At the time of her diagnosis, Sally’s on-screen persona, Sally Metcalfe, was also grappling with a breast cancer diagnosis, mirroring her real-life ordeal.
Sally confessed that her diagnosis “completely changed her life.”, reports the Daily Star.
She reminisced: “My character had breast cancer and I had to tell Carla Connor (played by Alison King) that Sally had breast cancer. That was a very, very difficult scene because I knew I was leaving at that point.”
The actress revealed: “I wanted to carry on working. I didn’t want to stop, but the moment that I was told I needed chemo that’s the moment that I realised that actually this is serious.
“But hopefully for Bev, she’s caught this early so she will be hopefully back at work and carrying on doing what she’s doing.
“It’s very hard for women because if you’re a working mum and the breadwinner, then you want to carry on. You need to be working.”
In an emotional revelation, Sally confessed that her character’s storyline proved instrumental in prompting her to seek medical examination.
She said: “I’ve still not come to terms that it happened and maybe if I hadn’t had the storyline, maybe I wouldn’t have checked because I was only 46.”
She went on: “I thought it was, you know, much older women but it’s not. I mean thank goodness there’s much more information out there now than there was 15 years ago when I got it. But now we’re talking about it, which is very important.”
She recalled: “I remember my first day back on the street after having eight months off or six months off and walking down the cobbles and going.
“I am so grateful for this because once you have something taken away from you. You think that’s it, and then to get it back is just, wow, I mean, you don’t take it for granted.”
Coronation Street airs Monday to Friday at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX and Loose Women airs weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX
**For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new **Everything Gossip** website**
Forget dating apps and blind dates, one couple found love halfway across the world
Nicki Challinger met her husband, Tony Kern, half way across the world(Image: Handout)
In today’s society, dating apps have become the go-to for meeting new people and starting romantic connections. But for one couple, their love story started halfway across the world, after a chance encounter, when they least expected it.
Looking for an adventure, Nicki Challinger packed her suitcase and headed to the airport to embark on a 10-day trip around Southeast Asia, stopping in Thailand and Laos. At 31, working as a freelance translator, Nicki was seeking thrills. She booked the trip through Flash Pack, a tour company offering adventures for solo travellers in a small group of a similar age.
This meant that rather than a trip dedicated to 18-30s or one catering to the over 50s, Nicki could enjoy a group tour that suited her age perfectly – avoiding the late-night club outings but ditching early nights! But little did she know she’d meet her husband, Tony Kern, almost the moment after she touched down in Thailand, during their first group meal.
“There was a group dinner the first night, and I was just coincidentally seated next to him. We had a lot in common, he asked a lot of questions about me, and we shared the same sense of humour,” Nicki exclusively told the Mirror.
“He was really sweet, and he was just so genuine – a really open and kind guy.” Over the course of their trip in November 2018, they went whitewater rafting, cycling and treks, including one through a jungle.
Nicki sweetly recalled one day when they floated down the Mekong River on a boat as they crossed the border into Laos. “We had been getting on, and we were just chatting for hours while sitting at this little table, and just watching the beautiful scenery. It was without the pressure, as we were just hanging out, as everyone else in the group was.”
As sparks began to fly, they got closer, but as Tony, who was 32 at the time, was from the US and Nicki from the UK, they didn’t think it would go anywhere outside of the trip. It wasn’t until day eight of their tour that they knew it was something special.
“We went for a walk around this little town that we’d stopped in on the Mekong, and it was late at night, so all the stars were out, and it was sort of really romantic. That’s when I thought, ‘I can see this going somewhere’, and I did think we might kiss at the end of that night,” Nicki recalled.
“But then there was a pack of wild street dogs and I’m terrified of them. I don’t like dogs when they’re on a lead, so street dogs in Laos, I was not feeling it. He didn’t kiss me that night, so I was like, ‘Oh, maybe he doesn’t feel it.’ And then the next day, when we talked about it, he said, ‘Yeah, it just didn’t seem like the right moment.'”
They later had a conversation while at a resort overlooking the Mekong River and said it wasn’t just a holiday romance but something serious. That’s when they shared their first kiss.
As their relationship began, the tour inevitably came to an end. Yet that wasn’t going to stop the newly formed couple, despite being thousands of miles apart. Nicki had stayed in Thailand for a month to work on an island, while Tony travelled back home to the US.
They kept in contact and spoke on the phone a lot, while battling a 13-hour time difference for a month. But after spotting affordable flights to the US just two weeks after meeting, Nicki later jetted off to meet Tony at his home in Kansas City.
She said they had a “great time” together in the US, and after that, went back and forth to see each other. Then, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Nicki made the quick decision to go back over to the US, just days before they shut the border, and stayed there for three months.
“In hindsight, it was quite a good practice for real married life, and we went for nice walks in the evening,” she shared. Then, in April 2021, the couple got engaged in the US, the evening before Nicki’s birthday, “It was relaxed but romantic”.
Just a few months later, in November 2021, they joyfully tied the knot during an intimate ceremony in the US before returning to the UK for a bigger wedding party in July 2022. Here, they had eight of their friends from the tour attend, two of whom also sparked up a relationship on the trip, and now have a baby together.
Talking of their love story, Nicki said: “It was unexpected, none of us were looking for a relationship, we just went on the tour for an adventure. It was life-changing. Everything had lined up like the dates of the trip and the discount – it just worked really well logistically, and then I met my husband. People are always so surprised.”
They had both used Flash Pack to book trips in the past, but never thought their 2018 adventure would lead to love. “I was not bothered at all. I just wanted to see some of Thailand, and I didn’t want to do it by myself,” Nicki said. It was also the first time this specific tour had ever run, which Nicki said meant “everybody on the trip had the same, relatively relaxed mindset.”
After maintaining a visa, Tony, now 40, moved to the UK in November 2022, and today, they happily live in Nottingham. While they’ve known each other for around eight years, Nicki, now 38, confessed: “Theoretically, the language is the same, but I would say it’s still probably about once a week where one of us says something, and the other is like, ‘I literally have no idea what you’re saying’.”
Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
How did a gay hockey romance made by a little-known Canadian streamer become a global cultural phenomenon?
The answer, as it turns out, was by leaning into female and queer audiences. Since the debut last November of “Heated Rivalry,” which chronicles the clandestine love story between two fierce hockey rivals, the drama series from Bell Media’s Crave has emerged as an unlikely success story, defying a broader industry trend of media consolidation and waning commitments to diversity in Hollywood.
The mastermind behind the show’s success is Jacob Tierney, who read author Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series during the COVID-19 pandemic and then optioned all of the books after reading a Washington Post story about the proliferation of romance novels. After writing a pilot on spec, he approached the executives at Crave — where he had previously produced “Letterkenny,” “Shoresy” and “Canada’s Drag Race” — about green-lighting a series. From the outset, the gay writer-producer had a clear idea of how he wanted to adapt the “smutty” story for TV, starting with casting relative newcomers Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie as Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, respectively.
“Jacob was very open to our feedback, but his common [refrain] back to us was, ‘We need to be true to the source material because the built-in fan base will expect certain things from us, and that includes the appearances of these actors and their ages,’” says Justin Stockman, Bell Media’s VP of content development and programming. “He’s like, ‘We found them. These are the people from the book.’ And that’s where we had to trust him.”
Brendan Brady, Tierney’s producing partner through their Accent Aigu Entertainment banner, notes that the Canadian TV model diverges from the American one, in that the producer retains ownership of the IP while collecting a licensing fee from the broadcaster. To fund the series, Tierney and Brady reinvested their personal fees to cover about 10% of the budget, while another 30% was sourced from tax credits. This included the Canada Media Fund, a resource derived from government and industry contributions that national broadcasters can allocate at their discretion. The rest of the financing usually comes from third parties.
But Tierney recalls that the notes from potential financiers did not align with his creative vision. Some wanted to delay the graphic depictions of gay sex and expand the world to include more characters. Someone even suggested introducing Rose Landry (Sophie Nélisse) earlier and putting her in a love triangle with Shane and Ilya, because they believed “this show won’t work without a female entry point,” Tierney recalls. Ultimately, Bell Media opted against a co-financier, instead covering the remaining costs through its new distribution branch, Sphere Abacus. But, Brady says, the budget was still “far south” of CA$5 million (approximately $3.6 million) per episode. “It’s so much less than that, it’s almost silly,” Tierney adds.
Sean Cohan, an American executive who worked at A&E Network and Nielsen before being appointed president of Bell Media, does not think “Heated Rivalry” could have been made in the U.S. For starters, “green-lighting” stateside is a “slower” process; Tierney could have been stuck in development hell for years. The show also contains numerous Canadian references — cottage country, loons, McGill University — which would have not made sense outside of the Great White North.
From left, stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, creator Jacob Tierney and executive producer Brendan Brady on the set of “Heated Rivalry.”
(Sabrina Lantos)
For his part, Tierney doesn’t believe that “Heated Rivalry” would have even been made at another Canadian network or streamer. “There’s lots of ways to put your fingers in and get them sticky and screw things up, and these executives wanted the same show that we wanted to make and they supported us 100%,” he says. Those executives were so confident in the show’s success that they decided to move up the premiere date from February to late November to take advantage of the increase in viewership around the holidays. The accelerated release schedule meant that Tierney delivered his cut of the Season 1 finale a week and a half before it aired.
At the time of our interview, Tierney was already trying to break the story for Season 2, which he and Brady say will not premiere until spring 2027. “As much as I appreciate how rabid and interested people are at this point, the first season worked because I trusted my gut with this, and I’m going to do that again,” Tierney says.
Like the audience, Bell Media executives are waiting with bated breath for the next chapter of “Heated Rivalry.” And given that Accent Aigu has optioned all of the “Game Changer” novels (including Reid’s forthcoming “Unrivaled”), everything is on the table — more episodes or seasons, one-off specials, maybe even a spin-off. “We’re open to anything that keeps the quality where it was, but also brings our show back as quickly as we can,” Stockman says. (HBO Max will not be involved financially and remains merely a distributor.)
Tierney declines to reveal whether he will split “The Long Game” into one or two seasons, but he volunteers that he does not see himself making more than six episodes per season. “I don’t need to do 10. I would always rather tighten the belt than get loosey-goosey,” says Tierney, who will have a co-writer for Season 2 but continue to direct all the episodes himself. “I would rather be like, ‘Let’s see how much story we can pack into these episodes.’”
“We want everybody to be left yearning,” Brady adds. “That’s what everybody loves about this show. Less is more!”
“Heated Rivalry” may center on Shane and Ilya, but there will “absolutely” be “diversions” to other characters in the canon. “Just like you can’t tell the story without Scott Hunter, you can’t really tell the story without Troy Barrett,” Tierney says, alluding to a character from Reid’s books who is yet to appear in the TV series. And while there may be a lot more incoming calls about higher-profile casting, he adds, “We need Canadian talent, and we love Canadian talent. It’s not a burden, but it’s also something we literally have to do to get our financing.”
For Cohan, “Heated Rivalry” is valuable proof of concept as he attempts to convince more Canadian creators to return to their roots, regardless of where they now live in the world. “It certainly helps to feel like we’ve got a dramatic illustration, a data point — a pretty good one too — to say, ‘Yeah, look, we Canadians, not just Bell, can make great, global and profitable [shows], and we can do it by being authentic,’” Cohan says.
Kurmin Wali, Nigeria – Like most Sundays in Kurmin Wali, the morning of January 18 began with early preparations for church and, later on, shopping at the weekly market.
But by 9:30am, it became clear to residents of the village in the Kajuru local government area of Nigeria’s Kaduna State that this Sunday would not be a normal one.
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Gunmen known locally as bandits arrived in the village in numbers, armed with AK47 rifles.
They broke down doors and ordered people out of their homes and the village’s three churches.
They blocked the village exits before taking people and marching dozens into the forest at gunpoint.
Some captives were taken from church, while others were forcibly kidnapped as gunmen moved from house to house.
In one house, more than 30 members of an extended family were abducted.
Jummai Idris, a relative of the family that was taken, remains inconsolable.
She was home the day of the attack and did not go out.
“When I heard shouting, I took two children and we hid behind a house. That was how they [the bandits] missed us,” she told Al Jazeera.
“But I heard every shout, every cry and footstep as they picked up people from our house and surrounding houses,” she added, between sobs.
With tears streaming down her face, Idris recounts how she kept calling out the names of her missing family members – men, women and children.
Her house sits on the edge of the village, close to a bandits’ crossing point.
“I don’t know what they are doing to them now. I don’t know if they’ve eaten or not,” she said.
A total of 177 people were abducted that day. Eleven escaped their captors, but about a quarter of Kurmin Wali’s population remains captive.
Initially, state officials denied the attack had taken place.
In the immediate aftermath, Kaduna’s police commissioner called reports a “falsehood peddled by conflict entrepreneurs”.
Finally, two days later, Nigeria’s national police spokesman, Benjamin Hundeyin, admitted an “abduction” had indeed occurred on Sunday. He said police had launched security operations with the aim of “locating and safely rescuing the victims and restoring calm to the area”.
Uba Sani, Kaduna state’s governor, added that more than just rescuing the abductees, the government was committed to ensuring “that we establish permanent protection for them”.
There has been a police presence in Kurmin Wali since then. But it is not enough to reassure villagers.
Locals say the police are not there to protect the village, but merely to compile the names of victims they for days denied existed.
At the premises of Haske Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church, the largest church in the village, days after the attack, a rust-coloured door lay on the floor, pulled off its hinges. Inside the mud-brick building, the site was chaotic.
Plastic chairs overturned in panic were strewn around the room – just as the kidnappers had left them.
An exterior view of the Haske Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church, after an attack by gunmen in which worshippers were kidnapped, in Kurmin Wali, Kaduna, Nigeria, January 20, 2026 [Nuhu Gwamna/Reuters]
‘Only the recklessly bold can stay’
The church building was where the captors brought everyone before marching them into the forest surrounding the village.
Residents said the gunmen divided themselves into different groups, targeting homes and churches in the village.
Maigirma Shekarau was among those taken before he managed to escape.
“They tied us, beat us up, before arriving us into the bush. We trekked a long distance before taking a break,” he said of his journey with his captors.
Shekarau, a father of five, was holding his three-year-old daughter when he and others were taken.
“When we reached an abandoned village, I ducked inside a room with my little daughter when the attackers weren’t looking. I closed the door and waited. After what seemed like eternity, and sure they were gone, I opened the door and walked back home, avoiding the bush path,” he said, now back in the village.
But on returning home, his heart sank. He and his three-year-old were the only ones who made it home. The rest of the family is still held by the kidnappers.
Standing in a parched field of long dried grass, Shekarau says the village no longer feels like home.
The village chief was also taken, but managed to escape. He now presides over a community hopeful for the return of the missing – but too scared to stay.
“Everyone is on edge. People are confused and don’t know what to do. Some haven’t eaten. There are entire families that are missing,” said Ishaku Danazumi, the village chief.
Danazumi says the kidnappers regularly visit and loot the village grain stores and the villagers’ possessions, including mobile phones.
Two days after the attack, residents said the bandits rode through their village again.
On that day, the community also received a ransom demand.
“They accused us of taking 10 motorcycles they hid in the bush to evade soldiers who operated here the week before,” Danazumi said. “But we didn’t see those bikes.”
The chief said the captors told him the return of the 10 bikes was a precondition for the return of his people.
But deep inside, he knows, more demands will follow.
In the village, residents wait in their thatch and mud-brick houses, hoping for their loved ones to return.
But because of fear and the tense situation, many are leaving the farming community.
“Anyone thinking about remaining in this village needs to reconsider,” said Panchan Madami, a resident who also survived the attack.
“Only the recklessly bold can stay with the current state of security here.”
Villagers said that before the January 18 attack, 21 people kidnapped by the bandits were returned to them after a ransom was paid. But just two days later, a quarter of the village was taken.
“It will be stupid to stay here, hoping things will be OK,” added Madami.
The government says it will establish a military post to protect the community from further attacks. But that is not comforting enough for Idris, who has also made up her mind to leave.
“I’m not coming back here,” she said, gathering her belongings to leave the village where she grew up and married. “I just hope the rest of my family gets back.”
A drone view of Kurmin Wali, where churches were attacked by gunmen and people were kidnapped [Nuhu Gwamna/Reuters]
