Netflix has removed some episodes of the outrageous sitcom, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on the basis that they feature multiple characters doing blackface. Fans started to take notice earlier this week that the ninth episode of the sixth season titled "Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth" was no longer available for streaming on Netflix. In the episode, main characters Mac and Dee both wear blackface. However, some fans pointed out that it was strange how Netflix opted to take down this episode, but not the season nine episode, "The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6," that also features characters doing blackface.

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"Surely Lethal Weapon 6 is actually worse than the first one?" one user asked, before explaining why he feels that taking these episodes off the streaming platform was contradictory to the nature of the show. "Thing is though, It’s Always Sunny is not racist. The characters are," he explained. "The entire joke of the show is that these are horrible, terrible people who suffer for their sins. When Mac and Dee do blackface, it’s not glorified at all. It’s heavily shunned by every other character."

Howard Stern is the latest white celebrity to be called out for his past use of blackface, and in his case, he really talked the talk. An old clip from Howard’s 1993 “New Year’s Rotten Eve Pageant” resurfaced this week, which shows the radio host’s face painted black with exaggerated white lips. In the skit—which appears to be a spoof of Ted Danson’s notorious performance in blackface from earlier that year as then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg laughed along—Howard and his co-star play Ted and Whoopi, respectively. Howard makes a series of jokes, the punchline for each of them always including N-word, while he insists that it’s okay because “Whoopi wrote it.”

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The purpose of the skit seemed to be to mock Ted for trying to justify his actions in the original performance because Whoopi had given him the green light, but by doing so, Howard ended up engaging in the same behaviour he was trying to denounce. The video was originally posted by controversial filmmaker Tariq Nasheed, and made waves among the right-wing crowd, who took pleasure in seeing the anti-Trump host be exposed for racism. The clip was even retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.

Howard’s longtime employee Steve Grillo, who worked on the special, responded to the circulating video, insisting that Howard never uses this language off the air. He explained that, because the special aired on pay-per-view, they thought, “We’ve got the whole world watching—let’s push the limits. The leash was off and they were going to be rabid dogs.”

Following past claims of racism and toxicity on the set of America’s Got Talent, Gabrielle Union is dishing on all things AGT, including her former co-judge’s use of blackface back in 2013. Late last year, it was reported that Gabrielle had been fired from the talent competition show after reporting a racist and inappropriate joke told by Jay Leno on the set. Gabrielle later came forward about her experience as a judge on the show, detailing the “toxic work environment” on set. However, it was later revealed that NBC would be conducting an internal investigation into the claims made about the show. As the investigation is ongoing, Gabrielle isn’t at liberty to discuss many details, but she did open up to Variety about a few of her negative experiences, and even commented on then-fellow judge Julianne Hough getting hired even after doing blackface as recently as 2013.

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While recalling some of the more distressing situations during her time at AGT, Gabrielle described an instance in which a white contestant wore black gloves to portray a black performer. “I’m a part of a show that hired one of my co-workers who had an unfortunate incident doing blackface,” she said, referring to Julianne dressing up as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren—a character played by black actress Uzo Aduba on Orange Is The New Black—for Halloween in 2013. “I’d like to trust her at her word that she learned her lesson, and has educated herself amid the consequences she faced and is hopefully a better person. But you would think that perhaps the show and NBC might be more conscientious in exposing that, and it would be taken seriously. I took it seriously.” Read the full interview with Variety here.

Jamie Foxx has responded to the backlash that Jimmy Fallon has been facing after an Saturday Night Live sketch in which Jimmy does blackface recently resurfaced. Back in 2000, when the late night host was still a regular on the sketch comedy show, Jimmy did an impression of former cast member, Chris Rock, for which he painted his skin brown.

The sketch has received criticism in the years since it aired, although it appears that it's made its way back into the public consciousness once again. This time, The Tonight Show decided it was time to acknowledge the backlash, issuing an apology for his "unquestionably offensive decision" to do blackface on the show.

Cancel Culture has had quite the week. After chopping down Lana Del Rey's tree following her open letter, Doja Cat began to trend over allegations that she was anti-black. Now, The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon has found himself in trouble with the public after a Saturday Night Live skit that he participated in back in 2000 went viral. In it, Jimmy Fallon wears blackface to impersonate fellow SNL alum Chris Rock.

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Fallon didn't waste any time with issuing a formal apology on Twitter. "In 2000, while on SNL, I made a terrible decision to do an impersonation of Chris Rock while in blackface. There is no excuse for this," he wrote. "I am very sorry for making this unquestionably offensive decision and thank all of you for holding me accountable." The response to Fallon's apology has been overwhelmingly supportive as many people have stated that a 20-year-old comedy sketch shouldn't be used against the talk show host.

According to Deadline, the full skit was removed from NBC platforms immediately following the cancelation of Megyn Kelly Today after she was booted for her controversial remarks defending blackface Halloween costumes. A portion of Jimmy Fallon's SNL skit was reposted on YouTube last year, and for some reason picked up steam in the last few days on Twitter. Check it out below.

Just in the past year, we've seen multiple instances of brands being called out for selling products that were deemed racially insensitive. Gucci had that bizarre blackface-reminiscent sweater. Prada had those Pradamalia figurines, accused of depicting racist caricatures of black people. When these stories arise, many wonder, "How did this design make it through so many checkpoints before being released to the public?" Turns out, some of the world's biggest brands don't have diversity councils to review products and campaigns. Prada has now committed to establishing one, in a move that was described in a New York Times report as "highly unusual."

Prada was targeted by the New York City Commission on Human Rights following the figurine controversy. The commission has been investigating the Italian fashion house for the past year. On Tuesday (Feb. 4), Prada signed on to enact "racial equity training" and appoint a diversity and inclusion officer, even though the brand is still denying that it was responsible for any intentional discrimination. 

According to reports, police are looking for a white man who robbed a bank in Maryland on Tuesday wearing blackface. The suspect robbed a PNC bank in Perryville, Maryland, a town about 40 miles northeast of Baltimore, near the Delaware and Pennsylvania borders.

Shortly after the robbery, the police department took to Facebook to ask the public for help in identifying the man. "We are seeking the public’s help in identifying the below pictured subject," Perryville police wrote sharing the pic.

Lord Jamar and Eminem won't make peace in the foreseeable future, or at least that's how it seems. In recent times, Lord Jamar's expressed his disdain for Eminem, and vice versa, on numerous occasions and now, it just seems like a running joke. It goes -- DJ Vlad interviews Lord Jamar, Lord Jamar shares his unadulterated thoughts on Eminem, and Eminem then lashes out on Lord Jamar on wax. 

After Eminem fired shots on "I Will," Lord Jamar continued to fire back in interviews. In his most recent sit-down with Vlad, Lord Jamar discussed the photo of Eminem wearing a mask of Will Smith. Lord Jamar shared a photo on his Instagram page last year of Eminem wearing a mask of Will Smith and suggested that it's "kinda like a blackface."

"It's a mockery of black people, like a white dude wearing any kind of black mask is problematic and should be explained," he began. "I just wanna know what the whole context was. Could it be explained?'"

After Vlad said that he personally wouldn't do it, Lord Jamar explained, "I know at the time a lot people in Hip Hop -- black people -- might have looked at Will Smith as kinda corny and straight-laced but that's for us to do. You can't cross the line that maybe one of us could have done. But you as a white guy can't do that."

He continued to explain that the photo in question wasn't his first time mocking the Black community, pointing out to the leaked demo when Em was 16-years-old describing Black women as "bad" in comparison to white girls. "You gotta put all of that sht into context when you talk about this guy... it wasn't something that was easily found on the Internet," he said.

Robert Downey Jr. paid a visit to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast last week, as projections that his $175 million budget film, Doolittle, would lose $100 million at the box office are revealed. At one point, Joe asks RDJ if he thinks “you could do blackface today,” referencing Robert’s role in Ben Stiller’s 2008 film, Tropic Thunder, as an Australian-born actor named Kirk Lazarus who undergoes “pigmentation alteration” to portray a black character. Robert responds, “you could…” with a little hesitation, and elaborates on the film’s conception. “When Ben called and said, ‘Hey I’m doing this thing’ – you know I think Sean Penn had passed on it or something. Possibly wisely. And I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that and I’ll do that after Iron Man.’ Then I started thinking, ‘This is a terrible idea, wait a minute.'”

However, he reconsidered what his intentions were in taking the role. “Then I thought, ‘Well hold on dude, get real here, where is your heart?,'” he recounts. “My heart is…a) I get to be black for a summer in my mind, so there’s something in it for me. The other thing is, I get to hold up to nature the insane self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do on occasion, just my opinion.” Praising Ben Stiller as a “masterful artist and director,” RDJ reveals that Ben’s execution was what made the film ultimately work. “[Ben] knew exactly what the vision for this was, he executed it, it was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie. And 90 percent of my black friends were like, ‘Dude, that was great.'”

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Joe then asks him about “the other 10%” to which Robert responds, “I can’t disagree with them, but I know where my heart was. I think that it’s never an excuse to do something that’s out of place and out of its time, but to me, it blasted the cap on [the issue].” After Joe declares that it’s unlikely that blackface could ever be received well today, RDJ touches back on the issue of intention. “There’s a morality clause here on this planet and it’s a big price to pay. I think having a moral psychology is job one. Sometimes, you just gotta go, ‘Yeah I effed up.’ Again, not in my defense but, Tropic Thunder is about how wrong [blackface] is, so I take exception.”

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However, he reveals that he did get some pushback from his loved ones. “My mother was horrified,” he reveals. He imitates his mother’s response, saying, “‘Bobby, I’m telling ya, I have a bad feeling about this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah me too, Mom.'” Robert Downey Jr. went on to be nominated for a Golden Globe as well as an Oscar for Bets Supporting Actor for his role in the film, but lost both times.