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Billionaire rapper and businessman Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and actor, comedian, and businessman Kevin Hart, are becoming megastars in the world of investment as well. The two stars have placed some of their investment money in a startup named Hungry, according to Forbes.

Hungry connects independent chefs to corporations that need catering. Jay-Z and Hart have teamed up with some NFL players, including Bobby Wagner and Todd Gurley, to invest in Hungry’s $20 million Series B round.

“Great founders, great mission, and they have achieved great success in short order,” Hart told Forbes. “Hungry is leveling the playing field for chefs and giving them economic opportunities that they never had before. I’m a big supporter of what this business stands for.”

In late 2016, brothers Eman and Shy Pahlavani started the company with several chefs in licensed commercial kitchens in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The company screens applicants and samples their handiwork before bringing them on board, taking care of logistics and expanding customer bases. Hungry, which plans on being competitive in the $65 billion office and events catering market, makes its money by marking up their chefs’ wholesale prices.

Jay-Z is participating in this round of funding after making an initial investment in its $8 million Series A last year via his $85 million Marcy Ventures fund. The Pahlavani brothers say Hungry’s valuation has increased fivefold between rounds as its run rate reached $20 million in late 2019; they anticipate revenues of $50 million in 2020.

“They’re very quick to want to help as we come into their market,” Eman Pahlavani said of his star investors. “You know: ‘Can we help you guys launch in this market and make connections for you guys?’ And some of them have even wanted to introduce us to chefs that they know in their local cities.”

On the Hungry website, the company states: “We created HUNGRY to provide chefs a better future–with an opportunity for significant income and to build a personal brand. For office people like us, we created HUNGRY to provide everyone an opportunity to enjoy truly delicious, exciting, and healthy food at the office. No more pizza and basic sandwiches–only great food, direct from great chefs.”

Source: Tom Cooper / Getty

Oprah is just finishing up her nationwide 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus Tour. Presented by WW, the series seeks to highlight the life journeys of her guests, which has included Traci Ellis Ross, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jennifer Lopez, and Michelle Obama.

This past weekend, she was in Denver, Colorado for her last tour stop. And this time, she brought out her longtime friend and host of “CBS This Morning,” Gayle King.

They talked about their friendship, parenting, relationships, their careers—and of course the recent controversy with King and her questioning Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant’s rape allegations shortly after his passing.

Since then, several people expressed their discontent about the line of questioning. But none more vocal than rapper Snoop Dogg, who in the midst of his criticism, called King a “funky, dog-headed bitch.”

When asked her thoughts about the backlash and what she feels about it now, King said,

“I have moved on. Is there a scab, yeah? But I have moved on. I put on my game face and my big girl pants because I never lost sight of who I was, what I believe I am and my intention. I’ve never lost sight of that. It was a learning curve and it was very painful but I think sometimes you have to go through that that makes you questions things in life.”

During their conversation, Oprah mentioned that the incident was ignited because “good people” didn’t speak out in defense of King.

“In every circumstance, I think this is something for us to remember,” Winfrey said. “It’s not the people who are being mean, it’s not the badness, it’s not the vitriol that’s being put into the world, but it’s the good people who remain silent that becomes so hurtful.”

Gayle said, “I think we can disagree politically, we can disagree socially, if you want to, but I just think humanity should prevail always. I think we still have to figure out a way to navigate that with each other. That we can disagree, and you can be mad at me even, but you can’t speak to me the way I was spoken to and threatened.”

Oprah’s interview with Gayle King will air on Wednesday, March 11 (8 PM ET/ 7 PM CT)

In the meantime, you can watch highlights from the interview below.

El Cuco is dead, but its mystery lives on. Where did it come from? Do others like it still exist? What else is out there? Are other mythical monsters also real? With those unanswered questions, The Outsider‘s supposed series finale left open the possibility that Holly and Ralph could one day team up again to fight other supernatural creatures.

But that wasn’t the only sign that the show could return for a second season. A surprising mid-credits scene revealed that HBO might still have an itch to scratch with Stephen King’s story.

HBO

The most frightening aspect of the final showdown with El Cuco was that it left open so many terrifying possibilities. When Holly asked El Cuco if others like it exist, the monster didn’t know for sure either. But it had a feeling they do. “There have been times when I sense there could be more,” it said.

The legend of El Cuco—the shape-shifting eater of children, the drinker of tears and grief—transcends cultures around the world. Some know El Cuco as Baba Yaga or Babau, others call it Butzemann or the Tata Duende. People everywhere fear it. Thus, the monster Ralph killed probably wasn’t the only one of its kind. And the world will need someone to hunt them.

HBO

Ralph was open to the idea of working with Holly again someday. He’d rather they reunite for something simple like a gangland triple homicide, but if another demon posed a threat he wouldn’t ignore it.

And if El Cuco and ghosts exist, what other supernatural beings might also be out there? A second season of The Outsider could send Ralph and Holly on a different monster hunt with new challenges and dangers. (We would definitely watch Ben Mendelsohn and Cynthia Erivo as monster P.I.s.)

But they might not need to go looking for a new monster to hunt, because the story of this El Cuco might not be finished yet.

HBO

The Outsider was supposed to be a limited series based on Stephen King’s standalone novel. As such, it was the last show you’d ever expect to have a mid-credits scene. Yet there it was.

Holly was looking in her mirror when the ghost of Jack Hoskins appeared behind her. The two, both outsiders in their own ways, had a connection. Jack only stopped gunning everyone down when she walked out into the open. Holly was the one who broke El Cuco’s spell over Jack. It’s possible his ghost appeared to her because they are linked in a way we can’t fully understand. This episode showed that ghosts exist, and that it’s possible to see them or feel their “glow.”

Jack’s presence doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, but his appearance very well might have been a harbinger of something sinister. Holly immediately checked the back of her neck to make sure she hadn’t been infected by El Cuco. There was nothing there, and it seemed like that was the end. El Cuco never got physically close to her anyway.

But in the final shot of the season, we saw Holly had a fresh scratch on her arm. We don’t know how she got it or when, or who or what was responsible for it. But we do know what a scratch from El Cuco means.

HBO

Maybe that was the show’s way of saying evil can never be fully defeated, and that good people must always stay vigilante and ready to fight. Holly’s scratch might have been a fitting metaphor to end the story with.

Or it might have been a way to tell us the story isn’t over. “What else is out there?” For fans of The Outsider, it might be a second season.

Featured Image: HBO

The post How THE OUTSIDER Finale Set Up a Second Season appeared first on Nerdist.

(Andrew Toth/Getty Images)

On March 7th, Zaya Wade made her first red carpet appearance since the announcement that she was trans, flanked by her father, basketball star Dwyane Wade, and her step-mother, actress Gabrielle Union. Zaya’s journey and the support of her parents has been an empowering message of LGBTQ acceptance, especially in the Black family.

Wade’s picture was instantly iconic, from the amazing ensemble she’d put together to the bossed up and empowered swagger that shows that, despite the discourse around her identity, Zaya Wade is in a family made of love. She’s all good and showed it off Saturday at the sixth annual Truth Awards, which honor achievements within the black LGBTQ community.

All Zaya! WoW! Not bad for a 12 year old huh 😉 https://t.co/GxTEIbUqpE

— DWade (@DwyaneWade) March 9, 2020

When it was shared with the world, via her father, that Zaya had come out, there was an overwhelming amount of opinions about it, ranging from the supportive and thoughtful to the hateful and asinine. Most rational people were of the opinion that, considering the number of parents out there who have traumatized their gay children, they should keep their transphobic tweets and think pieces to themselves. For me, as a young bisexual Black woman, the support and love that the Wade family is giving to Zaya is a beautiful subversion of the narrative about Black queer children and their families.

Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union have been open and honest about being supportive of Zaya and being an advocate for her until she becomes an adult. In a piece they wrote for TIME, they spoke about needing guidance and being lucky enough to have a reservoir of resources to be able to help as much as they can while respecting that there are things they will not understand.

We didn’t change overnight—we weren’t immediately the perfect allies. We were assimilated into gender roles that we’d been ascribed. There were learning curves. Zaya, now 12, once asked us, “Do you know there’s a difference between gender expression, identity and sexuality?”

We were like, “Yep!” And the second she walked away, we said, “O.K., let’s break out the Google.” We had to shut up and listen and ask so many questions and talk to health care professionals. We reached out to black trans activists, advocates, educators, and watched shows and documentaries like Pose, Euphoria and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson. Zaya had to educate us. She has always led. At times, we’ve had to catch up.

They also candidly addressed the way fear of protecting Black children can lead to Black parents limiting the experience of these kids and stopping them from becoming who they were meant to be. “We’re robbing our children of their identities and their most authentic selves,” the Union-Wades said.  “Sometimes the fiercest fight is against the person in the mirror and how you were raised.”

Homophobia and transphobia in the Black community is something that often gets weaponized as a narrative as a way of placing the huge sum of homophobia on Black people, but the ignorance of that narrative does not erase the legitimate issues that many Black LGBTQ people have faced in trying to gain acceptance in their communities. Even going back as far as the Harlem Renaissance, there is a history of queer Black writers and activists within that movement, but many of us never hear about that aspect of their identities like Alain Locke, Countée Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, to name a few.

We are just now becoming more aware of the Black trans presence in history through the work of academics, activists, and others who want to make sure that history is known to secure our past, give illumination to the future, and also to teach those in the present that we are not “new” or “confused.” We are part of a story that is longer than the written experience—y’all are just catching up.

What’s more is that the Wades are not actually outliers in the Black community, according to analysis about Black transgender and gender non-conforming people from The National LGBTQ Task Force:  “many Black transgender people who were out to their families reported that their families were as strong as before they came out. Black respondents reported this experience at a higher rate than the overall sample of transgender respondents.”

Black transgender and gender non-conforming people are the most vulnerable population in our intersecting communities as Black queer peoples. They have among the highest suicide rates, murder rates, and ratea of being homeless and in poverty. By embracing Zara publicly and proudly, the Wades are setting the new standard; it’s up to us to level up.

 

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Everyone allow her to re-introduce herself her name is Zaya Wade! Last night was Zaya’s first red carpet and we couldn’t have been prouder of how she handled the questions that were asked of her. She has emerged as one of the young faces and voices for the LGBTQ+ community. #truthawards

A post shared by dwyanewade (@dwyanewade) on Mar 8, 2020 at 6:20am PDT

(via NY Daily News)

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