SHOW BIZ

Nearly a year after Christina Downer disappeared, her actor boyfriend was among two people arrested on suspicion of murdering her, Los Angeles police said Friday.

Downer’s brother is “Saturday Night Live” writer Jimmy Fowlie. Los Angeles Police Department officers arrested Delorean Bijon Brandon, 41, and Kaylee Nicole Markowski, 34, on Thursday after a lengthy investigation that kicked off after Downer was reported missing just before Christmas last year.

Both Brandon and Markowski were booked at the Metropolitan Detention Center with bail set at $2 million each. It is not clear if they are being represented by attorneys.

At first, the disappearance appeared to be a missing person’s case. Downer’s ex-husband requested a welfare check on Dec. 18, 2025 when he hadn’t heard from her. At the time, Downer’s boyfriend, Brandon, claimed that she had moved out several months earlier, leaving behind everything she owned including her car and dog, according to LAPD.

A few days later on Dec. 22, Fowlie shared a missing persons flier on his Instagram, writing that Downer had been missing and the family was concerned for her safety. In a separate post, he shared a photo of Downer and her dog, Rex, and wrote in the caption that his sister was very attached to the dog and had last been seen in Koreatown.

“I heard from her on Nov 26th. She was active on social media up to Dec 15th,” he wrote, noting that the last time anyone had spoke to her on the phone was Oct. 5. Fowlie said in the post that the family had “reason to believe” that in the weeks before she went missing, her phone and social media had been compromised and that whoever had Downer’s phone used it to hide “the fact that she was gone,” by requesting money and create an illusion that she’d skipped town and gone off the grid.

But when Downer’s phone washed ashore on the beach in Santa Monica, LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division took over the investigation.

Early this month, investigators searched an Airbnb in Joshua Tree in connection with Downer’s disappearance, according to NBC. It is not clear what, if anything, investigators found at the location.

Comedian Romesh Ranganathan and actor Sebastian Croft have won the 2026 series of The Celebrity Traitors following a very dramatic final episode, which saw James Blunt sabotage himself

Comedian Romesh Ranganathan and actor Sebastian Croft have won the 2026 series of The Celebrity Traitors as faithfuls.

The pair were the last two remaining at the firepit at the end of the BBC show with the players having voted out traitor and TV presenter Maya Jama during the final roundtable.

It had been quite the dramatic turn of events, with it ending with both players revealing their true identity. Sebastian – also known as Bash – said: “I began this game as a faithful, but I’m ending this game as a faithful.”

Romesh, who paused for dramatic effect, told his co-star: “Bash, I began this game as a faithful, and I’m ending this game as a faithful.” Both were thrilled to be faithfuls and secure the huge prize fund for their charities.

In an emotional scene, Sebastian said: “That was just incredible, this might actually be the best day of my life,” with Romesh adding: “I just really hope my mum’s proud, and also my youngest son Charlie, who wanted me to come on the show. Dad won, please show me some respect.”

It was a dramatic firepit – as all the players originally decided to banish again. Former Little Mix star Leigh-Anne Pinnock received the most votes and was booted out of the castle. It was then things took a turn.

Traitor Kenny opted to end the game but the other players chose to banish again, with Romesh gunning for James Blunt. It seemed like it was all going to end with an exit for James, but Bash’s decision to split the vote meant Kenny was booted out next.

Players were then given the option to banish again, with James choosing to banish again despite Romesh saying his conversation with Sebastian had changed his mind on whether he was a faithful or a traitor. Both Romesh and Sebastian voted James out.

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Sebastian said of his decision: “I believe you’re both faithful, and I’m sad to be in this predicament, and I’m sorry James because I truly believe that you’re a faithful, but I’m a man of my word, and so I’ve had to go for you.”

Earlier in the show, the final mission saw the teams tasked with finding two underground bunkers in the Scottish Highlands filled with gold, with one team boarding a helicopter and others getting into buggies. Once they found the bunkers they had to blow them up with dynamite.

To find the bunkers, the team in the buggies had to answer questions, before waving in the helicopter team to drop off the dynamite and detonator, with Jama, Croft and Pinnock hanging off the side of the helicopter to deliver the equipment. The group successfully found and detonated both bunkers, adding £18,500 to the prize pot, bringing it to £83,000.

After being voted out at the final roundtable, Maya did not reveal her identity as a traitor as per the rules for the last episode, but told her fellow players: “Thank you, alright, love you all, good luck, you’re going to need it.”

Actor Michael Sheen was murdered at the beginning of the final. After discovering his fate , he said: “The time has come, can’t say I’m surprised, but I am incredibly disappointed, gutted that I got so close to the end. It’s been absolutely unforgettable, and I’ve loved every minute.”

Heartstopper actor Sebastian said he would be donating his £41,500 half of the prize pot to the charity Choose Love, while Romesh said he would be giving his money to the Refugee Council.

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It’s official: Former entertainment power couple Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff are ending their marriage.

“The Substance” star Qualley and Bleachers rocker Antonoff filed papers for an “uncontested joint divorce” on Friday in Kings County Supreme Court in New York. Representatives for Qualley, 32, and Antonoff, 42, did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

The Emmy-nominated actor and the Grammy-winning musician, also known for collaborations with pop stars Taylor Swift and Lorde, separated in the summer. A source close to the couple confirmed to People at the time that the estranged partners were going through a “rocky” period.

“They share a deep affinity and love for one another, and though their romantic partnership is ending, they will absolutely be lifelong friends,” the source told the outlet.

Speculation about the pair’s split began in July, with internet fans noticing that Qualley — daughter of actor Andie MacDowell and Paul J. Qualley — appeared to delete photos featuring Antonoff (formerly of rock bands fun. and Steel Train) from her Instagram page. Among the scrubbed photos were reportedly wedding pictures she shared in March to promote the musician’s song “dirty wedding dress.”

Qualley and Antonoff married in August 2023, a little over a year after they got engaged and two years after first sparking up a romance in August 2021. Lana Del Rey, then-item Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum, and Swift were among the attendees at their nuptials at Parker’s Garage on Long Beach Island.

News of the Qualley-Antonoff split arose days after the latter was spotted attending Swift and Travis Kelce’s lavish wedding bash at New York City’s Madison Square Garden without his wife. Antonoff’s ex-girlfriend, “Girls” creator and “Famesick” author Lena Dunham, was also in attendance.

Antonoff has been on the road for the Bleachers Forever tour since June and recently performed at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. He kicks off the European leg of the tour next week in Italy. He spoke to the Guardian in an interview published this week about still performing music inspired by his romance with Qualley. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

“I don’t rewrite the past, I have no shame about the things I’ve said. My life has been dedicated to making it impossible for me to rewrite the past, because I’m standing there, singing about how I felt during the good times,” he said, “so when the bad times hit I can’t look myself in the mirror and pretend that those times didn’t exist. I would rather live through something publicly than even escape it privately.”

Ian McKellen is saying goodbye to his dear friend Patrick Stewart.

Stewart, the storied actor whose performances spanned comic book films, Shakespearean stage productions and sci-fi TV, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia. He was 86. While tributes from former co-stars across the “X-Men” films and “Star Trek” franchise poured in, fans of Stewart were keeping a close eye out for McKellen’s remarks, as the two had a famously close friendship, often on full display with red-carpet smooches and pally interviews.

On Thursday, McKellen posted a tribute to Stewart.

“Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end,” McKellen’s statement began. “You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.”

Although the two had known each other since they were young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1970s, Stewart said he initially was too shy to approach McKellen, but was “impressed.” Stewart said the two had “X-Men” to thank for their close bond. On set, the two had trailers that were next door to each other, and with time to kill between filming, they would head next door and chat for hours.

“It was a delight for me to find that the enthusiasms and passions that I’d had all my life were shared by Ian,” the late actor said in a 2014 interview. When asked to write a hashtag that summed up their bromance, Stewart wrote #Aren’twelucky, and McKellen wrote #eternal.

In addition to playing rivals across multiple “X-Men” films, Patrick and McKellen starred together in “Waiting for Godot” and “No Man’s Land” on Broadway and London’s West End.

“We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions,” McKellen’s tribute continued. “My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in ‘Star Trek.’”

McKellen recalled saying, “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk—getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”

“Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.”

In 2014, Stewart admitted to Broadway.com that he was envious of McKellen for both his university education and his hair.

“Ian knows and he thinks I’m foolish to feel this way,” he said. “Ian went to Cambridge and my formal schooling ended when I was 15. I envy that, but I also envy your head of hair. If only because in the two plays you don’t wear a wig and yet you manage to make your hairstyle look completely different … I envy that whereas I have to stick on a wig.”

McKellen responded by telling Stewart that he was gorgeous with and without the wig.

In 2013, Stewart married longtime girlfriend Sunny Ozell in a Lake Tahoe ceremony that McKellen officiated.

“America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.”

McKellen and Stewart star together again in the forthcoming “Avengers: Doomsday,” which hits theaters Dec. 18.

HALLOWEEN was Ozzy Osbourne’s favourite day of the year.

And to celebrate, I’ve got some very exciting news to share with his fans.

My insiders have revealed the Black Sabbath rocker secretly recorded a handful of songs with super-producer Andrew Watt prior to his death last summer.

And now those tracks — which were laid down during his music sessions for his 2022 album Patient Number 9 — could soon be getting green-lit to coincide with the blockbuster film biopic about his life.

One of my American music moles told me: “Ozzy had a practical outlook about his medical issues and life.

“He was very excited to be in the studio for the Patient Number 9 sessions because Andrew managed to bring energy and excitement, even though he was struggling with his ailments.

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“They worked on the album and Ozzy knew that, with the biopic in development, he saw an idea for works about his life and romance with Sharon.

“Those tracks have only been heard by Andrew and his musicians.

“The final mixes have not even been finished. They remain works in progress and to be considered for the movie.

“Sharon doesn’t even know what the final mixes will sound like.

“But the likelihood is that they will come to play some part in the biopic, which would be incredible.

“Unheard songs from Ozzy from beyond the grave is something he would have loved.”

I revealed earlier this year how Ozzy’s wife Sharon and his son Jack had a director in mind for the movie, which would tell the incredible life story of the Prince of Darkness.

“The script is being worked on as a final draft with Sony Studios looking for directors,” a source close to the family told me.

“Sharon has been measuring up who could play her and deliver the intensity of her personality while also holding it together while Ozzy goes through his demons on-screen.”

I have no doubt that with Sharon at the helm this film will more than do Ozzy justice.

And the idea of listening to never-before-heard songs from him excites me even more.

JOSH’S MONSTROUS TERROR OF THE TOILET

WE all have a scarring childhood memory, but I’ve never heard a confession quite like Josh Brolin’s.

The Running Man actor has revealed he was too scared to go to the loo after watching Steve McQueen’s horror classic The Blob when he was four.

He said: “I just remember this substance coming out of the toilet and attacking this person.

“And when you’re a kid, it’s a new relationship with a toilet. It suddenly gets all up and then you don’t know where to do your business.”

I bet his parents loved cleaning up that mess.

THRILLER RACE FOR TOP SPOT

MICHAEL JACKSON’s son Prince hopes to give his late dad a Halloween treat – by backing fans’ efforts to get his 1983 hit Thriller to No1 for the first time.

Despite regularly returning to the charts around Halloween, the six-minute track and video failed to hit the top spot.

Prince said: “Thriller is the biggest-selling album of all time but the single has never made it to No1. And so the goal with this Thriller challenge is to encourage people to buy the album, stream it and request it on radio, because those are the metrics that then push it up the chart.

“But we have to recognise that (the album) Thriller has a lot of bangers on there. So he’s kind of competing with himself. My father has an incredible fan base, and they’re so very sophisticated and orchestrated, and this has been the challenge that has been going on.”

lKEITH RICHARDS says he feels like his late Rolling Stones bandmate, drummer Charlie Watts, came back from the grave to watch over the group recording their new single, Who You Callin’ Crazy.

He told how he forgot Steve Jordan was on the sticks behind him, saying: “I do think it’s Charlie Watts behind me.”

ARABELLA: ME ‘N’ MY ’BLUD BUD

RISING star Arabella Lucia is proving she’s got some rock star mates after handing Bizarre a backstage pass to her pal Yungblud’s new B.R.A.T clothes shop.

The punk-rock wonderland in Soho, central London, hosted a cool music show by Arabella this week.

At the cosy gig, she thanked Yungblud for supporting her career, adding: “He’s so cool and he’s so awesome.

“He has given me some great advice about music.

“The songs I am performing tonight, and it being here of all places, is very serendipitous.”

Lily’s gone dotty

WITH one of the sharpest tongues in the industry, Lily Allen often divides opinions – but no one can argue she doesn’t have a great sense of humour.

Brandishing a thermometer and with the caption “#bluedotfever”, the Smile singer dressed up as a Ticketmaster seating chart, with spots signifying plenty of empty spaces – a nod to the fact she had to downgrade venues on her US tour due to poor sales.

Despite selling out arenas on home soil for her West End Girl tour, excitement for the gigs Stateside was lacklustre.

Meanwhile, Marvin and Rochelle Humes turned back the clock to 2002 as they transformed into Kelly Rowland and Nelly from the music video for their hit Dilemma.

Marvin and Rochelle were just two of many celebrity guests spotted at Olivia Attwood’s Halloween party in central London.

Also going all out for the celebrations was Kim and Kanye’s daughter North West.

The budding singer clearly spent some serious cash perfecting her Edward Scissorhands costume.

But perhaps my favourite costume of all came from influencer Bella James.

She looked genuinely unrecognisable as she transformed into Jeremy Clarkson thanks to some impressive prosthetics.

Clearly I need to up my fancy dress game.

SHED SEVEN are looking forward to being top of the tree after announcing a huge show in Delamere Forest next June.

The band are confirmed as the final headliner for Forest Live, the week-long run of shows in the Cheshire woodlands.

Having just sold out the biggest headliner show of their career at York’s LNER Stadium, the indie rockers will now headline the show on Friday, June 18, with support from The Lathums and The Lilacs.

Frontman Rick Witter told me: “We can’t wait to headline our first Forest Live show.

“They are always an amazing experience in beautiful surroundings with an electric atmosphere.

“We have played a few over the years, but always as bridesmaids, so it’s great that we can now feel like dizzy brides.”

Celebrity Traitors star has a bash at podcasts

JUST in time for Halloween, Celebrity Traitors’ Sebastian Croft has launched his brand new podcast series.

The first episode of The Sunday Scaries With Bash Croft is out tomorrow, with the Heart-stopper actor welcoming guests each week to discuss the highs and lows of the past seven days.

Bash said: “Many people I know find Sundays daunting or lonely and just want to have a laugh and chat about the week before and the week ahead.

“So I want the podcast to feel like you’re sitting on the sofa with us, having honest, unfiltered chats with friends.

“Hopefully, it’ll make everyone’s Sunday feel a little brighter and the week ahead a little less daunting.”

PLANS for a musical based on the songs of late chart superstar George Michael have been confirmed.

His lifelong best friend David Austin has told The Sun that preparations are in motion for the stage show to help keep George’s legacy alive.

Those involved have set their sights on Broadway — with a West End run almost certain to follow if the project proves ­popular enough.

George shot to fame in 1980s pop duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley and became one of the best-selling recording artists of all time.

Speaking at the world premiere of concert film George Michael: The Faith Tour at the BFI IMAX in London, David said: “There is talk about Broadway. We’ve got our fingers in a lot of pies.”

The confirmation comes six months after The Sun first told the world of the secret plans.

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In April, we revealed that George’s sister Yioda Panayiotou, 64, had held confidential talks with producers.

A source said at the time: “As things stand, it’s all in the very early development stage, but the plan is to tell the story of George’s life and career with some of his hits mixed in.

“Right now it’s not a Mamma Mia! situation where his songs soundtrack a new story — this is about his life.”

The production is already being workshopped in New York, with seven-time Olivier Award nominee Maria Friedman in talks to direct.

George, died aged 53 on Christmas Day 2016 at home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

Big Brother 2024 winner returned to our screens and admitted some of the current series was ‘uncomfortable’

One of Big Brother’s former winners has shared they hope one housemate is ‘OK’ after some ‘difficult to watch’ scenes this series. It comes as the latest edition of the ITV reality series approaches its final week.

The most recent episode set to air on Friday (October 30) will see a double eviction to mark the Halloween special. Ahead of that, companion show Big Brother The Group Chat welcomed ex-housemate and previous winner Ali Bromley to talk about the current series.

Ali was victorious during the 2024 series even though she later admitted she nearly quit the show part way through. She was joined by hosts GK Barry and Kate Lawler as the forensic psychologist was asked about her opinions on the current crop of housemates.

The conversation progressed through most of the contestants as Ali predicted Philip and Rhianna the next to go.

She also called the self professed Queen of Scottie Road from Liverpool as ‘the most relatable’ after he was spotted eating snacks in bed.

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Ali commented: “We’ve all been there with our chocolate bars, hoping for better days.” Later though, GK Barry turned their attention to Frankie.

She said: “Frankie has been coming out (as bisexual) slowly but surely. He told Catrin tonight. Which I think Catrin already knew.” Kate asked Ali what she thought of the matter, after recent scenes showed Frankie reveal he had hatred towards himself and felt ashamed regarding his sexuality.

Ali replied: “I think you can see it in the way he talks about bisexuality. I think, as a viewer, that’s been difficult to watch at times. Because if you are gay and you’ve been through the process of coming out and you have those feelings yourself and you’ve worked through those feelings yourself and you’ve worked through them, seeing somebody else still holding some of that hostility can feel a bit uncomfortable.”

She continued: “So I feel like that’s been a bit tricky to watch sometimes, and these moments where he’s been coming out have felt a bit raw and probably bring something up for people that are watching as well.

“I hope he’s OK. I’m not sure what he hopes to achieve by coming out in these dribs and drabs throughout the series.”

GK suggested he could be ‘getting used to’ coming out. Ali responded: “A real baptism of fire. If feel like if you’re not fully there in your self acceptance like wow, that’s like a hard, hard journey.”

Big Brother continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX

WHEN crusading journalist Chris Hansen told his guests to “have a seat” they really did need to sit down – because they were men who’d been caught discussing having sex with children.

His hit US TV show To Catch a Predator spawned hundreds of copycats across the globe, where online vigilante groups snare alleged paedophiles in similar stings.

Now Hansen is considering suing Robert Pattinson for the way the British actor has portrayed him in a controversial new movie called Primetime.

That’s because the Batman star’s Oscar-tipped film makes the reporter, who confronted potential child sex offenders in front of the cameras, the bad guy rather than the abusers his ground-breaking program exposed.

In the mid-2000s Hansen’s show To Catch a Predator worked with law enforcement and an online vigilante group to reveal the depraved men thinking of having sex with under 16s.

Nearly 200 men were arrested, including an agent for the Department of Homeland Security, a teacher and a firefighter.

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The NBC show ended in 2007 after a district attorney with an interest in teenage boys shot himself before Hansen could quiz him.

To many predator hunters Hansen is a hero.

But Batman star Pattinson depicts the 67-year-old journalist as an ego driven prima donna chiefly interested in ratings and getting To Catch a Predator onto prime time telly.

Emmy award winner Hansen, who is still bringing alleged child abusers to book on a different show, is angry about Primetime, which is in UK cinemas now.

He raged: “I think it’s an insult to the thousands of men and women who work hard every day to protect children from predators. 

“They turn something that is very positive, very challenging and not without risk into what is essentially a horror film.

“I guess it’s not surprising that a Hollywood studio would act in such an exploitative or predatory manner. 

“We’re talking about an industry that was led by perhaps one of the biggest predators to walk the planet, Harvey Weinstein.”

In 2004 when To Catch a Predator set its first trap, Hansen didn’t even know if any child abusers would fall into it.

Back then social media was still in its infancy, with Facebook only available to university students.

But an US online vigilante group called Perverted Justice realised that depraved men were using chat rooms on sites such as AOL and Yahoo to contact minors.

Hansen decided to link up with them to expose this danger. 

Perverted Justice used adult males and females who looked like children to set up profiles as under 15s in the chat rooms.

They then waited for the men to make the first move, with many of the digital deviants quickly sending explicit questions.

Perverted Justice’s decoys strung them along, hoping they would ask to visit them.

Rather than going to the ‘children’s’ homes, though, they were turning up at a suburban house filled with hidden cameras.

The decoy greeted them at the door, led them to the kitchen and made an excuse to leave the room.

At that point Hansen would walk in and ask them to “have a seat.”

He recalled: “In the first investigation, we didn’t know what was going to happen. We had partnered with Perverted Justice and I didn’t know if we were going to get anybody showing up. 

“Yet, there we were over two and a half days in Long Island and 17 guys surfaced, including a New York City firefighter.”

Even more potential sex offenders turned up for the next sting in the capital Washington DC.

One of them was rabbi David Kaye, who was later jailed for six and a half years for trying to solicit sex from a 13-year-old boy over the internet.

Wishing to make sure more of these men were brought to book, the NBC show teamed up with the police.

Cops in Harris County, Texas were waiting to arrest the men after Hansen confronted them in 2006.

This was dangerous work for all involved, because two of the alleged offenders were serving soldiers.

When one of the men did a runner he was tasered.

Hansen was praised in Congress for his work, with the show leading the House of Representatives to investigate the threat of online predators.

As To Catch a Predator’s ratings climbed and climbed, human rights lawyers started to question its ethics.

In many parts of the US it was an offence to attempt to entice a minor to have sex, but there were suggestions of entrapment. 

There were calls for catching criminals to be left to the professionals.

That’s exactly what Hansen’s show appeared to do when Perverted Justice realised that Texan prosecutor Bill Conradt was the man messaging someone pretending to be aged 13.

When Conradt wouldn’t go to the To Catch a Predator house in Murphy, Texas in November 2006 the police chief decided to go to him.

With Hansen’s TV crew following them, the armed officers smashed their way into his home.

But when they arrived Conradt shot himself dead.

The prosecutor’s relatives sued NBC, winning a £75million out of court settlement.

Charges against 23 other men in Murphy, Texas were dropped because the online chats had not taken place in the county.

To Catch a Predator was scrapped.

It is the build up to Conradt’s death that forms the tense finale to Primetime, which has been a hit at the US box office.

It depicts Hansen as desperate to snare the powerful district attorney at all costs.

Pattinson’s version of the veteran journalist sneers, snarls and shouts at his team.

Variety magazine described the actor’s portrait of Hansen “as a horror villain” and Hansen thinks it is “unhinged.”

Primetime shows little interest in the sex offenders and focuses more on the journalist’s alleged affair with a younger woman.

In 2011 the paparazzi caught the married father-of-two meeting TV news reporter Kristyn Caddell, who was 21 years his junior.

Hansen denied cheating on his wife Mary Joan, who divorced him seven years later.

He has talked about suing the film’s producers, which include Pattinson, but isn’t keen to get caught up in a legal case.

The actor defended his movie, commenting: “The fact that people are still discussing the ethics of it, of a 20-year-old TV show, it’s absolutely insane.” 

The reason the ethics of To Catch a Predator are being discussed so keenly is that predator hunting is even more relevant today than it was two decades ago.

According to the children’s charity the NSPCC over 9,000 child sex abuse offences in the UK a year “involved an online element.” 

Hansen continues to name and shame such offenders on an online TV channel called TruBlu.

It is estimated that 140 vigilante groups in the UK are also trying to snare paedophiles online.

Cambridge University academic Mark de Rond, who last year appeared in a documentary titled Predators about the impact of Hansen’s show, spent time working with these secretive organisations.

He questions the way that To Catch a Predator “commercialised” the “public humiliation” of the men the show caught.

But he defends the groups which are trying to expose online sexual offenders, telling The Sun: “Paedophilia is a crime, it’s kind of the lowest of the low and it’s the kind of crime that really almost any means can justify when you are trying to stop it.

”Because what can be more important to keep a kid safe?”

That, though, is not the perspective of Primetime.

Near the end of the film, Pattinson says to one of his doubters “your definition of bad and my definition of bad are vastly different.”

Many cinemagoers watching the movie are likely to think the same thing, but for different reasons.

A LEGENDARY 70s rock band have cancelled all their 2027 tour dates in their first breaking form performing in 50 years.

Cheap Trick formed in Illinois in 1973, with current members being Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson.

In a statement shared to Instagram, the band addressed their decision to take some time off.

They wrote: “Many thanks to everyone who has expressed concern for us.

“To clear things up, we’ve decided to take some time off after decades of touring because we need a break.

“Not for health reasons.

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“We’ll play our November shows and then take our first break in 50 years.

“Thank you for all your support!”

One fan commented: “The hardest working band in rock!”

Another said: “Take your well deserved break from touring & enjoy some free time for yourselves. You are forever MY Band.”

A third wrote: “Get some great rest. Its all good.

“Hope you have a wonderful break. Take care.”

A fourth shared: “Enjoy your well deserved break and time with your families.

“Looking forward to future shows!”

Throughout Cheap Trick’s history, they have released 21 studio albums, eight live albums and 20 compilation albums.

The rock group also have four extended plays, and 66 singles to their name.

Just in time for next week’s midterms, Brooklyn-based artist Phil Buehler has unveiled another one of his series of public art installations critiquing modern politics on a stretch of chain link fence between a coffee shop and a bar in Bushwick. The 50-foot-long, 10-foot-high piece, “Wall of Crazy,” features 1,516 of President Trump’s social media posts — selected from more than 70,000 — and arranged chronologically, with color-coded statement categories aligning with the American Psychiatric Assn.‘s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition.

These include: social-emotional incongruity (“Happy Thanksgiving to all including the racist and incompetent Attorney General of New York State”); divine favor/ magical thinking (an AI photo of Trump seated beside Jesus Christ in court); catastrophizing (“This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision”); contradictions and reversals (a 2019 post calling Atty. Gen. Bill Barr “fair and reasonable” vs. a 2023 post calling him “dumb, weak, slow moving, lethargic, gutless and lazy”); hostility, humiliation and threats (calling Tucker Carlson a “very low IQ individual. He could barely get out of college and maybe he didn’t.”); grandiosity (“I am far healthier than Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, but especially, Kamala”); extraordinary and implausible claims (“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran at levels of military strength and power not seen since World War II”); persecution and victimhood (“Only 25 percent want the president impeached, which is pretty low considering the volume of fake news coverage, but pretty high considering the fact that I did nothing wrong”); and conspiracy thinking (“Wayne County (Detroit) Michigan is one of the most corrupt voting areas in the United States, if not the world”).

In a recent phone interview, Buehler said he made the wall over a period of months beginning in July, using his day-job background in market research and data analysis and statistics to search for patterns in large amounts of data in order to distill it down to something simple. Buehler’s first foray into making a wall of public art came in 2020 with the “Wall of Lies,” which documented more than 20,000 false or misleading claims made by Trump.

A detail shot of the “Wall of Crazy” by Brooklyn-based artist Phil Buehler, featuring 1,516 of Donald Trump’s social media posts.

(Photo from Phil Buehler)

At that time, he said, he was struck by the massive volume of falsehoods. “I wanted to dramatize that in a way that brought the sheer scale of it to life,” he said, noting that the same objective holds true for the “Wall of Crazy.” People have known that Trump tells lies since the 2020 presidential election, Buehler said, adding that it’s a story that is continuously told and has simply become part of the daily news cycle that people move on from.

“Making something into a public artwork brings it back into that cycle because I think it comes into people’s heads in a different way,” Buehler said. Plus, because it’s sandwiched between a coffee shop and a bar, it gets both the thinking morning crowd and the more raucous and celebratory evening crowd. The piece, which is being presented by the independent community radio station Radio Free Brooklyn, has been up for about two days, but will be officially unveiled during a modest neighborhood ceremony today at noon EDT.

“The scale of it is important,” Buehler said. “By attracting your eye and attention and then allowing you to walk up to it and read … Trump’s posts.”

In photos Buehler shared, people are doing just that. Some pass by quickly, others stay immersed for quite some time.

The “Wall of Crazy” is the fifth such collaboration between Buehler and Radio Free Brooklyn. After the “Wall of Lies” came the “Wall of Liars and Deniers” (2022), “featuring 381 Republican election-denying candidates”; then the “Wall of Shame” (2025), “documenting 1,575 January 6 defendants pardoned by Trump”; and “Wall of Tears” (2026), “memorializing 18,457 children documented killed in Gaza.”

The “Wall of Lies” was extensively vandalized by Proud Boy protesters, but the others have been mostly left alone, Buehler said.

“The Wall of Crazy shows how Buehler and Radio Free Brooklyn use public art to spotlight our political climate. Calling out the inflammatory, incoherent, divisive and obscene rhetoric under this administration is critical to democracy,” said Orie Givens, president of the Radio Free Brooklyn Board, in a news release. “Like earlier walls, it captures our political culture and urges action before Election Day: voters can change the country’s direction. And it shows why we must support free media — especially independent outlets — that expose this administration’s actions and impact nationwide.”

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing us all a peaceful and sane midterm election and a Happy Halloween. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Singer Lila Downs.

(Berenice Bautista / AP Photo)

Lila Downs
The singer blends Mexican tradition with jazz, cumbia, folk and contemporary rhythms in a celebration of Día de Muertos, featuring Ballet Folklórico de Los Ángeles and songs from Downs’ new album “Cambias mi Mundo.”
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Hercules vs. Vampires
LA Opera presents a musical reimagining of Mario Bava’s 1961 cult film “Hercules in the Haunted World,” starring Reg Park and Christopher Lee, with an original score by Patrick Morganelli, conducted by Blair Salter.
8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. United Theater on Broadway, 929 S Broadway, downtown L.A. laopera.org

Kiki Smith
“Untethered Journey,” the artist’s first solo show in L.A. in 30 years, includes historical and recent works.
Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday; exhibit continues through Jan. 23. Jeffrey Deitch, 925 N. Orange Drive. deitch.com

SATURDAY

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Organist Brett Valliant performs the score live with John S. Robertson’s 1920 silent horror film starring John Barrymore.
3 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Día de los Muertos
Forest Lawn celebrates the Mexican holiday at four of its locations, with marigolds, handcrafted Catrina and alebrijes (spirit guide) artworks and brightly colored community ofrendas (altars), plus folklorico dance and mariachi music performances, arts & crafts, face painting, food and refreshments. A free family-friendly event.
Noon-3 p.m. Sunday. Forest Lawn Covina Hills, 21300 Via Verde Drive, Covina, Forest Lawn Cypress, 4471 Lincoln Ave., and Forest Lawn Glendale, 1712 S. Glendale Ave.; 5-8 p.m. Monday. Forest Lawn Cathedral City, 69855 E. Ramon Road. forestlawn.com

Harriet Sansom Harris in “Werewolf by Night.”

(Marvel Studios)

Werewolf by Night & Headless
Michael Giacchino hosts an evening featuring the premiere of “Headless,” a musical by the Academy Award-winning composer and collaborators Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, based on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” followed by a live-to-picture screening of his 2022 film “Werewolf by Night,” with Sarah Hicks conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

SUNDAY

Building Bridges: The Master Chorale in Concert With the National Chorus of Korea
Two world-class choral organizations team up for a cross-cultural program uniting more than 100 singers.
7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org

Family Fest: Día de los Muertos
A free event featuring activities, festive music, dance and foods.
11 a.m.-2 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

TUESDAY

Singer Lyle Lovett.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Lyle Lovett and His Small Large Band
The four-time Grammy-winning Texan performs his greatest hits.
8 p.m. Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park Plaza Drive. ccpa.cerritos.gov

WEDNESDAY

Daniel Passer direct “The Farce Awakens: Ferdeau x 2” at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.

(Odyssey Theatre Ensemble)

The Farce Awakens: Feydeau x 2
Cirque du Soleil clown Daniel Passer directs “Going to Pot” and “Stark Naked,” two one-acts by Georges Feydeau.
Through Jan. 17, 2027. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 South Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

The Laugh Track
Playwright Wendy MacLeod’s comedy goes behind the scenes of “I Love Lucy,” the groundbreaking 1950s sitcom starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Directed by Brian Shnipper.
Through Nov. 22. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org

The SoCal scene

The Endeavour shuttle is on display in launch position at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center in Exposition Park.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

ICYMI: The best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage.

The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center opens next month, and the Arts team put together a great package including an architecture review of the new $450-million addition to the California Science Center; an Endeavour shuttle walk-through with an astronaut; a list of noteworthy artifacts in the museum; a list of exciting interactive experiences; and a fun fast-facts sheet.

In theater news, critic Charles McNulty gave a mixed review to the Latino Theatre Company production of playwright Luis Alfaro’s “Speaking in Tongues,” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center; and issued an indictment of Center Theatre Group’s decision to stage a non-Equity touring production of “The Music Man.” McNulty reserved words of praise for an Antaeus Theatre Company revival of George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House.”

Artist Barry McGee poses for a portrait at Jeffrey Deitch gallery.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

San Francisco artist Barry McGee is back in L.A. after February’s wild takeover of a 99 Cents Only Store. This time he’s staging a show called “Another Round” at Jeffrey Deitch gallery on Santa Monica Boulevard.

The Times’ Features section ran a piece of commentary about the lack of a true native plant habitat at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, calling it a “missed opportunity.”

Culture news

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins poses in the press room with the award for best revival of a play for “Appropriate” during the 77th Tony Awards.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)

London’s Royal Court Theatre announced that playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 2025 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Purpose,” directed by Phylicia Rashad, will launch its new season in January, marking the hugely successful Broadway show’s first staging outside of the U.S. (“Purpose” opens at Geffen Playhouse next month.)

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

The desert just keeps on giving — including an upcoming “sandlocked yacht club” in Joshua Tree.

A seven-part mini-series starring Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet is the ‘most addictive’ show you will watch this year, a TV critic claims. So here’s where to stream it

A TV critic has lauded a programme as the “world’s best mini-series” owing to its 95 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes – urging others to binge-watch the entire production in just seven hours.

Luke Eccleston spotlighted the HBO Max series in a video, branding it the “most addictive” thing you’ll ever sit down to see. The show, which first aired in 2021, is an HBO original, featuring a stellar cast including Kate Winslet, Evan Peters and Julianne Nicholson.

“If you only watch one limited series this year, it has to be this one,” Luke declared on TikTok. “It isn’t just one of the most gripping and addictive dramas that I have seen, but it genuinely might be the best as well.

“Mare of Easttown is a seven-part limited series on HBO Max and honestly, when me and my girlfriend watched this show, we struggled to pause it.”

The drama centres on a young girl who is discovered dead in a river, setting off a murder investigation by local police.

Luke added: “This show is full of dark secrets, twists and turns. Every single episode you think you might know who did it – but genuinely, you will be guessing until the very end.”

The critic rounded off by noting that every single person he knows who has watched Mare of Easttown told him they “absolutely loved” it, adding: “It’s one of the highest-rated shows out there, so get it on your watch-list.”

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A synopsis for the mini-series reads: “A small-town police detective tries to keep her professional and personal lives separate while investigating the death of a teenage mother.

“A young woman is murdered in a small Pennsylvania town. On the case is Detective Sergeant Mare Sheehan, a highly skilled crime investigator. She has spent all of her life in Easttown and knows everybody in it. However, her life is dark and troubled, due largely to the recent death of her son.”

Kate, who is no stranger to stripping off on-screen, was adamant that her ‘normal’ body should not be edited or cut in any way as she wanted her character to look like a real middle-aged woman of today.

“Listen, I hope that in playing Mare as a middle-aged woman – I guess that’s why people have connected with this character in the way that they have done because there are clearly no filters,” the actress told the New York Times at the time of Mare of Easttown’s release.

“She’s a fully functioning, flawed woman with a body and a face that moves in a way that is synonymous with her age and her life and where she comes from. I think we’re starved of that a bit.”

Mare of Easttown also boasts an excellent rating on IMDb. There, it has achieved an impressive 8.4 out of 10 based on 230,000 reviews since its 2021 release.

One recent viewer commented: “I literally watched all 7 episodes in 1 day. Then, after it had all ended, I didn’t know what to do with my life. This series is a masterpiece! The writing is brilliant, the story is so good and the acting is second to none. This is a slow burner that will keep you captivated till the very end. Absolutely amazing.”

A second person enthused: “They never missed anything. Every single possible detail. Nothing happens without a reason. Not even a single word was wasted. Everything had a reason. In today’s world of TV (streaming) and cinema clichés, here is a story so very well told. The writing I think is pitch perfect. All the leads as well as the not-so-leads gave more than one hundred per cent.”

And a third IMDb user added: “Best series I have seen in a while! Quality quality quality from top to bottom. Kate Winslet and the rest of the cast were perfect. Directing was exceptional. The stories and all the themes presented was executed masterfully. The score was probably the weakest aspect of the whole show but still solid.

“The pilot was gripping and sucked me in with its realism. Character development and how they were being fleshed out kept me invested. Can’t believe how much was packed into just 7 episodes.”

Horror fans say the film based on a classic short story is one of the goriest they’ve ever seen

Another gruesome adaptation is now available for free.

The ‘brutal’ horror film is leaving viewers unsure whether or not they should laugh or cry. Either way it is leaving many audience members in tears.

It comes as the movie The Monkey has been made available on BBC iPlayer in time for Halloween. The film was written and directed for the screen by Oz Perkins, who also helmed the 2024 horror release Longlegs, which coincidentally is also keeping BBC viewers gripped this spooky season.

The Monkey is actually based on a short story written by acclaimed author Stephen King, the same writer behind original stories that served as inspiration for hit adaptations such as Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Long Walk, The Running Man and IT just to name a few.

Perkins actually features in the cast himself as Uncle Chip, alongside Downton Abbey and The Gentlemen star Theo James in a dual role as twins Bill and Hal. The stacked line-up also included Black Orphan’s Tatiana Maslany, Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood and Severance star Adam Scott.

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According to its synopsis, when twin brothers find a mysterious wind-up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths tears their family apart. Twenty-five years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree, forcing the estranged siblings to confront the cursed toy.

Upon its original cinema release back in 2025, it mostly impressed critics, earning a respectable 77% score on website Rotten Tomatoes. One critic underlined the film’s central performance and shock value as they said: “A riotous hoot that’s delightfully wicked, especially thanks to a gloriously unhinged Theo James.”

Many fans were also just as impressed and many called out the gruesomeness of the film. One person posted online: “I can’t fully articulate why this is the best movie I’ve seen in a decade, but it just is.

“The movie combines the seriousness and light-heartedness of life and death. It shows how life has so much meaning and is simultaneously so meaningless. The movie leaves me feeling comforted in knowing that I’m not alone in wondering whether or not I should laugh or cry at it all.”

Another admitted: “My mouth was agape, and even more so after looking at how little the estimated budget was. This movie was probably one of the goriest movies I’ve seen, and if I’m honest the gore was a little over the top however that played into the comedy elements perfectly.”

Someone else added: “It reminded me very much of the Final Destination movies and that just made me love this movie even more. I don’t think there was a single moment of this movie I didn’t enjoy in either the comedy or horror aspects. Was definitely worth my time and money to go see. 10/10.”

The Monkey is streaming on BBC iPlayer.

Judy Reyes was nursing a severe case of homesickness when she arrived in Los Angeles nearly 25 years ago.

“Every month we’d have a hiatus on ‘Scrubs’ and every month, I’d head back east,” says Reyes, who plays head nurse Carla Espinosa on the ABC medical dramedy. The Bronx-born Dominican actor missed her family, friends and the theater company she helped start in 1992. She also feared she would forget her New York roots and wanted to “keep it real,” she quips. “I was so worried about being fake and not keeping it real.”

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

Over time, her trips back home became less frequent, especially after she got pregnant with her now teenage son and her New York family relocated down South. She’s since settled into the place she’s called home for the last three decades.

Earlier this year, Reyes reprised her breakthrough TV role on “Scrubs,” which initially ended in 2010 after a nine-season run. Meanwhile, she’s been splitting her time on set with another ABC workplace drama, “High Potential.” She plays Lt. Selena Soto, who leads a team of LAPD crime solvers. Off screen, Reyes is also the executive producer of “Freestyle: A Love Story,” a stage production that follows two lovers who meet at a freestyle show.

Just weeks before the production debuts on Nov. 6 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, Reyes shared a jam-packed Sunday Funday, which primarily takes place in Studio City. On the agenda are New York-style bagels (as a New Yorker, we trust her), getting a massage in the back of a sushi restaurant and enjoying sushi night with her husband and son as they’ve done since he was a baby.

“Before the kid, I was a Hollywood girl, but I’m annoyed when I have to go to Hollywood now,” she says. “I like to say we’ve contributed to the evolution of Studio City.”

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

5:15 a.m.: Admire the sunrise

I’m an early riser. I get up at like 5:15 or 5:30 a.m. I have a Breville machine, so I’ll make a cappuccino. I’ll take my supplements and I’ll pull up the shade on my terrace and watch the sunrise. I take photos and I send them to my besties on the East Coast. My bestie who lives in a high-rise on 43rd Street also has a terrace and sends me photos of her sunset. My husband’s an early riser too. He has business in the U.K., so he’s always up before me. If I’m not up by like 5:30 a.m., he’s like, ‘Babe, are you OK?’ So I’ll watch the sunrise, catch up on the news and do a little bit of doomscrolling to my detriment.

8 a.m.: Have L.A.’s most New York bagels

Everything opens late on Sundays, so we’ll wait. We’ll either go to Sam’s Bagels, which has the best bagels — the most New York bagels. We’ll either get a half dozen of the mini ones or four of the regular-sized ones with the seeds on them, and we’ll get cream cheese, of course, and lox. Or we’ll go to Belle Bakery Cafe on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. We’ll have either a full breakfast like bacon, eggs and toast or an omelet. They have the best fresh bread. You can get the bread during breakfast, but they won’t sell you the baguettes until after 11 a.m. You can’t make them give you anything earlier. You get there at 11 a.m. and you’re lucky if you get some. They sell out quickly.

10 a.m.: Pick up the best tuna from Erewhon

We’ll go to an Erewhon or Bristol Farms to get prepared foods for at least the first half of the week. Sometimes we’ll go to the farmers market on Fairfax, but that gets to be a little bit too busy. It’s too hot and there’s too much to do, and for my menopause, it’s not safe for the environment for me to be there. Erewhon has the best tuna fish, so we’ll pick that up that goes well with the bread that I told you about. I’ll add some capers or a pickle or two, then you have a sandwich for the rest of the day or into the next morning.

11 a.m.: A quick workout sesh at home

We’ll come back home and I’ll do some weights in the garage and my husband will do some stairs in the back of our house, or we’ll just do a walk in the hills near our house. I used to walk the hills a lot more before my dog passed away. I find it very sad, so I probably get a weekly walk in now, but I like to do my weights. It makes me feel good and prepared for the rest of the day.

1 p.m.: Get a massage in the back of a sushi restaurant

Sunday is nail day. My favorite place is Mod Nails on Ventura [Boulevard]. My girl Hannah, who runs the place, hooks my nails up, and we have nice, long talks. We rage talk about everything that’s wrong with the world and in our lives, and I get the coolest pedicure. I don’t have tips this time around because I have to keep going back between ‘Scrubs’ and ‘High Potential.’ Nurses can’t wear them long, so maybe next month I’ll get my gel fills, which is what she’s an expert at. Hannah does my nails better than anybody I’ve ever had. They run an acupuncture studio in the back. Her husband does acupuncture. It’s a really reasonably priced, wonderful experience.

Then on that street, I might go to Jonathan, who’s been my masseuse for 10 years, and get a nice beatdown. Interestingly, he works out of the back of a sushi restaurant called Iroha Sushi. He’s got his own little room back there that I’ve been going to for years. Best massage I’ve ever had. He keeps me in line especially when I have to travel. I had double hip replacement, so I’ve been dealing with a lot of pain. I also may go to my acupuncturist Dr. Yi if she’s available. She’s out in Culver City at Yi Qiao.

2:30 p.m.: Watch the L.A. Watford Women FC team practice at LACC

My husband and I co-own a women’s soccer team called L.A. Watford Women FC. We’ll go watch the girls practice at LACC. My husband is very active, as am I, in supporting these women. We were able to win a regional championship last year, so now we’re kind of devoted to going and rooting the girls on in practice, and encouraging them because it’s also an activist thing where you come for the game, but you stay for the activism.

4 p.m.: Go to rehearsals for my upcoming show

Now we’ll go to rehearsals at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre because we have a show, “Freestyle: A Love Story” coming up. We’ll meet with our dancers, actors and our DJ and the staging [team]. It’s not a terribly complicated show so we’re there for a couple of hours. The show is going to premiere on Nov. 6, so we’re running out of time. We do a lot of the social media and promotion because it’s a labor of love, faith, solidarity and community.

6 p.m.: Sushi Sunday with the fam

I’ve been doing Sushi Sunday with my husband and my son since he was 5 months old. We used to go with all these other couples, but people have outgrown us or moved on or gotten jobs in other states. It’s at Kiwami. We stuff our faces like it’s a job. I think we’ve been going there longer than the entire wait staff has been there. We sit at the same table, table number six right behind the sushi bar.

If we don’t go to Kiwami, we’ll go across the street to Black Market Liquor Bar. It’s also a place we’ve been going to for years. They have an appetizer-style, Southern, saucy-inspired menu where they have things breaded and fried. Oh, they have the greatest oysters and amazing pasta. If I’m not with the family and I’m just by myself or with a girlfriend, I’ll go to Laurel Tavern, which is a pub that has the greatest little menu.

7:30 p.m.: Read 10 pages before bed

Then we’ll come home. If there’s football, we’ll watch football. We go for the Jets. Poor Jets. I’m a New York fan so the Jets or the Giants are fine with me, but my husband is addicted to suffering. After football, we’ll both get in bed with our laptops and we’ll either watch something together and I’ll rub his head until he falls asleep. Or I’ll go back to doomscrolling and watching news until my feelings are hurt or I’ll read a book that I have. Because I’m on screen so much, I’m forcing myself to read at least 10 pages a night. I’m currently reading ”Communion” by bell hooks. It’s very heavy. Then I’ll do a little bit of journaling and I’m asleep by 9:30 p.m.

Devin Elle Kurtz makes her opinion on generative AI known. For the last few years, the 29-year-old Pasadena artist says she’s been frustrated when strangers tell her that her art style looks AI-generated.

They have it backward, she insists. Kurtz, who has been sharing her art on the internet since she was a teenager, suspects that her viral art may have been used to train AI models. Her Instagram bio reads, “NO AI,” alongside a circle-backslash emoji.

Her feelings on the subject made what she discovered Thursday morning all the more painful, the artist said. Kurtz woke up to multiple emails from fans telling her that the Trump administration’s Department of Education had posted a meme on X that looked eerily similar to one of her works — fan art inspired by one of her favorite scenes from the animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” In the work, Aang and Zuko are shown practicing fire-bending moves as two dragons move around them.

The Department of Education’s post includes an image of the two characters in seemingly identical stances, outfits and color scheme. “There’s magic in learning,” reads text added over the image. “Make education great again.”

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday.

Kurtz soon took to social media to condemn the Trump administration. She wrote on the platform: “I did not and would never consent to this administration running my fanart through AI and posting it. Can’t even believe I’m saying these words.” Her response had 150,000 likes as of late Thursday night.

“It definitely made me angry,” Kurtz told The Times on Thursday. “Seeing something that I made appropriated with a Make America Great Again-adjacent slogan on it made me quite upset. I knew I wanted to make it really clear that this was not something that I co-signed.”

Kurtz said she made the artwork in 2023 to share her love of the series with its creators and with other fans.

“Fandom at its core is supposed to be humans loving something together,” Kurtz said. “I want to live in a world where the things that I see around me are made by people. That is what being a human being is all about. Not just output for the sake of output.”

Kurtz said several tells led her to conclude that AI was likely used to alter her work. In the version shared by the Trump administration, the dragons have been removed, and the platform the duo is standing on has oddly sized bricks.

Since her fan art is based on existing intellectual property, she doesn’t intend to pursue legal action.

“It would be fantastic if the government didn’t take artists’ work and run it through AI and post it,” Kurtz said.

Kurtz joins a laundry list of artists who have accused the Trump administration of using their work without their knowledge, including singer Olivia Rodrigo and Japanese artist Hiroshi Nagai.

In December, singer Sabrina Carpenter was angered when her song “Juno” was used in the soundtrack for a Department of Homeland Security promotional video featuring clips of officers tackling and handcuffing people.

“[T]his video is evil and disgusting,” Carpenter replied. “Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.” The Department of Homeland Security has since deleted that video.

Paul Sinha, known as The Sinnerman on The Chase, has spoken about an awkward moment he suffered a few years ago, one which he said had forced him to learn the hard way about preparing for the show

The Chase star Paul Sinha has provided some insight into how he prepares for his role on the famous ITV programme. Paul, 56, joined the programme in 2011 and has gone on to become a fan favourite.

Before he was a television star and stand-up comedian, Paul was a GP and professional quizzer. Earlier this month, he sat down with fellow former medical professional, and current comedian, Harry Hill, 62, for an interview.

Appearing on The Harry Hill Show podcast, the pair discussed a variety of topics, but it was after a discussion about some of his scores at the World Quizzing Championships, that Harry asked Paul what sort of preparation he had to do for The Chase, where he is known as The Sinnerman.

In response, Paul said: “Practically, try not to look ignorant, like old and ignorant. Years ago I said, ‘I’ve never heard of John Legend’ on The Chase, and it’s haunted me ever since that I could appear on television as a quiz expert and not have heard of John Legend.”

He added: “So the most important thing is to just keep up with the things that would make you look old if you reveal you don’t know anything about it…I learn stuff every day, every afternoon, every evening.”

Harry followed up his first question by asking if Paul put “time aside” to learn, to which he said: “No….Life’s too short.”

This isn’t the first time Paul has spoken about what life is like behind-the-scenes of The Chase, with the former Taskmaster contestant admitting that although he is competitive whilst playing the game, some parts of it are harder than others.

In an interview with the Metro, in which he touched on his approach to contestants who take on the Chasers, he said: “I don’t mind if they win and it’s close, but if I’m going to stop some real human beings winning money that could change their lives.

“I want it to be as uncontroversial as it’s possible to be, because it’s horrible. But for me, it’s always hard watching the disappointment in their eyes as a large amount of money slips away. I’d much rather not a close thing.”

However, Paul added that, in some cases, he will speak to some of the contestants afterwards, particularly if all four players have won, but not if only one of them has lost.

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The epic war drama is based on a true story and viewers have hailed it an ‘outstanding masterpiece’ that’s ‘as good as Saving Private Ryan’ – it’s leaving Netflix on November 5.

For most film fans when the subject of war films arises a handful of reliable titles dominate the conversation and establish the standard. Movies such as Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, and The Hurt Locker have long been regarded as masterworks in the genre, with discussions inevitably returning to these films.

However, audiences are now claiming there’s another war movie by a legendary actor and director that rivals, if not surpasses, the Holy Trinity referenced above.

Viewers have just a few more days remaining to watch the ‘masterpiece’ war drama, though, as the film is departing the Netflix library on November 5.

Featuring an outstanding Bradley Cooper in the central role – who has received endless praise for his titular performance in the picture – this 2014 war drama has been helmed by acting icon Clint Eastwood.

American Sniper is presently streaming on Netflix – and audiences simply cannot get enough of the war drama, reports the Express.

The picture’s official synopsis states: “Navy S.E.A.L. sniper Chris Kyle’s pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. Back home with his family after four tours of duty, however, Chris finds that it is the war he can’t leave behind.”

Sienna Miller plays the female lead of the picture alongside Cooper, and the leading duo are supported by Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Cory Hardrict, Kevin Lacz, Navid Negahban, and Keir O’Donnell in additional roles. American Sniper draws from the 2012 memoir of the same title written by war veteran Chris Kyle alongside Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice.

The war drama proved a colossal box office triumph, raking in $547 million against a production budget of roughly $59 million.

Beyond its commercial triumph, the picture garnered critical acclaim, securing six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for Cooper, while ultimately claiming an Oscar for Best Sound Editing.

Audiences are completely taken with the war drama, as one fan writes on Rotten Tomatoes: “Powerful, emotional and very gritty. Directed to a tee by Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper excels as usual exceptionally well in character. Top class cinematography and writing. Succeeds in gripping you to the point where you can almost experience the settings physically. Outstanding on absolutely every level. Truly a memorable movie about a memorable man.”

Another viewer said of the film: “I can’t remember a movie in the last decade, that was as riveting and captivating as “American Sniper.” I kept seeing the trailer on TV and when I finally went to see it, I was already jacked-up…and it delivered. A+ Script A+ Director A+ Lead Actor A+ Supporting Actors A+ Cinematographer. Eastwood, Cooper and the screenwriter made a great team…which eventually became a great film.”

While another audience review reads: “One of the best war movies of our time. The character is really in focus and has a lot of development which makes it stand out in the sea of meaningless war stories. Really emotional and intense throughout. Amazing performance from Bradley Cooper too.”

Critics have been left equally bowled over, as one writes: “… a mature film of the toll war takes on its warriors, and you should see it, regardless of your politics.”

While another reviewer noted: “What a surprise that rather than an uncritical testament to the might of the armed forces, Eastwood delivers this complex, conflicted and profoundly moving look at the military machine, and the toll it takes on the soldiers.”

A third critic added: “American Sniper is devastating on the emotional level, especially with a very buffed-up Bradley Cooper in the lead role.”

American Sniper is available to stream on Netflix till November 4.

Good Morning Britain hosts Ranvir Singh and Paul Brand paid tribute to an acting legend on Friday

The hosts of Good Morning Britain shared some heartbreaking news on Friday.

During the latest edition of the ITV morning programme (October 30), Ranvir Singh and Paul Brand announced the death of Sir Patrick Stewart. The legendary Star Trek and stage actor died at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday (October 28) at the age of 86, following a “brief and poignant journey” with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Just moments into GMB, Ranvir said: “Sir Patrick Stewart, the star of everything from Star Trek to Shakespeare, has died at the age of 86. Born in Yorkshire, he conquered the world of acting.”

Ranvir went on: “I think there was a whole nation going, ‘Oh no,’ about Sir Patrick Stewart, what a giant of stage and screen. [He has] sadly died at the age of 86, following a short battle with dementia. Friends have paid tribute to the actor, calling him a titan of his craft.”

Paul added: “Sir Patrick’s talent saw him move effortlessly from performing Shakespeare, to delivering epic Hollywood performances, becoming one of the most loved performers of his generation.”

Philip Sime then looked back on Sir Patrick’s career in a pre-recorded segment. He began: “To millions around the world, he is Jean-Luc Picard, the calm and courageous commander of the USS Enterprise.”

Sir Patrick was born in Yorkshire, into a home marred by poverty and domestic abuse. Acting first on stage, then on screen, was his escape. He would go on to play Professor Charles Xavier in the blockbuster X-Men films, securing his position as one of Hollywood’s brightest stars.

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William Shatner said: “He brought intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did.” Hugh Jackman simply called the star “one of the greats of stage and screen”.

Philip went on: “Sir Patrick’s swansong, though, will be the upcoming Avengers film. One last appearance alongside a lifelong friend.”

Back in the studio, Ranvir said: “A remarkable man, an absolute hero… He was an ambassador for Women’s Refuge, because, of course, his mother suffered domestic abuse at the hands of watching his father attack his mother when he was young. He spoke about it so openly, and it definitely changed lives, especially for young boys growing up in those environments. So many people want to thank him this morning.”

GMB viewers were quick to pay tribute across social media, with one X user writing: “A Yorkshire legend who will be forever immortalised in Sci-fi, Shakespeare, and comics.” Another added: “Not just a sci-fi actor but brilliant comedy actor and his classical work would leave you breathless. I was SO affected by his role of Macbeth at Gielgud Theatre. I still have the framed poster on my living room wall.”

A third said: “I don’t think I realised just how much Patrick Stewart meant to me until I saw this news tonight. Been sitting here watching old clips with tears in my eyes. My childhood, my heroes, my Captain. Thank you for everything, Sir Patrick.”

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays on ITV1 and ITVX at 6am

More information about dementia is available via organisations including the NHS and Dementia UK

WHEN Gemma Owen returned to our screens in her family’s new reality show, she was hoping viewers would see a different side to her.

But while the 23-year-old has swapped Love Island bikinis for tweed jackets and early mornings at the stables, her latest career move has delivered a rather less glamorous reality.

Gemma has applied to have her clothing firm G R O Clothing struck off the company register, with the latest accounts showing the business is £10,000 in debt.

The application was submitted on Wednesday, with Gemma and fellow TV star mum Louise listed as the directors authorising the move. The company’s latest accounts were filed on the same day.

It marks a disappointing end for a business that once looked perfectly placed to cash in on Gemma’s sudden fame.

For when she left the Love Island villa in 2022, the footballer’s daughter was tipped to become one of the show’s biggest financial success stories.

“She had the profile, the contacts and the exposure, and people expected her clothing line to take off,” one source tells me.

“To end up having to shut it down, with the company in debt, is obviously disappointing.”

Gemma launched OG Beachwear in 2020 with the help of Louise, two years before she became a household name on the ITV2 dating show.

She wore her own designs in front of millions of viewers during her time in the villa, where she finished as runner-up alongside then-boyfriend Luca Bish.

Among the products was a £72 swimsuit, while a set of bracelets was promoted to fans as the “sought-after Gemma Owen bracelets”.

It was the sort of exposure most young business owners could only dream of.

After leaving the show, Gemma signed a six-figure deal with fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing, describing it as a “dream come true”.

She also had the sort of famous surname that could open doors, with her dad Michael a former England striker who has since become a football pundit and racehorse owner.

But while Gemma’s profile continued to grow, the figures for her own clothing firm told a very different story.

After Love Island, she rebranded OG Beachwear as G R O Clothing and expanded the range to include loungewear. She even got Luca to model some of the pieces alongside her.

Yet the business appears to have struggled to turn the initial buzz into lasting sales.

Accounts filed around two years ago showed the company had made nothing in its latest financial year, following a £1,670 loss in the 12 months before.

The latest accounts show the company is £10,000 in debt.

The decision to close the business will inevitably raise questions about what happened to the fashion ambitions that once looked like a natural next step after Love Island.

A source added: “It’s embarrassing for Gemma because when she came out of Love Island, there was a real expectation that she would turn that fame into a hugely successful business.

“There’s no getting away from the fact that plenty of people who came out of Love Island alongside Gemma have gone on to build very successful careers and businesses.

“She will be aware of that, and it must be frustrating when something she put her name to hasn’t worked out as she hoped.”

And the timing is particularly awkward, as Gemma attempts to relaunch her television career in Meet the Owens, the family’s six-part Prime Video series.

The show follows her alongside Michael, Louise and her younger siblings James, Emily and Jessica, offering viewers a glimpse into their family life and their world of horses.

It is also a surprising move from Michael, 46, who has long been regarded as one of the more reserved figures in football.

Once dubbed “the most boring man in football”, the former striker has largely stayed out of the limelight since retiring from the game.

In the series, he jokes that he is now better known as a “boring p***k” or “Gemma Owen’s dad” after his eldest daughter appeared on Love Island.

But the documentary is not just about family life. Michael has revealed that he has invested between £12million and £13million into Manor House Stables, his horse racing operation in Cheshire, and admits the business still needs investors.

Accounts for his company Owen Promotions show it holds £7,219 in cash and owes £2.3million to creditors, although these are company figures and do not establish his personal wealth.

The stables themselves have assets of approximately £13.6million, but a source has claimed the business remains expensive to run, with no guarantee that the horses bought will go on to win races. Owen hasn’t commented on the claim.

For Gemma, meanwhile, the family’s return to television has brought its own mixed reception.

The star looks a world away from the fresh-faced, bikini-clad teenager who first appeared on Love Island aged 19.

Her social media is now dominated by elegant outfits, sportswear and horse-related events, with tweed jackets, cashmere knitwear and expensive jewellery replacing many of the swimwear snaps that once helped promote her business.

A source previously told The Sun: “Gemma was catapulted into the spotlight on Love Island, but her days of showing off her bikini body in public appear to be long gone.

“Nowadays, she can often be seen dressed head-to-toe in tasteful Holland Cooper outfits and expensive jewellery, which she wears at posh horse-related events.”

She has also thrown herself into equestrian pursuits, having competed in dressage since the age of 11.

In July, Gemma made her amateur jockey debut in the Magnolia Cup charity race at Goodwood, finishing fourth out of 12 after months of gruelling training.

She has spoken about wanting to continue with both dressage and racing, telling Horse & Hound magazine: “If I can do both, I will. Racing in the morning, dressage in the afternoon.”

But the demanding schedule has fuelled whispers that her family and horses leave little room for a wider social life.

One source previously said: “Family and horses are everything to Gemma, and both take up so much of her time there’s not much left over for friends who aren’t involved in horses.”

And since returning to television, she has faced a fresh wave of criticism from viewers.

One online commenter cruelly wrote: “Seen more charisma in a fly tipped mattress.”

Another claimed: “Gemma isn’t a natural onscreen with her monotone voice.”

The comments have added to the scrutiny surrounding her attempt to establish herself beyond the dating show that made her famous.

An insider says: “Gemma has had to contend with some pretty cruel comments since returning to television.

“She’s come back into the spotlight hoping people will see a different side to her, but the reaction has been mixed.

“When you’re trying to establish yourself beyond the show that made you famous, the last thing you want is for people to be questioning whether you have the personality or the business nous to succeed.

The closure of G R O Clothing does not mean Gemma has run out of commercial opportunities.

She has continued to secure brand partnerships with PrettyLittleThing, country outfitter Holland Cooper and jewellery firm Abbott Lyon, while her media work and other deals are handled through a separate company, OG Promotions.

But they do highlight the difference between the opportunities available to Gemma as an influencer and the performance of the clothing label she built around her own name.

A recognisable face can help sell a product, but turning that attention into a sustainable business is another challenge altogether.

And as Gemma focuses on horses, family life and her return to television, her fashion venture appears to have reached the end of the road.

“Gemma is at a point where she needs to work out what she really wants her career to look like,” the source says.

“She has the advantage of a recognisable name and plenty of opportunities, but she needs to find the things that genuinely work for her.”

Gemma’s representatives were contacted for comment.

KATIE Price has issued a heartbreaking update on her seriously ill mum Amy after previously revealing fears she had just days left to live.

The former glamour model, 48, discussed her mother’s condition with sister Sophie during an emotional conversation on their joint podcast, The Katie Price Show.

Katie insisted her mum was still fighting despite her ongoing health struggles, declaring: “But mother is strong.” The sisters also discussed visiting Amy, with Katie revealing she’d picked up a thoughtful present for her.

She said: “They had a bright pink cardigan so I bought it for mum because I know she’ll love it.” Sophie then asked whether Katie was planning to visit their mother in the coming days.

She said: “Are you going up there this week? I’m going up Thursday or Friday this week.” Katie replied: “Well when she goes, you know, what we know is happening, I’ll be there all the time, staying over. So I’ll do that.”

Sophie responded: “Yeah, nice.” The emotional exchange comes after Katie told Lewes Crown Court earlier this month that her mum had only days left.

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She said at the time: “My mum’s dying at the moment and I haven’t been able to see her (because) I’ve got a cold… she’s got days.” Katie added: “I did promise my mum I’d see her tomorrow.”

Amy, 74, was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2017, a rare condition that causes irreversible scarring of the lungs. She underwent a lifesaving lung transplant in 2023 after falling into a coma and coming close to death.

Katie previously revealed her mum was in hospital and “very poorly”, and begged her to “find the strength to stay” in an emotional Instagram post.

The mum-of-five also admitted she feared losing Amy while filming her Sky documentary Katie Price: Nothing to Hide earlier this year.

Katie recently sparked concern after sharing a cryptic Instagram message revealing she had received “devastating news”.

However, she was quick to reassure followers that the upsetting news was not about Amy, writing: “No it’s not my mum.”

James on his exit

“The idea of doing that got me through the whole experience because you feel as a Traitor sometimes, when you see people have real life reactions that are bigger than the game, you feel bad, and I would have to remind myself they don’t have a game without you, literally, if no one’s doing this stuff, they can’t play, and they all want to play,” he said.
“So you are doing an important job here, so they all have something to do, and when they catch you, they’ll be really happy and they’ll like it, and it will feel good to just tell them and see that reaction.”

As Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard and X-Men leader Professor Charles Xavier, he was the epitome of calm leadership under pressure.

But actor Sir Patrick Stewart, who has passed away aged 86 after a secret health battle with Alzheimer’s, spent his life fighting his own personal demons, coming to terms with his abusive childhood.

His father Alf was one of the last men evacuated from Dunkirk and then parachuted into Italy to fight in the brutal Battle of Monte Cassino where 54,000 Allied troops were killed or injured.

Back home in Mirfield, Huddersfield, he subjected the seven-year-old’s mother to brutal beatings.

Often, the young child would stand between his father’s fists and his mother in a desperate attempt to shield her.

“As a child I witnessed his repeated violence against my mother, and the terror and misery he caused was such that, if I felt I could have succeeded, I would have killed him,” he said. “If my mother had attempted it, I would have held him down.

‘INVINCIBLE GRACE’

Full heartbreaking statement after Patrick Stewart’s death at 86

ICON GONE

Hollywood icon Sir Patrick Stewart dead aged 86 after legendary career

“For those who struggle to comprehend these feelings in a child, imagine living in an environment of emotional unpredictability, danger and humiliation week after week, year after year, from the age of seven.

“My childish instinct was to protect my mother, but the man hurting her was my father, whom I respected, admired and feared.”

It was on stage where he found a way to break free from his home life and forge his own path.

“I managed to find my own refuge in acting,” he said. “The stage was a far safer place for me than anything I had to live through at home – it offered escape.

“I could be someone else, in another place, in another time.

“However, whenever the role called for anger, fury, or the expression of murderous impulses, I was always afraid of what I might unleash if I surrendered myself to those feelings.”

Born on July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, near Huddersfield, life was bliss until his father Alf returned home from war with what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder.

He said: ”My parents’ bedroom had a partition built into it, which is where my old brother Trevor and I slept. No hot water, no cooking facilities, no toilet, bathroom. Just an open fire and a gas ring.

“I’d never known anything else.”

Reflecting the violence at home, Stewart’s own anger was close to the surface and he struggled to contain it at school.

He said: “I was beaten with a cane by my headmaster when I was 14, when I was innocent of what he was accusing me of.

“It was one of the hardest moments ever, because I wanted to attack him. I would have killed him.

“If I’d actually got my hands on him, I don’t think he’d have made it out.”

His salvation came in the form of English teacher Cecil Dormand who put a copy of Shakespeare in his hands and encouraged him to perform.

It was the Mirfield Secondary Modern School drama club that gave him a glimpse of something beyond the confines of his terraced home and violent abuse.

He said: “The first moment that I walked onto the school stage I felt safe — it was the safest place I’d ever been.

“For one thing I wasn’t Patrick Stewart because I didn’t like Patrick Stewart very much.

“And it was a different world, it wasn’t my world — because I didn’t like that very much either.”

He got another dreaded summons to his headmaster’s office. But this time instead of a caning he saw Mr Dormand and someone from the West Riding County Council who offered him an eight-day residential drama course.

It was there he met a young Brian Blessed, who he would later perform with in the classic TV drama I, Claudius.

Years later they bumped into each other together at a glitzy awards ceremony in Los Angeles:

“There we were: two working-class boys from Yorkshire, walking down the red carpet.”

He left school at 15 and got a job as a junior reporter on his local paper the Mirfield & District while dedicating every moment to acting, much to the annoyance of his editor.

He said: “There were about a dozen amateur dramatic societies in my community. Every church, every chapel had one — even if it only meant doing a pantomime once a year.

“The editor eventually said ‘You’ve got to give it all up, this acting business, and learn to be a journalist. If you don’t, you can get off my paper.’

“So I went upstairs, packed up my typewriter and left.”

He got a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and in 1966 joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, a relationship that would last for nearly three decades.

He went on to win two supporting actor Olivier Awards for his Shakespeare performances, for Antony and Cleopatra in 1979 and Hamlet in 2009.

He was awarded a knighthood for services to drama in 2009 and was knighted by the late Queen in 2010.

The stage was his true love despite one appearance on Coronation Street in 1966 and playing John Le Carre’s Russian spy Karla in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People.

But in 1987 he was tempted by what he thought would be a quick Hollywood cash grab and be back home on the stage in a few months.

But Star Trek: The Next Generation became a global smash and his cultured, thoughtful Picard became an iconic role.

The sci-fi TV series ran for seven years, with Sir Patrick starring in Star Trek Generations in 1994, Star Trek: First Contact in 1996 and Star Trek: Insurrection in 1998 and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).

He said: “I was contemptuous. I knew of the original Star Trek, of course… I thought, ‘This is not what I do. I’m a classical actor.’

“I thought I’d just go to California for a year, get a tan and earn some money.

“I came to love Jean-Luc Picard and to admire him, and he has had an effect on me. Some of his qualities, I believe, have rubbed off on me.

“The sense of responsibility, the sense of duty, the determination that you will not be compromised.”

In 2000, he was cast as powerful telepath Professor Charles Xavier in the film adaptation of Marvel‘s X-Men comics.

He would come back to the series in 2014’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past, 2017’s Logan, 2022’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness and 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine.

Again, his thoughtful, nurturing persona and his rivalry with old friend Sir Ian McKellen’s Magneto became cinema legend.

He said: “I love him deeply. So does my wife. He married us — he performed the ceremony in a Mexican restaurant.”

Singer-songwriter Sunny Ozell was Stewart’s third wife and eyebrows were raised at their 38-year age gap.

He had two children, Daniel, 59, and Sophie, 54, with his first wife Sheila Falconer who he married in 1966 and divorced 24 years later.

He was briefly married to producer Wendy Neuss in 2000 then he met and married Sunny in 2013.

The couples’ fun Instagram posts of the Shakespearean actor in hilarious situations, like being dressed as a lobster, burst his rather serious Shakespearean public face.

Making home in Los Angeles, where he watched every game of his beloved Huddersfield Town, he started having weekly therapy sessions to deal with his traumatic childhood.

Stewart said: “It wasn’t until I came to California and people would say, ‘You’re not in therapy? Let me recommend somebody.’ I was introduced to a brilliant woman with whom I did therapy weekly for about six years.

“It was thanks to her that all this stuff came out and I realised that acting was an escape for me.”

In 2006 a routine check up discovered an 85 per cent blockage in his heart and he underwent emergency surgery to fix it by having a stent inserted.

He said: “I was diagnosed very unexpectedly during my annual physical by my cardiologist, who said ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’

“To which I said ‘Well actually, I’m going for lunch.’ And he said, ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

“And in five minutes I was on a gurney giving details of my next of kin and so it was rather dramatic.

“I didn’t have time to brood on it, but what I did know was that I was in the best possible hands I could’ve been in and I was going to be taken care of whatever the outcome.

His mother Gladys died in 1977, three years before Alfred. After turning 80 in 2020 and with the pandemic and lockdown in full swing he began to think about his own mortality.

He said: “When my father was living alone, I believe he missed her badly.

“And perhaps he might even have regretted aspects of their married life.

“I was already older than both my parents when they died, but I think it was the coronavirus. It did something to me.

“It made me feel so vulnerable.”

In a final video posted on Instagram before his death, Sir Patrick reflected on love and the emotions evoked by his performances of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

He said: “I hope it has brought pleasure and curiosity but more than anything else I want it to have communicated all the multiple features that love might have.”