Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 138 Shares170 Views

    in Music

    Defense to Question Woman About ‘Hotel Nights’ With Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

    One of the music mogul’s ex-girlfriends, who is going by the pseudonym Jane, has spent days testifying that he pressured her to have sex with other men.For more than 13 hours over three days, jurors in the federal trial of Sean Combs have heard gripping testimony from one of his former girlfriends, a witness for the prosecution called Jane. Now it is time for her cross-examination.Mr. Combs, the producer and impresario also known as Puff Daddy and Diddy, is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. The government has accused the music mogul of running a “criminal enterprise” whose objectives included coercing women into sex and covering it up; after Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, who testified over four days last month, Jane is the second woman put forward by prosecutors as a victim of sex trafficking.Mr. Combs, who faces life in prison if he is convicted, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and has strongly denied that any of his sexual relations were not consensual.Appearing under a pseudonym to protect her privacy, Jane first took the stand on Thursday afternoon and will continue on Tuesday. She has recounted vivid details of a troubled relationship with Mr. Combs, which began in 2021 and lasted until shortly before his arrest in September 2024.Jane said she was pressured to have sex with a succession of male escorts without condoms, and developed painful infections as a result. She once threw up in the bathroom of a luxury hotel after having sex with two men, she testified; after Mr. Combs told her “let’s go” because a third man was waiting to have sex with her, she complied.Jane was also part of Mr. Combs’s life during the critical period after Ms. Ventura filed her bombshell lawsuit in November 2023, in which she described being coerced into drug-fueled sex marathons she called “freak-offs.” Recognizing a similar pattern to what she called “hotel nights” or “debauchery,” Jane texted Mr. Combs three days after that suit was filed: “I feel like I’m reading my own sexual trauma. It makes me sick how three solid pages, word for word, is exactly my experiences and my anguish.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 138 Shares161 Views

    in Music

    Sly Stone and the Sound of an America That Couldn’t Last

    The influential musician, who died on Monday at 82, forged harmony — musical and otherwise — that he wasn’t able to hold together on his own.“Landscape” is just one of those words. It’s lost all mouthfeel. It implies a sort of vastness — “the landscape of history,” “the landscape of man,” “the commercial baking landscape.” As craft, it connotes comeliness: “landscape painting.” In action, it exacts beauty through order: a city’s landscaper.Sly Stone died on Monday, at 82, and there it was again. He “redefined the landscape of pop, funk, and rock music,” declared an official news release. It’s more like landscapes. But who’d deny the gist? I’m sitting here studying a photo of Stone and his band, the Family Stone, five dudes, two chicks, two white, five black. For a racially traumatized America, here was a landscape that redefined “landscape,” too.The band was his idea, as were their songs. What they redefined was how much sound and rhythm you could pack into three minutes — often, into less. The opening 15 seconds of their first hit, “Dance to the Music,” are a blast, like from a launchpad: Greg Errico beats the skins off his drums while Cynthia Robinson screams for you to get up. The horns sound drunk; Freddie Stone’s guitar sounds like it’s responding to a 9-1-1 call.Then at about the 16th second — mid-flight — the ascending party halts and a doo-wop parachute opens. Harmony and tambourine lilt to earth, whereupon we’re exhorted to … dance to the music. Lyrically, all that’s happening here is instruction, pronouncement. “I’m gonna add some bottom,” bellows Larry Graham, “so that the dancers just won’t hide,” before his motorific bass lick starts peeling wallflowers off the wall.This, to paraphrase another Sly gemstone, is a simple song that, musically, teems with, to quote a different gemstone, a vital songwriting and performance philosophy: fun. What else is happening here? Well, the landscapers are celebrating the landscape of themselves. They’re warming up, warming us up, banging out their promise of redefinition. Motown, rock ’n’ roll, gospel, marching band, jazz, lullaby. For about three years, every one their hits was most of all of those: America’s sounds pressed together into radical newness by seven people who dared to embody a utopia that, come 1968, when the band was reaching it apogee, seemed otherwise despoiled. For three years, this band was disillusionment’s oasis.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 163 Shares144 Views

    in Music

    Book Review: ‘Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly,’ by Jeff Weiss

    In a scrappy new memoir, Jeff Weiss blurs fact and fancy as he recounts his stint as a bit player in the celebrity-industrial complex.WAITING FOR BRITNEY SPEARS: A True Story, Allegedly, by Jeff WeissIn 2023, the pop princess Britney Spears published her autobiography, “The Woman in Me.” In its pages, Spears had choice words for the paparazzi who pursued her at the heights and depths of her fame. She described them as enemy combatants, the ghosts in a Pac-Man game, sharks who sensed blood in the water. They were, she wrote, “an army of zombies” who treated her with “disregard” and “disgust.”She hated them. She feared them. Jeff Weiss, by his own account, was one of them.In the 2000s, Weiss worked as an occasional reporter for a couple of tabloids. (He was also cited for trespassing on Brad Pitt’s property, ostensibly at the bidding of People magazine.) He details these exploits — with grandiosity and rue — in “Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly.” It is not a novel, not yet a memoir. A roman à clef? Probably. Autofiction? Sure. It is also, in its most engaging moments, a bedazzled biography of Spears herself, as glimpsed across the dance floor, or through a long lens.Weiss, if you believe him, first met Spears when he sneaked into the “ … Baby One More Time” video shoot, which was held at his Venice, Calif., high school. The first glimpse of a pigtailed Spears ensorcelled him. A few years later, sprung from college and lightly adrift, Weiss found himself flung into her orbit again. Zhuzhing his résumé and shushing his qualms, Weiss persuaded a tabloid to hire him as a Hollywood party and celebrity reporter. (Context clues suggest that the tabloid was Star; in the book, Weiss calls it Nova.)This is a book that wears its antecedents on its sleeve, or perhaps low on the brow, like a Von Dutch hat. There’s new journalism here and gonzo journalism, as well as more literary stabs at the mournfulness of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the contempt of Nathanael West. Parts of the book read like a retread of “Miss Lonelyhearts,” doused in apple martinis. Other sections suggest link-rotted LiveJournal entries. In broad strokes, it is a story of a young man’s disillusionment, a West Coast “Sweet Smell of Success,” if success smelled like Victoria’s Secret body mist.These strokes are indifferently compelling. Weiss falters in building stakes or sympathy for the self he describes. A 22-year-old college grad distracted from working on his novel? Oh no! And there is a cloying quality to his repeated insistence that he is too pure, too talented to do the work of a tabloid reporter. Many of us who make a life in journalism have done as bad or worse, without ever expensing our drinks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 125 Shares157 Views

    in Movies

    Frederick Forsyth, Master of the Geopolitical Thriller, Dies at 86

    He wrote best-sellers like “The Day of the Jackal” and “The Dogs of War,” often using material from his earlier life as a reporter and spy.Frederick Forsyth, who used his early experience as a British foreign correspondent and occasional intelligence operative as fodder for a series of swashbuckling, best-selling thrillers in the 1970s and ’80s, including “The Day of the Jackal,” “The Odessa File” and “The Dogs of War,” died on Monday at his home in Jordans, a village north of London. He was 86.His literary representative, Jonathan Lloyd, who confirmed the death, did not specify a cause, saying only that Mr. Forsyth’s had died after a short illness.Mr. Forsyth was a master of the geopolitical nail-biter, writing novels embedded in an international demimonde populated by spies, mercenaries and political extremists. He wrote 24 books, including 14 novels, and sold more than 75 million copies.His stories often juxtapose a single individual against sprawling networks of power and money — an unnamed assassin against the French government in “The Day of the Jackal” (1971), a lone German reporter against a shadowy conspiracy to protect ex-Nazi officers in “The Odessa File” (1972).A film version of “The Day of the Jackal,” starring Edward Fox, right, and Cyril Cusack was released in 1973, just two years after the novel’s publication.George Higgins/Universal Pictures“It’s one man against a huge machine,” he told The Times of London in 2024, explaining why so many readers of “The Day of the Jackal” sided with a hit man intent on killing French President Charles de Gaulle, instead of with the authorities. “We don’t like machines, so one guy even trying to kill a human being, taking on this vast machine of government, secret intelligence service, police and so on, has appeal.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 138 Shares131 Views

    in Music

    Sly Stone, Maestro of a Multifaceted, Hitmaking Band, Dies at 82

    Sly Stone, the influential, eccentric and preternaturally rhythmic singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer whose run of hits in the late 1960s and early ’70s with his band the Family Stone could be dance anthems, political documents or both, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 82. The cause was “a prolonged battle with C.O.P.D.,” or lung disease, “and other underlying health issues,” according to a statement from his representatives.“Sly was a monumental figure, a groundbreaking innovator, and a true pioneer who redefined the landscape of pop, funk, and rock music,” the statement said.As the colorful maestro and mastermind of a multiracial, mixed-gender band, Mr. Stone experimented with the R&B, soul and gospel music he was raised on in the San Francisco area, mixing classic ingredients of Black music with progressive funk and the burgeoning freedoms of psychedelic rock ’n’ roll.The band’s most recognizable songs, many of which would be sampled by hip-hop artists, include “Everyday People,” “Dance to the Music,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “Family Affair,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”Mr. Stone, second from left, with the other members of Sly and the Family Stone in 1970.GAB Archive/RedfernsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 138 Shares166 Views

    in Music

    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Ex-Girlfriend to Resume Testimony About Sex Under Duress

    The woman, known in court as Jane, has testified that she felt obligated to participate in sex marathons with male escorts because the mogul was paying her rent.A former girlfriend of Sean Combs is set to retake the stand on Monday at his federal trial to continue her testimony about a series of sex marathons with male prostitutes, which she said she felt pressured to continue because Mr. Combs was funding her livelihood.As the trial enters its fifth week, prosecutors are expected to drill down on a key part of their sex-trafficking case: allegations of financial coercion.The former girlfriend, who is known in court by the pseudonym Jane, spent more than seven hours last week testifying about her tumultuous relationship with the music mogul, which started in 2021 and continued until his arrest in 2024. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, and his lawyers have denied that the sex at the center of the case was ever coercive.Jane testified last week that in an effort to fulfill her boyfriend’s fantasies, she began to participate in drug-fueled sexual encounters with a succession of hired men that the couple called “debauchery” or “hotel nights.” Her account of the sex marathons — which could last for days and typically involved Mr. Combs watching and masturbating — aligned with the “freak-offs” described by Casandra Ventura, another former girlfriend who testified at the start of the case.The pattern of “hotel nights” left Jane feeling used, exhausted and at times sick, she testified. But Mr. Combs was dismissive when she voiced her reluctance, she said, and she continued out of a desire to please him. At times, she arranged to hire certain “entertainers” herself so she could choose the men involved, she testified.The dynamic shifted in 2023, when Mr. Combs began paying her $10,000-a-month rent. Jane said she feared losing her home if she did not comply.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 113 Shares170 Views

    in Music

    ‘Guntram’ Review: In Concert at Carnegie, Strauss’s First Opera

    Leon Botstein’s American Symphony Orchestra dusts off “Guntram,” and singers unveil the beauties and flaws of a 19th-century epic fail.After the Munich premiere of Richard Strauss’s first opera, “Guntram,” in 1895, the orchestra went on strike, the two lead singers refused to reprise their roles and another cast member demanded the promise of a better pension before considering any further performances. Add in derisive reviews, and the opera, which had gotten a lukewarm reception in Weimar a year before, was dead in the water. In his garden, Richard Strauss put up a grave marker to “venerable, virtuous young Guntram” who had been “gruesomely slain by the symphony orchestra of his own father.”On Friday, the American Symphony Orchestra under the sure-handed direction of Leon Botstein resurrected “Guntram” in a concert performance at Carnegie Hall that unearthed stretches of ravishing music but also confirmed the structural weaknesses of a work that sags under the weight of its Wagner worship. For the lead tenor, the title role is a tour de force requiring the kind of unflagging power Strauss would later demand of his “Salome.” John Matthew Myers delivered a bravura performance of astonishing resourcefulness and tonal beauty in the role.I did not come away convinced, as Botstein argued in the printed program, that the work deserves a place on the opera stage. But the performance offered a tantalizing glimpse of a musical storyteller who had yet to find a worthy subject for his dramatic instincts, but was already looking to pour his melodic gifts into the service of psychological insights.Here, Strauss wrote his own libretto, thick with Wagnerian alliterations and clichés. It tells the story of Guntram, a medieval minnesinger on a mission to spread the gospel of peace in a realm gripped by war and social repression. He saves Freihild, the unhappily married daughter of a duke, from suicide. At a banquet, her warmongering husband, Robert, threatens Guntram, who kills him in self-defense and is then thrown into the dungeon. Freihild frees him and declares her love. But after Friedhold, a member of Guntram’s brotherhood, intervenes, he resolves to atone in monastic solitude and directs Freihild to sublimate her passion into charitable works.For an opera centered on renunciation, the music is headily sensuous. The score weaves in quotations from Strauss’s own “Death and Transfiguration” as well as the late operas by Wagner. (When Strauss berated a musician in rehearsal for flubbing one tricky spot, he is reported to have said, “But Maestro, we never get this passage right in ‘Tristan,’ either.”)Long monologues dominate each of the three acts. (Botstein presented the composer’s edited version from 1940.) While dramatically stifling, these are some of the most musically convincing passages, especially in Myers’s rendition, which brought a wealth of tone colors and emotional nuance to his narrations. These monologues, in addition to the gorgeous instrumental preludes, fully deserve to be programmed in concerts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 138 Shares107 Views

    in Movies

    Takeaways From Graduation Speeches by Trump, Taraji P. Henson and Others

    The New York Times studied videos of addresses posted online, including those by President Trump, Kermit the Frog and a slew of celebrity speakers. Here is a look at key themes that emerged.It has been a graduation season unlike any other. The Trump administration is investigating elite universities and cutting research funding. Pro-Palestinian activism and claims of antisemitism are shaping campus life. International students are worried about having their visas revoked.In contrast with past generations, what a speaker says on a commencement stage now reaches an audience far larger than the crowd that day. Universities routinely post footage of ceremonies online, giving faraway relatives of graduates a chance to tune in and handing keynote speakers a global stage.The New York Times studied videos of dozens of keynote commencement addresses that were posted online — more than 170,000 words delivered this spring at a cross section of America’s higher education institutions — in order to analyze the most pressing topics. Many speakers, including Kermit the Frog at the University of Maryland, the gymnast Simone Biles at Washington University in St. Louis and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at Dakota State University, avoided the political fray and focused on timeless lessons.But plenty of others, including journalists, scientists and politicians from both parties, weighed in directly on the news of the moment. Many of them described 2025 in existential terms, warning about dire threats to free speech and democracy. Others heralded the dawn of a promising new American era. Here is a look at key themes that emerged in those speeches.A Moment of OpportunitySeveral speakers struck an upbeat tone about the world students were entering.Videos posted by Vanderbilt University, Liberty University and Furman University showed many commencement speakers voicing optimism about the opportunities awaiting graduates.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More