25th

IT’S shaping up to be a very exciting year for Alesha Dixon, Sabrina Washington and Su-Elise Nash.

I’m told the singers, who you will know better as Noughties girl band Mis-Teeq, have been discussing how they can celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album, Lickin’ On Both Sides.

The record, which came out in October 2001, peaked at No3 in the Official Album Charts and bagged them five Top Ten singles including All I Want, One Night Stand and B With Me.

And now the trio are considering reuniting for a special show to mark the milestone.

A source said: “Alesha has been excitedly talking about this for a while and would love a Mis-Teeq reunion with Sabrina and Su-Elise happen.

“Fans shouldn’t expect a Girls Aloud-style comeback tour, though.

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“At the minute, lots of things are being discussed and one thing that has come up is the idea of a one-off show. It could be an intimate gig for their die-hard fans or a performance on a big TV programme such as Britain’s Got Talent — which Alesha is a judge on.

“Nothing has formally been offered but nothing is off the table.

“Lickin’ On Both Sides launched Alesha, Sabrina and Su-Elise’s music careers and that record holds a really special place in their hearts.

“They want to celebrate that album with their fans.”

Alesha and Sabrina now appear to be back on good terms after the latter threatened to sue over unpaid royalties in 2020.

Sabrina, who was the group’s lead singer, started legal proceedings against Alesha over royalties going back 15 years as well as action against former label Universal.

She alleged Alesha had “wrongfully claimed” song-writing cash for their first two singles Why and All I Want.

A pal said at the time: “Alesha received five per cent royalties for the girls’ first two songs whereas Sabrina received nothing.

“They both should have got 2.5 per cent. Sabrina wasn’t listed as a writer for the tracks but it was written in her contract that she would get pay parity.

“She feels she is owed thousands.”

At the time, a spokesman for Alesha said: “Alesha wrote the raps on both Why? and All I Want and that is why she gets a split.

“The rest of the song was written by a production team. Sabrina has no reason to sue Alesha.”

Earlier this summer Alesha admitted a reunion could be on the cards but added: “Thinking doesn’t mean we are doing, but we’re thinking.

“Which is more than we’ve done.”

Dua toasts a top year

DUA LIPA has been knocking back the cocktails to celebrate a stellar 2025.

I can reveal the Training Season singer raked in £70million in the year to March 2025, making it the most lucrative of her career.

Dua kept it real, though – despite earning the mammoth amount, she only paid herself a paltry £500.

New documents show her live gigs company, Radical22 Live, banked £45.6million, while Dua made a further £45.6million from her management, publishing and production company.

It’s almost double the earnings of other big British pop acts, including Ed Sheeran, over the past year – so I’m not surprised she’s busting open the booze.

Sharing snaps of her end-of-year celebrations, with her family and actor fiance Callum Turner, Dua wrote online: “Thank you for making my last year so special.

“I’m excited to make this the best one yet.”

It certainly will be if 2026 is the year she and Callum get married . . . 

No more Fab secrets

THE BEATLES’ vaults have been slammed shut after 63 years, with super producer Giles Martin admitting fans will never hear any more secret tracks from the Fab Four.

Giles has spent a number of years scouring through the band’s audio recordings, studio archives and even individual projects penned for them over their history.

His efforts have helped produce the current Disney Plus revived Beatles’ Anthology series and remixed albums and tracks.

Asked how much untouched Beatles content exists now, Martin said:
“I don’t think there’s anything. I always say that then something turns up.

“But I don’t think there’s anything. It’s incredible how much interest there still is over Beatles stuff.

“You do [hear new] things on this Anthology box set. There’s that first round of Helter Skelter, which for me is great because it’s really raw.

“It’s proper in your face music.

“And then people go, ‘Well, how come we haven’t released the 20-minute long version of Helter Skelter?’ I think we’re done.” Giles curated the new

Anthology 4 album and remastered the entire collection for the 2025 re-release of The Beatles’ Anthology series.

He believes that collaborating with his late father George Martin, also known as the fifth Beatle, on these projects has been spiritually and professionally fulfilling.

He added: “The Beatles are so powerful that it’s what people want to know about.

“It’s really nice. I love my dad. We were incredibly close.

“Their music and what they did really makes people feel better about themselves. So it’s a complete honour to work on this material and to be close to my dad is a great thing.”

Giles is currently working with director Sam Mendes on the four upcoming Beatles movies, with each focussing on a different member of the band.

On radio in the US, Giles added: “I’m working on these films. They come out in three years.

“What’s amazing about The Beatles is that new generations hear stuff and go back and unearth this catalogue.”

Mel’s bid to mark big hit

THE SPICE GIRLS’ smash hit Wannabe, the song that soundtracked my childhood, turns 30 this year and Mel C has confirmed the group will be celebrating the milestone.

Incredibly, she is still convinced that she can somehow persuade Posh and Ginger to join her, Scary and Baby for a reunion.

Spilling the beans herself on Australian radio, Mel joked: “We’ve decided not to tell Mel B anything because she can’t keep her mouth shut – and also she doesn’t know any more because we’re not telling her.”

Speaking of Wannabe’s 30th anniversary Mel added: “We have to acknowledge it in some way.”

And she explained how plans for that are progressing.

“We are talking about what that looks like and for me, myself, Melanie and Emma. We’re going back on stage  . . .  but sometimes the others may need some convincing.

She said: “Getting the five of us together, it would be the best thing ever. Sometimes I feel like it’s my duty to the world.”

“There’s so much negativity, there’s so much mad s**t going on – let’s just spice up our lives.”

Of her relationships with her bandmates, Mel said: “We have a newfound respect for each other.

“We know when to leave it, we know each other’s irritations and insecurities and we respect that now as adults and mothers.

Recalling their 2019 reunion tour, she added: “The love we had last time that was beamed back from these stadiums was like nothing I’ve experienced as a Spice Girl before.”

Twigs bold and brave

FKA TWIGS has admitted that she’s finally found the courage to speak up for herself.

Speaking in the February edition of Elle UK, which is on sale now, the British singer said: “I’m reaching that age where I can really look back at my life and I can see so many things that have been beautiful and amazing, and other things that have been really brutal and violent.”

Twigs added: “I’m realising that I can hold my love of life and my artistry and the beauty of my life, and I can also hold the brutality and the sadness and the violence.

“I can hold things at the same time, and that feels really good.

“I’ve always wanted to be at this perfect cross point of growth and youth – to be able to be young and sexy and healthy – and also not be an idiot like I was in my 20s.”

Don’t be too hard on yourself, Twigs, no one is that proud of what they did in their 20s.

Ashley is boiling hot

ASHLEY ROBERTS is making me green with envy after sharing even more of her holiday snaps.

The Pussycat Dolls singer quit the freezing wind and snow we’re having in Blighty for the boiling hot sunshine of Mauritius.

Ash told her Instagram followers she’d had the “best time”.

I’m thrilled for you, Ashley. Just thrilled.

HARRY STYLES and Zoe Kravitz have added another destination to their extensive list of travel hotspots.

Since they started dating, the pair have been seen all over the world – including New York, Paris, Rome and London.

Now it’s claimed they spent the last few days holed up inside a luxury resort in the Bahamas.

This sure is a long honeymoon period.

One fan claimed they spotted the former One Direction singer jogging on a beach over the New Year.

NICK JONAS has dropped his reflective new single Gut Punch, before the release of his fifth album, Sunday Best.

On it Nick sings: “Hit me like a gut punch. I hurt my own feelings. How did I get so good at being mean to myself?”

The US star, who is married to Priyanka Chopra, said: “I do wonder if I’m being the best version of myself.

“Am I a present husband and father? Life weighs on you.

“It’s important to remember there was once a carefree version of you loved the world.”

Gil Gerard, the actor who became a childhood hero to many for his lead performances in the 1979 movie “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” and its subsequent TV incarnation, died early Tuesday, his wife announced on social media. He was 82.

“Early this morning Gil — my soulmate — lost his fight with a rare and viciously aggressive form of cancer,” Janet Gerard wrote Tuesday evening on Facebook. “From the moment when we knew something was wrong to his death this morning was only days.”

She was by Gerard’s side when he died in hospice care, she added as she placed another post — a pre-written message from the actor to his family, friends and fans — on her husband’s Facebook page.

“If you are reading this, then Janet has posted it as I asked her to,” the actor wrote. “My life has been an amazing journey. The opportunities I’ve had, the people I’ve met and the love I have given and received have made my 82 years on the planet deeply satisfying.”

The post was followed by myriad comments in which fans spontaneously recalled Gerard’s work as Buck Rogers and shared the influence he had on their lives.

“Your time as Buck Rogers was way too short but it has stayed with me in my childhood memories for 45+ years,” one man wrote. “Your hero was brave, macho, but also kind, compassionate, and fair. I feel as if that was representative of the man you truly were. Thank you for being the kind of ‘make believe’ hero that we should all want to be in real life.”

Another fan replied, “[H]aving met him, I can say he was all that. On and off the screen.”

Wrote another, “Like many here, I grew up watching Gil as Buck Rogers. He was cool… and he was funny… and he was nice. I was happy to find him here after all these years… still cool… still funny… still nice. It was a highlight when he ‘liked’ one of my comments. We’ll keep an eye out for you… 500 years into the future!”

Gerard discussed the allure of “Buck Rogers” with The Times in 2010.

“With our show, the reason people liked it was the humor and the fact that it was colorful and upbeat and it had heroes in it,” he said, chatting at a comic convention in Anaheim. “It was family entertainment. I think it’s great to deal with more serious issues, but you can do it with humor — look at what ‘All in the Family’ dealt with. You can be serious without being relentlessly dark and heavy.”

He also had wishes for the future direction of sci-fi projects, which at the time he observed were “very dark, almost hopeless.” And, he said, “wet.”

“Have you noticed how much rain they get in the future now? Everything is rainy and muddy. I don’t understand, either, how come everybody is so dirty when there’s so much water around everywhere,” Gerard observed with what seemed to be a healthy sense of humor. “Look at ‘Waterworld’ — they live in a place with no land and everyone’s covered in dirt. I don’t get it. You think they’d fall overboard and get clean once in a while.”

Gilbert Cyril Gerard was born Jan. 23, 1943, in Little Rock, Ark., and trekked to New York City in 1969 to give acting a shot, studying at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

He drove a taxi to pay the bills and, according to his website, one day a fare told him to show up on the set of the movie “Love Story.” Ten weeks of work on the film followed and his career took off. At first Gerard appeared primarily in commercials, representing companies including Ford, Coca-Cola and Proctor & Gamble until he landed the role of former POW Dr. Alan Stewart on NBC’s “The Doctors.” He put on the white coat and stethoscope for more than 300 episodes of that daytime drama from 1973 to 1976.

Then an agent lured him to the West Coast, where auditions got him noticed by NBC. NBC’s interest led to his casting in the title role in Universal Pictures’ “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” starring alongside Erin Gray as Col. Wilma Deering and Pamela Hensley as Princess Ardala.

As William “Buck” Rogers, Gerard played a 20th century astronaut who had come out of suspended animation 500 years in the future, only to discover a planet in ruins. In 1979 dollars, the film earned more than $21 million worldwide, or about $100 million when adjusted for inflation.

His career outside of “Buck Rogers” included appearances on mainstream shows abundant in that era — “Baretta,” “Hawaii 5-0,” “CHiPs” and “Little House on the Prairie” among them — as well as more obscure TV movies with delightful titles: “Reptisaurus,” “Nuclear Hurricane” and “Bone Eater.” “Sidekicks” in the mid-1980s, a couple of years after the release of the Oscar-nominated 1984 movie “The Karate Kid,” saw him playing a cop who becomes the guardian of a pre-teen martial-arts expert. A stint on the short-lived 1990 series “E.A.R.T.H Force” earned him some light snark from The Times’ then-critic Howard Rosenberg.

But Gerard also appeared in successful mainstream films including “The Nice Guys” starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling and “The Big Easy” with Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin.

Gerard was married and divorced four times before exchanging vows with Janet Gerard in the 2010s. Among his wives was model and actor Connie Sellecca, whom he was married to from 1979 until their divorce was finalized in 1987. They had one child, a son.

In addition to addictions to alcohol and drugs, the actor battled his weight starting in the 1980s, with the once-trim leading man eventually seeing his health suffer as he topped 300 pounds, according to a 1990 interview with People. He later chronicled his 2005 mini gastric-bypass surgery in the 2007 Discovery Health special “Action Hero Makeover.”

“Gil likely saved my life. I was badly in need of weightloss surgery. I was resistant…then i saw a documentary on Gils weight loss journey. It was the impetus I needed as Gil was a hero of mine growing up,” a fan wrote Tuesday on Gerard’s posthumous Facebook post. “I thanked him via email several years ago and he was gracious and kind. I will miss him.”

Gerard appeared to be quite grateful and gracious at the end of his life.

“It’s been a great ride, but inevitably one that comes to a close as mine has,” he wrote in that final prepared post. “Don’t waste your time on anything that doesn’t thrill you or bring you love. See you out somewhere in the cosmos.”

“No matter how many years I got to spend with him it would have never been enough,” Janet Gerard said in closing in her own message on Facebook. “Hold the ones you have tightly and love them fiercely.”

In addition to his wife, Gerard is survived by actor Gilbert Vincent “Gib” Gerard, 44, his son with Sellecca.