<\/p>\n
To the untrained eye, it seems like just any other weekend inside Atlantic City\u2019s Ocean Casino Resort. The last trickle of summer tourists meander the casino halls, lounge by the pool, and hit the beach\u2019s boardwalk in a desperate attempt to soak up one of the last steamy weekends of the year. But on Saturday (Sept. 13), half of Hollywood quietly descended on the resort for the REFORM Alliance Casino Night and Gala, one of the year\u2019s most sumptuous fundraisers and parties in support of REFORM\u2019s efforts to transform probation and parole in America.<\/p>\n
As the plethora of stars \u2014 including Jay-Z, Beyonc\u00e9, Kevin Hart, Travis Scott, Ice Spice, Machine Gun Kelly, Quavo, DJ Khaled, Latto, Emma Roberts, Jamie Foxx, French Montana and Ne-Yo \u2014 all made their way into the resort\u2019s Ovation Hall, they were handed fizzling glasses of Armand de Brignac, while other attendees sipped on spicy D\u2019USS\u00c9 Sidecars or warm, comforting Espresso Martini\u2019s.<\/p>\n
More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Foxx reunited with his Back in Action co-star Cameron Diaz, laughing and gabbing the night away while Foxx\u2019s towering Buffalo Hat shielded his face from nosy onlookers (like Billboard). Robert Kraft \u2014 sandwiched in between Travis Scott and his fellow REFORM Alliance Board Member Michael Rubin \u2014 shared hushed conversations with both. Kraft would later bid almost a million dollars for a round of golf with his old friend Tom Brady, who during the night\u2019s scheduled auction appeared illuminated on the stage via Zoom to oversee the bidding war.<\/p>\n That round of golf, which would be played at Michael Jordan\u2019s private Grove XXIII golf club, would actually go for $1.8 million. Elsewhere, an exclusive concert from Megan Thee Stallion and a one-of-one linen George Condo painting would soon after sell for $600,000 and a whopping $3.4 million, much at the teasing and baiting of the evening\u2019s host Kevin Hart.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a round of golf, Tiffany,\u201d Hart called out at one point to Tiffany Haddish, who put up a good fight to try and secure herself a 9-hole game with the seven-time Super Bowl champ. \u201cIt\u2019s not a date with Tom Brady!\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the auction, a painting by Rashid Johnson, titled \u201cSoul Painting for Freedom,\u201d sold for over a million, while another bidding war ensued for an Audemars Piguet timepiece made exclusively for Jay-Z, who sat alongside his wife Beyonc\u00e9 in the middle of the banquet hall.<\/p>\n Money was spent, drinks were poured, belly laughs echoed through the halls. Yet while the evening felt like an aristocratic dinner with some of today\u2019s biggest stars, there were solemn reminders along the way about the true impact at play with REFORM\u2019s work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mission hasn\u2019t changed,\u201d Meek Mill told Billboard, drink in hand outside the gala in a neatly tailored black tie ensemble. \u201cWe\u2019ve changed about 22 laws and statutes in a bunch of states. I think the goal is just to keep going. We\u2019re gonna one day talk about the people in the system that need jobs, so eventually we\u2019ll venture over to that. But right now we\u2019re focusing on parol and probation by going state to state, we\u2019ve done eight or nine states so far.\u201d<\/p>\n Since REFORM\u2019s inception in 2019 \u2014 which started after Meek Mill\u2019s controversial parole violation<\/a> in 2017 when he popped a wheelie on his dirt bike and received a two-to-four year prison sentence \u2014 the non-profit has passed 22 bills in 12 states aimed at curtailing the supervision-to-prison pipeline and the supervision-to-poverty trap that effects millions of ex-convicts.<\/p>\n One of those impacted individuals, James Severe, spoke onstage prior to the auction, and grew emotional as he shared his own struggles within the prison system and how REFORM\u2019s efforts changed his life. Regardless of these heartwarming stories, it\u2019s hard to ignore whether the second Trump Administration will value criminal justice reform<\/a> in the same way as REFORM itself.<\/p>\n \u201cI think overall, no,\u201d Rubin said when Billboard asked if criminal justice reform was as unifying a topic as it used to be. \u201cBut for what we do at REFORM, absolutely. This is the one place people aren\u2019t debating. People know we need to fix this. There are a lot of parts of criminal justice reform people don\u2019t agree with, but I think the mission here has been clear since we started.\u201d<\/p>\n However, REFORM\u2019s CEO Jessica Jackson added that since the nonprofit\u2019s last gala in 2023 they\u2019d passed five new bills, including the groundbreaking Act 44<\/a> in Meek\u2019s home state of Pennsylvania, which eases the more draconian aspects of Pennsylvania\u2019s restrictive probation system. This movement alone shows there is some bipartisan flexibility on this issue.<\/p>\n \u201cI think because of the way REFORM Alliance does our work, where we actually sit down with key stakeholders from all across the aisle \u2014 business leaders, faith leaders, law enforcement \u2014 we have been able to find that people on all sides of the aisle really think there needs to be reform, that there needs to be common sense injected into [the system],\u201d Jackson added. \u201cOur biggest obstacle has just been the ability to really get out there. But the incredible news is that as we\u2019ve been passing these bills, we\u2019ve been working on implementing them, and part of that involves collecting data. What we\u2019ve found is our bills work. They make communities safer. They save states money. They promote human dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not really deep in the political world but we have always had Republicans and Democrats working with REFORM,\u201d Meek noted. \u201cI don\u2019t know what the level of political change will be.\u201d<\/p>\n After the auction, The Weeknd floated on stage to perform some of his biggest hits, including \u201cStarboy,\u201d \u201cThe Hills\u201d \u201cTimeless\u201d and more. Along the way, Abel took shots of whiskey, shouted out Quavo and kept the vibes light and celebratory for his 40-minute set. The night was then capped off by a high-stakes, closed-door Blackjack tournament at Ocean\u2019s Gallery Bark Book & Games area. Hov, French Montana, Taylor Rooks, Tyrese Haliburton and guest Andrew Ramus all emerged as semi-finalists, with the latter winning the coveted $1 million prize. Along the way, Travis Scott, Ice Spice, Quavo, DJ Khaled and Chase B performed, before all the guests choppered off to the night\u2019s afterparty.<\/p>\n Overall, the high-energy event was a blockbuster success, raising over $20 million for criminal justice reform for the second time.<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To the untrained eye, it seems like just any other weekend inside Atlantic City\u2019s Ocean Casino Resort. The last trickle of summer tourists meander the casino halls, lounge by the pool, and hit the beach\u2019s boardwalk in a desperate attempt to soak up one of the last steamy weekends of the year. But on Saturday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2026468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[373182,349563,25193,345338,352826,351707,350556,68192,307001,366646,22288,366647,372494,373184,373183,372770,349234,308325,305634,365199],"class_list":["post-2026467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-armand-de-brignac","tag-atlantic-city","tag-cameron-diaz","tag-emma-roberts","tag-french-montana","tag-ice-spice","tag-jamie-foxx","tag-kevin-hart","tag-machine-gun-kelly","tag-meek-mill","tag-megan-thee-stallion","tag-michael-rubin","tag-ocean-casino-resort","tag-rashid-johnson","tag-reform-alliance","tag-robert-kraft","tag-tiffany-haddish","tag-tom-brady","tag-travis-scott","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/What-We-Saw-Inside-the-REFORM-Alliances-Lavish-Gala-With.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2026467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2026468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2026467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2026467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2026467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}