Pop Culture Fix: Rose “Tasha Williams” Rollins Will Star in a Gay Women’s Basketball Series on BET

Ooh I hope you’re ready for some nostalgia in this week’s Pop Culture Fix!


+ Rose “Tasha Williams” Rollins will star as J.C. Abernathy, in Long Slow Exhale, “the head coach of a competitive women’s college basketball team who finds herself in the middle of a career-shattering sexual abuse scandal.” According to a casting notice posted on Backstage, one of the leads is “Jordan,” a 19-year-old feisty, fast and competitive Black lesbian. There will also be an intersex character and an Indigenous character!

+ Speaking of The L Word, here’s Rosie on the set of Gen Q in a role that our TV Team has just decided, without much evidence, is going to be Tina’s finance and Bette’s arch-nemesis.

+ The angry women of Carey Mulligan.

+ Here’s your first look at Top Chef Portland. If you look closely, you’ll catch Melissa King, Kristen Kish, and Carrie Brownstein.

And a note from Natalie, who dove right into her annual Top Chef research: “The cheftestants and their instas! How am I supposed to figure out which of them is queer if all they post are food pics? That said, according to her Bravo bio, Maria Mazon loves cooking for her wife and their 12-year-old son, so that’s one for team gay.”

+ Alexandra Grey’s true Hollywood story is breaking barriers.

+ The CW has picked up Ava DuVernay’s superhero drama Naomi (and also, inexplicably a live-action Powerpuff Girls???) 

+ In the recently released Happily trailer, Valerie peeped some potential gayness: “This cast is very gay and also it looks like maybe it’s possible Shannon Woodward and Kirby Howell-Baptiste could be a couple???”

+ Dee Rees will helm a Porgy And Bess film adaptation.

+ Callie Torres deserved better from Grey’s Anatomy.

+ 🤔

+ Charisma Carpenter released a statement this morning about the abuse she deal with from Joss Whedon on the sets of Buffy and Angel.

+ Jasika Nicole will be a recurring character on Peacock’s Punky Brewster reboot!!!!!

+ Dolly Parton once faced a forest of bears instead of hooking up with a guy she didn’t like.

+ Diamond White will voice the lead role in Disney Channel’s adaptation of Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!

+ Dan Levy’s mom calls out his childhood bully punks.


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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1719 articles for us.

6 Comments

  1. Naomi is straight?
    And Powerpuff Girls ”Based on the Cartoon Network series created by Craig McCracken, the new series sees the pint-sized superheroes as disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime fighting. Will they agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever??
    Well, I hope one of them (and especially Bubbles) is lesbian!

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