July 1st, 2010

Esther Baxter didn’t mind getting dirty for a good cause — bringing attention to the Gulf Oil crisis with a PSA using real oil. Get a better look at Esther’s cakes and learn more about her love life and career when you …

VIBE interviewed Esther on the set of her PSA about the Gulf Oil Spill, check out what she had to say about the cause, her career and her love life:

VIBE: How did you get involved with the Oil Spill PSA?

Esther Baxter: Well, I was just talking to a friend of mine one day who also models and we felt like we needed to get involved. It just didn’t make sense to us that more wasn’t being done to fix the problem. I mean 70,000 gallons of oil are being spilled out everyday. Plus, not enough people in the industry are aware of it. So we decided to try and help the cause and bring awareness to the problem. No one in the industry has really took the initiative to speak out and help bring attention to the cause, so hopefully more people will catch on and help after this.

You really got down and dirty for the cause…

That’s the whole point of this campaign—we want to show people that we’re really getting involved and doing whatever we have to in order to fix the problem, even if that means getting down and dirty. I don’t see enough people reaching out—I just can’t understand how BP is allowed to get away with it and they’re still selling gas! We’re covering ourselves in oil to show that nobody or nothing can be as beautiful as their full potential when they are covered in this stuff. I mean we have like a swimsuit thing going on but yeah it’s pretty much just oil.

Four days later, people are still talking about Chris Brown’s BET Breakdown. After rumors hit the internet streets that his own bodyguard gave him “tear inducing eye drops” before hand, Chris Brown’s rep denies it.

Chris’ stated today that he simply “was moved by the opportunity to pay tribute to his idol.” He got caught up in his emotions, understandably during his “Man In The Mirror” performance.

I’m usually the first person to spot fakery from a mile away, and it never crossed my mind for a minute he was faking. Chris has said from the time he first hit the R&B scene years ago that MJ was his idol. And that particular song has so many parallels to his own life at this time. And it was his very first time on such a public stage after being dragged over the coals (whether you believe he deserved it or not) for a year and a half. Is it THAT hard to believe this dude would have an emotion or two? Damn.

It wasn’t what the Nets said. Or even how they said it. It was where they said it — within full view of Madison Square Garden at 34th Street and Eighth Avenue. And that ticked off the Knicks.

That is where the Nets have placed a 225-by-99-foot ad on the side of a building proclaiming “The Blueprint for Greatness” and depicting hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and the team’s new billionaire Russian owner, Mikhail Prokhorov. The Knicks were not amused.

Nets sources say Knicks and Cablevision owner James Dolan called Jay-Z to complain. Others in the Knicks hierarchy called the Nets and the NBA. The Nets did nothing wrong, according to the league.

In Other Jay Z News, Check out His 15 Min. Documentary.