moment

JESY Nelson has described the terrifying moment her mum raised the alarm about her twins’ SMA struggle.

The pop star secretly moved to Cornwall after giving birth to the two little girls following a high-risk pregnancy.

She says her mum Janice noticed Ocean and Story’s lack of leg movement on a trip to visit them.

Speaking on Jamie Laing’s podcast Great Company with Jesy Nelson, the former Little Mix star said:  “Me and Zion decided we wanted to move to Cornwall because our babies had been through all this trauma, and we just wanted them to grow up in a peaceful setting and just be around the sea and live like a kid.

“I honestly was not even taking notice of their legs because they’re my first set of children, so I don’t know how they should be moving their legs, or what they should and shouldn’t be doing anyway.

“Because we had just moved six hours away, my mum wasn’t with me every day.

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“I think she noticed how much it had deteriorated, and she said, ‘Jesy, they don’t move their legs very much. Have you noticed that?’

“She kept comparing them to my nephew, but I said George was a full time baby and because the twins were premature you can’t compare them.

“She said, ‘I know Jesy, but something’s not right’.

“My mum is such a such a worrier. She worries about everything – a bit like me, she thinks the worst in every situation.

“And so I just thought that was her over-worrying then a week went by, and I remember changing their nappy and just thinking ‘oh, god, they actually don’t move their legs at all’.

“For some reason they just stopped.”

Fearing her mum was right, Jesy booked to see a paediatrician straight away.

After being told the babies needed blood tests and a brain scan, Jesy left the doctors in tears.

She was later told the identical twins have Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1 — the most severe form of a rare disease affecting muscle strength and movement.

Jesy is now working tirelessly to raise awareness of SMA and campaigning for the condition to be added to the NHS newborn heel-prick test, which currently screens for ten other conditions.

She spoke to The Sun about the diagnosis and her new new six-part docuseries on Prime Video, which follows her journey into motherhood as she reflects back on her time in Little Mix.

It’s the first time she’s opened up about quitting the band in 2020.

Read our full interview with Jesy about hope of reconciling with her former Little Mix friends and mending her relationship with Simon Cowell here.

• Jesy Nelson: Life After Little Mix will be aired on Prime Video from February 13.
• Listen to Great Company with Jesy Nelson whereever you get your podcasts.

Making his first major post-arrest television interview Monday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Don Lemon detailed the moments surrounding his incarceration and his experience as a journalist becoming the center of a news story.

“There’s a lot that I cannot say,” Lemon told Kimmel. “But what I will say is that I’m not a protester. I went there to be a journalist. I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening … I do think that there is a difference between a protester and a journalist.”

The appearance arrived less than a week after the former CNN anchor — now an independent journalist who hosts a YouTube show — was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles following his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month. Lemon, 59, was released without bond Friday and is expected to plead not guilty, according to his attorneys.

On Monday’s show, Kimmel began the conversation by asking Lemon how he was feeling: “I don’t know — that’s an honest answer,” Lemon said. “I’m OK. I’m not going to let them steal my joy, but this is very serious. These are federal criminal charges.”

Lemon was arrested — along with three others in attendance at the protest — at the direction of Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, who said on X that it was in connection to what she described as a “coordinated attack” on the church, located in St. Paul. Lemon is charged with conspiracy to deprive the church congregants of their rights and interfering by force with someone’s First Amendment rights. Lemon has denied participating in the protest at the church — assembled to decry that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field officer apparently serves as a pastor there — saying he was present in a journalistic capacity.

Playfully acknowledging that he hasn’t been a favorite of President Trump’s since his time on CNN, Lemon said he hadn’t been concerned about his possible arrest — even with a re-post by Trump calling for it — until it gained steam by members of Trump’s cabinet, including Bondi and Todd Blanche, the U.S. deputy attorney general. Lemon said that after retaining a lawyer and volunteering to turn himself in to handle the matter without fanfare, he “never heard back from them.”

“That is customary in a situation like this, that someone would be allowed to turn themselves in,” Lemon said. “People who are who are accused of much worse things than I am accused of doing, they are allowed the courtesy. I mean, Donald Trump was allowed the courtesy to turn himself in …”

Lemon went on to detail the moments leading up to his arrest Thursday, which came after a night of covering a Grammys event for the Black Music Collective and attending a post-party celebration.

“I got back to the hotel, I walked in with my swag bag from the thing … and I pressed the elevator button and all of a sudden I feel myself being jostled, people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs,” he recounted. “And I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And they said, ‘We came to arrest you.’ I said, ‘Who are you?’ Then finally they identified themselves. And I said, ‘If you are who you are, then where’s the warrant?’ And they didn’t have a warrant, so they had to wait for the someone from outside, an FBI guy, to come in to show me a warrant on a cell phone … They took me outside FBI guys were out there. It had to be maybe a dozen people, which is a waste, Jimmy, of resources … They want to embarrass you. They want to intimidate you. They want to instill fear.”

He said he hadn’t realized how much attention his arrest had generated until he saw CNN broadcasting the story on a TV monitor where he was being held.

“I could see ‘Former CNN anchor Don Lemon arrested in Los Angeles,’” he said. “I said to the guy, ‘Is that happening a lot?’ He goes, ‘You’ve been on all morning, yeah. And he says, ‘This is a big deal.’”

During the conversation, Kimmel criticized what he felt was a lack of attention to the recent search by FBI agents of the home of a Washington Post reporter who covers the federal government. Lemon, who parted ways with CNN in 2023, attributed it to a fear among the leaders of corporate press enterprises.

“Corporate media has been neutered right now. They are afraid, and that’s the reason I’m so happy with what I do, because I’m closer to the ground,” he said. “This is not time for folly. It’s not time for false equivalence, and putting people on television and on news programs, giving them a platform, who come on just to lie. …. Some things are objectively bad and I think its important in this time to point that out.”

Lemon hitting the late-night circuit intensifies its spotlight as a free-speech battleground. The Trump era has prompted more pointed and passionate takes from most of the major hosts that, in turn, have captured the attention and ire of the president, who has provoked threats against them and their broadcasters.

Last year, CBS announced it was canceling “The Late Show” after a three-decade run — a decision the company attributed to financial reasons and not, as many have speculated, because of host Stephen Colbert’s criticism of a settlement between the Trump administration and Paramount, the parent company of CBS, over a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

More recently, Kimmel faced a brief suspension last fall over comments regarding the killing of right-wing activist and influencer Charlie Kirk (ABC ultimately reinstated Kimmel following public backlash.) In fact, Lemon referenced that situation prior to his arrest, when a judge dismissed prosectors’ initial charging effort: “This is not a victory lap for me because it’s not over. They’re gonna try again,” Lemon told his followers on his YouTube show after the judge’s ruling. “Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want.”

Last Friday, addressing a crowd outside the courthouse upon his release, Lemon said, “There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable. I will not stop now, I will not stop ever.”

History was made in more than one way at Sunday night’s 68th Grammy Awards.

Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” won album of the year — the first Spanish-language LP to take the Recording Academy’s highest honor. Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” was named record of the year, making Lamar the winningest rapper in Grammy history (and just the fourth artist to go back-to-back for the record prize). Then there were Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, who took song of the year with “Wildflower”; they’re now the only songwriters with three wins in that prestigious category.

To go by demographics, the ceremony clearly embodied the diversity gains the academy has been saying proudly are happening among its 15,000 voting members. But if new kinds of faces are becoming Grammy darlings, the music they’re being recognized for still upholds many of the academy’s old values. A night for making history was also a night for reveling in it.

Take “Luther,” a soulful hip-hop slow jam built on a prominent sample of Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 rendition of a love song Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell recorded in the late 1960s — an intricate piece of lineage-making meant to bridge multiple generations.

Olivia Dean performs.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“First and foremost, let’s give a shout-out to the late, great Luther Vandross,” the producer Sounwave said as he, Lamar, SZA and the song’s other creators accepted their award at Crypto.com Arena. (Before they made it onstage, Cher misread the card identifying “Luther” as record of the year and said that Vandross himself had won.) Lamar added, “This is what music is about,” and expressed his gratitude for being allowed “the privilege” to use Vandross’ music as long as he and SZA promised the singer’s estate not to curse on their record.

You can hear a similar reverence for those who came before in Olivia Dean, the 26-year-old British singer named best new artist on the strength of her hit “The Art of Loving” LP, which looks back to the gleaming pop-soul of Diana Ross and Whitney Houston.

Even Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican rapper and singer who became a superstar at the bleeding edge of reggaeton and Latin trap, achieved his Grammy breakthrough with something of a throwback move: “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is an exactingly arranged tribute to his native island, with elements of Puerto Rican folk styles such as bomba and plena and more hand-played instrumentation than he utilized for 2022’s sleek “Un Verano Sin Ti,” which scored a Grammy nomination for album of the year but lost to “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles (who, as it happens, presented the album prize Sunday).

Part of Bad Bunny’s success this year can be attributed to the fact that he’s a far bigger celebrity than he was three years ago; indeed, his Grammy triumph impressively sets up the halftime performance he’ll give this coming weekend at Super Bowl LX. But not unlike Beyoncé’s rootsy “Cowboy Carter,” which finally brought her a win for album of the year in 2025 after a number of outrage-inducing defeats, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is also primo Grammy bait: a work steeped in tradition from a natural innovator.

SZA backstage.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

For years, the Grammys’ rearview gaze used to bum me out — and, to be honest, as lovely as Eilish’s “Wildflower” is, her song of the year win with the tender acoustic ballad felt like a failure of imagination among voters I wish had recognized the hurtling exuberance of “Golden,” from Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters.” (“Golden” did take the prize for song written for visual media, which made it the first K-pop tune to win a Grammy.)

Yet something about Sunday’s ceremony made it hard to get too worked up about all the historicizing. Perhaps it was how plainly yet passionately many artists used their time onstage to speak about the issues pressing on us right now. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out,” Bad Bunny told the crowd as he accepted an award for música urbana album. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”

Lady Gaga on the red carpet.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Eilish said, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” Dean pointed out that she’s the granddaughter of an immigrant and that “those people deserve to be celebrated.”

I was also moved by how personal so much of the music felt — a cry of imperfection like Lola Young’s “Messy,” for instance, which she performed by herself on piano and which won pop solo performance in an upset over the likes of Lady Gaga and Sabrina Carpenter. “I don’t know what I’m gonna say because I don’t have any speech prepared,” she yelled into the microphone as she received her trophy. “Obviously, I don’t — it’s messy, do you know what I mean?”

Weirdly for a show with yesterday so heavily on its mind, a tribute to the late R&B trailblazers Roberta Flack and D’Angelo was a disappointment, with Lauryn Hill as bandleader moving way too quickly (in way too short an allotted time) through songs that require real space to unfurl.

That’s what Justin Bieber had for the evening’s most striking performance: a slow and radically stripped-down rendition of his song “Yukon” that he sang wearing only boxer shorts and socks, accompanying himself with a scratchy electric guitar riff he fed through a looping station.

“Yukon” is from Bieber’s impressive “Swag” album, which he released last year after a lengthy stretch in the pop-star wilderness; it’s an LP, kind of like “Messy,” about learning to forgive yourself for your flaws, and here he sang “Yukon” like a guy who’d figured out — maybe a guy figuring out — how to build a life outside the punishing expectations of celebrity. The music had the past in it, of course, but didn’t feel constrained by it.

Justin Bieber performs.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

This year’s Sundance felt marked by great uncertainty. Personally, I was never quite sure how to feel, as the many unknowns of next year’s move to Boulder meant that it was unclear how much this year was supposed to feel like the end of something or the start of a new beginning. I didn’t know just how mournful to be, though, as the festival marched along, it became clear there was a space for nostalgic reflections.

The first movie I ever saw at Sundance was Andrew Fleming’s comedy “Hamlet 2” in the Library Center Theatre. Which means it was 2008 and I was then an intrepid freelancer who talked my way into sleeping on a recliner at a condo rented by The Times until staffers trickled out and I eventually had the place to myself because of the vagaries of an extended rental agreement. Which is how I found myself, entirely unexpectedly, in a room interviewing all of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who were in town for their tour documentary “CSNY/Déjà Vu.”

That sense of surprise and discovery — and in-person interactions that likely wouldn’t happen anywhere else — are what have brought me back to the festival every year I could manage since. It’s exactly why I have been a huge fan of the festival’s NEXT section, made up of films that don’t quite fit elsewhere in the program. A standout this year was Georgia Bernstein’s debut feature, “Night Nurse,” a film of assured poise about a young woman (a compelling Cemre Paskoy) who takes a job at a retirement home only to find herself drawn into a series of phone scams, erotic role play and psychosexual transference with one the clients. Recommending the film to colleagues feels a little like an HR violation, but the kinky undercurrents and unsettling emotions are worth it.

Cemre Paksoy and Bruce McKenzie in the movie “Night Nurse.”

(Lidia Nikonova / Sundance Institute)

Many conversations around the festival seemed to firmly center on “The Invite” and “Josephine,” but another film people consistently brought up was “Wicker.” Written and directed by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, adapting a short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, the film takes place in an unspecified time and place: a sort of medieval-ish middle European village of the mind, in which an unmarried woman (Olivia Colman) asks a local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband. That he comes out looking like Alexander Skarsgård sets the whole town into a tizzy. Nimble and inventive, with convincing special effects work, the film is a charming parable that continually finds ways to reset itself.

It is unclear just how planned it was, but there could have been no better film than “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” to be the final fiction feature to debut in the Eccles Theatre, one of the festival’s most storied venues. Character actor Noah Segan’s directorial debut, the movie is a warmly elegiac portrait of the city and the pain of recognizing when your time has passed. Led by a quietly commanding lead performance by John Turturro, the film also features Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito in supporting roles.

As the trio took the stage with Segan and other cast members after the film, it quickly became apparent how special it was to have those three actors there in that moment. Buscemi rattled off a quietly astounding number of films he has appeared in with “New York” in the title — “New York Stories,” “Slaves of New York,” “King of New York” — while Turturro spoke movingly about his relationship with Robert Redford, whose absence hung heavy over the entire festival.

John Turturro in the move “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.”

(MRC II Distribution Co. L.P. / Sundance Institute)

As Esposito began talking about what Sundance has meant to him over the years, his words took on a fierce momentum. He recalled when he first came to the festival in the ’90s, he was “ecstatic because it gave a voice to those who didn’t have a voice. … We didn’t come to sell a film to a big studio. We came to share our small movie with human beings that could really see themselves in a mirror on the screen.”

Of Redford, he added, “His vision is priceless. It’s the gem that we all hope for. It’s the juice of why we live. It’s the connection of why this movie works. It’s the love of what we do. This, to me, will stick with me for the rest of my life. My interactions with this man who started this festival will always be a beacon of light in my creative process.”

It was a beautiful and inspiring way to leave that theater for the last time and, in turn, leave Park City behind for a future that, while full of unknowns, will for now also hold the promise of new discoveries to come.

What’s the difference between Brett Ratner and Leni Riefenstahl? Riefenstahl, for all her many sins, was technically innovative; Ratner (unless you count an almost fetishistic fascination with first lady footwear), not so much.

But in the end, they are both political propagandists, collaborators if you will, with heads of state determined to create a narrative that is, at best, at odds with reality and, at worst, a targeted attempt to distort it.

Am I saying that “Melania” is as horrifically significant as “Triumph of the Will”? No, I am not. But it is motivated by the same base forces, and as fun as it might be to watch Jeff Bezos lose most of the $75 million Amazon paid for the purchase and then marketing of the film, it is important to remember that.

As Melania Trump said herself at the film’s premiere: “Some have called this a documentary. It is not. It is a creative experience that offers perspectives, insights and moments.”

A “creative experience” for which the first lady, who serves as narrator and executive producer, reportedly received about $28 million.

Money she very much does not earn.

Anyone who goes into “Melania” hoping to see even a glimpse of what it is like to be first lady, or indeed Melania Trump, will find instead a super-long version of “we followed [fill in the blank] as they got ready for the Oscars.”

Only in this case, it’s Donald Trump’s second inauguration, which Ratner (given his first big job since being accused by six women of sexual misconduct) frames as the Second Coming, from the lingering shots of the sleek lines of the motorcade to the use of “His truth is marching on” from “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as the first couple takes the stage at one of the inaugural balls.

(And in case you think that’s not obsequious enough, at the end of the inaugural festivities, Ratner, off camera, says, “sweet dreams, Mr. President,” which honestly could have been the title of this film.)

Most of the “action” involves the first lady making entrances: off private jets, out of big black cars and into well-appointed rooms. There, Trump and her designers wax rhapsodic over a gown designed to disguise any seams, admire an inaugural dinner menu that begins with caviar in a big golden egg and discuss the furnishings that will be moved in as soon as the Bidens move out.

These mind-numbing glories are interrupted just long enough for Tham Kannalikham, an interior designer in charge of the White House transition, to talk about how her family immigrated to America from Laos when she was 2 — the opportunity to work in the White House is, for her, the ultimate American dream. Beside her, Trump, also an immigrant, remains silent.

Other things happen. Trump has a video conference with French First Lady Brigitte Macron to discuss initiatives to end cyberbullying, meets with Queen Rania of Jordan to discuss helping foster children and comforts former Hamas hostage Aviva Siegel. Siegel, whose husband, at the time of filming, is still a hostage, provides the film’s one real emotional moment, despite having been clearly included as an opportunity for Trump to reveal a bit of personal kindness (and some political messaging).

We follow Trump as she and her husband attend Jimmy Carter’s funeral, during which her narration describes the pain of her mother’s death the year before, and as she “sneaks” the cameras into a room where her husband is rehearsing his inaugural speech.

There she suggests, with a completely straight face, that he add the word “unifier” to “peacemaker” in his description of what he hopes to be his legacy, a term he then uses in his speech the next day.

Throughout it all, the first lady remains relentlessly poised and personally inaccessible, lending new and literal meaning to the term “statuesque.”

Given the nature of the film’s subject, and the fact that she is the one literally calling the shots, no one with half a brain could expect to see any interesting or authentic “behind-the-scenes” moments (Melania wearing sweats or counting her breakfast almonds or, I don’t know, sneezing). A brief scene in which the remarkably tone-deaf Ratner attempts to get her to sing along to her favorite song, Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” elicits (finally!) a genuine laugh from her, and while his decision to repeatedly zoom in on her admittedly well-shod feet becomes increasingly creepy, it at least offers drinking-game potential.

Even so, “Melania” is as cynical a piece of filmmaking as exists since the art form began.

Listening to her describe the seriousness with which she takes her duties; her love, as an immigrant, for this great nation; and her dedication to making life better for all Americans — especially children and families — I was reminded of the climactic scene in “A Wrinkle in Time,” when young Charles Wallace has been ensnared by the soothing rhetoric of the evil brain-washing IT.

The superficial blandness of “Melania” isn’t boring; it’s calculated, infuriating and horrifying.

The first lady is describing an alternative universe of peace, love and unity while her husband has unleashed armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to terrorize and detain children and adults (many of whom are citizens or here in this country legally) and, in at least two cases, kill American citizens who protest their actions. She wants to help children and families while her husband slashes federal assistance programs and holds school funding hostage. She would have us believe she is battling cyberbullies while her husband, the president of these United States, regularly engages in lies, direct threats and character assassination on social media.

President Trump is many things but he is not a unifier — he believes, as he has assured us time and again, in winning, and, as he has also said and shown, he will choose retribution over reconciliation every time.

Melania Trump is, of course, not her husband. But this film is little more than a 90-minute campaign ad. Which, given the fact that Trump cannot legally run for president again, should be cause for much concern.

Many criticized the decision to release “Melania” mere days after federal agents killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, and excoriated those notables, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, who chose to attend an early celebratory screening that included “let them eat” cookies with “Melania” scrawled in the icing.

For the kind of person who makes, and buys and distributes, a film that purports to be a “documentary” and is really just old-fashioned, through-the-looking-glass propaganda, however, it’s actually the perfect time.

Why worry about the federal government killing its own citizens when we can all ooh and aah over the fact that the first lady’s inaugural gown is constructed so that none of the seams show? Especially if it makes her husband happy.

I was just getting settled in my seat for the first showing of “Melania” at the Grove cineplex when Melania Trump walked in.

OK, it wasn’t the Melania Trump, as in the first lady. But it was a reasonable facsimile.

The impersonator, followed by a man filming with his phone, strode in like a model, flinging her hair back and smiling as she addressed the six people — many of them critics from various press outlets — in the auditorium who were among the first in Los Angeles to see “Melania,” the controversial documentary that features the first lady as star and producer.

“Hi, everybody. I want to welcome you all to my movie,” the impersonator said in a Slovenian accent. She wore a stylish dark pantsuit and high heels, a frequent motif in the film which chronicles the real Melania Trump in the 20 days leading up to the second presidential inauguration of her husband, Donald Trump.

After a few more words of greeting, the impostor Melania flashed another smile as she exited.

I was stunned and extremely frustrated that I didn’t have time to capture the moment. It’s rare to find yourself in the presence of a first lady —even a fake one.

During the film, my fellow viewers were mostly silent, although there were a few murmurs of laughter as Melania Trump outlined the burdens of coordinating the correct outfit and decor for her re-entry to the White House.

“My creative vision is always clear, and it’s my responsibility to share my ideas with my team so they can bring it to life,” she says at one point.

Later in the film, when Donald Trump was formally introduced at the inauguration as the 47th president, one older woman sitting near the front of the theater applauded. And I could see her smiling as, onscreen, the first couple made their way through the White House following the ceremony.

“Being hand in hand with my husband at this moment is very emotional,” she says. “Nobody has endured what he has over the past few years. People tried to murder him, incarcerate him, slander him. But here he is. I’m so very proud.”

I hoped that Melania would be around in the lobby as we left the theater to ask us how we liked the film. But I was disappointed. Melania had left the building.

SAN FRANCISCO — Katie Porter’s still standing, which is saying something.

The last time a significant number of people tuned into California‘s low-frequency race for governor was in October, when Porter’s political obituary was being written in bold type.

Immediately after a snappish and off-putting TV interview, Porter showed up in a years-old video profanely reaming a staff member for — the humanity! — straying into the video frame during her meeting with a Biden Cabinet member.

Not a good look for a candidate already facing questions about her temperament and emotional regulation. (Hang on, gentle reader, we’ll get to that whole gendered double-standard thing in a moment.)

The former Orange County congresswoman had played to the worst stereotypes and that was that. Her campaign was supposedly kaput.

But, lo, these several months later, Porter remains positioned exactly where she’d been before, as one of the handful of top contenders in a race that remains stubbornly formless and utterly wide open.

Did she ever think of exiting the contest, as some urged, and others plainly hoped to see? (The surfacing of that surly 2021 video, with the timing and intentionality of a one-two punch, was clearly not a coincidence.)

No, she said, not for a moment.

“Anyone who thinks that you can just push over Katie Porter has never tried to do it,” she said.

Porter apologized and expressed remorse for her tetchy behavior. She promised to do better.

“You definitely learn from your mistakes,” the Democrat said this week over a cup of chai in San Francisco’s Financial District. “I really have and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how do I show Californians who I am and that I really care about people who work for me. I need to earn back their trust and that’s what campaigns are literally about.”

She makes no excuse for acting churlish and wouldn’t bite when asked about that double standard — though she did allow as how Democratic leader John Burton, who died not long before people got busy digging Porter’s grave, was celebrated for his gruff manner and lavish detonation of f-bombs.

“It was a reminder,” she said, pivoting to the governor’s race, “that there have been other politicians who come on hot, come on strong and fight for what’s right and righteous and California has embraced them.”

Voters, she said, “want someone who will not back down.”

Porter warmed to the subject.

“If you are never gonna hurt anyone’s feelings, you are never gonna take [JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive] Jamie Dimon to task for not thinking about how his workers can’t afford to make ends meet. If you want everyone to love you, you are never gonna say to a big pharma CEO, ‘You didn’t make this cancer drug anymore. You just got richer, right?’ That is a feistiness that I’m proud of.”

At the same, Porter suggested, she wants to show there’s more to her persona than the whiteboard-wielding avenger that turned her into a viral sensation. The inquisitorial stance was, she said, her role as a congressional overseer charged with holding people accountable. Being governor is different. More collaborative. Less confrontational.

Her campaign approach has been to “call everyone, go everywhere” — even places Porter may not be welcomed — to listen and learn, build relationships and show “my ability to craft a compromise, my ability to learn and to change my mind.”

“All of that is really hard to convey,” she said, “in those whiteboard moments.”

The rap on this year’s pack of gubernatorial hopefuls is they’re a collective bore, as though the lack of A-list sizzle and failure to throw off sparks is some kind of mortal sin.

Porter doesn’t buy that.

“When we say boring, I think what we’re really saying is ‘I’m not 100% sure how all this is going to work out.’ People are waiting for some thing to happen, some coronation of our next governor. We’re not gonna have that.”

Gavin Newsom, she noted, was a high-profile former San Francisco mayor who spent eight years as lieutenant governor before winning the state’s top job. His predecessor was the dynastic Jerry Brown.

None of those running this time have that political pedigree, or the Sacramento backgrounds of Newsom or Brown, which, Porter suggested, is not a bad thing.

“I actually think this race has the potential to be really, really exciting for California,” she said. “… I think everyone in this race comes in with a little bit of a fresh energy, and I think that’s really good and healthy.”

Crowding into the conversation was, inevitably, Donald Trump, the sun around which today’s entire political universe turns.

Of course, Porter said, as governor she would stand up to the president. His administration’s actions in Minneapolis have been awful. His stalling on disaster relief for California is grotesque.

But, she said, Trump didn’t cause last year’s firestorm. He didn’t make housing in California obscenely expensive for the last many decades.

“When my children say ‘I don’t know if I want to go to college in California because we don’t have enough dorm housing,’ Trump has done plenty of horrible attacks on higher ed,” Porter said. “But that’s a homegrown problem that we need to tackle.”

Indeed, she’s “very leery of anyone who does not acknowledge that we had problems and policy challenges long before Donald Trump ever raised his orange head on the political horizon.”

Although California needs “someone who’s going to [buffer] us against Trump,” Porter said, “you can’t make that an excuse for why you are not tackling these policy changes that need to be.”

She hadn’t finished her tea, but it was time to go. Porter gathered her things.

She’d just spoken at an Urban League forum in San Francisco and was heading across the Bay Bridge to address union workers in Oakland.

The June 2 primary is some ways off. But Porter remains in the fight.