fortune

DUA LIPA has topped heat magazine’s annual Rich List – with a fortune of £129million.

And the pop star looks like she’s going to be keeping her crown as she’s miles ahead of second place Tom Holland whose £35.7m pot looks pretty measly by comparison.

Lewis Capaldi, Millie Bobby Brown and Molly-Mae Hague, and love rat Tommy Fury, make up the rest of the top five.

The magazine Rich List, which is made up of the 30 richest under 30s in the UK and Ireland, has also compiled the biggest international stars – with Kylie Jenner coming in at No1 with a fortune of £540m, beating Hailey Bieber, Billie Eilish, Blackpink and Kylie’s sister Kendall.

And they’ve also listed their top five most generous celebs, with Sir Elton John giving away £27m last year.

While Harry Styles raised a massive £5.2m for charity last year, with Ed Sheeran also giving away £2m to good causes.

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Last month Dua and her fiance Callum Turner were on the look out for a place in the sun.

I’m told the couple, who got engaged last Christmas, have called on a property expert to tap up a series of very posh holiday homes in Andalusia in southern Spain.

A source said: “Dua and Callum are looking for a sunny bolthole to enjoy with their families.

“Their preference has been pretty clear: nice weather and properties that have space.

“They have a man scouting for homes in Portugal and Andalusia, which have amazing weather all-year round.

“The house has to be able to comfortably fit Dua and Callum, as well as their family and friends.”

It’s easy to miss the confidence of Billy Wilder or Frank Capra whenever some brave soul tries to make a comedy that takes America’s temperature by straddling cynicism and optimism. Those Hollywood masters could handily juggle the sweet, sour and satirical and, in Wilder’s case, even leave you believing in a happy ending.

With his writing-directing feature debut, “Good Fortune,” however, Aziz Ansari, who stars alongside Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves (as an angel named Gabriel), swings big, hoping to capture that jokey truth-telling vibe about the State of Things. His subject is a fertile one too: the gig economy fostering our crushing inequity, but also the desperation of the have-nots and how oblivious the wealthy are about those who made them rich. So let’s stick it to the billionaires! Let Keanu help the downtrodden!

Ansari’s high-low morality tale, set in our fair (and unfair) Los Angeles, is a friendly melding of celestially tinged stories (“Heaven Can Wait,” “Wings of Desire”) and body-swap comedies (“Trading Places”). But as agreeable as it is, it can’t square its jabs with its sentimentality. It’s got heart, kind eyes, a wry smile and some funny lines, but no teeth when you really need things bitten into, chewed up and spit out.

Ansari plays Arj, living a serious disconnection between his professional identity — wannabe Hollywood film editor — and how he actually exists: task-gigging for scraps and living in his car. When a garage-reorganizing job for Jeff (Rogen), a Bel-Air venture capitalist, turns into an assistant position, Arj feels secure enough to use the company card for a fancy dinner with occasional colleague and romantic interest Elena (an underused Keke Palmer). Jeff clocks the charge the next day, though (a realistic detail about the rich watching every penny), and immediately fires Arj.

All along, Arj’s sad situation has touched Reeves’ long-haired, khaki-suited angel, whose life-saving purview (he specializes in jostling distracted drivers) is low in the hierarchy overseen by boss guardian Martha (Sandra Oh). Gabriel wants a big healing job to show Arj, with a little role-reversal magic, that being Jeff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Except, of course, it is. (David Mamet’s line “Everybody needs money — that’s why they call it money” comes to mind.) The newly luxe-and-loving-it Arj shows no signs of wanting to switch back (which is apparently his call to make in the rules of this scenario), leaving out-of-his-depth Gabriel in the position of convincing a sudden billionaire why he should go back to being poor.

Which is where “Good Fortune,” for all its grasp of how Depression-era screwball comedies made the filthy rich mockable, struggles to match its issue-driven humor with its fix-it heart. While it’s funny to watch Rogen’s freshly desperate character suffer food-delivery humiliation, buying the script’s changes of heart — and the film’s naïve idea of where everyone should be at the end — is another matter. That’s why screwball comedies didn’t try to upend capitalism, just have some clever fun with it and let a simple love story stick the landing. Ansari’s ambition is admirable but he’s better at diagnoses than solutions.

His gold-touch move is giving the hilariously deadpan Reeves one of his best roles in years: a goofy meme brought to disarming life and the movie’s beating heart. Doing good can be hard work; understanding humans is harder. Plus, Reeves makes eating a burger for the first time a sublimely funny reaffirmation that sometimes, indeed, it is a wonderful life.

A MANIPULATIVE fraudster who fleeced an elderly woman out of almost £300,000 before fleeing to Tenerife is facing down a six-year prison sentence.

Pamela Gwinnett, 62, continued to steal money from Joan Greene, 89, after the pensioner passed away, treating her as a “cash cow to be milked.”

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Gwinnet claimed she was the grandmother’s carer but isolated frail, vulnerable Joan from her family.

She accused family members of mistreating the widow and did everything she could to keep them away while she fleeced her “golden goose.”

She would steal hundreds of thousands of pounds from the elderly woman, using the money to pay for botox and expensive meals before fleeing to Tenerife after getting caught.

Gwinett denied charges of fraud and theft but was found guilty by a jury at Preston Crown Court.

After discovering ex-accountant Joan was wealthy Gwinett concocted a lie, convincing Joan that her family were stealing from her pension.

Gwinett even moved Joan into a care home to keep the pensioner close when Covid hit in March 2020.

After the pandemic ended she took Joan home but padlocked the gates of her bungalow and changed the landline number in a bid to stop Joan’s family from getting in touch.

A court heard that the last months of Joan’s life had become “pock marked with increasing periods of bewilderment and confusion.”

Joan also became doubly incontinent, but instead of looking after the elderly woman Gwinett “bullied” her.

Gwinett would cover for Joan’s professional live-in carers for two hours a day, billing the pensioner for the time.

Judge Michael Maher said: “On one occasion, [one of the carers] found to her horror that you had left Joan covered in her own faeces in bed at the end of your two-hour shift.

“On another occasion, you barked at her to relieve herself in her incontinent pad.”

Eventually one of Joan’s carers became so concerned that she arranged for Joan’s family to visit.

The meeting sparked a massive argument with video from the incident featuring Joan complaining that she doesn’t know what’s going on.

Footage also picked up Joan mentioning money problems despite her being a well off woman.

By the time Gwinett’s power of attorney over Joan was suspended she had already robbed £161,000 from the pensioner.

She even managed to steal a further £119,000 by opening a joint account and transferring Joan’s cash into that.

Judge Maher said Joan’s family “are devastated by the fact that Joan in the fog of her deteriorating mental health may well have believed the lies you were pedalling and made her isolation all the more solitary and lonely.”

Joan’s step-daughter Katherine Farrimond, 65, said Joan believed in her final years that her family “hated her” and “didn’t want to see her’” because to Gwinett’s “lies.”

In April, Gwinett applied to vary her bail conditions so she could fly to Tenerife, saying she hoped to scatter her late brother’s ashes there.

Her request was denied but she still brazenly boarded a plane just hours later and has remained there since.

The judge added: “I sincerely hope that Ms Gwinett is extradited back to the UK to serve this sentence for these egregious offences.

“It is an affront to justice and the rule of law for this defendant to be allowed to remain in Tenerife.”

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As the production for the upcoming Harry Potter TV show continues, bosses have reportedly splashed out in a bid to make the show look as realistic as possible and not rely so much on CGI

The bosses for the upcoming Harry Potter TV show have provided a touch of royalty to the set. It’s said a famous screen locomotive has been delivered to Prince William’s garden, with Hogsmeade Station also on show.

With the set costing £4million, a half a mile of track is ready to run through woodland which is approximately a mile to the back of Forest Lodge in Windsor. It’s claimed bosses have spared no expense for the new production, with the set up likened to that of a military operation.

“The creative team wants the new TV show to look as realistic as possible and not rely so much on CGI like the Harry Potter movies,” an insider said.

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Speaking to The Sun, the source said: ““That was why they wanted the forestry on the Prince of Wales’s doorstep to replicate the Scottish Highlands. Thankfully it’s far enough away that it won’t disturb the royals — but close enough that they could easily nip down to make a flying visit.”

And it’s said that could be music to the ears of William’s children, Prince George, 12, and Princess Charlotte, 10, with the pair reportedly big fans of the franchise. It’s claimed the kids’ grandfather, King Charles, has read the JK Rowling’s books to the youngsters.

In 2017, Queen Camilla revealed the sweet family connection, saying the King “does all the voices, because he is a brilliant mimic”.

As the set started coming together, lorries were seen transporting the Hogwarts Express into Windsor Great Park last week. Despite being hidden under tarpaulin, the iconic shape was clearly recognisable to fans.

With filming under way, the series for HBO television is expected to be released in 2027. It comes 15 years after the unforgettable Deathly Hallows Part Two film was released..

Each series of the new TV drama is expected to focus on a novel, diving into the books in more detail than the iconic movies. It has been reported that Warner Bros is auditioning both men and women for the role of the terrifying Lord Voldemort, a part that was originally brought to life by actor Ralph Fiennes.

In July, HBO shared the first sneak peek at this production. It comes after in the months leading up to the start of filming, some of the cast list was announced.

It included 11-year-old Dominic McLaughlin playing the main character of Harry Potter, while Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout were announced to be playing Hermione and Ron respectively.

“This is the first official image of Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter for the upcoming series on HBO Max,” X account Daily Harry Potter wrote in a Twitter/X post in July.

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Quantum computing is a major emerging technology that could be commercially viable by 2030. With that timeframe not all that far away, investors are starting to take quantum computing stocks more seriously. Several stocks in this industry have the potential to make investors a fortune if they can grow from startups to dominant tech companies, but there’s no guarantee they can achieve that. Several established players are pursuing quantum computing. While these don’t have nearly the upside as their smaller counterparts, they are much safer bets.

I believe taking a balanced approach to the quantum computing arms race is a smart investment move, and these four stocks represent a great way to capitalize on this massive trend while also leveraging current market conditions.

Image source: Getty Images.

The startups: IonQ and D-Wave Quantum

Investing in quantum computing startups is an attractive option. Often, these companies are worth about $10 billion or less, but could grow to become far greater if their technology stack becomes the go-to option in the quantum computing realm, much like Nvidia‘s (NVDA 0.43%) GPUs have in the artificial intelligence (AI) realm. However, it’s possible that their technology doesn’t work out, and the stocks go to $0. This is likely to happen to many competitors in the quantum computing race, as several techniques are likely to yield unsatisfactory results compared to other technologies.

Two of my favorite pure-play quantum computing companies are IonQ (IONQ 18.36%) and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS 7.66%). Both companies are taking two separate approaches to quantum computing, which helps spread out risk.

IonQ employs a trapped-ion approach, which represents the most accurate quantum computing technology currently available and can also be implemented at room temperature, making it significantly more cost-effective. However, this comes at the cost of processing speed, which is slower compared to other options.

D-Wave Quantum utilizes quantum annealing, making it particularly well-suited for optimization problems, such as mapping logistics networks. Quantum annealing has a more limited use case than general-purpose quantum computers, such as those developed by IonQ. Still, it could be a viable technology that yields real results in areas that can benefit from quantum computing.

Success isn’t guaranteed with either of these investments, which is why balancing their risk with surefire bets is a smart idea.

Big tech players: Alphabet and Nvidia

It would be a mistake for investors to move on too quickly from the AI investing trend. There are still truckloads of money being spent on AI computing capabilities, and that isn’t slated to slow down anytime soon. This benefits Nvidia more than any other company, but Nvidia is also getting involved in the quantum computing industry.

While Nvidia isn’t developing its own quantum processing unit, it is developing the technology that enables quantum computers to be integrated into traditional computing systems, such as those it manufactures. This hybrid computing approach is likely to become the primary use case of quantum computing. With Nvidia bridging the gap, it is poised to capitalize on this industry while also excelling in AI.

Another big player in the quantum computing space is Alphabet (GOOG 0.27%) (GOOGL 0.22%). Alphabet kicked off a major quantum computing investment rush in December 2024 when it announced that its Willow quantum computing chip completed a calculation that would have taken a traditional computer 10 septillion years (10 to the 25th power) to complete. This was a major breakthrough for Alphabet, but it’s still a long way away from developing a commercially viable quantum computing system.

However, if it can be the first cloud computing provider to offer a viable quantum computing system, it stands to make a ton of money from various quantum computing workloads that will appear over the next decade.

In the meantime, Alphabet has a dominant base business and is starting to emerge as the leading AI company. This combination will make Alphabet a fantastic investment over the next few years.

This combination of four quantum computing investments is a great way to capitalize on the trend. It allows investors to balance the risk of pure-play quantum computing investments that may not survive with established big tech players that are benefiting from current market trends and also have quantum computing investments.

TORONTO — In introducing the Saturday night TIFF world premiere of “Good Fortune,” his feature debut as a writer-director, comedian Aziz Ansari told the audience the three words that are scary in Hollywood right now: original theatrical comedy. But the one word that is never scary is Keanu.

Speaking from the stage of the festival’s Roy Thomson Hall, Ansari recalled that his star Keanu Reeves broke his kneecap early in production.

“I found out he broke his kneecap and I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Ansari continued, Reeves himself standing onstage just a few feet away. “It was like, ‘Oh, my God, what is Keanu going to say? Is he going to need some time off? Is he going to drop out of the movie?’”

“And you know what Keanu said?” Ansari added. “Nothing. He just kept showing up to work and never complained, not once,” Ansari said. “He worked through what surely must have been excruciating pain and delivered a hilarious, touching performance, and he is the soul of this movie.”

The film opens with Reeves standing atop L.A.’s iconic Griffith Observatory with a small pair of angel wings on his back. Reeves, in a change of pace from his recent action work in the “John Wick” movies, plays Gabriel, a low-level angel given the task of stopping people from texting and driving. That is until he sees Arj (Ansari), who is struggling to make ends meet while working both at a big-box hardware store and as a food delivery driver.

Hoping to show him the grass isn’t always greener, Gabriel switches Arj’s life with that of Jeff (Seth Rogen), an ultrarich tech investor whose days seem to largely consist of going back and forth between his sauna and his cold plunge.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Arj much prefers Jeff’s life to his own and is reluctant to switch back. The situation becomes more complicated for Gabriel as he loses his job as an angel and must learn the tribulations and joys of being human, while still trying to fix the problem with Arj and Jeff.

For all the film’s gentle humor and quietly humanist spirit, “Good Fortune” is also rife with a palpable anger at the income inequality that motivates its story, the reality that robots are replacing the work of humans and that the excesses of the few seem predicated on the deprivation of many.

Aziz Ansari, left, and Keanu Reeves in the movie “Good Fortune.”

(Eddy Chen / Lionsgate)

The day after the film’s premiere, 42-year-old Ansari is upbeat and dapper in a gray plaid coat, black turtleneck and black slacks as he sat down for an interview in Toronto to discuss the movie and all that led up to it. After the end of his Emmy-winning series “Master of None” in 2021, Ansari had begun shooting a feature called “Being Mortal” that was shut down in 2022 a few weeks into production over allegations of misconduct by its star Bill Murray. Then production of “Good Fortune,” Ansari’s pivot away from “Being Mortal,” was delayed by the Hollywood labor strikes of 2023. Seemingly at long last, Ansari’s debut opens Oct. 17.

When “Being Mortal” got shut down, did you feel like, “Am I ever going to get to make a movie?”

I didn’t feel that way. Steven Spielberg has this story of — what’s the movie he did? “1941.” That didn’t do well and he was like, just immediately throw yourself in another thing. And I really thought about that, and that’s what I did. I just immediately went into “Good Fortune.” I mean, I had a couple of days where I was like,“Oh, no” and it was also so shocking. I think your mind doesn’t process it because it’s not really sinking in that this is what’s really happening. It probably still a piece of me [in which] it hasn’t really sunk in. It was definitely disappointing, but part of me is like, this is what needed to happen. This is the movie that should be out first.

“Being Mortal,” it’s funny, but it’s heavy. The Atul Gawande book, it’s about end-of-life issues. So it’s like, “Oh, OK. It’s another heavy drama thing.” People may have just gotten pissed, like, “What’s this guy doing?” So “Good Fortune” is definitely, to me, if you like those first two seasons of “Master of None,” I feel like what you’d hope I’d do is kind of evolve that style into a feature film and raise the level of it by having Seth and Keanu and Keke [Palmer] and Sandra [Oh], and as a feature film rather than a show.

As sweet and funny as the movie is, there also is a real righteous anger behind it. Where does that come from?

I think I got it from when I was interviewing all these people about the subject matter in the film, when I was doing research to write the Arj character. That attitude seeps in there.

“It was definitely disappointing, but part of me is like, this is what needed to happen,” Ansari says of “Being Mortal,” his first attempt at directing a feature, one that ran into production troubles with its star, Bill Murray,

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

During the opening credits of the movie, you say the line “The American Dream is dead.”

But that’s a frustration a lot of people like that guy Arj feel.

But then, you are a very successful entertainer —

Oh, yeah. Me and Seth are Jeff, no question.

How do you reconcile that? Are you concerned some people might dismiss the movie out of hand for that simple reason?

If you’re writing, you have to be able to write outside your own experience — for someone who’s like Arj, who doesn’t have the platform to tell these stories. When I did “Master of None,” we did an episode called “New York, I Love You.” And there was a segment about taxi drivers, a segment about a doorman and a segment about a woman who’s deaf. And doing that episode taught me a process of interviewing people and figuring out how to get these stories right when they’re not your experience. We did an episode in Season 3 about a woman going through IVF. I’d never done that or anything, and it had never been a part of my life. But I talked to all these people, and from the feedback I got, we got it right. And that’s what I did with this.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but for a movie coming out from a Hollywood studio, Seth gives a speech at the end that is politically radical, about how rich people can’t expect to have so much without others getting angry.

It’s kind of nuts. Some of the stuff that’s in there, I’m like, “Whoa, we really got away with something here.” Some of the stuff that’s in there, and the trailer kind of hides a little bit of that stuff, I think there are people that’d be like, “Oh, s—.”

At the premiere, there was big applause for the line, “F— AI.” Is that your feeling as well?

I’d rather say that I’m pro-human. I’m pro-people.

Keanu Reeves, left, Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari in the movie “Good Fortune.”

(Eddy Chen / Lionsgate)

The movie is very ambitious in combining the character stories and the attention to the notion of income inequality. Was it hard for you in balancing the characters and that theme? Was the work of that more when you were writing it or when you were editing what you’d shot?

It was both. And that’s the difference between a TV show and a movie. You have a different canvas. But it was a tough thing to do. And it was my first time doing it. I remember writing a second one while I was editing, and it was such a great help because you kind of see a few moves ahead. You’re like, “Oh, wait a second, I should get to this faster.” You kind of can see your mistakes a little bit in an earlier stage because you have more experience. This is another reason I really want to get into it again and start working on the next thing because I feel like I learned a lot from it.

That’s the thing that’s so interesting about doing stand-up and doing filmmaking. Stand-up, it’s so easy to “get to the gym,” right? If I really wanted to go to do stand-up tonight, I could do it. I could go find a club in Toronto and jump on a show. But If I wanted to go direct, that’s a big journey to get to the gym. So you have fewer opportunities to kind of get the reps in.

Shooting a movie is in L.A. has become such an economic and political issue for the city. Was that a consideration in making the movie in Los Angeles?

I wanted it to be in L.A., I felt like this movie had to be set in L.A. Jeff’s not going to be living in whatever place that gives you the tax credit. And L.A. really is the perfect backdrop for the story to me. And it was challenging, but you also get the benefit of working with some of the greatest technicians in the world in L.A. And I also just love being a part of the lineage of films that are set in L.A. I watched that documentary, “Los Angeles Plays itself,” and that was so fun to watch that and just see how every movie has its own L.A., whether it’s “Heat” or “Tangerine” or “Chinatown.”

And I feel like “Good Fortune” has its L.A., and it’s exciting to show some of these neighborhoods, to see people responding to seeing Eagle Rock or Los Feliz. Whenever I was writing the movie, I always thought about that taco place in Hollywood — it’s across the street from Jitlada. I always thought about that place. I thought there was something so cinematic, and it was a hard location to clear. And our guy [location manager] Jay Traynor, he made it happen. And finding Jeff’s house was so hard. But it all came together, and I loved showing Koreatown and that Gabriel works at a Korean barbecue restaurant. Just showing all these parts of L.A.

I want to be sure to ask you about working with Keanu. People are really responding to this role. And I’m having a hard time putting my finger on what that is about.

No, I’m feeling this. Even since [the premiere], I’m feeling it. I knew people would like him, but it’s hitting on another level.

Why do you think that is? What is the alchemy of Keanu in that role?

I was thinking about this when I was eating lunch. If you look at the roles he’s done that are comedic, whether it’s in “Bill & Ted” or in “Parenthood,” there’s this innocence, this sweetness and this kindness that’s in there. And then Gabriel, to me, is the progression of that. And it’s also that you have Keanu at 61, where when I first met him, I was like, “Hey, there’s something about you that people are responding to and who you are as a real person that I don’t think I’ve seen onscreen. And I think you can show some of that with Gabriel.”

It also has all of his comedy superpowers just dialed to the max. And we were just having so much fun. It just became playtime. We were coming up with bits all the time: Oh, he’s never used the internet before. Let’s just write a quick scene where he’s using the internet for the first time. What’s he gonna do? He’s gonna look at photos of baby elephants. It became such a fun joke bag. You could just make him do anything. And it was funny, the guy’s never done anything — if he takes a bite of a taco goes, “Wow!” It’s really the funniest character I’ve ever written for.

A RUSSIAN oligarch’s estranged wife has won a six-year fight to drag her divorce battle into the English courts.

Natalia Potanina secured a landmark Court of Appeal ruling on Thursday to sue her billionaire ex-husband Vladimir Potanin, who is said to be worth around £15.7billion.

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Potanin is described as Russia’s second richest man and a pal of Vladimir Putin through their shared love of ice hockey.

Potanin is the chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest palladium producer and a global nickel giant.

But he was sanctioned by the UK and US in 2022 after Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

The former couple wed in Russia in 1983, where they lived for their entire married life and raised three children.

They split in acrimonious fashion, with Potanin claiming the marriage ended in 2007.

Potanina insists they only separated in 2013, with a Russian court finalising the divorce a year later.

He has previously claimed their marriage ended when her husband calmly told her over tea that he was leaving her for a younger employee.

She said at first she thought it was a “badly-worded joke” but was later told she “didn’t need money” when the subject of a financial settlement arose.

The pair first met as penniless students in the 1970s, when Russia was still under communism.

Potanina argues that her husband only built his fortune after their marriage, and that she supported him throughout his rise.

Despite his £15billion fortune, Potanina was awarded just £30.9million in the Russian courts – less than one per cent of the family wealth.

Lawyers for Potanin argue she actually received around £63m, but she insists the sum barely scratched the surface of their assets.

Now, after years of legal wrangling, Potanina has been cleared to bring a claim in London for financial relief – setting the stage for what could become the world’s biggest-ever marital split.

She is seeking half of her ex-husband’s beneficial interest in shares in Norilsk Nickel, along with half of the dividends paid on those shares since 2014.

She also wants half the value of a lavish Moscow mansion known as The Autumn House, on which the couple splashed out around £111million.

She is thought to be seeking around £5billion in total.

At the heart of earlier disputes was the couple’s palatial family home in Nemchinovo, 17 miles west of Moscow, where they lived with their three children – daughter Anastasia, and sons Ivan and Vasily.

Also up for grabs were two superyachts, including “The Anastasia,” named after their daughter, and “The Nirvana.”

Potanina’s legal team told the court she had earned her share of the fortune through years of marriage and by being the “main carer” of their children.

Her barrister, Charles Howard KC, branded the earlier dismissal of her case “inconsistent and illogical,” accusing the judge of falling into Potanin’s trap of repeatedly labelling her a “divorce tourist.”

Potanin’s lawyers, led by Lord Faulks KC, countered that the couple had “no connection with this jurisdiction during the marriage” and that Potanina only had “recent and modest connections” to England when she applied.

London’s High Court originally threw out her claim in 2019, warning that allowing it would mean “no limit to divorce tourism.”

That decision was overturned in 2021 by the Court of Appeal, only for Potanin to win a narrow 3-2 victory in the Supreme Court last year, which sent the case back to be reconsidered.

Now, judges Lord Justice Moylan, Lady Justice Falk and Lord Justice Cobb have sided with Potanina once again, ruling she had “substantial grounds” to pursue her claim in England.

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They said there was evidence she had “very largely severed her ties with Russia” and that her connection to the country was “increasingly tenuous.”

The ruling added: “The discrepancy between her award of the marital assets and the husband’s retained share was significant.

“The discrepancy between what she had recovered in Russia compared with what she would have recovered had the case been heard in this jurisdiction was equally significant.”

The Sun reported in 2016 that Potanina was living “in exile” in central London, near Westminster Abbey.

She said at the time to be fearing that if she returned to Russia her passport could be seized, preventing her from visiting her son studying in New York.

She also accused her husband of offering her only medical insurance, a driver, and maintenance for their youngest child, rather than a fair settlement.

The blockbuster ruling reignites fears that London will become the “divorce capital of the world.”

Jennifer Headon, head of international family law at Birketts LLP, said the High Court had already warned such a move could open the floodgates to “limitless” divorce tourism.

Sarah Jane Lenihan, partner at Dawson Cornwell, said few had expected such an outcome, asking: “The question now is whether it will open the door for others who have divorced overseas to seek a second bite at the cherry in England.”

Sital Fontenelle, head of family law at Kingsley Napley LLP, said the ruling reinforced the UK’s status as the “divorce capital of the world” and left the “door still open” for future claims.

Peter Burgess, partner at Burgess Mee, added that aspiring “divorce tourists” might now wait to demonstrate their links to England at a full hearing rather than being knocked back early.

She has previously said her situation reflects the discrimination faced by many women in Russia, where “the law is male, the ideology is male,” adding that she had been “deprived of money and driven out of the house.”

Potanina’s solicitor, Frances Hughes of Hughes Fowler Carruthers, hailed the ruling as a “second vindication” of her client’s case, saying Potanina was delighted and now hoped the matter could be “resolved without further delay.”

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A SAVVY shopper has bagged stunning wedding guest dresses from Asda for less than a tenner.

TikToker Christina Mitsi, who’s 5ft 3 and a size 12/14, headed to George at Asda in search of the perfect big-day look and found a whole rail of gorgeous dresses from just £6.

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And while you might expect the cheapest frock to look like a bargain bin disaster, she reckons it’s one of the best of the lot.

Among her top picks was a beautiful navy satin-style number – simple, elegant and with a stretchy back that made it “so comfy” to wear.

The dress only set her back £6.

She laughed: “Can you imagine turning up in that and everyone saying, ‘Your dress is gorgeous, where’s it from?’ and you say Asda, six quid.”

She also fell in love with a flowy green dress for £15.

For something a little more versatile, she tried a multi-way bridesmaid-style gown for £32, which can be tied and styled in several different ways.

“So affordable if you need matching dresses for your bridesmaids, this is a fantastic option,” she said.

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Christina was seriously impressed with the quality, comfort and price of most of the range.

And with dresses starting at just £6, she says it’s the perfect excuse to splash out on a fancy handbag and heels instead.

“Why spend more when you can get a lovely dress for £15 or less?” she added.

Fans were just as impressed.

One user said: “Wow, you look stunning.”

Another added: “Love – makes me want to buy it in case I ever get invited to a wedding”.

While a third said: “They all look gorgeous on you x”.

It came just days after another savvy fashionista showed off her £3 event dress she bagged from Asda’s clearance rail.

The bargain-hunter, @finchofautismlife took to TikTok to show off the stunning satin dress from George at Asda.

And fans were totally obsessed.

“You look stunning,” one viewer gushed.

Another said: “Wow, I love it, that dress is gorgeous!”

Last week, shoppers were sent into a frenzy over a sweet broderie anglaise white mini dress, reduced from £22 to just £15, with rave reviews calling it “classy”, “lightweight” and the “perfect fit”.

Others have gone wild for a £20 floral dress hailed as “perfect in every way” , ideal for summer weddings or garden parties, while a £12 leopard print denim shirt dress became a best-seller thanks to its comfy oversized fit and transitional style.

But the £3 event dress might just take the crown for the best fashion bargain yet.

So if you’re in the market for an affordable outfit that’ll turn heads without emptying your wallet, it might be worth swinging by your local Asda and checking the rails.

The buzz comes after Asda launched its first-ever stand-alone George store in Leeds earlier this year, which could be rolled out nationwide if it proves a hit.

The new store, which opened on Saturday, May 10, in the old Asda Living unit at Crown Point Retail Park, is a dream come true for George fans.

It’s packed with affordable fashion, stylish homeware, must-have toys, and adorable baby gear, plus a brand new café to keep you fuelled mid-shop.

There are currently 30 Asda Living stores in the UK, but the supermarket giant is testing the waters with this new George-only concept.

Bosses are expected to make a decision later this year on whether more will launch across the country.

The George brand, first launched in 1989 by fashion guru George Davies, changed the game as the UK’s first supermarket clothing label.

By 2004, it had become the nation’s biggest clothing retailer, and today it’s still going strong, racking up 260 million visits a year to its site and stocking shelves in 560 stores.

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Rob Furber, whose new book The Gambler tell his weird, wacky and wonderful betting exploits over the last two decades, discovered he had a talent for special bets after correctly guessing the winner of Strictly Come Dancing – but had no idea what was to come.

Rob Furber was one of millions sitting anxiously on their edge of their sofas on December 17, 2005, to find out who had won the third series of Strictly Come Dancing.

The struggling freelance writer wasn’t particularly a fan of ballroom, weekend TV or the recent surge in reality shows. But tonight he was particularly invested – because of the £20 bet he’d placed.

Weeks earlier, Rob had become convinced that rank outsider, Darren ‘Dazzler’ Gough, would win the show – not because the former cricketer could dance, but because he would appeal to the Strictly audience demographic at the time. And when Bruce Forsyth revealed the results of the final public vote, Rob’s 25-1 punt earned him a £500 win. It comes after a woman claimed ‘I regret marrying an older man, one part of our history has given me the ick’.

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He recalls: “I punched the air with delight. It had been the only bet I’d made in the entire series. It was a lightbulb moment. I realised I could probably make more money betting on reality TV shows than I scratching around for freelance work or doing the odd shift.”

So began a nail-biting, exhilarating and unexpectedly romantic journey through the strange world of ‘special’ betting, which Rob describes in his new book, The Gambler.

He would go on to gamble on everything from Eurovision and royal baby names to even when a panda in Edinburgh Zoo would give birth.

Perhaps his riskiest bet of all, though, wasn’t made in a bookmakers, but a gamble on love that took him all the way to a remote part of Russia, still not entirely sure that the woman he’d met online wasn’t an elaborate scam by a kidnapping gang.

When, months after his Gough win, he correctly bet that Chantelle Houghton would win Celebrity Big Brother, earning him close to £1,500 profit, then successfully plumped for Matt Willis to win I’m a Celebrity, Rob realised he had a special gift.

When Strictly came around again, he once again picked out the winner, another test cricketer, Mark Ramprakash, even before the series had even started.

This time he gambled £250 on odds of 16/1, taking home a tidy £4,000 when Ramps was handed the glitter ball.

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Rob says it was a series of happy coincidences that turned him into a successful full-time gambler.

“I’d grown up near Newmarket, so flat racing was in my blood and I wasn’t averse to having a bet,” he says. “I was in my mid-20s, working in London on business titles, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I found the 9-5 of office life soul crushing, so decided to embark on a freelance life instead. I was a lot happier.”

Being at home also meant he could watch more television. “The early Noughties saw the advent of reality TV. I was watching the competitions and thinking, ‘I can work this out’.

“My media background helped. Just reading between the lines, knowing what the shows are trying to achieve and the power of the edit, as well as the profile of the audience who were voting, I was getting good at predicting who would end up winning.”

Rob began to spend hours researching reality show contestants and how they might be received by particular audiences.

One of Rob’s biggest jackpots was betting on Tara Palmer-Tomkinson to win Celebrity Fame Academy. He says: “Shaun Williamson, who played Barry from Eastenders, was odds on favourite. But while he could let out a song, I didn’t think he could pull heartstrings like Tara. She didn’t have a great voice, but it was really emotive watching her sing Coldplay songs at the piano.

“That’s where the skill likes, knowing what the audience is going to invest in. Those special ingredients. I found that I could identify them and know who was going to make a connection.”

He also predicted well before everyone else Jedward’s success on The X Factor.

“I knew what Simon Cowell was doing. He was being disparaging of Jedward knowing more people would vote for them to spite him. He wanted them to stay on the show.

“But the bookies were slow to catch on and always priced them very short, every week thinking they were able to get booted out.”

From TV, Rob discovered the world of ‘specials’ – novelty bets that bookies offer on everything from the Nobel Peace Prize and politics to Miss Universe and Royal baby names.

One big win was when he correctly predicted the opening and closing songs Coldplay were going to perform in the 2016 Super Bowl half-time show – and this time it wasn’t guesswork

He says: “A fellow special sleuth infiltrated some of the Coldplay online fan sites, and got the setlist from someone on there. We found out they were going to open with Yellow and end with Up&Up. When you get something like this is is absolutely gold-plated information. It ended up netting me around £1,500.”

Eurovision is a huge part of Rob’s year. He says: “It’s the biggest betting event of them all. It starts around Christmas, with the first country qualifiers. It’s five months of relentless study, every day you’ve got to be all over the news and tune in to all the qualifiers.

“One of my best wins was coming across Portugal’s Salvador Sobral, even before he was picked as the country’s entry. I found his song spellbinding. It was getting odds of 110-1 on Betfair at the time, but he went on to win. Another five-figure profit secured.”

But Rob’s biggest bet of all was when he realised that his new career in betting was leaving him a virtual recluse at home, and facing the possibility of never finding a lifelong partner – so decided to join a dating site for Western men interested in Eastern European women.

Some were clearly sophisticated scams, which made Rob’s decision to go and meet one woman, Anya, in a provincial part of Russia, even riskier.

Rob says: “This was something with more jeopardy than anything else I’d bet on so far, with an unpredictability I couldn’t control or outsmart.

“I applied my gambler’s mindset and thought, nothing ventured, nothing gained, let’s go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Like many of his other wacky bets, this one paid off too, turning into a rollercoaster love affair that ended happily ever after.

Now happily married, Rob and Anya’s against-the-odds, long-distance romance ended up being the most enthralling story of his book, The Gambler.

“I’d like to think the book is an irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny look at risk, romance and what happens when you bet on love,” Rob says. “I hope it comes across as an authentic and honest portrayal and challenges the reader to think about what they are prepared to gamble on in life, and what matters most.”

• The Gambler by Rob Furber, published by Mirror Books (£9.99), is on sale now from Amazon and all good bookshops.

A man who paid a fraction of that could make a life-changing amount if the picture of Clemintine Churchill is proved to have been painted by the revered wartime Prime Minister

An amateur art collector who claims he has found a lost painting by Sir Winston Churchill is told it could be worth more than £600,000.

Barry James appears on the BBC1 show Fake Or Fortune tonight (MON) with his intriguing picture. He tells presenter Fiona Bruce and international art dealer Phil Mould that he picked it up for just £140 in an antiques market in Ardingly near Gatwick, three years ago because he liked ‘the colours and composition’.

But it was only later when it took it out of the frame that he found a mysterious inscription on the back which read: “This painting of Mrs Winston Churchill on wall of sunken garden at Hurstmonceux (CORR) Castle, Sussex, by The Right Hon. Winston S Churchill. June 1916.”

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It shows what is thought to be Sir Winston’s wife Clementine perched on a wall reading a book in the pink flowered gardens of the castle. Barry, from West Sussex, hopes the BBC series, returning for its 13th run, can validate it.

In the BBC show, shocked Barry is told that paintings by Churchill – who was British PM from 1940-45 and 1951-55 – can fetch millions of pounds. In 2021 Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie sold one – The Tower Of The Koutoubia Mosque, painted in Marrakesh during WWII – for a record £7million.

And Barry is informed that if his picture is found to be an original then at auction it could make more than £600,000. The TV duo embark on a search to find out if the artist really was war leader Churchill. Records show how he took up painting in 1915 – in water colours to begin with and later in oils – after he had completed his military service during WW1 and narrowly escaped death.

He looked on his new hobby as something that took him away from the stress of his high powered life and it became a source of relaxation. Fiona, 61, delves into a book written by his friend Violet Bonham Carter called Winston Churchill As I Knew Him, in which she mentions that the politician stayed at the castle with his paints and brushes.

The author even writes that he was there as a guest in 1916 – but she mentions August rather than June. Undeterred, Fiona visits the castle to locate the exact spot where Clementine would have sat on the wall in the garden to be painted.

Meanwhile art dealer Phil does some digging to check that it is not stolen – and gets the all clear. A further mystery is uncovered when the artwork is x-rayed and another painting is discovered underneath. Experts believe it looks like a painting of a castle – possibly the very one where Winston and his wife stayed.

This news is not unwelcome as the statesman was well-known for re-using canvases. But some doubt is thrown into the mix when it is discovered that the handwriting on the back is not Churchill’s but that of Conservative politician Colonel Claude Lowther, who bought Herstmonceux and restored it – and invited his friend to stay there in 1916.

Barry, who is married and is a carer with a disabled son, admits: “If the painting is real, I’d probably end up reluctantly selling it, obviously for the family. We have always wanted to go to Niagara Falls. Our son is disabled and I think he’d enjoy something like that.” Viewers can find out if the painting is real on the new series of Fake Or Fortune, tonight at 9pm.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

Packing for a weekend getaway can be a struggle when you’re trying to keep costs low – but one woman has shared a simple trick to avoid paying cabin bag fees

We all want to score the best deals when jetting off to soak up some sun abroad.

But with major airlines cracking down on luggage allowances, packing for a quick weekend getaway has become tricky — and often expensive — especially when you’re trying to keep costs low.

Luckily, one savvy traveller has shared a clever hack that lets you avoid paying for a cabin or underseat bag altogether.

If you’ve already visited far-flung places like Australia or South America, chances are you might already own the perfect item for this trick.

Instead of splashing out on an extra carry-on, TikToker Nina Edwine showed how much you can actually fit inside an empty travel pillow cover.

READ MORE: Influencer’s travel hack gets you an entire row of seats on plane to yourself

Not only does this keep your clothes safe, but the packed pillow also doubles as a comfy cushion for those long flights. Don’t be fooled by its small size — Nina stuffed the pillow with plenty of clothes.

In her video, the German traveller unpacks a non-padded bra, a strappy dress, multiple tops, a stunning red co-ord, and more — totalling ten pieces of clothing.

She revealed that this stash was enough to put together “more than six” different outfits.

Proud of her budget-friendly hack, Nina said: “Smart trick to avoid paying 50 euros (£42) for cabin luggage.”

While some airlines allow a small free cabin bag, their size restrictions often aren’t enough — making this hack a game-changer.

The clip has gone viral, racking up over 2.6 million views on TikTok, with more than 75,000 likes and nearly 1,900 comments.

“This is actually genius, for real,” one user commented, liked over 4,100 times.

Another was amazed: “Wait, you fit so much stuff in there!”

A third said: “Legendary… how have I never thought of this?”

And one more chimed in: “Love doing this — it saves so much space.”

One fashion-savvy viewer added: “One of those Uniqlo crossbody bags fits loads. Wear it under your coat with a scarf to hide the strap.”

It comes after another influencer shared a simple trick that will help you get an entire row to yourself on your next flight.

Maddie revealed she had signed up for a service called Neighbour Free when she flew with Etihad. In a video posted to her social media platforms, she explained: “I bid on the seats next to me on the plane, and if the flight isn’t completely full when I board, I get the whole row to myself. It’s basically like Business Class in Economy. I can lie down, sleep, all that.”

The content creator was “excited” to discover she had “won” the seats, meaning she had the entire row to herself. Maddie managed to sleep for eight of the 13.5-hour long-haul flight.

When asked how much this luxury had cost her, Maddie revealed in the comments section of her video that she had paid £200 to upgrade to three seats. In response to a suggestion that it might have been cheaper to upgrade to Business Class, she retorted: “Business Class upgrade would have cost £1,900++.”

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In the summer of 2021, Priscilla Presley seemed to be riding high.

The ex-wife of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll had appeared at Graceland during the annual Elvis Week celebration and later hosted a three-day festival at the famous manse extolling the virtues of elegant southern living. Then there were the highly anticipated upcoming biopics: director Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” and Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” based on her 1985 memoir, for which she served as an executive producer.

Privately, however, it was a difficult time for the actress. Priscilla was mourning the passing of her mother, just a year after her grandson, Benjamin Keough, the only son of her daughter Lisa Marie Presley, had committed suicide at 27. Adding to her personal woes, Elvis’ former bride was in a serious financial hole, as court filings would later claim.

Then she met Brigitte Kruse, a flamboyant, fifth-generation auctioneer and self-styled philanthropist who specialized in high-profile celebrity memorabilia, royal objects, estates and fine jewelry sales. In 2017, Kruse gained a measure of renown when she sold an abandoned private plane known as the “lost jet” once owned by Elvis for $498,000.

After the pair were introduced, they launched a joint venture that would cash in on Priscilla’s famous name, image and likeness through her paid public appearances and other projects.

Within months of their initial meeting, Priscilla began lending her name to some of Kruse’s online Elvis memorabilia auctions with GWS Auctions Inc., based in Agoura Hills.

Priscilla Presley at a 2014 event held at Graceland in Memphis.

(Lance Murphey / Associated Press)

Less than two years later, their partnership was in tatters, with the two women trading bitter allegations in dueling lawsuits.

Priscilla, 80, called Kruse, who was half her age, a “con-artist and pathological liar” who had forced her into a “form of indentured servitude,” leading her into signing away 80% of her income and conning her out of more than $1 million, according to the fraud and elder abuse lawsuit she filed against Kruse and her business associates in Los Angeles last year.

Kruse, who did not respond to requests for comment, has disputed Priscilla Presley’s claims, depicting herself in court filings as her financial savior who faced retaliation after she sued Priscilla for breach of contract a year earlier.

The litigation is the latest in a string of legal battles that Priscilla and the Presley heirs have been involved in since Elvis died nearly 50 years ago, leaving a financial legacy as messy and fraught as the King’s life.

While the storied Presley family has forever been enshrined in celebrity as America’s reigning pop culture icons, Elvis’ estate has long been the spigot of his heirs’ fortunes and misfortunes, spilling out from the gates of Graceland.

As Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Elvis Presley Enterprises once said about another dispute involving the estate:

“People have been trying to take from Elvis since Elvis was Elvis.”

Inheriting a messy estate

When 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu met Elvis Presley in 1959, he was already Elvis. She was the stepdaughter of an U.S. Air Force officer, living in West Germany where the rocker, then 24, was stationed during his military service.

Four years later, Priscilla moved to Memphis and stepped inside the gilded cage of Elvis’ fame. In 1967, the couple married in Las Vegas. With the birth of their daughter Lisa Marie nine months later, a rock ‘n’ roll dynasty was born.

Lisa Marie was born in 1968, nine months after Elvis and Priscilla married in Las Vegas.

(Associated Press)

But life inside of the irresistible mythology of Elvis proved stifling. He was mostly on tour and in a haze of drugs and affairs. At 28, Priscilla divorced the rocker, but not his stardom.

She built an agile career out of the ashes of their romance. Priscilla went on to become an actress with a recurring role in the 1980s CBS hit series “Dallas,” starred in several of the “Naked Gun” movies and appeared in other television shows; she also authored books and launched a fragrance.

But she never strayed far from the buzzy afterlife of Elvis’ orbit.

When Elvis died in 1977, their daughter Lisa Marie was just nine and his father, Vernon Presley, took the reins as executor of his estate. After Vernon died in 1979, Priscilla, a successor trustee, assumed the role of primary manager.

Despite the celebrated influence and global popularity of Elvis, who was estimated to have earned anywhere between $100 million to $1 billion, his estate was in shambles — worth only about $5 million. Graceland’s costly maintenance and massive IRS bills were fast depleting Lisa Marie’s inheritance.

The poor state of affairs was due in part to Elvis’ profligate spending. He was known to lavish Cadillacs and jewelry on friends, many of whom were also on his payroll. But his fortune’s wane was exacerbated by the abusive control that his longtime manager Col. Tom Parker exerted over his business affairs.

Elvis performing in Honolulu in 1973.

(Pål Grandlund)

The cigar-chomping Parker, who died in 1997, was a former carnival barker and a compulsive gambler. He wasn’t, however, a colonel — the Dutch-born “Parker’s” real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk.

During his time as Elvis’ manager, Parker took commissions as high as 50%, and frequently cut deals that enriched himself at the rocker’s expense.

Four years before Elvis died, Parker sold off his back catalog to RCA for $5.4 million (with Parker taking $2.6 million and Elvis $2.8 million), depriving the estate of untold millions in royalties.

In 1981, the co-executors of Elvis’ estate (an attorney separately represented Lisa Marie), sued Parker for massive fraud and mismanagement, claiming he received the “lion’s share” of Elvis’ income, even after his death. The parties eventually reached an out-of-court settlement.

Reviving Graceland

But the years of profound missteps and mismanagement left Elvis’ estate facing the prospect of bankruptcy and worse, having to sell Graceland. Priscilla brought in a team of financial advisors and lawyers who engineered a stunning financial turnaround.

In 1981, the Elvis Presley Trust created Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. to conduct business and manage the trust’s assets, including Graceland, which was opened to the public the following year. Now a National Historic Landmark, the tourist shrine generates an estimated $10 million annually.

By the time Lisa Marie inherited her father’s estate upon her 25th birthday in 1993, the estate had rebounded. Two decades later, Graceland, along with the merchandising of Elvis’ image and managing his music royalties, was worth upward of $500 million.

Elvis on the grounds of his Graceland estate circa 1957.

(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Then, in 2005, Elvis’ estate changed hands. Lisa Marie agreed to sell 85% of EPE’s assets, including her father’s likeness rights, to music entrepreneur Robert F.X. Sillerman and his company CKX Inc. for $114 million.

Under the deal, Lisa Marie retained 15% of the trust and received $50 million in cash as well as $26 million in CKX common and preferred stock. She also retained sole ownership of Graceland and her father’s personal items. Priscilla received $6.5 million for the use of the family name, Fortune reported.

But in 2013, CKX Inc. sold its majority interest in the estate to the intellectual property firm Authenic Brands Group for a reported $145 million.

The problems that had long trailed the estate surfaced again five years later.

This time it was Lisa Marie who alleged she had been duped. Then 50 and in the middle of divorcing her fourth husband Michael Lockwood, the father of her twin girls, she sued her business manager Barry Siegel. She claimed that as a result of his “reckless and negligent mismanagement” the trust had dwindled to just $14,000 and was left with $500,000 in credit card debt.

Lisa Marie Presley in her childhood bedroom at Graceland in 2012.

(Lance Murphey/AP)

Siegel denied the allegations and countersued, claiming that she had “squandered” her fortune as a result of her “excessive spending.” At the time, court filings related to her divorce from Lockwood, revealed that she was $16.7 million in debt.

A mother, daughter feud

When Lisa Marie died suddenly in January 2023 at the age of 54, another tense legal battle erupted over the estate and the trust Lisa Marie had set up.

Within weeks of her death, Priscilla went to court to challenge an amendment that removed her as a trustee, making her granddaughter, the actress Riley Keough, sole trustee. Priscilla’s lawyers argued that the signature was “inconsistent” with Lisa Marie’s handwriting.

The matter was settled five months later. Keough was named sole trustee. In exchange for stepping down, Priscilla received a $1-million lump sum payment paid out of Lisa Marie’s $25-million life insurance policy and was made a special advisor for a trust relating to EPE, for which she would receive $100,000 annually for 10 years or until her death.

Priscilla was also granted permission to be buried in the Meditation Garden at Graceland near Elvis’ gravesite and to be given a memorial service on the property.

‘Dame’ Kruse

By spring 2023, as Priscilla resolved her dispute with her daughter’s estate, Kruse’s presence and influence in her personal and business affairs deepened.

When they met, Priscilla was in her mid-70s and her main source of income derived from her paid personal appearances. Kruse’s suit described Presley’s celebrity as “a mere shadow of what it once was, and her earning potential was only a fraction of what it previously was.”

Moreover, she claimed that Priscilla was 60 days away from financial disaster, and drowning under $700,000 in outstanding tax debts.

Then 39, Kruse was publicly portrayed as a success, active in the worlds of celebrity and philanthropy and who spoke multiple languages. She highlighted her advocacy for children with autism and AIDS research; donating money to related causes and delivering toys to orphans in global conflict zones with her husband, Vahe Sislyan.

On social media and in news releases, Kruse showcased her activities and accolades, posting images alongside various marquee names such as the pop star Gwen Stefani and President Trump and his wife Melania.

In 2016, seven years after Kruse and her husband founded GWS, she was the first female auctioneer to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records (for selling the largest abandoned world property). Kruse formally added the honorific title “Dame” to her name after a member of the royal Italian Medici family conferred the title of Cavaliere, a kind of knighthood, on her.

In media interviews, Kruse liked to say that the sale of Elvis’ “lost jet” had seared her reputation as the rocker’s memorabilia dealer. Over the years she was prolific, selling a number of his items, including the Smith & Wesson that he was said to have purchased in 1973 after he was attacked onstage in Las Vegas.

According to Priscilla, she first met Kruse in June 2021 after the auctioneer texted her saying she’d like to meet for lunch.

They dined at Gucci Osteria in Beverly Hills followed by numerous other get-togethers in Los Angeles. Kruse introduced her to her “business partner,” Kevin Fialko, “an investor, experienced businessman, and financial expert,” who “would help Kruse get my financial affairs in order,” according to a declaration submitted by Priscilla.

Dame Brigitte Kruse and Priscilla Presley at an event in Orlando in 2023.

(Gerardo Mora/Getty Images)

“When I first met Brigitte Kruse, she wanted to involve me in her auction business,” she wrote in her March declaration.

From there, Kruse “quickly immersed herself” in Priscilla’s life, “often sending her multiple text messages a day, and “telling her how much she loved her and admired her,” according to her elder abuse complaint. She also talked up her credentials, lineage and expertise in the auction business as well as her “connections to celebrities.”

In September 2021, Priscilla participated in one of GWS’ online auctions that featured a private lunch with her and Kruse, with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity. A number of Elvis items were also auctioned off, such as the white eyelet jumpsuit cape he wore during his 1972 performances at Madison Square Garden and a jar of his hair.

“She’s just such a wealth of experience and knowledge. You don’t study and learn about Elvis without learning about Priscilla as well. Their names are synonymous,” Kruse told People.

The following year, Kruse’s GWS conducted an online auction billed as “The Lost Jewelry Collection of Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker,” including watches, rings and cuff links that Elvis had bought or commissioned for his manager.

Although she didn’t own any of the items, Priscilla provided “letters of recollection” vouching for her personal historical memories of many of them, according to the auction’s online catalog notes.

“There is so much product out there that is not authentic at all and that worries me,” she said in a video with Reuters after viewing the collection. “I want to know for sure that that is going to go to someone who is going to care for it, love it.”

By January 2023, Priscilla and Kruse agreed to set up several companies to exploit Priscilla’s name and image and to bolster Kruse’s Elvis memorabilia auctions through Priscilla’s written “recollections.”

The terms of their agreement gave Kruse 51% and Presley 49% of Priscilla Presley Partners LLC, according to court filings.

Soon after, however, Priscilla alleged Kruse and Fialko “expanded the scope of their interest in my affairs, seeking to inject themselves into every area of my life.”

They gained her trust and isolated her from key advisors, setting the stage for “a meticulously planned and abhorrent scheme,” intended “to drain her of every last penny she had,” Presley alleged in her lawsuit.

Presley says that she was “fraudulently induced” to sign documents without the opportunity to review them in advance or “advised as to the nature of the paperwork.”

The contracts gave Kruse a controlling interest in her name, image and likeness in perpetuity. They also granted her power of attorney over Priscilla’s affairs and healthcare and named Kruse a trustee on her personal and family trusts, according to Priscilla’s declaration.

Along with Fialko, Kruse closed Priscilla’s bank accounts and opened new ones “in an effort to transfer the funds of Presley’s various personal, business and trust accounts.”

Priscilla claims she also signed a five-year lease on a house in Orlando, Fla., owned by Sislyan, that she never asked for or wanted.

Further, Priscilla alleges in a declaration that Kruse and Fialko leaned on Coppola to get a credit on the biopic and diverted $120,000 of money Presley earned from the film into their own accounts.

When Lisa Marie died, Priscilla contended that Kruse and Fialko improperly inserted themselves into her legal dispute over her daughter’s trust, she said in her complaint. They also had the “audacity” to demand that they were allowed “ to attend any memorial service for Presley in the future,” she added.

By August 2023, Priscilla severed ties with Kruse.

A lawyer representing Kruse and Fialko did not respond to a request for comment.

A few months later, Kruse, through Priscilla Presley Partners, sued for breach of contract, saying Priscilla asked Kruse to take over her business affairs, requiring her to “devote her attention full-time to managing Priscilla’s life” in order to “monetize various aspects of her [Presley’s] life.”

Kruse and Fialko maintained they worked tirelessly to keep Priscilla from “financial ruin and public embarrassment,” and that she fully understood the agreements she was signing.

Meanwhile, others began to question the authenticity around some of GWS’s Elvis sales.

When GWS held another online auction of Elvis memorabilia in January 2023 that included a one-of-a-kind grommet jacket that Elvis wore in 1972, it drew the attention of Elvis Presley Enterprises.

“We know there was only one made, and guess what? We have it in our archives,” Weinshanker, EPE’s managing partner, told NBC News, last July.

GWS said the claims were unsubstantiated: “GWS stands behind everything that it sells, and categorically denies tracking in fake or inauthentic items attributed to Elvis Presley, or otherwise.”

The tensions escalated last November, after GWS announced another “lost” collection auction of Elvis and Col. Parker memorabilia, comprising 400 items.

Priscilla Presley, her daughter Lisa Marie and grandaughters: Riley Keough, Harper Lockwood and Finley Lockwood at an event honoring the Presley family at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles in 2022.

(Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

The cache of documents included telegrams Elvis and Parker sent to Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and others, handwritten notes and Elvis’ signed 1956 contract with the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, included in the auction, that rang alarm bells.

The estate’s lawyers in December sent a cease and desist letter to GWS, claiming the listed auction items were the property of Graceland and demanded their immediate return. Nonetheless, GWS went forward with the sale, contending in a letter it had acted appropriately.
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On Dec. 24, the estate sued GWS, Kruse and two others, claiming the items belonged to Graceland and were “improperly and illegally offered for sale at auction.” They sought to recover at least 74 “irreplaceable documents,” and alleged that the defendants were in “possession of perhaps thousands more such items.”

According to the suit, the allegedly “stolen” items were part of an enormous trove that the estate acquired from Parker in 1990 for $1.25 million. GWS has denied that it had engaged in “any wrongdoing whatsoever.”

Elvis’ estate alleges that a former Parker employee named Greg McDonald “took possession” of the documents that should have been turned over to Graceland after Parker died.

Instead, when McDonald died in 2024, his widow Sherry and son Thomas McDonald, who are named as defendants, “took possession of the Property and then delivered it to Brigitte Kruse for sale at GWS,” the lawsuit states.

The suit further asserted that Kruse was aware of the circumstances in which Greg McDonald obtained the items before putting them up for sale. In an email thread between Kruse and Graceland’s longtime archivist in 2021, included in the filings, Kruse wrote that she had a video of her in conversation with McDonald in which he “admits to knowing of the theft,” in regards to the documents.

Over 600,000 visitors go to Graceland each year, earning the estate an estimated $10 million annually.

(Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)

An attorney for Kruse disputed the claim, saying in a statement that when she had informed the Elvis estate of the existence of McDonald’s collection in 2021, “they did not make a claim to Mr. McDonald alleging that the collection was not rightfully his.”

GWS “never maintained care, custody or control of any of the items” that were auctioned,” the statement read. “We will continue to respect the judicial process and the outcome of the ongoing litigation.”

In a statement to The Times on behalf of himself and his mother, Thomas McDonald said: “The property in which Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises are asserting ownership has been in my family’s possession for over forty years as gifts from the Colonel. I am committed to resolving this dispute and vindicating my family’s rights as expediently and fairly as possible.”

Lawyers for EPE and Graceland Holdings did not respond to a request for comment.

As the various lawsuits were unfolding, last April, GWS Auctions was suspended by the Franchise Tax board in California, effectively losing its standing to operate legally due to noncompliance with tax requirements.

In court filings, Kruse and her co-defendants are cited as saying that GWS is “defunct.” However, GWS’ website remains active and currently lists the results of its most recent auction: the Artifacts of Hollywood and Music sale held on June 7 (that included the racing helmet Elvis wore in “Viva Las Vegas,” that sold for $6,500).

Last month, Elvis’ former wife scored a legal win when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a motion by Kruse and her business associates to temporarily put a hold on the elder abuse lawsuit in an effort to move the litigation to Florida.

In his ruling, Judge Mark H. Epstein expressed frustration with the defendants’ “never-ending series of motions,” underscoring that this was not a a contract-based case. Presley “is suing these defendants for fraud and elder abuse, an aspect of which was allegedly bamboozling her into signing those agreements in the first place.”

The ongoing clash with Kruse has left Priscilla “devastated,” said her attorney, Wayne Harman. “We look forward to the court holding defendants fully accountable for their actions,” he said in a statement.

Amid the fallout with Kruse, the estate faced another controversy.

A mysterious company, Naussany Investments & Private Lending, presented documents claiming that Lisa Marie had borrowed $3.8 million and put up Graceland as collateral but had failed to repay the loan before she died.

But it was an elaborate scam, according to federal authorities, who in August arrested a Missouri woman, Lisa Jeanine Findley, alleging she used fake documents to “steal the family’s ownership interest in Graceland” and attemped to put it up for sale.

In February, Findley pleaded guilty to mail fraud for her role in the scheme and is scheduled to be sentenced this week. She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

These long-running shows will no longer air only on TV stations.

What are “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune”?

Beginning this fall, the two shows will expand beyond their broadcast runs to streaming services Peacock and Hulu in the U.S., Sony Pictures Television announced Tuesday.

Fans still will be able to continue their routines by watching new episodes of the programs on their local stations.

But the new licensing agreements with Peacock, owned by NBCUniversal, and Hulu, owned by the Walt Disney Co., mark the first time current-season episodes also will be available on national streaming platforms the day after they debut on broadcast TV.

The move is a recognition by Sony that broadcast TV audiences are aging, and the studio must expand its reach to stay relevant with younger viewers. Until now, the game shows provided a bulwark for TV station operators struggling to hold onto viewers amid the flight to streaming. Stations were able to exclusively offer two of the most popular shows on television at a predictable time, drawing viewers to their evening lineups.

Now that exclusivity is gone.

The deals also will give Peacock and Hulu access to older episodes of the programs, enabling their viewers to binge on the brainteasers.

“We are thrilled to bring America’s favorite game shows to an even wider audience on Hulu, Hulu on Disney+, and Peacock,” Keith Le Goy, chairman of Sony Pictures Television, said in a statement.

Sony owns the shows and produces them on its Culver City lot.

The shift comes as Sony continues to battle CBS over distribution rights to the two shows. In April, a Los Angeles judge ruled that Sony was no longer obligated to provide episodes to CBS, which has delivered batches of episodes to television stations around the country for decades.

After that ruling, the Paramount Global-owned network appealed. A three-judge appellate panel paused the order and last week, the judges ruled that CBS could continue to distribute the shows during the appeals process.

CBS maintains Sony lacks the legal right to unilaterally sever ties.

The dispute burst into view when Sony terminated its distribution deal with CBS last August. It later filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit that claimed CBS entered into unauthorized licensing deals for the shows and then paid itself a commission. Sony also maintained that rounds of budget cuts within CBS had hobbled the network’s efforts to support the shows.

In February, Sony attempted to cut CBS out of the picture, escalating the dispute.

CBS was not involved in the streaming pacts announced Tuesday.

Hulu and Peacock will begin streaming the shows in September with the launch of the 42nd season of “Jeopardy” and the 43rd season of “Wheel of Fortune.”

Fortune Feimster and her wife of five years, Jacquelyn “Jax” Smith, are divorcing, the former couple posted Monday on social media.

“Together, we have made the difficult decision to end our marriage,” they wrote in a statement posted on their Instagram accounts. “We’ve been separated for a little bit, both of us dealing with tough health situations in our families, so it wasn’t something we were ready to talk about.”

They continued, “While we are sad to see this chapter of our lives come to a close, we wish each other nothing but the best as we move forward. We’ve had 10 years together, and there’s so much to celebrate about that and so much we will look back on fondly.”

“The Mindy Project” actor, a Groundlings veteran, requested privacy in the wake of the news.

Smith was a kindergarten teacher and later joined Feimster’s creative team, executive producing three of her comedy specials, “Sweet & Salty” in 2020, “Good Fortune” in 2022 and “Crushing It” in 2024. The two met at a 2015 Pride event in Chicago, dated long distance for a few years, got engaged in 2018 and married in a small ceremony during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The women’s families attended the wedding via Zoom.

“I want people to know me and Jax are like everybody else,” the 44-year-old comedian told People in October 2022. “We happen to be gay but our story is not much different from other people’s. … You don’t have to be gay to relate to an engagement story.”

Divorce? Definitely — albeit unfortunately — relatable.

Feimster credits Chelsea Handler with launching her career as a writer-performer-standup comedian. She is credited as a writer on almost 600 episodes of “Chelsea Lately” between 2011 and 2014.

“She was putting people on TV that no one else was putting on TV,” Feimster told The Times in 2023, “and not really caring if you fit the mold of who should be on TV. … She was the first person who gave me the ‘yes’ when everyone was telling me ‘no.’”

CBS has notched another small victory in its legal battle with Sony Pictures Television, winning an appellate court ruling that allows the network to continue to distribute “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” as its court case continues.

Sony owns the shows and produces them on its Culver City lot.

Last month, a Los Angeles judge ruled that Sony was no longer obligated to provide episodes to CBS, which has served for decades as the conduit, delivering batches of episodes to television stations around the country.

After that ruling, the Paramount Global-owned network appealed. A three-judge appellate panel paused the order and asked both sides to submit their arguments.

On Wednesday, the judges wrote that they had reviewed filings from both sides. In a one-page order, the panel granted CBS’ request to keep the stay in place, allowing the network to continue its distribution duties during the appeal .

CBS maintains Sony lacks the legal right to unilaterally severe ties.

Sony terminated its distribution deal with CBS in August and later filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit that claimed CBS entered into unauthorized licensing deals for the shows and then paid itself a commission. Sony also maintained that rounds of budget cuts within CBS had hobbled the network’s efforts to support the two shows.

In February, Sony attempted to cut CBS out of the picture, escalating the dispute.

CBS has said Sony’s claims “are rooted in the fact they simply don’t like the deal the parties agreed to decades ago.”

CBS takes in up to 40% of the fees that TV stations pay to carry the shows. The company took over the distribution of the program when it acquired syndication company King World Productions in 1999.

King World struck deals with the original producer, Merv Griffin Enterprises, in the early 1980s to distribute “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel.” Sony later acquired Griffin’s company, but those early agreements remain in effect.

As viewing of traditional TV has declined due to competition for streaming in recent years, the two daily game shows have continued to thrive and are among the most-watched programs in television.

A Sony representative was not immediately available for comment.

Tasha, who has been travelling the world for two years, recently visited the Maldives and was left amazed by the paradise islands – and how affordable they can be

A savvy traveller has taken to TikTok to share how to enjoy the Maldives on a budget, proving that paradise doesn’t have to cost the earth.

Tasha, a seasoned explorer who’s been trotting the globe for two years, unveiled the truth about affordable Maldivian adventures, stating: “Why don’t more people know this about the Maldives? And that is that you don’t have to be a millionaire to visit here.”

Keen to share her knowledge, Tasha explained that swerving the costly private resorts in favour of cosier, more economical options is the key.

Reliving her visit to Dhigurah, one of the archipelago’s local islands, she called it “just the most beautiful island paradise surrounded by palm trees and blue water”.

This scenic bliss could slash your trip expenses by half since digs can be scooped up starting at just £50 per night – a fraction of the overwater villa prices often flaunted online.

Tasha divulged: “There are hundreds of local islands that you can choose from.”

She explained how public ferry transportation is a bargain at merely £1, and pointed out beachfront accommodation deals starting at around £50 per night; local fare can be found at about £5, while outings are pegged at £50, astonishingly less than resort equivalent excursions.

“I don’t know why more people aren’t discovering the local island of the Maldives, because this is the way you can discover paradise on a budget,” Tasha gushed enthusiastically.

She continued: “So next time you’re thinking of a tropical island getaway, forget Thailand, forget the Philippines, Maldives needs to be number one on your bucket list.”

Tasha did point out some constraints when visiting local islands, like the requirement to dress modestly and avoid alcohol due to the Maldives being a predominantly Muslim nation with specific public decorum.

Opting for a private beach or island allows for a more laid-back vibe and lenient rules, but be warned – it comes with a heftier price tag.

Tasha’s insider info has struck a chord with other globetrotters; comments poured in with one travel enthusiast sharing, “I loved Dhigurah! So gorgeous,” and another chimed in, saying, “Dhigurah is the best place. I miss it so much!”.

One commenter expressed surprise: “I had no idea. Always wanted to go to the Maldives but thought it wouldn’t happen for a long time.”

While yet another grateful wanderer added: “Maldives is honestly so amazing, thanks so much for the tips.”

How to do Maldives on a budget

1. Go off peak – The Maldives’ off-season is from May to October, which overlaps with the monsoon season. Although you might experience occasional rain, you can enjoy significant discounts on flights, accommodations, and activities.

2. Stick to local islands – Instead of staying at luxurious private island resorts, opt for budget-friendly guesthouses or boutique hotels on inhabited local islands. Popular local islands for budget travellers are Maafushi, Dhigurah, Fulidhoo, Thoddoo, and Hulhumalé.

3. Take the ferry – The Maldives has a reliable ferry network connecting Malé (the capital) to local islands. Public ferries are incredibly affordable, costing as little as £1 per trip.

4. Eat like a local – Skip the pricey resort restaurants and eat at local cafés (called “hotaa”). Traditional meals cost around £5. Traditional Maldivian dishes include mas huni (tuna and coconut), fish curries, and roshi (flatbread).

5. Book affordable trips – Excursions (like snorkelling, diving, or sandbank trips) from resorts are usually quite expensive, but guesthouses on local islands offer budget-friendly packages starting at about £20-£50 per activity.