Here’s why we’re going to need an extra strong cup of coffee today:
- Phaedra Parks’ pending spinoff show, Rich People’s Problems, is being put on hold in light of her husband Apollo Nida’s legal issues. Sources say the show, which focuses on Parks’ legal career in Atlanta, will get the yellow light while producers wait to see the outcome of her husband’s brush with the law. A judge recently granted Nida’s request to postpone the case until March. [Bossip]
- Terrence Howard is set to star in Fox’s Lee Daniels-directed hip-hop drama, Empire. The pilot follows a family as they navigate the inner-workings of a hip-hop empire. Howard will play Lucious Lyon, a record label head who is about to take his company public. [The Hollywood Reporter]
- The Wire and Treme star Wendell Pierce will join the cast of Showtime’s Ray Donovan, the popular crime drama about a fixer for a powerful law firm. Pierce will play Mr. Keith, a down-and-out parole officer who gets a payoff from Ray. Season two will premiere this summer. [Deadline]
- Kimora Lee-Simmons secretly married banker Tim Leissner, confirmed her ex-husband Russell Simmons via Twitter yesterday. The hip hop mogul was putting an end to rumours that his ex-wife and Cash Money Records founder, Bryan “Birdman” Williams, were dating. “She is happily married,” tweeted Simmons. “Tim has been family for a while now.” The couple was photographed in December during a family vacation sporting their wedding bands. Congratulations! [E!News]
- Halle Berry’s film Frankie & Alice will finally get a nationwide release on April 4th, four years after it was made. The biopic tells the story of an African-American go-go dancer with multiple personalities.[PerezHilton]
- Lupita Nyong’o stopped by The David Letterman Show to dish on her favorite childhood shows and what inspired her to be an actress. Check it out!