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It’s been a full decade since LeBron James shook up the NBA by announcing his plans to “take my talents to South Beach” and form the Big 3 in Miami with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, officially ushering in the superstar team era.

“The Decision,” the hour-long special aired on ESPN in which James announced his intentions of leaving Cleveland to Jim Gray, made LeBron a villain for the first time in his career. Him joining forces with two other All-Stars might have done that anyways, but for many it was the way he announced that decision in a primetime TV spectacle that turned people against him — even though “The Decision” resulted in millions of dollars going to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

It remains fairly incredible that the greatest misstep in LeBron James’ career was this misguided TV special for charity, but for many, questions have remained about how this all came to be. Who was responsible for this concept? Was it ESPN or LeBron’s team that pitched it to the other? Why did LeBron’s team think this would work in their favor, particularly if he was considering leaving the Cavs?

On Sunday night, those questions will be answered in a new “Backstory” episode on ESPN that looks at “The Decision,” and will confirm that a 38-year-old Pistons fan was the initial spark for the idea thanks to a mailbag question he sent to then ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, who pushed the idea aggressively to his ESPN bosses, per ESPN’s Don Van Natta.

“What if LeBron announces he will pick his 2010-11 team live on ABC on a certain date for a show called ‘LeBron’s Choice?’” Drew wrote, with no last name published. “What type of crazy ratings would that get?”

Drew Wagner never knew for sure if his mailbag question led to “The Decision,” but now has confirmation that it, indeed, was the spark that sent Simmons to John Skipper with the idea and also to bring it up in a meeting with LeBron’s then agent, Leon Rose, and William “World Wide Wes” Wesley. While Simmons provided the initial push, he says he was not involved in the show actually coming to life.

Reached for comment by ESPN on Saturday, Simmons said in an email, “I never thought LeBron would do the show if he was planning on actually leaving Cleveland. They were the favorites to win the title that year and it just seemed like he was staying there. Even when I met with Wes and Leon in May, they were playing Boston and were the favorites, i think they even won that night. But after those 3 Boston losses and how badly it went, I gave up on pushing the idea, it seemed like there was no way. I thought it was dead. I wasn’t involved after that.”

Jim Gray was the one that eventually got it done, working with Maverick Carter and Hollywood agent Ari Emmanuel to pitch ESPN on the special, per Van Natta. Unsurprisingly, many of the people involved have worked to distance themselves from the show given the PR disaster it caused. It remains the biggest public misstep of James’ career and took years for him to shake the reputation it brought him, and might’ve all been avoided had Drew from Columbus, Ohio never given the idea to Simmons.

On Saturday night, Shaquille O’Neal and Rob Gronkowski put on a livestream together, competing in various challenges to raise money for social justice, with Shaq playing for the Boys & Girls Club of America and Gronk playing for the NAACP.

The two competed in everything from a lip sync battle to jousting, but the highlight of the night was seeing what happens when Shaq is allowed to dunk on a basketball hoop that’s not a regulation NBA goal. During the HORSE portion of the evening, Shaq decided to do an off the backboard dunk and proceeded to rip the rim clean off the backboard with one hand.

It’s honestly one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t shatter the backboard — as he’s done multiple times before in his career. He doesn’t bend the rim or cause the goal to collapse — again, a thing he did while in the NBA. No, he rips the rim off the backboard and slings it to the ground.

Gronk’s reaction is terrific, as he just stares in disbelief at the carnage that just unfolded — while wearing a Shaq jersey. That was the end of the HORSE competition, which was never something Gronk had a chance at but did yield the best possible result in Shaq doing things that remind us how preposterously big and strong he is (Related: he recently told us that his “go-to” order at Krispy Kreme is three boxes of glazed doughnuts).

Danny Masterson’s arrest on rape charges has sent shockwaves through Hollywood as well as the Church of Scientology as the group’s involvement in apparently covering up these incidents becomes more public as the case unfolds. Masterson was charged earlier this month with three counts of rape years after he was fired by Netflix from The Ranch after allegations against him first surfaced.

His accusers, who initially sued both Masterson and the Church of Scientology in 2019 over sexual assault allegations, have reacted positively to the news that their alleged rapist will stand trail for his crimes. And former Scientologist Leah Remini issued a warning to the church that more of its interference will become public as the case goes to trial. And it seems we’re already learning some of the harrowing details of what Masterson’s accusers dealt with in response to bringing allegations to the organization’s attention.

Page Six reported on Sunday that the church actively intimidated members when they alerted it to Masterson’s sexual misconduct in an attempt to smother details from getting outside of the church, making them go through “security checks” where they would be convinced there was a reason things happened to them.

“Maybe you’d be directed into finding that, 10 million years ago, you enslaved a whole city and ­allowed your soldiers to rape all the women,” (Ex-Scientologist Geoff) Levin added. “[And] that is the reason why this is happening to you now. It is brainwashing to the Nth degree.”

Ryan, the lawyer, told The Post that it “is accurate” that the women experienced intimidation tactics by the church. “It was part of the pressure campaign to force them into ­silence.”

The details of various ways the accusers were intimidated are as harrowing as they are varied. The only named accuser said she was stalked by church members, spit on, and even thinks they had her pets killed.

Indeed, the civil suit details allegations of such tactics. In it, Bixler claims that she was stalked by church members and filmed; that “an agent of [Scientology]” spit on her after she caught him trying to hack her phone; and that there were threats to leak nude photos of an underage Bixler. According to the suit, she believes that Scientology representatives contributed to the deaths of two of her family’s pets.

Tony Ortega, editor of The Underground Bunker, a Scientology-investigating website, said: “[Founder] L. Ron Hubbard called [such procedures] noisy investigations. Not only do they surveil you, but they want you to know it via very creepy encounters. They want to convince you to stop ­exposing Scientology because it causes too many emotional issues in your life.”

It’s another example of the sentiment that Masterson’s trial will be as much a trial for his crimes but also the church and the way they are alleged to have actively covered up his actions to protect both the actor but the church itself. One source in the story was asked about the chances the church stops protecting Masterson, and it may be entirely determined by whether the case goes to trial or not.

“It’s a tenuous situation,” he told The Post. “It depends entirely on Masterson taking a plea deal. If he takes a plea deal and coughs up to [the allegations], which will implicate a number of Scientologists, they will cut him off. They will say, ‘We threw you out years ago.’ ”

But, Rinder said, that would be a last-ditch effort. “They all have to stay on the same page and keep their stories straight,” he speculated. “Scientology is afraid that if they condemn Danny, he will turn on them. It may be in his interest to keep ­everybody on the same team, coming up with the same defense.”

The story has many other details about the Masterson family and its relationship to the church, but the treatment of Masterson’s alleged victims is a scary reminder of the power it has over some in Hollywood and the fear of criticizing its members that’s been created over the years.

[via Page Six]

As often happens in the entertainment industry, one movie getting its release date moved causes a string of reactions of movies doing the same. Lately, though, the jostling for big box office returns is more about whether theaters are open and people feel safe in returning to darkened theaters inside with strangers than anything.

The movie industry has largely been on pause since mid-March, causing havoc on the release calendar. But early hopes for a return to theaters by July seem largely dashed in the final days of June. Friday’s news that Tenet was delayed again, this time to mid-August, meant that other movies would shuffle as well.

And indeed, Variety reported that Disney’s live-action Mulan remake was delayed a third time, to August 21. Another movie that was actually pushed up to be released as theaters opened, Russell Crowe’s Unhinged, also saw another delay to July 31, per The Hollywood Reporter. That movie was originally supposed to hit theaters in September but was announced for July 1 in an attempt to be the first nationwide release to hit cinemas since they shut down the industry in March. But as theater reopening dates slowly slipped back in the calendar, Unhinged was pressed to July 10 and now sits on the month’s final day.

The Broken Hearts Gallery, in fact, may be the last large-release movie standing in the middle of July. Deadline reported on June 16 that the prior Tenet delay pushed Broken Hearts back to a July 17 release date. Tenet, Mulan, and Unhinged have all been delayed again since that, but there’s been no update on Broken Hearts. It seems inevitable that it, too, gets a delay at this point, but nothing is official until it has a new date.

Theaters themselves are still supposed to open in July, though as COVID-19 cases rise in dozens of states and some slow their shutdowns it remains unclear if they’re still on that trajectory when we actually get there. Right now, Unhinged on July 31 would likely be the first big movie released, if theaters are, indeed, open. Until then, there’s still plenty to watch on your streaming devices at home.

The shelter-in-place orders had been just issued, she says, and “I received email after email of conference and performance cancellations. A single tear fell down my cheek as I held a sleeping baby.”

Suddenly, it really hit home that the world was changing permanently, and like many of us, she started thinking about how she was going to survive all of this change.

“I remember feeling defeated, unprepared and overall just sad,” she says.

Since March of 2020, our lives have changed dramatically because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Countries, states and cities all over the world have instituted lockdowns and issued shelter-in-place orders. Non-essential businesses have shut down, concerts and performances have been cancelled. Millions of us self-quarantined in our homes, often while trying to work from home and raise children with no daycare. Our day-to-day lives don’t look the same anymore and it’s easy to feel defeated, just like Arielle did that day.

“We are such tender beings, us humans,” Arielle says, “and considering we are in a global pandemic, there are a lot of traumas and mental stresses that come with that reality, whether or not we realize it.”

“Because of that,” she continues, “I think it’s so vital that we take care of ourselves mentally, spiritually and physically because our bodies are probably taking in more than we realize.”

In other words, self-care has never been more important. Here are some of her self-care tips for these uncertain times:

1. Remember, it’s okay to take time to do things for yourself.

“Finding moments to go on a walk, bake something that feels like comfort, dance in your kitchen, finding books that inspire your creativity is so important right now,” she says.

“We all have time [for self-care], it’s just about making it,” she continues. “Pass the baton to your spouse if you have kids and take turns making sure you’re not only taking care of others, but also yourself.”

2. Find what brings you joy.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Arielle has stopped asking “how are you?” because it’s a difficult question to answer with everything going on right now.

“I noticed that whenever I was asked,” she says, “I never fully knew how to respond to the question and do so authentically.”

So instead, she’s starting to ask “What brings you joy?”

“While we were in this space where a lot has been taken away, disrupted, and paused, there was even more of a reason to find joy in life, especially in the smallest and most mundane aspects of life,” she says.

“Currently what brings me joy is trips to home goods stores and finding trinkets for my home that my husband and I are physically building.” She also loves doing face masks, painting her nails — “It’s become a form of self care and therapy,” she says — and finding new plants for her home.

3. Make your self-care routine consistent and intentional.

It’s easy in the day-to-day of quarantine, with so much time spent at home, to put off taking care of yourself. That’s why, Arielle says, “I have been very intentional about adopting self-care routines, not just weekly, but daily.”

For example, she has decided to make working-out part of her self-care routine and while working out every day may vary in length or intensity, she fits it in no matter what.

“Some days, [self-care] looks like an online class of some sort, a dance video on YouTube, or a walk around the block at sunset.”

4. Listen to your body and your own needs.

“If [your body] needs rest then rest,” she says. “If you need to put down the phone and turn off the electronics and read a good book. then do so.”

“But also listen for when it needs a whole season of Gilmore Girls and a glass of wine,” she adds. “That’s okay too.”

5. Don’t forget about your skin.

“The SK-II Pitera Essence is magical for me right now,” Arielle says. “I felt like my skin was really needing something to boost its glow.”

She says that it has helped boost her skin’s natural moisture without making it too oily or causing build-up in her pores.

“It also feels amazing to apply and leaves my skin feeling refreshed and super soft,” she continues. It has definitely been included in my skin care routines both in the morning and right before bed, to keep me skin feeling refreshed and nourished all day long.”

Arielle Estoria

6. Drink lots of water.

7. Find creative ways to adapt so you can still do the things you love.

“Find what brings you joy and do whatever it takes to engage with that joy as much as you can,” Arielle says.

Before the pandemic, for example, she loved going to hot yoga. “When the pandemic started, I tried to work out with my floor heater instead to get the same vibe,” she says. “Didn’t really work, but that’s okay!”

8. Make sure you go outside.

“As much as you can,go outside, be with nature,” she says. “Get out of your house for a moment if you can. Read on your front lawn, loop around your block, walk to ice cream, find moments to get your body active, moving and in nature.”

Don’t know what to read while you’re outside? Arielle recommends “All Along You Were Blooming” by Morgan Harper Nichols and “I’m still here” by Austin Channing.

9. It’s okay to take a break from social media and your phone.

“Take “time outs” from social media when you need to,” she says.

Put away the phone. It will help you find more time for yourself.

“I dare you to look at your screen time,” she says. “I bet that’s where you’d find a lot of your time is going. That [time] could be used otherwise.”

Arielle Estoria

10. Remember, self-care doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

Taking time for yourself doesn’t have to be a whole day thing. It doesn’t even need to take several hours. “Just small increments of 5, 10, 15 minutes could make a difference!”

To learn more about SK-II or help them in their fight against systemic racism and injustice as part of the P&G family of brands, go to PG.com/TakeOnRace

On the very first episode of Friday Night with the Morgans in mid-April (and what feels like 12 years ago), Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his wife, Hilarie Burton, had husband and wife Jensen and Danneel Ackles as their first guests. They were, coincidentally, the couple that introduced Morgan and Burton at a bar many years ago, and it came with a spectacular meet cute story.

This weekend, Jeffrey and Hilarie had on another married couple, Garrett Dillahunt and Michelle Hurd. Ironically, Dillahunt was up for the role of Negan on The Walking Dead that Jeffrey Dean Morgan would eventually land, although Dillahunt got a fairly decent consolation prize as John Dorie on Fear the Walking Dead. Hilarie Burton, meanwhile, knew Michelle Hurd from a 2012 Christmas film, Naughty or Nice, that they starred in with … Daneel Ackles (small world!).

Anyway, many people may not realize this because he is a fairly private actor (except for all the novelty masks he shows off on Instagram), but Dillahunt has been married to Picard star, Michelle Hurd, since 2007. In the tradition of sharing meet cutes on Morgans, Hurd and Dillahunt shared theirs this week, and it involves a huge misunderstanding.

As Hurd tells it, she and Dillahunt were starring in a play together. She doesn’t name the play, but it appears to have been 900 Oneonta in 1996. When she arrived to the first day of rehearsal, Hurd was excited to meet her new co-star and love interest, Dillahunt, and excitedly introduced herself. “I put on a big smile, and I stuck out my hand, and I said, ‘Hi! I’m Michelle, and I’m playing your love interest!”

“And I swear to God,” Hurd continues, Dillahunt listlessly turned his head and said, “Hi. I’m Garrett,” and turned back away from her. “Oh, that’s it, huh?” Michelle thought. “You’re just going to give me a look?” Meanwhile, she sees their other co-star, Missi Pyle, approach Dillahunt and they start laughing and chatting together. “Oh, that’s fine! That’s fine!” Hurd thinks. “You done. We are not playing. I’m out!”

Dillahunt, however, remembers the experience differently. “It was hot,” Dillahunt says, “and Michelle was on rollerblades, so she rolls in and she’s nine feet tall.” She’s not wearing much, Dillahunt continues, saying that she was “all bare abs and bare legs for days.” Meanwhile, Dillahunt was nervous, and “had no sense of fashion,” and he “turns around … and I was just the biggest nerd. I was so tongue-tied that I couldn’t come up with anything to say … It was awful.”

And there you go: The first time that Dillahunt met his future wife, he was so lovestruck that he couldn’t speak to her.

Meanwhile, Michelle Hurd — who has naturally curly hair — also told a story on the episode about an experience she had playing an “event planner to the stars,” who owned her own business on a TV series she recurred on. Hurd received a call from producers after the first day on set, and they said to her, “We love you, and we love your hair. It’s just so fabulous. However,” the producers continued, “we have done research where we have found that a Black woman who owns her own business can only be taken seriously if she has straightened hair.”

“This was said to me,” Hurd continues, understandably frustrated. “Just a few years ago. On a big f**king show … it’s just like Tracee Ellis Ross says. ‘If you hire me, you hire my hair.’”

Hurd did not specify the show, but it is worth noting that she played an event planner on The CW’s 90210 back in the early 2010s.

Source: AMC

One of the most striking visuals in a landscape still mostly lacking sports came on Saturday at the NWSL Challenge Cup when two players on the Chicago Red Stars, Casey Short and Julie Ertz, kneeled while wearing Black Lives Matter shirts and were overcome with emotions during the national anthem.

It was a powerful moment, and one of importance to both the athletes and the social movement the actions represented as sports leagues finally begin to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement. And it seems even the NBA, which has been reticent to allow players to protest during the national anthem in years past, may embrace “social justice slogans” on its player jerseys when the NBA’s bubble league gets up and running.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported late Saturday that the league is working with its players and jersey suppliers to allow slogans on the back of jerseys when league play resumes.

The move likely means players can wear the Black Lives Matter slogan on the back of their jerseys, and perhaps like the English Premier League then move the slogan to a patch on the jersey for the rest of the season. The wording of the report, however, isn’t specific and may mean players get to choose the language they put on their jerseys themselves, though Black Lives Matter has been the most poignant and popular phrase of the current movement.

What’s unclear is whether the league will allow players to kneel or do some other form of protest during the national anthem, if it is played before games in the bubble. And nothing is official just yet, but it seems like players will be able to continue bringing awareness to the important issues involving racial inequality even when games get underway in Orlando next month.

During the current worldwide pandemic, movie studios are no longer providing box-office figures because theaters have been shut down around the nation and the world. Because we are less interested in the actual figures themselves and more interested in what people are watching over the weekends, each week we will dive into Most Streamed and Bestseller Lists on Fandango, iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu to pinpoint the weekend’s most watched films.

Ahead of next week’s Fourth of July weekend, the studios are dropping some of the better titles of the summer this weekend, or at least, what were supposed to be. On the VOD and iTunes charts, Jon Stewart’s Irresistible has knocked King of Staten Island off the top spot after two weekends. Stewart’s film, which stars Steve Carell and Rose Byrne, has not gotten great reviews, so far, and I think even the 40 percent it has received on Rotten Tomatoes is charitable, given the media’s rightful affection for Stewart after 16 years as the host of The Daily Show. Reviews for the film were mixed here on Uproxx, too, with Mike Ryan liking it OK until the twist and Vince Mancini enjoying it (I was more in Mike’s camp on this one).

Again, being the top movie on VOD/iTunes is relative, and we don’t have actual figures or even the budget, but it is safe to say that the budget was modest (it’s a Focus Features film), and the revenue is (likewise) probably modest. Meanwhile, King of Staten Island, by virtue of being in the top two for the last three weeks, has probably generated some pretty solid revenue. Other than the appearance of Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried’s You Should Have Left (#3 on Fandango/#6 on iTunes), the digital charts look largely the same this week, although — as always — there are some fun little curiosities. Crazy Stupid Love is tenth on iTunes, for instance (probably because Carell fans wanted to watch a good movie after Irresistible). Meanwhile, number four on iTunes is a 2019 horrormovie called Sea Fever, which looks like some underwater alien film whose biggest star is Dougray Scott.

Scoob had a dramatic fall on both the iTunes rental and Fandango VOD charts this week because the film — after being available for $20 digital rental over the last six weeks — is now available for free to HBO Max subscribers. I wonder if that is to entice more HBO Max subscribers, or if there wasn’t much more money to make from the film on VOD?

Amazon Prime doesn’t provide charts, but My Spy — which looks like an old Dwayne Johnson movie that hired Dave Bautista because The Rock was busy — is the top family film on the service, after skipping a theatrical release for Prime Video. Hopefully, for the sake of their original slate, Joseph Gordon Levitt’s 7500 (released last weekend) is the top original movie overall movie on Amazon Prime Video.

The big movie this weekend on Netflix is Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams’ Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga. I have heard mixed things about it, and the critics’ reviews echo that (58 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), but it seems to please those who have sought it out (82 percent Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes). The second biggest film of the weekend on Netflix is, again, 365 Days, the Polish erotic drama that sits at 0 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s been in the top five on Netflix for a month now, so I finally broke down and watched it, and it is every bit as awful as the 0 percent RT score promises. Absolutely horrendous!

The rest of Netflix’s top five chart sees the family film, Nut Job at number three; Athlete A, the new documentary on Larry Nassar’s abuses as the gymnastics doctor, at number four; and strangely Gaspar Noe’s 2015 French film, Love, at number five. I have no idea where this one came from: A five-year-old art-house French flick with bad reviews? Maybe it’s an “erotic drama,” too.

From what I can tell of next weekend’s new releases, aside from John Lewis: Good Trouble on VOD, it looks like it’ll be a good weekend to catch up on movies you have already missed, like 7500, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s first film in several years, and yet no one has really said anything about it, despite decent reviews (69 percent on RT). The huge draw, however, will be Hamilton, which is coming to Disney+ on July 3rd.

Source: Fandango, iTunes

The rise of streaming services brought with it easy access to hundreds of shows and their entire back catalog, but as America reexamines its difficult history with race some services have removed episodes in an effort to be more sensitive to modern societal decency. The latest example of this is Hulu, which reportedly removed an episode of The Golden Girls because two of the titular girls wore blackface.

The Hollywood Reporter said Saturday that Hulu had removed the episode, “Mixed Feelings,” which includes a scene of unintentional blackface played up for comedic effect.

“Mixed Feelings”, episode 23 in season 3 of the sitcom, aired in 1988 and shows Michael (Scott Jacoby), the son of Dorothy (Beatrice Author), planning to wed a much older Black woman, Lorraine (Rosalind Cash).

Dororthy is concerned over the age difference while Lorraine’s family disapproves of their daughter marrying a white man, and thus the two families attempt to end the marriage. In the episode, Lorraine’s family finds Rose (Betty White) and Blanche (Rue McClanahan) trying a new mud facial treatment, and as they greet their family, Rose states, “This is mud on our faces, we’re not really Black.”

Blackface, even a seemingly innocent portrayal, is an allusion to an entertainment trope regarded as racist and hurtful. The practice has a long history in minstrel shows and was used to depict Black people as stereotypical side characters to a white character’s heroics. The Golden Girls joins shows like Community, The Office, 30 Rock, and Scrubs that have seen episodes featuring blackface removed from services in recent days. Other performers like Jimmy Kimmel have publicly apologized for the use of blackface in the past as well.

[via THR]

Sunday, June 14th, was National Bourbon Day, a celebration for lovers of the spirit around the country. This year, the context for the holiday was drastically different than years past. The widespread Black Lives Matter / Defund the Police protests touch on all parts of our lives (certainly how we eat and drink) and systemic inequity affects bourbon as much, if not more than any other industry. As UPROXX writer Gabrielle Pharms and Uncle Nearest founder Fawn Weaver both recently noted: industry-wide change is overdue.

That’s why Samara Rivers founded the Black Bourbon Society. Her goal in creating the group — active on IG and Facebook, with IRL tastings and events, pre-COVID — was to spark a shift in how bourbon is marketed, made, and enjoyed. In short, she was tired of waiting for Black people to be accepted in the whiskey world. So started a group that would command the respect of brands while also helping Black bourbon aficionados find each other.

This week, Rivers was kind enough to answer a few questions about the industry, the challenges she’s faced, and the changes that need to be made to the bourbon industry.

***

Why was it important for you to found the Black Bourbon Society?

I wanted to create the change I wanted to see. There’s been a longtime disconnect between whiskey and bourbon marketers, as it relates to the African American demographic. Many were shocked that we even enjoyed bourbon — though consumer insights suggest that African-Americans are buying premium brands.

What are some of the challenges you’ve experienced in the industry?

Being an African American woman in a male-dominated industry. Being a black woman in the spirits industry definitely can be challenging at times, but it also means that everyone notices your presence. I’ve gotten used to being “the only” in the room, knowing that I represent an entire demographic of tens of thousands.

How do you approach those situations?

I’ve learned to use my voice and platform to continue to create conversations for African Americans who love bourbon; the numbers speak for themselves [the BBS Facebook and IG accounts are both in the 15K range]. We are in the room — the events that I coordinate are proof of that. We are bridging the gap between African American consumers and bourbon makers to increase awareness, make our presence known, and continue to push change. I am doing the work to become known as an organizer and advocate for making real change in this industry; a voice for diversity and inclusion.

When it comes to the bourbon community, where have you felt the most welcome?

We’ve been able to have amazing experiences with brands like Maker’s Mark, Four Roses, etc and have great connections with cities such as Louisville, New Orleans, and Chicago.

When and where have you been frustrated with the bourbon/whiskey community?

There’s still a ton of work to be done in terms of diversity and inclusion. We recently put out an “Open Letter to the Whiskey Industry” in light of all that has been happening with George Floyd and beyond.

Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

It is known that African Americans spend at least 3.5 Billion dollars on wine, spirits, and tobacco annually. Our demographic over-indexes in spending and is a major source of revenue that the brands and the whiskey community benefit from and rely on. African Americans have long supported this industry – from the very beginning. We have made your barrels. We have built your rickhouses. We have harvested your corn. We have bottled your product. We have played every role except one of leadership to make this industry what is today. And even with that, we purchase (and collect) your products, we visit your distilleries, and we use our influence to share our love for Bourbon and American Whiskey with our families, friends, and networks.

Your silence over the past two weeks has not gone unnoticed. In fact, it’s deafening.

What conversations need to happen in the bourbon world?

As a society with over 17,000 members, we need the industry to openly and publicly stand with the millions
of voices demanding change in this country. We need to know where you stand, and we need you to show that you care. We also need tangible action to take place within our industry, to address issues of racial stereotypes and biases, lack of diversity and inclusion, and the erasure of our significant contributions in building up this industry — so that we are never faced with these issues in the future again.

We need permanent programs that foster more inclusive and diverse environments within your organizational structures and marketing practices. We need additional funding for targeted marketing campaigns for consumers of color.