2007 was the year of the celebrity screw up. And we're talking celebrities of all colors, ages, and levels of fame. For Stereohyped's purposes, I'm going to stick with the ones of a certain hue — and there are more than enough to list without getting into the Paris Hiltons and Keifer Sutherlands and Lindsay Lohans of the world. From DUIs to drugs to assaults to illegal weapons, there are far too many* young (and not so young) famous (and not very famous) people whose mugshots belong on the 2007 Hall of Shame.
*I'm sure I'm missing a few!

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Foxy Brown's attorney says that the incarcerated rapper/miscreant has become more religious and humble as a result of her stay at Rikers Island. Funny, that's not what we heard…

And her attorney, State Senator John Sampson, claims the rapper has found solace in religion.

He told the New York Post after Monday's hearing, "(Foxy) told me, 'Sometimes God has to humble you in order for you to realize who you actually are. When you get away from the glitz and glamour, you can find inner peace within yourself."

If inner peace = brand new Gucci sneakers to match her prison uniform, then, yes. Foxy has found it.

Question of the day: What kind of prison are they running at Rikers Island?

It seems that a bit too much of Foxy Brown's diva behavior has been slipping through the cracks, and her ego and sense of entitlement might just be more pronounced when she's behind bars than when she's free to roam the streets and victimize people with her anger management problems.

She wears Louis Vuitton and Gucci sneakers with her prison jumpsuit - and when they get dirty, someone brings her a new pair.

She alienates most of the correction officers, threatening them with tough talk about the "juice" she has on the outside.

Things are so bad that her own friends don't even think she should be paroled any time soon. Way to rehabilitate, Rikers! [NYP]

• People conveniently forget how exactly the vast majority of black people in this country came to be here. [PBC]

• Forget that a high school is putting on a play, it's shocking that Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (Ten Little Indians) was originally titled Ten Little Niggers. [AP]

• The FBI will not reopen the 1968 "Orangeburg Massacre" case due to double jeopardy concerns, since state troopers accused in the case had already been acquitted. The NAACP is unhappy, of course. [WLTX]

• The Toronto city council's slowness in making any decisions about a proposed black-focused school in the city has parents pissed. [CTV]

• Foxy Brown developed "character" in solitary confinement. It was much-needed. [SS]

After years of just plain wrong, Foxy Brown has done at least a little something right in jail, since she was sentenced to 76 days of solitary confinement for series of pointless displays of disobedience, all of which she blamed on her hearing problems, but only spent 40 days there. And although it's sort of a stretch to give someone props for graduating from solitary confinement to gen pop (or wherever), it seems that Foxy is desperately in need of some positive reinforcement. So congratulations, Foxy. Congratulations. [TMZ, POTO]

The numerous infractions that landed Foxy Brown in solitary confinement at Rikers Island were really just a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, said her manager Chaz Williams, who, incidentally, was once a criminal of such renown that BET is actually doing an episode of American Gangster on him. All that's to say that I'm sure he more than understands how jail works. And how hearing aids always tend to die out just when prison guards ask you to do something.

But according to Williams, some of the allegations aren't entirely true. "There was an incident where a girl attempted to confront her and she stood her ground, but there wasn't any contact. Words were exchanged and that was it," he tells Billboard.com.

Williams says the drug-test flap can be chalked up to Brown's hearing difficulties. "Really she didn't hear the request," he explains. "She has a battery-operated device and sometimes it dies out."

Williams also blames the not-getting-on-the-bus debacle on a low hearing aid battery. Again with the deaf card? Hearing impaired people everywhere are so pissed right now.
[BB]

Remember humble Foxy? The Foxy that was truly remorseful and reminded us all after she was sentenced to jail to think about more important things, like the Jena Six? Well, that Foxy's exit from this world was as abrupt as her entrance.

These days, she's busy making life harder for herself by refusing to do anything she's supposed to do in jail. At the beginning of the month, she got into a shoving match with another inmate, then was "verbally abusive" to correction officers and refused to take a drug test. The combination of those three infractions got her 76 days of solitary confinement, which means she's only allowed out of her cell for an hour each day.

If that's not bad enough, authorities might tack more days onto her solitary punishment after they investigate her refusal (twice!) to get on a Rikers Island bus that was supposed to take her to a Brooklyn court appearance. The first time, she missed the bus because she had to get in hair and makeup. The second time, she wouldn't board the bus until she had eaten lunch.

As ridiculous as Foxy Brown's behavior is, I wonder if the COs shouldn't be the ones punished. It sounds like Foxy Brown's the one running that prison, not them.

[NYP]

Foxy Brown finally agreed to get on the prison bus so she could make her plea in a Brooklyn courthouse. Let's see, what's she pleading not guilty for this time? Oh, right. Assault with a deadly Blackberry. It's hard to keep track these days.

[TMZ, AP]

• Rihanna seen making out with Josh Hartnett? I see it more than that Shia LaBeouf thing. [US]

• Twice, Foxy Brown has refused to get on the correction department bus that's supposed to transport her from Rikers to the Brooklyn courthouse. Just because. [SP]

• Usher and Tameka get some good PR from Essence. [Bossip]

• Whatever, you know Oprah has someone carrying her bags for her. [Jossip]

• With the proceeds from her monstrously successful album, from which she keeps pulling singles to make videos for, Fergie should get Will.i.am some teeth-whitening. [CL]

Despite her current situation, Foxy Brown is kind enough to let us into her glamorous world for a moment via her Web site, Free Foxy Brown.

In a song she penned from the slammer called "We Don't Surrender," she raps: "Since I got my hearing back, all I hear is Foxy this and Foxy that. Bitch please, I'm in my Louis capris, overseas in Belize, ignoring the small [bleep]. So, hop off my [bleep], I got a 32-shot clip aimed at Page Six." Brown - doing a year for violating probation in her BlackBerry assault case - has posted the tune on her Web site.

Although it seems that this song was actually recorded earlier this summer in response to her Great Hearing Aid Robbery Caper, the lyrics are still interesting in light of the fact that she's imprisoned. In this particular case, "Louis capris" mean "prison jumpsuit", "overseas in Belize" is the new euphemism for "doing a bid upstate," and "I got a 32-shot clip aimed at Page Six" is a metaphor for, "I have written a vitriolic, but poorly-worded, letter to the New York Post."

[PS]

Foxy Brown might be behind bars, but she wants to stay in the forefront of her fan's mind. I mean, fans' minds. She recently launched a new Web site, creatively named Free Foxy Brown, that will feature "up-to-the-minute" information about the incarcerated star, who's looking at a year in Rikers.

Considering where she's spending her time these days, I can't imagine how interesting "up-to-the-minute" updates could really be. But, you know, anything to stay relevant when you're otherwise indisposed.

[AHH]

• These are the kinds of things we do at Jossip after hours. Thankfully for me (and too bad for Cord from Mollygood), seeing a woman dressed up as a man is far less exciting. [QT]

• No matter how famous you get, somebody will always mistake you for a drug dealer. [SP]

• Trina, a role model for all the kids out there who aspire to be strippers-turned-hyper sexual rappers. [C&D]

• Barnes & Noble bestseller, maybe, but you won't see If I Did It with an Oprah's Book Club seal. [SP]

• Mindy McCready, country music's Foxy Brown. [PH]

Quote of the Week

Foxy Brown on her year-long jail sentence:

"This is just a temporary situation." says Foxy. "I made my bed and have no problem lying in it. My will is steady. What doesn't kill me will only make me stronger. I think there are greater injustices in America that require our immediate attention, like what's going on in Jena, Louisiana. I will not surrender, I'm fine, free Jena Six!"

Foxy Brown's manager decided to dispel "pregnancy rumors," started, incidentally by Foxy Brown herself and her lawyers during her probation hearing, and announced that the jailbird is not expecting a child.

If Foxy was actually pregnant when she said she was and has since lost the baby, that would be sad.

The more likely scenario is that she was never pregnant to begin with and lied in order to receive a softer punishment. This is no less sad.

[NYDN]

Looking brown but less than Foxy (check the courtroom sketch) our favorite anger management case was sentenced to a year (!) in jail Friday for her numerous probation violations. The judge didn't really buy it when the supposedly three-months pregnant Foxy — the pregnancy wasn't brought up in court and lawyers and relatives declined to comment — said she was humbled by the three weeks she spent in Rikers Island.

Nothing Foxy Brown said at a Manhattan probation-violation hearing yesterday could sway the judge, who sentenced the rap diva to a year in prison for repeatedly thumbing her nose at the criminal-justice system - including getting arrested three times in the last eight months.

"Miss Marchand," Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson told the rapper, whose real name is Inga Marchand, "it's too little, too late."

Something that might have set the judge over the edge was the fact that, in addition to everything else, Foxy had stopped attending her court ordered anger management classes, which, if nothing else, explains that Blackberry-throwing incident. If she is pregnant, she'll likely have her child in prison. And, although I don't like to see women convicted of crimes as petty as Foxy's have to give birth in the prison hospital, I don't know what else she really expected to happen. See ya in '08, Foxy.

[NYP]