MoCo Celebs Archives - Page 3 of 3

MoCo Natives Take #1 Box Office Spot with Jackass Forever

Published February 10, 2022 at 12:44PM | Updated February 16, 2022 at 8:48PM

Jackass Forever took the #1 box office spot this past weekend, grossing over $23 million in its first weekend in theaters. The comedy is the fourth Jackass movie and is based on the American reality comedy television series created by MoCo natives Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze along with actor Johnny Knoxville. Tremaine and Jonze were childhood friends, both growing up in MoCo and graduating from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda in the mid 80s and are both executive producers of all the Jackass movies, including Jackass Forever.

Tremaine is the former editor of the skating culture magazine Big Brother and a former art director of the influential BMXmagazine GO. He was also a former professional BMX rider. Tremaine has directed and produced all the movies in the Jackass franchise and was also the executive producer on the MTV reality series Rob and Big, and the executive producer of Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, Ridiculousness, Nitro Circus, and Adult Swim’s Loiter Squad.

Issa Rae, Who Grew Up in Potomac, Ends Successful Five-Year Run of Her Show ‘Insecure’

By MCS Staff

Published December 28, 2021 at 9:41PM

Issa Rae was born in Los Angeles. After moving to Senegal for a couple years where her father, a pediatrician, attempted to open a hospital, her family moved to Potomac, Maryland.

While growing up in Potomac, she was in a gifted and talented program at Cold Spring Elementary School. Rae was quoted as saying that in her time in Potomac, she grew up with “things that aren’t considered ‘Black,’ like the swim team and street hockey and Passover dinners with Jewish best friends.”

Gaithersburg Rapper Logic’s Song 1-800-273-8255 May Have Prevented Hundreds of Suicides, Study Finds

By Patrick Herron

Published December 16, 2021 at 5:46PM | Updated December 22, 2021 at 11:36AM

According to a report published on Monday by the British Medical Journal, Gaithersburg rapper Logic’s 2017 song 1-800-273-8255 may have prevented hundreds of suicides. The song title is the phone number for the American National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The BMJ tracked date from 34 days following three specific events, the release of the song in 2017, the MTV Video Awards in 2017, and the 2018 Grammy’s, and found the Suicide Prevention Lifeline received an excess of 9915 calls, an increase of 6.9% over the expected number. The report states, “a corresponding model for suicides indicated a reduction over the same period of 245 suicides (95% confidence interval 36 to 453) or 5.5% (95% confidence interval 0.8% to 10.1%, P=0.02) below the expected number of suicides.”

Ben Stein, Silver Spring Native

By MCS Staff

Published December 7, 2021 at 8:46AM | Updated December 7, 2021 at 2:34PM

Ben Stein grew up in the Woodside Forest neighborhood of Silver Spring. He attended Montgomery Hills Junior High with Sylvester Stallone in the late 50s. Stein then moved on to Blair High School, where he was a year ahead of Goldie Hawn and graduated with journalist, Carl Bernstein (teamed with Bob Woodward to do much of the original reporting on the Watergate Scandal, which led to the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon).

He majored in economics at Columbia University’s Columbia College and graduated with honors before graduating as valedictorian from Yale Law School.