I read Secret Life of Bees about five years ago, and the fact that the only details I remember are a little white girl, honey, and the South should indicate how much it actually impacted me. But maybe that will make the story all the more exciting when/if I go see the movie in theaters. It stars Dakota Fanning (as the little white girl I remembered!) and Jennifer Hudson (as the little white girl's nanny…it's coming back to me now). Their characters run away from home to stay with three sisters — Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, and Sophie Okonedo. Poor Fanning and Okonedo must have felt left out, not having a record deal and all.

As for J-Hud — why do her post-Oscar film roles seem to require her to sound kind of slow? But as long as her name's not Louise from St. Louis who's in love with Louis Vuitton, I can't complain. [BV]

Those damned lesbian rumors continue to dog Queen Latifah. Or could they actually be true?

It depends on whether you believe the National Inquirer - or The View - which claims the rap star, who avoids answering sexually-related questions, plans to wed her alleged long-time lesbian love, Jeannette Jenkins.

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I was visiting my parents this weekend, and, just in time for what is one of the only red carpet awards shows that was given the go-ahead by the WGA, their cable went out. So I missed the red carpet and the awards, where Ruby Dee won for best supporting actress in American Gangser. But that's what wire photo services and EW.com are for. Check out the pics and the winners (yay 30 Rock and absent Queen Latifah!) after the jump.

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Queen Latifah, who rang the NASDAQ opening bell this morning with Mad Money costars Katie Holmes and Diane Keaton, is, like her fellow actress Gabrielle Union, pretty damned unhappy with the tabloid/blog culture. But Q.L. gets a little more aggressive with it.

"They are actually starting to piss me off. I haven't been brutalized like some people… but you feel taken advantage of. This year, if somebody prints something about me, I'm ready to take it to their ass because it's just not fair. I'm tired of hearing from my family members, `Did you say this?' When somebody calls my family, that's what concerns me. I have little brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews who are not so media savvy as me. They are not so thick skinned with this business, so these reports bother them. That's when I really want to go for somebody's throat, legally with lawyers and all. And I will."

[WI]

The Critic's Choice Awards went down last night in Santa Monica, and one sincerely hopes that the stars made the most out of it, since the Golden Globes have been reduced to a press conference. Big winners included No Country For Old Men and the cast of Hairspray, and Don Cheadle was awarded for his humanitarian work. More pics and the awards results after the jump.

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• Kelly Rowland's still having trouble finding success sans Beyonce. [C&D]

• It's not just the women he's sexually harassed who want Isiah Thomas fired from the Knicks. [MSNBC]

• Queen Latifah will star in a new Jenny Craig campaign that focuses on a healthy lifestyle instead of losing a lot of weight. [People]

• White supremacists want a piece of the Jena pie. [MSNBC]

• Congrats to my cousin, who not only watched his son being born in Illinois via satellite from Iraq, but also made the local paper. [DH]

It's been a week since Queen Latifah was supposedly ready to come out of the closet and announce her plans to marry her long-term girlfriend, but there's been nary a peep. Cold feet? Or was the rumor that she was finally coming out totally false? My bet's on the latter. She did come out, in a sense, for yesterday's party for Perfect Holiday, the Christmas film starring herself, Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, and Terrence Howard. Terrence Howard wasn't in attendance — he was probably off getting his perm touched up or something — but Lil Kim and Angel Lola Luv, the video girl with the impossibly big butt that has mesmerized droves up people, myself not included, were. Pics after the jump.

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Rihanna, who won the big prize — Favorite Female Artist — at the American Music Awards yesterday, doesn't win the prize for favorite outfit. I actually think she might win the opposite prize.

The big winner in the male category was T.I., and although he obviously couldn't make it, check out pics of some of the other attendees after the jump.

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• When the loose dress doesn't hide the baby bump well enough, get your friends to leak the news to In Touch Weekly. [BWE]

• Queen Latifah is feeling needed by aging hip hop listeners.[SP]

• And also by the gay press. [QT]

• Maybe one day Vanessa Hudgens can have her nudity scandal so far behind her that blogs will only bring it up once in a blue moon. Vanessa Williams can tell her all about it. [Bossip]

• The dress is too tight, in my opinion, but it does disprove all of those "Ashanti gained so much weight" rumors. [C&D]

You know when television's premiere awards show has to resort to bringing out Kanye West, who was completely irrelevant to the proceedings, you know the show's producers are feeling like the ceremony has gotten kind of boring and out of touch over the last few years. But it's not the actual show that makes the awards a joke, it's the nominees and the eventual winners.

When The Wire's not even nominated, Jaime Pressly wins a best supporting actress award over the brilliant Vanessa Williams or Jenna Fischer from The Office and James Spader from Boston Legal wins best actor over, well, anyone (but particularly James Gandolfini), I have a hard time respecting the importance and meaning of an Emmy statue. Nevertheless, congrats to the winners — especially 30 Rock — whether they deserved their awards or not. More pics and a list of winners after the jump.

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Michael Vick pleads not guilty and apologizes to his mom and his team, but leaves out the pit bulls. [Forbes]

I'd rather see DMC do this than Reverend Run. [Bossip]

I don't like my childhood entertainment to be messed with in this way. [MF]

You don't reach Oprah's level of success by being nice all the time, that's for sure. [AT]

The Queen of Excess meets Queen Latifah. [SR]

A Chinese artist has been tapped to be lead sculptor on the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial project in DC, and people are up in arms. I'm not really offended. [DG]

The guy's being paid with proceeds from a benefit concert featuring Queen Latifah and Babyface. [EUR]

Ebonics: the word that shall not be uttered in education circles. [HC]

Racial politics in North Carolina? No way! [WJ]

At least Sunday night wasn't a total waste for Lil Wayne. [NYT]

The Emmy nominations are out, and to quote Isaiah Washington quoting the movie Network, "I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

I'm mad as hell because the best show on television didn't get nominated for a single award. Not a writing award. Not a directing award. Certainly not an acting award or what it mainly deserves, which is Best Drama Series. And it's not just me pouting over my favorite show being ignored. Television critics who know far more about these things than I do routinely tout it as the best show television has seen in years. Maybe ever. And the one thing that sets it apart from the shows in the best drama category — Grey's Anatomy, House, Boston Legal, Heroes, and The Sopranos — is that the cast is almost entirely black, the show is set in poverty-stricken inner city Baltimore, and the writers and producers don't pull any punches or coddle the audience. Yeah, I'm talking about The Wire, and I shouldn't be surprised that its being ignored in its fourth season. It was ignored in the previous three. Not that I had a lot of respect for this particular award show in the past, but now I'm completely done. Done!

I will swallow my bitterness for a moment to congratulate Grey's Chandra Wilson, Ugly Betty's Vanessa Williams, and Life Support's Queen Latifah for their acting noms. Return of the bitterness: they probably won't win.

[EW]

You might not know who the guy in this picture is now, but you probably will soon. Elijah Kelley stars as Seaweed in the new film adaptation of the Broadway musical adaptation of the 1988 film Hairspray, about dancing, obesity, and segregation in 1960s Baltimore. Whew. According to critics, Kelley gives a standout performance. Check out more pics from yesterday's LA premiere, including a couple of Queen Latifah in an ill-advised platinum blond wig, after the jump.

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