Queen Latifah has been around for a long time, and her style has gone through many different incarnations. See her journey from rapper to television star to movie star/red carpet darling after the jump.

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Missing a few cast members, notably Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo, the Los Angeles premiere of the Will Smith-produced Secret Life of Bees went down last night. Lots of laughs on the red carpet.

For the third Saturday in a row, Sarah Palin will get the Tina Fey treatment on Saturday Night Live. This time, the skit will make fun of last night's Vice-Presidential Debate. No word on who's playing Joe Biden, but, since the cast lacks a black female, Queen Latifah will be stepping in as Gwen Ifill. Based on last night's debate, Queen's role in the skit probably won't be that exciting. [TMZ]

Unfortunately, the "Ladies First" mantra put forth by Queen Latifah and Monie Love has never exactly been adopted in hip hop, either in songs or in the industry itself. An anonymous source recently offered Entertainment Weekly a reason as to why there are so few modern-day Queen Latifah and Monie Loves: ”Hair and makeup is killing female hip-hop,” says a source. ”The grooming cost to break a female rapper versus a male rapper is 10 times as much per appearance. That tends to have an adverse effect on a record company’s willingness to even entertain a female rapper.” Um, okay.

• No, Alicia Keys is not a home wrecker who ruined Swizz Beatz' marriage. [US]

• Perhaps Lil Wayne should leave the guitar-playing to the band. [BWE]

• Sarah Palin's relationship with African Americans in Alaska? Due to both demographics and, according to one organization in Alaska, zero interest on her part, there is no relationship to speak of. [PHB]

• Queen Latifah's going back to her hip hop roots. [Bossip]

• 50 Cent doesn't seem to respect Kanye West's foray into R&B too much. [MTV]

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]