painful

Pride of Britain host Carol Vorderman says her recent health crisis has given her a new perspective, forcing her to focus on what truly matters.

After a year-long health crisis, and as she marks 44 years on television, Carol Vorderman wants to “deep cleanse” her life and focus on what matters. The 65-year-old Pride of Britain presenter and former Countdown star was completely floored for most of last year, with a sudden debilitating case of rheumatoid arthritis.

She couldn’t walk without crying in pain and found the experience depressing and a shock to the system. Carol says: “As you get older, health becomes one of your top priorities. And time – who you spend that time with, and what you spend that time on. Time becomes your currency, so you don’t want to waste it.

“Every single person I know of my age group, we’re all trying to get rid of stuff. You spend all your life accumulating, but you don’t want to waste time curating things you’ve accumulated. It’s a deep cleanse for old age. Being really poorly and on a lot of medication for so much time really has given me a new perspective.

“You become much more conscious of your overall health. Your priority list changes. It was a big shock to the system, and that’s why I have every sympathy for people with chronic pain. I just don’t know how they live with it. It’s just depressing.”

Carol is due to present The Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards, in partnership with P&O Cruises, for the 27th year – a show she has recently co-hosted with Diversity star Ashley Banjo.

The event, shown on ITV and ITVX, celebrates the nation’s unsung heroes and includes awards for Child of Courage, Outstanding Bravery, Lifetime and Young Fundraiser.

Carol says: “The first Pride of Britain was 1999, so it only occurred to me this week that I was on Countdown for 26 years, but now Pride of Britain is my long runner. On November 2, I celebrate 44 years on TV. I’m not having a party, but I am getting a BAFTA Cymru for Outstanding Achievement. In other words, still being alive!

“The reason I keep doing Pride of Britain is because it’s the best job. It’s very glam. There are lots of very glam shows, but it’s very real. I do get emotional about the show about a week before. I remember the people who have won awards and have either passed away through old age or particularly the youngsters who died. They came on because they had cancer and raised money, or whatever their story might have been, and they’re no longer with us.

“Then you also remember the people who were doing these great things 15 years ago are still doing them. I always come back to how many great people there are. The show makes you want to be better and it’s made me more of a fighter.”

Carol recalls how she had to fight when her health nosedived. She says: “I had travel vaccines for a trip to Thailand and within three days I had chronic rheumatoid arthritis. I can’t prove that they caused it. My hands doubled in size. I couldn’t walk. I literally couldn’t move anything without crying in pain.

“I was on steroids probably for about eight months, and now I’m on other medication for the rest of my life. That’s hard because I’ve always prided myself on being healthy. It was as much as I could do to look out of the window and think, ‘I hope one day I’ll be able to walk without pain again.’

“The big thing for a lot of older people is community. You’ve got to feel a part of something. I know that my mum living with us and being around the kids, living in a busy house, gave her a purpose.

“If she’d just been living by herself somewhere, she wouldn’t have lasted. And smartphones don’t help. I love keeping up to date with what people are doing on Instagram, but it’s not the same as getting people together.”

Carol also reveals that laughter is extremely important to her wellbeing. “People who laugh are very special,” she says. “I love laughing. I love laughing at myself. Most of my friends just completely take the p*** out of me all the time.

“As you get older, you realise that even people who make you laugh and want to share, there’s a kindness in it. So for me, there are people who are heroes, because they make you feel better, they make you laugh, rather than taking offence, and I think there’s something quite heroic in that. There’s something about laughter that just breaks down the barriers.”

Carol has also long been a passionate, unfiltered voice of public frustration, turning to political advocacy to expose what she calls “political corruption”. She says: “Good people also need support so that they can do even more good things. Some people have been through so much pain and grief, some of it caused by certain politicians.

“Those things make me very angry, and I suppose now I’m at an age where I no longer need to build a career. A lot of girls say to me, ‘I believe in everything that you do, Carol, but I wish I could say the things you do. I just don’t feel strong enough.’ I say, ‘Yeah, but you’re not in a position to. I am in a position to say it, so I feel that responsibility.’”

Despite the emotional weight of Pride of Britain, Carol says there is always lightness on the show. She recalls: “The one that I always remember was in 2012 when we had lots of people on the stage, because we were celebrating the London Olympics. To present the award was Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, as they were then.

“Then in my ear, the show’s boss said, ‘You’ve got to make Charles do the Mobot. Do it.’ So I talked about the wonderful Mo Farah and said, ‘Obviously sir, you will have seen this, shall we all do the Mobot?’ I collared him into it, he couldn’t stand there and say no. So he did it, what a good sport. The next day officials at Clarence House brought up that they hadn’t approved the Mobot ‘incident’ and asked who was responsible.”

For Carol, Pride of Britain is a chance to take a moment and appreciate good people. She says: “Pride of Britain gives us all an opportunity to take a breath for a couple of hours and witness these very real people who are doing very real things because they are brave, they’re determined. It’s a whole balance of life.”

*The Pride of Britain Awards will take place on 19th October, before airing on ITV and ITVX from 22nd October. Find out more about the Pride of Britain Awards 2026 HERE

NICOLE Scherzinger has revealed more shocking images of her painful leg injury after a horrifying mishap.

Last week, Pussycat Dolls star Nicole revealed how boiling water had spilled over her lower leg shortly before taking to the stage in Germany.

Just over a week since the accident, the band’s lead singer has shared new photos of her bloodied and blistered leg.

Nicole shared a photo of her wearing a black crop top as she showcased her abs.

She captioned the post: “What they see vs. what they don’t see…”

The pop star then followed it up with a series of photos of her leg which had scabbed over and left a deep purple scar.

It comes after The Don’t Cha hitmaker uploaded an image showing her limb looking sore with red raw marks across her inner thigh from the knee down to her ankle.

Sharing snaps of the painful burns on her leg, one fan wrote: “God heal Nicole of any pain”.

In her caption she wrote: “Nothing like boiling water falling on your leg an hour before your set.

“But the show must go on.

“Thanks Dusseldorf for keeping me going. See you soon Amsterdam!”

Nicole has been joined on tour by bandmates Ashley Roberts and Kimberly Wyatt.

They played at the PSD Bank Dome in Germany, with a mix of band favourites and solo tracks in their Forever series of gigs.

It isn’t the first mishap which has hit tour proceedings, with Nicole recently “going missing” from top track Buttons in Poland.

We also recently revealed how the American band had been forced to slash ticket prices.

The sizzling girl group are set to perform in a number of venues around the UK starting at the end of this month as part of The Pussycat Dolls: PCD Forever Tour.

Tonight, they take to the stage at the Ziggo Dome in the Netherlands before Nicole, along with bandmates Ashley and Kimberly, will arrive in the UK at the Utilita Arena Birmingham on September 29.

That will be followed by other shows in Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and then they will wrap up at the O2 in London on October 13.

However The Sun exclusively revealed in May that the band had to axe the North American reunion due to poor ticket sales – despite already slashing the prices.

Meanwhile, Nicole’s bandmate Kimberley has hinted this tour could be their last.

TOM CRUISE has built a career on cheating death, but even the veteran star couldn’t escape a crash landing at the weekend.

The Hollywood heavyweight is facing one of the most humiliating moments of his career after Digger, his first film since the last Mission: Impossible, bombed with critics and at the box office.

And it comes at the end of a bruising year for the star, from the collapse of his whirlwind romance with actress Ana de Armas to his daughter Suri dropping his surname.

The satirical black comedy took just £15million globally in its opening weekend, and industry experts fear it could lose as much as £100million.

It is one of the weakest debuts of Cruise’s career — a bitter result for a film billed to be the start of his next big chapter, as the ageing star looks to slow down the stunts and be taken seriously.

Instead, his bold attempt to prove he could move beyond the action-man image has been met with a resounding thumbs down.

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The film scored a C+ CinemaScore, one of the lowest ratings of his career, while critics have been sharply divided.

Cruise, 64, plays a balding, pot-bellied Texan oil tycoon in the movie, directed by Oscar-winner Alejandro G Inarritu, the man behind Birdman and The Revenant.

It was meant to be a daring creative swing for a star who has spent decades being synonymous with blockbuster action.

But audiences appear to just want the old Tom back.

The film’s £125million production budget, coupled with an estimated £75million marketing spend, means its disappointing box-office debut is unlikely to justify its hefty price tag.

Reviews were so divisive that Warner Bros reportedly resorted to running “decide for yourself” adverts in the run-up to release, after estimates were repeatedly revised down.

One fan summarised it as: “Tom Cruise’s Digger is a disaster — I couldn’t wait for it to be over.”

For Cruise, who has been box office gold since Risky Business and Top Gun in the Eighties, the figures will make uncomfortable reading.

His last major disappointment was 2017’s The Mummy, but since then he has enjoyed one of the biggest career resurgences in Hollywood.

Top Gun: Maverick became a global phenomenon, while Mission: Impossible kept him at the top of the action game well into his 60s.

Digger was supposed to prove there was another side to him. Instead, it marks his lowest box office opening in nearly 20 years.

Though Cruise certainly did everything he could to sell it.

He threw himself into the campaign, appearing on Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast, dancing through the spirit tunnel on The Jennifer Hudson Show and landing his first magazine cover story in two decades with a topless shoot for GQ.

He even brought the Prince and Princess of Wales to the London premiere at the end of last month, where they met the cast.

Defending the film after the mixed reviews, Cruise told a screening audience: “OK, the door’s open. Now I want to push it again.”

He added: “This film is handmade. People want to see real things.”

But the response has left the awards buzz that once surrounded Digger fading fast.

Cruise had been tipped to land his first competitive Oscar after years of nominations, but those hopes now look considerably more distant.

It could also force the Hollywood veteran to reconsider whether audiences really want to see him outside of blockbuster action. There is already a clear indication of where he may go next.

Rather than continuing to take creative risks, Cruise is returning to familiar territory with a sequel to 1990’s Days Of Thunder, co-starring Anne Hathaway, while Top Gun 3 is also in the works, with him reprising his role as Maverick.

For a star whose career has been built on refusing to play it safe, it could be that the safest option is exactly what he needs.

Speaking to GQ, Cruise said: “Life, I’m coming right at it. It’s coming at me and I’m coming right at it.”

He certainly was not wrong about the second part.

Because Digger is far from the only thing to have knocked him off his stride this year.

In July, it emerged that his 20-year-old daughter Suri had seemingly severed her final tie with her famous father, after more than a decade of estrangement.

The college student has dropped the Cruise surname entirely, opting to go by Suri Noelle, her mother Katie Holmes’s middle name.

She publicly registered to vote in Pennsylvania, where she is studying, under the new moniker.

Suri was born in April 2006, and her parents tied the knot six months later.

They divorced in 2012 over irreconcilable differences, and the pair’s last public appearance together was that same year.

Insiders have since claimed Cruise and Suri have not seen one another privately in more than a decade.

Katie, meanwhile, has been enjoying a summer of love after making things official with a new man on her arm — artist Jason Bard Yarmosky — who is said to have helped her move on from the “trauma” of her marriage to Tom. But Tom’s love life has been rather more bruising.

Last October, Cruise suffered an even more public heartbreak, when The Sun exclusively revealed he had split from Ana de Armas after less than nine months together.

The star was first linked to the Cuban-born actress, 37, in February 2025, and they went public in the spring after being pictured holding hands during a break in Vermont.

Two months later, Tom whisked Ana to Madrid on his private jet, before they flew to London by helicopter for her 37th birthday, sharing selfies and describing it as “a fun night out on the town”.

She was also his date to David Beckham’s 50th birthday party in May 2025.

But a source close to the couple told The Sun at the time: “Tom and Ana had a good time together but their time as a couple has run its course.

“They are going to remain good friends but they aren’t dating any more.

“The spark had gone between them but they still love each other’s company and they’ve both been really adult about it.”

A year on, the contrast between the former couple could hardly be starker. While Cruise licks his wounds, Ana appears to have moved on in spectacular fashion.

She has been linked to Venezuelan musician Beto Montenegro after the pair were spotted dancing at a concert in Madrid and sharing kisses on a romantic getaway to Spain’s Formentera island.

Before that, she was briefly pictured with venture capitalist Marcelo Valente in Los Angeles following the Cruise split.

A source said of Beto: “He’s an extremely charming and sophisticated guy, and he checks all the boxes Ana’s looking for right now.

“It’s an exclusive relationship, and they’ve had a pretty magical summer.”

Ana has also been getting back in front of the cameras, with a strong slate of projects, including espionage thriller Impunity.

Her John Wick spin-off Ballerina has kept her firmly in the blockbuster world, too.

And just this week she was pictured rubbing shoulders with an A-list crowd at a private Louis Vuitton party in Paris, joining Emma Stone and Chloe Grace Moretz.

She looked every inch the Hollywood star in a long-sleeved blouse, carrying a Louis Vuitton box clutch with gold trim.

There is still some unfinished business between the exes. Their joint project, Deeper, has been put on hold because of budget issues.

It all leaves Cruise facing a very different end to the year than the one he had planned.

He has, of course, bounced back from career setbacks before, and with Top Gun 3 and Days Of Thunder 2 on the way, he will be hoping a return to familiar territory can restore his reputation.

But for now, the man who has spent a lifetime defying gravity is facing being brought back down to earth.