show biz

MARK Wright looked very unhappy as he waited for his wife Michelle Keegan, to snap pics with fans in London.

The former Towie star and his actress wife were spotted outside the Corinthia Hotel in London where fans asked Michelle for a photo, but didn’t pay him any attention.

Michelle smiled patiently as the different men loaded up the cameras on their phones to snap a selfie with the former Coronation Street star.

Mark could be seen in the background of the video posted to TikTok waiting beside a black cab and appeared to be annoyed when another fan asked for a photo.

While Michelle said thank you to the fans and walked towards Mark, he still did not smile and opened the door, getting into the waiting cab before his wife.

Fans rushed to the comments section to share their thoughts on the awkward moment.

read more michelle keegan

A WRIGHT XMAS

Inside Michelle Keegan & Mark Wright’s incredible ‘no-expense-spared’ Xmas

OVER THE TOP

Mark Wright & Michelle Keegan slammed for flaunting wealth with Xmas decor

“He didn’t even let his wife go in the cab first! WOW,” wrote one person.

Another added: “Oh the frustration in him. The mouth, the hands scrunched in the pockets, he was raging.”

And a third commented: “That was quite a hard watch actually.”

Mark may have been inpatient to rush back to the couple’s Essex mansion, where they’d spared no expense to deck it out with Christmas decorations.

Last week, Mark and Michelle revealed their lavish Christmas decorations, that can be found throughout their incredible home.

The celebrity couple are full of the festive spirit as they prepare to celebrate baby daughter Palma‘s first ever Christmas.

Michelle and Mark are well known for their over-the-top Christmases, but this year is extra special because of their daughter.

Sources say the Wrights plan on making this festive season “one to remember”, with “no expense spared” as they go all out.

An insider close to the couple told OK!: “Mark loves Christmas and he’s wanted a family for a long time, so for him it couldn’t get any better.

“He’s like an excited puppy dog and cherishing every minute of it. It means the world to him.

“When it comes to presents, he’ll be spoiling them both – Mark doesn’t know how to reign it in.”

Just a few storefronts away from the now-vacant Button Mash, Sick City Records is on the brink of sharing the same fate.

For nearly 20 years, therecord shop has offered Echo Park a rocker-themed hodgepodge of rare vinyl, vintage band tees and dapper haircuts from its singular barber shop chair. But as rent continues to increase and fewer people stop by to browse its sonic selection or get a trim, Sick City Records is struggling to keep its doors open.

“We’ve worked so hard for this. We’ve been doing this for 20 years. We have to fight to keep this place open — it’s what we love to do,” said Jesse Lopez, the record store’s co-owner and resident barber.

Lopez and his business partner, Brian Flores, attribute their financial difficulties to an overall rough year. In January, when the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out, the shop was desolate for around a month. Then, right as summer kicked off — usually a lucrative season for record-collecting tourists stopping by — ICE raids began happening all over the city.

According to Flores, the streets were filled with large fleets of cars all summer, with loud sirens on, trying to scare people. Recent data from the L.A. Economic Equity Accelerator and Fellowship and the L.A. County Economic Development Corp show that 43% of Latino business owners in the county reported revenue losses of 50% or higher since June.

Co-owner Jesse Lopez, left, cuts the hair of Los Angeles resident Jason Berk, 33, inside of Sick City Records.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“No one was walking around. It was June. Nobody’s walking their dog,” said Flores. “In this whole shopping center, everybody is an immigrant.”

The record shop’s finances reached an all-time low in October. The duo was two months behind rent; their inventory had gone stagnant and their once regular barber shop clients had become sporadic. The prospect of closing up shop and cutting their losses became more real than ever.

In a last effort to save their music hub, Flores and Lopez have since picked up a vendor spot at the monthly Rose Bowl Flea Market, started a series of collaborative fundraisers with local artists and launched a GoFundMe account.

Since they first opened in 2006, Flores and Lopez have always specialized in rock, punk and alternative — carrying bands like the Velvet Underground, the Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Suede. The inside of their space reflects that — the walls are filled with wheatpasted skulls; rows of Iron Maiden and Suicidal Tendencies tees line the perimeter and their most valuable merchandise — like a sealed Iggy Pop vinyl, a clear variant of Portishead’s “Dummy,” and a signed Echo & the Bunnymen record — hang high on elevated shelves.

“A lot of stuff’s been sitting here for a long time,” Flores confessed as he looks around at the different half-filled genre crates.

“We try to make what we can. We make our own buttons. We do our own silk screening. We can’t buy high-end vintage. We can’t afford it right now,” he added. “It’s embarrassing when the kids are asking for new rap records and these record guys come in looking for something special, but we don’t have it.”

Band tees and vinyl records hang on a wall inside of Sick City Records.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

In recent years, Sick City has also made an effort to expand into other genres, and now carries anything from country to jazz and rap. Between albums like Tyler the Creator’s “Cherry Bomb” and the Cocteau Twins’ “Heaven or Las Vegas,” Flores says they will always dedicate several of their crates to local underground acts, featuring anything from their customers’ passion projects to bands who play the city’s bars and house shows.

Their local selection is usually most popular during the summertime and when people are in town for events like the relatively nearby Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

“Truthfully, this year we haven’t had that many tourists. People are usually looking for L.A. bands to take home to places like Australia and Canada and ask us for recommendations,” said Flores. “But this year, without tourists, it’s still slow.”

Their dedication to L.A.’s local sounds goes back to their roots as a business. In 1999, the duo first sold vintage band tees at Melrose Trading Post. At the time, the market was mostly older vendors selling novelty items. Flores and Lopez decided to shake things up a bit by playing Metallica in the early-morning hours and began to build a younger clientele who were interested in their vintage clothing. Over time, they learned how to screen print and started selling their own designs.

After about five years of selling at the market, they decided to upscale into a more permanent business that would focus on music. In 2006, they opened a space in Silver Lake that functioned as a barbershop with a couple of record crates. Despite it being the early 2000s, the vendors were ahead of the up-and-coming vinyl revival, as millennials started to pay more attention to physical media.

As record-collecting grew in popularity and events like Record Store Day went mainstream, they saw a surge in sales. In 2008, they expanded the record portion of their business, opening their current location in Echo Park.

With this stint of success, the record shop started to function as a record label as well. In the early 2010s, the duo helped some customers and longtime friends who were in bands release, distribute and promote their albums. Flores and Lopez would help choose the album art, the order of the track list and help book shows.

Sick City Records owners Jessie Lopez, left, and Brian Flores at their Echo Park shop.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

One of the first bands they worked with was local rock group the High Curbs, who were teenagers at the time and thereforestruggled to get into the bars where they were booked to play. With the help of Sick City, they were able to release their 2016 album. The band, which still regularly tours and releases music, made its return to the record shop earlier this summer for the annual music festival Echo Park Rising.

“They told me, ‘We don’t do any small shows anymore, but for Echo Park Rising, we want to give back and play for you guys.’ We had a full house,” Flores said. “We felt the love back.”

At the height of the business, when they were funding their record label, Flores says they were making around $8,000 a month. Now they are making closer to $2,000 monthly, with customers spending an average of around $10 per visit. On a weekday afternoon in November, a handful of patrons came into the shop to sift through their vinyl selection, but only one customer made a purchase.

“We want to do more. We want to do more shows and promote more bands. We’ve done shows at Los Globos, the Silverlake Lounge, the Redwood [Bar and Grill]. But all this costs money,” Flores said. “So when we were able to put out those records, it was very expensive at the time, but we were able to do it.”

Flores and Lopez continued to operate out of both stores until 2020, when they decided to consolidate both businesses into the one that exists today.

Since the pandemic, Sick City Records’ rent has continually increased. In 2020, the duo paid $1,800 for the space. Today they pay $3,500. In the last several years, gentrification has taken hold of Echo Park, hiking up both residential and commercial rent. Flores says that in the nearly 20 years that they’ve been on Sunset Boulevard, he’s seen many small businesses collapse from these strains.

With a specialty in rock, punk and alternative, Sick City Records’ selection often spotlights local L.A. acts.

(Andres Melo / For The Times)

“There are a couple of small coffee shops, like Woodcat, that are still there. But Spacedust [a clothing shop] is gone. Cosmic Vinyl is gone,” said Flores. The latter establishment shuttered in 2018 but reopened earlier this year at a new location in Eagle Rock.

“There’s no parking. I don’t know why they keep raising the rent. But Echo Park has always been a hub where people want to be.”

Sick City Records has several fundraisers and flea market pop-ups planned before the end of the year. On Dec. 13, they will be hosting an art show at the shop called “Hold On to Your Friends,” which will feature live DJs, local artists and vendors. All proceeds will go to keeping Sick City in operation.

“Hopefully, people don’t forget about us. We’re just trying to keep the music alive, keep a good vibe and keep promoting the music community,” said Flores. “We just got to get back on our feet. We want to bring in product that we’re proud of.”

Hollyoaks have announced that fans will be able to binge-watch four Christmas episodes at once as the Channel 4’s annual festive boxset returns once again this month

Hollyoaks‘ annual gift to fans is back this Christmas.

It’s been revealed that four special festive episodes will be available to stream on Channel 4 on Monday, December 22 from 6am.

This Christmas, Hollyoaks invites viewers to get festive with four of its most iconic families.

The festive episodes will follow Christmas Day from start to finish, focussing on one family at a time; the Hutchinsons, the Lomaxes, the Clarks/Maaliks and the McQueens.

Jack and Pearl, alongside the Osbornes, are the uniting thread throughout all four episodes.

Pearl takes it upon herself to revive the Christmas magic in the village, but she remains blissfully unaware that Jack is carrying a surprise of his own.

The Christmas boxset follows a triumphant few months for the Channel 4 continuing drama, as the 30th anniversary week in October delivered the show’s strongest performance in years.

Spoilers have confirmed there’s festive cheer at the Hutchinsons this Christmas but an unexpected present sends the day into turmoil. Meanwhile, Jack Osborne (Jimmy McKenna) is suited and booted with a special mission under his sleeve to make the day extra special.

Dee Dee Hutchinson (Chloe Atkinson) hides a gift and Diane Hutchinson (Alex Fletcher) tries to put on the perfect Christmas, grateful Tony Hutchinson’s (Nick Pickard) there to celebrate with them, but a troubled Ant Hutchinson (Brook Debio( continues to cause tension in the household.

Forced to pull his weight and set the table, Ant stumbles across a burner phone which he pockets in secret. An excited Eva Hutchinson (Aubrey Burgess) sneaks a peak in a present under the tree and Dee Dee is left horrified. Ant also reveals a secret that leads to many questions.

There’s Christmas magic at the McQueens, but for Mercedes McQueen (Jennifer Metcalfe) the sparkle has faded.

Warren Fox (Jamie Lomas) turns up in full Santa costume to help spread cheer but things don’t go to plan and a knock on the door grants Theresa McQueen’s (Jorgie Porter) festive wish.

It’s frosty between Misbah Maalik (Harvey Virdi) and Donny Clark (Louis Emerick) this Christmas but will the festive cheer bring the family closer together or will Donny’s recent escapades be exposed?

It’s the first Christmas without Peri (Ruby O’Donnell) at the Lomaxes but Leela (Kirsty-Leigh Porter) is determined to give her children and Lucas Hay (Oscar Curtis) the best day she can which includes extending an olive branch to Ste Hay (Kieron Richardson).

Meanwhile, watching the carollers perform in the village, Pearl Anderson (Dawn Hope) has something she wants to get off her chest.

Hollyoaks airs Monday to Wednesday on E4 at 7pm and first look episodes can be streamed Channel 4 from 7am

TWO pals of Amy Winehouse “concealed” the fact they made money at two auctions of her memorabilia that raised almost £1million, her dad Mitch said yesterday.

The star’s bloodied ballet pumps, a card from Adele and Mark Ronson and a Fendi bracelet were among 155 lots.

Mitch, 75, the administrator of his daughter’s estate, claims stylist Naomi Parry and Amy’s best pal Catriona Gourlay owe more than £730,000.

He claims Amy’s pals “deliberately concealed” they were making money from items sold in the auctions, which he believed were to raise funds solely for Amy’s estate and charity.

He alleges the disputed items were “owned by the estate” when sold and is seeking damages.

Court documents show a first auction in November 2021 made about £941,000 before a second sale in May 2023 raised around £21,500.

read more on amy winehouse

BAFTA 2025

Amy Winehouse actress Marisa Abela lands EE BAFTA nod after Back To Black biopic

‘REAL HONOUR’

Noughties indie band to REFORM to pay emotional tribute to Amy Winehouse

Ms Parry and Ms Gourlay, both 41, deny wrongfully acquiring the personal mementos, insisting they were gifts from Amy or they had lent them to the singer.

The retired taxi driver took the stand yesterday on Monday afternoon when the four-day trial into his civil claim opened at London’s Royal Courts of Justice.

He accepted there were “quite a lot of examples” of Amy gifting items and she may have hidden others due to his vocal concerns about how much she was giving away.

He agreed Amy was generous but when they told him they were “parting with a few things” it “drastically downplayed the true position”.

Mr Winehouse, wearing a navy suit, added: “I’m sure there were times when Amy gifted them items.

“It was characteristic of Amy.

“I assume as they were so close that Amy would have given them some things but 150 items, I just can’t believe it.”

Both deny wrongfully acquiring the mementos, claiming they were gifts or lent to Amy.

The items included a £20,000 watch Amy gave to a friend’s mum after a show in Birmingham and a guitar to teen musician and goddaughter Dionne Bromfield.

She also allowed childhood friend Juliette Ashby to live rent free in East Finchley and “inadvertently” gave pal Tyler James £50,000 when she misheard him ask for £15,000.

Her kindness was also highlighted by famous pals including Kelly Osbourne and Sadie Frost, who both recalled Amy giving clothes to Ms Parry and Ms Gourlay.

Ozzy Osbourne’s daughter Kelly said she also received clothes from Amy, adding in a written statement: “This is quite common amongst close female friends.”

Dracula actress Sadie remembered Amy giving her an “expensive designer dress by Fendi”.

She added: “I think she probably did so as she felt bad about not returning various items that I had lent to her over time.”

Mr Winehouse believed all 834 total items being sold from a London storage unit were on behalf of the Amy Winehouse estate.

It was marketed as a “single owner” auction by Amy’s family to benefit her foundation and didn’t mention other sellers.

Mr Winehouse discovered the defendants were selling items when his wife Jane spotted “a few handwritten notes and photographs”.

He believed they were donating the items to help raise money for the Foundation and wouldn’t pocket the proceeds.

He claims the defendants and the auction house “were making concerted efforts to conceal their claims to ownership” of the 155 disputed items.

Mitch’s skeleton argument included messages between Ms Parry and auctioneer Mr Julian where they talk about how Mr Winehouse “thinks he owns” a dress.

He claims Ms Parry sold 60 items for £675,567 and Ms Gourlay sold 95 items for £253,527.

An article in The Sun was also highlighted where Amy donated bin bags full of £20,000 worth of designer dresses to a charity shop in March 2011.

Ms Parry was friends with Amy before working freelance as her self-employed stylist by “providing clothes and often helping her dress for occasions”.

Beth Grossman KC, for Ms Parry, said: “Ms Parry’s case is that on some occasions she loaned items to Amy and on other occasions Amy gifted items to her.”

Mr Winehouse accepts Ms Parry had lent Amy one of the originally contested items, a Karen Millen dress, as it was a birthday present from her mum.

Ms Grossman claimed Amy had allowed Ms Parry to keep some dresses in return for designing £1,000 custom-made pieces for the singer’s 2010 collaboration with Fred Perry.

Ms Gourlay worked at vintage clothes shop Rockit and bonded with Amy aged 19 in 2002 over their “shared love of fashion”.

She lived with the singer at Jeffreys Place, Camden, between 2004 and 05 before being nextdoor neighbours in Hackney Wick from 2007 to 08.

Ted Loveday, representing Ms Gourlay, claimed their “close interactions included swapping and sharing items”.

Amy’s brother Alex, his wife Riva and Mr Winehouse’s second wife Jane, managing trustee and co-founder of the Amy Winehouse Foundation, are due to give evidence.

Darren Julien, founder of Julien’s Auctions which sold the items in LA’s Beverly Hills, will be cross-examined via video link from California, US.

Valerie hitmaker Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning aged 27 at her flat in Camden, North London, in 2011.

The High Court civil trial goes on.

Netflix shares dipped Monday after Paramount announced a hostile takeover bid, fueling worries on Wall Street that the streaming giant may not be able to pull off its audacious acquisition.

Netflix stock closed down nearly 3.5% to $96.79 a share after Paramount moved to take its case directly to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders, offering $30 a share in a deal valued at $78 billion for the whole company. Last week, Netflix said it reached an agreement with WBD to buy its film and TV studios, Burbank lot, HBO and HBO Max for $27.75 a share, a $72-billion offer. Netflix would also take on more than $10 billion in Warner Bros. debt, for a deal value of $82.7 billion.

On Monday, analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak, CEO of Pivotal Research Group, downgraded his rating on Netflix stock from buy to hold, citing concerns that Paramount’s bid could increase the price Netflix could pay for the WBD assets. Regulatory issues may also change the terms of the deal, such as Netflix giving up HBO to a rival, Wlodarczak said. “The question is, what modifications might they have to make?” he said.

Wlodarczak also questioned Netflix’s engagement levels with customers, which is key to retaining subscribers on the platform. He said that “this very expensive deal” highlights Netflix’s concern that short-form entertainment on platforms like TikTok and YouTube are attracting younger consumers.

YouTube — once known as a place for amateur user-generated videos — has become an entertainment powerhouse, encapsulating the largest percentage of streaming on U.S. TVs, according to Nielsen. In October, YouTube represented 12.9% of U.S. TV viewing time, compared to Netflix’s 8%.

Netflix said its customer engagement “remains healthy,” noting in a shareholder letter in October that it grew its engagement in the U.S. and U.K. by 15% and 22%, from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2025, citing data from Nielsen and Barb, which tracks viewership.

Equity research publisher MoffettNathanson analysts said questions have been building about Netflix’s engagement growth, adding that even though Netflix’s share of total TV time started to grow in the second half of the year, “YouTube’s share gains have overshadowed most of the other streaming platforms.”

“There’s issues with Netflix engagement, sort of flatlining,” Wlodarczak said. “You get a lot better content, it should help with your engagement. … Is this a signal they’re really starting to get worried about engagement, and they’re out doing this deal because younger people are just spending increasing amounts of time not sitting there watching hour-long shows?”

Netflix declined to comment on Wlodarczak’s report.

On Friday in a call with investors, Netflix executives emphasized that their business is healthy and growing. They pointed out how sci-fi hit show “Stranger Things” was very popular with younger audiences, as well as series like the drama “Outer Banks” and movies including “KPop Demon Hunters.”

“We had record engagement previous quarter,” said Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos on the Friday call. “We’re happy with our outlook for the ongoing organic growth and engagement … Our core fundamentals are strong. This gives us a very unique opportunity to accelerate an already very successful model.”

Whether the deal will go through remains an open question, as Netflix would not make the acquisition until 12 to 18 months from now, after Warner Bros. Discovery separates its company, spinning off its cable channels into a new publicly traded company.

Wedbush Securities analysts, who have an outperform rating on the stock, said in a note on Monday that they are skeptical that the deal will pass regulatory scrutiny.

“Ultimately, we think the DOJ will reject a deal without concessions on pricing and industry standards,” the analysts wrote.

On Monday, Netflix executives said they were confident the deal would go through. Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters pointed out that Netflix still represents a smaller share of U.S. TV viewing in the U.S. compared to YouTube, even if it were to combine with Warner Bros. Discover, citing Nielsen data.

“We think there’s a strong fundamental case here for why regulators should approve this deal,” he said.

Wlodarczak said he believes there are benefits to Netflix acquiring the Warner Bros. Discovery assets. The Los Gatos, Calif., streamer would gain access to characters including Batman and Harry Potter.

It also prevents rivals like Paramount from getting bigger.

“They’re starting to get large enough to build a credible threat to Netflix,” Wlodarczak said. “So by buying this thing … it’s going to be really difficult to get as large and have as much scale as Netflix.”

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.

Cinderella is getting flipped on its head with the classic fairytale told from the perspective of her “evil” step-sisters

Netflix Beef actress and an Everything Everywhere All At Once star are teaming up for Cinderella with a twist.

Steps is Netflix ’s next big animated film which is going to show Cinderella’s “not-so-evil step-sisters in a new light” during the princess’ biggest night of her life.

The official synopsis reads: “When misunderstood Lilith (played by Ali Wong) is blamed for hijacking the Royal Ball with a stolen magic wand, she accidentally turns her sister Margot (Stephanie Hsu) into a frog and allows the kingdom to fall into the hands of a prince-obsessed mean girl.

“Now Lilith must team up with Cinderella (and a surprisingly dreamy troll) to save the kingdom, repair the fractured fairy tale, and prove that even so-called villains deserve a shot at happily ever after.”

Taking on the role of Lillith is actress and comedian Ali Wong who is famed for playing Amy Lau in the hit Netflix show Beef.

She also portrayed Sasha in the heartwarming romcom Always Be My Maybe with MCU star Randall Park and Matrix icon Keanu Reeves.

Wong is joined by Academy Award-nominated actress Stephanie Hsu who has been in Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel as Mei Lin.

As of yet, there has been no official word on who is set to voice Cinderella but director Alyce Tzue has opened up on what attracted her to this unique fairytale adaptation.

She shared: “This story is, at its core, about two very different sisters — one who fits perfectly into this fairy tale kingdom and one who doesn’t — realizing they’re more alike than different.

“It’s such a personal story for me because, growing up as an awkward, artsy Taiwanese kid in suburban New Jersey, I often felt like an outsider, like ‘happily ever after’ wasn’t meant for me.

“I wanted to create a film for everyone who has ever felt like they didn’t belong — and show how a single act of kindness can change everything.”

Also working behind the cameras as a co-director of Steps is John Ripa who directed Raya And The Last Dragon but has additionally worked on Frozen and Zootopia.

They will be joined by producers Jane Hartwell, Kim Lessing and actress and comedian Amy Poehler who has starred in Parks and Recreation and the original Mean Girls film.

Steps will premiere on Netflix in 2026.

THE star of a hit superhero movie has barely aged since became a global superstar more than 40 years ago.

Ornella Muti played Princess Aura in Flash Gordon in 1980 and looked incredible at a recent book signing event.

The actress made her English-speaking film debut in the sci-fi movie and was voted “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World” in 1994 by a worldwide poll of readers of Class magazine.

Flash Gordon, which celebrated its 45th anniversary this month, follows the adventures of American football quarterback Flash as he ventures into space to unite the planet Mongo and save Earth from destruction.

Ornella, who was born in Italy with Russian ancestry, has recently been on a book tour on the Italian island of Calabria.

She released her autobiography, This Is Not Ornella Muti, in September and shared a series of photos from her tour in Calabria.

HARD TO HANDLE?

Tom Hardy in feud with unexpected A-list co-star after ‘winding them up’

health battle

Danniella Westbrook ‘rushed to hospital with breathing issues’

Ornella looked striking a red maxi dress and dark-framed glasses as she greeted fans in the Italian bookstore.

The beauty worked as a model before making her film debut as a 14-year-old in 1970.

She would go on to have an illustrious film career in Italy before making her Hollywood debut in the 1980s.

After starring in Flash Gordon, Ornella worked with many well-known movie directors, including Woody Allen, John Landis and Eugene Levy.

In 2008, Ornella launched her own jewellery line and opened a number of retail stores in Italy.

She had a brush with the Italian law in 2015 when she was sentenced to 10 months in jail for cancelling a theatre performance.

Ornella had cited a health reason for cancelling the show in 2010, but then attended a dinner with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg.

The actress is mum to three children, including her model daughter, Naike Rivelli.

Naike and her mum became the topic of a heated debate when it was revealed, Ornella and Naike’s step-father had snapped nude pics of the model for Instagram.

In 2016 Naike, who is well-known in Italy for uploading racy snaps, posted a photo of her standing on one leg covering her breasts and groin with her hands.

Underneath the picture, she wrote: “Who in the world took this picture of me? The man I don’t have? The woman I don’t have? The friends who aren’t here right now? Who?”

Then, she revealed another snap showing her stepfather, Fabrice Kerherve, taking the shot – as her mother lies under a dressing table taking even more pictures.

Next to this photo, Naike added: “In the end, it’s so much simpler than it seems.

“A simple crazy morning with my mum Ornella Muti and my stepdad Fabrice Kerherve family moments.”

But far from ‘liking’ the social media posts, many online commenters felt there was something distasteful about the model being photographed by her stepdad.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday hosted the Kennedy Center Honors and praised Sylvester Stallone, Kiss, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Crawford and George Strait, the slate of honorees he helped choose, as being “legendary in so many ways.”

“Billions and billions of people have watched them over the years,” Trump, the first president to command the stage, said to open the show.

The Republican president said the artists, recognized with tribute performances during the show, are “among the greatest artists and actors, performers, musicians, singers, songwriters ever to walk the face of the Earth.”

Since returning to office in January, Trump has made the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is named after a Democratic predecessor, a touchstone in a broader attack against what he has lambasted as “woke” anti-American culture.

Trump said Saturday that he was hosting “at the request of a certain television network.” He predicted the broadcast scheduled for Dec. 23 on CBS and Paramount+ would have its best ratings ever.

Before Trump, presidents watched the show alongside the honorees. Trump skipped the honors altogether during his first term.

Asked how he got ready for the gig, Trump said as he moved along the red carpet with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, that he “didn’t really prepare very much.”

“I have a good memory, so I can remember things, which is very fortunate,” the president said. “But just, I wanted to just be myself. You have to be yourself.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, one of several Cabinet secretaries attending the ceremony, said his boss “is so relaxed in front of these cameras, as you know, and so funny, I can’t wait for tonight.” Lutnick arrived with his wife, a member of the Kennedy Center’s board.

Trump appeared on stage three times to open and close the show, and after intermission. He also talked up each artist in prerecorded videos that played before their tributes.

Trump was both gracious and critical in the comments he delivered from the stage, lavishing the honorees with effusive praise but at times showing a mean streak. After returning from intermission, he said he’d toured some of the construction projects he has launched to renovate the performing arts center. And he said it was a “fantastic” night.

“Well, we’re really having a good time tonight,” Trump said. “So many people I know in this audience. Some good. Some bad. Some I truly love and respect. Some I just hate.”

Since 1978, the honors have recognized stars for their influence on American culture and the arts. Members of this year’s class are pop-culture standouts, including Stallone for his “Rocky” and “Rambo” movies, Gaynor for her “I Will Survive” feminist anthem and Kiss for its flashy, cartoonish makeup and onstage displays of smoke and pyrotechnics.

Strait is a leader in the world of country music and Crawford, a Tony Award-winning actor, is best known for starring in “Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running show in Broadway history.

Trump said persistence is a trait shared by the honorees, several of whom had humble beginnings.

“Some of them have had legendary setbacks, setbacks that you have to read in the papers because of their level of fame,” he said from the stage. “But in the words of Rocky Balboa, they showed us that you keep moving forward, just keep moving forward.”

He said many of the politicians, celebrities and others in the audience shared the trait, too.

“I know so many of you are persistent,” Trump said in his opening. “Many of you are miserable, horrible people. You are persistent. You never give up. Sometimes I wish you’d give up, but you don’t.”

The ceremony was expected to be emotional for the members of Kiss. The band’s original lead guitarist, Ace Frehley, died in October after he was injured during a fall. During the tribute to Kiss, a lone red guitar that emitted smoke was placed on stage in remembrance of Frehley, who was known for having a smoke bomb in his instrument.

The program closed with a rousing performance by Cheap Trick of Kiss’ “Rock and Roll All Nite” that brought the audience to its feet.

Stallone said receiving the honor was like being in the “eye of a hurricane.”

“This is an amazing event,” he said on the red carpet. “But you’re caught up in the middle of it. It’s hard to take it in until the next day. … but I’m incredibly humbled by it.”

Crawford also said it was “humbling, especially at the end of a career.”

Gaynor said it “feels like a dream” to be honored. “To be recognized in this way is the pinnacle,” she said after arriving.

Mike Farris, an award-winning gospel singer who performed for Gaynor, called her a dear friend. “She truly did survive,” Farris said. “What an iconic song.”

Trump has taken over the Kennedy Center

Trump upended decades of bipartisan support for the center by ousting its leadership and stacking the board of trustees with Republican supporters, who elected him chair. He has criticized the center’s programming and the building’s appearance — and has said, perhaps jokingly, that he would rename it as the “Trump Kennedy Center.” He secured more than $250 million from Congress for renovations of the building.

Asked Sunday night about a possible renaming, Trump said it would be up to the board. Still, he joked at one point about the “Trump Kennedy Center.”

Presidents of each political party have at times found themselves face to face with artists of opposing political views. Republican Ronald Reagan was there for honoree Arthur Miller, a playwright who championed liberal causes. Democrat Bill Clinton, who had signed an assault weapons ban into law, marked the honors for Charlton Heston, an actor and gun rights advocate.

During Trump’s first term, multiple honorees were openly critical of the president. In 2017, Trump’s first year in office, honors recipient and film producer Norman Lear threatened to boycott his own ceremony if Trump attended. Trump stayed away during that entire term.

Trump has said he was deeply involved in choosing the 2025 honorees and turned down some recommendations because they were “too woke.” He said Sunday that about 50 names were whittled down to five. While Stallone is one of Trump’s Hollywood ”special ambassadors” and has likened Trump to George Washington, the political views of Sunday’s other guests are less clear.

Honorees’ views about Trump

Strait and Gaynor have said little about their politics, although Federal Election Commission records show that Gaynor has given money to Republican organizations in recent years.

Simmons spoke favorably of Trump when Trump ran for president in 2016. But in 2022, Simmons told Spin magazine that Trump was “out for himself” and criticized Trump for encouraging conspiracy theories and public expressions of racism.

Fellow Kiss member Paul Stanley denounced Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden, and said Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “terrorists.” But after Trump won in 2024, Stanley urged unity.

“If your candidate lost, it’s time to learn from it, accept it and try to understand why,” Stanley wrote on X. “If your candidate won, it’s time to understand that those who don’t share your views also believe they are right and love this country as much as you do.”

Superville and Italie write for the Associated Press. Italie reported from New York.

Angry Ginge, whose real name is Morgan Burtwistle, won I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here 2025 and was crowned King of the Jungle after beating fellow finalists Tom Read Wilson and Shona McGarty

ITV were reported to be making unprecedented changes after Angry Ginge’s I’m A Celebrity win. Bosses were said to have grown increasingly concerned for the YouTuber’s safety as eager fans tried to snap a picture with the star.

On Sunday (7 December), Angry Ginge, whose real name is Morgan Burtwistle, was crowned King of the Jungle. After his win, fans crowded the hotel where all the campmates and their families were staying after the final.

ITV bosses were said to be growing concerned for the 24-year-old’s safety, and that of all their contestants, leading to a last-minute change of venue for the champion’s post-show interviews, moving them to his hotel room.

READ MORE: How much money does Angry Ginge make from his YouTube career?READ MORE: Helen Skelton’s go-to waterproof jacket is now 50% off in Black Friday sale

Speaking to The Sun, a source said: “Security was overwhelmed by the situation and ITV had to take action to protect Ginge and his family. He couldn’t wait to get out of the jungle after three weeks in camp. Ginge hasn’t seen anything like it, he can’t quite believe the impact he’s had.”

However, while ITV have said they did change the venue of Ginge’s press interviews, they have stressed that they have not brought in extra security, nor confined him to his room. A spokesperson told The Mirror: “All our finalists have security every year – we take the security and welfare of all our campmates seriously.

“[Ginge has] been filming Coming Out in and around the hotel, he’s not been stuck in his room. We did his press interview in his room, because otherwise all the I’m A Celeb fans would have interrupted his interview.”

Ginge broke down in tears as he was crowned King of the Jungle. He was comforted by the runner-up, Tom Read Wilson, whilst the other campmates looked on, including fellow finalist, Shona McGarty.

Following his win, Ginge sat down with The Mirror to discuss his win and everything that came with his time on the show – including his status as a sex symbol. Talking of of the new female attention: “It’s not something I would have anticipated, I must admit. But yeah, maybe me in jungle attire is quite sexy.”

He added that there was a point when he considered quitting the show. Viewers watched as the star broke down in the Bush Telegraph after being hit by a wave of homesickness. Ginge said: “I came out the Bush Telegraph, and then I went and sat by the pond by myself there.

“I asked myself ‘Do I want to go the extra two weeks. I was debating it, but then I just powered through it.’” He said he wanted to make his mum proud.

“I will never forget where I came from, and I think because I started literally from the bottom and watched everyone around me from my mates to their parents, my mum, everyone had to graft their way to get wherever it was.”

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

THE Kardashians have been accused of ‘using AI’ on their reality show after a telltale sign.

When fans saw Khloe’s face ‘abruptly change’ in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, they went wild and were quick to accuse her and her family of using artificial intelligence.

In the clip, Khloe can be seen on The Kardashians FaceTiming her sister Kim.

Chatting to Kim, Khloe was sitting with Kourtney as they filmed and recorded the Khloe In Wonderland podcast.

At one point, Khloe’s face blurred and her necklace seemingly warped.

Someone shared the video of the moment where Khloe’s face changed and her necklace seemingly shapeshifted.

Read More about Kardashians

WOAH KHLO

Khloe Kardashian rocks just a high-cut nude bodysuit as she reveals new fragrance

“Omg you can see her pendant changing shape in real time,” commented one person.

A second wrote, “They’ve always used filters but THIS is different.. definitely AI.”

“Necklace literally morphed from a cross to an oval to a candy cane,” said a third.

“Face AND necklace changed,” added a fourth.

A fifth person then wrote, “Filter made her look like Hailee steinfeld there omg.”

And a sixth echoed, “I thought she was morphing into Hailee Steinfeld.”

Meanwhile, on Reddit, one fan shared the video from TikTok and penned, “The Kardashians used AI to add extra onto a scene with Khloe and it is terrifying.”

Someone then replied, “That wild…

“I wouldn’t have noticed it right away if it wasn’t for the necklace morphing.”

“Is it AI or did the filter just come off? LOL JK,” said a second.

A third penned, “This is f**king WILD omg it’s so badly done eta I’d give anything to see the prompt.”

“I just don’t understand how this gets approved. So many questions,” said a fourth.

While a fifth penned, “ok im scared.”

And a fifth said, “Would you expect anything different ? They are ….all of them filtered to oblivion.”

Coming off of the massive box office success of “Wicked: For Good,” Cynthia Erivo is also making history.

Erivo was nominated for a Golden Globe for lead actress in a musical or comedy on Monday morning, marking her second nod. She received her first nomination just a year ago for “Wicked.”

With the two nominations, Erivo became the first Black woman to be recognized twice in the female actor in a musical or comedy category. The award has been given out for several decades since the Golden Globes split the acting categories by genre in 1951.

A handful of Black women have had repeat nominations in the category‘s drama counterpart, including Halle Berry and Viola Davis.

Erivo is nominated alongside Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”), Kate Hudson (“Song Sung Blue”), Chase Infiniti (“One Battle After Another”), Amanda Seyfried (“The Testament of Ann Lee”) and Emma Stone (“Bugonia”).

The performer has a host of nods, awards and accolades under her belt, including Daytime Emmy, Grammy and Tony wins. She’s an Oscar away from coveted “EGOT” status and is expected to earn her fourth Academy Award nomination later this year for “Wicked: For Good.”

“Wicked: For Good” received five nominations, including one for Erivo’s co-star Ariana Grande, who is in the running in the supporting category.

Two original songs written for the film — “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble” — are nominated, and the film is up for the recently created cinematic and box office achievement category, but it is snubbed for best musical or comedy. Director Jon M. Chu was also left out in the directing category.

The Golden Globe Awards return to the Beverly Hilton on Jan. 11. The ceremony starts at 5 p.m. PT. Viewers can watch live on CBS or stream live on Paramount+.

Kate Winslet has opened up about the painful experience of reliving her mother’s 2017 death while making her directorial debut Goodbye June, which stars Helen Mirren

Kate Winslet has opened up about the emotionally challenging experience of “reliving” her mother’s death whilst working on her latest film, Goodbye June.

The Titanic star has stepped behind the camera for her directorial debut with this feature-length drama, offering a poignant portrayal of a family coming together around their dying mother over the Christmas period. The script was penned by her son, Joe Anders.

Arriving on Netflix on 24th December, Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren takes on the role of matriarch June, whilst the ensemble cast features Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough and Timothy Spall.

Ahead of the film’s limited cinema release this Friday (12th December), Winslet discussed the loss of her own mother in 2017, admitting it “still feels like yesterday”.

During an appearance on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, the actress explained she’d initially hoped to “keep that private experience separate” from the project, before recognising this wouldn’t be feasible, reports the Express.

“It wasn’t necessarily cathartic, but there were days when I was literally reliving what happened when I lost my own mum, even though our film is fictional. And I would find myself strangely trying to almost hide in a funny way.”

Winslet told Cotton she frequently found herself “sitting quietly” behind Max, the production’s focus puller, during particularly intimate moments featuring Mirren and Spall.

“I would just sit with him quietly watching his monitor and sort of crying on his back,” she recalled. The star described the crew member as a “great spirit” to lean on during the more demanding moments of filming.

Winslet also expressed her hope that the film will ignite family discussions about the harsh realities of loss, reflecting on several enlightening conversations that took place among the cast and crew during production.

“Actually in this country, I don’t think we’re very good at talking about loss. I don’t think we’re very good at processing grief,” she elaborated.

“And in an interesting way it did bring up a lot of those conversations and people were quite grateful to be able to have them, not just the cast, but sometimes the crew as well.”

Watch Stranger Things on Netflix for free with Sky

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more

from £15

Sky

Get the deal here

Sky is giving away a free Netflix subscription with its new Sky Stream TV bundles, including the £15 Essential TV plan.

This lets members watch live and on-demand TV content without a satellite dish or aerial and includes hit shows like Stranger Things.

Discussing her shift from actress to director, Winslet noted that she has observed her male peers make the same transition “without any judgment or scrutiny”, a luxury not often extended to women in the industry.

“It feels like for you personally, not only is this an amazing challenge for you to make that switch, but also you’re doing it on behalf of women to help this cultural shift in the very male-dominated Hollywood directing scene,” she stated.

Goodbye June is in limited UK cinemas from Friday, 12th December and on Netflix from 24th December.

MUSIC fans are just realising the age of singer Brenda Lee when she recorded her famous Christmas song.

Festive favourite Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree was released in 1958 and featured in Home Alone, one of the biggest movies of the 90s. 

Written by Johnny Marks, the rockabilly track Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree was recorded by Brenda in 1958 when the singer was just 13.

To this day, it remains popular and has been recorded by everyone from John Travolta to Justin Bieber.

The single entered the UK singles chart at Number 30 in its first week in November 1962, according to the Official Charts Company.

It climbed into the Top 10 and earned its original peak of Number 6 a month later.

MERRY MAYHEM

Ricky Evans torn over World Darts entrance after notorious Xmas outfits

NO SLEIGH!

Race for Christmas No 1 reveals runaway fave – and it’s not what you’d expect

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree secured its place as a festive classic after it was featured in the much-loved 1990 Christmas movie Home Alone.

In the memorable scene, Kevin McCallister – played by Macauley Kulkin – deterred would-be burglars from robbing his home by throwing a pretend Christmas party to make the house appear occupied. 

Yet when one TikToker posted a video of the song and asked what age people thought the singer was, many were stunned to discover it was recorded when Brenda was just a teenager.

One person wrote: “She sounds middle aged.”

Another fan replied: “Wait, I’m just finding this out too.”

A third person added: “Whaaattt?! I looked it up and still have a hard time believing it.”

A fourth person wrote: “Not even my dad knew and he’’s 60.”

Others who have covered Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree include teenybop heroes Hanson and Cliff Richard. 

In 1987, Kim Wilde and Mel Smith released a version of the song for Comic Relief. 

In a 2019 interview, Brenda Lee – known by her nickname Little Miss Dynamite – said that she had no knowledge as to why Marks wanted her specifically to sing it.

She told The Tennessean: “I had not had a lot of success in records, but for some reason he heard me and wanted me to do it. And I did.”

Characters stepping out of their plays to address an audience is hardly a new phenomenon. Playwrights have been breaking the fourth wall ever since that invisible barrier separating the actors from the audience was raised.

Sophocles, of course, didn’t need Oedipus to chat directly with the audience. He had a chorus to provide running commentary. Shakespeare, whose theatrical sensibility was informed as much by Renaissance and Classical poetry as by those pageant wagons boisterously bringing miracle plays directly into the lives of townsfolk, had no compunction about a character slipping out of the frame to help audience members arrange their imagination. He even enlists Rosalind in ”As You Like It” and Prospero in “The Tempest” to bid their audiences farewell.

The fourth wall, encoded in the architecture of the proscenium stage, fosters the illusion that audiences are eavesdropping on a cordoned off reality. As the modern theater embraced realism, plays were carefully designed not to wrench their auditors from their waking dream. Maintaining a semblance of truth, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge pointed out in the context of poetry, was necessary to procure “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”

“Willing” is a key word. Art invites complicity, and in the theater, audiences are in on the game. As Samuel Johnson sagely points out in his “Preface to Shakespeare,” “The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players.”

How could it be otherwise? As Johnson reminds us, “If we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more.”

In the Neoclassical era, playwrights were exhorted to observe the unities (of time and place, in particular) to facilitate an audience’s belief. But modern playwrights, particularly those who see their roles as storytellers, have resisted such superficial strictures.

The memory play, perfected by Tennessee Williams in “The Glass Menagerie,” asks the protagonist to serve also as narrator, setting the scene, reflecting on the action and fast-forwarding the story at will. Irish dramatist Brian Friel, a born raconteur, was a master of this use of direct address, writing monologues for his main characters that not only launched his tale but engulfed his audience in the right lyrical mood.

These writers create an environment in which characters can enter or exit the main storyline as if from a magic door. Audiences are cognizant of this portal, but they are encouraged to forget its existence when the drama ramps up, thereby allowing them to have their cake and eat it too.

A friend of mine hates when a character goes rogue and starts chatting up the audience. “Why are you talking to me?” she mumbles in faux outrage. “I paid to watch you talk to each other.”

Perhaps she considers it a dramatic cheat, as though the writer were copping out of the hard work of dramatization. But I have the opposite reaction. I find that playwrights are often at their liveliest when writing in a presentational mood. What they sacrifice in illusionist power, they gain in freedom.

In “Love! Valour! Compassion!,” Terrence McNally, a master of direct address, intensifies the emotional climax of his play by having his characters step forward and explain how and when they will die. This poignant comedy, about a group of gay male friends spending summer holidays together during the height of the AIDS epidemic, gathered the audience in a communal huddle of collective grief while urging survivors — everyone in attendance — to keep the faith.

In times of emergency, it’s natural to want to draw the public’s attention to the shared moment. The theater affords a space — one of the few left in our digitalized world — for this kind of reflective gathering.

Breaking the fourth wall is a tried-and-true method of calling an audience to attention. But a new breed of dramatist, writing in an age of overlapping calamities — environmental, political, economic, technological and moral — is retooling an old playwriting device to do more than inject urgency and immediacy in the theatrical experience.

Characters are not just stepping out of the dramatic frame — they are blurring the line between art and life. Performers are dropping their masks, or at the very least shuffling them, to force us to think harder about what we’re all doing in the theater as the world around us burns.

Kristolyn Lloyd, from left, Irene Sofia Lucio, Betsy Aidem and Audrey Corsa in the Broadway production of “Liberation” by Bess Wohl, directed by Whitney White.

(Little Fang)

Bess Wohl’s “Liberation,” one of the best plays of the year, is having its Broadway premiere this season at the James Earl Jones Theatre under the direction of Whitney White (who matches her fine ensemble job with “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”). The play, an imaginative account of a group of women banding together in a gymnasium during the early days of the women’s rights movement, begins with a performer checking in on us.

“Hi. Is everyone — is everyone good? Comfortable? Snacks unwrapped? Hello. Hi. Welcome.”

Lizzie, the author’s surrogate (luminously played by Susannah Flood), greets us with the skittish confidence that will turn out to be one of the character’s most charming qualities. She apologizes that theatergoers have had to lock their phones in Yondr pouches. (Cameras are off-limits in a production that has some nudity.) But she immediately confronts the question on everybody’s mind: How long is the play?

Honestly, it’s not even your fault, it’s like, this is the modern condition — not to sound grandiose, ‘this is the modern condition,’ but honestly — it’s like, you decide to come, you get dressed up — Well all right, you didn’t get dressed up — but you put on clothes, thank you for that. You put on clothes. You make your way through whatever you went through — the subway, the traffic, the hellscape that is Times Square — you finally get here, and then you hope that the entire experience will be as short as humanly possible.

Theatergoers seem thrilled that after all the effort they made to be there, they’re not being ignored as usual. But Wohl isn’t pandering to them. She’s connecting to them in the present before ushering them into the past.

Her project, as Lizzie explains in her introduction, is memory — memories belonging to her mother (who recently died) and to her mother’s friends, who set out to change the world. Blazing a trail for women’s equality, they help transform society, even if incompletely. A momentous accomplishment, but then why Lizzie asks, “Why does it feel somehow like it’s all slipping away? And how do we get it back?”

The play rewinds to the 1970s, to a local rec center in Ohio, where a few pioneering women with little in common, beyond the everyday sexism that has hemmed in their lives, form a consciousness-raising group. Lizzie’s mother, also named Lizzie (and also played by Flood) is the ringleader, but a tentative one — as apologetically undeterred as her daughter.

Wohl is writing a personal history that is not her own. She sets up her play to make clear that this theatrical re-creation is her attempt to understand what happened in those meetings of unlikely revolutionaries. She provides space for the women to object to her version of events and to challenge her interpretation of motives.

In one scene, in which Lizzie is about to meet the man who will become her husband, Lizzie the daughter and de facto author interrupts the play to enlist another actor (Kayla Davion, superb) to play her mother. Young Lizzie is understandably squeamish to enact a love scene with the man who will turn out to be her father.

The playfulness of Wohl’s style, while at times informal to the point of desultory, treats the past as an autonomous reality. The playwright can only engage her mother’s history from her position in the present. She can imagine, she can theorize, she can try to do justice. But she isn’t permitted to subjugate her characters to advance her own agenda, no matter how well-intentioned. The personal is political, as the feminist rallying cry has it, and Wohl has taken pains never to lose sight of this insight when imagining the complexities of the lives of others.

John McCrea, left, and Mihir Kumar in “Prince Faggot.”

(Marc J. Franklin)

“Prince Faggot,” by Jordan Tannahill, is built on the reaction to an effete photo of Prince George of Cambridge at the age of 4 that went viral. The play, originally produced by Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep, is at off-Broadway’s Studio Seaview through Dec. 13. It imagines a queer life for William and Kate’s pride and joy as this young royal defiantly and decadently comes of age.

It’s a daring premise, full of presumption and not really defensible from the standpoint of a real-life boy who doesn’t deserve to be made the object of a sexual fantasia. But Tannahill doesn’t evade these tricky moral questions.

Performer 1 (Keshav Moodliar on the night I attended), who plays both the playwright’s surrogate and George’s future lover, debates the issues with the company. One by one, the queer and trans cast members share fictionalized personal stories, harking back to childhood moments before any declaration of identity was possible.

A thought experiment is under way in this seductively febrile production directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury (whose play “Public Obscenities” was a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist). How might the lives of the characters (and by extension all our lives) be different if heterosexuality weren’t the default assumption?

Intellectual license granted, the company is allowed to run riot in a performance work that maintains a Brechtian distance between actor and role. A playwright’s note in the script clarifies that “with the exception of Performer 4’s final monologue” (which was “inspired by a rehearsal hall interview with actress N’yomi Allure Stewart”), the rest of the play, “including the direct address monologues, is fictional, written by the playwright, and any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental.”

The audience can’t help but be conscious of the daredevil performers impersonating these royal celebrities, intimate friends and overzealous handlers, exposing their bodies, if not their own biographies, in a work that realizes in performance Picasso’s assertion of art being “the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”

Gail Bean and Biko Eisen-Martin in “Table 17.”

(Jeff Lorch)

“Table 17,” Doug Lyons’ meta-theatrical rom-com, which ended its run at the Geffen Playhouse on Sunday, has its character routinely check in with the audience as Jada (Gail Bean) and Dallas (Biko Eisen-Martin) review what led to their breakup. The location for this amorous autopsy is a fashionable restaurant in which the host/pinch-hit server (gamely incarnated by Michael Rishawn) functions as the show’s bitchy chorus.

Lyons has the characters directly engage the audience in a production directed by Zhailon Levingston that incorporated the energy of British pantomime. Theatergoers were encouraged to express their feelings in a comedy that pays homage, as the playwright notes in his script, to such popular Black films as “Love & Basketball,” “Poetic Justice” and “Love Jones.”

The direct address monologues, Lyons stresses, should have “a stand-up comedy feel to them. In these moments the audience is no longer a spectator, but an active participant in the story.”

“Table 17” is more modest in its ambition than either “Liberation” or “Prince Faggot.” It mostly wants to divert. But there was something bracing about the circuitry it created with an audience. Theater wasn’t being imposed onto a paying public. It was instead a shared endeavor, mutually manufactured in yet another instance of a play letting down its guard to reach new levels of aliveness.

OLIVIA Attwood has hit back at rumours she is getting a divorce from husband Bradley Dack in new posts.

The former Love Island star’s relationship was hit with speculation this summer after she was seen looking close with pal Pete Wicks, and later admitted that things “aren’t perfect” in her marriage.

However, Olivia insisted that she had done “nothing wrong” and cited how busy work schedules can make it tough for quality time with footballer Bradley.

The sportsman has been noticeably absent from Olivia’s social media recently, until this weekend.

Olivia and Bradley enjoyed a weekend with her family in the countryside at her sister, Georgia’s home.

Sharing a slew of sweet pictures from the trip, one snap showed Olivia resting her head on Bradley’s shoulder as they walked their dogs in the woods.

Read more on Olivia Attwood

PARTIED OUT

Maura Higgins and Olivia Attwood look ready for bed after boozy fashion party

STAR’S HEALTH WOES

Emotional Olivia Attwood says she’s been ‘defeated’ by mystery illness

She also filmed the Gillingham midfielder during the walk as they laughed and joked they were not cut out for the countryside.

In another post, Olivia made a joke of the swirling divorce rumours with a video clip.

The clip showed Olivia and her family recreating the viral Gossip Girl TikTok trend to Jason Derulo’s Whatcha Say, where families air out drama to the iconic song.

In the funny clip, she filmed Bradley angrily storming off in reaction to the question: “Are you and Olivia getting a divorce?”

Olivia’s defiant message to fans comes after she found herself at a crossroads with Bradley.

The Sun revealed how the couple were at odds over when to have children – with the football keen to start a family.

They tied the knot during a stunning Knightsbridge ceremony back in 2023, five years after they rekindled their romance.

But earlier this year, a source told us that after two years of marriage, Bradley was ready for the next step.

 “They’re at a crossroads. Brad wants kids and is frustrated that Olivia won’t give him an answer about when she will start trying,” they said.

“He is worried she’ll never be ready because he is desperate to be a dad.

“It’s obviously hugely concerning because they are both in completely different headspaces when it comes to the next step in their marriage.

“There’s a worry that their relationship won’t recover if they can’t compromise.”

Frank Gehry, who died Friday at 96, challenged the notion that buildings needed to behave themselves — creating artful, strange, kinetic combinations of structure, material, form and light, and transforming cities in the process. Here are 10 of his most famous structures that pushed the boundaries of architecture, culture, taste and technology.

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, 1997

Curves and angles mix in this section of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

(Javier Bauluz / Associated Press)

While only one piece of a much larger urban transformation, this uproarious structure, perched at the edge of the Basque city’s industrial waterfront, utterly transformed its image, giving birth to the overused phrase “Bilbao Effect.” Its curving, ever-changing titanium facade — with offset panels catching the light and wowing millions of visitors — became a symbol of a new era of baroque, digitally-driven architecture. (Gehry and his team worked with CATIA, a software formerly employed by aircraft designers.) Inside, a dizzying atrium ties together a fluid series of galleries, all sized for contemporary art’s expanding scale. “I didn’t mean to change the city, I just meant to be part of the city,” Gehry told the design magazine Dezeen in 2021. The project would achieve the former, and transform the field of architecture in the process.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003

The Walt Disney Concert Hall is a visual anchor in downtown Los Angeles.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Dreamed up by Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian, in 1987, the project wouldn’t be completed until 2003. But it was worth the wait. Now the cultural and visual anchor of downtown Los Angeles, Disney’s riot of steel sails reflect rippling waves of music, Gehry’s love of sailing, fish scales and other nautical themes, and the frenetic city around it. Inside, the boat-like, wood-clad hall has an intimate, vineyard-style seating arrangement, with its superb acoustics shaped by Yasuhisa Toyota. Don’t forget the 6,134-pipe organ, which resembles a box of exploding French fries. Lillian Disney, a connoisseur of flowers, would die before the hall was finished, but its hidden rear garden is centered around the “Rose for Lilly” fountain, composed of thousands of broken blue and white Delft china pieces.

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2014

The “Fondation Louis Vuitton” has 3,600 glass panels that form its 12 sails.

(Frederic Soltan / Corbis via Getty Images)

Commissioned by LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, set in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne, is wrapped in 12 massive, curved glass sails, hovering above a white concrete “iceberg.” The museum’s billowing forms, which help lighten its considerable scale, were realized via head-spinning structural complexity: None of its 3,600 glass panels are the same, while each timber and steel supporting beam is curved uniquely. Inside and out, Gehry orchestrates a meandering gallery of paths and multistory overlooks that frame both art and landscape. While marooned on Paris’ western edge, the spectacular building has nonetheless become a cultural icon in a city where that’s very hard to achieve.

Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, 1989

Frank Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum helped inspire other inventive buildings on the campus.

(Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty)

While tame in comparison to his later work, Vitra marked Gehry’s transition from rough-edged, industrial bricolage to sculptural spectacle. Its tumble of white plaster forms — cubes, cylinders, sweeping curves — seem to freeze mid-collision, as if the gallery had been torn apart by seismic forces. (Just a year before, Gehry had been included in MoMA’s “Deconstructivist Architecture” exhibition, but he always rejected that label.) The structure also helped launch a string of impressive experiments on the Vitra campus, including buildings by Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Nicholas Grimshaw, Álvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron and more.

8 Spruce (formerly New York by Gehry), New York, 2011

8 Spruce in Manhattan has 76 stories.

(Don Emmert / AFP via Getty Images)

Gehry’s first skyscraper, 8 Spruce, reimagined the Manhattan high-rise as a kind of gleaming, pleated fabric, its shifted stainless steel panels rippling downward, catching daylight in a constantly shifting display. A buff brick base contains a public school and retail frontages, activating the street and helping establish the financial district as a legit residential neighborhood. Inside, apartments are far more rational, organized around generous windows that frame the city. Only 30 of the building’s 76 floors had been constructed when the Great Recession hit. For a time, the developer, Forest City Ratner, considered cutting the building’s height in half. But by 2010, the structure was back on.

Dancing House (Fred and Ginger), Prague, 1996

The Dancing House stands out amid Prague’s 19th century facades.

(Insights / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Designed with Czech architect Vlado Milunić, the building — a major step forward for Gehry, who increasingly dabbled in digital design — pits a leaning glass tower against an upright, solid partner, creating a kinetic duet that instantly earned the nickname “Fred and Ginger.” The complex’s opaque tower is clad in cream-colored concrete panels, stepping rhythmically with protruding windows that drift off-center. Its frenetic steel-ribboned crown, which stands out amid 19th century facades along Prague’s Vltava River, is nicknamed “Medusa.” The glass tower — emerging from a cluster of angled columns — cinches inward at its waist, bulging outward again as it rises, like a figure leaning into a twirl. Traditionalists panned the project when it first opened, but it’s now core to the city’s identity.

Stata Center, Cambridge, Mass., 2004

The Ray and Maria Stata Center on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stands out for its form — and the lawsuit the university filed over leaks and cracks, which was settled amicably.

(Steven Senne / AP)

The Stata Center tilts, twists and fractures, its brick towers — referencing traditional Cambridge architecture — leaning into planes of glass, mirrored steel, aluminum, titanium, corrugated metal and plywood. The village-like building’s spatial looseness was part of a concerted effort to encourage chance encounters and interdisciplinary exchange at the school. The fragmented forecourt echoes the building around it, with skewed paving patterns, angled retaining walls and unpredictable sight lines. In 2007, MIT filed suit against Gehry’s firm and the general contractor Skanska USA, alleging persistent leaks, cracking masonry, poor drainage and sections where ice and snow slid off the building. The lawsuit was “amicably resolved” in 2010, but it represented one of several instances in which Gehry’s ambition would butt up against practical realities.

Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, 1993

The Weisman Art Museum.

(Raymond Boyd / Getty Images)

Perched on a bluff above the Mississippi River at the University of Minnesota, the museum was a trial run for Bilbao and Disney, without the help of advanced digital tools. Its stainless steel facade unfurls toward the river in faceted, reflective forms that contrast with the building’s campus-facing facade, a series of various-sized cubes wrapped in earth-toned brick, matching the rest of campus. Inside, a series of flexible galleries support changing exhibitions. The museum is named for Frederick R. Weisman, a Minneapolis-born entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist who broke sharply with conventional wisdom to support a Gehry-designed building that would loudly announce the arts and become an artwork in its own right.

Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, 2004

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion stands out in the center of Millennium Park. The main stage can accommodate a full orchestra and 150-person chorus.

(Andia / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The centerpiece of Chicago’s wildly successful Millennium Park, the bandshell’s billowing 120-foot proscenium, supported by a web of aluminum arms, is fronted by dozens of torqued stainless steel ribbons, which exuberantly frame the stage. The ribbons connect to an overhead trellis of crossed still pipes that house lights and speakers, while the stage itself is sheathed in warm Douglas fir, and includes a colorful light projection system (first planned for Disney Hall, but scuttled for budget reasons) that transforms the pavilion’s face. Seating 4,000, the Pritzker envelops a “Great Lawn,” with room for another 7,000.

DZ Bank Building, Berlin, 2000

Curves abound in the DZ Bank Building.

(Henri-Alain Segalen/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

A stone’s throw from the Brandenburg Gate, DZ’s stone facade aligns seamlessly with its blocky neighbors on Pariser Platz, providing little hint of its shocking interior. A curved stainless steel conference hall, clad inside with a riot of warm wood panels, resembles an angry sea creature, its humpbacks, saddles, bulges, tucks and pinches creating one of the most kinetic building forms this author has ever seen. The piece dominates a soaring atrium, capped with a curved, crystalline glass roof. Locals nicknamed the split-personality building the “Whale at the Brandenburg Gate.” It remains one of the architect’s most underrated masterpieces.

Rick Stein, one of the UK’s leading culinary voices, has written about the time he was robbed as a young man in Mexico whilst travelling the world following a tragic event

Rick Stein has opened up about how he was nearly killed during a terrifying incident abroad. The celebrity chef, now 78, said that after the death of his father by suicide he went abroad going as far away as Australia, the United States, Mexico.

He found it “very special” visiting Mexico and its bars, but things weren’t totally plain sailing. Rick told the Times: “The bars were not exactly glamorous, but there was something very special about drinking ice-cold beer and tequila in a room full of cowboys.

“Having said that, a couple of English lads and I did get robbed in Acapulco. They managed to take our backpacks — we were on the beach — without waking us up, which I was told was quite lucky. If we had disturbed them, they would probably have killed us.”

This isn’t the first time Rick has spoken about the events that shaped his life as a young man and how those experiences transformed him into the man he is today.

In 2020, he was asked by the Guardian how his father’s early death had moulded him as a father to his children and stepchildren.

In response, he said: “It really made me want to be a lot more communicative with my own children. I still think of my dad as being somebody really special in my life.

“I think it’s very confusing…On the whole, my dad was a hero, it’s just that it got really difficult in his depressive phases, very introspective. And I think he took it out on me really.”

Rick added that he had developed a good sense of “not being very good at stuff” and that despite his immense career success that he still sometimes doubts himself.

In the decades since his life travelling the world, Rick has built a multi-million pound empire out of the small Cornish fishing town of Padstow.

However, just like all hospitality business owners in recent years, Rick has been battered by economic headwinds caused by events such as Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

Speaking to the London Standard earlier this year, Rick called for more support for the industry.

He said: “I appreciate that the country is not in a good state, but it seems to me a complete ‘home goal’ to target parts of the economy that are not well-equipped to deal with it.

“Hospitality is always taken as slightly second-rate way of the national wealth, but tourism and hospitality are so important.

“The National Insurance increase in the last budget was really hard. It started with the war in Ukraine, and food prices have just continued to increase. It’s a tough business.”

IT’S every music lover’s dream to share the stage with their favourite artist – and that came true for one lucky superfan.

The legendary frontman of an iconic noughties band recently surprised a musician by taking to the mic and belting out one of his band’s biggest songs that became a megahit in the early 00s.

US rock band Train rose to fame in 1993 and lead singer Pat Monahan has been it’s sole constant member over the years.

In a new video, the singer, 56, was recently spotted taking over the mic of a fellow musician and superfan. 

In a moment straight out of every fans wildest fantasy, Pat shocked gig goers as he walked up to where vocalist Sedona Rose was performing after being called up mid-performance.

The fan was playing with her band when the Train frontman, who looked inconspicuous dressed in all black, suddenly stepped in as lead singer.

BOND BELTER

Huge British band lined up to record next Bond theme amid major changes

ROCK OFF

Huge rock band cancel gigs due to ‘sudden family loss’ – leaving fans devastated

Without missing a beat he grabbed the mic and continued to sing Train’s smash hit Drops of Jupiter.

The 2 minute video sees Pat and the band perform the full track together in a sweet moment, as the audience applauded and watched on mesmerised.

Released in 2001, Drops of Jupiter reached No. 6. on the Billboard 200 list and went on to win two Grammy Awards in 2002.

The song remains one of Train’s biggest hits and this year the band celebrated as it hit 1 billion streams on the music app Spotify.

Taking to TikTok, artist Sedona shared the pinch me moment adding the caption: “It’s not everyday you get to sing your fave song of all time with the dude who wrote it …” 

Fans took to the comments gushing over the clip, as one user said: “Love Train. His voice hasn’t changed a bit.”

“5 minutes of his time to make a life long memory,” remarked one fan with another writing: “This is incredible.”

Some in the comments section voiced that Pat had stolen the fans ‘thunder’, saying: “Why not just let u sing the song? Sorry but it bothers me that he took over- stealing your thunder.”

However, the musician was quick to hit back revealing she had called the frontman up to the stage. 

She said: “I knew he was there and before I started the song I said ‘this next one is my fave song of all time and the person who wrote this is actually here tonight, sooo you can come up if you’d like’.

”It was an honor for him to come up and sing fr! I had the rest of the 3 hours of the gig for my “thunder”.”

Train hail from San Francisco and are a popular pop rock band who has had many smash hits over the years.

In addition to Drops of Jupiter, Train’s top songs include Careless Whisperer, Hey, Soul Sister and Drive By.

As of 2025 the band consists of Pat, Matt Musty, Jerry Becker, Butch Walker and Hector Maldonado.

Last year, it was sadly revealed that one of the group’s founding members Charlie Colin had passed away at the age of 58.

The musician’s mother revealed Charlie died after he slipped and fell in the shower.

Charlie formed the band alongside Pat, Scott Underwood, Rob Hotchkiss, and Jimmy Stafford.

But in 2003, he was given an ultimatum for his substance abuse and was ultimately forced to leave the band.

“I had a really great run, but it was difficult,” Charlie previously told the Los Angeles Times about his time with the band.

MILAN — The gala crowd at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala cheered the season premiere of Dmitry Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’’ with a 12-minute standing ovation Sunday, as the storied theater synonymous with the Italian repertoire opened with a Russian melodrama for the second time since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The crowd of luminaries fully embraced stage director Vasily Barkhatov’s bold telling of merchant wife Katerina Izmajilova’s fall into a murderous love triangle against the backdrop of Stalin’s Soviet Union, right up to the jarring final scene with a Soviet truck barreling into a wedding party, and two characters perishing in a burst of flames.

U.S. soprano Sara Jakubiak was showered with carnations and cheers for her portrayal of Katarina, the title character, over the 2-hour, 40-minute opera, and the audience cheered its appreciation for conductor Riccardo Chailly, making his last Dec. 7 gala premiere appearance as music director.

“No one ever expects this,’’ Jakubiak said backstage of the enthusiastic reception. ”I am just so happy.’’

From ‘Boris Godunov’ to ‘Lady Macbeth’

Three years after the 2022 gala season premier of “Boris Godunov” drew protests from the Ukrainian community for highlighting Russian culture in the wake of Moscow’s invasion, the premiere of “Lady Macbeth” inspired a flash mob demonstrating for peace.

Shostakovich’s 1934 opera highlights the condition of women in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and it was blacklisted just days after Stalin saw a performance in 1936, the threshold year of his campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge.

A dozen activists from a liberal Italian party held up Ukrainian and European flags in a quiet demonstration, removed from the La Scala hubbub, that aimed “to draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia, and to support the Ukrainian people.’’

A larger demonstration of several dozen people in front of City Hall called for freedom for the Palestinians and an end to colonialism, but was kept far from arriving dignitaries by a police cordon. Demonstrations against war and other forms of inequality have long countered the glitz of the gala season premiere that draws leading figures from culture, business and politics dressed in their finest frocks.

Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli was joined by the senator for life Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor, and Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala in the royal box. Italian pop stars Mahmoud and Achille Lauro were also among those in attendance.

Shostakovich’s journey to La Scala premiere

Chailly began working with Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the success “Boris Godunov,’’ which was attended by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom said they separated Russia’s politics from its culture.

Outside the “Godunov” premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture amid a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture.

Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” at La Scala for just the fourth time “a must.’’

“It is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,’’ he said at a news conference last month.

La Scala’s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” at the theater whose history is tied to the Italian repertoire.

‘‘Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,’’ Ortombina said on the sidelines of the news conference. “Shostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin’s own.’’

American soprano makes her La Scala debut

Jakubiak, 47, made her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she self-immolated to kill herself and her treacherous second husband’s new lover — deviating from the original story’s drowning. It’s the second time Jakubiak has sung the role, after performances in Barcelona last year, and she said Shostakovich’s Katerina is full of challenges.

“That I’m a murderess, that I’m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,’’ Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. “You go, ‘Oh, my gosh, how will I do this?’ But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we’re just going to go for the ride.”

Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was “squeezing” Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer’s intent.

“Whenever I prepare a role, it’s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,” she said. “First, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano, and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we’re actually somewhat similar in that regard.”

Jakubiak, best known for Strauss and Wagner, has a major debut coming in July when she sings her first Isolde in concert with Anthony Pappano and the London Symphony.

Stage direction highlights Stalin’s end

Barkhatov, who at 42 has a flourishing international career, said “Lady Macbeth” is a “very brave and exciting” choice for La Scala’s season opening.

Barkhatov’s stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin’s rule, rather than a 19th century rural village as written for the 1930s premiere.

For Barkhatov, Stalin’s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a dark restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place — all grim and dingy.

Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as “a weird … breakthrough to happiness and freedom.’’

“Sadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,’’ he added.

Barry writes for the Associated Press.

SCARLETT Moffatt has revealed that her fiancé Scott Dobinson has quit his job as a policeman to be a stay-at-home dad.

The Gogglebox star, 35, got engaged to Scott, 37, in 2023, five months after they became parents to baby son Jude. 

Scarlett has revealed that Scott has taken a two-year career hiatus to be with their son Jude, two, so she can continue her TV career.

The reality star has a host of projects she’s working on, including Strictly Come Dancing‘s Christmas Special and a Christmas pantomime. 

She told The Daily Mail: “I feel really lucky because for the first two years that Jude was born, I decided to take two years off.

“So I was just in full-time mum mode, it was the best.

NOT FAIR

Strictly fix row as Xmas special star Scarlett Moffat has already been trained

shoe down

Scarlett Moffat forced to hit back again after being mum-shamed over son’s outfit

“And then when Jude turned two, I was like “okay, I need to go back into work now” so I can chat to adults, cause I missed that. 

“And also, you know, this industry’s so difficult, I knew that if I took any longer people might be like, “oh, there’s that girl that used to sometimes be on the telly”.

“So then Scott, my partner, he’s wonderful, he’s now took a two-year career break from the police.

“So he’s now in full-time dad mode, which is lovely. We’re somehow managing because of that, and we’ve got great grandparents too.”

The I’m A Celeb star also explained that she has never employed a nanny to help out with her family.

She said: “I’ve never had a nanny and he’s never been to nursery, but it’s not because I think that those things are bad or anything.

“I think we’ve just been so lucky that I’ve either been at home or he’s with my mum and dad, or Scott’s mum and dad or Scott.

“People aren’t always in that privileged position where they live like 10 minutes away from all of the family.

“I think it’s a very northern thing that we all sort of still live in the same village and stuff, but I can understand why people have ties and things.”

In an interview with The Sun earlier this year Scarlett spoke about when she and Scott are planning to tie the knot.

Scarlett said: “I’d hoping to do it next year but maybe that’s too adventurous? It takes a lot to plan a wedding, but I’ve got this in the bag.”

Just a few years ago, Scarlett admitted that she initially had dreams of a huge Willy Wonka themed wedding, but has now decided to scale back her plans.

However, in an interview before getting engaged, she once said: “I’ve always, always wanted a massive wedding, now I keep saying: ‘Let’s go to Vegas.’”

But, not everyone is happy about Scarlett’s return to TV, as a new Strictly fix has ignited due to her taking part in this year’s Christmas special.

The popular TV star was the first celeb to be announced for this year’s festive special after years of being linked to the BBC show.

However, show insiders are angry at her for taking part because she was trained by Anton Du Beke as a child.

And it is alleged she is now the favourite to win the festive glitterball due to her vast dancing history.

A Strictly insider said: “Scarlett is a trained dancer, she is so good at it and spent much of her childhood doing ballroom and Latin dancing.

“Anton even helped her and now he will be judging her against others. It all feels very unfair.”

But, despite being an early favourite, Scarlett insists she hasn’t picked up where she left off all those years ago.