E! eyes Snoop for reality show

By Kimberly Nordyke

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Snoop Dogg and his family are getting their own reality series on E! Entertainment Television.

Ted Harbert, who oversees E! as president and CEO of Comcast Entertainment Group, said Friday during E!'s portion of the Television Critics Association's summer press tour that the rapper-producer-actor, his wife and his three kids will be the subject of an untitled half-hour series debuting in late 2007.

Cameras will follow Snoop Dogg -- aka Calvin Broadus Jr. -- as he pursues his career, taking viewers into closed-door meetings and private recording sessions. They will also follow him in his roles as the founder of a youth football league and as dad to two sons and a daughter and husband to Shante.

"Snoop Dogg is, without a doubt, one of the most charismatic and intriguing personalities in pop culture today," Harbert said Friday at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. "While he has captured a legion of fans as the king of hip-hop, what makes Snoop most interesting is the side of him that people have never seen."

Snoop Dogg has released eight platinum-selling albums, the most recent of which is "Tha Blue Carpet Treatment." He also hosts the XM Satellite Radio show "Welcome to da Chuuch with Big Snoop Dogg" and is executive producer of XM's classic hip-hop channel the Rhyme. His Snoopadelic Films will soon be releasing "Adventures of Tha Blue Carpet Treatment," a supplemental DVD with 10 animated videos of songs from the album.

Snoop Dogg's involvement with community issues includes coaching 2,500 kids in the Snoop Youth Football League and orchestrating the Protect the West Conference, aimed at keeping the peace within the hip-hop community.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter