CNN
 — 

Kirstie Alley and John Travolta were never romantically involved, but that wasn’t how she initially wanted it.

Alley, who died Monday at the age of 71 after a brief illness, often talked of her feelings for Travolta, whom she called the “greatest love” of her life.

The pair starred together “Look Who’s Talking” film franchise (the first movie hit theaters in 1989). During an appearance in 2018 on “Celebrity Big Brother U.K.”, Alley talked about how easy it is to fall in love with leading men.

She named two co-stars she said she developed feelings for, but never fully consummated the attraction: Patrick Swayze and Travolta.

“I almost ran off and married John. I did love him, I still love him,” Alley said. “If I hadn’t been married I would’ve gone and married him and I would’ve been in an airplane because he has his [own plane.]”

The same year she appeared on the reality show, the “Cheers” star also talked about Travolta during a conversation on “The Dan Wootton Interview” podcast. She said not sleeping with the movie star was “the hardest decision I’ve ever made because I was madly in love with him.”

“We were fun and funny together,” she said. “It wasn’t a sexual relationship because I’m not going to cheat on my husband.”

Alley was married to actor Parker Stevenson at the time. The couple divorced in 1997.

In 2013, Alley told Howard Stern Travolta also had feelings for her, but didn’t act on them because of her marriage.

“It took me years to not look at John as a romantic interest,” she said.

Travolta married actress Kelly Preston in 1991. Alley told Wooten that Preston put her foot down about her flirting with her husband.

“Kelly came up to me and they were married then, and she said, ‘Why are you flirting with my husband?’” Alley said. “And that was sort of when I had to make a decision and that was pretty much the end of that.”

Travolta paid tribute to Alley on social media Monday.

“Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had,” he wrote in the caption on a post on his verified Instagram account. “I love you Kirstie. I know we will see each other again.”

CNN
 — 

Actress Kirstie Alley, star of the big and small screens known for her Emmy-winning role on “Cheers” and films like “Look Who’s Talking,” has died after a brief battle with cancer, her children True and Lillie Parker announced on her social media.

She was 71.

“We are sad to inform you that our incredible, fierce and loving mother has passed away after a battle with cancer, only recently discovered,” the statement read.

“She was surrounded by her closest family and fought with great strength, leaving us with a certainty of her never-ending joy of living and whatever adventures lie ahead,” the family’s statement continued. “As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother.”

“Our mother’s zest and passion for life, her children, grandchildren and her many animals, not to mention her eternal joy of creating, were unparalleled and leave us inspired to live life to the fullest just as she did,” the statement said.

A representative for Alley confirmed to CNN via email on Tuesday that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer prior to her death.

A two-time Primetime Emmy Award winner, Alley was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1951.

After a standout role in 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” she played roles in movies like 1984’s “Blind Date” and 1987’s “Summer School” opposite Mark Harmon.

That same year, Alley would follow Shelley Long to play the lead opposite Ted Danson in the latter part of TV classic sitcom “Cheers,” which premiered in 1982. Alley first appeared in 1987, playing strong and independent bar manager Rebecca Howe, staying on the acclaimed show until it ended in 1993.

After winning the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series in 1991 for “Cheers” and another for lead actress in a miniseries or special for 1994’s “David’s Mother,” she again found TV success in the late ’90s with series “Veronica’s Closet,” which scored her another Emmy nod.

Additionally, Alley starred in a number of memorable films, like the “Look Who’s Talking” movies, 1990’s “Madhouse” and 1999’s “Drop Dead Gorgeous” with Ellen Barkin.

In 2005, Alley co-wrote and starred in the Showtime comedy “Fat Actress” before making a foray into reality TV.

She appeared in “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life” in 2010, was a contestant on Season 12 of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” the next year and placed second on Season 22 of the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother” in 2018. In 2022, she competed in Season 7 of Fox’s “The Masked Singer.”

Though she had an impressive body of work, the later part of her career was marked by Alley’s penchant for stirring controversy, especially through social media.

In a 2007 interview, Alley said she was proud of her no holds barred ways.

“I’ve always felt like if someone asks me something, they want the real answer,” Alley told Good Housekeeping. “I think there’s also something about being from Kansas. Usually people think I’m from New York. The only similarity between New Yorkers and Midwesterners is that what you see is what you get.”

John Travolta, who costarred with Alley in 1989’s hit “Look Who’s Talking” as well as two sequels, wrote on Instagram on Monday, “Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had. I love you Kirstie. I know we will see each other again.”

Jamie Lee Curtis – who worked with Alley in 2016 on episodes of TV’s “Scream Queens” – shared a statement on Facebook to pay tribute to the late actress, writing, “She was a great comic foil in @tvscreamqueens and a beautiful mama bear in her very real life. She helped me buy onesies for my family that year for Christmas. We agreed to disagree about some things but had a mutual respect and connection. Sad news.”

Josh Gad tweeted, “My heart breaks for Kirstie and her family. Whether it was her brilliance in ‘Cheers; or her magnetic performance in the ‘Look Who’s Talking’ franchise, her smile was always infectious, her laugh was always contagious and her charisma was always iconic. RIP.”

Alley’s “Cheers” co-star Ted Danson told Deadline he had just watched Alley in an episode of the show while on a plane before learning of her death.

“I was on a plane today and did something I rarely do. I watched an old episode of ‘Cheers,’” Danson told the outlet. “It was the episode where Tom Berenger proposes to Kirstie, who keeps saying no, even though she desperately wants to say yes. Kirstie was truly brilliant in it. Her ability to play a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown was both moving and hysterically funny.”

“She made me laugh 30 years ago when she shot that scene, and she made me laugh today just as hard. As I got off the plane, I heard that Kirstie had died. I am so sad and so grateful for all the times she made me laugh,” Danson added. “I send my love to her children. As they well know, their mother had a heart of gold. I will miss her.”

Another “Cheers” star, Rhea Perlman, told CNN in a statement that she and Alley became friends instantly on the set of “Cheers.”

“Kirstie was a unique and wonderful person and friend. Her joy of being was boundless,” Perlman said. “We became friends almost instantly when she joined the cast of Cheers. She loved kids and my kids loved her too. We had sleepovers at her house, with treasure hunts that she created. She had massive Halloween and Easter parties and invited the entire crew of the show and their families. She wanted everyone to feel included. She loved her children deeply. I’ve never met anyone remotely like her. I feel so thankful to have known her. I’m going to miss her very, very much.”

“Baywatch” actor Parker Stevenson, who was married to Alley from 1983 to 1997 and is the father of her two children, also paid tribute to her on social media. In an Instagram post, confirmed to be Stevenson’s by a representative for the actor, he wrote: “Kirstie, I am so grateful for our years together, and for the two incredibly beautiful children and now grandchildren that we have. You will be missed.”

CNN
 — 

Adam Sandler will always Chris Farley.

More than twenty years after Farley’s death, Sandler still gets sad when he sings the “Chris Farley Song,” a song he wrote for his late friend and comedian, who died in December 1997 of a drug overdose at age 33.

Sandler told the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that his musical tribute still makes him emotional. He performed the song as part of his Netflix special “Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh” and sang it on “SNL” when he hosted in May 2019.

“The first few times, we played that song, I would tear up and I couldn’t really sing it well because I’d get so emotional, and then I felt it and was able to get it out there,” Sandler said on the podcast. “It’s weird, but when that song starts, I go, ‘Oh f–k, alright, don’t cry and don’t do that’ still. I’ve sang it maybe a hundred times already, but it rocks me.”

Sandler added, “I think it’s because we show a video of Chris and I see his face.” He also said “hearing the crowd go nuts for Farley” makes him happy.

“Every show I do, by far the biggest applause of the night is talking about Farley and any time I mention his name, the audience goes nuts. It feels great,” he said.

Editor’s Note: Featuring the good, the bad and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is a regular series dedicated to unpacking the most talked about outfit of the last seven days.

CNN
 — 

Bringing the second day of this year’s Coachella to a close, K-Pop girl group Blackpink made history Saturday night when they became the first Asian act to ever headline the festival. To a crowd of, reportedly, over 125,000 people, Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé used the ground-breaking moment to pay homage to Korean heritage by arriving onstage in hanboks: a traditional type of dress.

While the garments were shrugged off a few seconds into their opening track, “Pink Venom,” revealing each member’s custom black and pink Dolce and Gabbana outfit, fans across the world had already received the message. Screenshots of the moment quickly spread among Blackpink superfans, otherwise known as Blinks. “The way they stepped onto the biggest western stage in hanboks … literally proved their place at the top of the industry,” tweeted one Blink. “Blackpink really are in a league of their own.”

Another called the group “Korea’s cultural delegation” on Instagram, in reference to not only the hanboks but other visual cues incorporated into their show, such as one of the stage backdrops featuring an angular tiled roof reminiscent of traditional Korean architecture.

In recent years, Blackpink have enjoyed a meteoric rise to global fame. According to Guinness World Records, they are currently the most streamed female group on Spotify, and have the most-viewed music YouTube channel. Last year, they were the first female K-Pop group to reach number 1 in the UK and US album charts, and in 2020 their track “How You Like That” became the most viewed video on YouTube in 24 hours. (The group also wore modernized hanboks, designed by Kim Danha, in one of the music video’s scenes.) Their landmark set over the weekend was in fact a follow-up to another milestone: In 2019, they became the first female K-Pop group to ever play at Coachella or any other US festival.

From the iconic Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra worn by Madonna for her 1990 Blond Ambition tour to Geri “Ginger Spice” Halliwell’s Union Jack mini dress, the right stage costume can live on forever in public memory. Particularly when worn at a career-defining moment. During another watershed Coachella performance — Beyonce’s 2018 headline set — the singer’s custom Balmain collegiate-style yellow hoodie was a joyful nod to Black culture, specifically historically Black colleagues and universities.

The group’s four black hanboks were custom created by South Korean pattern design brand OUWR and traditional Korean dressmakers Kumdanje. Inspired by the Cheol-lik silhouette, each garment was hand-embroidered with metallic traditional Korean motifs, including dan-cheong patterns and peonies (a symbol of royalty in Korea). “It was our pleasure and such an honor to be able to show the beautiful values of Korea and Hanbok together,” the designers wrote in a combined Instagram post. “Blackpink showed the beauty of Korea and dazzled the world.”

In Korea, hanboks are still worn for special occasions and often seen on TV dramas. Many designers in the country have also created contemporary takes that are incorporated into everyday wear. At Seoul Fashion Week, JULYCOLUMN’s Fall-Winter 2023 collection drew on the hanbok’s voluminous silhouette to create shirts and structured jackets. Last September, Korean label BlueTamburin brought the garment to a Western audience by exclusively using traditional hanbok fabric to create its Spring-Summer 2023 collection at Milan Fashion Week.

Whether you’re a devoted Blink or not, the looks marked a moment of Asian visibility, recognition of traditional craftsmanship and a powerful example of feeling seen through fashion — representing Korean culture and symbolically embracing both its past and future.

At the end of their performance, and having addressed the audience between numbers in English throughout their two-hour-long performance, Blackpink finished their set in Korean: “Until now, it has been Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosé Blackpink. Thank you.”

Top image: Blackpink performing at the first weekend of Coachella 2023, shortly after removing their hanboks.

CNN
 — 

Now that the Fall-Winter 2023 catwalks have been disassembled, it’s clear one trend was more pervasive than any collective penchant for ruffles, pleated skirts or tailored coats.

Across runways in New York, London, Milan and Paris, there was a notable scarcity of plus-size models. This comes at a time when there are five injectable medications which can be used as appetite suppressants currently available by prescription in the US, stirring much conversation; a sixth medication, Rybelsus, is taken as an oral pill. Two are officially approved in the UK — the largest influx of weight loss medication seen in the country in almost a decade.

In recent months, injectables such as Wegovy and Ozempic — which share the same active ingredient, semaglutide — have been widely reported as Hollywood’s worst-kept weight loss secret. (Ozempic is intended for use primarily to treat Type 2 diabetes.) Comedian Chelsea Handler claimed her “anti-aging doctor just hands (Ozempic) out to anybody” while appearing on a podcast in January. Even Elon Musk tweeted last year about being on Wegovy.

For many fashion commentators and diversity advocates, the Fall-Winter 2023 runways were in sharp contrast to the (albeit limited) progress and heady promise of recent seasons. This rollback has been widely criticized in the style media as such. And its potential impact is being assessed more broadly: With the rise of these weight loss panaceas, the pursuit of size zero is now just a prescription away.

In 2020, Jill Kortleve and Paloma Elsesser became the first models outside of a sample size to walk for the Italian fashion house Fendi. (Traditionally, a sample size falls between a US 0-4.) British label Erdem entered the plus-size market in 2021, extending its offering to a UK size 22 (or US size 18). And in January 2022, Valentino made headlines after its haute couture show featured a broad spectrum of body types. But this season, there was a visible lack of curve bodies on their runways — or many others.

Fendi and Valentino did not respond when contacted by CNN, while Erdem declined to comment.

According to fashion search engine Tagwalk, the number of mid and plus-size models dropped by 24% in comparison to Spring-Summer 2023. Similarly, a size inclusivity report conducted by Vogue Business found that 95.6% of all looks presented for Fall-Winter 2023 were in a size US 0-4. For context, industry market firm Plunkett Research estimated in 2015 that 68% of American women wear a size US 14 or above.

“It was a definitive backslide,” said IMG model agent Mina White, who represents plus-size and curve supermodels including Elsesser and Ashley Graham. “It was frustrating to see some of these designers not using curved bodies where they had in the past.” Fendi and Valentino did not respond when contacted by CNN, while Erdem declined to comment.

“Watching somebody like Ashley Graham attend the front row for so many of these major houses in full looks (provided by the designer), it was frustrating,” White continued. “They wanted to utilize her image and her social following to command a certain space in the market, but they didn’t want to be reflective on their runways.”

For others, even the term “backslide” was too generous. “Slipping back from… what? A glorious time when the average American woman (size 16) was as present on the runways as she is in everyday life? A time when fashion ads cast as many ‘plus-size’ and ‘mid-size’ women as ‘straight-size’ women?” fashion journalist Amy Odell wrote in her Substack newsletter of this past season’s runways. “No one needed any data to understand that representing a wide array of body shapes and sizes in runway shows or in fashion imagery is not a priority for the industry.”

That said, a handful of — mostly smaller — brands pushed ahead this season. In London, emerging labels Di Petsa, Karoline Vitto and Sinead O’Dwyer showcased lineups of size-diverse models. Inclusivity at Christian Siriano, Coach, Kim Shui, Collina Strada and Bach Mai stood out in New York; while in Paris, Belgian brand Esther Manas — a consistent flag-bearer for size diversity — staged one of the city’s most refreshing runways with an assortment of fun, sensual, feminine looks that complimented a range of bodies.

There was also a smattering of mid- and plus-size castings to be seen elsewhere: Off-White and Michael Kors, for example, featured a few such models. At Harris Reed’s debut for Nina Ricci, Precious Lee opened the show — which also featured three more plus- and mid-size models.

Fashion samples and sample size pieces are one-off garments made before an item is mass-produced, typically to be worn during runway shows. Prioritizing the same body type in sample sizes means runway models are more easily interchangeable, saving fashion houses time and money if someone were to drop out or get sick during or after the casting process for a show.

It’s also partly why, according to White, casting curve models is still an uphill battle. She says she introduces brands to new faces months in advance of runway season, with their specific measurements up-top and easy to read in all correspondence. “I want to be ahead of that,” White said. “So I’m never told ‘Oh, we wanted to make it work, but we didn’t have her size’ or whatever that conversation might look like.”

But despite her efforts, she says she’s frequently told it’s too much of a “financial lift” to make larger samples — even by legacy brands. “I get very upset when brands say that,” White said. “I don’t believe that it is, I believe that it’s people not being properly educated on how to do this right.”

Beyond the lack of representation, White notes it’s painful for plus-size consumers to watch brands leverage resources to create custom, made-to-fit pieces for celebrities — all the while claiming the pot is empty for more inclusive runway samples.

London-based stylist and editor Francesca Burns agrees sample sizes are part of the problem. In 2020, Burns went viral after she posted on Instagram about a fashion job gone wrong. She says she was sent five looks to style from Celine, none of which fit the size UK 8 (US 4) model booked for the shoot— an 18-year-old on her first job in the business. The experience left her “horrified,” Burns told CNN, recalling what she saw as the model’s shame and embarrassment. “Looking into this girl’s eyes,” Burns said, “she shouldn’t have felt like that.”

Burns’ post, which called the current system “unacceptable,” was picked up widely in the fashion media. (When reached by CNN, Celine declined to comment on the incident.) “Ultimately, the desire to see change has to be there,” Burns said. “And I wonder whether luxury has that desire?”

Progress has been slow, but not entirely inexistent. Across fashion campaigns, magazine covers and editorial shoots, there is a growing enthusiasm for inclusivity. “I see the options rolling in for the plus-sized talent, and they’re great offerings,” said White. “Great, strong editorials and covers and campaigns. But I do feel like without the clothes, we are going to go back to see more naked curve stories, or lingerie curve stories or a curve girl in a trench coat. That’s what I don’t want.”

For British Vogue’s April issue, unveiled March 16, Elsesser, Lee and Jill Kortleve were dubbed “The New Supers.” Preceding the cover story is a letter written by editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful commending the models for “leading the way” and holding “powerful space” in the industry.

“Catwalks are once again under scrutiny for a stark lack of body diversity,” read the magazine’s Instagram caption, unveiling the cover. “But this cover was not conceived as a statement. It is a crowning of an all-powerful trio, the supermodels for a new generation.”

But many online were quick to point out the disconnect: Two of the Saint Laurent Spring-Summer 2023 dresses were modeled by plus-size women, though they are not available to buy in most plus sizes.

In his own social media post, Enninful wrote about his disappointment at the Fall-Winter 2023 runways. “I thought I had gotten into a time machine. Show after show dominated by one body type, so many limited visions of womanhood… one prescribed notion of beauty prevailed again, and it felt like the reality of so many women around the world were being ignored.”

But for White, the power rests within the entire industry — not just at the feet of brands. “I really do believe there should be an industry standard between the (Council of Fashion Designers of America), the British Fashion Council and key editors at some of these major mass market magazines,” she continued. “If there was a call-to-action from these figureheads saying, moving forward samples need to be readily available for a few different body types, we would see significant and impactful change.”

Burns agrees there must be a trickle-down effect. “I think a lot of responsibility is put on young designers to solve all these issues around sustainability or issues around body inclusivity,” she said. “It’s important that the big powerhouses, which have the capacity to action change, really take some responsibility.”

On March 8, Wegovy — developed primarily as a treatment for those living with obesity and weight-related conditions — was approved in the UK. It’s the second injectable weight management medication to be made available with a prescription via the country’s National Health Service (NHS) in about 3 years, after almost a decade of quiet. Before 2020, the last weight loss medication was approved in the UK was in 2010.

Similarly, the US has now approved three weight management injections: Wegovy, Saxenda and IMCIVREE. Medications for type-2 diabetes like Mounjaro and Ozempic are not FDA-approved for weight loss, though some doctors are issuing them at their own discretion.

While these medicines are a revolutionary tool for those who struggle to lose weight for genetic or medical reasons, they are at risk of being abused.

Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, was originally developed for treating type-2 diabetes. It quells hunger signals to the brain by mimicking the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). “It can slow how quickly your stomach empties out and may give you a little more feeling of feeling full,” said Dr. Robert Lash, an endocrinologist and Chief Medical Officer of the Endocrine Society in Washington, D.C. In clinical trials, over a period of 68 weeks, participants who used the medication in conjunction with eating fewer calories and increasing their physical activity on average lost around 15% of their body weight compared to 2.4% of those using a placebo, according to the manufacturer Novo Nordisk.

On March 13, the European Medicines Agency issued a statement warning of an Ozempic shortage that could continue through the year, urging doctors to prioritize prescriptions to diabetics. “Any other use, including for weight management, represents off-label use and currently places the availability of Ozempic for the indicated population at risk,” read the release.

Patients typically need a BMI of 27 or higher (along with another weight-related condition like high blood pressure or diabetes) or have a genetic predisposition towards obesity to be prescribed such appetite suppressant medication by their doctor. But talk of these injectables has been sweeping the West. In January, the New York Times reported on the term “Ozempic Face,” coined by a New York-based dermatologist who reported treating several patients with a hollowed-out appearance that can come with rapid weight loss. By the end of February, the medication had made it to the cover of New York Magazine in a feature titled “Life After Food?” Adverts for GLP-1 injections are even blanketing New York City subway stations.

And across social media, online forums and private group chats, some people looking to lose weight for primarily aesthetic purposes are searching for a way to skirt the requirements.

“I was just looking for a way to lose a few pounds, like 10 to 15 at most,” said one 30-year-old American woman, who wished to remain anonymous, in a phone interview. She scoured social media and forums for guidance on securing a weight loss drug. “I’m certainly a normal BMI, I just have a trip to Mexico coming up and I want to look really good,” she said.

Although she says she found a way to access Wegovy, she decided against the medication after considering the cost (which can reach more than $1,000 a month without insurance). “I’ve always very much fit the societal standard but lately I was just like f*ck it, I want to be skinny,” she told CNN.

Dr. Lash emphasized the importance of taking weight loss drugs only with medical supervision and a valid prescription. “If somebody was a normal weight and they took this drug because they thought they could be even thinner than they are now, that could lead to complications,” he told CNN, warning of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and even gallbladder problems. “These drugs are not benign, they do have side effects involving the GI tract. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Every body is invited

Fashion has long promoted size 0 as the ultimate virtue — regardless of its viability for many people, or any health risks. And now with the accessibility of accelerated weight loss medication, the stakes are even higher. For Burns and White, the industry is responsible for amplifying a new, more inclusive vision of beauty.

“There’s a very archaic way of looking at women over a size 16 and just assuming that they’re unhealthy or uneducated or unstylish. Or don’t have the resources to buy into luxury,” said White. “The reality is the same women these brands are alienating in their fashion space are the same women running out to buy their handbags, shoes, perfumes, cosmetics and skincare.”

Not only do designers need to create clothes with this consumer in mind, according to White, but they need to be seen on the runway, too.

“It shouldn’t be a conversation. It should just be normalized that we’re not just looking at a single view of beauty,” echoed Burns.

Ester Manas and Balthazar Delepierre, whose bridal-inspired Fall-Winter 2023 collection was one of this season’s most size-diverse runways, summarized it best in their accompanying show notes: “The body is not the subject. Because, obviously, at a wedding, everybody is invited. And all to the party. That is where the designer duo Ester and Balthazar take their stand.”

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Art Newspaper, an editorial partner of CNN Style.

CNN
 — 

Kwame Brathwaite, the pioneering activist and photographer whose work helped define the aesthetics of the “Black is Beautiful” movement of the 1960s and beyond, died on April 1, aged 85.

His son, Kwame Brathwaite, Jr, announced his father’s death in an Instagram post that read in part, “I am deeply saddened to share that my Baba, the patriarch of our family, our rock and my hero has transitioned.”

Brathwaite’s work has been the subject of resurgent interest from curators, historians and collectors in recent years, and his first major institutional retrospective, which was organized by the Aperture Foundation, made its debut in 2019 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles before touring the country.

Brathwaite was born in 1938 to Barbadian immigrants, in what he referred to as “the People’s Republic of Brooklyn” in New York, though his family moved from there to Harlem and then to the South Bronx when Brathwaite was 5 years old. He attended the School of Industrial Art (now the High School of Art and Design) and, according to profiles of Brathwaite in T Magazine and Vice, was drawn to photography by two moments. The first was in August of 1955, when a 17-year-old Brathwaite encountered David Jackson’s haunting photograph of a brutalized Emmett Till in his open casket. The second was in 1956, when — after he and his brother Elombe co-founded the African Jazz Arts Society and Studios (AJASS) — Brathwaite saw a young man taking photos in a dark jazz club without the use of a flash, and his mind became alight with possibility.

Using a Hasselblad medium-format camera, Brathwaite attempted to do the same, learning to work with limited light in a manner that enhanced the visual narrative of his imagery. He would soon also develop a darkroom technique that enriched and deepened how Black skin would appear in his photography, honing the practice in a small darkroom in his Harlem apartment. Brathwaite went on to photograph jazz legends performing throughout the 1950s and ’60s, including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and others.

“You want to get the feeling, the mood that you’re experiencing when they’re playing,” Brathwaite told Aperture Magazine in 2017. “That’s the thing. You want to capture that.”

By the early 1960s, alongside the rest of AJASS, Brathwaite began using his photography and organizing prowess to consciously push back against whitewashed, Eurocentric beauty standards. The group came up with the concept of the Grandassa Models, young Black women whom Brathwaite would photograph, celebrating and accentuating their features. In 1962, AJASS organized “Naturally ’62”, a fashion show held in a Harlem club called the Purple Manor and featuring the models. The show would go on to be held regularly until 1992. In 1966, Brathwaite married his wife Sikolo, a Grandassa Model whom he had met on the street the year prior when he asked if he could take her portrait. The two remained married for the rest of Brathwaite’s life.

By the 1970s, Brathwaite’s focus on jazz shifted to other forms of popular Black music. In 1974, he traveled to Africa with the Jackson Five to document their tour, also photographing the historic “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in what’s now the Democratic Republic of Congo that same year. Commissions in this era also saw Brathwaite photographing Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Bob Marley and other music legends.

Throughout the ensuing decades, Brathwaite continued to explore and develop his mode of photography, all through the lens of the “Black is Beautiful” ethos. In 2016, Brathwaite joined the roster of Philip Martin Gallery in Los Angeles, and he was continuing to photograph commissions as recently as 2018, when he shot artist and stylist Joanne Petit-Frère for The New Yorker.

T Magazine’s 2021 profile, published on the occasion of Brathwaite’s retrospective traveling to the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, noted that the photographer’s health was failing such that he was unable to be interviewed for the article. A separate exhibition, “Kwame Brathwaite: Things Well Worth Waiting For,” is currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it will remain until July 24.

Top image: Kwame Brathwaite, “Untitled (Sikolo Brathwaite, Orange Portrait),” 1968

Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.

CNN
 — 

Originally a term used by trophy hunters in Africa, the “Big Five” described the animals most challenging to shoot and kill: the lion, elephant, leopard, rhino, and buffalo. Nowadays, it is more loosely used to refer to some of Africa’s largest and most iconic animals.

However, British photographer Graeme Green has reclaimed the narrative, creating a global “New Big Five” for wildlife photography. In 2021, 50,000 people around the world voted for the five animals they would most like to photograph, or see photographed, in the wild. Five animals were crowned the winners: the elephant, polar bear, lion, gorilla and tiger.

This week, sees the publication of “The New Big 5” photography book, which features images of those animals and other at-risk wildlife, from photography legends such as Ami Vitale, Steve McCurry and Paul Nicklen, and essays from famous conservationists and activists including like Jane Goodall and Paula Kahumbu.

Green says that the book celebrates wildlife and is a global call to action on issues impacting wildlife, including habitat loss, poaching, pollution and climate change.

Green was on assignment in Botswana at least a decade ago when he came up with the idea for a project to encourage people to “shoot with a camera, not a gun,” he says.

“I thought this would be a way to get people really focusing on wildlife, thinking about the wildlife they love, thinking about the animals that are at risk.”

In total, the book includes the work of 144 globally renowned wildlife photographers from Ecuador to India. Curating the images took nearly two years of work, says Green.

“I think these are some of the most beautiful and creative images that I’ve seen put together in one book,” says Green. “These are the species that we are at risk of losing.”

According to the UN, nature is declining at an unprecedented rate, with around one million of the planet’s animal and plant species facing extinction. The “New Big 5,” all of which are threatened, act as ambassadors for what is happening in the natural world, says Green.

As well as being a powerful reminder of what we stand to lose, the book also points people towards potential solutions. Featured essays explore the benefits of rewilding and the importance of indigenous communities in conservation.

A chapter on endangered species from bees to blue whales illustrates the alarming threat climate change poses to animals outside of the “New Big 5.” “That’s only the tip of the iceberg – I could have included thousands of pictures because that’s how serious the situation is,” says Green.

Jane Goodall, a leading conservationist who also wrote the afterword to the book, said in a press release that “we have a window of time during which we can start to heal some of the harm we have inflicted on the natural world, but only if we get together and take action now.

“I hope the photos will lead people into the wonderful worlds of these iconic species. Then, perhaps, other people will become involved in helping to create a world where wildlife can flourish for future generations to enjoy,” she said.

“The New Big 5: A Global Photography Project For Endangered Wildlife,” by Graeme Green, published by Earth Aware Editions, is on sale from April 4, 2023.

CNN
 — 

Born into poverty – he used to kick a grapefruit around Brazil’s Minas Gerais state – Pelé finished his career as arguably soccer’s greatest ever player.

He was that rarity; like Muhammad Ali, Pelé was a sports star, who transcended his sport.

The Brazilian brought joy and creativity to a sport often stuck in rigidity and personified o jogo bonito – “the beautiful game.”

“Pele changed everything,” wrote current Brazil international Neymar Jr. after Pelé’s death was announced.

“He turned football into art, into entertainment. He gave a voice to the poor, to Black people and especially. He gave visibility to Brazil.”

From dazzling as a 17-year-old in 1958 on his way to his first World Cup success to claiming the Golden Ball award as player of the 1970 World Cup as he won a third global title, “O Rei” (“The King”) achieved almost everything possible in the famous yellow and blue of Brazil.

And there were goals – lots of them.

Pelé scored 757 goals in 812 official matches for club and country. However, there is disagreement over just how many goals he scored in his career. According to Reuters, Brazil’s football association and Santos say Pelé scored 1,283 goals in 1,367 matches, though FIFA puts the number at 1,281 goals in 1,366 games.

But it wasn’t just the phenomenal number of goals he scored. As Neymar suggests, Pelé was also an artist on the pitch.

“Even if he did not use a brush, or a pen, but simply had a ball at his feet,” says CNN Sport’s Don Riddell.

The world first got a glimpse of Pelé at the 1958 World Cup.

“When we arrived in Sweden, no one knew what Brazil was. They know about Argentina … Uruguay. It was a surprise for us,” Pelé told CNN in 2016.

At the age of 17 years and seven months, Pelé became the youngest person to play in a World Cup, a record the Brazilian held until Northern Ireland’s Norman Whiteside took that landmark in 1982.

Almost 15 years after leaving the world agog at the 1958 World Cup, Pelé hung up his boots for the Seleção, bequeathing his nation the legacy as the most successful in World Cup history and the most feared team in international football.

Pelé’s crowning moment for Brazil came at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, a tournament further romanticized by being the first World Cup broadcast in color.

Throughout that tournament, Pelé blazed a trail of technicolor splendor, a blur of yellow and gold, beguiling and bewitching opposition teams.

His four goals earned him player of the tournament, capped by an assist to Carlos Alberto’s breathtaking goal in the final against Italy.

“We won the World Cup, and I think in my life in sport (that was the pinnacle), no doubt,” Pelé told CNN.

Italian defender Tarcisio Burgnich summed up Pelé’s superhuman genuis fittingly: “I told myself before the game, he’s made of skin and bones just like everyone else. But I was wrong.”

Even moments when Pelé didn’t score helped cement his legend status – notably England goalkeeper Gordon Banks’ incredible block from the Brazilian’s powerful header in a group game, which is widely considered to be the greatest save of all time.

“The save was one of the best I have ever seen – in real life and in all the thousands of games I have watched since,” wrote Pelé in a 2019 Facebook post in tribute to Banks following the goalkeeper’s death.

“When you are a footballer, you know straight away how well you have hit the ball. I hit that header exactly as I had hoped. Exactly where I wanted it to go. And I was ready to celebrate.

“But then this man, Banks, appeared in my sight, like a kind of blue phantom.”

Despite playing all but three years of his club career with Brazilian side Santos, Pelé’s dynamism, majesty with the ball and lethality in front of goal ensured he became one of football’s first Black global stars.

Pelé admitted to CNN in 2015 that he had plenty of interest from Europe to make the move across the Atlantic, but chose not to out of loyalty and “love” for Santos; yet another reason why he is so beloved in his native country.

“In the past, it was a profession filled with love, now it’s just a profession,” Pelé said.

“There isn’t that love of playing for my club, playing for my country. Clearly, a footballer needs to make a living from the game. It’s different from my time.”

Such was his impact as a soccer player, Pelé also became the symbol of a new country, according to a recent Neflix documentary.

“To cope with that, I think he creates this Pelé character, someone who almost kind of forgoes his own identity to become Brazil essentially,” Ben Nicholas, co-director of the documentary about the Brazilian’s life, told CNN.

As well as shouldering the burden of a country’s aspirations on the world stage, the ascension of the Brazilian military in 1964 that showed interest in football as a tactical and political strategy – in particular, targeting the 1970 World Cup as a “government issue” – presented a problem for the apolitical Pelé, according to the Netflix documentary.

“There’s a really telling line at the end of the film,” the other director of the documentary, David Tryhorn, said, “where you’re expecting Pelé to give us perhaps a ‘Pelé-ism,’ where he would talk about joy and happiness, but he actually talks about ‘relief.’”

The footballing GOAT debate is one which will rage on until the end of time – is it Pelé? Or is it Diego Maradona? Or Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?

But, Brazil’s pure love and adoration for Pelé cannot be matched and is one which extends further than just an excellent footballer, but to a totem pole for a nation.

CNN
 — 

There’s a reason why Christine McVie was considered the heart of Fleetwood Mac.

The band’s keyboardist, who died Wednesday after a brief illness at the age of 79, was also the writer of some of the group’s most beloved songs.

Here are just five of those tunes:

This one is tied to some drama.

Fleetwood Mac is known for, in part, their tumultuous relationships, especially when it came to romantic ones.

Band members Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had a thing that ended badly and McVie was famously married to, and then divorced from, their other bandmate, John McVie.

He reportedly thought the song, with its lyrics “Sweet wonderful you/You make me happy with the things you do/Oh, can it be so/This feeling follows me wherever I go,” was about their dog as the McVies were married at the time.

But it turns out Christine McVie had penned the love song in honor of the band’s lighting director with whom she had an affair.

Another tune from their famed “Rumours” album.

“Don’t Stop” proved to be a hopeful anthem for the future, which was so meaningful to former President Bill Clinton that he used it as his 1992 campaign anthem.

On Wednesday he tweeted a tribute to McVie.

“I’m saddened by the passing of Christine McVie. “Don’t Stop” was my ’92 campaign theme song – it perfectly captured the mood of a nation eager for better days,” he tweeted. “I’m grateful to Christine & Fleetwood Mac for entrusting us with such a meaningful song. I will miss her.”

This one was actually a solo song for McVie.

The first single off of her self-titled solo album, it sounds like it could be a Fleetwood Mac song with it’s buoyant rhythm and the infectious chorus, “Ooh, I got a love/I got somebody/This love got a hold on me.”

Plus Buckingham plays guitar on this one, giving it even more of a Fleetwood Mac vibe.

“Say You Love Me” is a jaunty tune that has become a mainstay on rock and easy listening radio stations.

She reflected on the sweet harmonies, she, Nicks and Buckingham achieve on the tune in a 1990 interview.

“The first time I started playing ‘Say You Love Me’ and I reached the chorus, they started singing with me and fell right into it,” Performing Songwriter magazine reported her saying. “I heard this incredible sound, our three voices … and my skin turned to gooseflesh.”

It feels right that so many on social media used this song to pay tribute to McVie after her passing.

The ballad she wrote has been pointed to as the perfect remembrance of someone lost.

Playing it now after her death seems haunting as she pours her heart into the opening lyrics, “For you, there’ll be no more crying/For you, the sun will be shining/And I feel that when I’m with you/It’s alright, I know it’s right.”

CNN
 — 

Throughout the various personal turmoils for which the members of Fleetwood Mac are known, one relationship buoyed the band for decades: the friendship between its two frontwomen, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks.

McVie joined the band in 1970 during one of its early lineup changes and for years was its only woman. When Nicks was added to the lineup in 1975, the two became fast friends.

Theirs was not a competitive relationship, but a sisterly one – both women were gifted songwriters responsible for crafting many of the band’s best-known tunes. Though the two grew apart in the 1980s amid Nicks’ worsening drug addiction and the band’s growing internal tension, they came back together when McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac in 2014.

At a concert in London, shortly before McVie officially rejoined the band, Nicks dedicated the song “Landslide” to her “mentor. Big sister. Best friend.” And at the show’s end, McVie was there, accompanying her bandmates for “Don’t Stop.”

“I never want her to ever go out of my life again, and that has nothing to do with music and everything to do with her and I as friends,” Nicks told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

On Wednesday, McVie, the band’s “songbird,” died after a brief illness at age 79. Below, revisit McVie’s and Nicks’ years-long relationship as bandmates, best friends and “sisters.”

McVie and Nicks hit it off from the start

The story of Nicks joining Fleetwood Mac is legend now: Band founder and drummer Mick Fleetwood wanted to recruit guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who stipulated that he would only join if his girlfriend and musician Nicks could join, too. McVie cast the deciding vote, and the rest is history.

“It was critical that I got on with her because I’d never played with another girl,” McVie told the Guardian in 2013. “But I liked her instantly. She was funny and nice but also there was no competition. We were completely different on the stage to each other and we wrote differently too.”

Throughout the band’s many personal complications – McVie married and divorced Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie and had an affair with the band’s lighting director, while Nicks had rollercoaster romances with Buckingham and Fleetwood – they were each other’s center.

“To be in a band with another girl who was this amazing musician – (McVie) kind of instantly became my best friend,” Nicks told the New Yorker earlier this year. “Christine was a whole other ballgame. She liked hanging out with the guys. She was just more comfortable with men than I had ever been.”

The two protected each other, Nicks said, in a male-dominated industry: “We made a pact, in the very beginning, that we would never be treated with disrespect by all the male musicians in the community.

“I would say to her, ‘Together, we are a serious force of nature, and it will give us the strength to maneuver the waters that are ahead of us,’” Nicks told the New Yorker.

The band succeeds but McVie and Nicks grow distant

“Rumours” was the band’s greatest success to date when it was released in 1977. But the band’s relationships with each other were deteriorating, save for the one between McVie and Nicks. While the pair were enduring breakups with their significant others, Nicks and McVie spent their time offstage together.

The Guardian asked McVie if she was trying to offset the band’s tumult with her songs on “Rumours,” including the lighthearted “You Make Lovin’ Fun” and optimistic “Don’t Stop.” She said she likely had been.

As multiple members’ drug use intensified, the band’s dynamic grew tense. McVie distanced herself from the group in 1984 amid her bandmates’ addictions, telling the Guardian she was “just sick of it.” Nicks, meanwhile, was becoming dependent on cocaine.

McVie told Rolling Stone that year that she’d grown apart from Nicks: “She seems to have developed her own fantasy world, somehow, which I’m not part of. We don’t socialize much.”

In 1986, Nicks checked into the Betty Ford Center to treat her addiction, though she later became addicted to Klonopin, which she said claimed years of her life. She quit the prescription drug in the 1990s.

After recording some solo works, McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac for their 1987 album “Tango in the Night,” and two of her songs on that record – “Little Lies” and “Everywhere” – became major hits. But Nicks departed the band soon after, and the band’s best-known lineup wouldn’t officially reunite until 1997 for “The Dance” tour and subsequent live album.

The reunion was short-lived: After the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, McVie officially quit Fleetwood Mac, citing a fear of flying and exhaustion of life on the road.

McVie returns to Fleetwood Mac – and to Nicks’ side

In the 2010s, after more than a decade of retirement, McVie toyed with returning to performing. She officially rejoined Fleetwood Mac after calling Fleetwood himself and gauging what her return would mean for the group.

“Fortunately Stevie was dying for me to come back, as were the rest of the band,” she told the Arts Desk.

In 2015, a year after she’d rejoined Fleetwood Mac, McVie hit the road with her bandmates. Touring with the group was tiring but fun, the first time they’d performed together in years.

“I’m only here for Stevie,” she told the New Yorker that year.

Nicks concurred: “When we went on the road, I realized what an amazing friend she’d been of mine that I had lost and didn’t realize the whole consequences of it till now,” she told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

During that tour, McVie wore a silver chain that Nicks had given her – a “metaphor,” McVie told the New Yorker, “that the chain of the band will never be broken. Not by me, anyways. Not again by me.”

McVie told the Arts Desk in 2016 that she and Nicks were “better friends now than (they) were 16 years ago.”

Touring with Buckingham and Fleetwood could quickly get tumultuous for Nicks, McVie said, due to their shared history. “But with me in there, it gave Stevie the chance to get her breath back and not have this constant thing going on with Lindsey: her sister was back,” she said.

Their mutual praise continued: In 2019, McVie said Nicks was “just unbelievable” onstage: “The more I see her perform on stage the better I think she is. She holds the fort.”

When their 2018-2019 tour ended, though – without Buckingham, who was fired – the band “kind of broke up,” McVie told Rolling Stone earlier this year. She added that she didn’t speak with Nicks as often as she did when they toured together.

As for a reunion, McVie told Rolling Stone that while it wasn’t off the table, she wasn’t feeling “physically up for it.”

“I’m getting a bit long in the teeth here,” she said. “I’m quite happy being at home. I don’t know if I ever want to tour again. It’s bloody hard work.”

News of McVie’s death rattled Nicks, who wrote that she had only found out McVie was sick days earlier. She called McVie her “best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975.”

On her social media accounts, Nicks shared a handwritten note containing lyrics from the Haim song “Hallelujah,” some of which discusses grief and the loss of a best friend.

“See you on the other side, my love,” Nicks wrote. “Don’t forget me – Always, Stevie.”