She’s a straight shooter. Final Appeal’s Loni Coombs dishes on her new Oxygen series and reveals which Hollywood star she believes deserves a second chance in the court of public opinion.
The legal prosecutor turned legal analyst, who has worked on high profile trials including O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony, has teamed up with Brian Banks — a man who served five years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of rape in 2002. In their new series, the duo work to “uncover the truth behind controversial cases that may have led to wrongful convictions.”
“My hopes with this show is that people know that they get to speak up, to join in the conversation, to make their voice heard in the discussion,” she told Us. “We are seeing more and more every day, women are extremely powerful to society, and we need to be involved, and the more we get involved, the more powerful we become.”
She continued: “The more we realize how powerful we are, and change is brought about by people speaking up, and that happens as we’re seeing with the sexual harassment arena and it will happen with wrongful conviction. Women are the ones who see a log and will jump on it and push it til things are done til it gets better, til there’s improvement. My hope is that [people] don’t sit back and think, “I’m just one person. I can’t be heard. I can’t do anything.” Being involved in the discussion is a huge piece of the action to move forward.”
Switching gears, the TV personality recognizes that celebrities, including Mariah Carey, are sometimes given an unfair shake in the court of public opinion. “I think a lot of times, some of these celebrities that are just going through things that a lot of us deal with, but get castigated for it because they are celebrities,” she explained to Us. “People always assume that they get the breaks because they’re celebrities. They don’t get breaks.”
Coombs believes the “Heartbreaker” songstress, for example, deserved an opportunity to redeem herself after her 2017 New Year’s Eve fumble. “Everybody at some level deserves a second chance if you pay your debt to society. It’s not like you’re just going to disappear forever. They’re still human beings. They’re still existing, and especially for somebody who’s being compared, even foibles, yeah, give them a second chance. I think our society does that too. I think our society, especially in this age, everybody wants to judge quickly but also kind of wants everybody to succeed too. They love a redemption story.”
Final Appeal airs on Oxygen Sundays at 7p.m. ET.
With reporting by Marc Lupo
