ASHLEY Cain was secretly sacked from a BBC job last year for being ‘drunk on set’.
The star, 35, has come under-fire this week after historic tweets were exposed in which Ashley made degrading comments about women and suggested blurring the lines of consent during sex in worrying messages.
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Ashley Cain was secretly sacked by the BBC for being ‘drunk on set’Credit: BBCConcerns were raised last year when he was hand-picked to front a BBC programme in Las VegasCredit: BBC
The posts were made by Ashley between 2013 and 2015 after he first rose to fame in footballing and his appearances on MTV show Ex On The Beach.
The Guardian has compiled a range of messages, posts and concerns relating to Ashley’s behaviour in the past – which has since led to him being dropped by the BBC.
Last night, the publication detailed new allegations that Ashley was secretly sacked from filming a BBC documentary in June of last year for being ‘drunk on set’.
The TV personality, who had already begun to work with the BBC on their documenary series, Into The Danger Zone, had been picked to host, Sin City: The Real Las Vegas.
Ashley has worked extensively with the BBC but has now been axed for good by the channelCredit: BBCThe BBC admitted their vetting process on the star had ‘failed’Credit: Instagram
He was flown out to Nevada to film the show but concerns were raised about his conduct.
Appearing to be drunk during filming of the show, the production was suspended and Ashley was ultimately dropped from the project.
Another presenter was then chosen to front the programme instead.
Nonetheless, the incident went largely ignored as Ashley returned to filming with the BBC earlier this year for the second series of his Into The Danger Zone series.
However, following The Guardian’s reports, that series has now been axed and won’t be making it to air.
The BBC revealed they had no plans to work with Ashley again in the future after admitting that their “vetting” process before hiring talent had “failed”.
A BBC spokesperson told The Sun: “The posts by Ashley Cain, albeit from many years ago, are completely unacceptable.”
“The BBC has clear requirements around vetting and social media checks, which are undertaken by the production company. In this instance, the process clearly failed and we are investigating why. We are continuing to strengthen our processes to ensure everyone working for, and on behalf of, the BBC meets our values and standards.”
“We have no plans to broadcast the new series of ‘Into the Danger Zone’, and no future projects with Ashley Cain.”
The Sun has contacted a representative for Ashley Cain for comment.
Ashley’s comments and behaviour – which largely took place over 10 years ago – first began to emerge after he took part in the very succesful first series of MTV show Ex On The Beach which propelled him to national fame.
Derogatory terms allegedly written in 2014 and 2015 include “sl**s”, “b***hes” and “psychos”, while he said he’d like to “choke slam” and “spit in the face” of Love Island star Jessica Hayes while commenting on the ITV2 reality show.
The Guardian reports that other misogynistic tweets saw him say he wanted to “talcum powder pimp slap these b***es already!” while watching a Channel 4 documentary and demean women by writing: “I DO NOT.. I repeat I DO NOT think EVERY girl is a slag! There are some absolute PHENOMENAL women out there.. They’re just a rare commodity.”
In 2015, Cain was accused of recording Rachel Roftis, 33, during sex and sharing clips to Snapchat without her consent — something he strongly denied.
The pair met at a club in Bexleyheath before spending the night together in a hotel.
Roftis told The Guardian she “screamed” at Cain when she realised the footage had been shared publicly and the incident has “massively affected her relationships with men. She doesn’t trust anybody really now.”
The notoriety from the posts, which saw Cain brand himself the “Snapchat King” and rack up 60,000 views, led to an appearance on short-lived ITV Daytime show O’Brien where he boasted of being a “play boy” and sleeping with 15 girls a week.
Of his attitude towards women, he said: “If you are a lady, I respect you. But if you don’t respect yourself, how can you expect me to respect you?”
KATIE Price has said that nobody knew just how bad things were for her when she experienced some very ‘dark moments’ in her life.
The TV star, 48, is gearing up for the release of her upcoming tell-all docuseries,Katie Price: Nothing to Hide – in which she will recount her 2018 and 2021 breakdowns.
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Katie Price is gearing up for her new tell-all docuseries to drop next monthCredit: Dan CharityKatie has opened up about her 2018 breakdown ahead of her new docuseriesCredit: YouTube/@WeNeedToTalk-Podcast
Her candid and unfiltered account of three decades in the spotlight is coming to Sky and NOW on July 8.
This week, Katie attended the Sheffield DocFest where she revealed that during her darkest moments and confessed ‘no-one knew how bad it was’, with this set to play out in her new series.
Katie suffered a major mental breakdown in around 2018 following a build-up of traumatic events in her life, she then suffered another in 2021.
Speaking about this at the DocFest event ahead of her Sky show dropping next month, Katie got candid and confessed: “When I had my breakdown, I don’t think people really knew how bad it was, and how it affected people in my life.
“To hear that my loved ones cried and how much they loved me is like a wake-up call for me.
“There are some really dark moments [in the series] but at the same time, uplifting.
“People have to remember that it’s actually my life, so if you’re exhausted just watching it, imagine how exhausting it is for my little pea brain.
“But I really enjoyed doing it.
“I said they should do 10 parts and they wanted to, but we were lucky to push it to four [episodes].
“There’s still so much you could put in it. Even from what you’re reading today.”
Elsewhere at the event, Katie said: “I’m an open book.
“When [the team] came to me about the documentary, I got excited because something about me and my life is perfect.
“The media narrative is so different to what I’m really like but as you say, every day, even now, there’s always something.
“My life could actually be a soap story – it just doesn’t stop. I’m normal but it’s a weird world I live in. I can’t explain it.”
She also touched on being authentic.
“I have nothing to hide, and when they asked me, ‘are there any areas you don’t want us to go?’, I said, no! You can talk to absolutely anyone you want and you can talk to me about anything you want,” she confessed.
“Luckily the duty of care was amazing. Sometimes after two hours [of interviews], I couldn’t do any more.
“There are moments where I’ve had therapy to get over some of the things in my life, and I had to relive them.
“But I think this is what makes a good show, and I love watching documentaries.
“So many people are so manufactured and they’re in on the edits, so they look like a polished turd, basically. I am not that!
“Even I’m cringing at some of the stuff in the first episode! I haven’t had time to reflect on anything in my life because there’s always the next thing, and the next thing.”
Earth Wind & Fire’s “September,” with its nonsensical phrase “ba-dee-ya,” has been streamed more than 2.3 billion times on Spotify, more than the band’s next five songs combined (including “Let’s Groove,” “Boogie Wonderland” and “Shining Star”).
With networks and streamers seeking to create compelling content, many have found the answer in true stories. But with the surge in documentaries, it can be hard to sift through what’s worth your time. Each month, we provide an inside look at a documentary and others you should add to your queue.
But he also explores, in depth, the complexities of the band’s central figure, Maurice White. A self-affirming visionary who wanted to bring hope to people, White mixed journaling with talk of spaceships and metaphysics. However, he was also traumatized by a childhood in which his mother moved to Chicago for more opportunities, leaving White in Memphis, where he was once brutally beaten by white policemen. Those scars created a man who was a distant father and equally remote with his band members at the peak, mistreating them with casual disdain until everything fell apart.
Questlove recently spoke by video call about the film, now streaming on HBO Max, which features interviews with family, surviving band members, childhood friend Booker T. Jones and a couple of fans named Barack and Michelle Obama. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to this story?
In 2020, I was DJing on the internet, live streaming and I was DJing to calm people down from thinking they’re going to die in the apocalypse. One day I did an Earth, Wind & Fire set and when I got to the fourth hour, I thought, “Yo, is this one of the most relentlessly positive groups of all time?”
I started researching the lyrics and realized this band tricked us into positivity, like getting us to eat our vegetables. I started wondering how a band like that got past the velvet rope and realized that none of it was by accident, it was all by design. Their music was so good and you start singing the lyrics and there’s an osmosis effect of positivity that gets you.
When I started this in 2023, I had a spooky feeling that the turmoil of 2020 was going to visit us again, so I thought people would want something to watch that will help them plant seeds of what to do.
Maurice White, the band’s central figure.
(Henry Diltz / HBO)
You save “September” to the end. Was it so people would see the band was more than their biggest hit or to send audiences off humming and happy?
It’s an unlikely legacy song. They have so many meaningful songs like “Shining Star,” while “September” is a leftover that was a filler song from a greatest hits album that became a career-defining song.
Initially, I was coming out the gate with “September,” just, “Let’s get this out the way.”
It took a while. Early on the Obamas weren’t part of the project. I interviewed them the morning after the 2024 elections; they were so professional and so in the moment and also helped us process the day.
We’d never gotten to see them sit next to each other and be playful and dance. And I didn’t say, “OK, let’s see how you move, dance for 12 seconds,” I was just playing something and they started dancing and the camera happened to be running.
But they put the song in context. In 2009, they said, “What’s the statement we want to make to America to show this is a new era at the White House?” And Earth, Wind & Fire was chosen to be one of the bands at the inauguration and it was that song. So my producer said, “Now we can treat ‘September’ like an encore.” We used that story to show how that song grew on its own organically.
White is a complicated guy. Was it challenging to balance everything in your narrative?
Oftentimes Black artists are seen as caricatures or one-dimensional. It’s easy to do the gotcha of “You’re so positive and metaphysical, what about this or that?” My goal is always to find a human element that you see yourself in. In Maurice’s case with his career, he did drink the Kool-Aid. But his personal life stemmed from not ever forgiving his mother for leaving him behind when he was little. When we hold anger and other emotions in, when we refuse to talk to our partners or friends — and you want people to read your minds — that’s when it becomes a problem. But I wanted to show that in a way where I don’t spell it all out. Hopefully people will make the connection of the importance of dreaming and planning and affirmations but also the importance of letting things go, like forgiving people.
However, the bizarre case takes an unexpected turn, and the series about his extraordinary life has left viewers stunned.
The synopsis on Netflix reads: “Henry Lee Lucas rose to infamy when he confessed to hundreds of unsolved murders. =
“This documentary series examines the truth – and horrific consequences.”
Titled The Confession Killer, the Netflix series was a hit when it first came out, earning a rare 100% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Audiences took to the review section to share their thoughts on the mini-series, with many praising its detail and calling it a “must watch”.
“Superb, my mind was blown as the story unfolded,” one person wrote, as another agreed: “This is amazing. One of the best, if not the best, true crime doc series of late.”
“Very well described in terms of details and information. Very little bias,” another praised, as a fourth person said: “Henry Lee Lucas is a tragic story where everyone involved was surprised in the end. It’s heartbreaking. You must watch it.”
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Another person reflected: “As someone as complicated as Henry Lee Lucas, this is probably the best and most well put together documentary about him that has ever been made.”
One more viewer observed: “This was fascinating and SO well done. The old footage was terrific as were the interviews with people who are still alive to tell their versions of the story. I was hooked.
“I thought I was just watching a good profile of a serial killer and then everything took a completely different turn. Anyone interested in true crime will find this a compelling documentary. Highly recommended.”
Critics also applauded the documentary, with Mashable noting: For true crime devotees, watching the five-part series will do more than hit the spot.”
The Confession Killer is available to stream now on Netflix.
Kylie Minogue tried to have children via IVF and battled breast cancer for a second time in 2021Credit: GettyThe pop star uses her docuseries to speak about struggling to conceive after her fight with cancer in 2005Credit: Netflix
Kylie, 57, says in the show, which is out today: “It was always with such a thread of hope but I couldn’t not try.
“I did try IVF a number of times. If it had happened it would have been just shy of a miracle. But it didn’t work out that way.”
Poignantly, she adds: “One can’t help but wonder what it would have been like.”
Kylie’s singer sister Dannii, 54, has one son, as does her brother Brendan, 55.
Dannii said of Kylie: “She is amazing with kids. Just naturally incredible. She is amazing with her nephews.
“I never saw myself being a parent and she always did. And that is heartbreaking.”
The lyrics of Kylie’s 2012 song Flower dealt with the pain of not having children.
It includes the line: “Distant child my flower, are you blowing in the breeze?”
Brave Kylie, 57, pictured with her singer sister Dannii, 54Credit: GettyKylie, above on stage in 2025, now has the all-clear and hopes to encourage women to go for early screeningsCredit: Getty
In another revelation, Kylie said she secretly battled cancer for a second time after being diagnosed with primary breast cancer in early 2021.
Kylie said: “I was able to keep it to myself and go through that year.
“I didn’t feel obliged to tell the world and actually I just couldn’t at the time as I was just a shell of a person.
“I didn’t want to leave the house again at one point.
“Thankfully I got through it again, and all is well.”
Kylie now has the all-clear and hopes that speaking out will encourage women to go for early screenings.
She said: “I know there will be someone out there who will benefit from a gentle reminder to do their check-ups.”
On one of her previous visits to Los Angeles, Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel found herself having a smoke on Hollywood Boulevard.
There, while she stepped over the famous concrete-embedded stars, an unhoused man struck up a conversation with her.
“He kept explaining to me that he was poorly dressed because he was currently living on the street after someone robbed him, but he had written a screenplay,” Martel, 59, recalls in Spanish over coffee on a morning in April at a West Hollywood hotel.
“He told me they had stolen a watch from him — not a Rolex but a known brand,” she continues. “The whole time he was trying to convince me he was a millionaire who just so happened to be on the street because of random circumstances.”
One of Latin America’s most indispensable storytellers, Martel is fascinated by how prevalent that dream still is in L.A. — that movies can change your life overnight.
“That particular fantasy is par for the course in this city,” she says, though she’s not above it. It’s the reason she’s back to promote her first documentary, “Our Land,” out Friday.
Unhurried when it comes to her output, Martel has only made four fiction features, among them 2001’s “La Cienaga” and 2008’s “The Headless Woman” (returning to theaters this month in a new 4K restoration). Her biting and formally audacious narratives examine class, politics and — a speciality — the interiority of women through enigmatic portraits of psychologically complex individuals.
“Our Land,” a piercing indictment of the enduring wounds of colonialism, chronicles the murder of Indigenous Argentine activist Javier Chocobar in 2009 and the prolonged trial of the perpetrators in 2018.
Chocobar was shot during a confrontation with armed men over land in the Tucumán province of Argentina where the Chuschagasta Indigenous community has lived for many generations. Martel explores the killing not as an isolated event in her country’s recent past but as part of a long history of dispossession.
“Racism is a foundational element,” she says of her homeland. “The only consistent thing in Argentina, from the country’s birth to the present day, is the rejection of Indigenous people.”
In Argentina, Martel explains, public education has indoctrinated the population into believing Indigenous people no longer exist. Yet many Argentines proudly claim a connection to the Europeans, Italians in particular, who arrived in the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
“When giving speeches, our presidents always say, ‘We are a country of immigrants,’ or ‘We came from the boats,’” says Martel. “They use metaphors like these because deep down Argentines feel much more indebted to European immigration than to our Indigenous population. But more than half of the people in Argentina have Indigenous ancestors.”
In 2020, Chocobar’s three convicted murderers appealed their guilty verdicts and were set free. “Our Land” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2025, which brought renewed attention to the case. A month later, the sentence was upheld and two of the men returned to prison (one died in the interim).
Martel believes that outcome was a response to her film. “Communities wage the fight but cinema helps,” she says.
“I believe that we must use cinema for its enormous power to alter perception and not soothe the rich,” Martel says. “It’s not about delivering a message but rather about showing how an idea functions.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
For over 14 years, Martel worked on “Our Land” on and off. This time included periods when she focused on 2017’s “Zama,” her masterful period piece following a Spanish official in 18th century Argentina “who doesn’t want to be American,” she says, referring to the continent. In her mind, both “Zama” and “Our Land” come from the same impulse to dissect colonialism.
As part of her research process, Martel and her team created a detailed archive of documents related to the case that the Chuschagasta community now has at its disposal. Over the years, Delfín Cata, one of the Indigenous men present during the attack, would call Martel. He never asked about how her film was going, but the director sensed he was tacitly checking in on her progress, hoping that she was not losing faith.
“That was a confirmation that, beyond my own interest, there were people who needed this film,” she says. “I felt the immense satisfaction of knowing I was doing something that would be concretely useful.”
For Martel, the question of whether she was the right person to make this film (one she got in Venice) seems unfair. “It’s wrong to prevent a human being from speaking about their own history because they are not a woman, because they are not Black, or because they are not Indigenous,” she says. “It’s better to make mistakes trying to understand something than not to try at all. The chances of making a mistake are enormous in a film, no matter how good your intentions are.”
A key piece of evidence in the Chocobar case, prominent in the film, is a video that one of the attackers filmed, presumably expecting the Indigenous community to react violently, to justify firing his gun at them. The Chuschagasta men that faced them weren’t armed. As used by their aggressors, the camera functioned as a weapon.
Hollywood feels incompatible with Martel’s sophisticated, confrontational movies rooted in her country’s troubles. By Martel’s own admission, it doesn’t feel like a fit for her.
“I would have to force myself to create something outside my own country, outside my own language,” she says. “And that doesn’t really appeal to me.”
Still, Marvel Studios famously asked to meet with her when seeking a director for 2021’s “Black Widow.” Martel says she was among many directors they contacted, but she was curious to take the meeting even if she knew nothing would come of it.
“They wanted to do it over Zoom and I happened to be here in Los Angeles,” she remembers. “I told them I could come in, because I wanted to see what the whole process was like.”
Martel describes the month she spent in L.A. — an eye injury prevented her from flying home sooner — as a “lot of fun in the end,” even if no blockbuster emerged from it. More recently, another Hollywood offer did tempt her, but she ultimately passed.
“It was a good book suggested to me by an actress of undoubted talent,” Martel shares, careful to avoid names. “I considered it, but you very quickly have to picture yourself spending three years or at least a year and a half living in the United States making a movie. I have a thousand things in Argentina to worry about.”
Still, Hollywood, and its significance to moviemaking, has a singular, unnerving allure on her. Two of Martel’s favorite movies set in L.A. are David Lynch’s nightmarish “Mulholland Drive” and Robert Aldrich’s psychodrama “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”
“There is something ruthless and utterly devoid of sanity at the heart of this film industry, and I’ve never felt that darkness as clear as in ‘Mulholland Drive,’” she says. “How can an industry that handles so many millions [of dollars] and such impeccably dressed famous people be so full of lunatics? That film captures that perfectly.”
And occasionally, she thinks, a big production breaks the mold, such as Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 when Martel served as jury president — a controversial choice.
“It certainly had an impact on me,” says Martel. “I didn’t vote for it, though. I had another favorite, a Chinese film that stood no chance of winning.”
Phillips, she thinks, created a premonition for what was to come. “For me, the real killer clowns are Trump, Milei or Orbán,” Martel says, referring to polarizing leaders. “They expose themselves to ridicule and spout all sorts of nonsense. Those are clowns. And I think that movie captured that.”
Not one to mince words, Martel elaborates on the relation of Joaquin Phoenix’s social outcast turned supervillain and President Trump.
“The origin of the Joker is social resentment,” she says. “Trump holds no resentment toward society because the system gave him everything. But he has exploited the people who do harbor resentment. That is where you see the kind of clown he is, one who knows how to use people.”
Artificial intelligence, far-right ideologies, voracious capitalism — all of it makes Martel alarmed, seeing it as pushing us collectively to the brink of collapse. But there is hope, she thinks.
“What we have invented is very dangerous but we can dismantle it,” she says. “That is the only thing I’m betting on, that, at some point, a consensus will emerge and we’ll go, ‘Let’s not do this.’”
“I believe that we must use cinema for its enormous power to alter perception and not soothe the rich,” she says. “It’s not about delivering a message but rather about showing how an idea functions.”
She points to one of her subjects in “Our Land,” an Indigenous man who told her he loves the 1959 Charlton Heston epic “Ben-Hur,” a passion she does not share but understands.
“That’s a blow for all of us who make auteur cinema,” Martel says with a laugh. “That feeling that ‘Ben-Hur’ evoked gave him the strength to continue fighting for his community’s territory.”
The night before our interview, Martel rode around L.A. on a scooter holding onto a friend. These days she uses a cane to help her with mobility. “The city has great light,” she says, still open to being surprised by it.
