The internet personality and comedian has landed his TV debut in Robin Hood.
Henry Rowley of TikTok fame has landed his first major TV role in MGM+’s Robin Hood, which also stars Sean Bean.
He plays the character Will Gamewell, and took to Instagram to say he was “so excited” for the “amazing project”.
Originally from Leicester but now living in London, the star is the youngest of three brothers, who studied English literature at the University of Bristol.
He uploaded his first TikTok video in October 2021 and some of his sketches have received millions of views.
One of his most famous videos includes an uncanny impersonation of Keira Knightley. The star is seen re-enacting some of the Hollywood actress’s scenes from the film Love Actually. On Instagram, the video has more than 180,000 likes.
Speaking to Square Mile, he admitting there was nothing showbiz about his childhood.
“Mum’s a counsellor, dad’s a doctor,” he shared, and as for his brothers: “Nick works in PR and Alex is an accountant.”
Never did he dream he would appear in an epic adventure drama with A-list stars like Sean Bean.
On landing his Robin Hood role, he said: ” It was the best experience of my life, far and away.
“For me that’s been a lifelong dream, to get a professional acting role and to be on a proper set with the cast and full crew and everything.
“Being there was better than the expectation. On my first day on set, I was giddy. I couldn’t stop smiling and saying to everyone, this is the most fun I’ve ever had.
“It’s just play with more stakes.” After sending over an audition tape, he landed the role and was told he would fly out to Serbia for filming three days later.
“Cancelled my trip to Mexico, went to Serbia, and had the best time ever,” he said.
He quit his job in marketing to pursue comedy and acting full-time and has since performed at a number of Edinburgh Fringe shows.
Henry admitted he did not know what TikTok was when he first started using it, thinking it was just “kids dancing”.
It was his friends who encouraged him to post his impressions on the platform and they “lost their minds” when the videos started garnering 30,000 views a day, in particular Minty, the posh girl at the afters.
Dean Henderson – Two important saves from Arber Hoxha to keep Albania at bay in the second half. Will be back-up to Jordan Pickford next summer. 6
Jarell Quansah – Can be happy with this England debut in an unfamiliar position at right-back. He doesn’t have a long-term future in the position but did a good job for his team. 7
John Stones – Stepped into midfield at every opportunity. Just as adept in the middle of the park as he is in the heart of defence. Crucial for England. 6.5
Dan Burn – Saw plenty of the ball but was no more than steady with his passing. Still questions over his ability against top international attackers. 6
Nico O’Reilly – Was caught by a couple of lapses in concentration in the first half but grew into the game. Can be happy with his first two international caps. 6
Adam Wharton – Showed flashes of the ability that marks him one of England’s most promising central midfielders but nowhere near enough to dislodge Elliot Anderson from the usual starting XI. 6
Declan Rice – England’s number four was once again deployed in the number eight position. Not his most eye-catching display but remains one of England’s most important players. 6.5
Jarrod Bowen – Made a couple of meaningful marks down the right-hand side but the position belongs to Bukayo Saka and everyone knows it. 6
Jude Bellingham – Flittered in and out of the game on his return to the England team and appeared frustrated to be coming off, but he will be so important to his country’s chances of World Cup success. 6.5
Eberechi Eze – Did not pose a consistent enough threat down England’s left. More suited to a role at number 10 – where England are overloaded with options. 6
Harry Kane – England’s match-winner yet again. Where would England be without their skipper, who is in the form of his life? 8
WHEN her best friend and co-star Ariana Grande was ambushed on the red carpet, quick-thinking Cynthia Erivo rushed to the rescue.
A prankster grabbed Ariana at the Singapore premiere of their new film Wicked: For Good on Thursday, but Cynthia, 38, stepped in and strong-armed the invader away.
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Cynthia Erivo stuns in green at the LA premiere of first Wicked movie last yearCredit: SplashCynthia and Ariana at the first European screening of Wicked: For Good in LondonCredit: Getty
The British actress admits she feels protective over Ariana, saying: “I love her, she’s a bright spark but you just want to take care of her. And we really took care of each other.”
Luckily loyal pal Cynthia was already fighting fit thanks to the gruelling stunts she had to perform for the eagerly anticipated sequel.
“The flying in harnesses, chafing, we had it. Chafing was like a funny word to me until I realised what chafing actually looked like when you had it, repetitively.
“It took months for my hips to heal, scratched palms bleeding, bloody nose, like it was bad.
“We were willing to do whatever it took to do this, but this one was a big one for us.”
Meanwhile, Cynthia says she and Ariana prefer to go to bed early — like a pair of “grandmothers”.
The star revealed that because of the time difference and their schedules, they often struggle to catch up when she is in London and Ariana is at home in LA.
SHUNNED BY DAD
But while gearing up for the long-awaited sequel of the big-screen musical, 32-year-old Ariana, who plays Glinda, broke routine to make sure they could chat.
Cynthia, who plays Elphaba in the films, said of one recent late-night text exchange with Ariana: “She’s a sweetheart. I was like, ‘Why are you up so late?’ Because we’re like grandmothers, the two of us.
“We like to sleep early. For some reason I was up at 11 here, which meant she was up at two wherever she was. I said, ‘Why are you up so late?’ She was like, ‘I know, it’s new, isn’t it? I’m never up this late’.
“I said, ‘No you’re not, what’s going on?’. And she said, ‘I’m taking every second I can get right now because you’re usually asleep by now’.”
The first Wicked movie became the highest-grossing UK release of 2024, taking £59.6million at the box office.
It led to Cynthia being nominated for an Oscar, Bafta, Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actress.
The sequel, Wicked: For Good, is expected to be just as big and hits UK cinemas on Friday, continuing the tale of the witches of Oz.
Adapted from the hit musical, Wicked follows Elphaba, a student sorceress shunned by her own father for her green skin, who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, while her spoiled roommate Glinda ends up as the Good Witch of the North.
Cynthia tells how she endured similar heartache when her own dad walked out of her life for good when she was a teenager.
She and her sister Stephanie were very young when their Nigerian father left their mother Edith, a nurse, to bring up the girls alone.
Edith remarried when Cynthia was five and she continued to see her dad “two or three times a week”.
I think he just was not set up to be a dad. I don’t think it was his bag
Cynhtia
She told The Armchair Expert podcast: “My mum was really, I think, kind and gave him the space to come and visit if he wanted to.
“We would go over to him from time to time as well. She really made the space for us if he wanted to build a relationship.
“And he just didn’t. I think he was just not set up to be a dad. I don’t think it was his bag.”
Recalling how she became estranged from her father, Cynthia added: “I was 16 when my dad decided not to be a part of my life.”
The actress pictured at a 2021 awards bash alongside her mum EdithCredit: Getty
By then, she had already joined a local youth theatre group and was singing hymns at a Catholic church near her home in Stockwell, South West London.
She went on to start a degree in musical psychology at the University of East London, but quit after securing a place at top acting school Rada.
Her early bid to break into UK telly flopped with an appearance on Channel 4 reality show Trust Me, I’m A Teenager and a small part in ITV period drama Mr Selfridge. Hopes of a breakthrough in Simon Cowell and
Harry Hill’s £6million X Factor musical, I Can’t Sing, were dashed as the run closed after seven weeks.
But her singing voice impressed casting directors.
She made her West End debut in the stage musical The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and, in 2013, won a place in a British stage adaptation of The Color Purple, the 1985 movie that starred Whoopi Goldberg.
Since then, her roles have included Harriet Tubman in the film Harriet and a part in Netflix thriller Luther: The Fallen Sun.
But the one person she always wanted to impress was her father.
She secretly hoped with her becoming famous, he would change his mind about being in her life. Cynthia said: “I think I was using, for a small amount of time, my career as a conduit to find a way to get him back.
‘Look what you gave up, you’re going to regret leaving this’. Yeah, that kind of thing.”
Cynthia has turned to therapy to help her deal with the trauma.
‘MAKE MISTAKES’
She said: “Until you get your head around it and get some control on what it is that you’re actually looking for, what you’re trying to fix in that, it will keep going.
“Thank goodness for a good therapist — that s**t really helped.”
Now, she has finally let go and learned to forgive. She told The Cruz Show podcast: “It took me ages to let go of parents. It’s like my father, I had to let that go and it’s taken me a long time to get there . . . to realise that it’s a human being who is also fallible and who will make mistakes.”
The co-stars attending the Critics’ Choice awards in California earlier this yearCredit: Getty
Cynthia admits that clinging on to that pain for such a long time held her back.
She said: “When you let go, you have to start living. What I keep doing is trying to find the things that challenge me the most, that force me to learn more, that keep me honest in my craft, that don’t let me get complacent and lazy.”
Wicked was a challenge. The movies were filmed in the UK in chronological order, back-to-back, between Dec- ember 2022 and January 2024, with a break in 2023 due to an actors’ strike.
Cynthia, who is dating Lena Waithe, an American actress, producer, and screenwriter, admits that even today she still gets crippled by anxiety.
She explained: “I think if I lose the nervousness, then I know something’s wrong. Because my nervousness tells me I care. The second that disappears, we’ve got a problem.
“So I relish the moments when my heart’s beating fast and I’m nervous. I always forget the first line. Whenever I’m about to go on, the first line will go out my head. That’s nerves.
“But when I stand in front of people, it always comes back. It means I care about being here, I care about the people watching.”
Thank goodness for a good therapist, that s**t really helped
Cynthia
When those jitters hit, she relies on strict pre-performance rituals. She said: “Breathing for me is always key.
“And I always say a prayer before I go on stage. Also, nervousness can sometimes be the mirror looking at yourself.
Stories will long be told about what Gazans have endured these last couple of years, and movies will be part of that unburdening. This spring, Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi believed she would be unveiling a uniquely dignified portrait of one Palestinian woman’s experience when the Cannes Film Festival accepted her documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” which comprised her year of spirited video chats with positive-minded 25-year-old photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. The day after the Cannes news, Hassona and her family were killed by an Israeli missile.
It’s not unheard of for a completed movie to become something entirely different overnight. But what’s quietly miraculous about “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” considering its added tragic weight, is what the force of Hassona’s personality and Farsi’s filmmaking choices still manage to do: speak to what’s ineffably beautiful about our human capacity for hope and connection.
In her opening narration, Farsi explains how she’d been looking for a way into Gaza to understand it beyond the media reports. Physically, that proved impossible, but through a refugee friend, she was connected to Hassona in April 2024. In their first video call, which Farsi, then in Cairo, recorded with a separate smartphone, Hassona’s beaming face immediately dispels any notion that all Palestinians must exist in a defeated state amid relentless bombing. Asked how she feels, Hassona — who had just witnessed a huge explosion the day prior — says, “I feel proud.” With unforced lightness, she assures Farsi that they will continue to live their lives and laugh, that they are “special people.” She knows every day is about actively not letting themselves get used to it. The documentary’s title is Hassona’s description of what she does when she leaves her house.
You believe her. That high-wattage smile registers as whatever the opposite of a bomb is. But it’s also easy to notice Farsi’s ingrained cynicism about the state of things, having once been imprisoned as a teenage dissident during the years following her country’s Islamic Revolution, now in exile. In her voice-over, Farsi describes meeting Hassona as if encountering a mirror, realizing “how much both our lives are conditioned by walls and wars.”
Farsi threads in many of Hassona’s photographs. The images of daily life amid destruction and rubble — children, bicyclists, workers, laundry drying from high floors in a half-destroyed building — hint at an inextinguishable flame carrying on through a campaign of death.
Though Farsi knows how to ask for details about her life in Gaza, the vibe isn’t one of interviews conducted to make a film, but a genuine curiosity and warmth, the ebb and flow of real interaction captured whenever possible. Meanwhile, war, politics and failed leadership can be glimpsed in brief interludes of news reports on Farsi’s television. But they’re always cut short, as if to say: I’d rather hear from my friend who’s living it.
Hassona’s face becomes so familiar to us, we can tell when her cheery disposition is hard to maintain. But her energy and hope never feel like depletable resources. “I want to be in a normal place!” she blurts out in one of their last conversations, almost as if she were a musical protagonist about to break into song. But Hassona never got more than a first act.
Farsi doesn’t draw the ending out: just sparsely worded text after witnessing their final chat, followed by a video Hassona had taken rolling through her devastated city, somehow grounded in a palpable, undying everydayness. You’ll feel loss, but the afterimage of this singular woman’s belief in finding light is what will burn.
‘Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk’
In Arabic and English, with subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday, Nov. 14 at Laemmle Monica Film Center, Laemmle Glendale
To watch “Trifole” is to fall in love with Langhe, a gorgeous section of the Piedmont region of northern Italy. Famed for its farming, cheeses and wine, this hilly, rural countryside feels cut off from modernity: an agrarian past perfectly preserved in an uncertain present. Among Langhe’s hallmarks is its rich tradition of truffle foraging, which becomes the centerpiece for director Gabriele Fabbro’s gentle drama about an aging truffle hunter, his restless granddaughter and a way of life vanishing before their eyes. Unfortunately, this heartfelt film resonates most strongly through those majestic landscapes, not via the story that unfolds.
Constructed with the elemental purity of a fable, “Trifole” introduces the viewer to Dalia (Ydalie Turk), who’s in her late 20s and visiting her grandfather Igor (Umberto Orsini). The trip is a reluctant one for Dalia. Prompted by her anxious mother Marta (Margherita Buy), she’s taking a break from her stalled life in London to check in on him due to Marta’s concern that his failing memory may require him to abandon his beloved crumbling cottage and enter a nursing home. When Igor initially mistakes Dalia for his daughter — Dalia’s mother — his confusion validates Marta’s worries.
Happy to live out the rest of his days in his remote paradise alongside his loyal dog Birba, who ably assists him in his truffle hunts, Igor is displeased that Dalia has rejected her family roots for the big city. Indeed, Dalia has trouble with her Italian, and when she offers to help him find truffles, he insists his granddaughter doesn’t have the instincts or the calloused hands necessary for the job. But Igor isn’t just adept at sniffing out truffles — he quickly deduces that she’s emotionally lost. (A writing career hasn’t materialized as she’d hoped.) Both of them are at a crossroads, neither sure what the future holds.
Turk and Fabbro, who co-wrote the screenplay, did extensive research on the region, incorporating locals’ stories into the narrative. No matter how fantastical “Trifole” eventually becomes, the filmmakers insist the plot points derive from tales they collected. (To that end, there actually is an Igor, Birba is a real truffle-hunting dog and there’s a 2020 documentary, “The Truffle Hunters,” that correlates with much of what we see.) Not surprisingly, this melancholy picture celebrates and mourns Langhe, a region imperiled by global warming and encroaching industrialization that threaten the once-fecund practice of truffle gathering. Igor’s fading memory proves to be an apt, albeit obvious metaphor for a vocation slowly losing its connection to its past as truffles have emerged as a hot gastronomic trend.
In its early stretches, “Trifole” is almost rudimentary in its storytelling, establishing a familiar generational conflict between Dalia and Igor, who live under the same roof but can’t see eye to eye. When she tries to compliment his picturesque farmland, he curtly responds, “It’s nothing like the soil I knew when I was young.” The tension only escalates once Dalia discovers he’s terribly behind on his mortgage, owing hundreds of thousands he doesn’t have. Igor’s only hope is to find an elusive (and valuable) white truffle that could save him from foreclosure. But he is now too frail to brave the deep woods. Dalia, guided by Birba, must take up the quest.
The film’s themes are simply drawn and easy to follow. Dalia may reside in cosmopolitan London but is, of course, miserable, with wise old Igor immediately diagnosing the cause of her malaise. “You don’t love anything,” he advises sagely. “This will end up hurting you a lot.” Consequently, Dalia’s journey to find the mythical white truffle will also be an opportunity to locate a sense of purpose, coming to appreciate her grandfather in a more profound way. Turk conceives her character as a collection of insecurities and hesitant expressions, making Dalia the perfect candidate to be metaphorically reborn through an unlikely forest adventure in which magical events will occur.
In his sophomore feature, Fabbro, who previously directed the 2021 romantic thriller “The Grand Bolero,” juxtaposes the quiet grace of Igor’s modest life with the cacophony and commercialism of contemporary truffle auctions. But Fabbro’s wistful salute to bygone traditions has significant limitations, especially noticeable in the reductive design of his diametrically opposed main characters. Now in his early 90s, Orsini (best known for Luchino Visconti’s 1969 drama “The Damned”) projects a fragile but resilient gravitas that’s quite affecting, but Igor is reduced to a noble symbol — a simplification that also undercuts Dalia, who is little more than a stand-in for a younger generation ignorant of its country’s history.
Only when Fabbro trains his camera on the Langhe skies, the land stretching off into the distance, does “Trifole” suggest the weight and majesty of a culture in danger of disappearing. You can almost touch the sacred soil of Igor’s youth, a world that he alone remembers.
Before FKA Twigs could discuss her upcoming album, “Afterglow,” she needed a matcha.
The British singer-songwriter had first answered a Zoom call from the backseat of a dimly lit car in New York, where she confessed to running on “2% personality.” She explained that she had flown in that morning from London and had spent the day promoting her upcoming movie, “The Carpenter’s Son,” a biblical horror co-starring Nicolas Cage.
Luckily, only a few minutes into the interview, the singer born Tahliah Debrett Barnett spotted a familiar matcha spot coming up on her route. In a split-second decision, she runs into the cafe, eager for a caffeine boost, and orders everything matcha she could get her hands on — a hot lavender matcha latte, a matcha soft serve and matcha-flavored pudding.
“Oh, we’re gonna be buzzing,” said Twigs, who laughs a bit about how she hasn’t eaten much that day and decided to exclusively consume matcha desserts. After making it back to the car and indulging in a few sips, she declares, “It feels like I have my personality back. That was quite an authentic experience.”
With a revived glint in her eyes, she was ready to debrief “Afterglow,” the unexpected continuation of her third studio album, “Eusexua.” The 37-year-old singer released “Eusexua” in January as both the namesake of her record and a term she coined to describe a transcendent state of being.
Now, less than a year later and set to be released the same day as “The Carpenter’s Son,” her latest album is meant to “beautifully unravel” the questions of humanity she presents on “Eusexua.”
From the start, she says, she knew that “Eusexua” was something bigger than a singular album — equating it to an era. Inspired by Prague’s underground rave culture, the record itself is centered around life’s purest experiences. Over tattered drum and bass patterns, retro-futuristic crescendos and ephemeral melodies, Twigs attempts to bottle the way dance music makes her feel. Lyrically, she embraces a childlike wonder, shares her vulnerabilities and indulges in sweet nothings — all with the intention of capturing what it means to be a person.
Where “Eusexua” is “the bird’s eye view of the human experience,” Twigs says, “Afterglow” is meant to capture humanity through a more direct lens, where feelings are unfiltered and instantaneous. Changing this viewpoint was something that came to her with ease.
“Sometimes when you’re creating something, it feels like you’re rubbing against something or you’re pushing something uphill. But with this project, it didn’t feel like that. It was flowing naturally,” said Twigs.
Most of “Afterglow” was made post-“Eusexua” from the comfort of her home studio in Hackney, London. Despite “Eusexua’s” successful release, she couldn’t shake the feeling of still having more to give.
“I can’t explain it. Sometimes you put out an album, and then it feels like you need to stop for a while,” said Twigs. “But with ‘Eusexua,’ it felt like it was still growing. The message was still spreading, and people still wanted a deeper understanding of what it was.”
For over a decade, Twigs has been known to cushion her albums with a few years between each release. Her debut, “LP1,” released in 2014, was followed by “Magdalene” in 2019 and “Eusexua” in 2025. She also released a mixtape, called “Caprisongs,” in 2022. On each project, she bears a new side to herself, often diving headfirst into the depths of her identity, love life and womanhood. Uncovering raw emotions, like loss, lust and jealousy, she’s able to capture their complexities through erratic rhythms, unorthodox mechanics and a trance-like ambiance.
FKA Twigs performs at Camp Flog Gnaw in November 2019.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Before becoming a musician, she found success at an early age as a professional dancer. In her late teens and early 20s, she appeared as a dancer in music videos for artists like Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Kylie Minogue. To this day, she relies on dancing and bodily movement as an essential part of how she understands music.
“When you dance, it’s really good to know the rules and the fundamentals, like with ballet. But once you know ballet, then you can mess it up and let go. You can dance with more freedom,” said Twigs, in between bites of her matcha pudding. “That’s kind of what ‘Afterglow’ is. It’s ‘Eusexua,’ but it’s wild, sensual and irresistible. It’s meant to quench a thirst.”
Since she’d laid out the groundwork with her previous release, she approached its follow-up with a carefree sense of freedom. The 11-track album is meant to be a concept album of sorts, detailing the aftermath of a night out. From the feeling of fresh air after leaving a sweaty dance floor to the drunken temptations of texting an ex-lover and the inevitable rush of not wanting the night to end, Twigs proves she has the “afters” down to a formula.
Leaning into a slightly less alien soundscape than the one heard on “Eusexua,” the singer indulges in a masterful form of electronic edging — never going the predictable route. On songs like “Slushy” and “Predictable Girl,” she intertwines a menagerie of robotic, spacey sirens with tinges of Jersey club beats and ’90s-influenced R&B chords. While on equally hypnotic tracks like “Cheap Hotel” and “Sushi,” she commands the heavily-layered soundscape with an intoxicating sense of recklessness.
“Sometimes I go out to reset my brain a little bit. Obviously, I love what I do so much. I love being an artist. But sometimes, it just gets unnecessarily stressful,” explains Twigs, who touches on the complications of fame with the track “Wild and Alone,” alongside fellow British pop music innovator PinkPantheress.
“So when I go out, it makes me put everything into perspective and realize what’s really important in my life, who I want to be and who I want to be around.”
Powered by these realizations, she’ll continue to lose herself in foggy nightclub dance floors, masses of sweaty bodies and blinding strobe lights. But she says, when it comes to making art, there’s one thing she’ll never lose sight of.
The only thing that can affect her creative output, she says, is “whether you’re telling the truth or not, and how honest you’re being.”
It takes a certain composure, as a teenager, to walk out onto Taylor Swift’s stage in a sold-out stadium and play an opening set to tens of thousands of fans who have never heard of you. But it takes even more conviction to use the occasion to play music almost guaranteed to leave them squirming — grimy, bloodletting noise-rock and electro about being a sexual menace and growing disillusioned with God.
The now-20-year-old singer-songwriter Sofia Isella did that last year, opening on the Australian run of Swift’s Eras tour. “Taylor was an angel for allowing me to share that stage,” L.A.-raised Isella said. “I wish I could have recorded that feeling. But the show itself is not as nerve-wracking as it is playing for 20 people. There’s something about a giant room that almost feels a little dissociative, like it’s not really happening or it’s not really there.”
“Dissociative” is a decent descriptor for Isella’s music, too — disorienting, unnerving, drawing out emotions you might not understand. But there’s so much skill in the performances and imagination in her arrangements that they may well get Isella — who plays the Fonda Theater on Nov. 16 — onto much bigger stages of her own, just as the world gets much bleaker around her.
“This next record, I’m having so much fun with s— that’s really f— dark,” Isella said. “It’s like, the only way to stop screaming about it is to have a moment laughing about it.”
Isella grew up in Los Angeles in a family with enough entertainment-biz acclaim to make being an artist feel like a viable career. Yet they still let her be feral and freewheeling in developing her craft. Her father, the Chilean American cinematographer Claudio Miranda, won an Oscar for 2012’s “Life of Pi” and shot “Top Gun: Maverick” and the recent racing hit “F1” (Her mom is the author Kelli Bean-Miranda). Looking back on her bucolic childhood in L.A., Isella recalled it filled with music and boundless encouragement, worlds away from her social media-addled peers.
“I’d been homeschooled my whole life,” Isella said. “My mom would leave little trails of poetry books for me to find, and my dad would set up GarageBand and leave me for hours with all the instruments and nothing but free time. I didn’t even have a phone until I was 16. When I first was on TikTok, I saw everyone had the same personality, because they had been watching each other for so long. Being around kids my age was so strange, because I’d grown up around adults — like, ‘Oh, these kids are so sweet and kind and adorable, but they think I’m one of them.’”
After her family temporarily moved to Australia during the pandemic and Isella began self-releasing music, it became clear that her talents set her very far apart. Drawing on her early background in classical music and a fascination with scabrous rock and electronic music, she found a sound that melded the Velvet Underground and Nico’s elegant miserablism, Chelsea Wolfe and Lingua Ignota’s doom-laden art metal and the close-miked , creepy goth-pop of Billie Eilish’s first LP.
Isella began self-releasing music during the pandemic. Since then, she’s landed opener spots on multiple high-profile tours.
(@okaynicolita)
Her early music showed a withering humor and skepticism of the culture around her (“All of Human Knowledge Made Us Dumb,” “Everybody Supports Women”), but singles came at rapid clip and translated surprisingly well on the social media platforms she loathed (she has 1.3 million followers on TikTok). It all got her onto stages with Melanie Martinez and Glass Animals and, eventually, Swift. (A Florence + The Machine arena tour opening slot is up next.)
On 2024’s writhing EP “I Can Be Your Mother,” songs like “Sex Concept” had the sensual fatalism of poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, paired with the drippy erotic menace of Nine Inch Nails. “I’ll bend him over backwards, give him something to believe in,” she sings. “We’ll play the game, both go insane and then we’ll call it even … I’m the only god that you’ll ever believe in.”
“The first EP was this whole story of giving birth to yourself, this giant stretched-out muse,” Isella said, leaning into a stemwinder about the genesis of art. “It just doesn’t feel like it’s coming from me. It feels like it’s coming from some weird thing I somewhat worship.”
A May 2025 follow-up, “I’m Camera,” dealt with the depersonalizing effects of sudden attention. On “Josephine,” she makes tour life feel like a proverbial grippy-sock vacation to the breakdown ward — “I’m sock-footed, sick and selfish holding strangers’ hands … I lost something, I sold it, I only remember the ache.”
Isella’s wariness of institutions extends to her recording career. She’s still independent for now — surprising for an artist on Swift’s radar — and uncompromising about what a label would demand of her compared to what they can provide. “I’ve met with a lot of the big dogs, and they’re very kind people, but I just love the feeling of being independent,” Isella said. “Maybe I’ll change my mind on that, but I’m trying to fully understand a label and what its functions are, what it gives the artist in a social media day. I’m trying to fully assess that before I sign any magic papers.”
Her newest material (and her subversively eerie, Francesa Woodman-evoking music videos like “Muse”) feel perfectly timed to the apocalyptic mood in L.A. and the U.S. now, where an inexorable slide to ruin feels biblical. “Out In the Garden,” from September, hits some of the Southern gothic moods of Ethel Cain, but with a sense of acidic pity that’s all her own. “That there’s a small part of me that’s envious / That you full-heartedly believe someone is always there,” she sings. “That will always love you, and there’s a plan for you out there.”
Even at her bleakest, there’s a curdled humor underneath (her current tour is subtitled “You’ll Understand More, Dick”). But if this little sliver of young fame has taught Isella anything, it’s that even when everyone wants a piece of you, no one is actually coming to save any of us.
“There’s nothing with weight, nothing that’s meaningful, to blind faith,” Isella said. “On this next record, I’m about to go really angry because religion really pisses me off, it inflames me. But it’s the most beautiful placebo to imagine that there’s a father that loves you no matter what you do. I’m a really lucky person in that I’ve always been safe and protected, but if you’ve had a rough life, that is insanely powerful to imagine that and believe that.”
Ruby Rose has entered the ring to take a swing at Sydney Sweeney — blaming the actor, now known for her choice in jeans, for “Christy’s” disastrous debut.
“The original Christy Martin script was incredible. Life changing,” the former “Batwoman” star wrote in a Monday post on Threads. “I was attached to play Cherry. Everyone had experience with the core material. Most of us were actually gay. It’s part of why I stayed in acting.”
“Christy” stars Sweeney as Christy Martin, the groundbreaking boxer who raised the profile of her sport during her Hall of Fame career. The movie follows Martin as a closeted lesbian boxer trying to navigate her professional ascent, an abusive marriage to her toxic coach and her identity. It made just $1.3 million at the domestic box office during its opening weekend.
In her Threads post, Rose mentions “losing roles happens all the time” in Hollywood, but doesn’t hold back from expressing her disapproval that Sweeney is the one portraying Martin.
“Christy deserved better,” Rose said. “None of ‘the people’ want to see someone who hates them, parading around pretending to be us. You’re a cretin and you ruined the film. Period.”
Her comments appear to be in response to Sweeney’s Monday Instagram post in which she shared how “deeply proud” she was of “Christy” despite it flopping at the box office.
“[W]e don’t always just make art for numbers, we make it for impact,” Sweeney wrote in the caption accompanying a gallery led by an image of her bloodied but smiling. “[A]nd christy has been the most impactful project of my life. thank you christy. i love you.”
Attitudes regarding the “Euphoria” actor have been increasingly divided since her part in a controversial American Eagle ad campaign around her “good jeans.” Since then, it has been reported that Sweeney registered to vote as a Republican in Florida shortly before the 2024 presidential election and prominent right-wing figures including President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have voiced their support for the actor.
Sweeney, for her part, has avoided discussing her political beliefs. In the lead-up to “Christy’s” release, she told LGBTQ+ news site PinkNews that she was “excited” for the queer community to see the movie because “she is an unbelievable advocate for the community and I believe this is a beautiful story to tell.”
Writing on Reddit, one poster lifted the lid on a tropical island they found while travelling. The photographs showed beautiful sandy beaches lined with palm trees, with crystal-clear seas, and barely another soul in sight
The tropical island is only 250m wide (stock image)(Image: Getty Images)
Sometimes the only solution to the stresses of everyday life is to jet off to a tropical island. But finding the perfect unspoiled paradise can be a trick, with ever-increasing tourism levels meaning many places can be overcrowded, or have lost some of their local charm.
Writing on Reddit, one poster lifted the lid on a tiny hidden island they had discovered while travelling in South Asia. The photographs showed beautiful sandy beaches lined with palm trees, with crystal-clear seas, and barely another soul in sight.
The Reddit user wrote: “My girlfriend and I were in the area (Sri Lanka) and decided to extend our trip with a new country, so flew to Malé and took a local ferry to an island two atolls away.” They continued: “(We) arrived in a little unspoilt paradise called Dhigurah, which only opened up to non-Muslim foreigners recently (at the time, 2023).”
Dhigurah is an island in the Alifu Dhaalu Atoll, a series of 49 islands in the Maldives. It is 3km long, making it one of the longest islands in the Maldives, and at points just 250 metres wide, according to maldives-magazine.com.
The waters surrounding the island are teeming with docile whale sharks, the website says, as well as stingrays and other marine wildlife. Whale sharks only eat plankton and tiny fish, and pose no danger to humans.
Continuing, the Reddit user said: “We spent our time snorkelling (the water, especially the closer to the shore, is literally teeming with sea life), swimming with whale sharks and stingrays and drinking freshly cut coconut juice on the beach.
“Seems like the local population were clearing the rainforest (which covered 90 per cent of the island at the time of our visit, 2023) at an alarming rate to make room for new hotels, some of which apparently already have appeared on Booking.com.”
Reddit users were amazed by the pictures. One wrote: “Man I wish I could be there now. Looks amazing.”
Another said: “Oh man I’m heading to Sri Lanka in about a month and was considering hopping over. I even booked a ‘just in case hotel on this exact island but cancelled and thought I shouldn’t rush Sri Lanka. Now I’m second guessing!!”
The original poster replied: “It’s indeed best to not rush Sri Lanka, it deserves your full time and attention!
“We were in Sri Lanka for 23 days and five days in the Maldives, so only three full days on this particular island, since the transport to/from the capital city and its only international airport took almost a full day on the local ferry – if you still decide to go opt for the speedboat option!
“The local ferry involves a transfer or two at other local islands and is bound to make you seasick, and takes three times as long as the speedboat.”
The island also has rave reviews on Booking.com, with one visitor writing: “The most beautiful sea I have ever seen in my entire life.”
However, asked if they would return, the Reddit user wrote: “The locals are clearing the islands’ palm tree forest at an alarming rate, already at the time of our visit (see picture 13 for a glimpse into that). So maybe it’s best to not spoil our fond memories of Dhigurah by being confronted with a vastly changed island.”
Nearly a decade after his 2016 novel, “All That Man Is,” was passed over for the Booker Prize, David Szalay has taken home gold with his latest work, “Flesh.”
“Flesh,” Szalay’s sixth novel, follows István, a socially isolated Hungarian teen who through circumstances beyond his control is thrust into London’s upper echelon. In the coming decades, he finds himself caught between his traumatic past and growing appetite for prestige. Szalay is the first Hungarian British writer to receive the prestigious award, which he accepted at Monday’s ceremony in London with visible surprise.
“I felt ‘Flesh’ is quite a risky novel, a risky book. It felt risky to me writing it,” Szalay said in his acceptance speech.
“I think it’s very important that the publisher — the novel-making community, if I can put it like that — embraces that sense of risk rather than shuns it,” he said.
In the judges’ view, Szalay’s risks more than paid off, yielding an “extraordinary, singular novel.”
“The judges discussed the six books on the shortlist for more than five hours,” said Roddy Doyle, chair of the judging panel. “The book we kept coming back to, the one that stood out from the other great novels, was ‘Flesh’ — because of its singularity.”
“We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read,” he said.
Despite chronicling decades of István’s life, “Flesh,” through narrative omissions, leaves readers with an inscrutable protagonist they nonetheless remain deeply invested in.
“I don’t think I’ve read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well,” Doyle said, adding that in “Flesh,” “Every word matters; the spaces between the words matter.”
The Booker Prize is an annual award given to the best English-language novel published in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
“Flesh” triumphed over five other shortlisted books: Kiran Desai’s “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” Andrew Miller’s “The Land in Winter,” Susan Choi’s “Flashlight,” Katie Kitamura’s “Audition” and Ben Markovits’ “The Rest of Our Lives.”
“Flesh” has also received praise from writer Zadie Smith and singer Dua Lipa, who selected the novel for her Service95 Book Club.
“I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a character who has so little to say as István and yet by the end of it I cared about him so deeply,” Lipa told Szalay in an October interview at the New York Public Library.
During their conversation, Szalay shared that while “Flesh” was the file name for the book on his computer, he never expected it to get to the final press.
Yet his team couldn’t think of another title more fitting for the novel.
“The kind of slight unease that I think it provokes, that sense of tawdriness, I think that they really fit the book, ultimately,” Szalay said.
Destin Conrad didn’t expect to release a jazz project so early in his career — let alone just a few months after dropping his debut album, “Love on Digital.”
The 25-year-old singer-songwriter, who first made millions of people laugh on Vine when he was a preteen, entered the music industry as a fresh-faced R&B artist, following in the footsteps of the artists he grew up listening to such as Brandy, Musiq Soulchild and Usher. His first official EP “Colorway” (2021) and the slew of bite-size projects that followed were melodic and honest meditations on love, lust, queer identity and simply having a good time.
But during the summer, Conrad found himself gravitating to jazz, the genre he was introduced to in high school when he was enrolled in jazz choir. He was inspired by all of the greats and contemporary work by artists like Vanisha Gould, and decided that it was time for a slight departure in his own sound.
“I feel like it’s always kind of been in me,” Conrad says over Zoom during an off day from his second headlining tour in support of “Love on Digital.” “It’s always been a tool that I never really got to exercise that I knew I really wanted to.”
After a two-week whirlwind in L.A. filled with studio sessions with some of his bucket list collaborators like Gould, trumpeter Keyon Harrold and beloved L.A. saxophonist Terrace Martin, Conrad unveiled “Whimsy,” an 11-track alternative jazz detour. Rich with songwriting tinged with sensual winks, live instrumentation (piano, horn section and drums) and a spoken word interlude by Bay Davis (that is reminiscent of Meshell Ndegeocello), “Whimsy” is a masterclass in following your own intuition and creating freely — a testament to his Cancer sun.
“I think it’s some of my best work actually,” Conrad says, adding that it was the most fun to make, which is evident on tracks like “Whip,” a cheeky double entendre about trading places in the bedroom and “A Lonely Detective,” which explores the life of a man living a double life. “Things that I’ve spent more time on, I don’t feel as connected to, but I really love “Whimsy.”
Conrad, who performs at the Wiltern on Nov. 14, phoned in the day before Grammy nominations were announced to talk about why he was nervous to release “Whimsy,” why he thinks jazz deserves more attention and what he’s still learning about being an artist in the digital age. Little did he know that by the next morning, he’d receive his first solo Grammy nod for progressive R&B album.
Now that your debut album, “Love on Digital,” has been in the world for a few months and you’ve experienced fans singing it back to you at shows, how does it feel to look back on the journey of releasing it?
It’s been amazing. I think it’s made me look forward to putting more music out. I feel like this tour taught me a lot. While making this album, I had touring in the back of my mind, so I’m really excited that it’s being received well. Also, it’s kind of wild that I put out another project a [few] months later but I’m glad I have such cool fans that receive me in a good way.
Speaking of that, you turned around and released “Whimsy” in August. Can you talk about how that all came together and how your single “Wash U Away” inspired it?
I made the majority of it in a two-week span. “Wash U Away” and “Whip” I had, but they weren’t jazz songs. So I had “Wash U Away” in the tuck for years — I think I made it in like 2021 — but we had it replayed by actual musicians because before, it was just a very bare beat. Then the rest of it I made within those two weeks. I also had “The W” with James Fauntleroy and Joyce Wrice already, but same thing — it wasn’t a jazz song. I knew I wanted to make a jazz album. I didn’t know I was going to do it so soon after my debut album, but I was kind of on a wild one and was like “Why not?” But I’m really glad I did it because I feel like my fans really like that album and I really like that album as well. I think it’s some of my best work actually. Things that I spent more time on, I don’t feel as connected to but it’s something that I’m really proud of.
Take me back to those two weeks in L.A. when you starting working on this project. Was it summer time?
It was summertime, yeah. I live in Brooklyn now, so I was like “I’m going to fly to L.A. and stay there for two weeks to knock this project out.” I told my managers, “Get me in with everybody. Here’s my list of people I want to work with. Let’s figure it out.” We flew out Vanisha Gould, who’s one of my favorite jazz musicians. I was so ecstatic that she was down. She’s such a jazz head. She was kind of like “What the f— am I doing? Are they going to kidnap me? I’m just flying out here to work with this random ass R&B singer.” But I’m so glad she came and we low-key became besties. Same with Terrace Martin. I’ve been a fan forever. He’s the G.O.A.T. James [Fauntleroy]. All these people who I was very adamant about working with. And eventually I want to do another jazz [project]. Maybe a “Whimsy 2” and just keep that world alive because I feel like jazz is such a special genre that gets overlooked and it’s something that I really feel passionate about. Especially because I was in jazz choir in high school and it kind of taught me more about soul music and the origins and how there’s so many synchronicities within other genres like gospel, and how R&B and all of them just tie into each other. I think it’s just really cool.
What was going on in your world when you started making “Whimsy?” Were you listening to a lot of jazz at the time?
Yeah, I was listening to a lot of jazz music. I was listening to a lot of Vanisha Gould and I was like, “I need to do this jazz album.” I thought I was just going to start it and be like “I’m not done.” But I was like “No, I’m done. This is it. This is what I have to say.” But yeah, I always listen to jazz. As I said, I was in jazz choir in high school. My jazz instructor Mr. O put me onto hella jazz. He showed me Frank Sinatra and all these jazz standards. I have videos that I’ll eventually show the world of me performing at my jazz Christmas show. I feel like it’s always been within me. It’s always been a tool that I never really got to exercise but I knew I really wanted to. But like I said, I didn’t know I’d make it in two weeks and that it’d be such a quick thing. It was so fun to make. It’s probably one of the most fun projects I’ve made.
You can definitely hear how much fun you were having on tracks like “Boredom” and “Lonely Detective.” I feel like jazz was once viewed as a genre that older people listened to, but that’s been changing within the last few years. It feels like it’s becoming more popular with younger audiences. What do you think about this?
Personally, I don’t think it’s becoming more popular. I would love to be part of some sort of push of making it more of a thing and I feel like a lot of my fans are younger. I’d like to say in my head that I’m helping push the genre forward.
It’s just not super prominent. There’s not a lot of new jazz artists. If you look at the jazz charts, a lot of what’s still charting is like Frank Sinatra [and] Miles Davis. Laufey is one of the newer faces of jazz that I feel like is pushing it aside from like Robert Glasper. But I don’t know. I feel like a lot of the jazz even that I listen to is the older stuff. There’s a very select few of newer jazz artists that I’m like “Yes.” Like Vanisha Gould, a perfect example. I’m obsessed with her. I think she’s one of the most talented musicians that I know, period.
How did you feel about dropping “Whimsy”? Were you nervous about how people would receive it?
Umm I thought about it [but] what I really thought about were the jazz heads. I thought the real, super crazy into jazz people were gonna be like, “This s— ain’t f— jazz” because I do consider it an alternative jazz album. I remember talking to Terrace [Martin] about that because he’s a jazz head and he’s also older than me and he’s been in it for longer. I was telling him [that] I feel like people are going to have s— to say about it because it’s not traditional and I’m not a trained musician. I don’t know how to read music. I just go with my [gut], and he was like, “That’s why it’s so fire. That’s what makes people feel it.” He was like, “I can tell that you’re young and when I listen to this, I hear a 25-year-old,” and I’m like, “Tight.”
You’ve essentially grown up online and in the public eye. How has that evolution shaped the way you see yourself as an artist, and what have you learned about navigating visibility over the years?”
I feel like it’s an advantage. I always talk about that especially with my artist homies. I was an internet baby so I kind of have just a slight advantage because I knew really early how it worked. I feel like I’m still learning how to promote my music because I know how to get on the internet and be an idiot all day. I can do that literally in my sleep, but being an idiot who knows how to promote his music is different. [laughs] So yeah, I’m still learning that. I used to think it harmed me because I was so scared that people wouldn’t take my music seriously. But no, I use it to my advantage for sure.
We’re at a time in music where it’s common for artists to be open and proud about their identity and sexuality without feeling like they need to use coded language. I think of artists like Frank Ocean, Steve Lacy and Durand Bernarr. Can you talk about why talking about your queerness is important to you?
I feel like I’m a pretty honest person in general. I try not to lie and I feel like all I can do really is just keep it a bean. Most of the time, I try to write about my personal experiences and I deal with men, so that’s just my truth [laughs]. I do also write from other perspectives like things that my friends or my homegirls tell me. I don’t always write from my point of view, but when I do, it’s about a man and that’s all I can really do.
Allison Mack is addressing “the bad things she’s done” as a high-profile member of the “sex cult” NXIVM in a new podcast.
Released Monday, “Allison After NXIVM” is a seven-episode series that features the former “Smallville” star detailing her time as a young actor and how she became involved in the purported self-improvement group, as well as her role in manipulating women into becoming sex slaves for NXIVM leader Keith Raniere and the eventual criminal fallout.
“I don’t see myself as innocent,” Mack says in an early episode as she acknowledges using her success as an actor as “a power tool … to get people to do what I wanted” and that she was “very effective in moving Keith’s vision forward.”
In a later episode, she accepts claims that she was a “harsh monster” during her time at NXIVM.
“I was not kind and I was aggressive and I was abusive,” Mack says. “I was harsh and I was callous and I was aggressive and forceful in ways that were painful for people. [I] did make people feel like they had no choice and was incredibly abusive to people, traumatic for people.”
In 2019, Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering charges related to her role in NXIVM and its subgroup DOS, a so-called “secret society” of women who were branded with Raniere’s initials and forced to have sex with him. Mack was among one of the “masters” in the group, a lieutenant tasked by Raniere with recruiting and coercing other women. She was sentenced to three years in federal prison in 2021 and was released in 2023. (Raniere is currently serving a 120-year sentence after being convicted of sex-trafficking and other charges.)
But while she acknowledges that “100% all those allegations are true,” she also contends that she is “someone who cares deeply and wanted very much to grow and wanted very much for everybody that I was involved with to grow. … [B]oth of those things are true about me.
“I definitely recognize and admit that I was abusing my power,” Mack says. “But I also can’t negate the fact that there was a part of me that was altruistic and was desperate to help people. [I] wanted to be better, and I was willing to do anything to be better in myself and to help other people be better.”
The podcast series also touches on what Mack has been up to since being released from prison. She is pursuing a master’s in social work and looking into PhD programs in expressive arts therapy. She is also working at a nonprofit to help bring creative arts such as music, theater and poetry to prisons.
Over the summer, Mack got married to Frank Meeink, a prominent former neo-Nazi who now speaks out in support of racial diversity and acceptance. The couple met in a dog park not long after Mack’s release from prison in 2023. According to the podcast’s host, Natalie Robehmed, Mack now goes by Allison Meeink.
Robehmed also mentions that “Allison After NXIVM,” which is the latest installment of the true crime podcast “Uncover,” came to be after Mack reached out to journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis following her release from prison, hoping to tell her own story for the first time. Grigoriadis, who serves as an executive producer on the series, had interviewed Mack before her arrest.
Rob Gronkowski spent nine years as a member of the New England Patriots.
On Wednesday, that stint will become nine years and one day as the fun-loving and ever-popular tight end will sign a one-day contract with the Patriots so he can officially retire as a member of the team with which he won three of his four Super Bowl rings.
“I am signing a one-day contract with the Patriots this week coming up to retire as a Patriot and be a Patriot for life,” the “Fox NFL Sunday” analyst announced during this week’s broadcast.
The next day, the Patriots revealed when the ceremonial signing would take place.
“The greatest tight end in @NFL history is retiring a Patriot!” the team posted Monday on X. “Watch @RobGronkowski sign his one-day contract this Wednesday at 12:15 PM LIVE on Patriots digital & social.”
A second-round draft pick for New England in 2010, Gronkowski quickly became a key and beloved member of a Patriots dynasty that was already going strong under coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. He retired after the 2018 season but returned to the NFL in 2020 to join Brady with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Two seasons and one Super Bowl victory later, Gronk retired again.
Last summer, the idea of Gronkowski re-retiring with the Patriots was floated publicly by Susan Hurley, the founder and president of the CharityTeams fundraising firm for nonprofits. Speaking at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Gronk Playground in Boston, Hurley threw in a personal plea toward Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was also in attendance.
“Can we just make it official and sign [Gronkowski] for a day so he can retire as a Patriot?” Hurley asked. “What do you say?”
Kraft and Gronkowski both indicated their approval in the moment, with Gronkowski telling reporters that Hurley was the spark behind the idea of his ceremonial signing.
“The reason we’re really going to do that is because of Susan Hurley,” Gronkowski said. “She wants to see that happen and has been dreaming about it happening for a while.”
Hurley died Nov. 1 at age 62 after a long battle with ovarian cancer.
Patriots spokesperson Stacey James told The Times in a statement that the Patriots were initially planning on honoring Gronkowski’s “legendary contributions to our franchise and the bond he shares with Patriots Nation” with a ceremonial contract upon his induction to the team’s Hall of Fame. Gronkowski is eligible for that honor starting next year.
However, James said, “we chose to expedite the honor when Susan Hurley, a former Patriots cheerleader and dear friend of Rob’s, made it her dying wish to see Rob retire a Patriot. Her love for the team and for Rob was deeply moving, and we were looking forward to hosting her for the announcement. Sadly, she passed earlier this month. While she won’t be present, her presence will surely be felt.”
Gronkowski posted a lengthy tribute to Hurley last week on social media.
“We lost a good one over the weekend,” Gronkowski wrote. “Susan Hurley has known my family and I for a long time, she became a good friend of ours and supported our foundation more than words can express over the years.
“But even beyond our team, Susan took care of so many charity teams for the Boston Marathon and their bibs, helping raise so much money to give back to charities. She always did it out of love, her love of the game, her love of people, her love of helping others, and her love for the kids.
“She always had a smile on her face and the utmost positivity, staying an inspiration for runners and charities every single day, even while she was fighting cancer. Her strength and resilience were truly inspirational, and she will be greatly missed.
“Without Susan, there would be no Gronk Playground. I’m thankful that her legacy can live on through the playground, making a huge impact not only on all the Gronk Nation Youth Foundation kids she helped, but all the kids she continues to inspire every day.”
Big Brother star Richard Storry has been on the ITV show since its return in September
Big Brother star Richard has been at the receiving end of ‘brutal’ comments from ex housemate Caroline(Image: ITV)
ITV2’s Big Brother is approaching its finale this month as viewers are having their say on who they reckon should triumph, with one clear frontrunner emerging victorious.
Since the revamped series made its comeback to ITV2 screens in September, there’s been plenty of explosive moments, from bitter rows erupting to personalities clashing spectacularly.
However, as she’s now been evicted, Richard stays in the house, with massive backing from the public – so much so that, according to betting odds last week, the star was tipped to win, with odds at 5-4.
Coral’s John Hill said: “We have seen a strong wave of support for Richard in our Big Brother betting after he escaped Friday night’s double eviction.
“There is no doubt punters are siding with Richard in his feud with Caroline.”
Richard is also the champion for some viewers, as one person wrote on X: “RICHARD TO WIN!”. Another added, “Looks like Richard is the winner of Big Brother 2025.”
Who is Richard Storry?
Richard entered the Big Brother house later than the others, arriving alongside Cameron B, Feyisola, and George.
At 60 years old, he was among the eldest within the house. On the programme, Richard disclosed he is a writer and composer with expertise in classical music.
Based on his Instagram profile, Richard’s books belong to the supernatural and fantasy categories. His debut novel was published in 2015, whilst his most recent work emerged in 2021.
According to Amazon, his bestselling title is The Cryptic Lines, which takes place in a “sprawling gothic mansion”.
Richard and Caroline feud explained
Caroline and Richard’s dynamic has dominated social media discussion since their apparent clash started the instant they encountered each other.
Despite viewers condemning Caroline as a bully, Richard has characterised their dynamic as “pantomime-like”. Former housemate Farida also revealed details about their connection, telling Heatworld that it was simply “banter.”
Nevertheless, during her departure interview, Caroline stuck to her position that she considered Richard “boring”, leaving presenters Will and AJ baffled about whether she was being honest or not. Comparing him to Mr Bean, she declared, “Richard is not funny.”
Richard’s adoption story
Throughout his stint on the programme, Richard confessed he was unmarried and has, indeed, remained single throughout his life; nevertheless, he has an adopted son. Viewers will recall Richard’s touching tale about how he adopted his son, who was then a 33-year-old refugee.
While in Malaysia, he encountered a young man, who is now his son, and shared: “He was a refugee from Myanmar, which is the next country up if you know your geography, and he told me quite early on that he had lost his father when he was a kid.”
As their bond grew stronger, Richard frequently visited the country, and eventually, they decided to formalise their father-son-like relationship.
One viewer posted on X: “Richard’s adoption story is already one of the most intriguing and beautiful stories I have ever heard on Big Brother. I am sobbing.”
Another commented, “Can’t cope with Richard adopting a 33-year-old refugee. Stop the show and crown him already.”
Big Brother airs Sunday to Friday on ITV2 and ITVX at 9pm.
On Aug. 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was stabbed 15 times just as he was about to give a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Gravely wounded, Rushdie lost sight in his right eye. The following spring, he published “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” which became a bestseller. His new book, “The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories,” is his first work of fiction since the attack that nearly killed him.
A showcase for his dynamic range, the book careens from social critique to ghost stories and dream-like fables. On a recent Zoom call, the writer discussed the consolations of fiction, Franz Kafka and the moral rot of the gilded class.
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This is the first fiction you’ve written since “Knife.” How did you get that part of your creative brain going again?
I’m so happy to have fiction to talk about again! The attack kind of stopped the fiction juices from flowing. It’s as if my mind wouldn’t look back into the world of the imagination. But the moment I finished “Knife,” even before it came out, I was suddenly thinking about fiction again. It was as if by magic, I had to somehow sweep that subject away — out of the front of my mind, into the back of my mind — in order to let other stuff come in.
So you’re thrilled to be writing fiction again.
Yes. Memoir was never a form that attracted me. I don’t particularly want to write about myself.
Were all the stories in the new book written after the knife attack?
The two stores which bookend the collection were written earlier, although I did revise them. The first story I wrote for the book was “Late,” which is the first ghost story I’ve ever written.
“The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories” by Salman Rushdie.
(Random House)
That is actually astonishing to me. You have had elements of the supernatural and fantasy in your fiction, but not specifically a ghost story?
I’ve had that, but I haven’t had a ghost as a hero. And I must say, it became incredibly enjoyable to write.
I’d always wanted to write something arising out of my time at Cambridge, but I’d never really found a story. Then I had this idea of an encounter between this older academic and this young Indian woman who made friends because of their mutual love of India. When I sat down to write it, I found myself killing him. It took me completely by surprise. And the story became something else entirely.
There is in a few of these stories the character of the old don, the wizened, sage academic. Were these characters based on gray eminences you may have encountered at Cambridge?
I was lucky that my time at King’s College overlapped just a little bit with the great E.M. Forster. He was almost 90 and I was 19, but he was very approachable. He liked students to approach him and have a conversation. He would sometimes come and sit in the student common room with a little glass of beer and a little kind of flat cap. And when he discovered that I had a background in India, he became extra chatty because India had, of course, been unbelievably important to him in his life.
“Oklahoma” is perhaps the most dream-like story in the collection, about a young man searching for an older man, a famous writer, who has disappeared. It’s a dense piece, with a distinct Kafka influence.
There was an extraordinary exhibition at the Morgan Library here in Manhattan, of the manuscripts of Kafka. They had “The Trial,”“The Castle” and “Amerika,” an unfinished novel whose original title was “The Man Who Disappeared.” And that stuck with me. So I found myself writing a story in which Kafka makes a guest appearance, but it’s basically in the end about two men who disappear. “Oklahoma” is taken from “Amerika,” but Kafka never set foot in America, of course. It’s an Oklahoma of the mind and spirit, the place where you find satisfaction and fulfillment.
In “The Musician of Kahani,” about a marriage between a middle-class pianist and wealthy playboy, it feels like you are describing this new class of what you refer to as the “rich-rich,” the new vulgarian wealthy class. In the past, rich people were associated with glamour, but now it feels like a kind of boorish narcissism.
Yes, in the past, there was a kind of Gatsby-level glamour attached to the wealthy. One of the things that used to be the case in India after independence is that Gandhian ideas were very prominent. Indian weddings tended to be quite modest affairs. There was a Gandhian idea that you don’t flaunt your wealth. Well, that’s gone out the window, right? All the Gandhian notions are very much out of favor in India now. This has resulted in fantastically flamboyant weddings. And when you get to this level of the ultra-rich, there is a kind of surrealism on display.
Susan Straight’s new novel “Sacrament,” about a clutch of ICU nurses battling COVID in a San Bernardino hospital, “broadens the reader’s understanding of community beyond flesh-and-blood friends, family and neighbors,” according to Merdith Maran. “The love and care that flow within her community of characters draws the reader into their bright, tight circle, making the characters’ loved ones and troubles feel like the reader’s own.”
Hamilton Cainhas mixed emotions about Zadie Smith’s new collection of essays, “Dead and Alive,” writing that “the book’s finest pieces wrangle, in elegant prose, with humanity’s contradictions,” but “the weaker ones indulge in name-dropping, footnotes and op-ed invective.”
📖 Bookstore Faves
Zibby’s Bookshop is on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica.
(Courtesy of Zibby Media)
In the two years since Zibby Owens opened Zibby’s Bookshop, the Santa Monica store has become a vital hub for booklovers on the Westside who are drawn to the quaint, well-curated selection of books and the numerous events that take place throughout the year. I asked Zibby’s store manager Kartina Leno to tell us what book buyers are scooping up.
Our author events are such a place of community and comradeship to our customers. We have anywhere from three to five per week, and they feel like such a safe and welcoming space. We also offer a once-a-month book club that meets in person and also sees a great turnout. We have people who’ve been coming now for almost three years!
There are three essential components to a healthy democracy: elected officials, voters and political opposition. The first two make the most noise and get the most attention.
But that third pillar really matters too.
According to Ballotpedia, the online nonpartisan organization that tracks election data, of the nearly 14,000 elections across 30 states that the group covered this week, 60% were uncontested — with only one candidate for a position, or for some roles, no candidate at all.
Much of this week’s postelection analysis has been focused on the mayoral race in New York City and Zohran Mamdani’s victory. Yet the same night, as democracy in America took center stage, more than 1,000 people were elected mayor without facing an opponent.
Only about 700 mayoral races tracked by Ballotpedia gave voters any choice. Dig a little deeper and you find more than 50% of city council victories and nearly 80% of outcomes for local judgeships were all without competition.
That’s a problem.
Elections without political opposition turn voting — the cornerstone of our governance — into performance art. The trend is heading in the wrong direction. Since Ballotpedia began tracking this data in 2018, about 65% of the elections covered were uncontested. However, for the last two years the average is an abysmal 75%.
It’s a symptom of broader disengagement. Over two and a half centuries, a lot of lives have been sacrificed trying to perfect this union and its democracy. And yet last November, a third of America’s eligible voters chose not to take part.
Are we a healthy democracy or masquerading as one?
Doug Kronaizl, a managing editor at Ballotpedia who analyzes this data, told me the numbers show Americans are increasingly more focused on national politics, even though local elections have the greatest effects on our daily lives.
“We like to view elections sort of like a pyramid, and at the tippity top, that’s where all of the elections are that people just spend a lot of time focused on,” said Kronaizl, who’s been at the nonprofit since 2020. “That’s your U.S. House races, your governor races, stuff like that. But the vast majority of the pyramid — that huge base — is like all of these local elections that are always happening and end up being for the most part uncontested.”
Take New York, for example. For all the hoopla around Mamdani’s win, the fact is most of the state’s 124 elections weren’t contested. Iowa had 1,753 races with one or zero candidates; Ohio had more than 2,500.
And that’s being conservative. In some cases, if an election is uncontested, ballots aren’t printed and the performance art is canceled. Ballotpedia says its data doesn’t include outcomes decided without a vote.
We have elected officials. We have voters. But political opposition? We’re in trouble — especially at the local level, down at the base of the pyramid. The foundation of democracy is in desperate need of repair.
* * *
The former mayor of Tempe, Ariz., Neil Giuliano, has dedicated most of his life to public service. He said when it comes to running for office, people must remember the three M’s: the money to campaign, the electoral math to win and the message for voters.
“It used to be the other way around,” he told me. “It used to be you had a message and you talked about what you believed in.” Now, however, “you can talk about what you believe in all day long,” he said, but if you don’t have the money and the data to target and reach voters, “it’s either a vanity effort or a futility effort.”
When an interesting electoral seat opens in Arizona, Giuliano — who was elected to the city council in 1990 before serving as mayor from 1994 to 2004 — is sometimes approached about running again. For two decades now, his answer has been the same: No, thank you.
Instead, the 69-year-old prefers mentoring candidates and fundraising. He also sits on the board of the Victory Fund, the 30-year-old nonpartisan organization that works to elect openly LGBTQ+ candidates at all levels of government.
Giuliano said the rise in uncontested elections can be explained by two discouraged groups: Some people don’t run because they believe the positions don’t matter. Others are “so overwhelmed with everything going on they’re not going to alter their life,” he said. “It’s already challenging enough without getting into a public fray where people hate each other, where people need security, where people are being accosted verbally and on social media.”
That sentiment was echoed by Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something. Her nonprofit recruits and supports young progressives to run for local and state offices. Since President Trump was elected last November, Litman said, the organization has received more than 200,000 inquiries from people looking to run for office — which could indicate some hope on the horizon.
“I think the problems have gotten so big and so deep that it feels like you have to do something — you have to run,” she said. “The number one issue we’re hearing folks talk about is housing. The market in the last couple of years has gotten so hard, especially for young people, that it feels like there’s no alternative but to engage.”
* * *
Indeed, these are the times that try men’s souls, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Paine. He wrote those words in “The American Crisis” less than two years into the Revolutionary War, when morale was low and the future of democracy looked bleak. It is said that George Washington had Paine’s words read out loud to soldiers to inspire them. And when the bloodshed was over and victory finally won, the founders drafted the first article of the Bill of Rights because they knew the paramount importance of political opposition. That is what the 1st Amendment primarily protects: freedom of speech, the press and assembly and the right to petition the government.
Today, the crisis isn’t tyranny from abroad, but civic disengagement.
And look, I get it.
Whether you watch Fox News, CNN or MSNBC, it usually seems as though no one in politics cares about you or your community’s problems. We would have a different impression if we listened to local candidates. There are thousands of local elections every year, starving for attention and resources, right at the base of the pyramid. Since the 20th century — when national media and campaign financing exploded — we have been lured into looking only at the tippity top.
One reason political opposition in local races is critical to democracy is that it teaches us to get along despite our differences. The president will never meet most people who didn’t vote for them, but a local school board member might. Those conversations will affect how the official thinks, talks, campaigns and governs. When the system works, politicians are held accountable — and are replaced if they get out of step with voters. That’s a healthy democracy, and it’s possible only with all three elements in place: elected officials, voters and political opposition.
* * *
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has dedicated most of his life to public service. He said he learned early on to care about his community because he grew up during the civil rights movement, “when they were sending dogs to attack human beings.”
Today, the 72-year-old is a 2026 gubernatorial candidate in California. He told me when it comes to the rise in uncontested elections, people have to remember “democracy is a living, breathing thing.”
“Not everybody can run for office, not everybody wants to run for office, but everybody needs to be involved civically,” he said. “We have an obligation and a duty to participate, to read about what’s going on to understand and yes sometimes to run when necessary.
“We got to stand up to the threat to our democracy, but we also got to fix the things we broke … and it’s a lot broken.”
Voters often want something better than the status quo, but without political opposition on the ballot, it can’t happen. That’s the beauty of democracy: It comes in handy when elected officials forget government is meant to serve the people — not the other way around.
It was a cold November morning, and I had travelled with my family to our ancestral temple in a village in Tamil Nadu. My sister’s 11-month-old baby was to be tonsured for the first time – a religious head-shaving that in Hinduism is a way of discarding the evil eye and removing any negativity from past lives; a new start.
My wife drove, but asked me to park the car while she went inside with our son and her parents. I walked around the front of the vehicle and slid into the passenger seat. But when I tried to park, I felt resistance. As I pressed down on the accelerator, I noticed a middle-aged man running towards me, waving his arms frantically as he yelled for me to move the car backwards.
My mind raced as I reversed. I prayed silently that I hadn’t hurt anyone.
It was only when I got out of the car that I saw her. The thin, frail woman who now lay on the ground, shaking and murmuring. Panicked, my mind tried to make sense of how she’d come to be there – she must have sat down, assuming I’d already parked – and how badly injured she was. She curled into a foetal position as I sat down beside her and gently placed her head on my lap.
“Does it hurt anywhere, paati (granny)?” I asked.
She nodded, pointing to her leg.
I slowly pulled back the torn sari near her knee. The flesh was missing.
“You’ve been hurt, but we’ll take care of it,” I promised.
“No one will take care of me … just let me sit,” she pleaded.
Villagers started to gather, but kept their distance. One man said the woman slept on the streets near the temple and was often seen begging. A woman chided her for always sitting too close to cars. “If you don’t do something now, no one will take care of her, and she’ll die,” a man muttered before leaving.
Between groans, the woman told me her name: Chinnammal.
“Can you find my bag, thangam?” she asked, using a Tamil term for a loved one that translates to “gold”. She was in pain, but speaking to me, the person who had caused it, with such kindness.
I looked around and found her old cotton bag. It was stuffed to the brim with an open packet of chips, a half-eaten bun, a few 10-rupee notes, and some clothes.
The ambulance arrived, but there was only the driver, and it would take at least three people to lift her safely; we needed another pair of hands. There were close to 25 people around us, but no one moved.
“No one will come to lift her. She’s from a different caste. I have come to do temple rituals – otherwise, I would help,” a priest explained before hurrying away.
My wife, who had by now seen the commotion and approached, stepped forward to help, and together, we lifted Chinnammal into the ambulance. I climbed in with her.
[Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]
I could see from her face that the pain came in waves. I sat next to her, one arm under her shoulders, in a kind of half-hug.
“My bag?” she asked, looking relieved when I placed it beside her hand.
“You are the first person to take me in a car,” she told me, her voice trembling.
She called me saami, a Tamil term that translates to God. I couldn’t understand how she could show me such love and respect. I asked for her forgiveness, but she simply asked me to help her sit up.
When we pulled into the hospital, two nurses in neatly pressed white uniforms appeared with a stretcher. I helped the ambulance driver lift Chinnammal onto it and wheeled her into the hospital. I told the nurses what I knew of her injuries, while they exchanged uneasy glances. When Chinnammal lurched forward and vomited, the nurses scolded her and backed away in disgust.
Inside the emergency room, the nursing manager explained that Chinnammal’s blood pressure and heart rate were high, but she was stable. She had two major injuries – a broken hip and severe grazing that would require skin grafts. Her leg, he said, was not so serious and would heal quickly.
Chinnammal reached for my hands. Hers were small and bony, but her grip was firm. Her eyes flickered, drifting in and out of focus. A soft-spoken doctor told me it was a miracle she was stable after sustaining such serious injuries.
She quietly listened to the doctor speak, but when he mentioned it would take three months for her hip to heal, Chinnammal started to wail.
“I will visit you every weekend, paati,” I reassured her.
The hospital staff took Chinnammal for an electrocardiogram, and when she returned, now hooked up to a heartbeat monitor, she grasped my hands again. She tugged on one. I leaned in. “Ask them to give me medicine to die,” she said.
I assured her that the doctors would take good care of her and that I would be there to make sure of it.
“They won’t,” she replied.
Then she looked into my eyes and lost consciousness.
I grabbed hold of her hand, but it was limp. I fell to the floor, sobbing.
Chinnammal was pronounced dead at 8.30 am on November 20, 2022. She was about 75 years old.
[Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]
Chinnammal’s story
Chinnammal didn’t always live on the streets. As a younger woman, she was impeccably dressed, with flowers woven into her neatly plaited hair.
She hadn’t always begged for handouts either. She worked hard to farm a piece of land for her family, but her married life was difficult. Her husband was an alcoholic, and Chinnammal had to raise her daughter, run the house, and farm their land with little help.
She doted on her daughter and was happy when she married a man from a nearby village. A few years after her daughter married, Chinnammal’s husband died. Chinnammal adapted easily to life as a widow. She enjoyed visiting her daughter and son-in-law and would take them homemade sweets. When they struggled to conceive, Chinnammal worried, but she was overjoyed when they decided to adopt. She loved watching her grandson grow. He became her “everything”.
That joy was short-lived. Chinnammal’s daughter fell ill with a severe form of diabetes. When Chinnammal wasn’t at her daughter’s bedside, she was at the temple, praying for her, or concocting various treatments from herbs that she hoped would help.
But nothing worked, and Chinnammal watched her daughter slowly die.
That was the moment Chinnammal’s life changed. She stopped interacting with people. Some villagers started to harass and steal from her. She once filed a police complaint against a drunk neighbour who harassed her, but the police refused to help. Late one night, when she caught the man near her home, she threatened him with a sickle.
In her grief, Chinnammal no longer cared where she slept, what she ate, or how she dressed. She started to sleep by the temple, clutching her cloth bag close to her.
[Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]
After Chinnammal’s death
A few hours after Chinnammal’s death, I went to the local police station and handed myself in.
A police officer contacted Chinnammal’s son-in-law to release her body and begin the family’s settlement case against me.
Her son-in-law initially refused to claim her body. The investigating officer told me he’d said, “She should have died a long time ago. She was just a burden … You can ask them to bury her and move on.”
But the officer insisted, and the man reluctantly came to the station.
When he arrived, I gave Chinnammal’s bag to the police officer, who inventoried its contents and shared the details with her son-in-law. His demeanour changed. He wanted to claim the body and register himself as her closest living relative, he explained.
“There was close to two lakhs ($2,250) in the bag you surrendered, and now this guy is trying to claim it and the compensation that the government might pay,” the police officer told me.
Chinnammal’s death felt like losing a loved one. I knew I had caused it. But she had shown no anger or animosity towards me. In her final hours, she had treated me with kindness and compassion. She had shared her love for her daughter and grandson with me, held my hand, and spoken tenderly to me despite her pain.
At the hospital, a doctor had tried to console me. “What if you had hit a child?” he’d asked. “Could you live with yourself?”
“She had lived her life,” he reasoned. But his reasoning made no sense to me.
The following day, I went to the temple to help the police with their investigation. As I stared at the spot where my life had changed, a priest interrupted my thoughts.
“You did a good job,” he said. Thinking he was chastising me, I apologised.
“No, I mean it,” he responded. “Nobody used to go near her. Local drunks used to steal the money she collected. So she used to cuss and throw stones at anyone who came near her. She had absolutely no one in this world.”
Even the temple staff used to chase her away, he explained.
“I think she chose to go through you. Through you, she died with dignity, the dignity that was denied to her in life,” he said, urging me to be at peace.
But nothing could give me peace.
I stopped driving. For a year, I withdrew from friends and family. I couldn’t sleep and, when I did, I’d see Chinnammal in my dreams. Whenever I was alone, I would think about her, replaying that day in my mind and wondering what might have happened had I done something differently.
Nearly a month after her death, I was able to track down the contact information for Chinnammal’s 19-year-old grandson. I called to ask for his forgiveness, and he asked me about the last moments I spent with her.
Three months later, at the court hearing, I was found negligent and ordered to pay a fine of 10,000 rupees ($115) to the court. At the hearing, I met Chinnammal’s grandson. I hugged him, and though he barely spoke, I could feel the warmth of his forgiveness – just like that of his paati’s.
In her dying moments, Chinnammal taught me the value of life – every life.
Chinnammal means “small mother”.
A neighbour who had known her said, “She spent her whole life caring for her daughter, and, even in death, she ensured that her family was taken care of [with her savings]. Her mind and body may have given in, but she never stopped being a mother.”
[Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]
This story was told to Catherine Gilon by Maverick Prem. Information about Chinnammal’s life was gathered from interviews with her former neighbours, who asked not to be named. Her family declined to be interviewed for this story.
Maverick continues to pay his respects to Chinnammal at the temple grounds where she spent her final years. In addition to the court fine, he made a voluntary donation to Chinnammal’s grandson.
Through his decades-long career, Nick Lachey has done it all in Hollywood — he’s acted, he’s released solo albums, he’s led campaigns with brands (including Purina) and he’s reigned on the reality TV circuit, hosting the dating shows “The Ultimatum,” “Perfect Match” and the phenomenon that is “Love Is Blind,” which wrapped up its ninth U.S.-based season last week.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
But through it all, he keeps returning to one passion project: 98 Degrees, the swoon-eliciting boy band that catapulted him to stardom in the late ‘90s.
“I’m really blessed to be able to be a part of some incredible shows,” Lachey says. “But truly it all comes back to the band for me. I still continue to love to do that and perform with those guys, so hopefully that will continue for a long, long time.”
Earlier this year, 98 Degrees released their first non-Christmas album in more than a decade, “Full Circle.” It features reworkings of their most iconic songs — including “I Do (Cherish You)” and “The Hardest Thing” — along with five new tracks.
Outside of work, what’s paramount in Lachey’s life “is being a dad and being present for my kids, and really being involved in their life,” he says. He and his wife, Vanessa Lachey, who’s also his “Love Is Blind” co-host, have three young children: Camden, Phoenix and Brooklyn.
The Cincinnati native and die-hard Bengals fan takes us along for his perfect Sunday in L.A., where he’s lived for more than 20 years. It involves football (of course), an indulgent brunch with waffles, relaxing at a Malibu beach and reading a print copy of the L.A. Times — an activity that we can absolutely get behind.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
7:30 a.m.: Coffee and the L.A. Times
I usually wake up around 7 or 7:30 a.m. I’m conditioned to get up when the kids do, so that’s typically the time even on a weekend. The first thing I’m doing on a Sunday is getting a cup of coffee. I’m kind of old-school. I still get the print paper. So I’ll walk out of my front door and go grab my L.A. Times and my cup of coffee, and hopefully have a few moments to myself to read the paper before my kids get up and harass me.
9 a.m.: Football time
Are we in football season? That’s a very important question. If it’s my dream Sunday then we’re in football season so around 8:30 or 9 a.m., I’m turning on “NFL Countdown” and we’re getting ready for the Sunday slate of games. The Cincinnati Bengals are my team. I grew up in Cincinnati so I’m kind of a fan by birth, if you will. Now, the Bengals are pretty good. For the majority of my life, they’ve been absolutely horrible and I’ve just been stuck with them, but it’s kind of fun now that they’re actually competitive [laughs].
12 p.m.: Indulge in waffles at brunch
We’re getting into the afternoon and getting ready for lunch. A place my family and I love to have lunch or maybe a late brunch is More Than Waffles, which is kind of an Encino institution, if you will. I usually get a skillet or an omelet, then combine that with a waffle. I don’t eat that great, but if you’re ever gonna eat bad, Sunday is the day to do it, so you gotta get the waffle. You gotta get the whipped cream and the strawberries. Go for broke.
2 p.m.: Hang out at the beach
A good Sunday is heading out to the beach. I’d take the kids to Zuma to see the ocean for a little bit even if it’s just a drive. It’s nice to take the drive down that way, see the water and feel the wind on your face. I’m not a big get-in-the-water guy. If I’m in the Caribbean or somewhere, maybe. [laughs] It’s a little chilly for me, so I’m more of the lay-on-the-sand, take-in-the-scenery kind of guy at the beach.
5 p.m.: Burritos and margs for dinner
Let’s get back to the house to take a shower and then we’d hit Casa Vega. That’s another one of my favorites in the Valley. My whole family loves it. I like the oven style chicken burrito smothered. You gotta get the chips and guac. You gotta get a house margarita blended, no salt, and you’re good to go.
8 p.m.: Family meeting
We always have a family meeting on Sunday nights to get ready for the week and kind of go over what’s going on. So we’d get the family back to the house, sit down with the kids, and kind of go over the expectations for the week and plan it out. Then you’re into shower and bath time because it’s a school night.
10 p.m.: Mommy and daddy time
Once the kids are down, maybe Vanessa and I will take in whatever show we’re watching at that time. That’s a good cap to a Sunday. I just finished watching “Perfect Match” on Netflix, which is a classic. I love all the Taylor Sheridan [shows]. I’ve already watched them all.
If our waking hours are a canvas, the art is how one fills it: tightly packed, loosely, a little of both. At a time when they were both 40 and the art scene in ’70s New York was in thrall to street-centered youth of all stripes, real-life writer Linda Rosenkrantz asked her close friend, photographer Peter Hujar, to make a record of his activities on one day — Dec. 18, 1974 — and then narrate those details into her tape recorder the following day at her apartment.
The goal was a book about the great mundane, the stuff of life as experienced by her talented confidants. In Hujar’s case, an uncannily observant queer artist and key gay liberation figure planning his first book, what emerged was a wry narrative of phone calls (Susan Sontag), freelancing woes (is this gig going to pay?), celebrity encounters (he does an Allen Ginsberg shoot for the New York Times) and chance meetings (some guy waiting for food at the Chinese restaurant). The Hujar transcript, recovered in 2019 sans the tape, was ultimately published as “Peter Hujar’s Day.”
Now director Ira Sachs, who came across the text while filming his previous movie “Passages,” has given this quietly mesmerizing, diaristic conversation cinematic life as a filmed performance of sorts, with “Passages” star Ben Whishaw perfectly cast as Hujar and Rebecca Hall filling out the room tone as Rosenkrantz. (They also go to the roof a couple of times, which offers enough of an exterior visual to remind us that New York is the third character getting the time-capsule treatment.)
From the whistle of a tea kettle in the daylight as Hujar amusingly feels out from Rosenkrantz what’s required of him, to twilight’s more honest self-assessments and a supine cuddle between friends who’ve spent many hours together, “Peter Hujar’s Day” captures something beautifully distilled about human experience and the comfort of others. For each of us, any given day — maybe especially a day devoid of the extraordinary — is the culmination of all we’ve been and whatever we might hope to be. That makes for a stealthy significance considering that Hujar would only live another 13 years, succumbing to AIDS-related complications in 1987. It was a loss of mentorship, aesthetic brilliance and camaraderie felt throughout the art world.
Apart from not explaining Hujar for us (nor explaining his many name drops), Sachs also doesn’t hide the meta-ness of his concept, occasionally offering glimpses of a clapperboard or the crew, or letting us hear sound blips as it appears a reel is ending. There are jump cuts too, and interludes of his actors in close-up that could be color screen tests or just a nod to Hujar’s aptitude for portraits. It’s playful but never too obtrusive, approaching an idea of how art and movies play with time and can conjure their own reality.
The simple, sparsely elegant split-level apartment creates the right authenticity for Alex Ashe’s textured 16mm cinematography. The interior play of light from day to night across Whishaw and Hall’s faces is its own dramatic arc as Hujar’s details become an intimate testimony of humor, rigor and reflection. It’s not meant to be entirely Whishaw’s show, either: As justly compelling as he is, Hall makes the act of listening (and occasionally commenting or teasing) a steady, enveloping warmth. The result is a window into the pleasures of friendship and those days when the minutiae of your loved ones seems like the stuff that true connection is built on.
When Xavier “X” Atencio was plucked by Walt Disney in 1965 to be one of his early theme park designers, he was slotted on a number of projects that placed him out of his comfort zone.
Atencio, for instance, never would have envisioned himself a songwriter.
One of Atencio’s first major projects with Walt Disney Imagineering — WED Enterprises (for Walter Elias Disney), as it was known at the time — was Pirates of the Caribbean. In the mid-’60s when Atencio joined the Pirates team, the attraction was well underway, with the likes of fellow animators-turned-theme park designers Marc Davis and Claude Coats crafting many of its exaggerated characters and enveloping environments. Atencio’s job? Make it all make sense by giving it a cohesive story. While Atencio had once dreamed of being a journalist, his work as an animator had led him astray of a writer’s path.
Atencio would not only figure it out but end up as the draftman of one of Disneyland’s most recognizable songs, “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me).” In the process, he was key in creating the template for the modern theme park dark ride, a term often applied to slow-moving indoor attractions. Such career twists and turns are detailed in a new book about Atencio, who died in 2017. “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of an Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” (Disney Editions), written by three of his family members, follows Atencio’s unexpected trajectory, starting from his roots in animation (his resume includes “Fantasia,” the Oscar-winning short “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom” and even stop-motion work in “Mary Poppins”).
For Pirates of the Caribbean, Atencio is said to have received little direction from Disney, only that the park’s patriarch was unhappy with previous stabs at a narration and dialogue, finding them leaning a bit stodgy. So he knew, essentially, what not to do. Atencio, according to the book, immersed himself in films like Disney’s own “Treasure Island” and pop-cultural interpretations of pirates, striving for something that felt borderline caricature rather than ripped from the history books.
Xavier “X” Atencio got his start in animation. Here, he is seen drawing dinosaurs for a sequence in “Fantasia.”
(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)
Indeed, Atencio’s words — some of those quoted in the book, such as “Avast there! Ye come seeking adventure and salty old pirates, aye?” — have become shorthand for how to speak like a pirate. The first scene written for the attraction was the mid-point auction sequence, a section of the ride that was changed in 2017 due to its outdated cultural implications. In the original, a proud redheaded pirate is the lead prisoner in a bridal auction, but today the “wench” has graduated to pirate status of her own and is helping to auction off stolen goods.
At first, Atencio thought he had over-written the scene, noticing that dialogue overlapped with one another. In a now-famous theme park moment, and one retold in the book, Atencio apologized to Disney, who shrugged off Atencio’s insecurity.
“Hey, X, when you go to a cocktail party, you pick up a little conversation here, another conversation there,” Disney told the animator. “Each time people will go through, they’ll find something new.”
This was the green light that Atencio, Davis and Coats needed to continue developing their attraction as one that would be a tableau of scenes rather than a strict plot.
Tying it all together, Atencio thought, should be a song. Not a songwriter himself, of course, Atencio sketched out a few lyrics and a simple melody. As the authors write, he turned to the thesaurus and made lists of traditional “pirating” words. He presented it to Disney and, to Atencio’s surprise, the company founder promptly gave him the sign off.
“Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me),” Atencio would relay, was a challenge as the ride doesn’t have a typical beginning and ending, meaning the tune needed to work with whatever pirate vignette we were sailing by. Ultimately, the song, with music by George Bruns, underlines the ride’s humorous feel, allowing the looting, the pillaging and the chasing of women, another scene that has been altered over the years, to be delivered with a playful bent.
The song “altered the trajectory” of Atencio’s career. While Atencio was not considered a musical person — “No, not at all,” says his daughter Tori Atencio McCullough, one of the book’s co-authors — the biography reveals how music became a signature aspect of his work. The short “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom,” for instance, is a humorous tale about the discovery of music. And elsewhere in Atencio’s career he worked on the band-focused opening animations for “Mickey Mouse Club.”
“That one has a pretty cool kind of modern instrument medley in the middle,” Kelsey McCullough, Atencio’s granddaughter and another one of the book’s authors, says of “Mickey Mouse Club.” “It was interesting, because when we lined everything up, it was like, ‘Of course he felt like the ride needed a song.’ Everything he had been doing up to that point had a song in it. Once we looked it at from that perspective, it was sort of unsurprising to us. He was doing a lot around music.”
Xavier “X” Atencio contributed concepts to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, including its famous one-eyed cat.
(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)
Atencio would go on to write lyrics for the Country Bear Jamboree and the Haunted Mansion. While the Haunted Mansion vacillates between spooky and lighthearted imagery, it’s Atencio’s “Grim Grinning Ghosts” that telegraphs the ride’s tone and makes it clear it’s a celebratory attraction, one in which many of those in the afterlife prefer to live it up rather than haunt.
Despite his newfound music career, Atencio never gave up drawing and contributing concepts to Disney theme park attractions. Two of my favorites are captured in the book — his abstract flights through molecular lights for the defunct Adventure Thru Inner Space and his one-eyed black cat for the Haunted Mansion. The latter has become a fabled Mansion character over the years. Atencio’s fiendish feline would have followed guests throughout the ride, a creature said to despise living humans and with predatory, possessive instincts.
In Atencio’s concept art, the cat featured elongated, vampire-like fangs and a piercing red eye. In a nod to Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” it had just one eyeball, which sat in its socket with all the subtlety of a fire alarm. Discarded eventually — a raven essentially fills a similar role — the cat today has been resurrected for the Mansion, most notably in a revised attic scene where the kitty is spotted near a mournful bride.
Xavier “X” Atencio retired from Disney in 1984 after four-plus decades with the company. He drew his own retirement announcement.
(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)
Co-author Bobbie Lucas, a relative of Atencio’s colloquially referred to by the family as his “grandchild-in-law,” was asked what ties all of Atencio’s work together.
“No matter the different style or no matter the era, there’s such a sense of life and humanity,” Lucas says. “There’s a sense of play.”
Play is a fitting way to describe Atencio’s contributions to two of Disneyland’s most beloved attractions, where pirates and ghosts are captured at their most frivolous and jovial.
“I like that,” Lucas adds. “I like someone who will put their heart on their sleeve and show you that in their art.”
