In today’s era of misinformation, it’s not especially unusual to see a flurry of conspiracy theories and other unenlightened discourse on social media. That issue is only amplified, concerningly so, when it comes to criminal cases involving high-profile figures.

The latest instance of this is in response to reports in the ever-evolving saga around Sean “Diddy” Combs, particularly since his September arrest when he was charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. (He denied all charges.)

Early on in the discourse, much of the social media speculation was in response to the more sensationalized details trickling out of the 14-page indictment such as the now infamous “1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant” described as “freak-off supplies” that were seized from Combs’ home.

But most recently, social media users have been digging into the boundless belly of the internet for videos, photos and all else they can find on any celebrity in the 2000s that even marginally associated themselves with Combs’ White Parties and his allegedly more perilous freak-offs. (The discourse has often woefully conflated the two.)

The resulting narrative suggests that those celebs benefited from, participated in, or knew and did nothing about the alleged sex trafficking that took place at Combs’ events. Those are characteristics that contribute to being an enabler, which is a criminal offense — and a lot more complicated than what is being discussed on social media.

Carol Merchasin, an attorney who’s headed up cases involving sexual misconduct in religious, faith-based and spiritual communities, said that the Human Trafficking Act calls those perpetrators “beneficiaries.” “That is they are people who knew or should have known what was happening,” she told me, “and they benefited from what was happening, understood or should have understood that it was wrong.”

There’s something about “Piece by Piece” that is a bit off.

It’s not the fact that the new movie on the life and career of megaproducer Pharrell Williams is done entirely in Lego animation (that’s actually an intriguing concept in theory) or that Lego Pharrell often goes on lengthy, Deepak Chopra-esque tangents.

It’s that “Piece by Piece” feels disingenuous and — at risk of reigniting a decade-old backlash against Williams calling himself “New Black” and saying he “doesn’t blame other races for our issues” during a 2014 Oprah Winfrey interview — has an air of exceptionalism and performativity. With confounding direction from the usually terrific Morgan Neville (“20 Feet from Stardom,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”), the film goes out of its way to portray Williams as above human.

In some sense, “Piece by Piece” fails in a way recent celebrity documentaries have. It presents a hagiographical portrait of a largely beloved figure and doesn’t question any of it, letting the subject run with his own story to the film’s detriment — regardless of how much of it is actually true.

While “Piece by Piece” has been marketed as “an animated biopic” that defies genre and format, it has much clearer documentary elements. The film features interviews with Williams’ parents, wife Helen Lasichanh, collaborators and friends, including Missy Elliott, Gwen Stefani, Chad Hugo, Pusha T and Snoop Dogg, who all enlighten the audience with anecdotes about, essentially, Williams’ talent and greatness.

That’s appealing enough for audiences interested in learning more about his music inspirations, as well as his ascent from a humble Virginia childhood all the way to the Billboard charts. The film peppers that timeline with numerous needle drops from the hitmaker’s discography, including No Doubt’s “Hella Good,” Britney Spears’ “I’m a Slave 4 U” and Snoop’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” that will likely have fans…

Janice Smalls Combs, the mother of Sean “Diddy” Combs, has vigorously defended her son in a lengthy statement in which she described the public response to his arrest as a “public lynching.”

In a detailed letter published by Page Six on Sunday, Combs wrote that “It is heartbreaking to see my son judged not for the truth, but for a narrative created out of lies.”

“To bear witness what seems to be like a public lynching of my son before he has had the opportunity to prove his innocence is a pain too unbearable to put into words,” the statement said, which was was provided by Janice Combs’ lawyers.

“Like every human being, my son deserves to have his day in court, to finally share his side, and to prove his innocence.”

Her statement acknowledged widely circulated video evidence of Sean Combs abusing ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura but claimed that it was a lone incident being unfairly used to level other “repulsive allegations” against her son.

“I am not here to portray my son as perfect because he is not,” the statement said. “He has made mistakes in his past, as we all have.”

While Janice Combs said her son “may not have been entirely truthful about certain things,” like the 2016 assault on Ventura, which came to light via hotel security footage released in May, she maintained his innocence regarding an extensive list of other accusations made public in the past year.

“Not being entirely straightforward about one issue does not mean my son is guilty of the repulsive allegations and the grave charges leveled against him,” Combs’ mother noted.

After comparing Combs to others who were “wrongfully convicted and later exonerated” due to “past actions or mistakes,” his mother claimed the substantial list of accusations against the…

As Ellen DeGeneres brings what’s believed to be her final Hollywood chapter to a close, a new documentary is taking a look back at the trailblazing television series that put her on the cultural map.

HuffPost caught a sneak peek at Sunday’s episode of CNN’s “TV on the Edge,” which features an on-camera reunion of the creative team behind DeGeneres’ Emmy-winning comedy, “Ellen,” which ran from 1994 to 1998.

These days, “Ellen” is best remembered for “The Puppy Episode,” which aired during the show’s fourth season in 1997. The episode depicted DeGeneres’ character, Ellen Morgan, coming out as a lesbian. It also coincided with DeGeneres’ public acknowledgement of her real-life sexuality on the cover of Time magazine.

By 2024 standards, “The Puppy Episode” is incredibly tame. But, as some of the “Ellen” team recalled in the below clip from “TV on the Edge,” that wasn’t the case 26 years ago. Not only was the public backlash to the episode significant, but the show’s set was hit with a bomb threat. As for DeGeneres herself, she dealt with an alleged stalker.

Watch a clip from the Oct. 6 episode of “TV on the Edge” below.

“Ellen had a fear that somebody might come after her,” casting director Tammy Billik explains in the clip. “There was a bomb threat when we were filming the show.”

Dava Savel, one of the show’s executive producers and writers, chalked much of the pushback to “The Puppy Episode” up to an overall lack of awareness regarding LGBTQ+ issues at the time.

“People didn’t understand, and when people don’t understand, they get scared,” Savel says. “And when they get scared, they get angry. And that’s what we were getting a lot of.”

The “Ellen” episode of “TV on the Edge” comes a little more than a week after DeGeneres herself unveiled “Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval.” The comedy special, which dropped on Netflix…

The Department of Justice announced on Monday a federal review into the two-day racist massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, more than 100 years ago, when white supremacists killed Black civilians while destroying homes and thriving businesses in the predominantly Black community.

The 1921 massacre led to the deaths of at least 300 people after a 19-year-old Black teenager, Dick Rowland, was accused of raping a white woman, Sarah Page. The 35-square-block area where the massacre occurred was known as Black Wall Street, one of the most affluent neighborhoods for Black residents in America.

In making the announcement, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke noted the enhancement of the Justice Department’s civil rights cold case unit following enactment of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

The Justice Department will not pursue criminal charges, since everyone involved has since died, but it will conduct an evaluation of the massacre to keep on record.

“We hope that official reports, which reflect the Justice Department’s exhaustive efforts to seek justice, at bare minimum, prevent these victims and the tragic ordeals they endured from being lost to history,” Clarke said in a statement.

“We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state. Although a commission, historians, lawyers and others have conducted prior examinations of the Tulsa Massacre, we, the Justice Department, never have.”

Descendants of the Black Tulsans who lived through the riot welcomed the announcement, but many told HuffPost they will reserve some skepticism until they see true accountability and amends.

“It can create a path for reparations,” said Egunwale Amusan, whose grandfather Raymond Beard Sr. survived the massacre. “[But it] is unlikely there will be any accountability due to the absence of perpetrators and the absence of federal hate crimes at the time. We know there will be some legal barriers…

After Texas banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities in 2023, many colleges and universities nationwide have since followed suit and cracked down on DEI within the past year. Additionally, Black enrollment has dipped among so-called elite universities in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action. Despite these apparent attacks on Black students pursuing higher education, one nonprofit remains more committed than ever to ensuring they are able to thrive.

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund has been advocating for students at historically Black colleges and universities, as well as predominantly Black institutions, for over 30 years. Founded in 1987 by longtime education advocate Dr. N. Joyce Payne, the organization has awarded students over $500 million in scholarships and placed them in positions to network with top employers to secure internships and careers.

Despite a boom in prospective student interest in HBCUs and predominantly Black institutions after affirmative action was outlawed, decades of chronic underfunding and smaller endowments due to the racial wealth gap have made it difficult for these schools to cater to as many students as they would like. Couple that with a coordinated attack on diversity and rising white nationalism, the TMCF is ready to ramp up its own efforts to support Black institutions and students, not slow down.

Dr. Harry Williams, the president and CEO of the organization, said it embraces the fight to protect Black universities and their students.

“Look at who we are. Look at the name Thurgood Marshall,” Williams said, invoking the first Black Supreme Court justice for whom the nonprofit is named after. “You think he was afraid of a fight?”

The TMCF “is all about making sure that our students, when they graduate from our HBCUs, are getting a fair shot at being a part of America,” said Williams, who’s also the former president of Delaware State University. “We…

Texas officials are seeking to reverse the gender marker changes that trans people have already legally obtained on their driver’s licenses and state IDs, according to a letter that the head of the state’s Department of Public Safety sent to the Texas attorney general.

Transgender Texans used to be able to change their names and gender markers on state documents by filing a petition to a judge for a court order. The process was fairly simple and involved providing evidence such as a letter from a therapist or documentation from a surgeon or gender-affirming care provider.

But in August, after the state attorney general’s office raised concerns about the “validity of court orders” being used for gender marker changes, the Department of Public Safety quietly issued a policy barring individuals from updating their gender markers even if they had officially amended their birth certificates or received court-ordered changes.

The director of the department, Steve McCraw, seems to now be seeking permission to make changes to IDs issued before the new rules went into effect.

In mid-September, he sent a letter to Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking if the agency can “voluntarily” change back gender markers on state IDs and driver’s licenses.

Petitions for court orders involve the individual seeking a name or gender marker change from a Texas judge. McCraw noted that DPS is not a party in those proceedings, and he asked if the agency is compelled to follow these court-ordered gender marker changes even though DPS’s internal policy has now barred them.

He also asked for guidance on what constitutes “satisfactory proof” for those changes and argues that court orders are essentially insufficient “proof” of one’s gender transition because sex is a “fixed and biological fact.” McCraw cites a definition of sex from a 1949 edition of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, indicating that a person’s chromosomal makeup alone determines…

When he began writing NBC’s medical drama “Brilliant Minds,” series creator Michael Grassi says he had only one actor in mind to portray his show’s protagonist, Dr. Oliver Wolf.

That would be Zachary Quinto, the Emmy nominee whose television credits include “Star Trek” and the “American Horror Story” anthology series, and who has appeared on Broadway in acclaimed revivals of “The Glass Menagerie” and “The Boys in the Band,” among other shows.

“I’ve never seen Zach play it safe in a performance. Everything he does, he always takes a big swing,” Grassi, whose TV credits include “Schitt’s Creek” and “Riverdale,” told HuffPost. “We’ve seen him play villains before. We’ve seen him do so much genre. But the thing that Zach brings to the show — something I didn’t know was possible — is incredible wit and levity. I’m excited for viewers to see how much warmth and humor he brings.”

“Brilliant Minds,” which premiered last week, is based on the life of Dr. Oliver Sacks, the world-renowned neurologist and author once referred to as the “poet laureate of contemporary medicine.”

Like Sacks, Dr. Wolf is both a respected neurologist and a man of extremes — in the show’s pilot episode, he takes an evening swim in the murky waters of New York’s Hudson River amid a professional crisis, as the real-life Sacks was known to have done. The character shares Sacks’ love of motorcycles and indoor fern gardens, and also has prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder also known as face blindness that allows him to empathize with his patients in ways some of his peers do not.

Though Sacks died in 2015 at age 82, “Brilliant Minds” takes place in present-day New York. In order to make Dr. Wolf believable as a modern character, Grassi opted to give some facets of Sacks’ life an update. Most notably, Dr. Wolf is a gay man who makes no…

The incomparable Dame Maggie Smith, known for her myriad roles in film, TV, and onstage, died Friday in London, her family said. She was 89.

“She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end,” her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin said in a statement. “She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”

They wrote, “We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.”

Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith on Dec. 28, 1934, in Ilford, England, to Nathaniel and Margaret Smith. When she was 4, her family, including her older twin brothers Alistair and Ian, moved to Oxford, where Smith’s father worked as a public health pathologist at the university. Smith attended Oxford High School until she was 16, when she left to study acting at the Oxford Playhouse.

The freckle-faced redhead began her career at the Playhouse in 1952, transforming for roles including Viola in “The Twelfth Night.” In 1956, she made her film and Broadway debuts, appearing as one of the party guests in the movie “Child in the House” and playing several roles in the review “New Faces of ’56” at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City.

“There was one very famous one, which was the one with Eartha Kitt. And I think everybody who was in it thought they were all going to be Eartha Kitt or be big stars,” Smith told NPR of starring in “New Faces.” “That didn’t happen, but it was a wake-up call to have one’s first professional job on Broadway, I must say.”

Throughout her over-60-year career, Smith starred in more than 80 films and TV series and appeared in dozens of plays, including four on Broadway.

Kate Winslet would like to reframe the public narrative about taking ownership of one’s unvarnished appearance on the big screen.

In an interview with Time published Thursday, Winslet brushed off the idea that female actors who opt to forgo makeup and are comfortable baring everything on camera should be deemed “brave.”

“That’s not fucking brave,” she told the publication. “I’m not an ex-postmaster fighting for justice, I’m not in the Ukraine. I’m doing a job that matters to me.”

Winslet, a 2009 Oscar winner for “The Reader,” will next be seen as renowned World War II photographer Lee Miller in “Lee,” which hits theaters this month. The biopic, directed by Ellen Kuras, apparently had a rocky production, with Winslet even personally paying the cast and crew’s salaries for two weeks.

Much of the early buzz on “Lee” has included discussion of the film’s nude scenes. To prepare for her role, Winslet stopped working out so her body would appear, as Harper’s Bazaar put it, “authentically soft.”

The film’s production team, Winslet explained, were caught a bit off-guard at first.

“There’s a bit where Lee’s sitting on a bench in a bikini… And one of the crew came up between takes and said: ‘You might want to sit up straighter.’ So you can’t see my belly rolls? Not on your life!” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “It was deliberate, you know?”

As with many female stars, Winslet has had to endure plenty of scrutiny of her physical appearance. While shooting what was to be her breakout role in “Titanic,” Winslet was reportedly nicknamed “Kate Weighs-a-Lot” by director James Cameron.

The criticism only grew more widespread after the movie became a blockbuster. In particular, Winslet’s body was a subject of widespread mockery as viewers argued about whether she and co-star Leonardo DiCaprio could…