News

36439 readers

2982 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.

Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.

7. No duplicate posts.

If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.

All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

JonsJava@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

138

Magician David Copperfield Accused of Grooming, Groping, and Drugging Women (www.rollingstone.com)

submitted 2 years ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Magician David Copperfield is facing allegations of drugging women before sexual encounters, groping women during live performances, and behaving inappropriately with women who were significantly younger than him — including under 18 — in a new investigative piece in The Guardian.

The story contains allegations from 16 women, spanning four decades, from the 1980s to 2014. Over half of those women said they were under 18 at the time of the alleged incidents, with the two youngest victims claiming they were 15 at the time (though there was no evidence to suggest Copperfield was aware of their ages when they met).

One of those 15-year-olds, identified as Carla (not her real name), said Copperfield “groomed” her for more than two years after he gave her his phone number following a 1991 show. The magician allegedly called her at home often and sent her cards and gifts, including one, which Carla received when she was 16, that said: “In 2 years I will be back.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] justgohomealready@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

He was huge in the 80's and 90's amd did some big scale acts like disappearing a whole bridge and stuff like that.

[–] DdCno1@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

One of the most convincing tricks he pulled off was transporting two people from the stage to what looked like a believable beach. Totally fooled me (but I was a kid when I watched it).

Edit: I started to figure out that something was amiss soon after, because every single one of the supposedly "random" people he invited on stage to do his tricks with (usually by throwing plastic balls into the audience) wore incredibly "inoffensive" and poorly fitted clothes. At some point, I was able to spot which people he would end up picking from a mile away even before he had done so.

[–] Fisk400@feddit.nu 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I never understood those. It's always camera trickery and mirrors. At least with the stage performances there are real people in the room with a full field of vision.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 years ago

I saw a Penn Jillette interview a long time ago where he explained that quite a few other magicians fake their recorded stage performances. They'll perform a simpler trick, get the audience reactions, and then use camera trickery to make the trick look far more impressive for TV. This was in the context of him claiming that he absolutely doesn't do that.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For what it's worth, he claimed he never used camera tricks in his specials.

Of course, he's under no obligation to tell the truth.

[–] Fisk400@feddit.nu 4 points 2 years ago

When he says camera trickery he means that he doesn't edit anything. when I say camera trickery I mean that the camera must be at a certain angle for the trick to work. If he has a mirror for example and the camera moves a step to the right, the mirror is suddenly not aligned properly to my field of view and the illusion doesn't work.

The hobbits in Lord of the Rings is an excellent example. Nothing is edited in the shots but it relies on a very specific focal length in the camera and carefully planned forced perspective. It's impressive and a technical feat but it not "magic" like card tricks are magic.