Latavia Roberson former vocal coach speaks out about why she won't sing

Latavia Roberson former vocal coach wrote an open letter to fans explaining why she won't sing while at the same time shading Beyoncé,

Berlin, 

Today I am concerned for my former student LaTavia Marie Roberson. LaTavia became my student in 1991 when officials at Sony/Columbia wanted to kick her and her cousins out of what became Destinys Child (the label said they wanted a singing group in Destinys Child. They were not interested in a six member group where LaTavia rapped and danced, along with her cousins who only danced). There was no way that I was going to take that decision lying down. I had assembled the group, together with the former manager Ann Tillman. It was important that I had deciding rights and Ann agreed. This happened way before Beyoncés father forced his way into management. Once Sony/Columbia made their feelings known I requested a six month grace period to find out if I could save at least one of the girls (LaTavia or perhaps one of her cousins. My original vision was a four girl group). LaTavia ended up being the best of the three, so I took her into the group. 

Beyoncé begged me to save her best friends positionthats right, I said best friend. Beyoncé didnt have many friends back then. She was afraid of the other children at school, in the neighborhood and just in general. LaTavia became her right arm. Beyoncé could always count on loyalty from LaTavia andalways the truthuntil LaTavia couldnt count on her (2000 breakup). LaTavia never treated Beyoncé like she was a princess. While the other girls were terrified of Beyoncés parents, LaTavia wasnt. She was real with Bey and back in 1989 Bey appreciated such friendship. 

LaTavia was a brilliant student. Out of all the girls she was the best student academically. Always bringing report cards home full of A&Bs, LaTavia seemed to enjoy life and was always interested in learning new things. I called her my little Diva. How appropriate shed end up on Americas R&B Divas. But, now LaTavia is in troubleonce again, and I am not going to abandon her. She hasnt been kind to me but I understand why. In fact, none of the girls of Destinys Child have been nice to me. I have never heard from them, not even to say I hope your fine, but my God is a forgiving God. I do not hold any grudges. I went on to help guide 15 other platinum selling artists to superstardom, so this is NOT about me. 

I have heard from friends, still living in the US, that people are bashing LaTavia because she wont sing on R&B Divas. It is not that LaTavia wont sing, she cant singtrauma prevents it. Singing use to bring her such joy but when LaTavia was 13-years-old she confessed to me in her voice lesson that she was being molested (a fact she revealed on R&B Diva's third season, third Episode). She had not told anyone else the horrific details, other than me. She was terrified of telling her mother, that her mothers husband, LaTavias stepfather, Charles Mitchell, a former Houston Police Officer in the Juvenile Division, was indeed her rapist. Unfortunately Charles Mitchell was allowed to retire in 2009 and is living life in Houston to this date, untouched by his behavior. I shudder to think how many other peoples children this horrific pedophile has hurt. Back in 1993/94 I believed LaTavias claims and immediately, I sprang into action, calling Charles on the telephone. I initially told him not to bother picking LaTavia up from voice lesson. I wanted to give her extra time to re-work technique. Charles bought my explanation hook line and sinker and hung up the telephone. 

What my little diva had been through was as traumatic an experience as anyone could suffer. Her childhood had been taken from her. Her rape lasted 5 years before I was able to help her. I told Charles that if he even looked at LaTavia cockeyed Id go straightto his superiors. The abuse stopped cold but the trauma of it all lived on. She was forced to live with her pedophile, calling him daddy, until 1997/98. LaTavias mother told me that she needed to have proof before reacting. AgainI understood her reaction. It wasnt the right reaction but I understood it and did not judge. LaTavia became my focus. Once Charles had been exposed LaTavia felt better. That is what we all thought. I knew better. The psychological effects of not being believed by her mother took its toll and she went into recluse after the girls break-up in 2000. Drinking, drugs and a sociopathic boyfriend in Brandon Casey became LaTavias way of life. He told her daily that she couldnt sing. He jeered her for even trying to pursue singing. Needless to say, Brandon and Brian Casey are no friends of mine.

I have known LaTavia all her childhood life and well into adulthood. I hope that her fans will give her the benefit of the doubt. She is terrified of singing. Psychologically, when she sings she will undoubtedly re-live her nightmaresDestinys Child included. Beyoncé in a selfish move, decided not to save LaTavia and LeToya when she got them kicked out of Destinys Child. Her father and mother did not reward disloyalty and Beyoncé was her mothers daughter. She wrote a horrible letter to Sony/Columbia that ultimately got the girls kicked out in the end. She is not innocent in LaTavias pain. Her friendship with LaTavia, ruined, Beyoncés horrific act crushed LaTavia, and me. I couldnt believe that she had been so callus but then again, I know Beyoncés parentswell. The apple on the proverbial Knowles family tree eventually fell on Beyoncé. I knew this would happen. Beyoncé thought writing a song titled Story of Beauty, and releasing it on the Survivor album would suffice as an apology. That story catalogued LaTavias situation, in detail. However, LaTavia didnt need a damn song. She needed her friend, a friend who ultimately abandoned her and bashed her in the press to save her own career.

I cringed as I watched Angie Stone, whom I admire, put LaTavia in the embarrassing situation of asking her to sing at her birthday party on R&B Divas. LaTavias tears crushed my very resolve. I had to write this open letter. I ask LaTavias fans not to judge her but to encourage her. I ask the media to be patient. You dont know the real storythe full story. Her trauma goes much deeper than she is ready to reveal to the public right now but, She can SING! She will find the way back.

LaTavia I am praying for you. I hope that one day you will find the joy you once had, a joy you shared with me for so many years. It has been a difficult road for you with all that has happened. I remember that you were a little girl who had character. You believed in God and you believed in you. Look up more and know that God will not leave you. 

Be BlessedMy GROWN UP Diva!!.

Your Teacher and friend,
David Lee Brewer

Solange Knowles And Porsha Stewart duet in the works

These two ladies are taking hair pulling and kicking to the studio to lay down a duet track "Bullhorns and Elevators". Both Porsha and Solange have been at the top of the headlines with their Oh no you betta don't ass kicking ways. After the leaked security footage of Solange attacking brother in-law and CEO of the illuminati Jay-Z, Nikko (Love and Hip Hop Atlanta) reached out to both ladies and told them it was time to capitalize or their recent brawls and urged them to immediately get to work on the song. In response to the news of the Solange and Porsha collaboration Mrs. Carter's publicist released a statement saying, "Due to recent events Solange has been released from her contract as Beyonce's sister and will be recast".

Tamar says Kenya is Ratchet

Tamar Braxton is obviously as sick of Kenya Moore's antics as the rest of us! 

She took the Real Housewives of Atlanta star to task for being a meddling busy-body all up in everybody's marriage even though she was not invited! Tamar thinks Kenya has no business having any kind of discussions with Phaedra Parks' husband – or trying to cultivate a relationship with him. 

“I do think there were several ratchet moments, but the one that sticks out to me the most was Ms. Kenya. I’m not talking about Kenya per se, but just any woman who feels like it’s OK to have somebody’s husband and have a conversation with them one on one. And try to be friends with him and not the wife," Tamar fumed on The Russ Parr Morning Show. "That right there is slap nation moment okay"!

And because Tamar is Tamar, she is on a mission to protect her man from the Kenya's of the world! “I’m sorry. I feel like I have to read all the Kenyas of the world who just be trying it and then come to the face of the wife and be like, ‘You need to ask him. I think he need to speak for himself,’ No ho! I’ma speak for you - me and him! That’s my man.”

“I don’t like that stuff. You know, I’m real protective of my Teddy Ruxpin,” Tamar continued. “And I wish somebody would try me like that! I just feel like she [Kenya] triedPhaedra like that because she felt like she could. Now she wouldn’t try NeNe [Leakes] like that. See what I’m trying to say?”

‘Noah’ movie review: Russell Crowe in a slightly different take on the biblical story

Old Testament fury has rarely come to such spectacularly fearsome life than in “Noah,” Darren Aronofsky’s audacious adaptation of one of the Bible’s best-known but still enigmatic chapters.

Be warned: Anyone familiar with the 500-year-old man and his ark may need to check some of their most cherished visualizations of him at the theater door. No cozy two-by-two images of beatific giraffes grace this “Noah.” Like any good artist, Aronofsky has avoided predictable, literalist retellings of beloved Sunday school stories by inserting new characters, bringing parenthetical figures to the fore and making one of history’s most enduring and universal myths his very own.

The result is a movie that is clearly deeply respectful of its source material but also at times startlingly revisionist, a go-for-broke throwback to Hollywood biblical epics of yore that combines grandeur and grace, as well as a generous dollop of goofy overstatement. Viewers may not agree about what they’ve seen when they come out of “Noah.” But there’s no doubt that Aronofsky has made an ambitious, serious, even visionary motion picture, whose super-sized popcorn-movie vernacular may occasionally submerge the story’s more reflective implications, but never drowns them entirely.

Appropriately enough, Aronofsky starts In the Beginning, and after a brief prologue revisiting Adam and Eve, original sin and the fatal rivalry between Cain and Abel, catches up with Noah as a boy who, by virtue of his lineage and an enchanted snakeskin bestowed on him by his father, is clearly destined for greater things. Conceived and staged like a conventional superhero origin story, “Noah” then finds the grown-up protagonist — played by a solemn, haunted-looking Russell Crowe — living in Canaan alongside his wife, Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), and their sons, Ham, Shem and eventually Japheth.

Canaan is a desolate world of arid deserts, ruthless tribal warfare and dead cities, but also supernatural wonders. When Noah begins to experience visions of the apocalyptic flood to come, Aronofsky choreographs them not as words-from-on-high messages from the divine, but as stylized, terrifying unconscious visions. Fans of the filmmaker’s work — from “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Fountain” to “Black Swan” — won't be surprised to learn that he’s at his best with these fantastical, mystically inclined sequences. He’s just as evocatively expressive with the most technically challenging set pieces of the story: the arduous construction of the enormous Ark (here produced according to biblical proportions, down to the last cubit), the arrival of the animals and that annihilating flood, which Aronofsky stages as an awesome cascade of rainstorms, geysers and terrifying waves.

Amid such visual busyness, Crowe and Connelly deliver impressively grounded, powerful performances, with Crowe playing Noah first as a humble, divinely inspired servant and, eventually, as a wild-eyed zealot, and Connelly brimming with earthy rectitude as his far more steady-eyed wife. One of the most delightful reshufflings is a central role for Noah’s ancient forebear, Methuselah, played by Anthony Hopkins in a mischievous and altogether convincing turn as a white-haired figure of mystical, oracular wisdom.

So much of “Noah” is so good, and so impressively executed, that when discordant notes are sounded, they do so with clanging dissonance. Taking ill-advised pages from both 1950s animator Ray Harry­hausen and the current big-studio predilection for comic-book movies and young-adult teen romances, Aronofsky creates characters and story lines that feel wildly out of place — not because they don’t appear in Scripture but because they’re so at odds with the often brilliant aesthetic language that animates the rest of the film. (We’ll chalk up Noah’s surprisingly sophisticated wardrobe of primitive-chic leathers and open-work knits to artistic license.)

The most distracting of Aronofsky’s creations, by far, are the Watchers — fallen angels who roam the broken world like mournful, stiff-jointed behemoth, seemingly hewn from desert stone and resembling rock ’em, sock ’em robots when pressed into heavy-duty smiting. Every action film nowadays seems to wind up being “Transformers,” and sadly, “Noah” is no different, especially when it comes time for a final, grandiose showdown between the Watchers and the oncoming forces of evil.

Those forces, by the way, are led by an otherwise marginal character named Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), a bloodthirsty leader who probably hasn’t made it into most Sunday morning curricula. His role in Noah’s mission and ensuing ad­ven­ture on the Ark, as well as a budding love story between Shem (Logan Lerman) and a girl named Ila (Emma Watson), will surely give some literalists exegetical fits — not least because Tubal-cain comes to be a proxy for the kind of anti-conservationist theology that Aronofsky uses “Noah” to obliquely critique.

Although it’s understandable that the filmmaker wanted to make “Noah” a parable of environmental stewardship, for many believers the story is primarily about hearing and responding to God’s voice. Aronofsky doesn’t necessarily give that reading short shrift, but as Noah becomes increasingly doctrinaire — culminating in a bizarre, deeply troubling passage involving the Ark’s most vulnerable pair of creatures — it’s clear that the filmmaker is far more interested in human agency. He even seems to anticipate the New Testament when Naameh pleads with her husband — ever more urgently — to reconsider his own dogmatism in favor of ideas like mercy, forgiveness and simple goodness.

Those are fascinating passages, beautifully presented by Connelly as the movie’s most steadfast moral voice. As off-putting as “Noah’s” juiced-up subplots and cinder-eyed Watchers can be, it’s impossible not to be impressed, engaged and moved by Aronofsky’s own passionate commitment to the Noah story, which has reportedly captivated him since he was an adolescent.

Like interpreters through the millennia, Aronofsky has taken Noah’s journey sincerely to heart, processed it through his own singular visual and moral imagination and come up with a narrative that feels deeply personal, broadly mythical and cannily commercial all at the same time. That feels just about right for “Noah,” which ultimately invites viewers to form their own meanings, whether they’re about sacrifice and obedience, stewardship and service or the enduring entertainment value of an epic ad­ven­ture that, thousands of years on, still manages to astonish.

Rihanna and Drake gettin it in

Superstar hookup! Rihanna and Drake left a London club together, hand in hand, late Thursday, March 27. The pair have been inching closer to a relationship, multiple insiders tell Us Weekly. "It's working well," one source tells .

Wearing a white ruffled minidress, jester-style hat, thigh-high boots, and oversized black fur coat, Rihanna casually draped one hand over Drake's as the two were photographed in their car leaving Tramps Nightclub. The "Started from the Bottom" rapper looked happy as he flashed photographers an inquisitive stare, while Rihanna gripped his hand.

The source adds that both stars are developing genuine feelings for one another. "He lives for her, but she's really into him, too," the source adds of the "Take Care"

"Drake is really different from what she's used to. He's so different from the guys she usually likes," the source adds of the Barbadian born beauty, whose most famous ex, of course, is Chris Brown. The Unapologetic singer has also been romantically linked to Drake in the past and even unwittingly sparked a brutal brawl between Drake and Brown's entourages in an NYC club back in June 2012.

"They really are good together," the source

Their latest outing comes several days after Rihanna enjoyed Drake's sold-out performance at the O2 Arena on Tuesday, March 25. The "Monster" crooner looked low-key wearing jean shorts, sneakers, and an oversize vanilla fur coat, as she watched him perform from the VIP section. "She traveled to London for his last show," the source adds.

Thursday night's outing was only their most recent public display of affection. Last month, the two were spotted kissing over dinner at the Hotel Costes with a group of pals, according to one eyewitness.

Megan Hilty been Hunchin, and she Pregnant!

Megan Hilty is pregnant with her first child.

The Smash star announced on her 33rd birthday on Saturday that she is expecting a baby with husband Brian Gallagher.

The happy couple married four months ago and they revealed they found out the news on Brian's 34th birthday in January.

'We took the test together,' Megan told Us Weekly. 'It was the best present he got this year - or any other year for that matter!'

Megan, who stars on Sean Saves The World, is not suffering from morning sickness but admitted she is already craving 'everything I can't have'.

Pregnancy cravings: The actress and singer, says she already wants 'everything I can't have', such as sushi, fish, coffee and champagne

'I haven't shopped for any baby things yet,' she said. 'But I have found some amazing maternity dresses for the summer.'

The pair clearly can't wait to be parents and have been singing to their future new arrival. 'This baby's gonna be really sick of our voices by the time it arrives!' Megan joked.

Megan and Brian surprised everyone when they married in Las Vegas on November 2, and then announced they were man and wife on Twitter.

'I married the love of my life tonight at The Venetian Chapel in Las Vegas! #HeLikedItSoHePutaRingOnIt,' she tweeted at the time.

Oscar winners embracing their younger selves

This years Oscars were filled with repeat nominees and stars who have been at the awards show for years. A clever artist has combined the Oscar nominees of this year with images from their younger years, embracing in success. Leo Dicaprio stands side by side with a very youthful Leo. Sandra Bullocks younger self grabs onto the elegant arm of today’s hit star of Gravity. Julia Roberts angers the entire world with her ability to not age. The Oscar winners may not have gone the way they wanted, but at least they had themselves to console their loss, or to help celebrate their victories. Now we just need to decide if this is photographic magic, cloning, or the work of an incredible plastic surgeon.