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  • Keke Palmer Dishes on Love, Her Celebrity Crush, and Tattoos

    Keke Palmer believes “all you need is love.”

    Those words sound strangely familiar, but apparently, The Beatles aren’t the only ones who think that love truly is the only reason for living.

    The 21-year-old Just Keke host shared on love and other important topics in a recent interview with NewYork.com. The former Rodney King girlfriend says that she has wisened up a bit when it comes to the pros and cons of dating other celebrities.

    “The biggest con about dating a celebrity is that everybody wants to be in our business. Everybody would be trying to figure everything out,” said the Cinderella star. “That would be annoying as all hell. The pros are that I have somebody that is interested in the same things that I’m interested in, I have somebody that knows what I go through. I have somebody that can help think of ideas that can help inspire me. And not having somebody intimidated by my success, and hopefully they’re doing their thing too.”

    Palmer, who has been linked with actor Quincy Brown and rapper Meek Mill, said that although she has some qualms about dating other celebrities, that doesn’t preclude her from having celebrity crushes just like the next girl.

    “Michael Ealy is my celebrity crush,” gushed Palmer. “There are some others but I wouldn’t say them because they’ll be like ‘Oh my gosh’ so I’ll just keep it with Michael Ealy for now. And that’s because he’s too old for me to date. At 21, my philosophy on life is that love is everything and all you need is love. That’s very me. I try to be positive in everything that I do and I try to be loving to others and I truly believe that the energy you put out there is what you manifest around you.”

    Speaking of philosophy, Palmer says her “addiction” to tattoos began with a quote from another ancient philosopher, Aristotle.

    “When I was younger, I would always go to this website called thinkexist.com whenever I was feeling stressed or happy or felt like expressing myself. I would go get a quote that was surrounded by those specific ideas or subjects,” she recalled. “So one day I put in something like ‘strength’ and I came across the quote ‘We are what we repeatedly do, excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.’ And I loved it so much that I ended up getting it tattooed. I wasn’t scared at all when I got the first one. Actually, it was more so exciting. Now I have five.”

  • Rodney King In A “Drug-Induced Delirium” When He Died

    Rodney King, the man whose brutal beating by L.A. police officers–and their subsequent acquittal–started a massive riot in the streets of Los Angeles which killed 55 people, was high on a mixture of drugs and alcohol when he either jumped or fell into a swimming pool and drowned in June. His death has officially been ruled an accidental drowning.

    King reportedly had a blood-alcohol level of .06, and toxicology reports showed traces of marijuana and cocaine in his system. A neighbor, Sandra Gardea, said she’d heard disconcerting sounds coming from his apartment earlier, like that of someone sobbing. He awakened another neighbor, Cynthia Kelley, by making odd grunting sounds outside her patio door. When he began stumbling around and fell over a planter, she called the police. But they didn’t arrive in time to keep King from falling into the water.

    “Mr. King was in a state of drug- and alcohol-induced delirium at the time of the terminal event and either fell or jumped into the swimming pool,” Rialto Police Captain Randy DeAnda said. “Obviously, the effects of the drugs and alcohol combined precipitated some kind of cardiac arrhythmia, thus incapacitated Mr. King, and he was unable to save himself.”

    King, who earned quite a bit of fame after an onlooker with a video camera taped his beating, received a multi-million dollar settlement check from the incident, but a string of arrests and a battle with drug use ate up the money. He’d recently published a book about his life, however, and was looking forward to what came next.

    “America’s been good to me after I paid the price and stayed alive through it all,” he said. “This part of my life is the easy part now.”

  • Rodney King Dead at 47, Police Investigation Opened

    Rodney King, the man who quickly rose to infamy after an assault by Los Angeles police officers was captured on tape, was found dead in his swimming pool over the weekend. He was 47. As questions surrounding his death begin to surface, law enforcement officials have stated they intend to open an investigation into the alleged drowning.

    In 1991, King was pulled over by the Los Angeles police following a high-speed pursuit. According to testimony, the arresting officers claim that King was acting in a peculiar fashion, which they believed to be related to his consumption of PCP. When the suspect refused to cooperate, the police proceeded to violently beat King, going as far as to use tasers despite the fact that King was already on the ground. Much to their dismay, the entire exchange was caught on amateur video, which soon caught the attention of the entire nation.

    So extensive were King’s injuries that it took three surgeons nearly five hours to repair the damage done.

    Four LAPD officers were charged with excessive use of force by a police officer and assault with a deadly weapon. The ensuing trial, which was devoid of any black jurors, did not settle well with the African-American community. Following the acquittal of three officers and a deadlocked decision on the fourth, the city suddenly erupted in misguided violence, giving birth to what many call the L.A. Riots.

    Over the span of several days, rioters took to the streets, looting business, torching buildings, and attacking anyone who was unfortunate enough to stumble in their path. At the end of the day, the riots resulted in the death of 50 people and over $1 billion in property damage.

    King’s life had been forever changed. Although some viewed him as a cult hero, King was embarrassed and ashamed of the incident, which ultimately had several negative repercussions. In addition to having a few run-ins with the law, King continuously struggled with sobriety. In 2008, he appeared on the VH1 show “Celebrity Rehab” in an attempt to address his addictions.

    His death, it would seem, is a sad finale to a troubled life.

    “Rodney King was a symbol of civil rights and he represented the anti-police brutality and anti-racial profiling movement of our time,” Reverend Al Sharpton said in a statement. “It was his beating that made America focus on the presence of profiling and police misconduct.”