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Controversial singer Chris Brown has sued Warner Bros. Discovery for defamation in association with their new documentary Chris Brown: A History of Violence.

He is seeking a minimum of $500 million in compensation, a portion of which he has promised to donate to survivors of sexual abuse.

In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, Brown accuses the studio’s producers of including discredited allegations of sexual assault and evidence tampering from an unreliable victim. Scaachi Koul, Sharon Carpenter, Michelle Taylor and Cheryl Dorsey are all named as producers involved in the documentary.

Chris Brown: A History of Violence was released in October and details the various instances of abuse that Brown has been accused of over the years. The film, in particular, focuses on Jane Doe who sued Brown in 2022 for sexual assault and battery for raping her on Sean Combs’ yacht. Jane Doe’s lawsuit was dismissed “without prejudice.”

In his lawsuit,...

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Chris Brown: A History of Violence has sparked a defamation lawsuit from the singer, who says the documentary features false sexual assault allegations against him.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Brown alleges the documentary’s producers knowingly included discredited claims of sexual assault and evidence tampering from an unreliable accuser. He seeks at least $500 million, a portion of which he says will be donated to survivors of sexual abuse.

The documentary, released in October, explores accusations of domestic violence and sexual assault against the singer. Central to its narrative is a Jane Doe, who in 2022 sued Brown for sexual assault and battery for allegedly raping her at Sean Combs’ Miami Beach-based yacht. The lawsuit was later dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning it can be refiled.

Brown alleges the accuser fabricated her claims, which he says the documentary’s producers should’ve...

The infamous Girls Gone Wild franchise, and its controversial creator, Joe Francis, are once again facing public scrutiny due to the release of Peacock’s docuseries, titled, Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story. Jamila Wignot is at the helm of this project and the series explores the scars left on many women due to Francis’ twisted ideas.

Joe Francis | Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story / Peacock

It also features his downward spiral and how he denies all the allegations after a string of legal battles. But where is Joe Francis now? Let’s take a look at his life in exile, and see if his empire has crumbled under the weight of all these controversies.

Joe Francis’ Life in Exile and the Peacock Docuseries Joe Francis | Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story / Peacock

After fleeing the United States following a 2013 conviction for assault and false imprisonment, Joe Francis has been living in exile in Mexico.

After founding the adult DVD empire Girls Gone Wild and cementing the brand into the 2000s pop-culture zeitgeist, creator Joe Francis has been exiled to Mexico amid a slew of legal battles and has largely remained out of the spotlight. But Peacock’s new documentary Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story, which started streaming on Dec. 3, puts Francis in the hot seat, with journalist Scaachi Koul forcing him to confront his sketchy past.

The three-part series reexamines the cultural phenomenon that was Girls Gone Wild — videos of young women flashing cameras,...

Anyone flipping past a cable channel late at night in the back half of the 1990s and early aughts probably had ads for “Girls Gone Wild” seared into their brains. The instantly recognizable infomercials projected purposefully pixelated footage of young women pulling up their shirts to flash the cameras between shots at a college town bar, or in the fog of spring break in Miami. The “Girls Gone Wild” logo strategically covered any explicit nudity, while an announcer with all the subtlety of a foghorn hocked VHS tapes and eventually DVDs full of the unobstructed footage “too hot to show on TV.” All of it was pitched as a chance to see the good girl next door go bad — for a low price, plus shipping and handling.

For most people, the heyday of “Girls Gone Wild,” the brainchild of Joe Francis, feels like it happened a lifetime ago. Francis’ close...

Joe Francis built a multimillion-dollar empire based around Spring Breakers exposing themselves on camera. His “sex sells” business model created a swarm of controversy, debate, and legal backlash. Peacock’s original docuseries Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story digs into the cultural impact of the franchise and its creator. This was done through the lens of former employees, past women who felt exploited on VHS tapes and DVDs, journalists, and those who worked to take Francis’ operation down including former Panama City Beach Mayor Lee Sulivan. Author and journalist Scaachi Koul interviewed Francis at length. Recorded audio from their explosive conversations is threaded throughout the three episodes. The BuzzFeed News reporter sat down with the debaucherous kingpin in 2022 for nine hours at his 45,000-square foot beachfront property in Punta Mita, Mexico for an in-depth article that ran in March 2023. Here Koul, who also serves as a co-executive producer on the doc,...

It was hard to escape from commercials and other ads for Girls Gone Wild in the early 2000s. Long before videos went viral on the internet, the Girls Gone Wild company was the epicenter for “bro culture.” But underneath the surface simmered allegations of sexual exploitation and coercion, and viewers can see the story told from multiple viewpoints in “Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story,” which premieres on Peacock on Tuesday, Dec. 3. You can watch the series exclusively with a subscription to Peacock.

How to watch ‘Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story’ When: Starting Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 3:01 a.m. Et TV: Peacock Stream: Watch with a subscription to Peacock. Sign Up $7.99+ / month peacocktv.com Everything you need to know about ‘Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story’

How to watch ‘Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story’

Watch the trailer for ‘Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story’

About ‘Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story...

The View co-host Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, wants viewers who watched the Chris Brown: A History of Violence documentary Sunday night to know that intimate partner violence has no boundaries.

“Domestic violence is an epidemic hiding in plain sight. It doesn’t discriminate. In that respect, wealth has little to do with many instances,” Hostin told The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, ahead of hosting the aftershow discussion on domestic violence that aired after the Investigation Discovery doc on Chris Brown.

The doc explored Brown’s years of alleged offstage aggression, including intimate-partner violence, assault charges and sexual assault allegations that first came to light in 2009 when the star rapper pled guilty to a felony charge of physically assaulting former girlfriend Rihanna.

“That was not an isolated incident. It only got attention because there’s a big name attached to it. And our goal is to say: This is...

In a TikTok shared on Thursday, Nickelodeon’s Amanda Show alum Raquel Lee Bolleau, who was featured in Investigation Discovery’s docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of TV, says she was left disappointed by her experience with the docuseries about toxic sets at the kids TV network.

The doc’s directors, Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, were recently joined by participants Drake Bell, Giovannie Samuels, Bryan Christopher Hearne and co-executive producer Kate Taylor, for a panel conversation for an Emmys FYC event, moderated by Scaachi Koul, that explored the impact of what has become a hit docuseries for ID and streamer Max. The five-part series outlined allegations of abuse, sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crewmembers on Nickelodeon TV show sets run by Dan Schneider.

“Do you think they invited me?” asked the former child star in her video, referencing the Los Angeles event.

Bolleau continued (watch,...

Drake Bell, the “The Amanda Show” and “Drake & Josh” star who speaks out publicly for the first time about the sexual abuse he endured from Brian Peck (who worked as a dialogue coach on Nickelodeon’s “Amanda Show” and “All That”) in the Investigation Discovery and Max series “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” told a packed FYC screening and panel event Tuesday night at the Saban Media Center in North Hollywood that the overwhelming response to the five-part docuseries that premiered March 17 is what he feels “should have happened years ago.”

Watch the full panel discussion above.

Flanked on the panel (moderated by culture writer and author Scaachi Koul) by filmmakers Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz as well as senior correspondent Kate Taylor of Business Insider and fellow onetime Nickelodeon child actors Giovannie Samuels and Bryan Hearne (who were regulars on the kids comedy-variety series...

The response to ID’s docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV has been overwhelming to say the least, the project’s co-directors and executive producers Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz said at an Emmys FYC screening and panel in Los Angeles Tuesday evening. It’s also brought into focus another industry where there’s a “clear lack of protection” when it comes to children, Schwartz said: social media.

“One thing that we’ve had conversations about as a result of this is that, if you look at where children’s entertainment, so to speak, is today, it’s not just in studios or in networks, it’s on social media,” said the filmmaker. “That is a universe where there’s almost no oversight as to what’s happening inside people’s homes, on these screens, and what’s happening to protect those kids as well, and...

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Quick Answer: Watch new episodes of Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV with a Max subscription, starting at $9.99/month. You can also get three months of Max included with a DirecTV Stream subscription.

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If you had a child who grew up watching Nickelodeon, or if their shows were a part of your childhood, you may be surprised to learn that the...

Quiet on the Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV kicked off with a bang, taking everything you knew about the beloved children’s network and crushing it to bits.

The Discovery premiere, which can now be seen in its entirety on Max, is a shocking and scurrilous look at arguably the most beloved children’s network for decades: Nickelodeon.

Nickelodeon began the careers of many actors, including Ariana Grande, Josh Peck, Keenan Thompson, Keke Palmer, Melissa Joan Hart, Zendaya, Nick Cannon, and Ryan Reynolds, among many others.

Quite on the Set doesn’t suggest that all Nickelodeon shows are at issue, as it ties the corruption to a writer and producer named Dan Schneider, who created The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes, elevating her to a household name.

When you look at Amanda Bynes now, it’s hard not to imagine that had someone saved her from Schneider’s mechanizations,...

The BBC World Service and BBC Sounds have today announced two podcast series launching in March, to coincide with Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day (8 March).

Where to Be A Woman is an ambitious new title which will interrogate what it really means for women to live their best lives around the world. While the hit podcast Dear Daughter, which won Podcast of the Year at the British Podcast Awards in 2022, will return for a third series and will feature celebrity chef Nadiya Hussain, amongst others.

Where to Be A Woman, starting 4 March, sets out to ask the question of where women thrive most in the world and why. It is hosted by journalist, author, and TikTok creator Sophia Smith Galer and journalist, author and podcast host Scaachi Koul.

Together, they’re seeking answers by pushing past the latest wellness fads to investigate what true wellbeing looks like from a global perspective.

An upcoming Investigation Discovery series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV released a trailer on Tuesday featuring former child actor Drake Bell.

According to a press release from Investigation Discovery via Variety, the clip “reveals that former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell will be sharing publicly, for the first time, the story of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Brian Peck, his former dialogue coach who was convicted in 2004 for his crimes against Drake and ordered to register as a sex offender.”

Peck, who was convicted...

The first trailer for Investigation Discover’s forthcoming docuseries Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV, dives into Nickelodeon’s complicated legacy. The four-part series, premiering March 17, pulls back the curtain as former child stars and employees detail the trauma and alleged abuse they say they encountered on some of the most popular kids series.

The trailer for Quiet on Set describes the writer and producer Dan Schneider as “Nickelodeon’s Golden Boy,” detailing his influence on comedy series starring children and young adults with children as their audience.

Wondery is jumping from the airwaves to real life.

The premium podcast studio from Amazon is prepping to launch Exhibit C: A True Crime Experience Live at New York’s Gotham Hall on Oct. 24. The one-night-only event promises to “bring to life the world of Exhibit C,” the collection of Wondery podcasts that are “rooted in mystery, suspense and deeply reported investigative stories.” That slate includes Dr. Death, Scamfluencers, MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, Exposed and Killer Psyche.

Talent from those shows — MrBallen, Candice DeLong (Killer Psyche), Laura Beil (Dr. Death, Exposed), and Sarah Hagi and Scaachi Koul (Scamfluencers) — will be on hand to participate in the festivities. THR has learned that the Scamfluencers team will share an untold scam with a big twist and Beil will share behind-the-scenes details from Dr. Death and Exposed, DeLong will present a case in real time. Other program highlights include crime scene investigation and forensics,...

Using the genre trappings of the superhero origin story, Amazon’s new drama The Power explores society’s preoccupation with and fear of pubescent girls. The series, which I’m not actually reviewing here, delves into how vast corners of the law and organized religion have been unconsciously or very consciously advanced to deny those girls agency. In the case of The Power, that agency arrives not in the form of legislation or a Supreme Court verdict, but as an evolutionary ability to generate and wield electricity. The patriarchy is in for a shock!

If you prefer this topic to be treated with more text and less subtext, Lana Wilson’s Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields moves to Hulu after a January premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The two-part documentary — 136 minutes in total, but surely better suited to have been edited into a 120-minute feature — uses Shields’ alternately unsettling and...

Danish filmmaker Lin Alluna’s “Twice Colonized” will open the 30th anniversary edition of Hot Docs, which unveiled its full slate of 214 films—including 119 features—from 72 countries on Tuesday.

North America’s largest documentary festival, conference, and market continues its commitment to gender parity with 53% female directors in this year’s official selection. Hot Docs runs April 27 to May 7.

International co-production “Twice Colonized,” which premiered at Sundance and opened Cph:dox, follows Inuk lawyer Aaju Peter, a renowned human-rights defender of the Arctic’s Indigenous peoples, as she works to bring colonizers Canada and Denmark to justice. The film was produced by Emile Hertling Péronard of Greenland-based Ánorâk Film and Canadian producers Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald of Red Marrow Media and EyeSteelFilm’s Bob Moore.

“If there is a theme resonating throughout the festival, it’s this idea of making connections in every sense,” Hot Docs artistic director Shane Smith told Variety,...

In the midst of the shit maelstrom that has been 2020, one would be forgiven for having forgotten about Operation Varsity Blues, the 2019 FBI investigation into well-heeled parents paying an estimated $25 million total in bribes to elite college coaches and admissions employees to get their progeny into college. One would also be forgiven for having forgotten about Olivia Jade Giannulli, the 21-year-old influencer daughter of Full House star Lori Loughlin. Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli are alleged to have spent $500,000 to get Olivia and her sister into the University of Southern California...

Over the past few years, BuzzFeed has expanded its coverage reach into a number of different areas. With the site’s blend of reporting on topics crossing sexuality, race, science, internet subcultures, and politics, the new Netflix series “Follow This” doesn’t seem like it’s closing itself off in one specific area.

“Follow This” takes a look at how some of the site’s more in-depth stories come together. Following staff writers and reporters like Scaachi Koul and Azeen Ghorayshi, these journalists become the lens through which the show covers stories related to Asmr, survivalism, sex worker rights, and gender identity. It looks like there’s even going to be a segment touching on DeepFakes, something that has ramifications for not just the film industry, but the future of verifiable video footage.

This is the latest partnership between Netflix and another major media group, following the premiere of the...

In today’s roundup, YouTube Red ordered a pilot for a comedy series starring Danny Pudi, and Netflix released the trailer for the second season of “Dear White People.”

Dates

Netflix will launch a new documentary series in partnership with BuzzFeed titled “Follow This,” to premiere on July 9. In each 15-minute episode, BuzzFeed reporters invite viewers into their working lives as they explore stories on a variety of global and domestic topics. Participating BuzzFeed staffers include reporter Scaachi Koul, senior culture writer Bim Adewunmi, senior national correspondent John Stanton, reporter and podcast host Ahmed Ali Akbar, science reporter Azeen Ghorayshi, BuzzFeed India editor-in-chief Rega Jha, and senior tech writer Charlie Warzel.

“Golden State Killer Caught: People Magazine Investigates” will air Friday at 10 p.m. Et/Pt and Sunday at 8 p.m. Et/Pt on Investigation Discovery. The first installment of the investigative series’ sophomore season follows People editor-in-chief Jess Cagle...

BuzzFeed is looking beyond its own massive distribution network for a new short-form docuseries dubbed Follow This, which will premiere on Netflix July 9.

Follow This comes from BuzzFeed’s News division, and will follow reporters behind the scenes as they uncover stories about culture, social issues, technology, and more. The first season will comprise more than 20 episodes -- each running roughly 15 minutes and following a specific BuzzFeed journalist. The first episode, titled The Internet Whisperers, will feature Scaachi Koul as she examines the YouTube phenomenon of Asmr (see below). Future installments will feature senior culture writer Bim Adewunmi, senior national correspondent John Stanton, and senior tech writer Charlie Warzel.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

BuzzFeed will partner with Netflix on a new original documentary series, the website announced in an internal email on Wednesday.

The series, “Follow This,” will chronicle the lives of journalists as they follow a unique story and from the looks of a Netflix press release — those journalists will mostly work at BuzzFeed.

“No platform for shows [is] bigger than Netflix right now,” said Editor in Chief Ben Smith in the internal company memo, a copy of which was obtained by TheWrap. Smith called the partnership “an auspicious sign of things to come.” Smith also revealed that two episodes had already been filmed and “in the can.”

Also Read: BuzzFeed Chief Defends Trump Pee Dossier: 'I'm Proud We Published'

One of those episodes was teased by NetFlix themselves Wednesday.

“The first episode, The Internet Whisperers, follows BuzzFeed reporter Scaachi Koul, as she explores the curious world of autonomous sensory meridian response — or Asmr — and some of its most enthusiastic proponents,” a press release from Netflix said.

Simply put, Asmr refers to people who enjoy sensory stimulation and Asmr YouTube videos consist of someone or something creating some form of repetitive noise. A preview of the episode on YouTube reveals Koul listening to a lot of Asmr and describing her experience.

“For me when Asmr works it creates this sort of tingling feeling in my spine and my brain. I have a busy life and a hectic job. This is one thing that quiets my brain,” said Koul.

You can watch the preview above.

Read original story Netflix Partners with BuzzFeed for New Documentary Series At TheWrap...

BuzzFeed’s newest project will shine a light on its own reporters — who will be the stars in a new Netflix short-form documentary series slated to bow this summer.

The 20-episode series, “Follow This,” will premiere July 9 on Netflix worldwide. Each 15-minute episode will be released weekly, not in Netflix’s usual binge-able release. The new show is an example of shorter-form content Netflix is acquiring, designed to appeal to viewers on mobile devices.

“We’re thrilled that Netflix saw the drama in the work of our journalism and the stories we tell,” BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief Ben Smith said in a statement. “And we’re so pleased to have brought what we’ve learned to Netflix’s unmatched audience.”

The first episode, “The Internet Whisperers,” follows BuzzFeed reporter Scaachi Koul as she delves into on a story about the “head orgasm” experience of Asmr, or autonomous sensory meridian response.

Along with Koul,...

After successful forays into the true crime and feature-length film genres, Netflix seems to be trying its hand at the informative documentary series. Its latest original, “Follow This,” features the experiences of journalists as they research various story topics.

That doesn’t mean it’s a news show. If anything, “Follow This” is more like “How It’s Made” with intangible topics. Created in partnership with Buzzfeed News, the 20-plus-episode series is intended to provide viewers with content ranging from “unexpected cultural phenomena to controversial social issues,” according to the streaming service.

In this clip from Episode 1, it’s definitely more of the former. Titled “The Internet Whisperers,” the first episode centers on journalist Scaachi Koul as she explores the rapidly growing world of autonomous sensory meridian response (Asmr) videos. Defined as a “calming, pleasurable feeling often accompanied by a tingling sensation,” the experience occurs in response to certain noises,...