By Antracia Moorings
Doing Her OWN Thing: Oprah Winfrey’s new network, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, unveiled programming for its Jan. 1 launch. The lineup includes Oprah’s Next Chapter, featuring Winfrey “getting untethered from the chairs, opening up her world and taking you with her,” the network said in a statement. Winfrey fans can expect “a whole new kind of Oprah show” that will feature “riveting conversations with the people we all want to hear from, in some very unexpected places,” from the “Taj Mahal to [Winfrey’s] beloved oak tree, the Great Wall to her own teahouse,” the statement continues.

Other shows in the OWN lineup include Visionaries: Inside the Creative Mind, which already has Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am and Oscar-winning director James Cameron on deck, Gayle King Live! and Why Not? With Shania Twain.  In addition, OWN also announced the launch of Your Own Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star. Winfrey will partner with reality producer Mark Burnett on a nationwide search to discover the big TV host. Details will be announced on The Oprah Winfrey Show in May.

“My vision for OWN is to create a network that inspires our viewers and makes them want to be who they are on their best day,” Winfrey said in a statement.

Court Date: R&B singer Bobby Brown is heading to court in a bid to lower his child support payments after struggling for years to keep up with his installments. Whitney Houston’ ex-husband was jailed for four days in 2007 for skipping payments to Kim Ward, the mother of two of his teenage children. The star found himself in trouble again last year when he failed to show up for a court hearing after he was accused of owing Ward over $45,000. Brown has now filed legal documents asking for his $5,500 a month payments to be reduced following a change in his income, and a judge at Norfolk Probate Court in Massachusetts has ruled the case can go to trial this summer. The former New Edition star has been granted a day in court in a bid to prove he has “had a material change in his circumstances,” according to Norfolk Registrar of Probate Patrick McDermott. McDermott tells the Boston Herald newspaper, “It’s for the judge to decide. But he has to prove he has had a material change in his circumstances in order to get his support payments modified.” Brown is also dad to Bobbi Kristina, his 17-year-old daughter with ex-wife Houston, and a two-year-old son from another relationship. He is due in court on June 24th.

Briefly: Mary J. Blige announced Tuesday that her organization has made a special new partnership. Mary J. announced on The Oprah Winfrey Show that her organization, the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now, Inc., (FFAWN), is teaming up with Carol’s Daughter beauty products … Jamie Foxx is taking his first steps into the world of animation; the Oscar-winner has been given the go-ahead for his latest project, Welcome To the Jungle. The “Ray” star pitched the idea for the film to bosses at 20th Century Fox Animation, and they have given the actor permission to move forward with the production. The movie will mark Foxx’s first role in an animated picture, and he will also be producing and writing the score for the film … Robin Thicke and his actress wife Paula Patton welcomed their first child, Julian Fuego, earlier this month in Los Angeles. High school sweethearts Thicke, 32, and Patton, 34, will celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary in June.

Finally: Comics Unleashed host Byron Allen is a new dad again. The comedian and wife Jennifer Lucas welcomed their second child together, a daughter named Olivia Rose Allen, on Wednesday, April 7^th, at 12:11 p.m., his rep announced. Weighing 8 lbs., 7 oz., and measuring 20.5 inches long, the baby joins big sister Chloe Ava, 19 months.