Source: WENN

Unnecessary is the only word that actually comes to mind when I think about the references made to R&B songtress, Lauryn Hill in Wyclef Jean’s latest memoir, Purpose: An Immigrants Story, which hit bookshelves back in September. The book appears to cover various aspects of Jean’s life; however, the most talked about and seemingly most relevant story told is the one where he makes reference to his love affair with the former group member. Although this toxic romance was one that most Hip-Hop heads were already aware of, he took it a step further when he proceeded to drag old skeletons out of the closet surrounding their relationship, going as far as to say that he was deceived into believing that Lauryn’s first born child, Zion, was his. Now, whether his accusations were true or not, those are some pretty damaging words, especially considering the fact that the affair was now water under the bridge and he was now discussing a child who is old enough to understand what’s going on. But, whatever, this isn’t a Wyclef bashing session.

Many waited with anticipation for Hill to shoot out a rebuttal through her publicist either confirming, denying or even expressing her feelings on her former group member’s accusation, but for nearly two months she remained silent. And finally, when the hype around the memoir had died down and she felt like she was ready to speak on it, she broke her silence during a concert in Dallas. I respect the fact that she didn’t allow anyone to force her into responding and that she didn’t react in an emotional fit of rage. She was calm, cool and collected:

“A lot of misunderstanding out there. A lot of miscommunication out there. A lot of false information out there. And notice, out of all the people who talk talk talk, who’s the silent one.”

“There’s a lot of chatter, but me…. And you know why? Let me tell you why I don’t chat back. Because I know that my brothers and my sisters are often times pawns in a bigger scheme so when they, under pressure, attack me. It’s called the high road. Try taking it sometimes.”

Her level-headed and sensible response did something for me deep down inside. It was much deeper than me being a big Lauryn Hill fan and feeling content because she got the last word. In that moment I realized that it didn’t really matter if she ever responded to the claims because she was at peace with herself and the situation and furthermore, she doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. She represented a woman who knew how to let go of the past and refused to slop around in the mud with someone who no longer held a position of importance in her life. It was eye-opening. It was liberating. It made me take inventory of how I handle the Wyclefs in my own life. Most of all, it got me to thinking and wondering how much happier and freer so many of us would be if we embarked on this high road as well.

I’m sure we all have at least one person in our lives running their traps about us. But, whether their statements are valid or not, we are not obligated to go tit for tat, especially when it comes to exes. Men sometimes have the ability to be extremely insensitive once a relationship is over and the things that come out of their mouths can be hurtful, but getting into petty disputes over it and always feeling the need to make sure people know “how it really went down” is only a backwards way of being dragged back into the relationship. In doing this, you ultimately limit yourself from moving past the situation and hinder your heart from fully healing. It is easy to feel as if you’ve lost when you’re not spitting hot venom back at those who are slamming you, but sometimes silence says so much more.

Jazmine Denise is a writer living in New York. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise

Source: AP Images

Siohvaughn Funches-Wade is speaking out again on Dywane Wade and the breakdown of their marriage and subsequent custody agreement in an interview with the Daily Mail Online and it’s not good. The ex-wife of the Miami Heat player and mother of the baller’s two sons is clearly still in a place of literal mourning over the couple’s split and the loss of custody of her boys and she didn’t mind expressing all of those feelings in a rather personal interview.

“The way it broke down was heartbreaking,’ Siohvaughn said of the couple’s split. “It was a mourning to me rather than a divorce. This person I had loved was literally dead. I felt the way a wife feels when her husband dies. That person was literally gone.

“I wish he would’ve stayed,” she said. “If I had to choose between the money and the love, I would have chosen the love. But I can’t choose.”

Despite wishing she and Dwyane were still together, Shiovaughn recalled some pretty horrid moments between the pair, all of which she claims stemmed from him being drafted in 2002. The Mail reports:

“‘I’d practically begged him [to wait to enter the draft],’ she said. ‘We had just got married and had a child. I wanted time to settle, to build as a family. I asked him to choose between his family or him and he chose his family.’

The following year, he chose his career. While Siohvaughn said she willed him to do well, she was ‘terrified’ about how it would affect their marriage, despite her husband’s assurances.

Her fears were justified: After the draft in 2003, he signed a three-year $8.5 million contract and he was thrown into the world of celebrity – and his marriage began to crack.

‘When [NBA commissioner] David Stern called his name, that changed everything,’ she said. ‘Our circumstances were so drastically different. We went from living in in this two-bedroom apartment in Marquette to these places overlooking the ocean in Miami. Everybody said yes to us.

‘I was seduced, too. I lost sight of some of my values. The further I got into that lifestyle, the further I got away from God. I just woke up sooner than he did.’

Siohvaughn said she saw her husband slipping from her as he revelled in his fame and fortune – staying out all night, surrounding himself with new friends and arguing with her, she said.

‘I was very sad because this was not the person I dated,’ she said. ‘This was my very best friend and I couldn’t reach him anymore – without question it was because of the money.

‘I think Dwyane had been rejected a lot when he was younger and then suddenly people started cheering and clapping and wanting to be around him. I think he overindulged in that. It was disgusting to me.’

Wade acknowledges that the relationship was falling apart and that he was desperate for it to work and, aware that the birth of their first son had brought them together, thought he had a solution.

He did ask me to have another child,’ she said. ‘I was very hesitant to do so, not because I didn’t want another child but because there was so much that Dwyane had swept under the rug.

‘There were so many things that were so serious, like other women. It’s my belief that that was happening. But it was part of the lifestyle – going out late, travelling, being with different people.’

On top of the pressures to live the celebrity lifestyle, was the violence Siovaughn claims she experienced when Dwyane was actually home. The domestic incidents prompted her to move in with her mother and file for divorce from Dwyane in 2007 and that’s when the custody battle, which she eventually lost, ensued. When Dwyane was granted sole custody of their boys, Siovaughn was ordered not to have any contact with her sons for 30 days following the ruling to allow them to adjust to their new surroundings. She says that time period was unbearable.

“When my lawyer called, I knew it was bad news but I begged him to tell me. I remember taking a moment to pause. I could break down at that moment or I could say, ‘God help me’. There’s no money that can buy that kind of strength.

“In the hours and weeks after, I cried and cried and I remember being scared when I’d see them again. Would they look different? Would their clothes still fit them? Would they still love me? I worried that they would think I wanted them to go away. There’s nothing anyone could have done for me to say, ‘Get me away from them.’”

“How devastating and traumatic for these two small boys,” she said, sobbing. “Zion was a baby. To tell your baby that I’m going to see them in two days and that turns into two months. I can’t describe what it felt like to speak to them after 30 days. They were crying so hard they couldn’t even talk.”

Fifteen years after hooking up with her high school sweetheart at the young age of 15, Siohvaugn is almost reliving her custody battle all over again, having been arrested for child abduction back in July. Because of her actions, the courts have granted her no visitations between August and November 8 — a judgement she worries will be very hurtful on her boys.

“Not seeing their mother could have a very negative effect,’ Siohvaughn said. “We know what happened to Dwyane without his mom in his life and how he turned to my family.”

For now though, the single mother is focused on completing her law degree and struggling to survive on minimal spousal support from Dwyane which she claims “isn’t enough to pay my bills.” That point aside, I do feel for Siohvaughn and the losses she hasn’t yet been able to put behind her. What do you think about her latest interview?

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By Nikki Coco

Writing this piece locks me into a time machine and positions me dead in the center amid beat boxers, feisty Ritas, extension braids, the after-school crew and rebels…some with a cause – others for no good reason at all. You were me and I was you. I used to love it when my friends referred to me as Lauryn Hill; I still do.

In your typecast role as Rita in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit, that was the first time I had ever seen a chick screw up her face as hard as I had as an equally rough around the edges, obstinate and head strong hormonal teenager. Admittedly, I do not believe for one second that your role in the film was a far stretch from the real Lauryn – just sayin’. We both grew up with a strict-as-hell mother, who worked hard to pay the bills. For years to come the film would remain highly favored in my Siskel and Ebert-esque ranks. I remember so well when you came and graced Toronto’s Much Music stage by performing hits off of your debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. You signed the back of a photo that I keep safely stashed away in an album in a Rubbermaid container in my room. It was summertime; Toronto was really feeling you, or so it seemed.

Years passed following your debut album and subsequent sophomore MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 release. By then, some had noticed that L. Boogie was on a different “tip” [as we Torontonians say] than you had been since your appearance onto the music scene both as part of the dynamic trio The Fugees, and later as a soloist. Many had noticed that L. Boogie was on a no-holds-bar path; yet and still, I held your lyrical content and overall skill and ability with high esteem. Indeed you had changed. Some blamed your ex-partner Rohan, others blamed Wyclef. I am not sure that we will ever know what prompted your sudden shift in demeanor; I do however suspect that it had much-a-do with the media bombardment that you had received as it regarded your relationship, your choosing to birth a son at such a crucial stage in your career, as you articulated ever so affectionately in the tune whose title was borrowed from his namesake – “Zion.”

For years you were largely removed from the public eye, yet thoughts of Ms. Hill – as you had since opted to be called – permeated through the reins of popular culture forums. Having birthed four additional children with Marley well into the late 2000s [and another without Marley], we saw you again retreat from showbiz. You made somewhat of a comeback by appearing annually as part of the celebrated hip-hop concert “Rock the Bells” line-up, as well as gracing other concert stages.

In January 2011, after a heckuva long hiatus you returned to perform in Toronto. Fans had waited for over a decade for you to return to our beloved city. Though they had been eager to see you, all the while throughout the industry’s pipeline they had heard the not so great murmurs about you: “She never shows up on time,” “She’s gone mad,” “She hasn’t come out with a new album in years, what’s she gonna perform?” All in all, that particular performance received mixed reviews from critics and fans alike, with the commentary leaning on the side of lacklustre and enraged emotions due to your tardiness. As much as I had wanted to go, I didn’t actually make it to that show. With all the raucous that had been made through the grapevine, I was kind of glad that I didn’t. I wanted to ride or die for Lauryn but with all the bad press, somehow I started to realize that I couldn’t.

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago when news of your return to Toronto once more hit the air waves, Twitter feeds, and other media sites. This time, I–like many others–did not want to go. The negativity and bad reviews had gotten the best of me. Luckily, my sister insisted on buying tickets for the show; let’s just say I’m glad she did. After having seen you perform live for a second time, I can honestly remark that you are a lyrical and musical genius beyond describable words, connecting so well with the crowd, while also keeping it real with us, and is also stunningly beautiful live in the flesh. All this talk about you having old songs was completely thrown out the window because as far as I’m concerned, you did things to old songs that I didn’t know could even be done. Case closed.

This leads me to believe that what we needed to have been feeling for you all along was the compassion that seems to be the missing component in a lot of interrogations of celebrities. Shoot, you’re human too. You have been demonized in epic ways [especially by your former lovers and fans] as if you owe us something. You don’t owe us an album; you don’t owe us your time, and you sure as heck don’t owe us an apology. I reckon what makes celebrities have the tendency to breakdown and/or resort to a life of drugs and alcohol is the immense pressure that they tend to receive from the general public. I mean, thank goodness you haven’t taken that path but, even though you haven’t done anything of the sort, you’ve been branded as this lunatic of a human being for having cut your hair off, given birth to six children and for singing about politics, religion and Paul Bogle. What part of the game is that?

In a world that is so caught up on “keeping up appearances” and towing the line, you my dear have chosen to march to the beat of your own drum. How real. In a world where black mothers have been constantly deemed unfit, erratic and unnurturing, you have chosen to put your children first and it showed at the concert this past Saturday when you brought your son Joshua out on stage to recite his own rap, and when you gently kissed him on the forehead before he walked off stage. Yes, L – at that point it all became so clear to me – you are in fact a human being. Your departure from the frontlines has nothing to do with us and everything to do with you and your family, and rightly so. As a mother, I understand all too well the reason as to why you would want to protect your children from the harsh realities of this world.

Much love,

Nikki

P.S., – you were right, all along we had been miseducated about you.

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Source: WENN/Fayes Vision

While everyone has been throwing shade at Wyclef over his new memoir “Purpose” and wondering how Lauryn Hill and her son Zion will react to Clef’s allegation that he initially thought he was the Zions father, no one has even considered how Rohan, Zion’s actual father, might feel about all this. Well, leave it to TMZ to get the exclusive from the son of reggae legend Bob Marley who essentially says Wyclef is on one.

“[He] knew from jump that was my son from the day [Lauryn] was pregnant,” Rohan told the site.

Though he may need to take off the rose colored glasses on this point, Rohan doesn’t even think Lauryn and Wyclef were messing around at the same time that he was involved with the “miseducated” singer. From his view:

“They were definitely not messing around, or he would never have given me the okay.”

That would be kind of messed up for Wyclef to tell Rohan to date Lauryn if he was still sleeping with her, but considering Wyclef was cheating on his wife at the same time, we can’t expect too much from him. As far as Rohan is concerned,  Wyclef is ”just saying false things to get book headlines.” Wyclef on the other hand is sticking to his story, telling TMZ:

“There is no way that I would have shown up in the hospital in that circumstance to wait for a baby to be born if it was not mine. The idea of a memoir is to tell the truth. I know that often the truth hurts, but a lie hurts even more.”

Um, so does that mean Rohan wasn’t at the hospital when Zion was born? This whole situation is getting a little too twisted.

Whose story do you believe?

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A lot of Lauryn Hill fans have a bit of a bone to pick with Wyclef now that they’ve gotten word of his new memoir and the details about the questionable paternity of the singer’s first son, Zion, included therein. Yesterday, Wendy Williams got Wyclef to have a little seat on her couch and explain why he was digging all this dirt up 12 years later, and when Wendy asked the former Fugees member if he gave L-Boogie a heads up about the book, he said this:

No I didn’t call Lauryn because Lauryn knows the story. There’s over a thousand people who know this story. What I wanted history to document was the truth.

When Lauryn did “The Miseducation there were a lot of Lauryn Hill fans saying, “Clef done broke Lauryn Hill’s heart.” After Wyclef Jean, Lauryn had five kids and my responsibility is to apologize for sins in my twenties, but we all have to move forward as adults. If you read the entire book, I am not disrespecting Lauryn in any form, in any sense.

Wyclef went on to say that the chances of the Fugees getting back together after all of this drama are slim to none, and also said he doesn’t have any contact with Lauryn Hill at all — just as his wife would have it. According to him, in his book he’s just telling his own truth.

Are you going to check out Wyclef’s “Purpose” memoir?

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Source: WENN

In the last 72 hours, two men from Lauryn Hill’s past have come out the woodwork to talk about their relationship with the troubled singer and they aren’t portraying her in the best light. On Friday, we told you how Rohan was subtly putting Lauryn on blast about some behavior that he just couldn’t accept as a man; now, her former bandmate Wyclef wants us to believe that L-Boogie tried to pull a Maury Povich on him and declare he was the father of her oldest son when he isn’t.

The allegation is exposed in Wyclef’s new memoir, “Purpose,” in which he talks about his extramarital affair with Lauryn during the same time she was involved with Rohan Marley. As we know now, Rohan is the father of Lauryn’s son, Zion, but Wyclef claims she initially lied and told him otherwise.

“In that moment something died between us,” he wrote. “I was married and Lauryn and I were having an affair, but she led me to believe that the baby was mine, and I couldn’t forgive that. She could no longer be my muse. Our love spell was broken.”

Now I’m not trying to say Wyclef is lying, I just want to know why he’s talking about this in the first place. He claims that Lauryn’s lie is what broke up the Fugees in 1997, but there’s really nothing to be gained from revealing this information—other than increased book sales, of course. It’s sort of hard to take a man who was cheating on his own wife seriously about his love spell with another woman being broken because of a lie she told. I need him to spend as much time analyzing his own shortcomings and the lies he told his own wife in his memoir rather than exposing someone else’s, particularly when a child, who is now 12 years of age and old enough to have access to this information, is involved.

What do you think about Wyclef writing about Zion’s paternity in his new memoir?

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#DemBabies are only one-year-old cuties and already they’ve seen more fabulous countries than most adults (#PassportPimpin’). I mean Roc was just in Morocco with Mariah (the place he was named after of course), and the twins celebrated their birthdays in Paris. Too bad they might not remember all of these awesome travels when they get older. But anywho, while Nick and Mariah took their bundles of joy to Italy, they took a few photos of their little ones enjoying the glamorous life. In the first pic, the twins are rolling around in a wagon. Nick’s caption was, “Ridin around and they gettin it!” In the second one, Roc is all bundled up in a bathrobe, and Nick’s hilarious caption for that one was, “Roc big pimpin in Italy!” Check out the cute-sy images below from the proud papa’s Twitter:

Source: Twitter

Source: Twitter

In Memorial Day weekend fabness, celebs were all out and about with their kids. Solange and her son, Daniel, were seen wearing fashionable flotation devices before taking a dip, Dwyane Wade, his sons Zion and Zaire and his nephew got all cheesy (for the camera of course), and Swizz Beatz spent some quality time with his kids (minus baby Egypt). Check out all the cutie goodness below:

Source: Twitter

Source: Twitter

Check out the Isabel Marant sneaker/wedge heels on his daughter, Nicole. I love it! Fashionable kids indeed…

Source: Twitter

Oh yeah, Wade recently posted this picture below of his son Zion, shouting out little man on his birthday: “Happy 5th birthday to my mini me. Zion the Lion King.” Mini me is right…

Source: Twitter

Big laughs at his face being on the cake as grown up Simba. Too cute! Happy belated birthday!

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