Entertainment
Women Slam Music Industry for Ignoring Sexual Misconduct by Major Stars on January 27, 2024 at 12:00 am Us Weekly
After years of allegedly being silenced, 10 female survivors of sexual assault took a stand against the music industry — and exposed their experiences with Axl Rose, Nick Carter and more musicians.
“The secrets we have unveiled are horrifying,” attorney Jeff Anderson said in a press release on Thursday, January 25. “What may be even more horrifying is that we know this is only the tip of the iceberg.”
The lawyer hosted a live press event with several women who claimed to have been sexually assaulted while working in the music industry or as fans.
Former Dream singer Melissa Schuman detailed being allegedly assaulted by Backstreet Boys’ Carter, 43, when she was a teenager, while Sheila Kennedy recalled Guns N’ Roses frontman Rose, 61, allegedly attacking her in the ‘80s.
“The music industry should thrive on talent, dedication, and passion not coercion, not exploitation, not harassment, and certainly not rape,” Schuman, 39, said on Thursday. “In sharing my story, I aim to empower others to break the cycle of silence that has allowed this issue to persist. It’s about time the music industry is no longer a breeding ground for abuse.”
Kari Krome, who is part of the Make Music Safe Program and a former songwriter for the Runaways, slammed Rodney Bingenheimer for being a “well-known predator” while asking his employer SiriusXM to cut ties with the rocker.
Scroll down to learn more about the survivors’ alleged attacks — and what they want the music industry to do in response:
Women Are ‘Cheap Labor’ in Music Industry
Schuman, who previously spoke about her alleged assault in 2016, recounted her start in music, saying she was part of the girl group Dream in 1999. The band was signed to Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ Bad Boy Records.
“I was in the middle of school at the time, actually barely out of the eighth grade. And I believe that all my dreams were on the verge of coming true,” she said on Thursday, noting that after the group gained multi-platinum status, she thought her career would take off.
Schuman confessed, “I never, ever considered the darker motives behind discovering and shaping young talent, like the girls in Dream and myself besides us being used as cheap labor.” She alleged that the girls were “a prime age for grooming.”
When she was about to turn 18, Schuman remembered picking up on “this sort of silent understanding by those around me, that success would come at the expense of the exchange of my body.” Schuman alleged that it was joked about among the adults in the industry that “the cost of saying yes to uncomfortable advances” would help with “career advancement.”
Nick Carter Allegedly ‘Weaponized’ Fandom After Assault Claims
Schuman told the press on Thursday that she was “sexually assaulted by Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys when I was only 18 years old.” She alleged that the incident completely derailed her music career.
“I believed it was impossible to safeguard myself from his control and his influence while pursuing music,” she explained. “And so at the young age of 20 years I abandoned my recording career as a solo artist, I was trapped by skewed power dynamics.”
Denise Truscello/WireImage
Schuman claimed that the industry was not only made up of “predators,” but she argued that “those profiting from the predators that shield them at all costs” were just as bad. When Schuman came forward with her story, first on her blog in 2017 and then to police the next year, she alleged that Carter had his fans shame her.
“I have since become a target of retaliation through orchestrated PR,” she claimed. “Read the headlines and social media attacks my abuser and his boy band are well funded, they have access to extensive resources and they even weapon weaponize their fandom to shield their bandmate and brand from accountability.”
Schuman sued Carter in April 2023 for sexual assault and battery. In court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Schuman claimed that Carter raped her when she was 18 and he was 22. She alleged in the filing that Carter performed oral sex on her and then forced her to do the same.
“Melissa Schuman has been peddling this tale for many years, but her allegation was false when she first made it back in 2017 —and it still is,” Carter’s lawyer, Liane K. Wakayama, told Us in a statement at the time. “A judge in Nevada recently ruled, after reviewing the extensive evidence we laid out, that there are strong grounds for Nick Carter to proceed with his lawsuit against Ms. Schuman for plotting to damage, defame and extort Nick, his associates, his friends and his family.”
Wakayama continued: “In light of our progress in Nevada, this kind of response is at once both predictable and pathetic. But this PR stunt won’t shake Nick from his determination to hold Ms. Schuman and her co-conspirators to account for the immeasurable pain and suffering their extortionate conduct has caused.”
Carter and Schuman appeared in court on January 17, during which time he asked for a judge to dismiss the case. Carter’s plea was denied. He has also filed a counter claim against Schuman and two others for allegedly harassing him.
Axl Rose Is a ‘Monster’
Us confirmed in November 2023 that Kennedy, 61, filed a lawsuit against Rose, accusing him of sexually assaulting her in 1989. Kennedy alleged that after she tried to leave Rose’s hotel room because he wanted to engage in group sex with two other models, Rose reportedly “knocked her to the floor” and dragged her to the bed.
“Simply put, this incident never happened. Notably, these fictional claims were filed the day before the New York State filing deadline expires,” Rose’s attorney, Alan S. Gutman, told Us in a statement at the time. “Though he doesn’t deny the possibility of a fan photo taken in passing, Mr. Rose has no recollection of ever meeting or speaking to the Plaintiff, and has never heard about these fictional allegations prior to today. Mr. Rose is confident this case will be resolved in his favor.”
Harry Durrant/Getty Images
Kennedy, who was a former Penthouse model, has not backed down from her claims and has continued to allege that the assault has left her traumatized. “I have a voice and I don’t want to be called a victim. I want other women to hear this about Axl Rose, he’s a monster and he needs to be held accountable,” she said on Thursday. “And I’m here today to make sure that happens.”
Kennedy noted that it was “difficult” to talk about the assault but she wanted to get her story out there. “I think it’s really important that we need to make this industry safe for women,” she explained. “There are so many victims that feel shame, that feel guilty. Feel like they when they go to sleep at night, they have nightmares and it needs to stop this monster needs to be stopped: Axl Rose.”
A Call for Rodney Bingenheimer to Be Fired
Krome (legal name Carrie Mitchell) filed two lawsuits in April 2023, one against the late Runaways manager Kim Fowley and the second against former KROQ disc jokey Bingenheimer, 76. Krome claimed that Fowley, who died in 2015, sexually assaulted her in the 1970s when she was a teen. Fowley was previously accused of sexual assault by Runaways’ bassist Jackie Fox.
Krome alleged that Bingenheimer also sexually assaulted her during that decade after grooming her. Bingenheimer has recently been accused of sexual assault by five other women. He has not publicly commented on the case. Bingenheimer currently has a SiriusXM radio show called “Rodney Bingenheimer in the Underground Garage,” which Krome argued on Thursday should get shut down due to the allegations.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
“I’m here to demand Sirius XM to remove Rodney Bingenheimer a well-known serial predator and pedophile,” Krome told reporters. “What I want to know is how do listeners feel about having an abuser and a pedophile employed by Sirius XM? How many more victims need to come forward for Sirius to take this seriously? This is a cancer that’s affected every aspect of the industry and I’m here to call for it to stop and I would just like to say flat out shame on Sirius XM. Remove Rodney Bingenheimer.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Rose, Carter and Bingenheimer’s reps for comment.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
After years of allegedly being silenced, 10 female survivors of sexual assault took a stand against the music industry — and exposed their experiences with Axl Rose, Nick Carter and more musicians. “The secrets we have unveiled are horrifying,” attorney Jeff Anderson said in a press release on Thursday, January 25. “What may be even
Us Weekly Read More
Continue Reading
Entertainment
STREAMING PREMIERE · JUNE 13, 2026

Laughter Meets Inspiration: Our Ladies Show Lands on The Roku Channel
A bold new sketch comedy series for women premieres June 13 across the U.S., U.K., and Canada — arriving on the back of a festival-winning run that has critics and audiences already paying attention.
It isn’t every day a brand-new comedy arrives already wearing a row of trophies. Our Ladies Show does. The seven-episode inspirational sketch comedy series — created, written by, and starring Christin Jezak — begins streaming on The Roku Channel on Friday, June 13, 2026, available free to viewers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.
Produced in partnership with global media services leader Encompass Digital Media, the series sets out to do something rare in today’s streaming landscape: make women laugh out loud and leave them lifted. In a media moment crowded with noise and cynicism, Our Ladies Show is a deliberate counterweight — comedy with a conscience, built for women of every age and background.

A Show Built Around Real Life — and Real Laughs
Each of the seven episodes opens with a monologue from one of the cast members introducing the theme, then rolls into three or more sketches that hit the subject from every comedic angle. The series tackles the things women actually carry: holding grudges, comparison, beauty, patience, gift giving, the importance of community, and dealing with anxiety.
The comedy comes from a place of warmth rather than mockery — a “laugh at ourselves” spirit that runs through a gallery of unforgettable characters: a nosey neighbor, an overwhelmed mom, relentlessly optimistic flight attendants, beauty pageant winners past their prime, and a crew of unruly campers with a counselor who simply cannot hold it together.
Then the show does something most sketch series don’t. In the final segment of every episode, the cast gathers in a living-room setting and invites the audience in — sharing real inspiration drawn from the theme, the sketches, and their own personal stories. It’s the moment the laughter turns into something that stays with you.

The Women Behind the Show
Our Ladies Show brings together three performers with serious range:
- Christin Jezak — creator, writer, and star (Miracle at Manchester, Raising Hope, Jimmy Kimmel Live!)
- Hillary Hawkins — (Primal, Nick Jr.’s Play Along, Gullah Gullah Island)
- Sarah Hernandez — (Nefarious, Unplanned, House of Payne)
“In a world with so much division and depression, I hope women of all ages and backgrounds will watch this show, laugh, be reminded of how beautiful, unique, and loved they are, and remember how much we need each other.”— Christin Jezak, Creator & Star
Already a Festival Favorite
The series’ recurring long-form sketch, Neighborhood Watch, didn’t arrive quietly. Originally released as a web series and revamped for Our Ladies Show with new footage, sound, and music, it has been sweeping the festival circuit:
- 🏆 Best Webseries — 2026 New Media Film Festival (Los Angeles)
- 🏆 Best Web/TV Series — Paris Film Awards
- 🏆 Best Web Series — Dallas Movie Awards
- 🏅 Additional wins at the London Movie Awards, Florence Film Awards, and Hollywood Gold Awards
- 🎬 Official Selection — 2026 Harvard Divinity School Film Fest
- ⭐ Finalist — Houston Comedy Film Festival
- 📣 Three nominations — 2025 Content Christian Media Conference, including Best Actress in a TV and Web Series nods for both Christin Jezak and Sarah Hernandez
Where and When to Watch
Our Ladies Show premieres Friday, June 13, 2026, streaming on The Roku Channel — the home of premium and free entertainment — in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. All seven episodes deliver the series’ signature blend of sharp sketch comedy and genuine encouragement.

Watch the trailer now on your platform of choice:
For more information, visit www.ourladiesshow.com and follow @ourladiesshow on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

About Christin Jezak
Christin Jezak has worked for over 15 years in the entertainment industry. She created and stars in Our Ladies Show and the award-winning web series Neighborhood Watch. She produced the EWTN TV program For the Sake of the Gospel and the all-women web series Ladies Keepin’ It Real, played Dr. Sam in Miracle at Manchester (starring Dean Cain, Daniel Roebuck, and Eddie McClintock), and voices Agnes in the podcast Confessions of a Catholic Single. She held a lead role in a short film for NTT Data directed by Academy Award–winning cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, has co-starred on Raising Hope, and appeared in Jimmy Kimmel sketches and a Grubhub Super Bowl commercial.

About The Roku Channel
Roku pioneered streaming on TV and is the #1 TV streaming platform in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico by hours streamed (Hypothesis Group, Dec. 2025). The Roku Channel is the home of premium and free entertainment, alongside Roku’s Howdy and Frndly TV services. Roku is headquartered in San Jose, California.
About Encompass Digital Media
Encompass Digital Media is a global managed services company — technology-driven, software-defined, and people-powered. Trusted by world-leading broadcasters, networks, sports rights-holders, and OTT platforms, it processes over 25,000 hours of content daily, serves 850 channels to 84 countries, distributes over 243,000 live events annually, and reaches 400 million radio listeners weekly worldwide. Learn more at www.encompass.tv.
Media & Interview Requests: To interview creator Christin Jezak or the cast, contact Christin at cjezak@p2ptheatre.com.
Entertainment
What Filmmakers Should Actually Steal From Euphoria

Most of the talk about Euphoria asks one question: was it realistic? That’s the wrong question if you make films. The better one is simpler. How did Sam Levinson get an audience to feel addiction from the inside? And what did it cost him to end the show the way he did?
Strip away the noise and Euphoria is a clinic in three choices: point of view, style, and the ending. Here’s what’s worth taking — and what isn’t.

1. Put the Camera Inside the Character
Most shows about drugs watch from across the room. Euphoria doesn’t. When Rue is high, the camera is high too. Walls breathe. Floors tilt. Time skips. You’re not watching her — you’re stuck inside her head.
That’s the lesson: point of view is a decision you make with the camera and the cut, not a mood you add later in color. Levinson builds it into the lens, the blocking, and the edit.
So before you shoot a scene through a character’s eyes, ask one thing on set: whose eyes is this lens standing in for? Then make every cut respect that.
2. Your Style Has to Mean Something
The glitter. The slow push-ins. The impossible club lighting. Euphoria‘s look got copied everywhere. That’s the trap.
The style worked because it carried weight. The beauty wasn’t decoration — it was the lie addiction tells you, the reason the next high looks worth it. The camera made self-destruction gorgeous on purpose.
The copies missed that. A thousand music videos took the look and left the meaning behind, and you can feel how hollow they are. So here’s the test: if your signature style could be swapped onto any other project and still “work,” it’s not a style. It’s a filter. Every choice should have a reason behind it.
3. The Ending Tells the Audience What It All Meant
When Euphoria ended for good in Season 3, Levinson killed Rue — an accidental, fentanyl-laced overdose. He called it “the honest ending,” saying he wanted to tell a true story about addiction and grief in a time when one mistake can be the last one. Reportedly, that wasn’t the original plan; the death of Angus Cloud, who played Fezco, changed the script.
Forget whether you agree with the choice. Study how it works. An ending is the last instruction you give your audience about how to read everything before it.
By ending on consequence instead of recovery, Levinson reframed seven years of beautiful chaos as a story about cost — not a celebration of it.
It’s also the show’s most debatable move, and that’s worth noticing too. A show that spent years making pain look beautiful had to fight to make that pain land as loss. Did it earn the ending, or enjoy the wreckage too long to stick it? Smart filmmakers will disagree — and that argument is exactly what a good ending is supposed to start.

What Not to Take
The neon grief is the most copied part. It’s also the least useful. Take the surface — the colors, the slow-mo, the trauma-as-texture — and you get the costume without the body.
The real craft is underneath. Commit your camera to a real point of view. Make every stylistic choice earn its place. Treat your ending as the point of the whole thing. Do that, and your work won’t look like Euphoria. It’ll do what Euphoria did.
This piece touches on addiction and substance use. If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available through the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
Entertainment
How a 22-Person Film Crew Each Walked Away With $300,000

In the spring of 2020, with Hollywood shut down and most film workers suddenly out of a job, Zendaya made a movie in a single house with a crew of 22. The film was Malcolm & Marie. What happened to that crew afterward is the part worth paying attention to — and it’s quietly become a blueprint indie filmmakers are borrowing five years later.
Instead of paying everyone the standard flat day rate and sending them home, Zendaya structured the production so the crew owned a piece of it. They received “points” — a share of the film’s revenue.
When Malcolm & Marie sold to Netflix for roughly $30 million, those points turned into real money. Because one point typically equals 1%, a single point on that sale was worth around $300,000.
For a crew used to being paid by the day, that’s a life-changing number.
The Math That Makes It Click
The reason points are so powerful is that their value scales with the film, not with your hours on set:
- At $30 million in revenue, 1% equals $300,000
- At $50 million, 1% equals $500,000
- At $100 million, 1% equals $1 million
Now hold that against traditional indie crew pay, which runs roughly $300 to $800 per day. A 20-day shoot totals somewhere between $6,000 and $16,000 — full stop, no upside, no matter how well the film does. The points model flips the entire logic: you stop getting paid for time and start getting paid for success.
This Isn’t New — It’s Just Newly Accessible
Backend deals are how the biggest names in Hollywood get rich. Robert Downey Jr. reportedly earned tens of millions from his Avengers: Endgame backend; Keanu Reeves made a fortune off The Matrix through profit participation. The leverage to demand that kind of deal has always belonged to A-list stars.
What changed with Malcolm & Marie is who got a seat at the table. Zendaya didn’t reserve the points for herself and a couple of producers — she extended them to the crew, the people she described as laying the tracks and doing the heavy lifting. That’s the shift indie filmmakers are now studying: ownership as something you share down the call sheet, not hoard at the top.
Why Indie Filmmakers Should Care
Independent films usually run on budgets between $50,000 and $500,000, where labor can eat up 40% to 60% of total costs. That creates a permanent squeeze: how do you attract genuinely skilled people without torching the budget before you’ve shot a frame?
Equity is the pressure valve. Offering ownership instead of higher upfront pay lets you reduce immediate production costs, attract more experienced collaborators, and — maybe most importantly — build a team that actually wants the film to win.

How to Apply It to Your Own Project
You don’t need a $30 million Netflix sale for this to work. Say your budget is $250,000 and your revenue goal is $500,000, making 1% worth $5,000. Instead of stretching cash thin across every line item, you might offer 1% to a cinematographer, 1% to an editor, and 1–2% to a producer. You preserve cash during production and hand your key people a real reason to overdeliver.
Ownership Changes How People Show Up
A stake rewires behavior. People who own a piece of the outcome stay sharper on set, pitch in on marketing and promotion without being asked, and stay invested long after wrap. That last part matters more than it sounds — a crew that’s financially tied to the film becomes part of its distribution engine, not just its production.
Read the Fine Print
Equity is not a salary, and it’s honest to say so. Malcolm & Marie worked because it sold to Netflix at a high price — that’s the upside scenario, not a guarantee. If a project underperforms, points can be worth little or nothing. So if you use this model, do it cleanly: define revenue participation explicitly in contracts, spell out recoupment structures so everyone knows who gets paid and in what order, and offer partial upfront payment where you can to balance the risk. The whole thing runs on trust, and trust runs on transparency.
The Bigger Picture
What Zendaya pulled off with a 22-person crew in one house pointed to something larger about how creative work gets valued. In an industry where funding is the hardest wall to climb, ownership has become its own currency. You may not control access to millions in financing — but you fully control how value gets shared on your set. And that, more often than not, is the difference between a film that stalls in development and one that actually gets made.
Advice3 weeks agoHow to Make Your Indie Film Pay Off Without Losing Half to Distributors
Advice3 weeks agoHow to Find Your Voice as a Filmmaker
Entertainment3 weeks agoOzempic Era: Beauty, Lizard Venom, Big Pharma
Business4 weeks agoGLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT RETURNS FOR ITS 5TH EDITION AT THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT – HOUSE OF LORDS, PALACE OF WESTMINSTER
Film Industry2 weeks ago67% Of Film Roles Are Now White Again — And Hollywood Knows Exactly What It’s Doing
News3 weeks agoCan AI Really Steal Your Fingerprints From a Selfie?
Film Industry3 weeks agoActors Win AI Deal – But Your Face Is Still Training the Machine
Business3 weeks agoBuilding a 10 Million Army: One Leader’s Mission to Save Tomorrow


















