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NeNe Leakes says 23-year-old son suffered a stroke, heart failure: ‘It was very scary’

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NeNe Leakes says 23-year-old son suffered a stroke, heart failure: ‘It was very scary’

Former “Actual Housewives of Atlanta” star NeNe Leakes is asking followers for help and prayers as her son, Brentt Leakes, faces “severe” well being points.

“Two weeks in the past at this time, Brentt had congestive coronary heart failure and a stroke,” she revealed in an Instagram Story on Monday. “He’s actually younger for one thing like that to occur to him.”

TMZ reported Monday morning that Brentt was hospitalized in Atlanta earlier this month. On Instagram, Leakes walked her followers by means of her son’s prognosis, noting that docs thought that he could possibly be coping with “some severe an infection,” HIV or COVID-19. She stated medical specialists ran quite a lot of assessments, however the trigger stays unknown.

“It was very scary, I don’t even wish to go into particulars. What occurred, how I came upon and what situation he was in,” Leakes continued. “Clearly, a stroke is a really severe factor and he’s scuffling with talking … Simply maintain us in your prayers.”

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Whereas talking on her son’s situation, Leakes introduced up her personal well being points. She recalled having blood clots in her lung in 2013 and stated that docs are “considering that Brentt was born with some form of illness, or one thing along with his coronary heart since he was a child and it simply by no means confirmed up till now.”

She additionally stated that her son was “very wired” final month, because it marked one yr since his father, Gregg Leakes, died in September 2021.

Leakes added that the Linnethia Lounge, a bar close to Atlanta her son helped run, could also be up on the market attributable to his latest well being points.

“That is only a lot proper now on me, so if there’s anyone on the market that’s presumably within the lounge, ship them my approach,” she stated. “If they’re considering buying it, it’s very potential that we’ll promote the lounge, as a result of it’s one thing that I shared with Brentt after Gregg’s passing.”

Regardless of the membership’s potential sale and the well being points, Leakes reassured her followers that her son is “in good spirits.”

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The information comes months after Leakes sued Bravo and NBCU, alleging that the businesses behind the “Actual Housewives” franchise fostered and tolerated a hostile and racist work surroundings.

“NBC, Bravo and True foster a company and office tradition during which racially insensitive and inappropriate conduct is tolerated — if not, inspired,” stated the lawsuit filed in April.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: 'The Bikeriders' is photography in motion

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Movie Review: 'The Bikeriders' is photography in motion

The Bikeriders starts in the middle of its own story. A man in a “Chicago Vandals” jacket, head hanging over the bar counter.

“You can’t be wearing no colors in this neighborhood,” someone threatens, to which he replies: “You’d have to kill me to get this jacket off of me.”

The man, Benny, approaches most things in his life with this same kind of fervor. His wife, Kathy, describes Benny camping out in her front yard until her boyfriend at the time packed up his car and left.

It’s through Kathy’s eyes that we come to know the Vandals: The leader, Johnny; his right hand, Brucie; and a menagerie of other club members — Cockroach, Zipco, Cal, Funny Sonny, Corky and Wahoo, to name a few. Kathy, with varying levels of exasperation, takes us through the club’s rise and fall over her interviews with Danny, the photojournalist meant to represent the author of “The Bikeriders,” the book on which the film is based.

Johnny’s vision for the club starts simply enough — just guys talking about bikes. But, as The Vandals grow, he realizes what he’s created might have become impossible to control.

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The first, most obvious thing to say about “The Bikeriders” is that it’s gorgeous.

The beauty and effectiveness of Danny Lyon’s photography translates perfectly to film. Although an article by the Smithsonian reports 70% of the film’s dialogue is taken from Lyon’s interviews, you could almost watch this movie with the sound off.

Color, light and framing are used so beautifully here it’s hard not to spend the whole review geeking out. Stoplights, bars and midwestern houses and parking lots become art pieces, dioramas of the tumultuous life of a “bikerider.”

Beyond the surface, though, I’m not sure how to feel about this movie.

When Kathy says Johnny got the idea for the club while watching TV, we cut to him staring, enraptured, as 1953’s “The Wild One” plays in his living room. “Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” The girl in the movie asks. Marlon Brando replies, “Whaddaya got?”

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This listlessness, this sense that Johnny doesn’t have any purpose in mind, that the club doesn’t have much of a point, permeates the film. For me, it extended to the movie itself: At the beginning I thought life in a motorcycle gang would be exciting but dangerous, and by the end I thought the exact same thing.

Maybe it’s Kathy’s perspective leaking through the narration, but the deaths in this movie are, as a rule, abrupt and stupid. Once the shock wore off, I found myself wondering, “What was that all for?”

For all the glamor and power being a bikerider supposedly grants, they don’t die for great causes or in blazes of glory. The end is a car in reverse, an empty parking lot.

“The Bikeriders” is gorgeous and exciting, but doesn’t appear to say very much. Maybe that’s exactly what it’s saying.

Other stories by Caroline

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Caroline Julstrom, intern, may be reached at 218-855-5851 or cjulstrom@brainerddispatch.com.

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Caroline Julstrom finished her second year at the University of Minnesota in May 2024, and started working as a summer intern for the Brainerd Dispatch in June.

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'Despicable Me 4': Mega Minions bring mega bucks to holiday box office

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'Despicable Me 4': Mega Minions bring mega bucks to holiday box office

Audiences are going bananas for Universal Pictures’ and Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4.”

The latest installment in the popular family film franchise opened to $27 million Wednesday at the domestic box office, according to estimates from a studio source and measurement firm Comscore. That number is expected to rise to roughly $120 million by the end of the Fourth of July weekend.

Other titles vying for moviegoers’ business this holiday stretch are Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” which grossed $7.3 million on Wednesday for a North American cumulative of $496.6 million; Paramount Pictures’ “A Quiet Place: Day One,” which scared up $4.4 million on Wednesday for a North American cumulative of $68.6 million; Sony Pictures’ “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” which earned $1.2 million on Wednesday for a North American cumulative of $169.1 million; and Warner Bros.’ “Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1,” which made $1.1 million on Wednesday for a North American cumulative of $14.8 million.

The promising start for “Despicable Me 4” is good news for exhibitors as the 2024 box office appears to be turning a corner thanks to some much-needed breakout hits such as “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “Inside Out 2.”

From directing team Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage, “Despicable Me 4” follows the not-so-nefarious Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), his resourceful daughters and his wacky minions on another daring mission to escape from a new nemesis. Rounding out the main voice cast are Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Madison Polan, Will Ferrell and Sofía Vergara.

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The animated feature received a lackluster 55% rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, but pulled an A grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore — proving that fans still can’t get enough of Carell’s curmudgeonly antihero and his babbling yellow entourage.

Film critic Gary Goldstein was not so generous in his review for the Los Angeles Times, writing that “this latest installment of Illumination’s mega-grossing animated franchise jams in a grab-bag of physical and visual gags and anything-goes action, plus a barrage of narrative dead ends, subplots and characters, as it strains to fill its 90 or so minutes of eye-popping, brain-draining mayhem.”

“Despite a few chuckles, some capable voice work and plenty of splashy color,” he adds, “it proves a largely empty and exhausting ride.”

So what keeps audiences coming back to this critically soured saga?

The Times’ Samantha Masunaga has reported that a perfect storm of organic social media phenomena (calling all #Gentleminions), Facebook mom memes and multigenerational nostalgia has kept the franchise relevant and lucrative over the past 14 years. “Despicable Me” debuted at $56.4 million domestically in 2010, “Despicable Me 2” launched at $83.5 million in 2013 and “Despicable Me 3” opened to $72.4 million in 2017, according to Box Office Mojo.

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“I’ve been 25 to 28 years in the business. I can’t remember something that created that much excitement for the audiences,” Francisco Schlotterbeck, chief executive of theater chain Maya Cinemas, told The Times.

“The other thing I can compare it to is ‘Toy Story.’”

Coming to theaters Friday is the highly anticipated A24 horror flick “MaXXXine,” followed by the wide releases of Goldove Entertainment’s “Lumina,” Neon’s “Longlegs” and Columbia Pictures’ “Fly Me to the Moon” next weekend.

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Movie Reviews

Movie review: ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’

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Movie review: ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’
A Quiet Place: Day One. Valley News/Courtesy photo

Bob Garver
Special to Valley News
“A Quiet Place: Day One” made a grave miscalculation with its advertising. Scenes were filmed with the intention of putting them in the trailers, but not the movie. This way, when people saw the movie, they wouldn’t be able to properly anticipate the surprises and story progression. To that end, the advertising succeeded, I was indeed thrown off while watching the movie. But here’s where they didn’t succeed: the scenes shot just for the trailers were terrible, with clumsy dialogue and careless pacing. I was so mad at Hollywood for continuing this series without the creative vision of director John Krasinski, especially when the movie looked like garbage without his input. I only saw this movie out of obligation for the column, and I wouldn’t

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