secret

ATLANTA — Security researchers say rapid advances in artificial intelligence are making it more critical to address a flaw in Georgia’s voting equipment that can allow voters to be matched to their ballots after they have been cast.

The system’s vulnerability has been drawing increased attention, with election security advocates criticizing state election officials for failing to fix it before the November elections. Georgia election officials say they have taken steps to address the potential harm, but some advocates say the state is not going far enough.

The vulnerability does not allow votes to be changed or cast doubt on election results, but it could let someone see how others voted. That is important because ballot secrecy is a fundamental right under the state constitution, and violations could create an opening for legal challenges.

The development comes in an election season of uncertainty, as President Trump threatens to interfere with the midterms, and he has long demanded that states turn over voter rolls. Georgia has been a particular focus, as Trump continues to deny he lost the state in 2020 to Joe Biden. Earlier this year, the FBI seized ballots cast in that election from a Fulton County election hub.

While the flaw in Georgia has been known for a few years, the widespread adoption of AI tools and the blistering pace of its sophistication have election security experts raising alarms.

This is “a bit of a wake-up call because it illustrates how much more easily vulnerabilities can be exploited now that AI can do all of the technical work for you,” said J. Alex Halderman, a voting technology specialist at the University of Michigan who was part of the team that exposed the flaw.

Other jurisdictions across the country use the same voting equipment made by Liberty Vote, which was known as Dominion Voting Systems before the company was sold. But many have applied a software update to fix the flaw, and some other states do not allow the public release of records that are needed to exploit it, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology.

Georgia, a presidential battleground with one of the nation’s most closely watched U.S. Senate races this year, is the only place where the system is used statewide. Lindeman said that, combined with an open records law that has allowed access to key documents, creates a “perfect storm.”

“It’s really embarrassing that this is still a possibility,” Lindeman said.

How does voting work in Georgia?

Georgia voters make their selections on touchscreen voting machines that print paper ballots voters insert into scanners to tally the votes.

Such cast-vote records detail the votes from each ballot. Those records and electronic ballot images created by the scanners are randomized. But the software flaw allows them to be put back in the order they were cast, according to a report by researchers who discovered it in 2022.

Along with other publicly available data, that information could be used to match voters to their ballots, the researchers wrote.

Max Springer, a Princeton University researcher who was not involved in the original research and studies AI, said he gave a publicly available AI assistant that research. He said it was able to reverse the shuffling of electronic ballot records from Georgia’s May primary and then tell him what other records it would need to match names to ballots.

He then gave the AI assistant the early voting list for the counties he examined and the cast-vote record file, which could be obtained through a public records request. It was able to create “buckets of ballots and potential voters,” he wrote in a blog post. In many instances, that made it possible to match voters to their ballots.

In cases where ambiguity remained, he wrote, he got the public audit log for the ballot scanners and precinct check-in records and was able to match most ballots to specific voters.

“AI coding tools are essentially supercharging laymen people to exploit vulnerabilities,” Springer said in an interview.

Why does ballot secrecy matter?

Georgia’s Constitution says elections “shall be by secret ballot,” and state law requires voting machines to “permit voting in absolute secrecy so that no person can see or know any other elector’s votes.”

A lack of ballot secrecy can make it easier to buy or sell votes and increase the danger of coercion to vote a certain way by family members, political organizations, employers or government officials. It also is information that could be invaluable to political campaigns.

Gabriel Sterling, special projects manager in the secretary of state’s office, pushed back on the concerns. He said it would be easier to use mail ballots if vote-buying or coercion was the goal and that it probably would be cheaper for campaigns to just increase outreach to voters who fit a certain profile than try to identify voters this way.

State Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs proposed a rule during the board’s August meeting that would have required the secretary of state’s office to apply the software update recommended by the manufacturer by Tuesday.

“Each [voter] has one vote, and no one is entitled to know how it was cast,” Grubbs said. “That privacy protects more than the individual voter. It protects the integrity of the entire election.”

In a letter to the election board, an agency lawyer argued that the update has not been certified by the secretary of state, the implementation would take months, and the Legislature has not provided necessary funding. The board rejected Grubbs’ proposal. Some members said they did not believe they had the authority to order the secretary of state to act and they raised concerns about the short timeline before the November midterms.

Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, who voted against the proposal, said it is “intensely frustrating” that the software update has not been applied. But she pointed out that it is a felony to reveal how someone voted, which should serve as a deterrent.

“I hate the fact that it’s even physically possible, but there are very, very severe penalties if somebody were to actually do this,” she said.

What’s being done?

The secretary of state’s office sent guidance to county election officials instructing them to refer open records requests for certain records to the secretary of state’s office. It will release them with the problematic information blacked out and decline to release other information and documents.

Sterling said the office is working with a vendor to scramble the original order of ballot images and cast-vote records before they are made public. Halderman said that precaution would be necessary to keep someone from reconstructing the order.

While some other jurisdictions have applied the software update that reportedly fixes the problem, some have done what Georgia is now trying to do by restricting public access to the records needed to exploit the flaw.

Marilyn Marks is executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election transparency and security and raised the alarm about the vulnerability. She argued that withholding documents is not the solution and that steps need to be taken to ensure ballots cannot be traced to voters in the first place.

“When Georgia’s election records contain identifiers that can be used to trace ballots to voters, the only legal and acceptable answer is to stop recording that information — not restrict public access to sensitive unlawful information to insiders and commercial vendors,” she said.

With time growing short before the elections, Marks said a workable interim solution would be to collect ballots in locked boxes at precincts and then shuffle and scan them at a central tabulating center.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

SHE described the year her father Ozzy Osbourne died and her subsequent split from fiance Sid Wilson as the “hardest” and “worst” of her life.

But things are looking up for Kelly Osbourne, as we can reveal she has been secretly dating a tattooed OnlyFans model, 13 years her junior.

The Sun can reveal mum-of-one Kelly, 41, has been spending time with hunky Brad, 28, for months after connecting online.

Brad, who goes by the name Uglynorth on the over-18 platform, charges fans £10 to view his racy content, telling them: “If you like a man who’s loyal, eager, and easy to please… I’m right here. Just say hi, or slip something into my tip jar.”

Other posts are much more explicit and he offers followers the chance to collaborate with him and film sexual acts together. 

His big-money earner, however, is selling his used underwear to his fans. In January, he sold off 12 pairs.

Alongside another saucy snap, the model, who is also a tattoo artist, added: “If you want exclusive attention… show me you’re serious. I treat daddies very well.”

He has been described as “insanely hung” online.

His Instagram account is however much tamer, mostly showing off his tattoo work. Kelly has been showing her appreciation by liking his recent posts. 

Kelly – who split from former Slipknot DJ Sid Wilson in March – was seen linking arms with Brad in a hotel lobby.

The pair looked smitten at a restaurant launch party at Manchester’s Treehouse Hotel on Wednesday night.

They then joined the boozy bash upstairs, spending time together in a private area where she placed her hands under Brad’s T-shirt and up his back.

One onlooker said: “There were hundreds of people around them but that didn’t seem to bother Kelly.

“They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Kelly is clearly really happy with him.

Just months after splitting from Sid, Kelly is said to be unconcerned about Brad’s racy side hustle.

The onlooker added: “Some people might be snooty about dating someone who does adult work, but Kelly isn’t worried. 

“It has raised a few eyebrows amongst her close friends, but she doesn’t care. 

“She’s been through so much with Ozzy dying and her split from Sid, so it’s lovely to see her smiling again.”

TV star and singer Kelly spent around three hours at the party before being driven home to Buckinghamshire.

And it seems Kelly could be gearing up to hard launch her new man as last week, Kelly shared a snap online of them together watching Bon Jovi at Wembley.

Sources say Kelly started chatting to Brad, from Doncaster, South Yorks, online following her split from Sid, 49, and things became flirty between them. 

Kelly and Sid began dating in 2022, having been friends for more than 20 years before that.

She gave birth to their son Sidney in November of that year.

In July 2025, Sid proposed to Kelly backstage at the last concert for her dad Ozzy’s band Black Sabbath at Villa Park in Birmingham.

During the proposal, Ozzy jokingly told Sid: “F**k off, you’re not marrying my daughter!”

Ozzy, who had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for years, died of a heart attack 17 days later aged 76.

Kelly and Sid split earlier this year, with insiders claiming he “has a lot he needs to work through on his own”.

They also said that Kelly “doesn’t want the drama in her life right now”, and that her priority is being there for her mum Sharon, 73.

After the split, Kelly was romantically linked to non-binary LA-based hairdresser Kiinicki, 37.

But in July of this year, the star swore off men and dating, declaring: “Dating is the last thing on my mind. I love being single.”

“I’ve got my baby. I’m ambivalent. All men are the same. It’s rough.”

She spent the summer concentrating on herself and her well-being. 

It came at the right time –  Kelly had sparked concern with her increasingly tiny frame since her father Ozzy’s death last year.

It seemed overnight the once bubbly star had drastically shrunk in size, which led to her receiving thousands of cruel comments about her appearance online. 

She admitted earlier this month that she was gobsmacked when she saw a picture of herself from the Brits.

“I looked like the f****** Crypt Keeper. I said, ‘This is scary. I didn’t know I looked like this.’ My spine – you could see every single bone,” Kelly admitted.

She added: “I couldn’t see what other people saw because I was in so much pain. I just saw a broken person.”  

But since then Kelly has gained weight again and is starting to look happy and healthy once more, proving there is light after the deepest grief.

She might have declared herself off men, but after a tragic twelve months, no one can blame her for her romantic U-turn, or for enjoying every second of it.” 

A representative for Kelly said: “Kelly and Brad are not dating.

“They share a close friendship and their relationship is entirely platonic.”

Coronation Street’s Jodie Ramsey discovered that Bethany and Kit had slept together on Wednesday night’s episode and now fans are wondering what the mysterious character will do next

Coronation Street’s Jodie Ramsey discovered that Bethany and Kit had slept together on Wednesday night’s episode. The cafe waitress, played by Olivia Frances-Brown, turned up as the long-lost sister of Shona Platt during the programme’s crossover with Emmerdale.

Since then, the mysterious character has managed to get herself intertwined in just about everyone’s problems and caused trouble in one way or another but viewers are none the wiser as to what her game is.

As ever, a lot is going on in the Platt family, and with Sarah Platt (Tina O’Brien) in prison having been charged with murder, her daughter Bethany recently had a one-night stand with DC Kit Green.

The police officer almost became Bethany’s stepdad until Sarah broke things off with him while she was behind bars. However, Kit is still very much part of the family unit having agreed to take care of Sarah’s son Harry whilst she is imprisoned.

Bethany was trying to brush their one night stand off as a ” a moment of madness”, as Kit lamented: “It should never have happened at all! You know, of all the women I could have slept with. Leave it, eh?”

Unbeknownst to them both, Jodie, whose sister is Bethany’s aunt, was listening to their conversation and looked delighted to make such a discovery.

It wasn’t until the very end of the episode, however, that Jodie poured a glass of wine, pulled her phone from her pocket and played the conversation back on her phone, having recorded every word.

Reacting to the twist, one fan wrote on X: “Wow so Jodie recorded the convo! she’s so wicked,” and another said: “Hate and love Jodie, she makes me mad at times! just shows the actress is doing a good job when they make you mad.”

A third wrote: “Jodie is seriously twisted,” and fourth said: “So someone overhears Kit and Bethany talking about sleeping together AND OF COURSE IT’S F****** JODIE!!! OF COURSE IT IS.”

Actress Lucy Fallon, who plays Bethany Platt, recently spoke of the ramifications that will come with her decision to sleep with the man who was almost her stepdad.

She said: “I think it was definitely a major mistake and she is feeling incredibly guilty. That guilt is going to weigh on her for quite a while.

“”There has been a lot going on recently. Bethany has been holding everything together for everyone and trying to look after Harry, while Kit has his own separate issues.

“They were in the flat together and one thing led to another. It clearly causes many problems between them moving forward. For both of them, it was a massive mistake.”

Coronation Street airs Monday to Friday at 8:30pm on ITV1 and is available to stream from 7am on ITV X.

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The reported truce follows the release of 360 villagers abducted during a Boko Haram attack in northeastern Nigeria.

The Nigerian government has been involved in a secret ceasefire with Boko Haram for the past three months, according to an investigation by The New Humanitarian, in a development that could mark a rare pause in years of fighting in northeastern Nigeria.

The reported truce began in June after negotiations that secured the release of 360 civilians abducted from Ngoshe village, in the foothills of the Mandara Mountains near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, The New Humanitarian reported.

Three people with contacts among Boko Haram members, including some senior figures, independently told the organisation that the ceasefire had been in effect since June and was likely to be extended for another 40 days.

Two of the sources said attacks had stopped in communities around Ngoshe, which have repeatedly been targeted by the armed group.

Truce followed mass abduction

The 360 villagers were abducted in March during a Boko Haram attack on a nearby army base, according to The New Humanitarian.

The negotiations that led to their release reportedly included a payment of five billion naira ($3.7m) by the Nigerian government.

The alleged payment has become controversial in Nigeria, with the government denying that it paid a ransom.

The New Humanitarian said it contacted government, defence and army spokespeople to verify the reported ceasefire but received no response before publication.

Al Jazeera has not been able to independently verify the reported ceasefire or the alleged payment.

The reported agreement does not include Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a rival armed group that operates in northeastern Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad region.

Fighting between Boko Haram and ISWAP has continued, according to The New Humanitarian.

Government publicly rejects talks

The reported ceasefire comes despite the Nigerian government’s public rejection of negotiations with Boko Haram, which is designated as a “terrorist organisation” by the Nigerian authorities.

President Bola Tinubu has instead focused on expanding the military’s capacity to fight armed groups. In July, he announced plans to recruit 30,000 additional personnel and create four new army divisions.

Behind the scenes, however, there have been repeated attempts to establish dialogue with Boko Haram, according to The New Humanitarian, citing security officials, diplomats and mediators familiar with previous efforts.

Those efforts have included ceasefire arrangements that eventually collapsed.

Conflict researcher Malik Samuel told The New Humanitarian that the latest reported agreement should not necessarily be interpreted as the beginning of a lasting peace process.

“It could be just a temporary, tactical ceasefire that benefits both sides, but doesn’t really affect the trajectory of the war,” Samuel said.

The current arrangement could also allow Boko Haram to strengthen its position, with two sources warning that the group could use the pause to move equipment into the Mandara Mountains, The New Humanitarian reported.

Boko Haram has carried out attacks and kidnappings in northeastern Nigeria and neighbouring countries around the Lake Chad region since 2009. The group has since fractured into several factions, while ISWAP operates as a separate and rival armed group.

TELLURIDE, Colo. — The Telluride Film Festival has always enjoyed keeping a secret. Tucked away in the Colorado mountains with nary a red carpet or paparazzo in sight, the low-key film festival doesn’t announce its lineup until the day before opening and surprise additions have long been a fixture of the event.

But even by Telluride standards, organizers went to unusual lengths this year to keep their biggest surprise under wraps. They had carved out a prime Sunday evening slot for a world premiere that, fingers crossed, would remain unknown until the audience was seated inside the theater. Festival director Julie Huntsinger offered only a few clues beforehand. The film involved some “very known names,” she told The Times. “Do not miss it. Your jaw will be on the ground for the entire length of the film.”

For three days, trying to crack the mystery became Telluride’s unofficial parlor game. Was it Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning”? Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Three”? Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk documentary “Musk”? By Sunday, the mounting speculation had become fodder for jokes: Introducing his new movie “Club Kid” earlier in the day, writer-director-star Jordan Firstman announced that the evening’s TBA would be a newly restored print of Jerry Seinfeld’s 2007 animated film “Bee Movie.” “Just kidding,” he added. “I love Jerry.”

The festival kept the suspense going right up to showtime. Before entering the Werner Herzog Theatre on Sunday evening, hundreds of moviegoers were required to lock their phones in pouches to prevent spreading the word. Inside, they were warned that security guards equipped with night-vision goggles would be watching for anyone who managed to keep a phone accessible.

Taking the stage, Huntsinger made one last plea for secrecy. “What happens in Telluride stays in Telluride,” she told the crowd, before bringing out Nathan Fielder, the deadpan comic mind behind the reality-bending television shows “Nathan for You,” “The Rehearsal” and “The Curse.”

What Telluride had been guarding so carefully was “You Can See Everything,” a nearly three-hour documentary about convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, co-directed by Fielder and documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim. The film, which A24 will release theatrically in October, had been made largely in secret over three years.

“For those of you who don’t know who we are and are disappointed, I apologize,” Fielder, joined onstage by Oppenheim, told the crowd to laughs. “But hopefully by the end of the film, you’ll be slightly less disappointed.”

The movie begins 34 days before Holmes is due to report to federal prison, with Fielder, Oppenheim and a small crew given extraordinary access to her life with her partner, Billy Evans, and their young children. Holmes and Evans embrace what they call “radical transparency,” opening their home to the cameras in hopes of convincing the filmmakers — and eventually the world — that the public has fundamentally misunderstood her.

But as anyone familiar with Fielder’s reenactment-heavy work can imagine, “You Can See Everything” quickly becomes something far stranger than a conventional documentary. Fielder finds himself drawn from behind the camera into the story, struggling to determine whether Holmes and Evans are being candid with him or manipulating him. From there, the movie takes a series of increasingly surreal turns, including elaborate reenactments involving a Hollywood actress (her arrival is too good to spoil) that further scramble the line between reality and performance.

During a post-screening Q&A moderated by Emma Stone, who co-starred with Fielder in the darkly comic A24 series “The Curse,” Fielder said that his own inability to get a firm grip on what he was witnessing became one of the forces driving the project.

“We’re all smart and we’re really working at the top of our intelligence,” he recalled thinking as he and the crew tried to make sense of their time with Holmes and Evans. “Why can’t we make sense of what’s happening in this house?”

The project began, appropriately enough, with a magic trick.

Oppenheim said he and Fielder were at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles several years ago when a magician asked the audience to name a celebrity. Someone called out Elizabeth Holmes. Afterward, Oppenheim told Fielder he had heard through a friend of a friend that Holmes was looking for someone to document her life.

Fielder had read John Carreyrou’s “Bad Blood,” the bestselling 2018 account of Theranos’ rise and collapse and initially saw little reason to make another documentary about Holmes.

“I thought the story was really fully told,” he told the Telluride crowd. Holmes, however, had largely disappeared from public view, and Fielder was curious about what she might have to say for herself.

Meeting her only deepened that curiosity. Sitting across from Holmes, Fielder said, he found her “sort of honest and charming,” even as his brain was warning him, “No, don’t trust.” That disconnect — between what he knew about Holmes and what he felt in her presence — became central to the movie.

A24 gave Fielder and Oppenheim unusual freedom to pursue the project without any deadline or obligation to turn what they captured into a finished film. If nothing came of it, Fielder recalled being told, “you can just throw everything away.”

Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 and became one of Silicon Valley’s most celebrated young entrepreneurs by claiming the company could perform a wide range of medical tests using only a few drops of blood. The company collapsed after investigations exposed serious problems with its technology and business practices. In 2022, Holmes was convicted on four counts related to defrauding investors and later sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison.

As shown in “You Can See Everything,” once Holmes reports to federal prison, the filmmakers’ access to her changes dramatically, with Evans — who takes over Holmes’ Twitter feed and assumes power of attorney over her decisions — becoming their main conduit. Fielder said the relationship grew strained as Evans tried to exert greater control over the project. Neither Holmes nor Evans has seen the finished movie.

Fielder is hoping to keep the film’s biggest surprises under wraps. During the Q&A, he told the Telluride audience he hoped future viewers could experience the film without knowing where it was headed. Stone seconded the request.

“You won’t be upsetting me,” Fielder joked. “You’ll be upsetting Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone.”

Fielder said that even after three years immersed in her world, he still doesn’t know quite what to make of Holmes — or how much of what she says can be believed.

“I really am struggling to this day to understand exactly what I experienced in this,” he said. “I don’t quite know what I went through.”

As the crowd filed out of the Herzog, one reaction seemed to recur more than any other: “That was wild.”

The U.S. Secret Service dealt with several drone-related incidents without adjusting its protection policies or documenting why it didn’t, according to a government report released Thursday. That information may have helped illustrate the emerging threat of civilian drone use before one was used in the 2024 assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pa.

The report from the Government Accountability Office found delays and holes in how the Secret Service updates its policies regarding threats, and arrives after a few turbulent years for the agency charged with the president’s protection.

The would-be assassin in Butler positioned himself on a roof left unsecured, nicking the president’s ear with a bullet. Months later, a man with a rifle got surprisingly close to Trump at his West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course. And in April, an armed man got beyond security barriers at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner, where the president sat.

The report found that between 2015 and 2025 the Secret Service dealt with 83 security incidents and that it updated its protection policies in response to 25 of them. Among the incidents was a drone that made contact with President Obama’s motorcade in 2015 and another flown about 200 feet over a rally for then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Failing to document why the Secret Service decided not to change its policy is the concern, said Nathan Tranquilli, acting director of the Government Accountability Office, adding that the drone incidents were a “compelling example” of that.

“Some of the missing information has been relevant to subsequent attacks,” the report read. It cited the Butler incident, where the culprit flew a drone for 11 minutes over the crowd, which helped him position himself to get a clear shot at Trump.

The Secret Service also failed to update eight of 22 protection policies within a required time frame of four years. A memorandum of understanding between the Secret Service and the Diplomatic Security Service, which designates each agency’s responsibilities for the president’s overseas security, hasn’t been updated since 1991, even though an annual review and update are required. As a consequence, the memorandum doesn’t address newer threats, such as drones.

“When you look at the Secret Service and you look at their mission, really it’s a zero-fail mission, and they’ve got a ton of challenges,” Tranquilli said. “When decisions were being made about where to put time and energy, some of these things fell to the side, and, as a result, there were some delays.”

The report recommended three fixes, including that the Secret Service revise its policy to require that, when a security incident doesn’t warrant a policy update, that the rationale is documented.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the report stated that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, agreed with all recommendations and plans to implement changes.

Bedayn writes for the Associated Press.

Emmerdale star Nicola Wheeler has warned there’s more trouble ahead for Nicola King following Jimmy King’s heartbreaking death, as the fallout from the crash continues

Emmerdale star Nicola Wheeler has warned there’s more trouble ahead for her character following Jimmy King’s death.

Nick Miles departed the ITV soap last week in sad scenes when Jimmy got caught up in the marquee incident. Devastatingly, Jimmy died with Nicola by his side in heartbreaking scenes, but the fallout from the death continues.

Next week, Nicola is anxious about affording to give Jimmy the funeral he deserves. She decides to turn to Jimmy’s haulage shares for Elliot and his future, before later discovering that Jimmy has sold them.

As Nicola realises the money from the sale of the shares is missing, she discovers that they are in more financial worries than she knew. The family home has been remortgaged and in arrears and Nicola is continuing to struggle.

Speaking about her own future, she said: “She can’t believe that life is going to exist without him (Jimmy), especially as the day was supposed to start with something very romantic, and it ended in tragedy.

“Why can’t Nicola have lots of different relationships? I’ve tried to pit she should start going on dating apps and just get horrendous dates and really bad experiences. It would bring quite a bit of fun back into it.”

Warning there was quite the surprise ahead, she added: ” think the audience are gonna be mighty surprised at the life Jimmy was leading that nobody knew about. It’s unsettling because it’s totally against his personality. You would never imagine that Jimmy in this world would behave like this.”

Filming Nick’s final scenes was “surreal” for Nicola, who has worked with the actor for years.

She said: “It was really surreal. It sort of ends, and you go, ‘Oh gosh, that’s it’. We’ll never be Nick and Jimmy again together. I was gutted because I think it’s the institution that Jimmy and Nicola were, where I was sort of like, ‘oh God, that’s over’.

“Even whilst we were filming it all, it never felt real because we film out of sync. When it came to doing all the scenes where he dies, it was odd. It’s almost like you didn’t want to do it. They were beautifully written scenes, so you want to do them justice but at the same time, you don’t want them to end because then it means this is final.”

As for what’s next, Nicola has hinted there could be a new romance on the cards – from an unlikely source.

“I can’t imagine the character would ever fully move on. I think there’s always going to be part of her that loves him. Her heart will grow to fit another love in, but she will never let Jimmy go,” she explained.

“Something happens in which I can only say Nicola behaves appallingly, and Kev is a gentleman, and I think from that moment she starts to see him in a different light.”

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Emmerdale star Olivia Bromley shed real tears when she filmed the tragic death of her character, Dawn Fletcher, tonight. Due to marry bad boy Joe Tate, their plans were scuppered when Jimmy King crashed into the wedding marquee, causing a big explosion, and pregnant Dawn was rushed to hospital.

Sent into premature labour, while Dawn gave birth safely to a baby boy with Joe at her side, she had a serious internal bleed. Suddenly, without warning, she crashed and, despite medics’ best efforts to resuscitate her, she died.

In her first interview since the explosive scenes, Olivia, 30, who was originally signed by Emmerdale for just 12 episodes in 2018, tells The Mirror: “It was the toughest storyline I’ve done during my time in the soap.

“I was surprised by how emotional I found it and it was way more emotional than I was expecting. I did cry. It is very strange to kill off your character as an actor and in front of your colleagues. But that said, what a gift to be given. Often people leave and just slip off.”

The actress was told earlier this year her character would be at the heart of a huge exit storyline during the soap’s biggest week of the year. Having reached a crossroads playing Dawn, she says it was almost a relief to have the decision over what to do with the role made for her.

She says: “This is a good time for me to go on a personal level. I had felt ready for the character to go. This character felt like she had done so much and I didn’t know what direction she could go in next. I had played her for a long time, and it felt like I needed to do other things. I am proud this was such a big finale to my time in the soap.”

But news that Dawn was being killed off came as a bolt from the blue and she confesses she would have liked to have left the door open to one day return.

Despite the initial shock, she says: “Psychologically, now I have had time to reflect, I know it’s good for me, because I can say bye to my Emmerdale chapter. It’s been brilliant. I was originally only signed up for 12 episodes and I’ve stayed eight years!”

And if viewers found her final scenes surprisingly realistic, she can now share the secret – that real life paramedics, rather than actors, were used to make the medical scenes convincing. She says: “They had real life paramedics and intensive care workers who came in to play those parts. Emmerdale is a fast-paced soap and we often don’t have time to train actors up, so they bring supporting people in with a lot of experience.”

Likening it to an “out of body” experience, she adds of her character’s death scenes: “They had rehearsed the crash response with Ned [who plays Joe Tate] and the supporting artists first and, right at the last minute, they put me in the scene. I had no idea what was going on.

“They went into the crash response, and it felt like an out of body experience lying there. They were all so professional and brilliant at what they did.”

But Olivia is sad that Dawn’s life ended so tragically. She says: “Even though she was able to cradle the baby with her children and Joe by her side, nobody had picked up on her bleeding internally. Finally, she had got what she wanted and so it was a sad end for her.”

Dawn originally arrived in the village as a drug addicted sex worker. Her big storylines included finding her long lost son and her on-off romance with her big love, ex-husband Billy. But she fell for Joe Tate in January 2025, after embarking on an affair behind Billy’s back.

They got engaged in December 2025 and by February 2026 discovered they were expecting a baby. But in recent months, Dawn, who had two other children and an adopted daughter, had been troubled by her lingering feelings for Billy.

And when he was attacked last month, she believed Joe was responsible and had planned to escape with Billy, rather than marrying the bad boy. However, in a massive plot twist, it became apparent Billy had actually been attacked by Kev – making Dawn want to marry Joe after all.

Olivia says: “Only a few weeks ago, she was talking about escaping with Billy, but in the end chose Joe. If Dawn hadn’t returned to Joe at the end, she would still be alive now. Billy is her true love but ultimately, she is an addict and she was drawn to Joe.”

She continues: “I’ve loved playing Dawn and I’ve enjoyed watching her develop and change. I’ve made many friends too and I am going to miss them a lot – especially everyone at Home Farm and Jay, who plays Billy. We are like brother and sister; we get on so well.”

Away from Emmerdale, Olivia lives happily in Leeds with her partner, who she keeps out of the public eye. She says: “My life has changed since joining the show. It has given me stability and, alongside the character, I’ve grown and changed. It’s made me ambitious in different ways and taken my life in a different way.”

After graduating from Oxford School of Drama, Olivia moved to London to work in theatre, before the call from Emmerdale came. She says: “This did change things for me and to be a working actor for eight years has been very special.”

And she would love to continue working in TV drama. She says: “I want to try some new things. It’s an exciting time and I would love to do a period drama or a gritty 9pm drama like Line of Duty.”

Now awaiting auditions, she has her leaving party to look forward to next weekend. She says: “It’s themed and I think we all deserve a drink after such a chaotic, complex end for Dawn. I’m also looking forward to just being me and not Dawn!”

As for Emmerdale without her? Olivia says: “The audience will go on a rollercoaster I am sure! I will always be so grateful to Emmerdale for giving me this role and to have been able to play Dawn fully until the end has been so much fun.”

*Emmerdale airs every weekday on ITV1 and STV1 at 8pm. Episodes can also be downloaded on ITVX.

CHANTELLE Houghton says she still has a friendship with her ex Preston, two decades after their Big Brother romance.

The reality star was sent into Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 to trick her famous housemates into thinking she too was a star, and ended up falling in love with singer Preston.

They married later that year, but were divorced after ten months.

Now, Chantelle says that despite their failed union, she and Preston – real name Samuel Dylan Murray Preston – keep in touch to this day.

“We still message every now and then. I think he’s engaged to someone now,” said the star.

She continued to Betway: “We’re still friendly, there’s no bad blood. We didn’t have an awful falling out. Obviously, there were problems and a bit of animosity at the time, but no, I genuinely wish him well.

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“We’ve been through so much together that no one else will really understand. That friendship still matters.

“It’s good memories, and it’s something we did once in our lives. It was just a great experience.”

Whilst her relationship with Preston was very public, Chantelle has gone the opposite direction when it comes to her current relationship.

The star revealed she was in a relationship earlier this year, but didn’t divulge on who with.

Last month, it was revealed her man was local garden center owner Westley O’Bryan.

But she says the relationship will be kept private for now.

“Right now, I’m not sure whether I want to go public with my new man or keep it just for me. I’m living in the moment. I want to tell the world how amazing he is, of course I do, but for now, I’m keeping it to myself,” explained Chantelle.

WHAT if there were a destination as beautiful as Santorini or Mykonos without the crowds and sky-high prices?

Whisper it, but the tiny butterfly-shaped Aegean island of Astypalea could be Greece’s best-kept secret.

It has white-walled, blue-domed churches, idyllic beaches with turquoise coves and spectacular sunsets that paint the sky in shades of gold, pink and orange.

Chora, the capital, is perched on a conical hilltop overlooking the bay.

At the top sits a Venetian castle, surrounded by sugar cube houses which cascade down the hillside.

Its eight red-roofed windmills evoke the vibe of Mykonos.

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Yet, unlike its more popular neighbours, you’ll find yourself admiring the views in blissful peace.

And you can enjoy a trip around the historic citadel and a seafood dinner on the coast for less than the price of a cocktail on the more popular islands.

We took a British Airways flight to Kos before catching a ferry, which whisked us to Astypalea in under two hours.

The best way to arrive on any Greek island is by sea and our first close-up glimpse of this one left us spellbound.

As it emerged from the shimmering sea, it instantly rekindled awe-inspiring memories of our first visit to Santorini on our honeymoon, more than four decades ago — before the crowds arrived.

Which is probably why you shouldn’t leave it too long before you visit Astypalea.

It’s cheap and easy to get around, and with no giant cruise ship crowds pouring on to the streets, sometimes it feels like you have the place to yourself.

We stayed at the Arhitektoniki studios, which cling to the side of a cliff a short drive from Chora.

The well-equipped rooms combine traditional island charm and simplicity with a luxurious modern touch.

There’s a kidney-shaped swimming pool and a sun terrace overlooking the bay with spectacular views of the citadel.

It’s a pleasant ten-minute walk from here to Livadi beach, with a row of lively beach restaurants, bars and shops.

Astypalea has become a model for sustainability after the municipality and the Greek government teamed up with Volkswagen to develop a unique climate-neutral transport system.

All the hire cars are electric and there are charging points everywhere. All power comes from solar and wind generation.

If you don’t want to drive, just use the Astymove app to book an Astybus — an on-demand electric minibus service which will pick you up within 15 minutes and take you to your destination for just three euros.

It’s not just the transport that’s eco-Greco, the restaurants are, too.

We were served a delicious meal at Ducato di Astypalea, which ensures all its ingredients are sustainably sourced and prices remain refreshingly reasonable.

Be sure to try the delicious Asty pasta. At Aiolos Pizza we enjoyed the thick, homemade spaghetti, incorporated into the island’s cuisine when it was part of Mussolini’s Mediterranean empire. It’s best eaten with rosto — slow-cooked pork or lamb.

There’s no better way to work off lunch than meandering through Chora’s narrow, stone-stepped streets towards the castle to enjoy the view from the top.

Close by is the blue-domed church of Panagia Portaitissa, built in 1762 and the spiritual centre of the island.

Maltezana, named after the Maltese pirates who once wreaked havoc here, is just five miles from Chora — ideal for a day trip.

It features a beautiful sandy beach, some fine fish tavernas and some recently excavated Roman baths.

It’s also worth a trip to Vathi on the northeastern side of the island.

Close by is the Cave of Drakos, which is adorned with stalactites and stalagmites of many colours and was once used by marauding pirates to hide their treasure.

If two weeks of peace and quiet are too much, you can easily hop to a more lively island for a contrast.

We opted for Naxos, the largest island of the Cyclades, four hours away by ferry.

The first thing you see as you dock is the Portara — a colossal marble doorway which is all that is left of the Temple to Apollo, built in 530BC.

The seafront bustles with restaurants and shops and has a vibrant nightlife.

The best place to stay is on the south side of Naxos town.

Princess Mare Hotel is less than a two-minute walk from sandy St George’s beach and barely ten minutes to the seafront restaurants and ferry terminal.

Naxos is famed for its marble and many famous artworks and buildings — including parts of the Acropolis in Athens — are made from it.

Try exploring one or two picture-postcard mountain villages.

Aperathos and Chalki have pretty shops to explore and tavernas with spectacular views.

Naxos Bus Transfer does a full-day island highlights tour, which includes a stop for lunch.

It also takes in the statue of Apollo — though modern historians argue it is Dionysus — at Kouros.

It is 35ft long, weighs 80 tons and hasn’t moved in 2,000 years, either because it was too heavy or somebody didn’t pay the bill.

It’s only a two-minute drive from here to Apollonas beach, ideal for a swim or to relax in one of the shaded beach tavernas.

Before you leave Naxos town, be sure to explore the streets leading up to the 13th-century castle.

It’s a beautiful, labyrinth-like maze of historic, cobblestone and marble-paved alleys originally designed to confuse invading pirates.

As well as blooming bougainvillea, stray cats, art galleries, boutiques and tiny, centuries-old stone chapels, there’s a little museum at the top with a lovely rooftop bar.

After cramming so much into our three days in Naxos, it was good to return to the slower pace of life in our newfound hideaway, Astypalea

But secrets such as this rarely stay hidden forever. So whatever you do, don’t tell too many people . . . 

The drive to Pedrovo is vertiginous, and each hairpin bend has me sending a silent prayer that we won’t meet a tractor coming the other way. When we near it, we abandon the car and continue on foot to the hamlet, a scattering of red-roofed, whitewashed houses high on the steep karst hillside. The air is warm and dry, scented with wild sage.

We follow a hand-painted sign to Čilčevi Farmstead. Descending stone steps to a lush garden, we find a shaded table set with fresh cheeses produced at the farm’s own dairy. Below, the valley stretches in both directions, a wide flat plain hemmed in by steep mountain slopes, with the Vipava River winding lazily through fields and vineyards.

If the Vipava valley gets a mention in a Slovenian guidebook, it’s usually as a wine region footnote. The area is an hour’s drive south-west of Ljubljana, meeting Italy at the cross-border city of Nova Gorica (called Gorizia on the Italian side). Most visitors skip it in favour of the Soča valley to the north, drawn to the turquoise river and opportunities for rafting on the rapids.

Vipava is a landscape shaped by a strong wind, the burja, which barrels down from the Alps, keeping the red earth arid, the trees bent low, and creating the perfect terrain for dry wines and dried meats. Tourism has traditionally been less of a focus, but I’m here with my family to meet local entrepreneurs and producers, to learn how this valley is building a genuine visitor experience that works for the community.

Part of the reason for the slow development of tourism has been the scarcity of accommodation, save a few nondescript business hotels and a handful of holiday cottages. One place that’s helping change that narrative is Wellba, a boutique guesthouse in the village of Planina, where an old abandoned farmstead has been converted into self-catering apartments and guest rooms by a local couple, working with traditional craftspeople and salvaged materials.

Marko and Tereza Kobal grew up on this hillside and then worked in Ljubljana before deciding to return to build a family business, striving to create the kind of place they seek out when travelling. “People who travel want to experience something that is just the way it is, without embellishment, pretence, exaggeration – somewhere authentic,” says Marko. We enter Wellba through a traditional “black kitchen”, its walls darkened by generations of wood smoke. “When we came here the building needed work but it had a real soul. We want the building to stand for another 300 years, so we took the renovation slowly and carefully.”

Our light, spacious accommodation wears its history lightly, with plenty of space for playing card games and reading books on the balcony, with views of the neighbouring farmyard and the valley beyond. Next door, another tumble-down farm building will be converted and opened in 2027. The couple are also working on a boutique hotel in Vipava town in the valley below. The dream is for their children to run Wellba one day, forging their futures in this valley.

Across Vipava, similar small projects are emerging: small, family-run and developing slowly and thoughtfully. Tom Ločniškar and Borut Kokalj began Čilčevi Farmstead during the pandemic, having moved to Pedrovo and become interested in farming. “We started to keep animals. Now we have 150, which is too many animals for just a hobby,” laughs Tom.

He recalls the mad panic to source equipment before the lockdowns began. The pandemic also brought him his first customers, people who were out walking and keen to support local businesses. Tom and Borut keep local Istrska sheep and Drežnica goats, which graze on dry karst grasslands, changing pastures across this hillside every four days. Having tasted fresh cheese straight from the chill of the dairy, including creamy goat’s cheese with fenugreek and buttery mature sheep’s cheese, we walk uphill to meet the goats.

Tom says that in the early 1900s around 1,000 people lived in Pedrovo, but by the 1970s the permanent population had fallen to just two, and remained that low until the 1990s. “The village was almost abandoned because people moved to the cities,” he says. “It was the same in a lot of hill villages: life was hard and tractors didn’t work on steep slopes.” Today the population has risen to 20, with second homeowners roughly doubling that number in the holidays.

Elsewhere in the village, I meet Alenka and Mark Smerajc, who were one of the first families to return, raising three children and running a business here. Today they have two small holiday cottages in what were farm outbuildings and run a relaxed courtyard restaurant for guests, opening to the public at weekends and for holidays. “People wanted food,” shrugs Alenka, as her teenage children help bring out beautiful plates of handmade pasta with local cheese and wild herbs from the kitchen.

“In Vipava valley there was no tourism, so we got to decide how to build it,” says Jani Peljhan. That means GPS-guided cycling tours along roads too small to merit signposts, and experimenting with “wine trains”, carrying visitors from Nova Gorica to the vineyards with local winemakers on board to lead tasting sessions.

Jani’s company, Wajdušna, also offers hiking and paragliding, both gaining in popularity here. He meets us at Wellba with some e-bikes and we pedal through Ajdovščina to spot Roman ruins, and up to Vipavski Križ, famed for being one of the smallest towns in Slovenia, before zigzagging back up the other side of the valley through vineyards. The warmth of the afternoon and the steep hillsides makes me appreciate the “sport” mode on the bikes.

In other regions, wine tourism often means visitor centres and branded experiences. In Vipava it still means sitting in someone’s kitchen. At Vina Lisjak in Zalošče, I eat at a little restaurant run by two brothers. “We opened the restaurant to show the wine,” says Peter Lisjak. “It’s all from our farm.” We eat generous platters of house dried meat, aged mountain cheeses, a fennel frittata and slow-cooked celeriac steaks with celery pesto and spinach. Dishes are served family style and there’s plenty of time for stories, with samples of delicious wine straight from the barrels in the cellar.

From Wellba, we walk across the village to Ferjančič vineyard, where seventh generation winemaker Matic Ferjančič talks us through his wines. His father developed the vineyard, going from five to 50,000 plants. “We work hard in the vineyard to make it easy in the cellar,” he says. As we chat, Matic keeps an ear to the baby monitor for the eighth generation sleeping upstairs.

Although many of my favourite restaurant experiences are the simple ones, Vipava valley cuisine can reach loftier heights. One night we smarten up the best we can and follow a winding road uphill to Zemono Manor, to eat at Gostilna Pri Lojzetu. Chef Tomaž Kavčič is known as a Slovenian slow food pioneer, and has earned a Michelin star for his playful dishes and proud use of local ingredients.

We eat delicate Vipava river trout with fermented apricots from the previous summer, and langoustine bisque from the coast. Traditional dishes such as jota, a sauerkraut and potato stew, are honoured on the menu, their humble roots celebrated not hidden. There are some theatrics, like a juniper plant producing flavoured vapour to complement a sorbet, but the restaurant atmosphere is friendly and relaxed. The server chats with my young stepson about his preferences, and brings him a generous bowl of gnocchi. It’s Kavčič’s night off so he sits with friends and a bottle of wine at the back of the restaurant, coming round all the tables frequently to chat.

Vipava may not remain overlooked for ever. But talking to the people building businesses here, there is little appetite for becoming the next famous wine destination. What they seem to want instead is something rarer and more interesting: tourism that helps a place thrive without changing what made it worth visiting in the first place.

The trip was provided by Vipava Valley Tourism and the Slovenian Tourist Board. Wellba Planina has doubles from £97

Troubling new reports are emerging about CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s surprise visit to Moscow on Tuesday. All of the reports point to delivering a warning to Putin’s regime, while exactly the nature of that warning differ.

There have been growing concerns in Europe over expanding Russian aggression and specifically the possibility it could attack a NATO country to test the alliance’s resolve. There are also reports that Putin will drastically increase offensive operations in Ukraine due to the massive damage his country is now taking from long-range drone and cruise missile strikes, as well as failed peace talks. Reports even state that he is mulling the use of tactical nuclear weapon in order to stop these attacks and change the tide of the years-long conflict, a possibility which we will discuss more later in this piece. Iran, of course, is also a major issue, but it seems, at least based on reporting, it had taken a backseat to whatever the director was trying to accomplish in Moscow.

Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ratcliffe was in Moscow to deliver a message to Putin not to attack NATO countries. His visit “followed new U.S. intelligence assessments, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to test the resolve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years,” the newspaper noted. We have been reporting on major concerns over exactly this for weeks now.

U.S. officials “are concerned that Putin, squeezed in Ukraine and under pressure at home, could launch an assault ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion, likely on a Baltic nation, the Journal added. 

“Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday that Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials during his time in the Russian capital, but he didn’t meet with Putin. Putin was briefed on the talks, Peskov said,” according to the publication.

Earlier on Wednesday, ABC News reported that an explosive drone found near an An-124-100 Ruslan (NATO reporting name Condor) cargo jet at Leipzig airport in Germany earlier this month “bore the hallmarks of devices typically employed by Russia’s Military Intelligence Directorate, the GRU.” The network cited a U.S. intelligence source.

“The U.S. official, who was briefed on the investigation into the alleged sabotage plot, said the explosives fitted to the drone as well as the structure of the lethal device were ‘typical’ of those used by Russia’s GRU,” ABC added. “This U.S. assessment was made in conjunction with German security and intelligence agencies, the source added.

Numerous Russian drone incursions and other actions have some European officials convinced that Putin is already waging so-called hybrid war against NATO, and has been doing so for some time.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump downplayed the Ratcliffe trip, which has sparked a wide range of speculation about its purpose.

The president called it “semi-routine.”

That statement is hard to square considering how rare having a CIA director rush to Moscow is. The last time this happened was just prior to the war in Ukraine breaking out into the destructive reality we see today.

As we noted earlier in this story, Putin is reportedly considering escalating attacks on Ukraine, including the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, Bloomberg reported, citing “three people close to the Kremlin.”

“For now, Russia is weighing an intensification of powerful conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the capital, and infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities.”

At issue, Bloomberg suggested, is that negotiation “frameworks have all effectively collapsed, leaving the two warring sides back at square one.”

This comes as Ukraine is already reeling from constant attacks, especially ballistic missile strikes it can’t defend against because of the lack of Patriot interceptors.

Moreover, the Kremlin “has also abandoned reliance on what it believed was an understanding reached between Putin and Trump at their summit in Alaska last August,” Bloomberg noted.

You can see video from that encounter below.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — Three Secret Service employees have been put on administrative leave during an investigation into “potential misconduct,” the agency confirmed.

The three staffers are “non-law enforcement personnel,” including Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi and two others in the agency’s communications office, CNN, CBS News and The Hill reported. CNN first reported the investigation.

It isn’t clear what the “potential misconduct” was or why they were put on leave.

The employees lost their security clearances and access to work devices, which is common practice during internal investigations.

A Secret Service spokesperson said the investigation is being handled by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

“The U.S. Secret Service is committed to upholding the highest standards of professionalism and integrity in fulfilling our zero-fail mission of protecting the President and other high-level government officials. Our critical work demands that our workforce maintain an unwavering commitment to duty, honesty, and courage in all aspects of their jobs. We will continue to pursue the level of excellence that is worthy of the mission which has been entrusted to us by the American people,” the spokesperson said.

On Tuesday, the Secret Service said it was “aware” of a video by Iran threatening Barron Trump’s life.

A week ago, the Secret Service launched a probe into a member of Vice President JD Vance’s security detail for allegedly leaking sensitive information.

The agency has faced intense scrutiny over several assassination plots and attempts on President Donald Trump‘s life.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Secret Service has confirmed it is aware that Iranian state media has aired a video that appears to threaten the life of Barron Trump, President Trump’s youngest son.

“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees,” Secret Service spokesman Nate Herring said in a statement. “Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence.”

Since the U.S. assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media have on multiple occasions circulated content threatening the president and family members. The assassination came at the start of the war in Iran that Trump launched alongside Israel.

CNN previously reported that the Secret Service had knowledge of the Barron Trump threat.

EastEnders newcomer Jamie Bamber, who plays Ned Hawkins on the BBC soap, has teased all about what’s ahead with Nicola Mitchell, and his thoughts on joining the show

EastEnders fans will recognise new recruit Jamie Bamber from huge shows, including BBC ’s Beyond Paradise and US hit Battlestar Galactica.

But as he joins the soap as newcomer Ned Hawkins, Jamie says Walford is one of the most iconic sets he’s ever stepped on in his whole career, which spans nearly 30 years. “Seeing it in person for the first time was a real thrill,” says Jamie, 53.

“What struck me most is how real it feels. It doesn’t feel like a television set at all. It genuinely feels like a place. Because it’s so lived in and familiar, it does a lot of the work for you as an actor.” One part of the famous set in particular has already won his heart.

Jamie tells us: “I love filming in The Queen Vic because it’s where so many characters and storylines collide. As Ned is new to Walford, a lot of his early scenes involve him observing people and taking everything in. The Vic is perfect for that because you get to watch the entire community interact around you.”

With Jamie’s wealth of experience in TV and film, he was surprised to be given a mentor when he started filming. When new cast members join the show, a current cast member is assigned to them as a chaperone, to look out for them while they settle in.

Jamie’s mentor is Ian Beale actor Adam Woodyatt, something Jamie says was incredibly exciting. He tells us: “I’d never experienced getting a mentor before on a job and wondered whether, at my age, it might be a bit late in life to suddenly get a mentor!

“I was genuinely touched because Adam came in on my very first day, despite it being his day off, just to introduce himself. He even stayed to watch my first take to make sure I was okay.” Jamie is joined by other new cast members including Holby City star Patricia Potter, Marian McLoughlin, Anna Constable and Felix Uff, who make up the Hawkins family.

This isn’t Jamie’s first time working with Patricia, who plays his character Ned’s wife Gemma, who is also the sister of existing character Nicola Mitchell. Jamie tells us: “We first crossed paths around 30 years ago when we briefly overlapped at drama school, and then we worked together on my second professional job, The Scarlet Pimpernel.

“I’ve always admired Patricia’s work and energy, so knowing I was coming into the show with someone whose company I already enjoyed made the whole experience much less daunting.” There are plenty of his new co-stars that Jamie has not worked with before though. Starstruck Jamie says filming alongside some of the soap’s biggest icons has left him pinching himself.

“My first scene featured several EastEnders legends, including Letitia Dean, Michelle Collins and Gillian Taylforth,” Jamie reveals. “I was mostly sitting there watching these incredible actors do what they do best. At one point, I genuinely had an out-of-body experience and thought, ‘What am I doing here?’

“These are characters and actors that have been part of British television history for decades. It felt surreal, but also incredibly special.” Ned makes his debut next week, while some of the family have already been onscreen briefly.

Next week, Ned and his wife Gemma head to Walford, followed by Gemma’s mother Rose, her sister Jodie, and Gemma and Ned’s son, Ryder. Ned’s caught in the middle of his sister-in-law Nicola’s feud with her mother Rose, leaving the Hawkins desperate to heal their rift.

We’ll also see Ned reconnect with his old friend Alfie Moon, who owns The Queen Vic with his wife Kat Slater. But while Ned initially appears as the perfect man, Jamie warns upcoming scenes could change this perception for viewers.

“Ned is somebody who appears very put together. He’s enjoyed a great deal of success in life, but when we meet him, everything has fallen apart and he’s having to start again.

“Ned certainly presents himself as the image of the perfect man, and he’s somebody who places a great deal of importance on maintaining appearances. Often, when someone works that hard to keep up appearances, it’s because there’s more going on beneath the surface.

“There’s a real depth to him, and as the weeks go on, we’ll start to peel back those layers and discover that Ned is a far more complex character than he first appears.” Jamie also hints that there is a secret Ned and Nicola are keeping to themselves, that viewers will not be let in on for the time being.

Jamie says: “It’s clear that Ned and Nicola know each other extremely well, but there’s also something unspoken between them. There’s a fascinating push-and-pull dynamic at play. You get the sense that there’s something that binds them together just as strongly as something keeps them apart.

“There are secrets and a history that neither of them is willing to talk about openly. Over time, viewers will discover exactly what lies behind that complicated relationship.”

EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok, Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads.

JAY-Z and Beyonce have returned to the Cotswolds just months after calling off a permanent move to the celebrity hotspot.

I’m told the power couple are back in the idylic region ahead of his two huge concerts at the Tottenham Stadium next week.

And while they will be staying in the Cotswolds during their short stay in the UK, my music insiders have told me Jay-Z has locked down a huge music space in East London for his rehearsals.

No expense is being spared, with Jay chartering a helicopter to fly him to and fro every day.

A source said: “It’s like the circus has come to town now Jay-Z and Beyonce have arrived.

“They’re staying on an estate in the Cotswolds but Jay is rehearsing in London.

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“The set-up is massive.

“They’ve taken over a whole unit and have blocked off a car park so Jay’s helicopter can land on the site.

“Yesterday morning there were almost 30 box vans with his crew and dancers arriving on the site.

“Loads of precautions have been put in place to make sure he has total privacy.

“The walk from the helicopter landing site to the entrance Jay is using is only about 30 yards, but there is a van on standby to drive him.

“He likes to have his sets totally locked down and this one is no exception.

“The shows at Tottenham are going to be a real spectacle and Jay will be in rehearsals with his team for the next ten days to make sure everything is perfect.”

Jay-Z will take to the stage on September 4 and 5, his only dates in the UK this year.

He is celebrating two major milestones with the performances — the 30th anniversary of his debut album Reasonable Doubt and the 25th anniversary of his critically acclaimed sixth record, The Blueprint.

Beyonce will be marking her birthday at the first show next Friday, along with the 20th anniversary of her album B’Day.

So I won’t be surprised if she pops up on stage too.

Adela’s Sombr moment

Sombr was joined by special guest Adela to make his grand entrance at Belgium’s Pukkelpop Festival.

They posed for this snap before cameras captured them driving backstage and then making their way to the main stage.

It has become a staple of the American singer’s festival shows to be joined by a “walk-up girl”, with Zara Larsson accompanying him earlier this month.

They are both having huge years, with Sombr still riding high on the success of his hits including Homewrecker, 12 To 12 and Back To Friends.

Meanwhile, pink-haired Adela has just scored a Top 40 hit with Ain’t In LA and will release her debut album Prima on September 4.

Kooks warm up Cruz

Cruz Beckham slotted in a cheeky warm-up ahead of his debut at Reading and Leeds, where he will perform with band The Breakers this weekend.

He joined The Kooks at Rock N Roll Circus Norwich on Saturday as the group marked the 20th anniversary of their killer debut album, Inside In/Inside Out.

Cruz, whose new EP Wear & Tear came out on Friday, surprised fans by coming on stage for a rendition of one of my favourite Kooks tracks, Jackie Big T*ts.

Pussyhat Doll

Nicole Scherzinger enjoyed her last days of peace by taking it easy in Hawaii.

She chilled out ahead of a 16-hour flight to the UK this week, where she will get cracking on Pussycat Dolls rehearsals.

Nicole posed in a lei po’o – the traditional term for a flower crown – as she relaxed at a hotel on the island.

She’s about to do a hell of a lot of dancing when the group’s European tour kicks off in Copenhagen in a fortnight.

Confirming preparations, Ashley Roberts, who is in the current line-up with Nicole and Kimberly Wyatt, wrote on Instagram: “Back to rehearsals with my dolls this week.”

Louis a soprano wise guy

Louis Walsh steered some of the world’s biggest pop acts – but now has his sights set on opera.

The former Boyzone and Westlife manager has jumped on board to guide the career of vocal powerhouse Claudia Boyle.

The Irish soprano was shocked that the one-time X Factor judge came knocking and she said: “I never really watched The X Factor, but of course I knew who Louis was. Who doesn’t? This is a new thing for me.”

With Louis’ showbiz connections, I am sure Claudia will break into the mainstream in no time.

Jordan help for Jade split

Jordan Stephens is getting a helping hand after splitting from Jade Thirlwall – by doing a one-day workshop on “healing through relationships”.

The Rizzle Kicks singer revealed he went on a £175 course with therapist Donna Lancaster, which is aimed at stopping people “repeating the same old negative cycles”.

A blurb on the website says it helps people “understand why you might struggle with certain relationships and offer resources as to how to heal and connect in new healthier ways”.

And it sounds like it’s done wonders.

In a testimonial on the website, Jordan, who has split with the former Little Mix singer after six years, said: “Within 20 minutes of Donna’s relationship workshop, I was spun into awareness seemingly without a choice.

“I left with a sense of understanding and promise.

“I would recommend it to literally everyone.”

Good for him.

Ozzy gig film for Crimbo

A documentary film on Ozzy Osbourne’s last live performance will finally be released in December, nearly 18 months after it happened.

The project centred around the Back To The Beginning show at Villa Park in Birmingham had been slated for release at the beginning of this year.

But the late rocker’s wife Sharon pushed it back as she was finding the editing process difficult.

I am now told the documentary is finished and will be on screens by Christmas.

“It’s going to be a great Christmas gift for fans of Ozzy and Black Sabbath,” my mole explained.

“The film is looking really good and features so many moving moments of Ozzy interacting with his friends and performers.

“It moves around from footage of the gig to artists backstage. It is very powerful because it captures Ozzy’s final moments in the limelight.”

Following the release of the film, Sharon will be looking ahead to Ozzfest next summer.

The rock festival, started by Sharon and Ozzy in 1996, will return to Villa Park.

Charli lake break

Charli XCX looks ready to soak up the sunshine in this bikini during her first holiday for years.

She’s jetted off to Lake Como in Italy with husband George Daniel, drummer with The 1975.

Also there are pals including filmmaker Aidan Zamiri, who she has jokingly referred to as her second husband after they bonded while making mockumentary film The Moment. Charli said on X: “I feel like I haven’t stopped for three years.”

She shared pics of the group on a speedboat, with the caption: “A girl on a lake with her friends and her husbands!”

Charli is back on stage this weekend at Reading and Leeds festivals, and is then set to announce the UK leg of her Music, Fashion, Film tour.

Gotta get a move Ron

Ronnie Wood was forced to rush through his set after the venue threatened to pull the plug.

The Rolling Stones guitarist spent too long on stage at North London’s Kentish Town Forum on Friday, so organisers warned they’d shut him down if he didn’t hurry up.

Ronnie, who was performing songs from throughout his career with the help of Irish singer Imelda May, moaned: “We’ve got to move on or they’re gonna cut the power.”

He then steamed through a series of tracks, including Faces hit Stay With Me and Stones rarity Country Honk, so he could finish the set in time.

Despite the faff, Ronnie was beaming as he headed off stage. He got a hug from his wife Sally, who was watching from the side of the stage with their ten-year-old twins Gracie and Alice.

Dani ads to workload

The countdown to endless celebrity Christmas adverts is on.

Dani Dyer is one of the first out of the blocks to film a new festive campaign.

I’m told the Strictly Come Dancing contestant and ex-Love Islander has landed a bumper pay-day for renewing her deal with high street clothing chain Peacocks.

She’s filmed a telly ad alongside former England footballer Michael Owen and singer Louise Redknapp.

A source said: “The Christmas ads are all being filmed now and Dani’s one for Peacocks is already in the can.

“Louise and Michael are seen getting a bit flirty in a lift, while Dani stays true to form and just snaps loads of selfies.

“It’s the easiest money she’s ever earned.”

I’d say. Peacocks is preparing to roll out the campaign just in time for Strictly, meaning Dani is going to be on the box non-stop this year.

I revealed earlier this year she re-signed for the BBC dancing show after being forced to pull out of last year’s series.

She had been paired with pro dancer Nikita Kuzmin but fractured her ankle during rehearsals, meaning she never got a chance to have a whirl on the dancefloor.

But this time around, I’m told Dani is absolutely nailing her training and is pushing herself to try to lift the Glitterball trophy.

China is set to launch its Chang’e-7 unmanned, robotic space mission, possibly as early as Monday morning, to look for ice water in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s south pole.

This marks China’s seventh and most ambitious moon mission so far. Here is what we know about it.

What do we know about Chang’e-7?

The Chang’e‑7 launch window runs from Monday, August 24 to Monday, August 31, according to launch observers. That means the mission could lift off on any day in that period.

The Chang’e-7 comprises an orbiter, a lander, a rover and a hopper.

• The orbiter is the main spacecraft which will remain in the moon’s orbit, mapping the surface and taking images while the mission is under way. It will also relay data and communications between the other Chang’e‑7 components and Earth.
• The lander is the vessel that will touch down on the lunar surface, loaded with the necessary scientific instruments for lunar exploration, near the edge of the Shackleton Crater, a 21km-wide (13-mile-wide) pit close to the moon’s south pole. Lunar missions before this have never come this close to the pole.
• The rover is a small robotic vehicle which can drive around the landing site and which carries equipment to analyse the local environment, including rocks and soil.
• The hopper is a small robotic craft powered by solar energy, designed to “hop” – or fly – short distances from the surface of the moon and land again. It will be used to explore the Shackleton Crater.

How do we know there is water on the moon?

Over the past two decades, several space missions have established that there is water on the moon.

Since the 1960s, even before the first Apollo landing in 1969, scientists speculated that water could exist on the moon. However, when Apollo crews returned samples for testing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they appeared to be dry.

Finally, in 2009, NASA deliberately crashed a rocket segment and its probe into a shadowed lunar crater to analyse the dust plume it kicked up. This provided one of the clearest direct confirmations that significant ice water does exist on the moon, building on earlier detections of water and hydrogen by probes.

In October 2020, NASA scientists announced that water on the moon is more widespread than previously known. They said water molecules had been found to be encapsulated within mineral grains on the lunar surface and speculated that more water is hidden in ice patches which are in permanent shadows.

NASA describes these permanent shadows as dark areas inside deep craters near the north and south poles of the moon where sunlight has not reached for millions or even billions of years. In 2018, prior to confirming it in 2020, NASA had detected water ice in shadowed parts of the moon through mapping.

Why is it important to find out more about the water on the moon?

Expanding knowledge about water on the moon is vital because ancient polar ice may have preserved a record of lunar volcanic activity and of water delivered by comets and asteroids to the Earth-moon system, offering clues to how our own oceans originally formed.

Additionally, if there is enough water on the moon that is realistically accessible, it could serve as a source of drinking water for crewed lunar missions, and could also help to keep equipment cool.

Hydrogen could also be extracted from moon water to provide fuel, while oxygen could be extracted to breathe, supporting onward missions to Mars or lunar mining.

Could anyone ‘own’ the water on the moon?

The 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty bans any nation from claiming sovereignty over the moon or owning it as territory. It does not explicitly prohibit commercial operations, but it requires private activities in space to be authorised and supervised by states and leaves key questions about resource ownership unresolved.

Which recent space missions have searched for frozen water on the moon?

In 2023, Russia’s lunar spacecraft, Luna-25, was launched to look for frozen water in the moon’s south pole. However, the Luna-25 spun out of control and crashed. The crash prevented any scientific data collection or water discovery.

Racing against the Luna-25 mission was India’s Chandrayaan-3, which also aimed to expand knowledge of lunar water ice. Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed in August 2023 and found critical new evidence of water on the surface of the moon’s south pole through soil temperature readings.

Why is exploring the moon’s south pole a challenge?

Attempted landings at the moon’s south pole have failed before because of its challenging terrain, which is full of craters and deep trenches.

The south pole is far from the equatorial region targeted by previous missions, including the crewed Apollo landings.

What is different about the Chang’e-7 mission?

The upcoming Chang’e-7 is aiming to expand knowledge about where, exactly, water is located in the craters of the moon, how deep it is, what form it is in and whether it is indeed possible to access it.

The Chang’e-7’s six-legged hopper has been designed to jump into and out of the deep, shadowed craters near the south pole that are hard for traditional rovers to reach, to look for water ice and other resources.

No previous space mission has used a dedicated hopper to jump in and out of lunar craters in this way.

PRINCE Harry and Meghan Markle are returning to the UK – but that’s not the only tie they have to Europe.

The couple are rumoured to have a luxurious bolthole in what is called the ‘European Hamptons‘.

Found in Melides in Portugal, the luxurious CostaTerra is a 722-acre private community with high-profile and celebrity home-owners.

The royal couple reportedly paid £6.3million for a holiday home on the resort in 2023.

The golf and leisure complex is found between the coastal villages of Comporta and Melides which are 90 minutes south of Lisbon.

CostaTerra describes itself as ‘an ideal luxury getaway for families seeking an authentic lifestyle-focused coastal retreat.’

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It has an 18-hole golf course and offers lots of activities for its homeowners like yoga, surfing, sailing, horse riding and bike riding.

One Sun Writer who visited described it as a “well-kept secret” – and it’s also home to one of the most beautiful beaches in Europe called Galé Fontainhas Beach.

The materials contain iron oxide, which gives them their distinctive reddish-orange colour.

The beach cliffs, reaching over 50 metres in height, and the waters are often clear.

One visitor wrote on a Tripadvisor review: “A real hidden gem. Beautiful clean beach, crystal clear water, just about right waves to have fun in the water, magnificent views from the top of the rocks.”

Another is Gale Beach which has carved sandstone cliffs that one visitor said “could have been cut straight out of the Grand Canyon.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle aren’t the only members of the royal family to be drawn to this part of Portugal.

Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack split their time between the UK and CostaTerra where they also own a house.

Jack actually works in marketing and sales at a private resort itself.

Both Shakira and Madonna have reportedly both enjoyed stays at CostaTerra too.

When one Sun Writer visited the Alentejo coast, she discovered a flamingo-filled lagoon, beautiful rice fields and vineyards.

There are also charming village streets without a single tourist and, perhaps best of all, stunning secret beaches only the locals knew about

Melides has been in existence for more than 500 years and for much of that time it has been a quiet hamlet with a white-cobbled central square

HE gave up a promising career to become part of one of Britain’s biggest boybands – now JJ Hamblett is heading back to where it all started at 16.

The Union J star, 38, exclusively tells The Sun how he’s making a remarkable return to his first love, 15 years after he made it in the pop business – and reveals he will soon be back on stage with his former bandmates too in a hugely anticipated reunion.

JJ, who shot to fame with Union J after appearing on The X Factor in 2012, is returning to his roots as a champion jockey and has signed up for the Legends Race at Doncaster next month, where he’s set to go head-to-head with racing royalty, including Frankie Dettori.

And in the same breath, he’s revealed Union J are planning to mark their 15th anniversary next year with either a one-off show or a full tour – teasing a previously unreleased song that could finally see the group back in the studio.

Union J – completed by Jaymi Hensley Josh Cuthbert and George Shelley – went on to become one of the best-known bands to emerge from The X Factor, scoring hits including Carry You and Beautiful Life before eventually going their separate ways. JJ insists the four remain close.

He said: “We’re all kind of doing our separate things at the moment, but we always keep in touch. 

“They’re going to be brothers for life, and I know that sounds really corny, but without each other, and the success of Union J, we might not have had the opportunities we’ve had outside of the band.”

And fans may not have to wait much longer to see the boys back together. JJ revealed the group are already discussing plans for their 15th anniversary, with a tour his preferred option.

He said: “We did the London Palladium on the 10-year anniversary, which was such a pinch-me moment. 

“Next year we’re planning to do a tour or a one-off show. We haven’t decided yet, but I’m hoping it’s a tour, so it gives fans around the country the opportunity to get there. And hopefully festivals next year as well.”

And there’s even more exciting news for Union J fans – JJ teased that the group already have the perfect comeback song sitting in the vault, coming perilously close to giving away the title before catching himself.

He revealed: “There is one song. I can’t say what it is, but we were thinking about releasing it on the second album, and we didn’t. It fits lyrically so perfectly for us wanting to still do the band and missing being on stage together.”

He then began, “Will we [the band] ever…” before stopping himself and saying, “I can’t say the next two words, because if I say the next two words, sh**, it tells you the song. But it’s just a song that really fits us as a band, and us getting back together. I’m hoping we’re going to release that single.”

Before becoming a household name, JJ was a serious apprentice jockey in Newmarket, riding more than 250 times and even counting the late Queen among the famous names he rode for. Now, after around 15 years away from competitive riding, he’s caught the bug all over again.

He explained: “About seven or eight years ago, they asked me to do it, and obviously with the band, we were quite busy, and I just knew it wasn’t the right time.

“But then recently, in January, I moved back to Newmarket, which is the centre of racing. I thought about it, and I was like, ‘You know what? I’d love to give it another go, just race one final time.’”

His body, however, is not quite as enthusiastic about the comeback as he is. JJ has been riding out for top trainers John and Thady Gosden, and admits his first few days back in the saddle left him feeling every one of the years since his last race.

He said: “The first day, I thought they’ll put me on a trotter. And then they were like, ‘You’re going to canter up Warren Hill,’ which is a steep hill. And the next day, I was like an OAP. I couldn’t move.”

His partner, former champion jockey Hayley Turner, has been helping him prepare, while he’s been riding several days a week and hitting the gym.

But a fitness test with jockey Billy Loughnane proved just how much work he had ahead of him.

He admitted: “I was put through a fitness test with Billy Loughnane, who’s had an incredible season so far. And I was sick. I literally couldn’t do it. I was really, really struggling.”

JJ will find out whether the training has paid off at Doncaster on September 11, for the charity showpiece of the St Leger Festival, riding in aid of the Injured Jockeys Fund alongside his friend Frankie Dettori.

He said: “It’ll just be phenomenal. All the jockeys riding in it are great. And just to be able to be beside them and racing against them is something I never thought I’d be able to do again.”

The significance isn’t lost on JJ either – Doncaster is where his racing story began, when he was just 16.

He recalled: “Doncaster was the very first racecourse I rode at as a jockey. That was 23 years ago. I remember going up there with my dad, listening to Enigma blasting out, trying to get myself motivated for the ride. I felt fit, I was young, and I couldn’t feel my legs after. I literally fell off the horse. Now I’m 38, and they’re gonna be a lot worse.”

JJ never regretted leaving racing behind, though. He’d been struggling with the demands of keeping his weight down as a jockey and had always dreamed of singing and acting.

He explained: “I got to the point where I was struggling with my weight, and it became quite difficult for me. I’ve always loved singing and acting, and then just before the X Factor, I was riding out there in the mornings and I thought to myself, right, I want to give that a go. And we were very fortunate to have the success we did.”

Returning to racing has also reminded JJ how closely his two worlds have always been connected. Newmarket is a small community, and he remembers the Gosden yard watching Union J on The X Factor while he was still part of their world.

He added: “It’s so lovely that people are still asking me about the band, bringing up memories of watching us and following our journey.”

And JJ believes one thing links his two careers perfectly – the adrenaline.

He explained: “When jockeys stop race riding, they search for adrenaline. I was very fortunate to have that, you know – when we had a single out, or getting on stage at Wembley Stadium, it was just that adrenaline feel.”

His choice of pre-race music, though, has moved on rather a lot from his boyband days.

He said: “I’m really loving Sam Fender. And Fleetwood Mac, my favourite band – I’ll be listening to probably a Fleetwood Mac album on the way up there. And I’ll be, in the final furlong, singing Union J, going past the winning post first.”

And JJ is under no illusion he’ll be there simply to make up the numbers – the competitive instinct, he says, never really leaves a jockey.

He said: “Everyone in it is competitive – that’s the reason jockeys do what they do. The outcome you want is to be able to win it.”

But the race is ultimately about far more than JJ’s own comeback. The Legends meeting raises money for the Injured Jockeys Fund, a cause close to his heart after training at its facilities.

He said: “The main reason I’m taking part is to really push what they do out there. It’s an incredible charity for jockeys, retired and current, and I’ve looked at the setup they have and it’s amazing.”

With his racing comeback and Union J reunion both now on the horizon, JJ says he feels lucky to get a second shot at both passions that shaped his life.

He said: “I’ve always missed horse racing, and I’m just very, very happy and fortunate and lucky to have that chance again, to do it one final time.

“Thank you to the Union J fans – we wouldn’t be able to even think about doing the 15th anniversary without that continuous support over 15 years, and we’re gonna be putting on the biggest, best show or tour for you next year. So watch out.”

The Leger Legends Race will be available to stream on ITV on September 11th.

ROMANTIC David and Victoria Beckham returned to the hotel where they sealed their love on a first holiday in 1997.

The couple went back this weekend to the retreat where they holidayed in secret 29 years ago before making their relationship public.

Posh and Becks shared a photo of themselves on a balcony overlooking the Med at the Splendido hotel in Portofino on the Italian Riviera.

Mum-of-four Victoria, 52, wrote next to the image: “Back in Portofino where we began in 1997.”

David, 51, also shared a video of his wife walking into the £2,000-a-night hotel and wrote: “29 years ago we came to Portofino to this hotel before anyone knew we were dating and here we are back again.”

In a Netflix documentary, Victoria revealed a never-before-seen picture from the 1997 trip, saying it was the first time they had met away from a car park where they secretly dated.

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She said: “I know, it makes it sound like we’re really dodgy. We’d already fallen in love before then, but it was definitely the first time that we’d been somewhere so romantic and so private.”

They got engaged the next year.

On their current trip, the pair stopped for a drink before returning to their yacht moored at Portofino.

They are holidaying with son Cruz, 21, and daughter, Harper, 15.

GILLIAN Anderson has opened up about a ‘secret’ early relationship with ‘an older girl in high school.’

The Sex Education and X-Files actress, 58, has been open in the past about her relationships with women.

In a new interview, Gillian discussed her youthful romance and the sensitivity around it.

She told The Sunday Times: “One of my first relationships was with an older girl in high school.

“It felt secretive and illicit and wrong and we had to hide.

“Later on I had a boyfriend who found out and broke up with me.”

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Continuing, Gillian said she’d had “a couple of boyfriends”, so didn’t think of herself as gay.

She added: “But I definitely felt I didn’t have the language for it.

“Even later on when I had other relationships with women I’m not sure I ever thought of them as being potentially for ever.”

She concluded: “The person I consider my life partner happens to be male.”

Gillian has reportedly been in a relationship with screenwriter Peter Morgan, 63, on and off since 2016.

Peter is perhaps best known as the creator and showrunner of Netflix smash-hit The Crown.