(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Warner Bros Television Group released Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors from a contract after the organization neglected to provide any content for production.
“The studio signed an overall deal with BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors at some point in 2020,” said a source from within the organization, but the “deal expired at end of October 2022” and “did not result in any produced shows.”
The botched deal and failure to produce followed a pattern that has BLM reportedly on the brink of insolvency after years of mismanagement and highly dubious spending.
According to the Post Millennial, the multi-year, multi-platform deal would provide an outlet for original material produced by the group—including scripted comedies, dramas, animated shows and documentaries centered around black stories.
Variety reported on the initial deal but did not disclose its financial value to the public.
Cullors helped found BLM in 2013, but stepped down after bad press following the discovery that she used company funds to purchase four different multi-million dollar homes in Georgia and California.
Several reports of BLM higher-ups using donated money for personal luxuries emerged in the following months. Cullors was also caught contracting her baby daddy’s charity as “lead developer of the art & cultural events,” to the tune of $238,000.
Damon Turner, who fathered Cullors’s only child, formed the company Trap Heals a few days before he partnered with the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation.
In April 2022, Cullors decried required tax forms as “triggering” and claimed they were “weaponized” against organizations like BLM.
“If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” said fellow co-founder Hawk Newsome. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.”
Cullors lashed out at her critics, particularly conservative news outlets, threatening to sue them for defamation.
