I’m still trying to take in the fact that Flava Flav still pulls women — multiple, ethnically diverse, somewhat youthful women — so news that the Public Enemy rapper is going to star on the next season of “Couple’s Therapy” is somewhat secondary to that first surprising point. But nvertheless, the 54-year-old and his fiancee Liz Trujillo are slated to appear on the next season of the VH1 relationship counseling show and according to reports from TMZ, they got on this show not a moment too soon.

Yesterday evening, the gossip site known for breaking news first, reported that Liz was rushed to the hospital after overdosing on pain killers. According to one of their sources:

“The OD was accidental and not a suicide attempt. We’re told she was ‘acting strange’ and it became apparent ‘she took too many pills.’

“The 39-year-old woman was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where she remains although we’re told she’ll be released soon.”

Now we’re not saying TMZ is losing their spark, but after making this report, the site came back with an update, saying:

“A rep for Flavor tells TMZ, Liz was NOT treated for an OD. The rep says Liz was briefly treated for exhaustion at the hospital after being kept awake all night doing “Couples Therapy” stuff … and producers are hyping it up for ratings.

“The rep adds, “The claim of an overdose, or any involvement of drugs, could not be further from the truth.”

Though it is possible TMZ rushed the gun, far too many celebs have used that “exhaustion” excuse when everyone knew good and well they were checking into something like a Betty Ford clinic. Unfortunately, So Hip-Hop had more disturbing news, recounting a violent situation that occurred between Flav, his alleged mistress, and Liz in October:

Flavor Flav’s fiance, Elizabeth Trujillo, tells RumorFix exclusively that the brutal attack she endured on October 17 stemmed from a fight over her fiancé cheating on her with another woman…

“Trujillo, who lives with the entertainer at his home in Las Vegas with their son Karma and her son Gibran, tells RumorFix exclusively that Flav beat her up so badly she can’t walk. She also alleges that the rapper tried to kill her 16-year-old son with a 20 inch butcher knife after Liz accused her fiancé of cheating. ‘He’s been cheating on me for months. I saw a text on his phone from a woman saying she ‘had a great time’ with him, and he was going to meet her in Vegas. [When I saw the text] I threw his phone and the screen cracked.’”

Flav was arrested and booked on two charges — felony assault with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor domestic violence — but as you can see the two apparently decided to “work things out.” Let’s just hope whatever the situation, “Couple’s Therapy” is doing more good than harm for Flavor Flav and his lady.

Source: WENN

Yesterday the late Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law, Pat Houston sent family members into panic-mode after she posted a message to her Facebook that seemed a bit suicidal, which eventually led to the authorities being called to her Georgia home, reports TMZ.

“Sometimes you just feel like giving up on life and its many challenges. And for the first time in my life…I’m tired…and I want to finally rest. I love you guys,” is the message Pat posted to her Facebook page that initially got the attention of her family members.

A source says the family grew fearful that Pat was contemplating taking her life and  immediately began calling her and sending text messages to her cell phone. When Pat didn’t respond, several family members rushed to her home where they found her passed out in her bed with a bottle of pills not too far away. Frightened by the scene, her family called 911.

The source says that Pat woke up as soon as cops arrived on the scene and expressed that she had just taken pain medicine for her back and turned her phone off so that she could get some rest. The insider says Pat suggests that this was all a misunderstanding and that her Facebook post was not a suicide note, just a result of stress and an effort to let off some steam. Authorities say as a precaution, Pat was taken to the hospital and was released not long after.

We’re sure that this was a frightening experience, as the Houston family suffered the loss of Whitney a little over a year ago. We’re glad Pat is okay. Something about this story seems a tad suspect though.

Thoughts?

Source: Twitter

The Hip Hop world was shaken when news broke that 22-year-old rapper Frederick Eugene Buhl aka Freddy E died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Saturday. While facts concerning what led to the rapper’s decision to take his life are unknown, many Twitter users suggest that his fragile emotional state was partially linked to issues surrounding his ex-girlfriend, fellow rapper, Honey C*caine. Just before taking his life, Freddy released several chilling tweets that forewarned his suicide.

“Smoked my first pack of cigarettes today… been a long time since I’ve gone through heart break. It’s a cold unforgiving world if I do say.”

“It’s all bad y’all…”

“If there’s a God then He’s calling me back home. This barrel never felt so good next to my dome. It’s cold & I’d rather die than live alone.”

“It’s… all… bad… y’all. *puts finger around trigger*”

“I love you Mom.”

“I love you Dad.”

“I love you Katherine.”

“God… please forgive me.”

The tweets are said to have come shortly after his ex-girlfriend shared via her Twitter page that she was single; however she has since come forth using her Twitter account to deny having anything to do with his death.

“To say I caused what happened is ignorance.. You know nothing about our friendship or the story, hate me if you feel.. We loved eachother..”

“Say it’s my fault, threaten me, whatever.. I knew him well enough to know he had other things happening.. I was there for him all the time.”

Both Honey and Freddy are affiliated with YMCMB rapper Tyga. While speculations can never truly confirm whether or not Freddy E’s failed relationship was the direct cause of his suicide, I believe we all can agree that it is unfortunate that whatever this young man was going through, he felt it to be overwhelming enough to take his own life.

Freddy was extremely popular for his spoken-word pieces and comedic skits, which he frequently shared on his YouTube channel, JERKTV. He is remembered by his family as being “a talented, sensitive, and brilliant young man”.

Our prayers and condolences go out to the Buhl family.

Jazmine Denise is a news writer for Madame Noire. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise

From ESSENCE

In light of the murder-suicide by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher of his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, and himself, the National Football League is stepping in to provide financial assistance to the couple’s now-orphaned child. The league has agreed to pay for funeral arrangements and provide their three-month-old daughter, Zoey, with at least $1 million throughout her life span.

According to TMZ, the NFL agreed to pay for funeral arrangements to relieve the families from massive funeral and memorial service bills.

Baby Zoey, who is now in the custody of the Belcher family, will be taken care of through the league’s Surviving Child Benefit and health care plan. According to USA Today, she will receive $9,000 a month for the next four years and at least $4,000 a month until she turns 18, or 23 if she decides to go to college.

You can get the story in its entirety over at ESSENCE.

Source: Daily Mail

It’s a given that not everyone was happy President Obama was re-elected Tuesday night but one Virginia man took his paranoia about four more years under the Commander-in-Chief’s leadership to the extreme when he murdered his wife and kids, and then took his own life Tuesday afternoon.

According to a preliminary investigation from police, all of the victims died of gunshot wounds to the upper body. Albert Peterson, 57, a wealthy defense contractor reportedly shot his wife Kathleen, 52, who worked for Blackbird Technologies, a company that specializes in defense, law enforcement and intelligence work, and their sons Matthew, 16, and Christopher, 13, then shot himself as well.

As tragic as that news is itself, it’s even more peculiar that the motive for the killings appears to be the impending doom Peterson thought awaited his family and the entire country if Obama was re-elected. Despite Peterson’s success, a family friend who only wanted to be identified as “Maggie,” told the Daily Mail Online that the business man continued to be haunted by demons from his past.

“He’s had difficulty his whole life,” Maggie said. “He had a rough time with paranoia.”

At a young age, Maggie said, both his father and his uncle committed suicide.

“His dad suffered from alopecia and it was something he couldn’t live with,” Maggie said.

After Mr Peterson’s Uncle John killed himself, Maggie said that both Petersons were unnerved as they had frequently sent their children to his home to spend time with him.

“When Uncle John died, [Mr Peterson] kicked himself and said ‘God, what would have happened if our sons were there when it happened?’” Maggie recalled.

Thinking back on the eerie precursor, Maggie is still dumbfounded.

“It just never crossed our minds,” she said.

Mr Peterson’s life was punctuated by bouts of paranoia that became so severe, he wallowed in his depression, gained weight, and contemplated taking his own life.

In one dark episode, after his mother died five years ago, his wife had to pull him from the brink of suicide.

“Kathie was a strong person and she probably put her foot down, like she did five years ago,” Maggie said. ‘Kathie couldn’t believe the way he was acting and how he thought.’

“She wanted to be out doing something – biking, hiking, tubing and I know that frustrated Al. She just wanted to be living life and he took that from her,” she said.

Maggie said that this spring, Mr Peterson lost his Uncle Bill to an infection, whom he looked up to as the family patriarch. “He felt like there was no one left in his family,” Maggie said.

As if that weren’t enough, Peterson recently began sending paranoid emails to family and friends on a daily basis about Tuesday’s election.

“I got emails and the emails stopped all of a sudden last week,” Maggie said. “He felt that our God-given rights were being taken away. He didn’t like where the country was going.”

Mr Peterson, also mentioned pressures at work that troubled Maggie.

Explaining his increasingly erratic behavior, she said: ‘He said he wanted to expose something at work. He also got the impression at work, that if they didn’t vote for Obama and get him elected, they would lose their jobs,”

“We don’t know. Maybe she put her foot down Sunday night and told him “Al get it together,”‘ Maggie said, noting that both Kathleen and Albert had security clearances.

“When Al was here last time, he was pretty worked up,” Maggie said. “They were very well off people and they saved a lot of money. He couldn’t understand how the government could be so irresponsible and he thought it would be on the backs of his boys.”

Police noted that Peterson did seem to be unusually passionate about politics, but they are hesitant to say Obama’s re-election prompted these murders.

“We don’t know the motive in this tragic case,” Lucy Caldwell of the Fairfax Police Department said.

“We are aware that the father had strong political opinions but cannot speculate as to how those opinions related to this case. We will, most likely, never know exactly why this occurred.”

It’s so unfortunate when the threat of going from having it all to losing it all causes this type of reaction.

Source: About.com

Celebs may have come out to lay Chris Lighty to rest this past week, but the Violator executive’s brother is hardly resting over his sudden death. Though Chris’s passing has already officially been labeled a suicide, Dave Lighty, the hip-hop manager’s brother isn’t convinced and is leaning more toward the belief that Chris was actually murdered.

According to the Associated Press:

“The family of late hip-hop mogul Chris Lighty has asked for a second autopsy after a medical examiner ruled his death in New York last week a suicide.

“Forensic pathologist Michael Baden said Wednesday that he performed the second autopsy at the family’s request. He says he’s awaiting test results.”

Dave’s refusal to believe his brother didn’t commit suicide could just be apart of the mourning process, but his actions coupled with Chris’s widow Veronica’s comment that there was no way her husband would leave his children because they couldn’t get along, suggests the people closest to him may have reason to believe murder is a more plausible cause of death than suicide.

“This isn’t my brother. My brother was a strong person, is a strong person,” Dave said. “Nothing is adding up. I can’t get a direct answer from anybody…I understand there’s a process to be followed. I can’t even get clear answers from people I think I should be getting clear answers from.”

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Source: NY Daily News

When Violator executive Chris Lighty committed suicide last Thursday, reporters took to the hip-hop manager’s pending divorce with his wife, Veronica, and the couple’s debt with the IRS to explain what drove him to the decision. Yesterday, in an interview with the NY Daily News outside of the couple’s Riverdale townhouse, Chris’s widow said neither explanation is accurate.

“My husband was too smart of a man. He was a genius. No smart man is going to leave his children for fighting with his wife,” she said. “That makes absolutely no sense.

“We had a passionate relationship. We fought all the time.”

At some point the fighting had become too much though, as Veronica sought to leave the father of six in 2011. Somewhere along the way she changed her mind.

“I had filed for divorce last year, but retracted it” two days before Father’s Day, she said. “That was my gift to him.”

As far as the reported financial difficulties go, Veronica said “We were not in debt $5 million.” That may be because the couple sold their $5.6 million Chelsea apartment to relocate to the Bronx. But they still weren’t totally out of the woods. According to the Associated Press:

City National Bank sued Lighty, whose given name is Darrell, in April, saying he had overdrawn his account by $53,584 and then refused to pay the balance. The case was still pending.

He also owed more than $330,000 in state and federal taxes, according to legal filings.

When the Daily News asked Veronica about those financial issues, she only said,  “Chris had a lot of weight on his shoulders.”

That weight has no doubt fell on her plate now. Hopefully the grieving widow will be able to handle things better than her husband.

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Source: Zimbio.com

The hip-hop manager behind mega-celebrities like 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, Ja Rule, and Diddy was found dead in his Bronx apartment around 11:30 am, NY Daily News reports.  Authorities believe 43-year-old Chris Lighty died from a bullet to the head in what appears to be a suicide, as a gun was found next to his body.

The native New Yorker has a long history in the entertainment business as founder of Violator Entertainment, helping to build the careers of rappers like Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip, and N.O.R.E. As of last year, the rap business man seemed to have fallen on hard times when he split with his wife of seven years, Veronica, in November. The pending divorce was reportedly taking a huge financial toll on him, not to mention an emotional one, and NY Daily News says he also owed about $5 million to the IRS.

Even Lighty’s most recent messages on Twitter hint that he may not have been in a good place. As far back as July, he began detailing some of his troubles trying to rebuild his empire, and two weeks ago he tweeted, “Slavery is still alive and well in the music business.” Ironically one of his last personal tweets was a RIP message to someone else, while after that he retweeted the introspective message below.

All Hip Hop also indicates that Lighty’s suicide may have been planned as he had an auto-reply email message set up on his account which indicated that he would be hospitalized for an undisclosed ailment as of last night.

As details on this sad story come in, we definitely want to send our condolences to Chris Lighty’s family and all those who knew him.

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Source: Shutterstock.com

Despite making headlines for being “most likely to be [every terrible thing known to man]“, it turns out Black women are the least likely to commit suicide. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the suicide rate among white men was 25.96 per 100,000 from 2005 to 2009 and, by comparison, the rate for black women was less than three suicides per 100,000.

As we reported before, according to the Government Executive, Veterans Affairs officials are studying the uniquely supportive culture of black women believing that might provide a key to addressing the spike in suicides occurring in the armed forces. They are hoping to re-create elements of black female culture that may help stop military veterans from killing themselves.

Of course, this isn’t to say that Black women don’t struggle with mental health issues, but according to Good Therapy, a sense of belonging might be the reason Black women do not often commit suicide:

The stigma that is associated with mental health problems may be disguising the real number of African Americans at risk for suicide. Research on suicide has been focused in many directions to assess the contributing factors. One area of research that has not been examined fully is the relationship between suicide and reasons for living among African-American women.

To address this gap, Jalika C. Street of the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University led a study that looked at how racial regard, which describes people’s sense of belonging to their race, influenced suicidal behavior in a sample of 82 African-American women with a history of at least one suicide attempt. She also assessed how racial regard and reasons for living worked together to affect future suicide attempts. Street used the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity and the Reasons for Living Inventory scales in her study.

Street discovered that the women who reported deep racial regard and felt positively associated with their African-American identity reported being more committed to living and felt a stronger sense of purpose than those with little racial regard. Racial identity alone, in the absence of racial regard, did not increase a woman’s willingness to live. These findings shed some light on how private racial association and sense of commitment affect psychological well-being in African-American women. It has been suggested that private racial regard is linked to mental health issues, such as self-esteem and depression, in other culturally diverse samples, but this study is the first to elucidate a link between racial regard, desire for living, and suicidal ideation and behavior in this sample; the practical implications of these findings could be significant if applied in a clinical setting. “In other words, private racial regard may be considered a coping resource that is important to capitalize upon in designing and implementing culturally informed interventions,” said Street.

We know that our friendships are important, but it seems having good thoughts toward our race and others of the same race can be a factor in decreasing the likelihood of committing suicide. However, these researchers did point out that suicide still poses a major problem for the culture at large. Some experts believe that the low rates of suicide do not accurately reflect suicidal ideation (or thoughts of suicide) among African-Americans because many members of African-American communities perceive disclosure as a sign of weakness.

While we can definitely be glad that Black women aren’t killing themselves in high numbers, if even one feels she needs to end her life, that is one too many.

Are you surprised by their reasoning for black women being the least likely to commit suicide?

 Follow Alissa on Twitter @AlissaInPink

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

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Source: str8talkr.com

From BlackVoices

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A man whose hands were cuffed behind him in the back seat of an Arkansas patrol car shot himself in the right temple with a handgun he apparently concealed from arresting officers, according to an autopsy report released Monday that listed the death as a suicide.

The state crime lab report, signed by three medical examiners, said the muzzle of a gun was placed against Chavis Carter’s head when it was fired. Jonesboro police released the report to The Associated Press and other news organizations under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The report said the manner of death was ruled a suicide based on autopsy findings and investigative conclusions from the Jonesboro police department, which has faced questions from Carter’s family and community members about the circumstances surrounding the July 28 shooting.

“He was cuffed and placed into a police car, where apparently he produced a weapon, and despite being handcuffed, shot himself in the head,” the report said. Chief Medical Examiner Charles P. Kokes did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Police have said officers frisked Carter, 21, twice after a traffic stop without finding a gun before he was fatally shot, but the department’s internal investigation continues. The FBI also is monitoring the case and the local branch of the NAACP has called for a thorough investigation into the death of Carter, who was black. Two other men who were in a truck with him during the stop and the two officers on the scene are white, according to police.

Read more on the case and the official autopsy report on BlackVoices.com.

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