, Chelsea,” Hart said. “I’m not ashamed to say it, guys. I got married at the age of 22. I was still all over the place. I didn’t really understand the definition of marriage. I wasn’t ready for it, so I take responsibility. I can say I messed my first marriage up. I’m man enough to say that.”

But Hart also joked that he was in his peak years back then to give himself an excuse.

“At the same time, that was when I was in the prime of my sexy, so don’t blame me,” he quipped. “That’s when I was figuring it out.”

Torrei Hart addressed Kevin Hart’s infidelity

At one point, Torrei felt Hart’s alleged affair was one of the mistakes he made in their marriage. She strongly suspected that she and Hart were still together while the Jumanji actor was dating Eniko. Hart joking about his affairs in his standups only heightened her suspicions.

According to Inside Edition, Eniko once let slip how long she dated Hart, which was around the same period Hart and Torrei were still a couple. Eniko once claimed that Torrei and Hart weren’t even living together back then, and Hart wasn’t keeping his relationship with Eniko a secret.

“I was like, ‘What? Never a secret?’ She said that we were separated and not living together, that’s a lie. We were very much not separated,” Torrie said.

Torrei was also asked about whether Hart could cheat again. Her answer was prophetic given the controversy Hart had with his wife Eniko after he was videotaped being with another woman.

“I can’t say yes; I can’t say no. I can just say that if it happened to me, it can happen to anyone,” she said.

However, there seem to be no hard feelings between the couple. Hart, Eniko, and Torrei have even been seen taking pictures at events with all of their kids. As far as Hart was concerned, Torrei was still one of his closest friends.

“I will say that me and my ex-wife, regardless of the problems we went through, are in an amazing place now where we’re friends, we’re great parents, we’re co-parents,” Hart said.

Chelsea Handler Explains Why She Isn’t the Marriage Type

Antonio Stallings — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 04:46:00 +0000

Comedian Chelsea Handler has been willing to keep an open mind about relationships in the past. However, she might not be as open to the idea of marriage. In a recent interview, Handler revealed why she doesn’t see herself walking down the aisle.

Chelsea Handler wants more than 1 love story

Chelsea Handler | Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Handler’s dating history has shown that her taste in men can vary. Some of her high-profile exes include Comcast CEO Ted Harbert, 50 Cent, and Jo Koy. Handler’s relationship with Koy might’ve been more special than her other romantic flings. Even she was convinced that Koy was her soulmate after the long-time friends turned into lovers back in 2020.

“For everyone who is still looking for their person, do not adjust who you are or make yourself smaller to find them. Be patient and never settle for anything less than you deserve. Your person is coming and sometimes—they’ve been standing in front of you the whole time,” Handler once posted on social media according to People.

But their relationship would end in July, 2022, proving they weren’t endgame after all. Handler recently provided a little update on her dating life since her and Koy’s break-up. Although she’s still on the dating scene, she’s opted to keep her relationships much more private than she did before. Keeping her boyfriends out of the spotlight might be one of the perks of dating real people instead of celebrities. Additionally, she doesn’t see herself settling down with one partner anymore, either.

“Dating is wonderful,” she told Us Weekly. “I understand now what kind of dater I am, and this is what I am: I want lovers all around the world. I’m not a liar. I will be very honest and upfront with anyone I’m dating that you may not be the only one, and if you need to know, I’ll let you know, but hopefully you don’t need to ask any further questions.”

Her approach to dating would pose a problem for perhaps marrying someone in the long-term one day. But marriage isn’t something that Handler is worried about.

“I’m not the marrying kind. I am not looking for children. I just want to have lots of love stories. I feel like that’s the most romantic way to look at love. And I’m glad I know that about myself because I think so many women are starting to be more open about [the fact that] this Prince Charming nonsense we’re sold is so silly,” she said.

The only time Chelsea Handler changed her mind about marriage

Handler’s stance on marriage isn’t new. She’s had the same feelings on the concept for years. In a 2014 interview with Gwyneth Paltrow (via ABC News), Handler echoed similar words that her 50-year-old self would in 2025.

“Now I’m just like, the person that’s not getting married so I like it and I think it’s a good example to not have that be part of your identity,” Handler said. “The truth of the matter is, I don’t really know how to balance a relationship and my life. I’ve never been able to really do that.”

But there was a point in time when Handler’s thoughts on marriage wavered.

“I never understood why people would want to get married. To me, marriage always encompassed a huge wedding and a huge reception and a commitment lumped together. But I realize now that you can be committed to someone without that commercialization and all that nonsense,” Handler once told People (via ABC News) in a new interview. “So now I’d get married.”

But she quipped at the time that she was ironically having this change of heart when she was lacking prospects.

“Now that I’m single and have no viable options,” she noted.

Chris Coelen Explains the Lack of Diversity in ‘Love Is Blind’… Again

Antonio Stallings — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 03:43:00 +0000

Love Is Blind has received a lot of criticism after deciding to base its latest season in the Twin Cities. Fans don’t just feel like they’ve overstayed their welcome in the pods along with the show’s contestants. Additionally, some have questioned the show’s diversity, which isn’t as varied as the series’ prior seasons. But it’s not the first time creator Chris Coelen found himself having to explain the show’s makeup.

Chris Coelen and David Zucker | Michael Buckner/Getty Images

Depending on who’s asked, Minneapolis, Minnesota might not be the kind of place where Love Is Blind can thrive. Reception for this series’ new cast of lovers seems to be slightly mixed. There’s been concern that this new batch of hopeless romantics lacks the spice that, for instance, Charlotte, North Carolina natives brought two seasons ago.

With six more episodes left, it remains to be seen if season 8 will win over its critics. But given the couples that graduated from the pods, what’s set in stone are the couples viewers will be watching in the show’s second half.

A lot of fans have pointed out the show has focused on predominantly white contestants this year. Devon, Brittany, and Virginia were the only non-white participants Love Is Blind gave love to. However, Coelen shared in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that the show didn’t intentionally focus on a particular demographic of contestants. The camera simply went where the romance and the drama were.

“Well, the show casts itself,” Coelen said. “We put people in the pods, and you try to have a very diverse group of people in lots of different ways [at the start]. And then the people who get engaged are the people who get engaged. The people who fall in love are the people who fall in love. If you’re sort of trying to tick a box, there were lots of people who were in the group coming into the pods who ultimately just didn’t find their person and who we didn’t choose to [follow].”

Additionally, Coelen stated that he prefers, and actively tries to facilitate, more diversity in the show in the beginning of the casting process.

“We always, always, always strive to seed the pods for the greatest possible success, and within that, diversity of not only ethnicity or race, but backgrounds, and financial status, and body types and looks and all that stuff,” he said. “You’re less concerned about that, to be honest, than just trying to have a group of people that you hope are somewhat compatible and then seeing what happens. And like I said, then they cast the show for us. We don’t decide, ‘Oh, this is a good couple. That’s a good couple.’ We don’t steer it in any way. They figure it out on their own.”

Coelen’s remarks echoed statements he made when Love Is Blind was in its earlier stages. But back then, the criticism wasn’t just aimed at the skin color or ethnicity of its cast. There was a concern that the show became more superficial in its casting. Fans felt Love Is Blind began recruiting lovers with more conventionally attractive physiques and abandoning less represented body types. But Coelen reassured at the time that the casting was as blind as the show’s premise.

“Both Season 1 and Season 2, we really tried to have a diverse pool of participants in every sense of what that word means — whether it’s experience or body type or ethnicity or whatever. There’s only so many people that we showed,” Coelen said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

But he admitted that he was just as curious as the fans were about the types of couples that stole the show in his series.

“It’s actually kind of interesting to see who gravitates toward who, and I’ve thought about this, and I’ve talked about this in the past — there’s something that’s very interesting to me, that when you go into an environment where you do strip away all of the trappings of the material world, and you’re in there, there’s some people that just present confidently or flirtatiously or whatever. It’s certainly not like we said, ‘Let’s stack the deck’ No, we had every kind of person that we could find come into this environment, and everybody had an equal opportunity. We don’t steer or control any of it,” he said.

Nick Cannon Once Shared Women Have to Deal With an Emotional Unstable Artist When Dating Him

Antonio Stallings — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 02:41:00 +0000

Nick Cannon hasn’t only dated celebrities like Mariah Carey, who he dated for six months before marrying. His relationship history is filled with women from all different professions and backgrounds. However, while dating, Cannon warned his future potential girlfriends what they were up against when dealing with him.

Nick Cannon admitted he could be super emo in relationships

Nick Cannon | Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

Cannon has been very open about some of the mental health challenges he’s faced that have interfered with his quality of life. He’s been dealing with neurological challenges ever since he was young.

“Even as a kid, it was dyslexia, but just knowing that I’m just a neurodivergent individual, I kind of always knew,” he said in an interview with People.

As an adult, Cannon started taking his mental health more seriously. After visiting a therapist, he discovered that he had narcissistic personality disorder.

“I still don’t understand it all the way. But I kind of always wanted to get tested for it. I did a bunch of tests,” he revealed.

Some symptoms of the diagnosis include a constant need for validation and admiration from peers and a shortage of empathy. Cannon also asserted that he was told he demonstrated every marker for the condition. Still, he took the news as further motivation to improve himself.

“I feel like there’s so many labels out there, but it’s like, to be able to embrace it and say, ‘Look, I’m healing. I need help. Show me.’ I just embrace mental health and therapy in such a strong way,” he said. “To be able to say I’m an example for others, but also be healing during the self-process works too.”

“I’ve taken all the power away from the term narcissism ’cause I’ve researched it and I understand it,” he added. “Call me whatever you want… now if I didn’t know what it was, then I have issue with it.”

Cannon’s self-awareness has helped him identify what he needs to work on about himself. But it’s also helped him prepare future girlfriends for what they might have in store when dating the actor. Cannon has had 12 children with six exes and hasn’t been able to maintain a romantic relationship with any of them. In a 2016 interview with ABC News, he explained that his emotional side might be one of the reasons why.

“I yearn for it the way everybody else does,” Cannon said about being in love. “I’m super, super emo so if anyone wants to deal with an emotional unstable artist, I’m here.”

Nick Cannon’s emotional insecurities contributed to the end of his marriage to Mariah Carey

Cannon’s narcissism might’ve even played a role in his divorce from Carey. The couple shocked the world when they announced their separation after six years of marriage. They broke up because of several reasons, including Cannon’s ego. Speaking on the Ray Daniels Presents podcast, Cannon revisited the identity crisis he experienced deep into his marriage with Carey.

“I didn’t actually really care what the world thought,” Cannon said. “But going to myself, that pressure of, ‘Who am I?’ I got married in my 20s to the biggest star in the world.”

He confided that his role in life shifted dramatically from being his own person to just being Carey’s husband.

“My trajectory was [down] here and she’s already in a different stratosphere,” he said. “I would lay up at night thinking, ‘Is this who I am? Am I Mariah’s man? Is that what my life is supposed to be?’”

But eventually, Cannon decided he couldn’t fit the part he played with Carey anymore. Although he tried to make it work, he needed to break away from Carey’s shadow in the end.

“She got islands and I was waking up at noon and people bringing me steaks on a platter. But I’m like, ‘This ain’t the hustle,’” he said. “And then when you have children … your manship is like, ‘Wait, I’m carrying a purse, the diaper bag, I’m standing on the corner.’ She’s rocking being all the alpha that she is.”

Denzel Washington Once Shared His Son Convinced Him to Do Some ‘Awful’ Movies

Antonio Stallings — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 04:47:00 +0000

Actor Denzel Washington has starred in several critically acclaimed and high-grossing movies. But not every movie in his filmography could be a smash hit. In fact, he did a few bad films after listening to his son John David.

John David Washington balanced out Denzel Washington’s awful films by recommending two of his father’s best movies

John David Washington and Denzel Washington | Dave Benett/Getty Images

Having children affected Washington’s work in more ways than one. In an interview with The New York Times, the Oscar-winner briefly touched on how he had to consider his children’s situation when considering what films to do.

“Yeah, it changed my perspective. Like, shoot, they’ve got to go where to school? It costs how much? How much do clothes cost? Yeah, it changed everything,” he said.

But there were a few times when one of Washington’s kids helped him decide what film to star in more directly. John David, who’s become quite a successful actor himself, took an interest in his father’s craft at a young age. So much so Washington admitted that John David convinced him to play bad guys in some of Washington’s earlier features.

But on the flip side, there were other films Washington did because of John David that he might’ve been better off without. Speaking with Parade, Washington revealed that he collaborated with John David for The Book of Eli. It was one of three movies John David did with Washington to start his career. But John David’s recommendations didn’t always turn out well for his father.

“My son, who is a very spiritual young man and also a co-producer, said, ‘Dad, you gotta really think about this one.’ Two other films he convinced me to do were awful, but that was balanced when he steered me to Training Day and American Gangster. I guess he was a little less spiritual then,” he said.

John David Washington considered his father the greatest actor in the industry

John David would later prove he was much more than just the kid of a celebrity. Following in his father’s footsteps, he would develop a respectable acting career himself. But John David confided that he didn’t expect to surpass Washington’s own legacy. Despite starring in a few critically acclaimed projects himself like Tenet and BlackKklansman, he felt his father’s shadow was just too big.

“I don’t see it as a reality for me,” he once said on CBS Sunday Morning. “He’s larger than life. So no, I don’t think of it that way. I can’t.”

The fact that John David saw his father as the best actor in the film industry might’ve made Washington’s shoes even more daunting to fill.

“I think the best actor in the industry, in the business, is my father,” he once said in an interview with People. “I’m inspired by the kind of career he’s had and what he’s had to do. Again, he’s been on the frontline for many years and what he’s done with it, with his opportunities, I just am so inspired and continue to be inspired by what he does and how he works and his approach to the craft and the business.”

Additionally, John David once also shared what his favorite Washington performance was. It wasn’t in a movie that his father did, however. Instead, it was in a play.

“Richard III. I saw my father on stage for the first time,” John David said on American Masters: Creative Spark. “I was a kid. It was like a magic trick because he didn’t talk like that at the house. And then he just got on stage and transformed into another being with these words. I remember he would walk me around the city when he was doing it and cite the lines, and I always used to giggle. He said I used to love the lines. ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.’ I never knew what that meant, but I just knew those words, and I thought it was so cool. I just thought it was magical.”