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      Lisa Marie Presley, Singer-Songwriter and Daughter of Elvis, Dies at 54

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      Her death in Los Angeles on Thursday, after a life tinged with tragedy, came after a medical emergency and brief hospitalization.Lisa Marie Presley, the singer-songwriter and only child of Elvis Presley, died on Thursday in Los Angeles after a medical emergency and a brief hospitalization. She was 54.Sam Mast, a representative of Priscilla Presley, her mother, announced the death in a statement. Earlier in the day, Ms. Presley said her daughter had been receiving medical attention but did not provide more information. Ms. Presley lived in Calabasas, Calif., west of Los Angeles.The daughter of one of the most celebrated performers in music history, Ms. Presley followed her father’s career path. She released three rock albums, on which she set out to establish a sound of her own while also paying homage to the man who forever changed the American soundscape with his blend of blues, gospel, country and other genres.Hers was a life tinged with tragedy. She was 9 when her father died in 1977, and she lost others who had been close to her along the way, including her former husband, Michael Jackson. The suicide of her only son, Benjamin Keough, at age 27 in 2020 hit her especially hard, an episode she wrote about movingly last year in an essay for People magazine to mark National Grief Awareness Day.“My and my three daughters’ lives as we knew it were completely detonated and destroyed by his death,” she wrote. “We live in this every. Single. Day.”The enormous legacy of her father was a constant presence in her life. On Tuesday, she was again celebrating him at the Golden Globe awards ceremony, telling Extra TV that Austin Butler, who won the award for lead actor in a drama for his performance in the title role of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” had perfectly captured the essence of her father.“I was mind-blown, truly,” Ms. Presley said. “I actually had to take, like, five days to process it because it was so spot on and authentic.”In his speech accepting his award during the televised ceremony, Mr. Butler singled out the Presley family for its friendship and support as the camera panned to a visibly moved Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley seated at his table.Ms. Presley in 2012 beside a display of her childhood crib at Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis. Lance Murphey/Associated PressOn Sunday, Ms. Presley was at Graceland, her father’s estate in Memphis, to commemorate what would have been his 88th birthday.Father and daughter were extremely close. Elvis once flew Lisa Marie to Idaho after she said she had never seen snow. He named his 1958 Convair 880 private jet the Lisa Marie.Ms. Presley owned Graceland and her father’s artifacts, as well as 15 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises, the corporate entity created by a Presley trust to manage its assets.Though Ms. Presley’s music career never reached the heights her father’s had achieved, his influence was evident in her music and lyrics. “Someone turned the lights out there in Memphis,” she sang in “Lights Out,” a song from “To Whom It May Concern,” her debut album, released in 2003. “That’s where my family’s buried and gone.”In 2018, she co-produced an album celebrating Elvis’s love of gospel music and sang along with a recording of him on one of the songs. “I got moved by it as I was singing,” she said in an interview.If her albums produced no signature hits, her last name enshrined her as a celebrity. And her star-studded relationships only deepened that perception. Foremost among those was her marriage, from 1994 to 1996, to Mr. Jackson. Together, the pair — one the daughter of the king of rock ’n’ roll, the other regarded as the king of pop — attracted the glare of cameras and bountiful attention. In August 1994, The New York Times reported on the couple’s revelation that they had married.“After announcing a union that might have been conceived in supermarket-tabloid heaven and proclaiming a need for privacy, the world’s most famous newlyweds were holed up last night in a place not known for its isolation: Trump Tower,” The Times wrote. “At 5:40 p.m., a few hours after the statement was released in Los Angeles, the developer Donald J. Trump emerged from Trump Tower to the kind of reportorial throng normally reserved for the likes of, well, Michael Jackson or Donald Trump, and confirmed that, yes, the couple were ensconced on the top floor of the Fifth Avenue tower.”There was speculation that the marriage was an effort to deflect attention from investigations into allegations by a 13-year-old boy that Mr. Jackson had molested him. For a time the couple portrayed a happy marriage — Ms. Presley said she wanted to be known as “Mrs. Lisa Marie Presley-Jackson.” But by the end of 1995 they had separated, and they divorced the next year.Ms. Presley was married three other times; those marriages ended in divorce as well. She married the singer and songwriter Danny Keough in 1988, the actor Nicolas Cage in 2002 and, most recently, in 2006, Michael Lockwood, a guitarist who was music director of her 2005 album, “Now What.” They divorced in 2021.Her survivors include her daughter with Mr. Keough, the actress Riley Keough, and twin daughters with Mr. Lockwood, Harper and Finley.In a foreword to the 2019 book “The United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain” by Harry Nelson, Ms. Presley wrote about her struggle with addiction, which she said began when she was given a prescription for pain medication after the birth of the twins in 2008. She quoted her own response to a point-blank question about her problem posed to her on the “Today” show in 2018.“I’m not perfect,” she recalled saying. “My father wasn’t perfect, no one’s perfect. It’s what you do with it after you learn and then you try to help others with it.”Elvis and Priscilla Presley with their daughter, Lisa Marie, after her birth in 1968. Associated PressLisa Marie Presley was born in Memphis on Feb. 1, 1968. “I’m a shaky man,” her famous father told reporters when his wife was admitted to Baptist Memorial Hospital for the birth, an occasion that made international news.In “Elvis by the Presleys,” a 2005 book of recollections by Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley and others, Lisa Marie wrote of her childhood memories of her father.“The thing about my father is that he never hid anything,” she wrote. “He didn’t have a facade. Never put on airs. If he was crabby, you knew it. If he was angry, he’d let you know. His temper could give Darth Vader a run for his money. But if he was happy, everyone was happy.”Home life had its odd moments.“One time in the middle of the night I’m awoken by this incredibly loud noise coming from my father’s bedroom, which was right next to mine,” she related. “I get out of bed and see the guys buzz-sawing down his door so they can move in a grand piano. He felt like playing piano and singing gospel songs.”In the same book, Priscilla Presley wrote of Elvis’s tenderness toward his daughter in her early years.“Twice he spanked her on her bottom,” she remembered. “Once she colored a velvet couch with crayons, and once she ignored his warnings and got too close to the edge of the pool. The spankings were restrained and also warranted. But poor Elvis was a mess afterwards. You would have thought he had committed murder.”As a performer, Ms. Presley, whose most recent album was “Storm & Grace” (2012), knew her name would always be impossible to escape. But she was eager to be taken on her own terms.“It’s my own thing,” she said of her career in a 2003 interview with The Times. “I’m just trying to be an artist. I’m not trying to be Elvis Presley’s child. And I’m not trying to run from it either.”Kirsten Noyes More

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      Adam Rich, Who Starred in ‘Eight Is Enough,’ Dies at 54

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      Mr. Rich played Nicholas Bradford, the youngest son who was known for his glossy pageboy haircut, in the hit television series “Eight Is Enough.”Adam Rich, a former child actor who starred in the hit television series “Eight Is Enough,” died on Saturday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 54.Danny Deraney, Mr. Rich’s publicist, confirmed the death. On its website, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner did not immediately list a cause.Mr. Deraney described Mr. Rich as “kind, generous and a warrior in the fight against mental illness.”“He was unselfish and always looked out for those he cared about. Which is why many people who grew up with him feel a part of their childhood gone, and sad today,” Mr. Deraney added. “He really was America’s Little Brother.”From 1977-81, Mr. Rich starred in the hit television series “Eight Is Enough,” a comforting show about a family of eight children that aired on ABC for five seasons. He played Nicholas Bradford, the youngest son, who was known for having a glossy pageboy haircut.Adam Rich began acting as a child and was best known for playing Nicholas Bradford on “Eight Is Enough,” on which he had a pageboy haircut.BC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesThe show, set in Sacramento and based on a memoir by Tom Braden, dealt with family drama such as the death of a parent, remarriage and tensions among siblings.Adam Rich was born on Oct. 12, 1968, in Brooklyn, N.Y., according to his IMDb page. He studied acting at Chatsworth High School in California’s San Fernando Valley.Mr. Rich was not married and did not have children, Mr. Deraney said.Mr. Rich began acting as a child and appeared in 1976 in the television show “The Six Million Dollar Man,” according to IMDb. He had appearances in other television shows, including “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island,” “CHiPs,” “St. Elsewhere” and “Silver Spoons.”In the 1980s, he appeared in television shows such as “Code Red” and “Dungeons and Dragons.”In the past, he had sought treatment for substance abuse. In 1991, he was arrested on suspicion of burglarizing a California pharmacy, and the actor Dick Van Patten, who played Mr. Rich’s father in “Eight Is Enough,” bailed him out of jail, The Orlando Sentinel reported. More

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      Tory Lanez Found Guilty of Shooting Megan Thee Stallion

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      Mr. Lanez, a Canadian rapper, fired at the Houston hip-hop star after an argument in 2020. The matter became the subject of speculation and gossip on social media and in songs.LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles jury on Friday found Daystar Peterson, the Canadian rapper better known as Tory Lanez, guilty of shooting a fellow artist, Megan Thee Stallion, in both of her feet following an argument about their romantic entanglements and respective careers in the summer of 2020.Mr. Lanez, 30, was convicted of three felony counts: assault with a semiautomatic handgun, carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. He faces more than 20 years in prison and could be deported.Jurors reached a verdict after about seven hours of deliberation across two days, following a trial that lasted nearly two weeks. Mr. Lanez, who had been free on bail during the trial following a period of house arrest, was immediately taken into custody. Sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 27.Megan Thee Stallion was not present in court. As the verdict was read, Mr. Lanez appeared motionless and stared straight ahead until his father stood up and began shouting at the judge and prosecutors. “God will judge you,” he said, as bailiffs moved to block his path.Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Megan Thee Stallion, said in a statement: “The jury got it right. I am thankful there is justice for Meg.”The case, which played out as both a tawdry tabloid narrative and a weighty referendum on the treatment of Black women in hip-hop and beyond, was closely watched for both its famous characters and what it said about the recent adjudication of alleged abuse by notable men, such as Johnny Depp and Harvey Weinstein, in court and in public.Mr. Lanez, though not a household name before the case, has seen his celebrity profile rise since the shooting, earning explicit and implied support from various corners of the hip-hop universe, including influential blogs, social media accounts and the rappers-turned-talking heads 50 Cent and Joe Budden.In court, Mr. Lanez’s defense had raised the possibility of another shooter, a friend of Megan Thee Stallion’s who was also involved in the argument, which occurred on the way home from a gathering at the home of the reality star and beauty mogul Kylie Jenner.But Megan Thee Stallion, who testified in the case, identified Mr. Lanez as her assailant, tearfully recounting how he had shouted “dance” and a sexist slur at her before firing several times from the passenger seat of a sport utility vehicle.She said Mr. Lanez then apologized and offered her and the friend, Kelsey Harris, a million dollars each to keep quiet about what had occurred.In his closing argument, Alexander Bott, a deputy district attorney, said that Mr. Lanez had been pushed to a breaking point when Megan Thee Stallion demeaned his artistic stature, noting that she had been reluctant to come forward after the traumatic event.“Megan did find the courage to come and tell you what the defendant did to her,” Mr. Bott told jurors. “Was Megan telling the truth? I think everyone in the courtroom knows the answer to that question.”The lawyer added, of Mr. Lanez, “Hold him accountable for shooting the victim for nothing more than a bruised ego.”Mr. Lanez’s defense team argued that the two women were fighting that night over the male rapper, implying that Ms. Harris might have been motivated to shoot her friend out of jealousy when she learned that Mr. Lanez and Megan Thee Stallion had been intimate behind her back.George Mgdesyan, a lawyer for Mr. Lanez, said that the case “was about jealousy and a sexual relationship,” calling the prosecution’s case “full of holes and speculation.” Megan Thee Stallion “lied about everything in this case,” he told jurors.Some eyewitnesses provided muddled accounts of the shooting at trial, though most testified to seeing Mr. Lanez with a gun. Ms. Harris, who was offered immunity in exchange for her testimony, denied pulling the trigger or receiving hush money from Mr. Lanez, The Los Angeles Times reported. But on the stand, she also backtracked on her previous statements to the police that identified Mr. Lanez as the shooter, testifying that amid the drunken scuffle, she did not see who shot Megan Thee Stallion.Megan Thee Stallion, who testified in the case, identified Mr. Lanez as her assailant.Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesProsecutors then received the judge’s permission to play Ms. Harris’s entire 80-minute interview with detectives from September, in which she implicated Mr. Lanez. They also presented a text message Ms. Harris sent to Megan Thee Stallion’s bodyguard the night of the shooting, writing, “Help” and “Tory shot Meg.” (In response to her conflicting accounts, Ms. Harris said she could not remember what she had said previously and had not been entirely truthful with prosecutors in the past.)Another eyewitness, who saw the encounter from the window of a nearby home, said that he observed a violent, chaotic fight and that the first “flashes” — which he initially believed were fireworks, noting that he never saw a gun — came from a woman. But the witness added that he then saw a short man, believed to be Mr. Lanez, “firing everywhere” four or five times, Rolling Stone reported.Experts testified that gunshot residue was found on both Mr. Lanez and Ms. Harris, who were in close proximity, though DNA evidence tying Mr. Lanez to the weapon was inconclusive. (The police did not collect a DNA sample from Ms. Harris.)Ahead of the trial, the case had played out on social media, gossip sites and in music released by both rappers.Megan Thee Stallion, who had collaborated with Beyoncé shortly before the shooting and went on to win three Grammy Awards, including best new artist, in 2021, was initially circumspect about what had occurred.“Look what coming forward has done to her life, her reputation and her career,” Mr. Bott, the deputy district attorney, said in his closing remarks, raising his voice at times for emphasis. “Do you think she wants to be here?”In her testimony, the rapper said she did not tell police officers that she had been shot that night in July — claiming instead that she had stepped on glass — because tensions between Black people and law enforcement were high after the murder of George Floyd. “I didn’t want to see anybody die,” she said. “I didn’t want to die.”She was also worried about her career. “I didn’t want to talk to the officers because I didn’t want to be a snitch,” the rapper added. “Snitching is frowned upon in the hip-hop community,” which she identified as a boys’ club.In a statement after the verdict, George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney, highlighted what he called Megan Thee Stallion’s bravery in court. “You showed incredible courage and vulnerability with your testimony despite repeated and grotesque attacks that you did not deserve,” he said. “Women, especially Black women, are afraid to report crimes like assault and sexual violence because they are too often not believed.”At first, Mr. Lanez was arrested and charged only with concealing a firearm in the vehicle. But in the days and weeks that followed, Megan Thee Stallion revealed online and in an interview with a detective that she had been shot, eventually naming Mr. Lanez as her assailant. That October, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Mr. Lanez with assault.Still, for years since, some skeptics and conspiracy theorists have questioned whether Megan Thee Stallion was shot at all. At trial, a surgeon testified to removing bullet fragments from both of the rapper’s feet, with X-rays presented in court showing tiny fragments that remained.Mr. Lanez, who opted not to testify in his own defense, has not detailed his version of events, though he released an album barely two months after the encounter in which he denied shooting Megan Thee Stallion, focusing instead on their personal relationship.“We both know what happened that night and what I did/But it ain’t what they sayin’,” he rapped.Megan Thee Stallion later responded in her own track, titled “Shots Fired,” in which she seemed to recount what led to the shooting — “He talkin’ ’bout his followers, dollars,” she raps, adding, “I told him, ‘You’re not poppin’, you just on the remix’” — as well as its aftermath. (“You offered M’s not to talk, I guess that made my friend excited, hmm/now y’all in cahoots.”)On the stand, Megan Thee Stallion said she had initially lied about the extent of her personal involvement with Mr. Lanez, including in a television interview with Gayle King, because it was “disgusting,” she said. “How could I share my body with somebody who could shoot me?”Even as her career skyrocketed, the assault had caused her to “lose my confidence, lose my friends, lose myself,” she said in court. “I wish he had just shot and killed me.” More

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      Megan Thee Stallion Testifies in Tory Lanez Trial. Here’s What to Know.

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      Megan Thee Stallion testified on Tuesday in the assault trial against Mr. Lanez. The case had previously played out on social media and in music released by the rappers.LOS ANGELES — Megan Thee Stallion, the Grammy-winning rapper, took the stand on Tuesday during the assault trial against the rapper Tory Lanez, testifying that she still had nerve damage after he shot her in the feet in the wake of an argument two years ago.The case has played out on social media and in music released by both rappers. On an album released in 2020, more than two months after the encounter, Mr. Lanez rebutted Megan Thee Stallion’s account; she has defended herself on Instagram, in interviews and with her own defiant track.Mr. Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, could face nearly 23 years of prison if convicted. He faces charges of assault with a semiautomatic handgun; of carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and of discharging a firearm with gross negligence.Prosecutors say that in July 2020, in the early morning hours after a party in Los Angeles, Mr. Lanez lashed out at Megan Thee Stallion after she had criticized his rap abilities, firing toward her feet as she walked away from the vehicle they had both been riding in. The defense has disputed that Mr. Lanez fired the shots, suggesting it could have been another woman who they claim was upset that the two rappers had been intimate with each other.On Tuesday, Megan Thee Stallion largely reiterated what she had told reporters and recounted on social media about the encounter, testifying that she had initially misrepresented the events of that night to the police because tensions were high after the murder of George Floyd and she was afraid of how they would respond.“I didn’t want to talk to the officers because I didn’t want to be a snitch,” she testified.Megan Thee Stallion also testified about how the fallout from the encounter has made her depressed and hindered her career. She said that she was a private person who spoke out to defend her name, and that she had been the target of abusive comments on social media.“Because Tory has come out and told so many lies about me, and making this all a sex scandal, people don’t want to touch me,” she said. “It feels like I’m a sick bird.”The shooting occurred just as Megan Thee Stallion’s fame was growing. Months earlier, her collaboration with Beyoncé on a remix of “Savage” became her first No. 1 Billboard hit. That year, the blockbuster song “WAP” — a viral collaboration with Cardi B — turned her into an even bigger star.Here’s what to know about the case.What happened after the shooting?Initially, the details around what happened that night were hazy.Days after the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion — who was born Megan Pete — posted on her Instagram account that she had “suffered gunshot wounds” that required surgery but did not provide more details. But amid surging gossip and speculation, she later said the shooter was Mr. Lanez, who had been arrested and charged with concealing a firearm in the vehicle.Mr. Lanez addressed the situation in rap lyrics that suggested a conflicting account, including, “We both know what happened that night and what I did/But it ain’t what they sayin’.”In October 2020, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Mr. Lanez with assault.Megan Thee Stallion’s career ascended in 2020 thanks to collaborations with Beyoncé on a remix of “Savage” and with Cardi B on the blockbuster “WAP.”Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressWhat has Megan Thee Stallion said?In an interview with CBS’s Gayle King this year, Megan Thee Stallion said that she and a friend had been driving with Mr. Lanez after a party at the home of Kylie Jenner, the beauty mogul, when an argument broke out in the S.U.V.After she exited the vehicle, she said, Mr. Lanez shouted “Dance!” and a sexist slur before shooting at her. He then apologized and offered her and the friend, Kelsey Harris, a million dollars for them to keep quiet about what had happened.When the police arrived, she said, she told officers that her foot injuries had been caused when she stepped on glass.She later addressed her initial decision to withhold information from the police in her song “Shots Fired,” rapping, “If it weren’t for me/Same week, you would have been indicted.”Megan Thee Stallion, 27, has been outspoken about the shooting and what she sees as the broader issues at play, writing in a guest essay in The New York Times that the “skepticism and judgment” that followed her allegations were emblematic of how Black women were “disrespected and disregarded in so many areas of life.”Outside the courthouse on Tuesday, several fans of the rapper voiced their support with a banner that read, “We stand with Megan.”What has Tory Lanez said?Mr. Lanez, 30, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, has not given interviews about his specific account of that night. But at the start of the trial, his lawyer, George Mgdesyan, said the argument in the car had involved Ms. Harris, a friend of Megan Thee Stallion’s; he said Ms. Harris was angry when she learned that Megan Thee Stallion had been intimate with Mr. Lanez, Rolling Stone reported.On the 2020 album on which he addressed the shooting, which was called “Daystar,” Mr. Lanez rapped, “If you got shot from behind, how can you identify me?”It is unclear whether Mr. Lanez plans to take the stand.What evidence is at the center of the case?Prosecutors have homed in on a text message that they say Ms. Harris sent to Mr. Lanez’s bodyguard that night, writing, “Help” and “Tory shot Meg.” They are also expected to present a text message in which Mr. Lanez apologizes to Megan Thee Stallion after the shooting. The defense has countered that Mr. Lanez did not directly admit to carrying out the shooting, according to The Los Angeles Times.Mr. Mgdesyan also suggested that there was a lack of physical evidence to prove the case against Mr. Lanez beyond a reasonable doubt. He told jurors, The Los Angeles Times reported, that Mr. Lanez’s DNA had not been found on the gun. More

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      Judge Declares Mistrial in Danny Masterson Rape Case

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      A jury in Los Angeles said it was deadlocked on the three charges against the actor known for his role in “That ’70s Show.”A judge on Wednesday declared a mistrial in the rape case against Danny Masterson after a jury said it was deadlocked on charges that the actor raped three women at his home in the Hollywood Hills in the early 2000s, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.Known for his roles in the sitcom “That ’70s Show” and the Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” Masterson, 46, was fired in 2017 amid sexual assault allegations.The jury could not reach a decision on the three charges of forcible rape that the actor faces in Los Angeles County Superior Court. If convicted, Masterson could face 45 years to life in prison.Opening arguments in the case began on Oct. 18. Deliberations began on Nov. 15 and reached a deadlock three days later, jurors told the judge, who instructed the jury to continue deliberating after a weeklong break for Thanksgiving. When the court met again on Monday, two jurors with Covid-19 were dismissed and replaced with two alternates, resetting the deliberations, The Associated Press reported.The district attorney’s office said in a statement on Wednesday that “we will now consider our next steps as it relates to prosecuting this case.”“While we are disappointed with the outcome in this trial, we thank the jurors for their service,” the statement said. “We also want to give our heartfelt appreciation to the victims for bravely stepping forward and recounting their harrowing experiences.”Masterson’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Masterson’s case involved accusations by two of the women that the Church of Scientology, to which they and Masterson belonged, discouraged them from reporting the rapes to law enforcement. The church strongly denied that it pressures victims.Philip Cohen, who represented Masterson in the trial, had sought to limit discussion of Scientology in court, telling the judge in October that it would unfairly bias the jury and force the defense to fight a “war on two fronts,” The Los Angeles Times reported.But the judge, Charlaine F. Olmedo, found that Scientology was relevant to the case, and that the women could testify about their belief that church policy discouraged them from reporting the accusations to law enforcement, The Times reported.According to a trial brief filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Masterson raped a woman, identified only as Jen B., in April 2003 after she went to his house to pick up keys and he gave her a red vodka drink. About 20 or 30 minutes later, she felt “very disoriented,” the brief states.According to the brief, Masterson raped her after she regained consciousness on his bed. She reached for his hair to try to pull him off and tried to push a pillow into his face, it states. When Masterson heard a man yelling in the house, he pulled a gun from his night stand and told her not to move or “say anything,” adding expletives, the document states.The trial brief says that Masterson raped a second woman, identified only as Christina B., who had been in a relationship with him and had lived with him for six years.In November 2001, the document says, she awoke to Masterson “having sex with her” and told him to stop. “I fought back,” she said, according to the document. “I tried pushing him off me and saying, ‘No, I don’t want to have sex with you.’” She also pulled his hair, and he hit her, the document states.In December 2001, she had one or two glasses of wine at a restaurant with Masterson and woke up naked in her bed the next morning, feeling that it hurt to sit down or go to the bathroom, the brief states. She said she went downstairs and confronted Masterson, and he acknowledged having sex with her while she was unconscious, the document states.The brief says that Masterson raped a third woman, identified only as N. Trout, who occasionally saw him at parties and gatherings and, like him, was in the Celebrity Centre branch of Scientology.Sometime between October and December of 2003, she went to his house, where he handed her a glass of wine and told her to take off her clothes and get in his hot tub, where “everything started becoming blank,” the brief states. He assaulted her in the shower and on a bed, the document states. She told him, “No, I don’t want to do this,” according to the document.Two of the women spoke to officials in the Church of Scientology about the assaults, according to the brief.Jen B., after seeking the church’s permission, verbally and in writing, to report the rape, received a written response from the church’s international chief justice that cited a 1965 policy letter regarding “suppressive acts,” the brief states.To her, the response signaled that if she were to report a fellow Scientologist to the police, “I would be declared a suppressive person, and I would be out of my family and friends and everything I have,” the brief states. Still, she reported the rape to law enforcement in June 2004, the document states.The woman identified as Christina B. said that when she reported the rape to the church’s “ethics officer” or “master at arms,” the officer told her, “You can’t rape someone that you’re in a relationship with” and “Don’t say that word again,” the document states.The officer showed her “policies and things in the Ethics Book about high crimes in Scientology.” One of them was “reporting another Scientologist to law enforcement,” she said, according to the brief.She understood that, if she went to the police, “the church would have ultimately destroyed” her and declared her a “suppressive person,” the document states.The woman identified as N. Trout told her mother and best friend about the rape, but not the church, the brief states.“If you have a legal situation with another member of the church, you may not handle it externally from the church, and it’s very explicit,” she said, according to the brief. She added that she “felt sufficiently intimidated by the repercussions.”In an in an emailed statement on Oct. 21, the church accused prosecutors of injecting Scientology into the trial and misrepresenting its doctrines and beliefs “to stir up passion and prejudice in the uninformed.”“The church does not discourage anyone from reporting any alleged crime nor tell anyone not to report any alleged criminal conduct,” it said in the statement. “The church has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of Scientologists, or of anyone, to law enforcement. Quite the opposite. Church policy explicitly demands Scientologists abide by all laws of the land.” More

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      Aaron Carter, Singer, Dies at 34

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      Mr. Carter, who released his first album at age 9 and “Aaron’s Party” at age 12, was the younger brother of Nick Carter, a member of the Backstreet Boys.Aaron Carter, the singer and actor who briefly became a teenage sensation in the early 2000s and who was known for the hit song “I Want Candy,” was found dead on Saturday at his home in Southern California. He was 34.Taylor Helgeson, a representative for Big Umbrella, an entertainment management company, confirmed Mr. Carter’s death but declined to comment on the cause.The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department responded to a call at Mr. Carter’s home in Lancaster, Calif., on Saturday and found a person dead at the residence, according to Deputy Alejandra Parra, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department. Officials said they could not yet confirm that it was Mr. Carter.Mr. Carter, who released his first album at age 9 and the popular album “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” at age 12, became a fixture of teenage programming and magazines and made appearances on shows like “Lizzie McGuire.”“Aaron’s Party” peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 list, selling some three million copies. He released five studio albums and was a contestant on the show “Dancing With the Stars.”His career later stalled, and in recent years he has been embroiled in legal trouble and has shared his struggles with addiction. In 2018, he released his first album in some 15 years, “Love,” to lukewarm reviews.Aaron Carter performing at the South Street Seaport in New York City in 2003.Stuart Ramson/Getty ImagesMr. Carter, who was described in The New York Times as a “tween heartthrob,” began performing at age 7, singing lead for the band Dead End for two years, according to an online biography.At 9, he was opening for the Backstreet Boys in Berlin for his first solo appearance. (His older brother, Nick Carter, was a member of the band.)The performance led to a record contract and then the release of his first single, “Crush on You.” He also opened for Britney Spears.Mr. Carter was also an actor, guest-starring in shows like “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” and “7th Heaven.” He also performed on Broadway, appearing in “Seussical,” the Dr. Seuss-themed musical, and “The Fantasticks,” the world’s longest-running musical.On his sophomore album, Mr. Carter also released the song “That’s How I Beat Shaq,” with a music video featuring the basketball player Shaquille O’Neal, who has said that Mr. Carter once beat him in a game of HORSE and later asked if he could make a song about it.In 2019, Mr. Carter’s brother, Nick, and sister, Angel, said they had filed for a restraining order against him. In a statement at the time, Nick Carter said his brother had confessed to having violent thoughts about his wife and that family members “were left with no choice but to take away every measure possible to protect ourselves and our family.” Aaron Carter at the time denied the allegations. The news of the restraining order came one day after he canceled his 2019 tour, according to E! News, saying he needed to put his “health first.”Mr. Carter has been open over the years about his mental health struggles. He told People magazine in 2018 that he felt he had “hit a rock bottom personally and emotionally,” and that he had sought treatment at a wellness facility.Mr. Carter, who appeared on the Nov. 2 episode of the “No Jumper” podcast, said he was focusing on selling real estate and that he had been “Cali sober” for five years, though he said that he occasionally smoked marijuana and had been prescribed anti-anxiety medication. (“Cali sober,” short for “California sober,” is loosely taken to mean avoiding addictive substances with the exception of marijuana and alcohol.)Adam Grandmaison, the host of the podcast on YouTube, said that a close friend of Mr. Carter’s told him about his death.“I just interviewed him a couple weeks ago and it was pretty clear he wasn’t in a great place,” Mr. Gandmaison wrote on Twitter. “He was a good guy despite all the demons he was battling. I’m sad to see him go.”Throughout the interview, Mr. Carter said he considered himself a rapper, a singer, a producer, an artist and an actor, and that he was especially proud of his most recent album. He also said he hoped to make a new one soon.“I cover all bases,” he said. “It means so much more to me than the stuff I did growing up because I wrote and produced it all.”Mr. Carter said he was “never going to give up” on making music and that despite the turbulence, he had enjoyed his career. He also vowed to regain custody of his son, who Page Six reported was temporarily placed in the care of Mr. Carter’s fiancée’s mother amid domestic violence and drug use concerns.“I’m about to be 35 years old,” Mr. Carter said. “I’m a grown man and it’s time to start behaving that way and doing the right thing and focusing on myself, my career, my kid and my family.” More

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      in Television

      What to Know About the Danny Masterson Rape Trial

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      The “That ’70s Show” actor has been charged with raping three women in the early 2000s. Two of the women have said the Church of Scientology discouraged them from reporting the assaults to the police.The actor Danny Masterson, known for his roles in the sitcom “That ’70s Show” and the Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” before he was fired in 2017 amid sexual assault allegations, has been on trial in Los Angeles on charges that he raped three women at his home in the Hollywood Hills in the early 2000s.Masterson, 46, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of forcible rape. Opening arguments began on Oct. 18, and the trial is expected to last four weeks. Masterson could face 45 years to life in prison if convicted.What are the allegations?According to a trial brief filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Masterson raped a woman, identified only as Jen B., in April 2003 after she went to his house to pick up keys and he gave her a red vodka drink. About 20 or 30 minutes later, she felt “very disoriented,” the brief states.According to the brief, Masterson raped her after she regained consciousness on his bed. She reached for his hair to try to pull him off and tried to push a pillow into his face, it states. When Masterson heard a man yelling in the house, he pulled a gun from his night stand and told her not to move or “say anything,” adding expletives, the document states.The trial brief says that Masterson raped a second woman, identified only as Christina B., who had been in a relationship with him and had lived with him for six years.In November 2001, the document says, she awoke to Masterson “having sex with her” and told him to stop. “I fought back,” she said, according to the document. “I tried pushing him off me and saying, ‘No, I don’t want to have sex with you.’” She also pulled his hair, and he hit her, the document states.In December 2001, she had one or two glasses of wine at a restaurant with Masterson and woke up naked in her bed the next morning, feeling that it hurt to sit down or go to the bathroom, the brief states. She said she went downstairs and confronted Masterson, and he acknowledged having sex with her while she was unconscious, the document states.The brief says that Masterson raped a third woman, identified only as N. Trout, who occasionally saw him at parties and gatherings and, like him, was in the Celebrity Centre branch of Scientology.Sometime between October and December of 2003, she went to his house, where he handed her a glass of wine and told her to take off her clothes and get in his hot tub, where “everything started becoming blank,” the brief states. He assaulted her in the shower and on a bed, the document states. She told him, “No, I don’t want to do this,” according to the document.How is the Church of Scientology involved?The trial has involved accusations by two of the women that the Church of Scientology, to which they and Masterson belonged, discouraged them from reporting the rapes to law enforcement.After seeking the church’s permission, verbally and in writing, to report the rape, Jen B. received a written response from the church’s international chief justice that cited a 1965 policy letter regarding “suppressive acts,” the brief states.To her, the response signaled that if she were to report a fellow Scientologist to the police, “I would be declared a suppressive person, and I would be out of my family and friends and everything I have,” the brief states. Still, she reported the rape to law enforcement in June 2004, the document states.The woman identified as Christina B. said that when she reported the rape to the church’s “ethics officer” or “master at arms,” the officer told her, “You can’t rape someone that you’re in a relationship with” and “Don’t say that word again,” the document states.The officer showed her “policies and things in the Ethics Book about high crimes in Scientology.” One of them was “reporting another Scientologist to law enforcement,” she said, according to the brief.She understood that, if she went to the police, “the church would have ultimately destroyed” her and declared her a “suppressive person,” the document states.The woman identified as N. Trout told her mother and best friend about the rape, but not the church, the brief states.“If you have a legal situation with another member of the church, you may not handle it externally from the church, and it’s very explicit,” she said, according to the brief. She added that she “felt sufficiently intimidated by the repercussions.”What does the church say?The church has strongly denied that it pressures victims. It has accused prosecutors of injecting Scientology into the trial and misrepresenting its doctrines and beliefs “to stir up passion and prejudice in the uninformed,” it said in an emailed statement on Oct. 21.“The church does not discourage anyone from reporting any alleged crime nor tell anyone not to report any alleged criminal conduct,” it said in the statement. “The church has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of Scientologists, or of anyone, to law enforcement. Quite the opposite. Church policy explicitly demands Scientologists abide by all laws of the land.” What does Masterson say?A lawyer representing Masterson said in a statement in 2020 that the actor was innocent and that Masterson and his wife were in “complete shock” that the “nearly 20-year-old allegations” had resulted in charges. “The people who know Mr. Masterson know his character and know the allegations to be false,” the lawyer, Tom Mesereau, said.Philip Cohen, who is representing Masterson in the trial, has sought to limit discussion of Scientology in court, telling the judge last month that it would unfairly bias the jury and force the defense to fight a “war on two fronts,” The Los Angeles Times reported.But the judge, Charlaine F. Olmedo of California Superior Court in Los Angeles County, found that Scientology was relevant to the case, and that the women could testify about their belief that church policy discouraged them from reporting the accusations to law enforcement, The Times reported. 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      in Music

      Art Laboe, D.J. Who Popularized ‘Oldies but Goodies,’ Dies at 97

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      A familiar voice on the California airwaves for almost 80 years, he saw the appeal of old rock ’n’ roll records practically before they were old.Art Laboe, the disc jockey who as a mainstay of the West Coast airwaves for decades bridged racial divides through his music selections and live shows, reached listeners in a new way by allowing on-air dedications and helped make the phrase “oldies but goodies” ubiquitous, died on Friday at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 97.An announcement on his Facebook page said the cause was pneumonia.Mr. Laboe worked in radio for almost 80 years. In 1973, The San Francisco Examiner was already calling him the “dean of Los Angeles rock ’n’ roll broadcasting,” and he would be on the air for almost a half-century more after that.He started in the business as a teenager during World War II, working at a San Francisco station, KSAN, before gravitating to KPMO in Pomona and KCMJ in Palm Springs. The idea of a disc jockey with a distinctive personality had not yet become the norm in radio — at KCMJ, a CBS affiliate, he was mostly an announcer doing station identifications and such between radio soap operas — but for an hour late at night he was allowed to play music.He featured big bands, crooners and other sounds of the day. But as tastes changed, his selections changed, and sometimes he was at the front edge of the evolution. In 1954, by then working in Los Angeles, Mr. Laboe “was largely responsible for making the Chords’ ‘Sh-Boom’ (sometimes cited as the first rock ’n’ roll record) an L.A. No. 1,” Barney Hoskyns wrote in “Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles” (1996).He also saw the appeal of “oldies” practically before they were old. Around 1949 he had started working at KRKD in Los Angeles, selling advertising by day and playing music in the wee hours. He thought an all-night restaurant, Scrivener’s Drive-In, might be interested in advertising on his all-night show, so he paid a visit and sold the owner, Paul Scrivener, some spots. A few months later, Mr. Scrivener made a suggestion.“‘You know, that show’s pretty good,’” Mr. Laboe, in a 2016 interview with The Desert Sun of Palm Springs, recalled Mr. Scrivener saying. “‘Why couldn’t you do that show from my drive-in?’ So I did.’”Mr. Laboe issued the first volume of his “Oldies but Goodies” series of compilation albums in 1959. It stayed on the Billboard chart for more than three years, and many more volumes followed.JP Roth CollectionHe would broadcast from the restaurant (he moved to KLXA and then KPOP in this period), stopping by cars and asking the occupants to pick a song from a list.“At the bottom of the list,” The San Francisco Examiner wrote in 1973, “were a half a dozen ‘oldies’ titles — songs at that time no more than three years old — and when this portion of the list began to show the heaviest action, Laboe wondered if there might be something to this.”He had already formed his own record label, Original Sound, and in 1959 it issued “Oldies but Goodies, Vol. 1,” a compilation album — a relatively new concept — that included “In the Still of the Night” by the Five Satins, “Earth Angel” by the Penguins and 10 other songs that, although they’d been on the singles charts only a few years earlier, had already begun to acquire a nostalgic feel. The album stayed on the Billboard chart for more than three years, and many more volumes followed.Early in his career Mr. Laboe began taking requests on the air, allowing listeners to dedicate a song to a friend, love interest or other special person. It became one of his signatures; few if any other disc jockeys were doing that in his early days. Some callers would dedicate a song to a loved one who was incarcerated. And early on, Mr. Laboe welcomed Black and Mexican callers, a barrier-breaking thing to do at the time.In the 1950s, Mr. Laboe also began producing and serving as M.C. at live music shows at the American Legion Stadium in El Monte, a blue-collar city east of Los Angeles, that were known for the racially diverse crowd they attracted. The Penguins, Ritchie Valens and countless other acts performed at the El Monte shows.Mr. Laboe with Jerry Lee Lewis at the American Legion Stadium in El Monte, Calif., in 1957. The shows Mr. Laboe produced there were known for the racially diverse crowd they attracted. Art Laboe Collection“Friday and Saturday night rhythm-and-blues dances at the El Monte Legion Stadium drew up to 2,000 Black, white, Asian American and Mexican American teenagers from all over Los Angeles city and county, becoming an alternative cultural institution from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s,” the scholar Anthony Macias wrote in American Quarterly in 2004.Mr. Laboe was still producing live shows into his 90s.“If you come to one of our concerts,” he told KQED in 2019, “you’ll see a mixture, a complete mixture, of what we have in California.”He was also still on the radio, on the syndicated “Art Laboe Connection,” after having logged time at assorted stations. In 2002, Greg Ashlock, the general manager of KHHT-FM in Los Angeles, where Mr. Laboe had a long run, summed up Mr. Laboe’s appeal in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.“There’s nobody that connects with the community like him,” he said. “The audience knows him and loves him like a family member. It’s almost like tuning in to Uncle Art.”Wherever he was spinning, Mr. Laboe made it a point of mixing genres and generations.“Sometimes the 20-year-old who wants to hear Alicia Keys will tolerate the Spinners,” he told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif., in 2008. “It’s not off the course enough to make them want to change stations.”Russell Contreras/Associated PressArthur Egonian was born on Aug. 7, 1925, in Salt Lake City to a family of Armenian immigrants. His obsession with radio began at a young age: His sister gave him his first radio for his eighth birthday. In a 2020 interview with The Press-Enterprise, he recalled being amazed by the “box that talks.” That experience sparked his interest in the nascent radio scene.He attended George Washington High School in Los Angeles and studied engineering for a time at Stanford University.He was hired at KSAN while still a teenager; his voice, he said, had not yet acquired the timbre that became his calling card.“The very first words I uttered on radio myself, I said, ‘This is K-S-A-N San Francisco,’ and it was in 1943,” he said.The station manager suggested he Americanize his name, and he is said to have taken “Laboe” from the name of a secretary there. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he moved to Southern California, which became his home base.Information about his survivors was not immediately available.In 2015, the nonprofit online radio station DubLab turned the tables on Mr. Laboe, the man who was a conduit for so many on-air dedications, giving his fans an opportunity to call in and dedicate a song to him.“I don’t know what we would have done without you,” one caller said. “I spent a lot of time in a car without anything but a radio, and you made it good, and you exposed me to a lot of beautiful music.” More