Latest news with #MelSmith
Boston Globe
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
If you want a seat at the trial of Sean ‘Diddy' Combs, leave yesterday
News reporters assigned to cover the trial are joined in equal numbers by vloggers who have made the case their subject of the moment and members of the public who are simply interested in hearing the courtroom testimony. Advertisement During the first two days of the trial, when the crowds were bigger, one YouTuber, Mel Smith, said he would leave his house in Beacon, New York, around 3:30 p.m. to get a seat for the next morning's testimony. When he arrived around 5 p.m., he said, there were already a half-dozen people waiting in front of him. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Everybody knows P. Diddy -- he's a household brand -- and everybody's clicking all day to see what's the latest updates,' he said. Many major trials are now broadcast online, but rules for the federal court on Pearl Street forbid it, making it all the more valuable for content creators to score a seat. Most attendees must also surrender their phones and other electronic devices when they enter the courthouse. This has forced YouTubers and TikTokers -- known for being chronically online -- to rely on paper and pen. Advertisement 'Live, from the federal building,' podcaster Sean Gunby said while livestreaming outside the courthouse Thursday after Kid Cudi's testimony had ended. He was holding the green notebook where he had taken notes. 'You understand, everything that you gonna hear me say on this video is what I just heard in court,' he said. For many, the scarce number of courtroom seats, about three dozen for media and the public, has made the line both a necessity and an ordeal. Some of the other seats are reserved for Combs' family -- who have included his six adult children and his sister -- and others are for associates of the lawyers on both sides. Some news organizations, including The New York Times, have hired professional line holders to start the wait; reporters relieve them in the early morning. Court officers typically assume control of the line in the morning when it moves from the sidewalk to the courthouse property, but they are not involved in settling disputes before that. Like at other high-profile cases, there have been some moments of jostling, shoving and yelling. But the scene is not nearly as chaotic as those that have arisen outside courtrooms when throngs of supporters and detractors show up. Johnny Depp drew a large crowd of fans to his defamation dispute with Amber Heard in Fairfax, Virginia. The criminal case against Karen Read, who is accused of killing her boyfriend, has drawn so many people to a courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts, that the judge imposed a buffer zone around the building. Advertisement In the case against Combs, there is not a huge presence of fans or protesters. A group of people wearing shirts that said 'Free Puff' appeared briefly one day early in the trial, but they soon disappeared. Some of the draw to see the Combs case in person is the content, which includes narratives of domestic violence and drug abuse, hotel sex marathons and considerable wealth. And some is the defendant: a man who cultivated a larger-than-life personality, generally avoided major consequences in other brushes with the law and is now staring at the potential of life in prison if convicted on the most serious charges. 'There were so many fantasies that he wove together to help his image,' said Tisa Tells, a popular YouTuber who has followed the case since the beginning and attends the trial daily. The instigating force for investigators who brought the case against Combs was a 2023 lawsuit by Casandra Ventura, Combs' longtime girlfriend, a singer known as Cassie. She accused him of rampant physical abuse and of coercing her into drug-fueled sexual encounters with male prostitutes known as 'freak-offs.' Combs settled the suit for $20 million, but Ventura's accusations quickly became the roots of a criminal case. She testified over four days this month, telling the jury that she continued to participate in the freak-offs despite her discomfort because of Combs' pattern of violent outbursts and threats of blackmailing her with sexually explicit footage. Lawyers for Combs, who is known by the nicknames Diddy and Puff, have denied the existence of any racketeering conspiracy and have asserted that the sexual encounters at the center of the charges were fully consensual. In the case of Ventura, the defense has pointed to messages that they argue show she was a willing participant in freak-offs. Advertisement 'If it's a point for Puff,' said Gunby, the podcaster, 'I'mma say it's a point for Puff. If it's a point taken away from Puff, I'mma take a point away.' Tells, who also livestreams from outside the courthouse, said she had seen a boom in her follower count. She has become a familiar face to many following the case. As Ventura's mother, Regina Ventura, walked out of the courtroom after testifying, she passed Tells in the spectators' gallery and said in a friendly tone, 'I know you.' Each day as the trial adjourns, the perimeter of the courthouse is dotted with vloggers sharing their takes of the day, recording on phones set up on tripods and television news crews operating under tents. In Tells' view, interest in the case goes beyond the lurid details of drugs, violence, sex and celebrity. 'I think there is kind of a cultural war,' she said, 'between the old way of thinking between women, bodies and also what is acceptable in a domestic relationship.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Griff Rhys Jones declares Not The Nine O'Clock News deserves more respect
Griff Rhys Jones believes his iconic comedy series 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' has been erased from history by the BBC. The satirical sketch show was broadcast on BBC Two from 1979 to 1982 and starred Griff, Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson and Griff's late comedy partner Mel Smith, who died from a heart attack in July 2013 at the age of 60. At its peak it was attracting up to 18 million viewers an episode, but it is never repeated by the BBC and Griff says it's because the corporation doesn't want to pay him and the writers. Appearing on the 'Who's Tom and Dick' podcast, he said: 'The funny thing is it's not repeated. I don't think it's so topical that's it not. 'I think the reason is that it's written by a lot of people. The BBC finds it easy to repeat things like 'The Young Ones' now and the history of comedy is slightly being re-written as a result of that. 'People say, 'Oh Griff, you're amazing, you were in 'The Young Ones' playing Bambi, you know Bamber Gascoigne.' I go, 'Yeah, I think that's was an afternoon of my life, I don't remember much about it.' 'The thing is we were in a show that was 10 times the size of 'The Young Ones' at the time, absolutely massive, but it was written by so many people that the BBC have now sort of wiped it. They don't want to get involved in paying the rights of all those people. 'In fact, they went through the Millennium or some sort of thing of BBC Two and they didn't even mention it, it's just crazy because it was huge. It was like 18 million people watching at one point and that was with a difficult, edgy show. You're not talking about just a family favourite, you're talking about the one that kids said, 'Mummy, daddy, I want to stay up and watch it.' 'No, you can't, it's not for you.' 'It was a huge thing and lasted in people's memory for a long time but it was so long ago.' And Griff doesn't believe that 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' is snubbed from the repeat schedule because it is politically incorrect. The comedian - who went on to create 'Alas Smith and Jones' with Mel after 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' - said: 'Going back we laughed at gays, not offensively, but it was a sort a thing. We dressed up as women, but everyone did. They're all coming on dressed as women, Dick Emery, Les Dawson, every single sketch they were dressed as a woman. 'When we didn't have enough women I was dressed up as a woman, so I was the other singer in ABBA, but we had Pamela so it wasn't very often. But it was a bit more trans, I was expected to be a convincing woman, not a Les Dawson woman, or a Monty Python woman or even a Dick Emery woman.'
