Lola Young has made a return to social media after an abrupt pause on her careerCredit: AlamyLola stepped back from the spotlight after a series of strugglesCredit: PABut she broke her silence to thank fans for their supportCredit: Refer to source
Lola, 24, returned to Instagram with some positive news for fans and promised she was doing a lot better.
“Hey, I just wanted to express gratitude to everyone who has given me time and space to gather myself and get my head in a better place,” she wrote in the heartfelt post.
“I’ve felt so much love and support from you all and it has helped more than you will ever know.”
Lola continued: “I am hoping to gradually get back to performing and continuing pursuing my dreams. Happy holidays to you all and can’t wait to see you in 2026.
“Life is a journey, nothing is perfect but today I am doing well. All my love always, Lola x.”
The London-born singer had just released her critically-acclaimed debut when she made the sudden decision to press pause on her career and cancelled her tour.
Announcing her departure in a heartbreaking statement shared on Instagram, Lola said she hopes her followers will give her a “second chance”.
“I’m going away for a while. It pains me to say I have to cancel everything for the foreseeable future. Thank you for all the love and support,” she wrote in a post at the time.
“I’m so sorry to let anyone down who has bought a ticket to see me, it hurts me more than you know.”
The singer had gone through a series secret struggles – from a mental health diagnosis to an ongoing nepo baby row and even legal issues.
Last year, while Lola’s biggest hit was climbing up the charts, she was checked into a rehab facility for an addiction to cocaine.
It’s thought she was admitted last November and the drug addiction swamped the singer for “a long time”, she said in an interview with The Guardian.
She also revealed she ‘hated’ her body after trolls flooded her social media accounts with cruel comments.
Meanwhile, when she was 17, she was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.
The condition is a mix of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, according to the NHS.
Writing on Instagram in 2022, Lola explained: “I have struggled immensely learning to accept this part of myself, and I am still learning.”
Lola’s star exploded in 2024 and had just released her debut album when she paused her careerCredit: Getty
PHOENIX — Camdyn Glover used to be a quiet conservative. She worried what her teachers would think or if she would lose friends over her convictions. But she said something changed when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, and she started crying in her classroom at Indiana University while other students cheered and clapped.
“We can’t be silenced,” Glover decided.
Now she’s visiting Phoenix with her parents and brothers for this year’s Turning Point USA conference, the first to take place since Kirk’s death. Although the organization became a political phenomenon with its masculine appeals to college men, it’s also been expanding outreach to young women like Glover. The shift is poised to accelerate now that Turning Point is led by Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, who has embraced her new role at the helm of a conservative juggernaut with chapters across the country.
If successful, the organization that helped return President Trump to the White House could narrow a gender divide that has been a persistent challenge for Republicans. Turning Point offers a blend of traditional values, such as encouraging women to prioritize marriage over careers, and health trends pushed by online influencers.
Glover, 18, said discovering Turning Point in high school gave her an appreciation for dialogue when she felt like an outcast for her beliefs, such as being anti-abortion. At her first conference, she feels like she’s found a political and cultural home for herself.
“They want to promote a strong independent woman who does hold these values and can go stand up for herself,” she said. “But it’s also OK to do it in heels, put some makeup on, wear a dress.”
‘If Erika can do it, I can do it’
One of Glover’s classmates, Stella Ross, said she stumbled upon Charlie Kirk on TikTok in the months before the last presidential election.
She already felt like her perspectives were being treated differently on campus and thought she was receiving unfairly low grades in her political science classes. A devout Catholic, Ross said she was inspired by how Charlie Kirk wasn’t afraid to weave his evangelical faith into his political arguments.
She also noticed how many women posted comments of appreciation on Erika Kirk’s videos, and she joined Indiana University’s Turning Point chapter in the same month that Trump won his comeback campaign.
“I was like, wow, if Erika can do it, I can do it,” Ross said.
Ross has career aspirations of her own — she interns with Indiana’s Republican Party and aspires to be a press secretary for a governor or president. But she hopes to have flexibility in her job to be fully present with her children and believes that a traditional nuclear structure — man, woman and their children — is “God’s plan.”
When she thinks of Erika Kirk, “it’s really cool to see that she can live out that balance and it makes me feel like that could be a more realistic future for me because I’m seeing it firsthand.”
A new messenger
Erika Kirk often appeared alongside with her husband at Turning Point events. A former beauty pageant winner who has worked as a model, actress and casting director, she also founded a Christian clothing line and a ministry that teaches about the Bible.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, she said she had fully bought into “boss babe” culture before Charlie showed her a “healthier” perspective on life. Now she leads the multimillion-dollar organization, which she said at a memorial for her husband would be made “10 times greater through the power of his memory.”
The political gap between young men and women has been growing for years, according to a recent Gallup analysis. Not only have women under 30 become more likely to identify as ideologically liberal, they’ve also embraced liberal views on issues such as abortion, the environment and gun laws.
The schism was clearly apparent in the last presidential election, where 57% of male voters under 30 supported Trump, compared to only 41% of women under 30, according to AP VoteCast.
Turning Point has been working to change that, hosting events like the Young Women’s Leadership Summit and urging attendees to embrace traditional family values and gender roles.
Charlie Kirk said earlier this year that if a young woman’s priority is to find a husband, she should go to college for a “MRS degree.” Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric at University of North Georgia, said Erika Kirk could be a more effective messenger because she was focused on her career before meeting her husband.
“I do think her story resonates more because she tried it out and can tell them it is not for them,” he said.
Some conservative women are turned off by this approach. Raquel Debono, an influencer who lives in New York City, described the event as a “Stepford wives conference,” featuring women in pink floral dresses.
She said Turning Point’s emphasis on being traditional wives “leaves out a lot of women who work,” she said, “and I think they’re going to lose all those voters, honestly, in the next election cycle if they keep it up.”
Debono founded her own organization, Make America Hot Again, where she throws parties intended to make voters feel welcomed into the conservative movement and allow them to get to know people who share their politics.
‘Big time’ growth for some chapters
Aubree Hudson had been president of Turning Point’s chapter at Brigham Young University for only two weeks when she visited nearby Utah Valley University for an event with Charlie Kirk.
She said she was standing only about six feet away when he was fatally shot. She ran to find her husband, who was at the back of the crowd, and they fled to her car.
Hudson, 22, is from a rural farm town in southwestern Colorado. Her conservative convictions are rooted in her family’s faith and patriotism. A copy of the U.S. Constitution hangs in her parents’ home, and her father taught her to value God, family and country, in that order. Her mother stayed at home, telling her children that “you guys are my career.”
Since Kirk’s assassination, Hudson said the number of people — particularly women — getting involved with the organization jumped “big time.”
Emma Paskett, 18, is one of them. She was planning to attend the Utah Valley University event after one of her classes, but Kirk was shot before she made it there.
Although she wasn’t very familiar with Turning Point before that point, Paskett said she started watching videos of Kirk later that night.
Paskett considers Erika Kirk to be a “one in a million” role model, and her role as a leader was a driving factor in signing up.
“That’s exactly what I want to be like,” she said.
Govindarao writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report from Washington.
In January 2018, conservative Fox News host Laura Ingraham was having dinner at Toscana, an Italian restaurant in Brentwood, when she spotted the renowned Hollywood director — and unabashed liberal — Rob Reiner.
She asked him to come on her show, “The Ingraham Angle.” He was on set the next day.
After introducing him as “a brilliant director,” who made her favorite movie, “This is Spinal Tap,” Ingraham said: “Last night, the first thing Reiner says is: ‘Are they gonna shut the government down?’’ I’m like, wow, I’m here in L.A.; I wanna talk about Hollywood stuff. But he wants to talk about politics.”
Al Gore and Rob Reiner attend the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in April 2007.
(Scott Gries / Getty Images)
Ingraham and Reiner vehemently disagreed — about alleged Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election, about whether President Trump is racist, about the treatment of conservatives in Hollywood.
But Reiner also called Ingraham “smart as hell.” And Ingraham said Reiner “should be lauded” for being willing to spar with her, unlike many politicians on both sides of the aisle.
It was the kind of blunt but ultimately respectful exchange that added to Reiner’s widespread appeal off-screen, both because of — and in spite of — his views.
Reiner and his wife, Michele, were killed at their Brentwood home last weekend, allegedly by their son, Nick, who has been charged with murder. The couple’s deaths have sent a thunderclap through Hollywood and beyond, partly because the Reiners had so many friends and connections in creative and political circles.
Rob Reiner — who, in the role of Michael “Meathead” Stivic in the groundbreaking sitcom “All in the Family,” played the liberal foil to his bigoted, conservative father-in-law, Archie Bunker — seemed to relish his real-life role as a progressive celebrity activist. That made him a hero to many in blue California but a villain to others, especially the reality-TV-show-star-turned-president, Donald Trump.
In a highly criticized social media post, Trump attributed the deaths to “the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
But while Reiner, a blistering critic of the president, disagreed with many conservatives on policy, he also worked to build relationships with them — in media and entertainment circles, the California State Capitol, and beyond.
Actors Alec Baldwin and James Woods listen to director Rob Reiner in between scenes for the 1996 film “Ghosts Of Mississippi.”
(Columbia Pictures via Getty Images)
Actor James Woods, a longtime Trump supporter, said in a Fox News interview this week that Reiner saved his career by casting him in the 1996 film “Ghosts of Mississippi” over studio objections. He called Reiner “a great patriot” with whom he shared a mutual respect despite myriad political disagreements.
Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for conservative powerhouse Turning Point USA, wrote on X that he “shared approximately zero in common with Rob Reiner politically, but I am so saddened by this news” and praying that “justice would be swift and without conspiracies [sic] theories.”
Kolvet said Reiner “responded with grace and compassion” to the September killing of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk — a violent end that Reiner said nobody deserved, regardless of their views.
Hard-right Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, called the deaths “a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies.” And GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, wrote on X that “The Princess Bride” was his favorite film and called Reiner “a comedic and story-telling master.”
Off screen, Reiner had a unique ability to connect with people of all persuasions, in various mediums, at the top of their careers or just starting. He was very much influenced by Norman Lear, the creator of “All in the Family,” who blended his Hollywood career with progressive activism.
Similar to Lear, Reiner didn’t just dabble in social causes and campaigns. He launched them, led them and brought people aboard. “He wasn’t building an operation the way Hollywood typically does, making donations, hosting fundraisers,” said Ben Austin, a former aide to Reiner who worked in the White House during the Clinton administration.
And all the time, he did it while making movies, some of them deeply personal, intertwined with his life as a parent.
Reiner was the driving force behind the successful 1998 California ballot measure, Proposition 10, a landmark policy that put a tax on tobacco products and pumped billions of dollars into preschools, teacher training, and support for struggling families. He enlisted help in that effort from such beloved figures as Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams and his own father, comedy legend Carl Reiner.
After the initiative passed, Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, appointed the younger Reiner chairman of the First 5 commission overseeing disbursement of the funds.
Rob Reiner co-founded the group that would help overturn Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California.
(Los Angeles Times)
And in 2009, Reiner co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which led the successful legal fight to overturn Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California. The group hired legal luminaries from opposite sides of the political spectrum to overturn the ballot measure: the conservative former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and litigator David Boies, a liberal who squared off against Olson in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave George W. Bush the presidency in 2000.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, said in an interview Wednesday that Reiner successfully rallied people to the cause because he was so adept at humanizing the stories of the plaintiffs and other same-sex couples — and emphasizing love.
“I don’t think you can overstate how influential he was at the national, state and local level and how well-liked he was,” Garcetti said. “Politics and movies share this in common: They both need good stories … and he was such a gifted storyteller.”
Garcetti said that while many celebrities lend money and faces to political causes, prettying up political mailers and email blasts, “Rob built those causes. He wasn’t like the frosting on the cake. He actually was the baker.”
Garcetti, then a Los Angeles City Council member, joined Reiner in stumping for 2004 Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, for whom the director was an early backer. Garcetti crossed paths with him often, including during the push to overturn Proposition 8 — and at the Los Angeles City Hall wedding of Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, two of the plaintiffs in the federal case that struck it down.
Katami wrote in an Instagram post this week that Reiner and his wife “stood with us in court for 4.5 years” and that he and his husband sat at the couple’s table in their home many times.
Rob Reiner chats in 2012 with Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, plaintiffs in the case that struck down Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“Because of them, they were able to sit at our table, at our wedding, on a day and in a moment that would not exist without their belief in who we are and how we love,” Katamami wrote.
He added: “They are brave. They are funny. They are generous. They are deeply human. And they make everyone around them feel seen, protected, and encouraged to be more fully themselves.”
Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat now running for California governor, officiated Katami and Zarrillo’s wedding. He said in an interview that Reiner personally bankrolled much of the legal fight because he genuinely believed it was the right thing to do.
In 2008, Villaraigosa kicked off his successful reelection campaign with a private reception at the Reiners’ home.
“You know, the one thing about Rob Reiner: There was no pretense,” Villaraigosa said. “If you go to his house … he’s a very wealthy man — he has been a director, an actor, co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment — and yet his house was like a home. It wasn’t a mansion. It was like a ranch-style house, very homey.”
Rob Reiner hugs then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in January 2015. The director had just introduced Villaraigosa at a school as the mayor kicked off his Leadership Tour highlighting his support for universal preschool.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Villaraigosa and others said Reiner had a granular knowledge of the policies he supported, garnering the respect — if not always the affection — of those with whom he disagreed.
Gale Kaufman, a veteran Democratic strategist who was a longtime advisor to the influential California Teachers Assn., clashed with Reiner over education policy but admired his commitment to — and knowledge about — the issue.
Kaufman told The Times this week that she was amazed by “his attention to detail and his dogged determination that he was right.”
“This was not just someone giving you a pot of money and saying, ‘Go do this.’ This was a guy who was … in every piece of it.”
Cinematographer Reed Morano was one of several in Hollywood whose career soared because of Reiner.
In the late 2000s, Morano was known for filming low-budget projects — often in a gritty, hand-held style. Many of them premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, including the Oscar-nominated “Frozen River.”
In the early 2010s, Morano got a chance to pitch her talents to Reiner and producer Alan Greisman, who were assembling a team to shoot 2012’s “The Magic of Belle Isle,” starring Morgan Freeman and Virginia Madsen and directed by Reiner.
Barely 15 minutes after leaving the meeting, Morano got a call telling her she had the job.
“The thing that strikes me is he could have had anybody he wanted,” said Morano on a call Tuesday from New York City, noting that “Belle Isle” was the biggest budget project she had worked on up to that point. “It’s just he was so open-minded and so forward-thinking, and I think he could see potential that other people couldn’t see.”
Morano then handled cinematography for Reiner’s “And So It Goes,” starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton, released to 2014. Reiner, she said, also wanted her to work on “Being Charlie,” the 2015 addiction drama co-written by his son Nick, but she was unable to because of scheduling conflicts. Separately from Reiner, she would go on to win an Emmy in 2017 for directing on the series “The Handmaid’s Tale” and a prize at Sundance for her second film as director, 2018’s “I Think We’re Alone Now.”
A decade before Morano connected with Reiner, Michael Trujillo, now a veteran campaign consultant, went to work for him as a young communications and policy aide for First 5. He was in his early 20s and was stunned to learn he would be working steps from Reiner’s office in the Beverly Hills headquarters of his legendary Castle Rock Entertainment.
Rob Reiner speaks in 1998 to a child development policy group about Proposition 10, which added sales tax to tobacco products to fund early childhood education.
(Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times)
“I show up to Castle Rock Entertainment as a 22-year-old, in Beverly Hills, off Maple Drive. I’m just a Mexican kid from the northeast San Fernando Valley. My dad was a construction worker. My mom was a secretary … and I’m like, ‘What the f— am I doing here?” Trujillo said with a laugh.
Castle Rock, he said, was simultaneously a Hollywood hot spot and “a classroom in politics.” Trujillo said he once played office golf — blue cardboard for water hazards; brown paper for sand traps — with actors Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy while the movie “A Mighty Wind” was being edited. Politicians were always there, too.
Trujillo regularly joined Reiner on his once-a-month flights from Santa Monica to Sacramento for First Five commission meetings and tagged along to news conferences and school classrooms. He usually carried a Sharpie, knowing fans would show up with DVDs or VHS tapes of their favorite Reiner flicks to be signed.
“Rob was able to have conversations with anyone and everyone,” Trujillo said. “If you’re a Republican or Democratic legislator nationally, or even local or in the state, you were still a fanboy. You still wanted to meet his character from ‘All in the Family.’ You still wanted to shake the hand of the guy that made ‘Princess Bride.’ You still wanted to talk to the guy that made ‘A Few Good Men.’”
The Whole 10 Yards panel discusses the “eerie” similarities between the careers of Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady, after the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback tore his ACL in defeat by the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday.
Anthony Geary, the Daytime Emmy winner who played half of “General Hospital’s” supercouple Luke Spencer and Laura Baldwin, died Sunday. He was 78.
“The entire #GeneralHospital family is heartbroken over the news of Tony Geary’s passing. Tony was a brilliant actor and set the bar that we continue to strive for,” “GH” executive producer Frank Valentini wrote on Monday in two posts on X. “His legacy, and that of Luke Spencer’s, will live on through the generations of #GH cast members who have followed in his footsteps. We send our sincerest sympathies to his husband, Claudio, family, and friends. May he rest in peace.”
The actor died of complications a few days after having planned surgery in Amsterdam, the city he and spouse Claudio Gama called home, Soap Opera Digest reported.
“It was a shock for me and our families and our friends,” Gama told TV Insider exclusively Monday, saying that for more than three decades Geary had been his friend, companion and — for the past six years — his husband.
Geary notched almost 2,000 episodes on “General Hospital,” where he started as a cast member in 1978. Along the way he took a number of breaks from the show before wrapping up his “GH” career in 2015.
Even with those breaks, Daytime Emmys voters nominated Geary 17 times in the lead actor category. He took home the trophy eight times, in 1982, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2015.
Despite their plot line beginning with Luke drunkenly raping Laura — played by Genie Francis — only to have her fall in love with her rapist, their love story became insanely popular in the early 1980s, appealing to a younger audience and saving the series from cancellation. The characters got married in November 1981. The audience for the wedding, which aired over two days, was around 30 million viewers and remains the highest-rated soap opera event in history.
Tony Dean Geary was born on May 29, 1947, in the town of Coalville, Utah, and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After studying theater at the University of Utah, he began his acting career with roles on shows including “Room 222,” “All in the Family,” “The Partridge Family” and “Mod Squad” in the early 1970s. “General Hospital” cast him in 1978, but not before he added shows including “Barnaby Jones,” “The Streets of San Francisco” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.” to his resume. He racked up dozens more credits in his career, but nothing that brought him the fame that “GH” did.
When Geary left “GH” for good in 2015, some former colleagues talked to The Times about working with him.
Jane Elliot, who played another Spencer love interest, Tracy Quartermaine, recalled in 2015 that she acted with Geary when he first screen-tested for the role that was supposed to be only a 13-week arc.
“It’s always awkward with an actor you don’t know,” she told The Times. “I was walking down this flight of stars, and I pass Tony, who is doodling on a piece of paper. He’s doing tic-tac-toe. I immediately know what kind of actor he is, doing something real in an unreal setting. I went up to him, put an O next to his X, and our relationship was established.”
“Tony’s friendship and guidance has meant the world to me,” said actor Jonathan Jackson, who was only 11 when he started on the soap as Lucky Spencer, Luke’s son. “He was always extremely warm and very present, there was nothing condescending in him. He never treated me like a kid. We clicked right away.”
The “Nashville” actor returned to the show after many years away to help Geary wrap up the Spencers’ story.
”When I found out he was leaving, I knew I had to come back,” Jackson said at the time. “He was great. Having those last scenes with me were everything I hoped it would be.”
Meanwhile, on Monday, co-star Genie Francis, who is still on “GH,” remembered her former on-screen love on social media.
“This morning I woke up and went into my husband’s arms. In my sleep, my life was flashing before me and I was afraid of death.” An hour later, she wrote on Facebook, producer Valentini called to tell her that Geary had died.
“I immediately felt remorse, I hadn’t spoken to him in years, but I felt his life end in my sleep last night, and with it a big part of me, and mine,” Francis continued. “He was a powerhouse as an actor. Shoulder to shoulder with the greats. No star burned brighter than Tony Geary. He was one of a kind. As an artist, he was filled with a passion for the truth, no matter how blunt, or even a little rude it might be, but always hilariously funny. He was the anti-hero, always so irreverent, but even the most conservative had to smile. Working with him was always exciting. You never knew what might happen.
“He spoiled me for leading men for the rest of my life. I am crushed, I will miss him terribly, but I was so lucky to be his partner. Somehow, somewhere, we are connected to each other because I felt him leave last night. Good night sweet prince, good night.”
Michele Singer Reiner, who was killed along with her husband, filmmaker Rob Reiner, on Sunday at their home in Los Angeles, was a photographer who moved from still images into filmmaking and later into producing, with work that blended performance, politics and persuasion. She was 70.
Singer Reiner was gigging as a photographer in the late 1980s, visiting film sets as part of her income. One of those sets was “When Harry Met Sally …,” the romantic comedy Rob Reiner was directing in New York, a film that would go on to become one of the era’s defining hits. Having divorced actor and director Penny Marshall eight years earlier, Reiner said he noticed his future wife across the set and was immediately drawn to her.
Scripted by Nora Ephron, the film was originally written to leave its central couple, played by Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, separate, crossing paths over the years without ending up together. But after meeting Singer Reiner, Reiner reconsidered. He rewrote the final scene so the characters reunite and marry, an ending that helped make the film a beloved classic.
The two married in 1989, months after the film’s release. They went on to have three children: Jake, born in 1991; Nick, born in 1993; and Romy, born in 1997.
Hours after the couple were found dead at their Brentwood home, Nick Reiner — who had struggled for years with substance-abuse issues — was taken into custody and booked into Los Angeles County jail on suspicion of murder, according to jail records. He had spoken publicly about getting sober by 2015, when he worked with his father on “Being Charlie,” a semi-autobiographical film about addiction and recovery that Rob Reiner directed and Nick co-wrote.
After their marriage, Singer Reiner worked on several of Reiner’s films, as a special photographer on “Misery,” his 1990 adaptation of the Stephen King novel, among others. Their marriage also became a working partnership. As Reiner’s career expanded beyond studio films into documentaries and political projects, Singer Reiner — who earlier in her career had photographed the cover of Donald Trump on the photo of his 1987 bestseller “The Art of the Deal” — was closely associated with those efforts, collaborating on films and advocacy campaigns that increasingly overlapped.
Their civic strand emerged early. In the 1990s, she and Reiner started the I Am Your Child project, an effort aimed at raising awareness about early childhood development and expanding access to support services for parents.
The initiative coincided with Reiner’s emergence as one of Hollywood’s most prominent political voices. He was a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which led the legal fight to overturn Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage. He was also a central figure behind Proposition 10, the California Children and Families Initiative, a landmark policy that created an ambitious statewide early childhood development program.
In the last decade, Singer Reiner moved more fully into producing. Her credits included such Reiner-directed projects as “Shock and Awe” (2017), “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life” (2023) and this year’s “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” as well as “God & Country,” a 2024 documentary examining Christian nationalism in the United States.
As news of their deaths spread, tributes emphasized the Reiners’ shared public life. Laurie David, an environmental activist and documentary filmmaker who was a close friend of the couple, wrote on Threads that “Rob & Michele — always referred to as Rob & Michele — were an extraordinary couple who worked side by side to make the world a safer, fairer and more just society.”
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also issued a joint statement calling the couple’s deaths “heartbreaking” and pointing to what they described as the Reiners’ “active citizenship” in defense of “inclusive” democracy. “They were good, generous people who made everyone who knew them better,” the statement said.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the loss “devastating,” writing that while Reiner was creative, funny and beloved, Singer Reiner was his “indispensable partner, intellectual resource and loving wife” in all of their endeavors.
EXCLUSIVE: Countryfile and Good Morning Britain presenter Sean Fletcher got emotional as he opened up about losing his mum to bowel cancer eight years ago and running the London Marathon in her memory
17:50, 14 Dec 2025Updated 17:52, 14 Dec 2025
Sean Fletcher on Countryfile(Image: BBC)
Sean Fletcher, known for his roles on Countryfile and Good Morning Britain, has candidly discussed the loss of his mother to cancer and his ongoing efforts to raise awareness about the devastating disease. Besides being a TV presenter and father, Sean is also an avid outdoorsman and runner.
The Countryfile host has recently partnered with GO Outdoors and is now the face of their AW collection. Discussing the new range and the positive impact of outdoor activities on his mentalhealth, Sean said, “So I suppose quite a few of the programmes I do are outdoors, so that’s the first thing, and so, it is either you’re doing some activity outdoors, or meeting people who work and live outdoors.”
He added, “So, it’s a real dream job, because you’re meeting people who are doing something on the land. They do something outside. It might be a farmer, it might be some activities, a person who jumps off cliffs, or something like that, and they’re really passionate about something they do outdoors.”
Sean continued, “I came to this conclusion a long time ago, but it’s just so nourishing. It’s really great for your mental well-being, and personally, I feel that going out recharges my batteries. Whether you’re in a London park or in a place like that, in the middle of nowhere, and you’re being battered by the weather. I just feel really nourished, and I feel better, and I always feel better about being outdoors.
“So, yeah, working with GO Outdoors really makes sense, and then we talk about the growing mental health crisis, and obviously, there are serious mental health issues, but there are people who are struggling on a lower level and going out to these things that are all of ours. It’s all of our countryside,” reports the Express.
The BBC presenter continued, “I just feel really passionate about whether you’re the pensioner who lives in a nice village in the Cotswolds, or you’re a kid from a disadvantaged background in Manchester, it’s all of ours, and it should be accessible to all of us. And part of that is clothing, making it accessible so you can participate in those things.
“They all sort of tie in and kind of by accident, you know, I’ve got into doing some of these things in my work, and I realised that the outdoors was good for me, and then I thought, ‘Oh, actually, it’s good for everyone’, and then I’m working with GO Outdoors because clothing is an important part of that.”
Sean discussed some of his go-to pieces from the range, highlighting a Peter Storm 3-in-1 jacket, whilst emphasising that “layers are important”.
The journalist, who is also an avid runner, spoke candidly about losing his mother to cancer and completing the London Marathon in her honour. The GO Outdoors ambassador revealed he was approached by a GMB producer to participate in the London Marathon for the programme, and despite initial hesitation, Sean described it as the best thing he had ever done.
He revealed: “So my mum had died of bowel cancer eight years before, and so I was an ambassador for Bowel Cancer UK, and it’s emotional, it’s hard, it’s really hard. But I remember I was crying, and what’s so good about the London Marathon is that there are just so many people supporting you.
“Everybody you look at, they’re running for someone who’s died, or someone’s struggling, or a charity that they’re raising money for. It’s just such a feel-good event, and it was amazing, so I ran around four in a row.”
Reflecting on the moment she died, Sean said, “It was all quite quick. It was eight years before, but she kind of kept it from me, and didn’t tell me that she had bowel cancer. And I lived in Wales, and she lived in East Essex, so quite a long way to get to. It took five hours, so I’d have to arrange trips to come and see her.
“She masked it quite well and made sure she was in the hospital, and then I remember visiting her once when she was ill, and she was in the hospital. I went to the ward, and I remember just looking around, thinking, like, ‘gosh, everybody looks very ill’.
“You know, it looked like everybody was very close to death, and so I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ I mean, I’m a journalist. I was like, ‘Well, I’ve got to ask some questions. ‘ So I asked the doctor, and they said, ‘Well, you need to ask your mum, she needs to be the one to tell you’.
“So anyway, I thought, oh, there’s something wrong here. So I quizzed them all, and managed to find out, and three and a half weeks later, she was dead.”
Sean started to become emotional as he recalled, “It was just horrific, and for two of those weeks, I mean, it actually gets me now, those weeks she didn’t talk, so I literally had a week and a half with her because she just spiralled really quickly. It was heartbreaking.”
Sean is a proud ambassador for GO Outdoors, the UK’s largest outdoor retailer. You can shop his autumn-winter collection online or in-store now.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame is peppered with players who finished long, distinguished careers by donning a Dodgers uniform, their performance dwindling as their age increased. Greg Maddux, Rickey Henderson, Juan Marichal and Eddie Murray are among those who leap to mind.
An exception was Jeff Kent, who Sunday received 14 of 16 possible votes by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, the only player among eight on the ballot with enough for induction into Cooperstown.
With unmatched power as a second baseman and an unrelenting approach to his craft, Kent was a Dodger for the last four seasons of his 17-year career, solidifying his Hall of Fame credentials statistically while also serving as a curmudgeonly leader on a roster crowded with young stars such as Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Andre Ethier and James Loney.
“It’s a moment of satisfaction of the things I did right in my career, the things I consistently stuck to,” he told MLB Network. “The hard work, the gratification of playing the game the right way. I love the game.”
The son of a motorcycle police officer and a product of Huntington Beach Edison High, Kent became emotional during a news conference at the 2005 MLB Winter Meetings when it was announced that he’d signed a two-year, $17 million contract with the Dodgers.
“This is the third time I’ve tried to get with the Dodgers,” he said at the time. “I want to be on a team with the potential to win because I’m running out of time. This team has that mentality.”
The Dodgers never won a World Series during Kent’s tenure, but he quickly fell into the role of a veteran leader, making himself available to the media after tough losses to shield younger players from the glare.
He said what was on his mind, sometimes to a fault, once suggesting that legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully “talks too much.”
Maybe that’s why Kent getting the Hall of Fame nod from a list of candidates that included all-time home run leader Barry Bonds, 354-game winner Roger Clemens, 509-home run slugger Gary Sheffield, 1980s stars Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy, and Dodgers icon Fernando Valenzuela was unexpected.
Even Kent was surprised.
“The emotions are overwhelming — unbelievable,” Kent said. “I didn’t even expect it. For me, there were so many quality guys that the committee had to argue through and vote for. I’m grateful that they considered me and gave it a shot at putting me in.”
Valenzuela, Bonds, Clemens and Sheffield each had fewer than five votes, meaning they will not be eligible the next time their era is considered in 2031. They can be nominated once more at that time, but will not be eligible for consideration if they again fall short of five votes.
All of the candidates already had been spurned by the Baseball Writers Assn. of America. Seventy-five percent of the votes are necessary for induction, and Kent never received even 50% during his 10 years on the BBWAA ballot that ended in 2023.
“The time had gone by, and you just leave it alone, and I left it alone,” Kent said. “I loved the game, and everything I gave to the game I left there on the field. This moment today, over the last few days, I was absolutely unprepared. Emotionally unstable.”
Kent was named National League most valuable player in 2000 with the San Francisco Giants, the team with which his career is most associated. He batted a career-best .334 with 33 homers and 125 runs batted in that season and drove in more than 100 runs in each of his six seasons batting behind Bonds.
He said he plans to enter the Hall of Fame wearing a Giants cap.
“The turning point in my career was with Dusty Baker, the manager I got with in San Francisco,” said Kent, who played in college at California. “He motivated me to get the peak performance out of me.”
Kent finished with 377 career homers, 351 as a second baseman, the most ever for the position. He also is the only second baseman to collect more than 100 RBIs in eight seasons.
As a Dodger, he hit 75 homers and batted .290 in more than 2,000 plate appearances. His last manager with the Dodgers was Joe Torre, who described Kent’s impact on the franchise.
“He’s one of those players whose actions are supposed to make you understand what he thinks,” Torre said. “It’s the old pro thing.”
