Katy

Coronation Street star Katy Cavanagh reinvents herself as showbiz ‘momager’ 11 years after soap exit

Julie Carp, played by Kathy Cavanagh, spent seven years on the ITV soap Coronation Street between 2008 and 2015 but now she supports her two son’s as their Hollywood careers flourish

Coronation Street star Katy Cavanagh has reinvented herself as a ‘momager’ for her two sons 11 years after she left the iconic ITV soap.

Best known to soap fans as Julie Carp, she spent seven years on the soap between 2008 and 2015. Julie first appeared in April 2008 when she came to the Rovers to meet Kirk Sutherland (Andy Whyment), with whom she had just enjoyed a romance while on holiday in Cyprus.

After almost a year together, Julie began to get fed up with Kirk and was contemplating how to dump him when he beat her to it. Julie then had a drunken snog with Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas) but things went no further when it was revealed that Eileen’s father was also Julie’s, and Jason her nephew.

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The following year she met Brian Packham (Peter Gunn), but their first date was interrupted by his wife Margaret’s arrival. Brian had led her to believe he was divorced, so Julie sent him packing. Their paths crossed again in 2011 and they fell head over heels – Brian was then divorced.

Their biggest trial came in 2012 when Julie believed she was pregnant but was actually found to have a growth on her ovaries and she went on to have a hysterectomy. In 2013, Julie decided to look into fostering children but Brian wasn’t keen, and accepted a job in Wales. When Julie found out, she refused to go with him and furiously banished him from her life.

In 2014, Julie took a shine to Dev Alahan but when he wasn’t forthcoming, she went on a date with his friend Dominic Saul. She was touched when Dev told lies about her to Dominic in a bid to scupper any romance, and fell into Dev’s arms.

In 2015 she left the soap and at the time she said: “I have decided it’s time to take a break from the cobbles and pursue other projects and opportunities. I have loved every minute in the world of Julie Carp and I’m not ruling out a return to the Street in the future. However I am looking forward to a new challenge and a pair of flat shoes.”

Corrie producer Stuart Blackburn said: “Julie Carp has become a warm, wonderful and eccentric character able to raise a laugh and a tear in the same scene. Everyone at Corrie wishes Katy all the very best and hopefully as far as Julie is concerned, the cobbles haven’t seen the last of her.”

Fast forward 11 years and she has now reinvented herself as a showbiz ‘momager’ – a combination of mum and manager for her two sons Noah, 20, and Jacobi Jupe, 12.

Noah and Jacobi are set to be the toast of Hollywood thanks to their roles alongside Ms Buckley in the highly lauded Hamnet. Ms Cavanagh, 52, accompanied Jacobi to the Critics’ Choice awards and are both expected at the Golden Globes tonight, where the film, Ms Buckley and co-star Paul Mescal, are among the nominees.

The brothers’ success follows a lot of hard work from the former soap star. “She’s put everything into helping the boys have the best start in the industry,” an insider told MailOnline.

They added: “She’s put her own career on the back burner to help them realise their dreams. Obviously she’s not known in Hollywood, so it’s not like her name has particularly opened doors for them, but she’s got them into the industry and is constantly helping them.”

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California crypto firm accused of inflating Katy Perry NFTs and fraud

Four years ago, California startup Theta Labs’ cryptocurrency was soaring, and its future appeared bright when it landed a partnership with pop star Katy Perry.

The Bay Area company had built a marketplace for digital collectibles known as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and had teamed up with Perry to launch NFTs tied to her Las Vegas concert residency. Its THETA token jumped by more than 500% in early 2021, reaching a peak of more than $15, making it one of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrencies. Later in the year, the spotlight shone on the company when it announced the Perry partnership.

“I can’t wait to dive in with the Theta team on all the exciting and memorable creative pieces, so my fans can own a special moment of my residency,” Perry said in a June 2021 news release.

Today, like many cryptocurrencies, THETA is 95% off its 2021 peak. It took a hit this week after former executives accused it of manipulating markets to dupe consumers into buying its products. On Tuesday, it was trading at less than 30 cents.

Two former executives from Theta Labs sued the startup, alleging in separate lawsuits that the company and its chief executive, Mitch Liu, engaged in fraud and manipulated the cryptocurrency market for his benefit. Liu retaliated against them after the employees refused to engage in deceptive business practices and raised concerns, the lawsuits say.

Some of the alleged misconduct involved placing fake bids on Perry’s NFTs, engaging in token “pump and dump” schemes and using celebrity endorsements and “misleading” partnerships with high-profile companies such as Google to deceive the public, according to the December lawsuits filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Perry is not accused of any wrongdoing in the suit, and Theta denies the charges.

The lawsuits against Theta Labs are the latest controversy to rattle an industry beset by scandals.

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed, and its founder, Samuel Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 after being found guilty of multiple fraud charges. Binance founder and former Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao also got prison time after he pleaded guilty to violating money laundering laws, but President Trump pardoned him this year.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission previously charged celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and Ne-Yo for promoting crypto without disclosing they were paid to do so.

Theta Labs created a network that rewarded people with cryptocurrency for contributing spare bandwidth and computing power to enhance video streaming and lower content delivery costs. The company describes Theta Network as a “blockchain-powered decentralized cloud for AI, media and entertainment.” The network has two tokens: THETA, used to secure the network, and TFUEL, used to pay users for services and power operations.

The whistleblowers suing Theta Labs are Jerry Kowal, its former head of content, and Andrea Berry, previously the company’s head of business development.

“Liu used Theta Labs as his personal trading vehicle, perpetrating fraud, self-dealing, and market manipulation,” said Mark Mermelstein, Kowal’s attorney, in a statement. “His calculated ‘pump-and-dump’ schemes repeatedly wiped out employee and investor value. This suit is about demanding accountability and proving no one is above the law.”

Theta, Liu and its parent company, Sliver VR Technologies, deny the allegations and “intend to prove with evidence the fallacy of the stories being told in the lawsuits,” according to Kronenberger Rosenfeld, the law firm representing the defendants. The lawsuits are an attempt to paint the company in a negative light in hopes of securing a settlement, a lawyer for the firm said.

Kowal has sued his former employers before. In 2014, he accused Netflix of spreading false claims that he stole confidential information and Amazon of wrongful termination.

The latest lawsuits allege that Liu profited from buying and selling THETA tokens using insider knowledge about partnerships with celebrities, studios and others in the entertainment industry.

“Liu’s true motive in pursuing such partnerships was not to develop a sustainable content business but to generate publicity that could be used to artificially inflate token prices for Liu’s personal gain,” Kowal’s lawsuit says.

Kowal worked for Theta from 2020 to 2025.

In 2020, Liu traded and sold tokens knowing that the company would close a content licensing deal with MGM Studios, according to the lawsuit. After the deal’s announcement, THETA token’s market capitalization increased by more than $50 million in just 24 hours, the lawsuit says.

When NFTs started to take off in 2021, Kowal closed deals with high-profile partners such as Perry, Fremantle Media and Resorts World Las Vegas for the startup’s NFT marketplace.

As part of the deal with Perry, the singer received $8.5 million and additional warrants for the right to license her image and likeness for the NFTs.

To inflate the price and demand for these digital collectibles, Liu allegedly made bids on NFTs and directed employees to do the same. This led to people overpaying for the Perry NFTs.

Representatives for Perry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Multiple examples of alleged manipulation are outlined in the lawsuits. In one instance from 2022, the startup launched a new token called TDROP that employees also received as part of a bonus.

Liu gained control of 43% of the supply of the cryptocurrency, according to Kowal’s lawsuit. When the TDROP token reached a high, he then sold the token, and its price collapsed by more than 90% within months.

Berry’s lawsuit also alleges that Theta Labs announced “misleading” or fake partnerships with high-profile companies such as Google and entities including NASA to pump up the value of the THETA token. Theta paid for Google Cloud products but claimed it was a partner when it was a Google customer, according to the lawsuit.

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