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Empire is not the ratings monster it once was, but it's still a solid performer for Fox. That's why there's no reason to be alarmed at the news that the show's writers have asked for brief pause in production so that they can work on the second half of the season. Such a break is not unusual, and the series' producers say that the production hiatus will not affect the air schedule for the back half of the season.

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

Empire is pressing the pause button.

The hip-hop drama is set to take a production hiatus to plot the back-half of its current fourth season.

Two days until the new episode of #Empire! 🙌🏾 📷: @xzibit

A post shared by Empire (@empirefox) on Nov 6, 2017 at 11:00am PST

The break will begin tomorrow, Nov. 8, once filming has completed on episode 409, and is expected to last somewhere between two and three weeks. The hiatus is expected to give the writers time to catch up and plot out the eight remaining episodes of the season, beginning with episode 410.

Two days until the new episode of #Empire! 🙌🏾 📷: @xzibit

A post shared by Empire (@empirefox) on Nov 6, 2017 at 11:00am PST

The break would not impact the show's on-air schedule, as Empire normally takes a several-month-long break in the middle of the TV season following the fall finale, which is expected to air sometime in December.

This is old practice for the 20th Century Fox Television drama, which has instituted a similar break on every other season of the heavily serialized drama, starring Taraji. P. Henson and Terrence Howard.

While ratings have dipped from the show's breakout first season, Empire continues to rank as the network's top drama.

Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.

Are you still watching Empire? Tell us why or why not in the comment section below.

The Fox network says Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker will guest-star in a multi-episode arc on “Empire” this fall.

Whitaker will play “Uncle Eddie,” a charismatic music mogul who long ago gave an unknown Lucious Lyon (series star Terrence Howard) his first radio airplay. Now, decades later, Eddie steps up for Lucious at a critical moment during his rehabilitation. A grateful Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) invites Eddie to produce a song in celebration of Empire Entertainment’s 20th anniversary.

Read the rest of this article at Page Six.

Forest Whitaker has appeared in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Arrival.

It's official: the casts of Empire and Star about to meet.

Lee Daniels' two Fox music dramas will officially cross over in a special two-episode event this fall.

Fox will use the crossover, in which Star's Carlotta (Queen Latifah) come face-to-face with Empire's Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), Lucious (Terrence Howard) and Jamal Lyon (Jussie Smollett) for the first time, to launch the new seasons of both series.

The crossover is set for Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 8 p.m. with Empire's season four premiere. On the brink of Empire Entertainment’s 20th anniversary, Lucious is set to make his first public appearance after the explosion in Las Vegas, while all members of the Lyon family, as well as Lucious’ nurse, Claudia (Demi Moore), have their own interests in Lucious regaining his physical and mental faculties.

Read the rest of this article at The Hollywood Reporter.

Lee Daniels has also produced Monster's Ball and The Butler.

Bryshere Y. Gray, who plays Hakeem Lyon on the hit Fox show “Empire,” said the upside to fame was having the money to buy his mom a house.

The actor, who’s also known as rapper Yazz The Greatest, said, “The best thing that has happened to me was that I bought my mom a house. I had her just go and pick one out . . . I told her, ‘Don’t go crazy yet, but go get something very nice,’ and she did.”

Read the rest of this article at Page Six.

Bryshere Y. Gray has also appeared in The New Edition Story.

Chris Rock says he thought he could get away with cheating on his now ex-wife, Malaak Compton-Rock, because he was the breadwinner. The comedian discussed just that and more while talking candidly about his failed marriage in a new interview with Rolling Stone.

"Getting divorced, you have to f--king start over," he told the magazine. "You get to reset. It's not a breakdown, but something in your life broke down."

And he takes full responsibility for that break. During one of his recent shows on his Alimony Tour, Rolling Stone reports, the actor admitted he was a “piece of s--t” for cheating on his wife of 18 years and said that he thought he could get away with it because he made the money. He now realizes that’s not true.

Read the rest of this article at Us Weekly.

Chris Rock has appeared in Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, Empire, Saturday Night Live, and many other films and TV series.

The long road to the end of the broadcast season is going to generate some bummer headlines for a few TV powerhouses.

Empire nabbed another same-day series low on Wednesday, dropping another three-tenths of a ratings point from last week's low. It averaged a 2.2 rating among adults 18-49. And while that was enough to keep it as the night's highest-rated show, it was outwatched by Survivor, Criminal Minds and Chicago P.D. with 6.3 million viewers. Fox still won the night, with Shots Fired pulling a 0.9 rating in the key demo, but fatigue is evident in the flagship. Empire joins the much more senior Big Bang Theory in its late-season lows.

Speaking of series lows, Modern Family logged one as well. The ABC comedy was also down three-tenths of a point, averaging a 1.8 rating among adults 18-49 in between steady episodes of Speechless and Black-ish (1.3 adults). The Goldbergs was ABC's second-biggest of the night with a 1.5 rating in the key demo. (Designated Survivor earned a flat 1.1 rating in the key demo.)

Read the rest of this article at The Hollywood Reporter.

The entire first season of Empire (which seems like decades ago at this point) was centered on Lucious Lyon slowly dying of ALS and having to choose a son to be his successor. But as it turns out, Lucious has myasthenia gravis instead, which is not as severe as ALS, and things are mostly fine. Until now, that is. Will Lucious Lyon die on Empire? Previews for future episodes show him in critical condition.

According to Myasthenia.org, myasthenia gravis is “a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disorder that is characterized by fluctuating weakness of the voluntary muscle groups.” That explains why doctors thought that Lucious’ muscle weakness was ALS and not MG, but it doesn’t explain (yet, at least) why Lucious is in bed with a breathing apparatus strapped to his face. My guess is that his MG is acting up, because the myasthenia website lists “difficulty breathing” as one of the common symptoms, along with “weakness in the arms and legs” and “chronic muscle fatigue.” Lucious is in bed, and he can’t breathe, so I’m going to take the medical degree I earned watching every episode of E. and Grey’s Anatomy and say this MG could be the case. Call me Dr. Drama, because I’ve seen everything. It could also be lupus, because on House, M.D., lupus was always an option.

Read the rest of this article at Bustle.

When Rumer Willis’ Tory Ash debuted in Empire’s midseason premiere, it didn’t take long for her troubled past to surface.

Introduced as Jamal’s (Jussie Smollett) newest and closest confidant rehab, both Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) and Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) quickly began discussing her Heroin-induced meltdown that led to her stripping naked at Fenway Park before she was later found in a coma in a seedy motel.

“She was a big star, brilliant too,” Cookie said. “But that heroin knocked her ass right out of the sky.”

It’s a story that is unfortunately rings all too familiar in the music business, with heroin overdoses claiming the lives of Dee Dee Ramone, Sid Vicious and Janis Joplin, among many others. However, Willis says it was a much more recent figure that drew her to the recurring part.

“I was on tour, and I had a layover day in New York. My agents had reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, there’s this role on Empire to do this Amy Winehouse-type rock star,” Willis tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I was like, ‘I don’t need to see anything else. I’m going in. I don’t care if I’m tired.’”

Read the rest of this article at The Hollywood Reporter.

Watch Nessa's performance of "Get Me Right" is interrupted by Hakeem and Tiana.

About Show: EMPIRE is a powerful drama about a family dynasty set within the glamorous and sometimes dangerous world of hip-hop music. The show revolves around the Lyon family and their media company, Empire Entertainment. The founder, LUCIOUS LYON (Terrence Howard), is the king of hip-hop, but his company and reign are constantly threatened by his family, including his ex-wife, COOKIE LYON (Taraji P. Henson); his sons, JAMAL (Jussie Smollett), HAKEEM (Bryshere “Yazz” Gray) and ANDRE (Trai Byers); and a volatile and competitive music industry.