secret

More Mogwai mayhem is on the way.

A third “Gremlins” movie is officially in the works and eyeing a theatrical release ahead of the 2027 holiday season, Warner Bros. Discovery President and Chief Executive David Zaslav announced Thursday during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. The upcoming project is set to hit theaters Nov. 19, 2027, and will reunite original “Gremlins” scribe Chris Columbus with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, which produced the first two “Gremlins” films.

Columbus will direct and produce the film and Spielberg returns as an executive producer, Zaslav said. The new “Gremlins” film will be franchise’s first movie in more than 30 years. Columbus will write the script with “Final Destination Bloodlines” directing duo Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein.

Oscar nominee Columbus introduced audiences to the mysterious and maniacal ways of the Mogwai — furry, wide-eyed bipeds with giant ears — with the release of “Gremlins” in 1984. The first film, directed by Joe Dante, established the three nonnegotiables of Mogwai care: Don’t get them wet, don’t feed them after midnight and don’t expose them to bright light. Both the 1984 release and its 1990 sequel, also directed by Dante but written by Charles S. Haas, tracks the havoc that arises when the first two rules are ignored, from unstoppable spawning to unruly mutation into Gremlins.

The “Gremlins” films starred Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Howie Mandel as the voice of two-toned Mogwai Gizmo and Frank Welker as the voices of the films’ antagonists.

Though it has been decades since the last “Gremlins” movie hit the big screen, the furballs got their own spotlight in the 2023 animated prequel TV series “Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.”

The series, from showrunner and executive producer Tze Chun, took a deep look into its namesake creatures’ origins, briefly hinted at in the first film by shopkeeper Mr. Wing (played by the Chinese American actor Keye Luke). “Secrets of the Mogwai” zooms in on Mr. Wing’s relationship with Gizmo, who became a through line in the “Gremlins” movies.

Series executive producer Brendan Hay told The Times in 2023 that setting “Secrets of the Mogwai” in 1920s China was “a chance to own the somewhat throwaway origin that the Mogwai have in the films.”

“In the films, it’s clear that they’re of Chinese origin, but it’s not that developed,” Hay said. “This is our chance to tell that story and really embrace it [by] actually try[ing] to find a place for Mogwai that fits into Chinese mythology, or at least builds off of existing Chinese mythology, and have fun in that world.”

Galligan hinted this summer that a new “Gremlins” movie was in the works while appearing at Comic-Con Manchester. According to a TikTok, the actor said “they’ve come up with a script” and that Warner Bros. was “incredibly interested in doing it, apparently it’s waiting upon Mr. Spielberg to read it and approve it.”

“Gremlins” is the latest beloved title rebooted at Warner Bros. Discovery in recent years. Others include “The Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter” and “Practical Magic.”

Times staff writers Tracy Brown and Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

THE Love Actually reunion no one saw coming just happened – and it’s still 49 days until Christmas.

My insiders tell me that stars of the seasonal rom-com Martine McCutcheon and Thomas Brodie-Sangster have signed up for Google Pixel’s new festive ad.

They filmed the top-secret project in London yesterday afternoon — 22 years after appearing opposite each other in the 2003 hit film.

A source said: “Nothing says Christmas like Love Actually, and so Google Pixel are bringing a sprinkling of it back to insert some nostalgia into the festive period.

“It’s still such a firm favourite with millions of people, so they tapped up Martine and Thomas for the sweet reunion.

“The ad is going to be packed full of throwbacks — especially because Thomas was only 13 when he was in Love Actually.

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“A whole street in London was transformed into a winter wonderland and Martine and Thomas were in great spirits.

“They’re really happy with how the ad worked out. It’s going to be one people are talking about for a while.”

If you’ve lived under a rock and have never seen Love Actually, it’s one of Richard Curtis’s best films.

Martine plays hapless PA Natalie, swept off her feet by the Prime Minister, played by Hugh Grant.

And Thomas took on the role of sweet, love-stricken Sam, who went all out to impress his teen crush.

Google Pixel isn’t the only brand getting in on the Love Actually nostalgia for their Christmas ad.

Aldi revealed their famous Kevin the Carrot will propose to his sweetheart Katie in their festive offering this year using cue cards — inspired by the scene in the film where Andrew Lincoln’s character Mark professed his love for Juliet, played by Keira Knightley.

Without wanting to be too sentimental, it proves love really is still all around us.

And I’m definitely going to be renting it on Prime Video tonight.

KYLIE MINOGUE used a stocking from the filming of her CBeebies bedtime story last Christmas in the music video for her new festive single Xmas.

The Aussie pop star is celebrating the tenth anniversary of her Christmas album with a new version of the record, Kylie Christmas (Fully Wrapped), which features four new songs.

Speaking to Scott Mills on the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show about the video, Kylie said: “Because I was on the road we didn’t get to go so Christmassy.

“I think it was from a CBeebies Christmas story | did and they gave me a Christmas stocking.

“I thought, I have got to take something Christmassy and I think that’s it. That’s the one thing that you may see.

“We didn’t get to do fairy lights. We didn’t get to do paper chains. But in spirit we were very Christmassy.”

JOSH’S TOP DAY WITH SPINAL TAP

JOSH GROBAN was one of a few artists asked to perform with Spinal Tap for their next film, Stonehenge: The Final Finale.

I exclusively revealed the ­parody band had shot a concert alongside Eric Clapton and Shania Twain at the ­landmark in August, and now US star Josh has told me all about taking part.

He said: “Singing with Spinal Tap at Stonehenge – I don’t care how much you’ve done, that’s an experience for anybody. Eric Clapton felt it, Shania Twain felt it.

“Everybody was going, ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this’. I can’t tell you the song but it was ­ridiculous and amazing.”

Josh is returning to the UK on April 1 next year for a date at London’s O2 Arena, with tickets on sale tomorrow.

And on November 14 he will drop his next record, Hidden Gems.

The album is a collection of fans’ favourite tracks not available on streaming platforms.

Speaking after an intimate show in ­London at Union Chapel, Josh says: “These are all songs from my past.

“They’re B-sides and special-editions. I’ve also been working on new music.”

MUMMY’S THE WORD, BRENDAN

BRENDAN FRASER and Rachel Weiz are teaming up again for The Mummy 4, 17 years after the last film in the franchise.

They both starred in 1999’s The Mummy and 2001’s The Mummy Returns, below, but Rachel skipped 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor.

Plans for a fourth film were ditched in 2012 before Tom Cruise tried to reboot the series in 2017 with another movie called The Mummy, but it lost millions at the box office.

The original followed treasure hunter Rick (Brendan), who wakes up an ancient Egyptian priest with special powers.

The latest news comes three years after Brendan’s career comeback in The Whale, which landed him a much-deserved Oscar for Best Actor.

YUNG HIT IN TRANS PIC SHOW

YUNGBLUD has provided the soundtrack for a new photography exhibition that tells the stories of 13 trans people from across the UK.

His song Hello Heaven, Hello will be used on screens at Outernet, right outside Tottenham Court Road Tube Station in central London, for the free exhibition called Trans Is Human from November 17.

Yungblud said: “I’m honoured that Hello Heaven, Hello will be a part of this exhibition.

“Trans Is Human is all about celebrating truth, identity and the beauty of being yourself.

“That’s something I’ve always tried to celebrate in everything I do.”

BABYSHAMBLES have returned with their first song in 12 years, Dandy Hooligan.

The band, fronted by Pete Doherty, dropped the track yesterday ahead of the launch of their comeback tour.

Pete said: “It’s a well turned-out, ­elegantly crafted reggae-ska-pop song . . . with a sweet melody to bowl along to with your sharpened walking cane.”

They were back on stage in Hastings last night for a warm-up gig ahead of their tour later this month.

ED’S PERFECT PITCH MEANS ALL KIDS CAN LEARN MUSIC

ED SHEERAN has once again proved he is a voice for good after a successful ­campaign to give all kids access to ­creative subjects at school.

Back in March, the Shape Of You singer wrote to No10 urging the government to look at the critical state of music education – and, incredibly, they’ve listened.

Keir Starmer yesterday heralded Ed’s letter, which was backed by stars including Harry Styles, Stormzy and Annie Lennox, as “powerful”, and told him: “I wanted you to know that your voice has been heard.”

In a letter to Ed which has been shared with me, the PM said: “The review ­places creative ­subjects firmly at the centre.

“We are revitalising arts ­education, strengthening music and drama, and launching a new National ­Centre for Arts And Music Education to support teachers and raise standards.

“We will make sure every child has access to those experiences – from arts and ­culture to nature and civic engagement – so that creativity isn’t a privilege, but a right.”

It is a huge victory for Ed and the Ed Sheeran Foundation, which has ­campaigned for accessible, meaningful education for all young people.

In a statement, Ed said: “I set up the Ed Sheeran Foundation because every child deserves to have access to a meaningful music education, and the chance to experience the joy and confidence that musical expression can bring.

“Shortly after ­setting up my foundation, I wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister about the critical state of music education in the UK and the fact it was slipping through the cracks.

“With the help of the letter and everyone who signed it, I’m happy to say that some of the key points we raised have been recognised by the government, marking the first change to the music ­curriculum in over ten years.”

All power to you, Ed. This is ­brilliant news.

COAT AND TAYLS

TAYLOR SWIFT has gone quiet since dropping her album The Life Of A Showgirl last month, but she re-emerged in New York for a night out with Gigi Hadid on Monday.

The singer wrapped up in a coat and knee-high boots alongside the model who is a long-time friend.

I’m sure they had plenty to catch up on, with a wedding to plan for Taylor, while Gigi’s romance with Bradley Cooper seems to be going from strength to strength after two years together.

Perhaps wedding bells will be ringing for her, too, before long.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE has let slip that she’s co-producing a movie with Emma Stone based on Miss Piggy, being written by US comedian Cole Escola.

Asked on the Las Culturistas podcast whether the actresses will also star in the film, she said: “I think so, we have to.”

On working with Emma for the first time, she added: “It’s f***ed up. It’s dark that we haven’t done a movie together.”

CYNTHIA’S IN GOOD MOOD FOR PREMIERE

CYNTHIA ERIVO was grinning from ear to ear at the premiere of Wicked: For Good, despite the fact her co-star Ariana Grande missed the big launch.

The British actress, who returns as Elphaba in the second flick, wore this quirky, tummy-baring outfit and was joined at the event in Sao Paulo by co-star Jonathan Bailey ahead of the London premiere on Monday.

Hopefully, Ariana will make it over here after a fault with a plane meant she couldn’t get to Brazil in time for Tuesday’s event.

She apologised on Instagram, but was then subjected to vile abuse.

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Later on, she wrote online: “Please don’t wish danger on us.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when fans are so vicious over something so unimportant.”

Coronation Street fans are convinced Cassie Plummer and Becky Swain are linked in some way, and now a scene on the ITV soap featuring a phone call has added fuel to the theory

Fans think there’s a secret link between two Coronation Street characters, and the latest episode may have ‘confirmed’ this.

Cassie Plummer spoke about helping someone with business in Spain, before speaking in Spanish on the phone. With fans already suspecting prior to this that Cassie could be somehow linked to villain Becky Swain, this scene left fans wondering if it was a given now.

After all, Becky returned from the dead months ago and it was revealed for the past four years, she has been hiding out in Spain. She’s now being told she has to return there to stop her cover being blown, with Becky wanting daughter Betsy to go with her, as well as her ex Lisa Swain.

All the sudden talk about Spain, and a scene last week that involved both Cassie and Becky, has sparked a theory that they secretly know each other. So when Cassie spoke in Spanish and revealed all about her link to the country, fans wondered if this was proof that she and Becky know each other, and that Cassie knows all about her dodgy dealings.

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Taking to social media, one fan said: “Cassie speaking Spanish and knowing someone in Spain… helped him with his business… she must know Becky!! The links are starting to link.”

Another fan agreed: “If this isn’t a clue to Cassie knowing or recognising dodgy business in Spain *couch* Becky I don’t know what is. Surely this isn’t coincidence.”

A third fan added: “So Cassie can speak Spanish and helped an ex out with his ‘business’ in Spain. Oh she is so gonna be the one to reveal backhand Becky’s dodgy dealings!”

A final comment read: “So, Cassie’s talking about a Spanish boyfriend, Peter’s name being dropped recently, and Becky’s been living in Alicante. Is this all a coincidence??”

It follows another theory suggesting Cassie might know Becky, and could trigger her downfall. Fans noted her watching as Carla Connor confronted Becky for kissing Lisa Swain, and she seemed very interested.

Viewers may recall Cassie was sleeping rough while she was taking drugs. She’s now in recovery, but could Cassie and Becky have crossed paths when Cassie was on drugs?

One theory is that Becky was her dealer as others wondered if she arrested her. A fan commented: “Cassie looked like she thinks she’s seen Becky somewhere before!”

Another said: “Right it can’t just be me, it’s going to transpire Cassie knows Becky somehow isn’t it? ISN’T IT?!” A third fan wrote: “That was a look of recognition for Cassie surely. Has Becky arrested her in the past?”

A theory suggested: “Oh she’s come across her before in her past… drugs?” as another read: “I reckon she was a mate of that Tia and was in the shadows and witnessed her murder/death.” A further tweet said: “Sold her drugs is more like it.”

The theories kept on coming with one reading: “Has Becky arrested her at some point?” as someone suggested they met in Spain. A final tweet said: “I’m thinking Cassie may have had some dealings with Rebecca in the past.”

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An easyJet flight attendant has revealed the ‘secret language’ that cabin crew use to communicate with each other while on board a flight

An easyJet flight attendant has spilled the beans on the covert language they use to communicate while onboard. An anonymous member of the budget airline’s cabin crew popped up on their Instagram feed to spill the secrets.

She clarified that, due to the sheer number of passengers on a plane and the length of an aircraft’s fuselage, cabin crew can’t always communicate verbally with each other. This means they have devised a ‘secret language’ for communication.

Interestingly, it is not a spoken language, but more akin to sign language, with various gestures signifying different things. She revealed: “While I’m here on my own I’ll let you into a little secret.

“As cabin crew you may be aware but we do have a secret language on board, a way of communicating to each other when we want food items and with over 200 passengers on board the plane is very long so you may have noticed that if you would like a ham and cheese sandwich we do a croque monsieur, a chicken wrap, and a calzone pizza but don’t tell anyone I told you.”

Whilst mentioning the croque monsieur, she mimicked a crocodile with her hand. For the chicken wrap, she extended an arm out like a chicken wing before rolling her hands together to signify a wrap. Lastly, for the calzone, she placed the heel of her hands together before bringing her palms and fingers together, presumably to illustrate the folding together of a calzone.

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People in the comments section were impressed, with one saying: “Absolutely iconic!”

“We were just talking about this after our flight last month,” said another, while one person said: “I saw a crew member do this to another crew member, I realised it was internal sign language!”

“I often watch the crew doing this trying to work out what they’re on about lol,” one person said. Another said: “Ha ha my Mrs worked a few out on our flight back to MAN from AGP last week.”

THE once chart-topping boyband is said to have cut all final ties following a long-running secret divide, years of silence and bitter behind-the-scenes fallouts.

The British boy band – made up of Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness, Nathan Sykes and the late Tom Parker – have been at loggerheads since their split in 2014.

The platinum-selling group were behind hit songs such as “Glad You Came”, “All Time Low” and “Chasing the Sun” before they disbanded.

They briefly reunited in 2021 for a charity concert in Tom’s honour, but old wounds have reopened – and some members are said to no longer be on speaking terms.

Insiders claimed friendships “never fully healed” after the band’s initial breakup, with egos, solo projects and clashing personalities driving a deeper wedge between the lads.

The break up

The Wanted announced they were to split in January 2014 to “pursue personal endeavours” after completing their upcoming ‘Word of Mouth Tour’.

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In a statement posted on their website, the band said: “The Wanted are pleased to announce the release of their new video and single ‘Glow In The Dark’ taken from their November release ‘Word of Mouth’.

“They are very excited to perform ‘Glow In The Dark’ along with their smash singles ‘I Found You’, ‘Chasing The Sun’, and ‘Glad You Came’, amongst others for their fans on their upcoming ‘Word of Mouth Tour’.

“This tour will be their last for a while as Tom, Max, Jay, Siva and Nathan have collectively decided to take time to pursue personal endeavours following the tour’s conclusion.

“The band wants to stress to their fans that they will continue on as The Wanted and look forward to many successful projects together in the future.

“They thank their fans for their continued love and support and look forward to seeing them on tour.”

‘Very difficult conversations’

Although their official statement claimed they’d “continue on as The Wanted,” Max later revealed that simmering tensions and clashing ambitions had secretly driven the group apart.

Max admitted: “Over the past year, there has been a lot of tension. Our personal lives drove us apart – things started to happen and we were drifting. We used to be such a brotherly pact, but it started to feel like it wasn’t The Wanted anymore.”

He went on to confess that he and bandmate Nathan were the ones who pushed for the split – despite protests from the others.

“We had a very difficult conversation,” Max said. “Our manager Scooter Braun asked us who would want to take a step out after and try to do their own thing. Me and Nathan both said we have other ambitions.”

Both singers went on to be represented by Braun – with Nathan briefly finding solo success (and headlines) thanks to a short-lived PR romance with Ariana Grande, while Max landed a role on Glee.

But behind the scenes, the duo’s diverging paths reportedly caused even more tension within the group.

Siva hits out at Max

Siva hit back at bandmate Max after The Wanted split, slamming his comments about “personal relationships causing issues” as “untrue and very unfair.”

Speaking out in an interview, Siva instead blamed their E! reality show The Wanted Life for sparking tension within the group.

He said: “I think from doing the TV show we all kind of knew where we stood and from that I felt like there was some sense of… I felt like it was every man for himself looking back on when the show aired.

“I’ve never been that way and I’d never actually seen it before until I looked back at the show. I think that is where we lost the team element and from there it kind of just went.”

Despite the rift, Siva said he wanted to find common ground with Max, adding: “Aside from the drama with Max, I’m going to talk to him to find a way forward and be adults about it.

“All of us boys are like brothers, it’s all I’ve ever known and we’re going on tour together.

“I think we’re just going to be professional with each other and give the fans a good show – because it’s all about the fans at the end of the day.”

Nathan cutting ties

In 2016, Nathan admitted he wasn’t talking to Siva or Max anymore.

Nathan told Yahoo: “I still class Jay [McGuiness] as a really good friend. He’s a really nice person. And Tom [Parker], I’m not so sure about where the others are at but I’m sure they are very busy and very happy.”

However, Nathan admitted that if everyone was on board with a reunion, he would be happy to have a “conversation” about it.

He said: “Obviously, I am very focused on my solo career at the moment, so I haven’t thought about the band ever getting back together, but you never know what is going to happen in the future.

“If there was an opportunity and everyone wanted to, it’s a conversation, but if everyone is still happy doing their own thing, then I think everyone will just be happy to continue as they are.”

Meanwhile, Siva was living in Los Angeles, attempting to crack Hollywood.

Tom’s cancer diagnosis

The band eventually put their differences aside when tragedy struck, after Tom was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer in 2021.

His illness brought the group back together, reuniting them publicly in October that year.

Reflecting on the reunion, Max said: “I think I speak on behalf of everyone, in the time away from it, it gave me time to reflect and appreciate what we’d achieved and how good our music actually was.

“Because at the time we were doing it, it was so packed in that we didn’t get to really appreciate how much we enjoyed each other’s company or how good our music was because… like, every day, it was all a bit mad.”

Jay added: “Even when we were under so much pressure and we’d be squabbling and whatever was going on, we always had fun, we were always very down to earth. But really,” he continued on a more serious note, “time helps a lot. And all of our perspective has changed.

“We are grateful, we’re the boy band that walk into the room and are, like, ‘I’m just happy to be here.’ Back in the day, Max has said this a few times, we wanted a number-one after number-one because we’d had that, and we felt terrible when we didn’t get that. And when five young men have that sort of ambition, it can get really tense.”

Jay said he believes the group reunion proved they could finally let bygones be bygones and simply enjoy being together again.

The Wanted made an emotional return to the stage at the Stand Up To Cancer concert organised by Tom at London’s Royal Albert Hall, an event later featured in the Channel 4 documentary Inside My Head.

“There was a moment where I thought I was going to break down and have a meltdown,” Tom admitted.

“But the boys just comforted me… It was just an emotional night all around, even for the whole day and stuff. And just walking into the venue – we had never played the Royal Albert Hall before, when we played all around the world.”

He added: “There’s just something beautifully special about it.”

Max and Siva tour

The Wanted fans were left baffled in May 2024 after Max announced he was heading on tour with just one of his bandmates.

The Strictly Come Dancing star revealed he would be touring alongside Siva – but without Jay or Nathan.

The duo performed in America for a number of dates and finished up in India.

Before the tour, Max told fans: “Myself and Siva can’t wait for this! Our first time in India… dream come true!”

Fans were quick to question the absence of Jay and Nathan – sparking fears the original line-up had officially fallen apart.

It later emerged that Jay would be performing in 2:22 A Ghost Story in Dublin, while Nathan is thought to be focusing on new music.

The shows marked the first time members of the group have performed since the tragic death of bandmate Tom.

The divide

The band have openly admitted there was a clear divide during their heyday – with Max and Tom on one side, and the others forming their own group.

Max and Siva even confessed they never imagined they’d end up touring as a duo when The Wanted went on hiatus in 2014, admitting they “weren’t the closest” and barely spent time together off stage.

Max said: “I’m not going to lie, if you’d said to us 10 years ago that it’d be me and Siva doing this together we’d be like no, never.

Siva agreed: “Max was with Tom, I was with Nathan and Jay.”

Max continued: “Apart from working, we didn’t spend any time together, so I feel like I’ve got to know Siva more in the last year than in the whole 10 before it.

Reflecting on Jay and Nathan’s decision not to rejoin the group, Max added: “We had lots of conversations with the other boys and each other.

“The other boys are so happy doing what they’re doing and they’re really focused on their lives and their careers.

Siva added: “We missed being in the band… we really wanted to get back on stage.”

Future reunion?

Earlier this year, Nathan told The Sun they would never get back together – as the band “will only ever be a five-piece.”

Nathan, Tom, Max, Siva and Jay reunited for a greatest hits album and one-off show in 2021, which was followed by a tour in early 2022, ending just two weeks before Tom’s passing.

Speaking about the emotional concerts, Nathan said: “Obviously, you’d give anything for it not to have happened.

“But, equally, I’m so grateful that we were able to have that time, given that it did happen.

“It was just such a special time and the reception that he got every night, he really felt it. And it meant so much to him that he could do that.

“He was desperate to do that tour. There were tough moments, but we were having some of our fondest memories with Tom over that time.

While Max and Siva toured as The Wanted 2.0 – a four-piece reunion with Nathan and Jay seems out of the question.

Nathan said: “I’m really happy for them. They get a lot of enjoyment in performing the music and they see it as a tribute to Tom.

“Whereas Jay and I’s approach to it is that there’s a lot of emotion attached to that still. And I think we would find that really difficult.

“It’s just two different approaches and neither one is wrong. I think it’s really difficult imagining The Wanted as a four-piece because The Wanted has been and will only ever be a five-piece.

“It’s difficult imagining not performing with Tom.”

Nathan’s wedding

Nathan tied the knot with his girlfriend of six years Charlotte Burke in October 2025.

Nathan opted for an intimate celebration, inviting just 61 of their closest friends and family, among them was his bandmate Jay.

But Max and Siva were noticeably absent from Nathan’s wedding.

Speaking to OK! Nathan said: “We haven’t touched base recently, so I’m not sure they would have known the wedding date.

“With them being out in America at the time, we’ve not had the chance to [catch up], but I’m sure we will soon.”

He added: “We had a room full of people we’re comfortable with, so it was a really safe space and allowed us to relax.”

However, it now seems that Max and Nathan might not be talking at all.

Unfollow

Fans on Reddit noticed that the pair unfollowed each other on Instagram, cutting off social media communication.

One said: “Couldn’t help but notice Max and Nathan unfollowed each other? I wonder if there’s any beef between them lol.”

Another added: “I’ve always suspected Max and Nathan had a falling out before they broke up the first time.”

A third penned: “It’s a real shame because teenage me loved Nathan and Max’s interactions.

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“I remember when Nathan used to comment on Max’s ig posts around 2 years ago.

“They haven’t followed each other in a very long time.”

IRIS Law had her assistants running across New York to find her favourite treats ahead of the Victoria’s Secret show, it’s been reported.

The 25-year-old daughter of actor Jude Law and film producer Sadie Frost, made her debut as an Angel during the return of the world famous runway show in October.

This year’s Victoria’s Secret show was full of famous faces including fellow nepo babies, Bella and Gigi Hadid, and Lila Moss.

But it was reported that Iris had plenty of demands as she prepared to walk the runway.

Iris is said to have sent her team of assistants looking for cookies from a particular bakery and then smoothies from another place in New York, according to Daily Mail.

The Victoria’s Secret catwalk show made a stunning return earlier this month and was full of A-list models including, Alessandra Ambrosio, Jasmine Tookes, Angel Reese,  Barbie Ferreira,  Ashley Graham, Irina Shayk and Emily Ratajkowski.

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Inside the life of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s ex-girlfriend Iris Law

Born Iris Tallulah Elizabeth Law on October 25, 2000, the rising star is a British fashion model and actress.

She burst onto the modelling scene when she was in her teens and has been booked by some of the biggest fashion houses in the world.

Iris has previously posed for Christian Dior, Calvin Klein, and Versace.

She has also started to forge a career in the movies and follow in her famous parents’ footsteps.

Iris previous dated England footballer Trent Alexander-Arnold.

The whirlwind romance between Trent and Iris hit the rocks last year.

Before then pictures of Trent and Iris in the Caribbean in July showed them looking like a perfect couple after meeting on a photoshoot with Guess Jeans only five months prior.

Her dad, Jude has seven different children with four different women.

His other kids are named Raff, 27, Rudy, 21, Sophia, 14 and Ada, eight.

Jude and his current wife Phillipa Coan, whom he married in 2019, have reportedly had two children, one in 2020 and one in 2023.

POP fans have only just realised that Sombr is secretly a nepo baby, following controversy over his performances.

Horrified fans worked out who his dad is and accused the pop star – real name Shane Michael Boose – of using his father’s connections to launch his music career.

Social media users looking into Sombr, who will be playing three nights at London’s Brixton Academy next March, have clocked that the singer is actually a nepo baby, whose dad counts some of the world’s biggest celeb names, including Elton John and Leonardo DiCaprio, as his clients.

The Back to Friends singer is the son of Andy Boose, 54, who founded luxury events company AAB Productions.

His company produces galas, concerts, fashion shows and charity events including fundraisers internationally.

Andy, who operates his company in cities including Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong and Venice, counts huge names among his client books.

SOMBER MOMENT

Watch Sombr’s awkward reaction to VMAs win as singer asks ‘is this a prank?’

These include UNICEF, Elton John AIDS Foundation, amfAR, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and other high-profile organisations.

Social media users were shocked to learn of Sombr’s nepo baby status, and quickly spread the news on X.

One wrote: “I found out today that sombr is a nepo baby, I feel like I just got shot in the chest”.

Another blasted: “well the reason sombr has no stage presence is because he was never meant to be a performer.

“his father is a CEO of some sort of major music company & he’s a mega nepo baby”.

While one posted: “Sombr is a f***ing nepo baby i knew something was fishy about him”.

It’s the latest saga surrounding his music career after a concert goer called out inappropriate jokes and bizarre segments at his concerts.

Sombr played a show in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, which 25-year-old TikTok user Megan Tomasic attended.

She posted a video on Wednesday recapping the whole experience, calling it “genuinely the worst concert” she’d ever seen.

She quickly realised she wasn’t the target audience – describing “thousands of tweens running around like they were at a middle-school dance” at the concert.

She claimed the singer made “a bunch of niche meme references for like the 12-to-16-year-old age range” through large parts of the show.

“It was like brain rot on stage,” she added.

The video, which went viral on the platform, prompted Sombr himself to respond.

“Anyone who knows me knows I’ve never uttered a serious word in my life,” he said.

“And also, I make jokes for five minutes of the concert and the rest is music. Like, live a little, enjoy life.”

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“Every age, sex, sexuality, gender, race, everyone is welcome at my concert, and I mean everyone,” he said. “You guys need to find problematic people to hate on because I am just existing.” 

He ended his video with a “quick tutorial” where he touched grass, a Gen Z reference which essentially means ‘get a life’.

Bob. Mermaid. Code 300. Gate lice. These are all code words that flight attendants use to subtly discuss passengers when whizzing along at 30,000 feet. Knowing how to crack the code is key to working out what they’re talking about

Flight attendants have a subtle way of letting each other know if there is a hottie onboard.

When working the aisles at 30,000 feet, there isn’t much room for maneuvering a food trolley around or gossiping about which of the passengers has caught your eye. Which is why flight attendants use two code words to make it clear which way their heart is beating.

“If you hear them refer to someone as ‘Bob’, they are using the secret acronym ‘babe on board’. When you are disembarking from the aircraft, if the flight attendant says ‘cheerio’ to you this could also be code they have a secret crush!” a flight attendant, who asked to remain anonymous, told eShores.

“We always run back to the galley and let the rest of the crew know where the sexy passenger is sat. We will be extra nice to them and give them freebies. I can confirm phone numbers have definitely been written on napkins!”

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Sherry Martin Peters, a veteran flight attendant and founder of Atlas + Wild AtlasAndWild.com, is keen for passengers to know that, behind the professional exterior, she and her colleagues lead intriguing and sometimes less glamorous than you might expect.

“I’ve been an international flight attendant for 26 years, and passengers only see the smiling, polished version of us—but there’s an entirely different reality behind that image,” she told the Mirror.

“We speak in acronyms because airline lingo becomes its own mother tongue. Trips aren’t described by days, but by city: ‘I’m flying Athens this month.’ Casually mentioning having lunch in New York, then breakfast in Paris is not bragging — it’s just Tuesday and it’s our normal. Confusing to outsiders, yes. You may start to understand it, and even speak our language to some extent if you are married to us, or are close friends.

“Our geography is fluid. Our bodies no longer belong to a single time zone. So we build rituals to feel grounded — even when we’re 35,000 feet above it.”

There are plenty of other codewords that flight attendants deploy when subtly chatting about passengers. They include:

• Mermaid – A playful yet passive-aggressive nickname for a passenger who deliberately sprawls out across empty seats to deter others from sitting in their row.
• Code 300 or Angel – These indicate that someone has died on board.
• ABP – translates to ‘able-bodied passengers’. These are individuals that the crew seek out just in case of an emergency.
• Gate Lice – This term refers to passengers, often inexperienced flyers, who crowd around or line up at a gate at an airport, completely blocking the boarding area and preventing First and Business Class passengers from getting on the plane when they’re allowed to.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at [email protected].

A few months ago, my younger daughter, Darby, and I were settling into our seats at the local AMC. As the previews rolled, she gasped. “I know that voice,” she said. “That’s Aidan. Mom, that’s Aidan.”

I looked up just in time to see a familiar shock of brown curls. It was indeed Aidan Delbis, former member of the Falcon Players at Crescenta Valley High School in La Crescenta, a kid I had seen perform alongside my daughter in countless student plays.

Only now he was seated at a kitchen table with Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone as the words “Bugonia” and then “directed by Yorgos Lanthimos” flashed across the screen.

“Did you not know?” I asked my daughter. CV is a fine public school with a good theater program, but it isn’t exactly an incubator for nepo babies and aspiring stars. That one of their own had stepped off last year’s graduation stage and into a major film production should have been very big news long before a trailer hit theaters.

“No,” she said, furiously messaging various friends. “But now they will.”

Now they will indeed. When he joined the cast of “Bugonia,” Delbis didn’t just become a part of Lanthimos’ highly anticipated remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 black comedy “Save the Green Planet!” He also entered the mythology of which Hollywood dreams are made: A 17-year old sends in his first-ever open-call submission and lands a major role in a very big movie.

With a script by Will Tracy and obvious Oscar potential, “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August at this year’s Venice Film Festival before launching onto the festival circuit, including screenings in Toronto and New York, in preparation for its release this Friday. A slightly absurdist, darkly funny thriller with political undertones, it revolves around the kidnapping of a pharmaceutical company’s CEO, Michelle (Stone), by wild-eyed conspiracy theorist Teddy (Plemons) and his loyal cousin Don (Delbis).

From left, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia.”

(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)

Teddy believes Michelle is an alien sent to destroy Earth. Don believes in Teddy. Though he falls in with Teddy’s plans, he often questions them, serving as a continual reminder that even within Teddy’s paranoid view of the universe, there is such a thing as going too far. Don is, in many ways, the heart of the film.

He is also, like the actor who plays him, autistic.

Delbis — who chooses to self-describe as autistic rather than neurodivergent — is not someone who has long nursed dreams of stardom. He took drama classes all through high school, but it wasn’t until his junior year, Delbis says, “that I started to get more into the process. I found the general process of acting, of understanding and investing in different personalities, to be fun and sometimes scary.”

Still, he says, “I wasn’t really sure that I wanted it to be my main career. But it so happened that this happened while I was in high school, and here we are.”

Here is the Four Seasons on a very rainy October afternoon where Delbis, now 19, has just finished his first solo photo shoot and is sitting, fortified by Goldfish crackers (his go-to-snack), for his first long one-on-one interview. He went to some of the film festivals and just returned from “Bugonia’s” London premiere, where he signed autographs on the red carpet and enjoyed flying first class. His parents, Katy and David Delbis, are seated nearby, as is his access and creative coach, Elaine Hall.

Delbis is a tall, good-natured young man who speaks with a distinctive cadence and in an unwaveringly calm tone. Aside from a habit of repeating himself as he searches for what he wants to say next, he seems more comfortable discussing his experience with filmmaking than many of the dozens of more experienced actors I have interviewed in this very hotel over the years.

“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” Delbis says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“It all started,” he says, “when my mom was friends with this agent, April, and one day she sent Mom an audition that seemed pretty promising, so I submitted for that. And they really liked it and called me back.”

It actually started a bit further back than that. With Plemons and Stone already cast, Lanthimos had decided that he wanted a nonprofessional actor to play Don.

“We went really wide in trying to find someone really special,” the Greek-born director of “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” says in a phone interview. “With these two experienced actors, I wanted to bring in a different dynamic. As we looked at people, I felt that the character would be more interesting if he was neurodivergent.”

Casting director Jennifer Venditti put out an open call, which April Smallwood of Spotlight Development saw and sent to Delbis’ mother, Katy.

“A happy-go-lucky young man, neurodivergent — it practically described Aidan,” Katy says in a later interview. La Crescenta may not be an industry hub, but, like many in L.A., the Delbis family has a Hollywood connection. Aidan’s older brother, Tristan (who is also neurodivergent), works at a movie theater; father David is about to retire after years at the Writers Guild Health Fund; and Katy, a self-described “creative,” has done some acting herself. But no one saw film-acting as a potential career for Aidan, who was set to take a gap year after high school. And, Katy says, she had no idea what sort of movie it was for. “It said for a ‘big film,’ but they always say that.”

She thought of it a bit like the time Delbis, a member of the high school track team, decided he also wanted to try out for basketball. “As I drove him to the school,” Katy said, “I told him that he might not get on since there were a lot of kids who had been playing basketball for years, which he had not. He said, ‘Mom, I just want to see what it’s like.’”

Now Delbis wanted to see what it would be like to audition for a “big film.”

Aidan Delbis in the movie “Bugonia.”

(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)

He had recently performed the Vincent Price monologue from “Thriller” for the school talent show, which Katy filmed on her phone, so Smallwood submitted that. Venditti called Smallwood the next day and met with Delbis over Zoom. Thus began a monthslong process of meetings, rehearsals and auditions.

“We focused on him right away,” Venditti says. “He seemed to have it all. And he was very committed.”

“I was really unaware of how big a project it was,” Delbis said. “I had never seen a film by Yorgos.”

In March, Lanthimos, Stone and Plemons were in L.A. for the Oscars, so they all met with Delbis and came away impressed.

Lanthimos thought of casting a neurodivergent actor in a part because it would bring a natural clarity and unfiltered unpredictability to the role. He didn’t consider it any more challenging than working with any other actor. And when he met Delbis, Lanthimos says, “I just thought: That’s him.”

“Just from watching that first tape, you could see there was something so magnetic about him,” said Stone during a recent phone interview. (She is also a producer on the film.) “Don is the audience’s window, the one who can see through the charade.”

Still, there were many more steps to take.

“It’s a big leap for any nonprofessional,” Stone says. “It’s a big part in what is essentially a three-hander.”

From left, director Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons at the Venice Film Festival, where “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August.

(Alessandra Tarantino / Invision / AP)

For an autistic actor, it’s an even bigger leap. As talented as Delbis might be, he also had to be able to handle the pressures, boredom and chaos of a film set. Venditti reached out to Hall. The founder of the Miracle Project and mother to a now-adult neurodivergent son, Hall is an acting coach who has worked for more than 20 years to increase the presence and understanding of neurodivergent and disabled people. She is often asked to gauge the ability of actors to take on a certain role — their ease with the material, their physical stamina, their level of independence and their emotional accessibility.

Delbis, she says, ticked all the boxes. He loves horror films, he was on the track team and he was, at the time, about to travel without his parents on a school trip to Sweden.

He is, as he says himself, “a low-key guy,” so Hall gave him some exercises to help him portray more extreme emotions and prepare him for when other cast members might do the same. (One subsequent rehearsal involved a scene in which one of the actors screamed repeatedly.)

Often, Hall says, perfecting these exercises can take weeks; Delbis, working with his mother, did it in a weekend. She also helped him prepare for his meeting with and then chemistry read with Plemons.

Delbis says he was “a bit nervous, though I don’t know why.” He did not recognize Plemons’ name or his face. “I had watched ‘Breaking Bad,’ but I didn’t realize Jesse played Todd. Halfway through [the read], I told him he looked like Todd and he said, ‘That’s because I played him.’ I’ve seen him in other things since then,” Delbis adds. “He’s a very solid actor.”

More important, he says, “Jesse seemed to me to be a very cool guy.”

That feeling is mutual. “When we brought Aidan in, I was excited and a little nervous,” Plemons says during a phone call from London. They started with one of the more extreme scenes from the film. “I was finding my feet too. When it became apparent that he was going to be fine with the darker scenes, I said, ‘This is him; this is Don.’”

While all this was happening, Delbis was finishing his senior year, which included a starring role in a production of “Almost Maine.” “It was not overly hard,” he says, but sometimes it was a lot. “I did one read and then I had to go to rehearsal for the play.”

Venditti remembers that day very well. “Here we were being so careful, treating him like he was fragile and not wanting to overload him,” she says laughing, “and he’s just calmly multitasking.”

When Delbis got the role in May, he and his family signed a nondisclosure agreement, which is why none of his friends knew his news after graduation, and Delbis and his family flew to the U.K. to begin filming. It was a tough secret for his parents to keep. But “any time it looked like I might slip,” Katy says, “Aidan shut me down.” He celebrated his 18th birthday near the set outside of Windsor, where production ran for three months before moving for two weeks in Atlanta.

Hall was hired to be Delbis’ on-set access and creative coach, a job she believes she has invented, meant to make the experience for neurodivergent and disabled actors easier. She suggested that Lanthimos and Tracy simplify Delbis’ script pages, stripping down the description of action “so he wouldn’t get stuck thinking he had to do exactly what was on the page,” she says, which they were happy to do.

“We didn’t want to put any limits on him,” Lanthimos says.

Delbis chose most of his costumes (except a beekeeping suit, motivated by the plot, which he says “was very hot”), which mirrored his own wardrobe preferences down to the horror film t-shirts and mismatched socks. Even the food Teddy and Don eat during the film reflects Delbis’ taste: mac ’n’ cheese, taquitos, spaghetti.

Hall ensured Delbis had extra time before filming, during which she could help him prepare with rehearsal and centering exercises. She visited the set before he arrived so she could tell him exactly what to expect and worked with the production team to ensure that he had his own space between takes. “They built us a little house, with horror posters on the wall and stuffed animals that looked like his cats,” she says. As there were no Goldfish available in the U.K., the production had them flown in.

“Having Elaine there was amazing,” Venditti says. “The idea of having someone to act as eyes and ears of what people are actually experiencing on set, I think it’s groundbreaking. I don’t know why we haven’t done it before.”

Delbis spent a fair amount of time with Plemons, who Hall said occasionally stepped in to help if she had to be away from set.

“We did a decent amount of goofing around,” Delbis says. “The bond that developed between us occurred quite naturally. I consider Jesse a friend.”

For his part, Plemons enjoyed being around someone who spoke his mind.

“I so appreciated Aidan’s inability to tell a lie,” Plemons says. “On a set, you spend so much time waiting around, and he would say, ‘What are we doing? What is taking so long?’ Which was exactly what I was thinking. He’s a very smart, sensitive, self-assured guy, and if you’re unclear in what you’re saying, he will let you know.”

“Aidan is just so funny,” says his “Bugonia” co-star Emma Stone. “We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Stone says that while she and Delbis had a friendly rapport, she hung back a little when they weren’t shooting. “I didn’t want to form the same kind of bond Aidan had with Jesse because [in the film] it’s them against me and I didn’t want to do too much to mess with that.”

But, the two-time Oscar winner says, “Aidan is just so funny. He was on a jag during the kidnapping scene. We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”

“I went through all of ‘Bugonia’ thinking I had never seen Emma in anything,” Delbis says. “Then I realized my parents had shown me a clip of a woman getting very involved in a birthday card — ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ — and that was from ‘Easy A.’”

When he was filming, Delbis was all business. Several of the takes which he ad-libbed made it into the film and Delbis is proud of that.

“Despite being in more extreme situations than I’ve been in, there’s something of Don’s emotion and struggles that did feel very familiar to me,” he says. “Feelings of great distress and helplessness and conflictedness and confusion. I have felt that in classes in high school.”

“Aidan has great instincts,” Lanthimos says. “In a scene toward the end [of the film], he was so moving, it was the first time I have ever teared up on set.

There were difficult days — one moment with Plemons, Delbis says, took many takes. “It was hot AF and involved me getting more worked up that I am used to getting,” he remembers. But he appreciated Lanthimos’ willingness to let him try things. “In one scene, Jesse throws a chair and I thought that seemed pretty cool. So at the end of the day, they let me throw a chair. I hope that makes it into the outtakes reel.”

He was also very pleased when the crew threw him a s’mores party at the end of filming. “There was a fire pit on set that looked perfect for s’mores,” he says. “And I told them that, so it was my idea to have a s’mores party.”

Delbis is happy with how the film turned out, including his performance. “I think I looked pretty baller in that suit,” he says of one scene. Though he doesn’t have an opinion on the authenticity debate — whether autistic actors should always be the ones to play autistic characters — he thinks it’s “cool that writers and directors are starting to be more conscientious and give more realistic and respectful depictions of neurodivergent people and characters.”

He is more concerned that audiences understand what he thinks is the most important message of the movie.

“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” he says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme. God knows, people aren’t always willing to be tolerant.”

SEOUL, Oct. 20 (UPI) — South Korea’s special prosecutor has launched an internal probe after investigators found a confidential roster of law enforcement officers inside a Unification Church office during a recent raid — a discovery that has intensified a widening corruption case linking religion, politics and the state.

The list, first reported by The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, contained the names and assignments of police officers temporarily working at the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Such documents are normally restricted even within the agency.

Officials said they are investigating whether a retired police officer, identified only by the initial A, leaked the file to church officials.

An special prosecutor’s spokesperson said the office is “verifying how the document was obtained and whether any ongoing investigations were affected.” If confirmed, prosecutors say, the breach would mark one of the most serious leaks of investigative information in years, potentially allowing suspects to anticipate raids or destroy evidence.

Indictments for embezzlement, political-fund violations

The leak inquiry comes just days after prosecutors indicted Unification Church leader Hak Ja Han and two senior aides, Jung Wonju and Yoon Young-ho, on charges of embezzlement and illegal political donations.

According to charging documents filed Oct. 10, Han and Jung allegedly diverted money from church accounts earmarked for missionary work to finance luxury purchases and covert political activity.

Between May and August 2022, about 500 million won (about $380,000) was allegedly used to buy designer jewelry and handbags for Han, disguised through falsified expense reports. One transaction dated May 9, 2022, shows Jung instructing a finance officer to spend 42 million won on jewelry “for Hak Ja Han.”

Another section of the indictment cites roughly 900 million won ($700,000) moved from the “2027 Project Support Fund” into accounts controlled by Jung without approval from the church’s finance board. Prosecutors believe the funds were used for non-religious or political purposes, violating internal rules.

Donations to ruling party before 2022 election

Investigators also allege that the Unification Church, directed by Yoon Young-ho, its former secretary-general, channeled money to all 17 provincial branches of the ruling People Power Party around the time of the 2022 presidential election.

According to the special prosecutor’s findings, Yoon called regional leaders to a meeting in early March 2022 and instructed them to distribute “missionary support funds.” Roughly 2.1 billion won ($1.5 million) was withdrawn from church accounts, and 144 million won (about $105,000) was later delivered through split donations made under individual members’ names.

Prosecutors say the arrangement violated the Political Funds Act, which bars corporate or religious entities from contributing to political organizations.

A special prosecutor’s official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said the case “shows signs of coordinated funding activity at a national level.”

Church denial

In a written statement, the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification — the church’s official name — denied wrongdoing, asserting that “all expenditures were legitimate and related to global missionary work.” Han’s defense team said she would cooperate fully while seeking to have the charges dismissed as “politically motivated.”

Han was indicted under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes and the Political Funds Act. Jung was indicted without detention. Their first hearings are expected later this month at the Seoul Central District Court.

Broader implications for institutions, trust

The twin controversies — alleged embezzlement and the suspected leak of a classified roster — have raised alarm over the integrity of state institutions, as well as the political reach of major religious movements.

Legal commentators in Korean media have warned that, if verified, the leak could amount to obstruction of justice or a violation of the Public Official Information Protection Act, both of which carry heavy prison terms.

Local editorial writers have described it as a test of transparency — whether the rule of law can withstand influence from powerful organizations that straddle the line between religious authority and political power.

The Special Prosecutor’s Office said it has strengthened internal data-security protocols and restricted access to sensitive records.

Chris McCausland won the 2024 series of Strictly Come Dancing with professional partner Dianne Buswell, but the pair faced a number of challenges during their time on the show

Comedian Chris McCausland‘s triumph on last year’s Strictly Come Dancing came despite numerous obstacles – but not all of them were related to the Liverpool-born comedian’s retinitis pigmentosa, which robbed him of his sight almost entirely in his early twenties.

Indeed, he reveals, even if he’d retained his vision, he might have lost it regardless during rehearsal sessions for the programme.

While Chris and professional dance partner Dianne Buswell were rehearsing their Samba for Halloween Week, the Australian professional dancer, who is expecting her first child with boyfriend Joe Sugg, kicked backwards a touch too vigorously.

Chris remembers that the dancer “caught me so hard in the face that I almost threw up and had to lie down for twenty minutes to recover”.

In his new autobiography, Keep Laughing, he continues: “I took the entire impact of her flying foot right on one eyeball. It’s honestly a good job they didn’t work already or I would have been doing that dance half blind anyway and Strictly would have had an insurance payout like no other.”

But the biggest challenge to the dancing pair wasn’t Chris’ condition, but Dianne’s.

Their apparently effortless Week Eight Couple’s Choice routine to John Lennon’s 1970 classic Instant Karma masked a hidden crisis.

The dramatic performance featured a sudden blackout which, Chris reveals, was intended to transport the studio audience and BBC viewers into his world of darkness. It was an extraordinary television moment, and both the programme’s judges and fans had an enormous emotional reaction.

However, what nobody else realised was that Dianne had been genuinely struggling in the lead-up to the live programme.

Chris revealed: “The only downside to this dance for us was that Dianne had been really ill all day, so we hadn’t been able to enjoy it as much as we would have liked.”

Dianna had been battling a stomach bug, and Chris quipped that the daring moment when the stage lights returned after the blackout to show him spinning rapidly with Dianne draped across his shoulders could have had some very nasty outcomes.

He penned: “She had been unable to keep anything down and had spent a lot of that day in or near a toilet, so we were just grateful that it was only the pyrotechnics that went off, or that fast spin out of the darkness could have been a very different surprise!”.

The routine earned thunderous applause from the crowd and a score of 33 out of a potential 40 points from the judging panel – Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke.

Craig declared the “poignant blackout moment” was “absolutely spectacular” whilst head judge Shirley became tearful and, as she composed herself, told Chris: “You come out every week with your heart on your sleeve, and you give us 100%.”

He revealed that if medical science were to find a cure for his blindness one day, he would first look up some video clips from his time on Strictly: “I’ll certainly have to sit down with Dianne, to watch our dances and actually see what we were able to accomplish each week.”

Victoria’s Secret called game.

WNBA player Angel Reese and Olympic gymnast Suni Lee walked the 2025 edition of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on Wednesday, becoming the first major athletes to hit the runway at the lingerie and loungewear brand’s signature event.

Reese, a forward for the Chicago Sky, was part of the high-profile “Wings Reveal” lineup, with the two-time All-Star debuting two looks at the event. The first was a pink floral lingerie set paired with a feathered stole, while the second featured the brand’s iconic angel wings. She is the first professional athlete to walk the show.

“It was destined for me,” Reese reportedly said in an interview before the show kicked off. “This is already for me. I’m so happy to be sitting in this room with so many amazing models and women. The team that put this all together has been amazing. I’m so excited.”

Angel Reese debuted two looks at the 2025 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press)

The 2025 Victoria Secret’s Fashion Show may have marked her professional modeling debut, but Reese has long been a fashion icon. She’s known for her sharp arrival looks as much as her rebounding prowess among women’s basketball fans and she even served as a member of the 2025 Met Gala’s host committee. Reese capped off her standout college career, which included an NCAA championship title with Louisiana State University in 2023, by declaring for the WNBA draft in a 2024 Vogue interview and has since graced that magazine’s cover.

Two-time Olympian Lee, meanwhile, made her fashion show debut as part of the segment dedicated to VS’ Pink line, sporting short shorts and a pink hoodie adorned with miniature wings. She hit the runway while four members of the K-pop group Twice were performing live.

Suni Lee makes her Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show debut.

(Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret)

“Stepping into something like the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show felt like a dream outside of my comfort zone … But that’s exactly why I said yes,” Lee told Marie Claire in an interview before the show where she described her runway look as “sporty meets glam in the best way.”

Lee, of course, was part of the “Golden Girls” squad alongside Simone Biles that brought home the team gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Among her six Olympic medals is also the all-around gold from the 2020 Games in Tokyo, which were held in 2021 due to pandemic restrictions. The Minnesota native also competed as part of Auburn University’s gymnastics team.

MANY A-list models stunned while strutting down the runway donning lingerie at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

The night was filled with beauty and sexy outfits for the brand’s annual runway show on Wednesday night in New York City.

It began with jaw-dropping looks from models wearing an array of sultry lingerie, including pregnant Jasmine Tookes, who stepped out first in a barely-there gold beaded number.

She paused at the end of the runway as she cradled her baby bump and was met with cheers from the crowd.

Others like Behati Prinsloo and Alessandra Ambrosio matched her all-gold look in string two-piece ensembles, the former with a massive train, while Alessandra rocked giant wings.

Soon after, several musical acts took the stage.

Madison Beer started the lineup, performing her hit track Bittersweet while wearing nothing but a white angel corset.

She blended in perfectly with the ladies, as most wore variations of white and pink outfits.

Gigi Hadid turned heads in a skimpy pink lingerie set with an enormous pink, feathery coat draped over her arms.

Shortly after, the stage transformed into the brand’s signature pink-and-white polka-dot colors for its PINK loungewear collection.

The singing group TWICE then entered the runway, making history as the first K-pop girl group to perform at the exclusive event.

The foursome sported varying form-fitting ensembles, with knee-high furry boots.

They sang their songs, This Is For and Strategy while the models walked past them in more comfortable attire.

This included newcomers Lila Moss and Barbie Ferreira, who stunned in a gray lounge set and a jean jacket, respectively.

At the end of the PINK showcase, the ladies posed for a group shot in the middle of the stage with TWICE, which was shown on a giant screen.

The evening continued with more seductive attire, as Colombian singer Karol G performed in a body-hugging, see-through white number.

The models kept the red theme going, with Bella Hadid flaunting her incredible figure in a jaw-dropping lingerie set.

Others wore various red lingerie, some paired with props such as capes, wings, and devil horns.

Karol G also got in on the fun, catwalking across the stage to show off her skintight bodysuit with matching wings.

The mood then brightened with more pastel-colored pieces, including a breathtaking vision of Emily Ratajkowski.

The supermodel wore a pink bra and underwear set, strapped heels wrapped up to her knees, and a huge, sparkly pink prop on her back.

The lights dimmed again to display the all-black lingerie pieces, including plus-size model Ashley Graham flaunting her curves in a glittery two-piece.

She paired the look with massive black angel wings and strappy heels.

Gigi later reappeared, wearing a form-fitting white corset and matching skirt, while holding large white angel wings.

Her sister, Bella, also reemerged donning a sexy tasseled white lingerie set with fluffy white wings strapped to her back.

The show ended with a medley performance by Missy Elliott, which included her popular tracks Get Ur Freak On, Work It, and Lose Control.

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Missy made a grand entrance on a platform that came down from the ceiling before she appeared in an all-black sparkly outfit.

The models returned to the stage altogether when Missy’s performance concluded for an encore, as pink confetti covered the room.

CHEATING doesn’t necessarily happen on obvious apps like WhatsApp or Snapchat – as I pretty brutally found out.

In fact, red flags on your partner’s phone could be staring you right in the face without you even realising. But luckily, I know just the places to look – and most of them will surprise you.

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And not all apps are necessarily hiding messages either – some point towards secret spending or unknown locations a love rat has been visiting.

Obviously I’m not advising you to go digging around on your other half’s phone.

Your first port of call should always be to speak with your partner about any concerns.

In my case, I had already done this still spotted countless big signs that something was wrong, which is when I heard about dating apps you can disguise.

One night I noticed an extra calculator app on my ex’s iPhone (pretty telling because who really needs an extra calculator beyond the pre-installed one?).

As I feared, when I tapped the app it wasn’t a calculator at all, but a dating app – filled with countless messages with streams of other men, and not to mention the dreaded d**k pics too.

A determined cheater isn’t going to leave evidence on chat apps like WhatsApp or Instagram (texts can be easily deleted too), so here are some of the less obvious apps which might hide their dirty little secrets.

#1 Notes app

The humble Notes app on iPhone and Android may seem like the last place you expect to find cheating.

Surely that’s just where people jot down the odd password or their shopping list, right?

Well, not quite – little do most people realise, it can actually be used to secretly communicate with others.

You can share Notes with other people and both collaborate on them, meaning cheaters can essentially use it to write back and forth without arousing suspicion.

“Yes, this happened to one of my best friends. Her boyfriend’s Notes app was open on his laptop and that’s how she found out,” one person explained on TikTok.

#2 Storage apps

Apps which store your pics and videos can be used to secretly message too, though it’s a lot more hassle.

However, storage apps are a great place to keep incriminating photos out of sight.

This is another problem I’ve been stung with by my ex, who kept a hidden stash of photos he’d got from secret flings on there.

Photos stored in the cloud are kept in a data centre, so you can easily log out and keep them away from being visible in normal photo gallery apps.

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#3 Mapping apps

Mapping and navigation apps could also hold clues of cheating.

Whether you use Google Maps or Waze to drive around, all the places you’ve got directions too will be stored in the app.

Unknown places which are visited a lot could be a red flag.

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#4 Wallet apps

Similar to mapping and navigation apps, the wallet apps on your phone may have signs your partner is up to no good.

Whether you’re using Apple Pay or Google Pay, you can see previous transactions – unlike standard banking apps that are heavily locked down.

This may reveal a fancy dinner out you weren’t aware of or even a big spend in a jewellery shop.

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PAYING close attention to your boiler can help you cut down on your energy bills.

In fact, one small change can save UK households up to £200 this winter.

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Experts have advised UK residents to take a closer look at their boiler dials before the winter weather sets in.

According to the pros, a simple adjustment could cut annual energy bills by as much as £200.

Boiler specialists at Your NRG, the UK’s leading independent fuel distributor, shared their expertise.

They explained that many families are paying more than necessary because their central heating flow temperature is set too high.

Around 80% of UK homes use a combi boiler, which heats water directly from the mains without a storage tank.

However, most homeowners do not realise that the flow temperature, which is the temperature of water circulating through radiators, is often set unnecessarily high.

Hidden dial

Locating the dial that controls this and reducing the setting from 75-80 degrees celcius, down to around 60 degrees can improve efficiency.

This will help to lower your bills by up to 8%, which could represent savings of around £200 a year for the average household.

But make sure you’re turning the correct dial and not confusing the flow temperature dial with the hot water temperature dial, which controls water used in taps and showers.

It is vital not to lower this dial as hot water must be stored at a minimum of 60 degrees to prevent the growth of legionella bacteria.

Adjustments should only be made to the dial marked with a radiator or thermometer symbol.

And for homes with heat-only or regular boilers that heat a separate hot water tank as well as the central heating, the advice differs.

Caution message

These boilers often have only one dial, which should never be set below 60 degrees for safety reasons.

Adjusting the central heating flow temperature on most combi boilers only takes a few minutes. 

Most models have a flap at the bottom to reveal the controls, and for boilers with a pointer rather than a digital display, setting it to the 12 o’clock position usually lowers the flow temperatures to 60 degrees. 

Homeowners who are unsure are advised to ask a heating engineer to make the adjustment during the next service.

More on home heating

Plus, an £18 buy from The Range that will keep your whole family warm.

An energy expert broke down the top ways to keep your home warm this winter.

And a completely free way you can keep your house warm, and it only takes minutes.

A luxury gadget will cocoon you on winter nights, and only costs 4p to run.

We’ve rounded up the best heated throws to keep you cosy without racking up your energy bills.

IF your heart races at the thrill of a massive bargain, prepare yourself. 

Shoppers are in a frenzy over a chain of retail outlets where you can snag Amazon customer returns and overstock for an unbelievable fraction of the price. 

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TikTok user ‘meganmariac’ posted a video of her haul from one of these locations, often referred to as a Trade Outlet. 

Her video, which showed aisles filled with discounted goods, quickly racked up 180,000 views in less than 24 hours. 

Meganmariac explained that she was initially on the hunt for a few personal bits, but the sheer volume of discounted goods – especially in the kids’ and tech sections – was impossible to ignore. 

A toy originally priced at £30 was just £5, while an iPad case (RRP around £20) was a ludicrous £3. 

You can find entire sections dedicated to children’s books, games, and paint-by-numbers sets for as little as £2, making these stores an absolute cheat code for Christmas and birthday gifting.

She also grabbed a £45 wireless camera for just £5, and a fancy smartwatch that would normally cost around £90 was only £20. 

Even health and beauty items, like a box of Vitamin C and Hyaluronic Acid serums retailing for around £33, were down to a mere £6. 

Her ultimate haul of an iPad case, a screen protector, and some adorable croc charms came to roughly a tenner.

The Golden Rule

If you’re expecting a curated retail experience, think again.

“It’s really overwhelming. It’s so busy here,” Meganmariac admitted.

This is the liquidation zone: the home of customer returns, minor packaging damage, and overstock. 

Many of the best items are still sealed in plain brown delivery boxes, which means shoppers have to check the tiny labels to be sure of what the item is. 

Where to find them?

While there are many places that sell liquidation stock, the specific “Trade Outlet” chain meganmariac visited has become famous for its Amazon-heavy returns. 

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If you’re based in the North West of England, you’re strategically placed for a bargain dash.

The chain has several locations, including major sites near Chester Gates (often situated opposite a Costco), Liverpool, and Trafford Park.

DAME PATRICIA ROUTLEDGE created a monster, and we loved her for it.

The actress, who has died aged 96, turned Hyacinth Bucket – pronounced “Bouquet” – into one of the most memorable TV characters of all time.

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Decades on from Nineties sitcom Keeping Up Appearances the pearl-wearing snob, with her candlelight suppers and white slimline telephone, is still as embedded in the national psyche as a character from Charles Dickens.

In Patricia’s own words: “She was grotesque.”

But the actress, like viewers, could not help but admire her: “She was always getting it wrong and slipping on the banana skin, and then coming back and flying the flag.”

By the time the sitcom first hit screens, Patricia had been acting for nearly 40 years, in roles from Coronation Street to Broadway musicals, with co-stars from Sidney Poitier to Jerry Lewis.

She was also a favourite of writer Alan Bennett, who wrote his first great TV monologue especially for her in 1982.

Its success led to the landmark series Talking Heads, in which she also starred.

Alan said in 1998: “She has an enormous amount of zest and brio and she puts a lot of air into the language, so it lifts dialogue which might otherwise seem quite banal.”

After leaving Keeping Up Appearances, Patricia had a second smash-hit with Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, and in 1996 was voted the nation’s favourite actress of all time.

But Patricia managed to keep her private life out of the spotlight.

She never married or had children, and for years refused to discuss her relationships except to say: “I do know what it is to have loved and suffered.”

Eventually, she revealed she had had three great love affairs, including one with a married man, which tormented her as a devout Christian.

She also admitted: “I didn’t make a decision not to be married and not to be a mother -– life just turned out like that because my involvement with acting was so total.

“Now I think it’s a pity I didn’t have children. But I’m not sure you can have a career and a family and do both satisfactorily. I always knew, deep down, that everything has a cost.”

But whenever she was asked how to become a success, she had the same answer: “I say, I can give you a tip. It’s called risk. And if you’re prepared to risk everything, then you can do anything.”

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Katherine Patricia Routledge was born on February 17, 1929, in Birkenhead, Wirral, and grew up in a house behind father Isaac’s “high-class gentlemen’s outfitters” shop.

The family was theatre-mad and Patricia acted in school plays but never saw it as her future: “I always intended to be a go-ahead headmistress in a red sports car who had romances all over Europe in the holidays.”

With that in mind, she studied English at the University of Liverpool but spent so much time in the student drama club that older brother Graham urged her to audition for the Liverpool Playhouse.

She said: “He was the one who said, ‘That’s what you ought to do.’”
In 1952, aged 23, she made her professional debut with the company as Hippolyta in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Just two years later she was in the West End, showing off her roof-raising contralto singing voice in musical comedy The Duenna.

By early 1961 she was so well known on stage stage that the makers of Coronation Street, which had begun a couple of months earlier, pounced: “They created a character for me – Sylvia Snape. She had a little cafe.”

Their idea was for the no-nonsense proprietor to become one of the cobbles’ stalwarts, but after just three episodes Patricia quit.

She recalled: “I just knew inside that I needed to have other adventures.”

That included belting out satirical songs on That Was The Week It Was, as well as her big-screen debut in 1967’s To Sir with Love.

She played a teacher who offers support to Sidney Poitier’s character, and years later recalled the actor’s generosity: “I just had one scene alone with him, and he gave it to me.”

Patricia had less happy memories of working with Jerry Lewis in 1968’s Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River: “An absolute nightmare. And I’m afraid I didn’t find him funny at all.”

BROADWAY DEBUT

That year Patricia also took Broadway by storm, with the New York Times critic describing her performance in Darling of the Day as “the most spectacular, most scrumptious, most embraceable musical comedy debut since Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence came to the country.”

It landed her a Tony Award, presented by Groucho Marx.

Back at home, Alan Bennett had been a long-time fan and so when he wrote his first ground-breaking TV monologue, he wrote it for her.

Initially, Patricia turned him down: the piece was 47 minutes of just one character speaking directly to the camera.

Patricia recalled: “I said it wouldn’t work – people would switch off in their thousands.”

But Alan told her: “If you don’t do it, nobody will. I’ve written it for you.”

A Woman of No Importance screened on BBC2 in November 1982, with Patricia as Miss Schofield, who bubbled away about office gossip and the goings on at a hospital where, it slowly dawned on viewers, she was dying.

It was a sensation, and won Patricia a British Press Guild award for best actress. She later said of the writer: “He turns cliche into poetry.
“He sees a world in a grain of sand – the sympathy, the humanity.”

Its success led to 1988’s beloved Talking Heads series of six monologues, with Patricia in A Lady of Letters as a lonely busybody who finally finds friendship when she is sent to prison.

She said: “It’s about salvation, about learning to love at a tremendous cost. Oh, it was a joyous thing to do.”

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A second series was made in 1998, with Patricia’s monologue this time about a shop assistant who ends up in the thrall of her chiropodist.

In 2004 she admitted she found that part “very kinky”: “I didn’t really enjoy it. I didn’t understand it, deep down.”

Alan said later: “Patricia has a very strong moral streak and very strong views, and I think if a part doesn’t conform with those she’s very dubious about it.”

In between all this, she showed off her comedy brilliance again in Victoria Wood’s series As Seen on TV, playing an overconfident recurring character called Kitty who came out with lines like: “I’m something of a celebrity having walked the entire length of the Pennine Way in slingbacks, to publicise mental health.”

But when sitcom writer Roy Clarke, already famous for Last of the Summer Wine, presented the BBC with scripts for a new series about a suburban social climber, he did not have a lead actress in mind.

He recalled in 2004: “People do assume I must have written Keeping Up Appearances for Patricia Routledge, but I didn’t.”

It was director and producer Harold Snoad who Roy credited for “that perfect bit of casting”.

Harold said: “I wanted the character of Hyacinth to be a sort of stately galleon. I didn’t want somebody lightweight, either in size or vocal terms.”

Patricia said of the character: “She leapt from the page.”

GLOBAL HIT

The first series began on BBC1 in October 1990; soon 13million people a week were tuning in, including superfan the Queen Mum.

Nobody could have delivered lines like her (“I hope that’s a first-class stamp. I object to having second-class stamps thrust through my letterbox”) but she also brought a bursting energy to the role that was unmatchable.

The late Clive Swift, who played Hyacinth’s long-suffering husband Richard, said in 1998: “I can’t think of an another actress who could have brought the physical clowning to the part, which isn’t there particularly in the script.”

It was a global hit, but in 1995 after five series Patricia announced she would not do any more, despite the BBC’s pleas: “There were other adventures to have.”

They included, at the time, a new relationship.

Speaking to The Sun in 1996 she opened up about her private life for the first time, admitting: “A corner of my heart is taken. I’ve got a sneaking feeling that I might have almost everything in the end.

“He’s someone I’ve known for years and years. He’s in theatrical management but we hadn’t seen each other for a long time and then we met again.

“Life is full of the most wonderful surprises.”

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Patricia moved to Chichester, West Sussex, in 1999 to be closer to this new love, whose identity was never revealed, and lived there for the rest of her life.

She also told The Sun: “I had my heart broken when I was young. It was a grand passion, but it was complicated because he was married and, of course, I felt very guilty.

“I would gladly have lived with him and I wanted his children. But I couldn’t do it because I thought it would kill my parents.”

Her second great passion came in the late Eighties, when she least expected it: “Out of the blue this enchanting person appeared.

“He was a theatre director – a very funny and delightful man. But he had a heart condition, which I didn’t know about for a while.

“One day I went to rehearsal and was told he’d died in the night. This dear man was no more. I was just so hurt, so sore with the pain of loss.”

‘ILLUMINATING LIFE’

Work was always a refuge. In 1996 she was back on screen in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates as pensioner-turned-crime fighter, who was a down-to-earth, proud working-class opposite of Hyacinth.

Patricia later said of that character: “I loved her.”

It was another hit and the actress never forgave the BBC for axing the programme after four series without telling the cast: “No word ever came – how rude.”

Hetty was her last major TV role; afterwards she focused on theatre.
Her final role was in Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband in 2014 in her adopted hometown of Chichester, where she worshipped at the cathedral each week.

In 2017 she was made a dame for services to the theatre and charity.

On getting the news, she said: “I started to laugh, and then I started to cry. It was extraordinary.”

But Patricia believed her profession was important.

She once said: “It sounds a bit high-faluting, but I think acting is the physicalisation of the imagination.

“If the word becomes flesh, then you are illuminating life for other people.”

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ROBBIE Williams has revealed his life-changing health battle for the first time, admitting ‘you’re always looking for the cure.’ 

The music star said he’s been secretly living with Tourette’s syndrome. 

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Robbie, 51, has claimed that his Tourette’s are ‘intrusive’ while speaking on a podcast about it for the first time. 

The music legend starred on the first episode of the new season of Paul Whitehouse and Dr Mine Conkbayir’s podcast I’m ADHD! No You’re Not. 

He said: “I’ve just realised that I have Tourettes, but they don’t come out. 

“They are intrusive thoughts that happen, I was just walking down the road the other day, and I realised that these intrusive thoughts are inside Tourettes. It just doesn’t come out.

“Not only that, you would think that a stadium full of people professing their love to you would work as (a distraction), but whatever it is inside me cannot hear it. I cannot take it in.”

Karen Carney shot to the top of the leaderboard on Strictly Come Dancing this weekend, with fans surprised by the footballer’s dance skills. Now it has been revealed Karen has a secret dance past

Footballer Karen Carney left Strictly Come Dancing fans stunned with her performance on the weekend. Karen and professional dance partner Carlos Gu’s Jive to One Way or Another wowed the audiences in the studio and at home.

However, fans of the BBC show may not know that Karen has a huge dance past – and actually danced for years as a child, before turning to her beloved football and progressing in her sports career.

In an old interview with the FA, she said: “I enjoyed football when I was a kid and had loads of kickabouts but I didn’t join my first club until I was 11. Until then, it was all about dancing for me.”

As part of her dance training, Karen would perfect her routines for three hours every Saturday and also revealed she took part in “big events” on a Sunday whilst she was at school in the week.

“When I got a bit older and my football matches switched to a Sunday, I had some choices to make,” she said, “I decided to give up dancing when I was 15. My agility, my strength, my power and how I move my feet during a match are all definitely down to dancing, 100 per cent. I was quite little but I was quite strong and that was because all the dancing made my muscles stronger.”

In an exclusive interview with OK!, Karen revealed she was keen to show a different side of her.

She said: “The challenge for me will be trying to show the real version of me, and not getting shy or awkward, or insular. A lot of people will have seen me in the football environment, and it’s quite intense. My feeling is that people perceive me in a certain way — that I’m very… serious. But that’s not really accurate!

“I want people to see the warm side of me. The kind, caring team player. I’m actually quite awkward, and nervous. But I’m also really daft and funny, and I probably just want to bring the other version of Karen, not the footballer Karen.

“Everyone I know who’s been on Strictly has told me not to be too hard on myself. If it was football, I’d be absolutely critical of myself, but this isn’t my thing, it’s the pros’ thing — and I’m humbled and privileged to be on the show.”

Karen has also become firm friends with her fellow Strictly stars, including Vicky Pattison. She revealed: “It’s just a lovely bunch this year. Vicky is so down-to-earth and she’s got really good energy,” she grins. “She always comes to me and says, ‘Are you OK?’ and I’m like, ‘Yes I’m OK, but are you OK?!’

“Ross King also cracks me up. He asked me to bring in a ball, so I said I’d bring in a mini ball, because it’ll keep me calm too, so we’ll be messing around and playing football when we can.”

Karen is now one of the favourites to win, with odds for the footballer rising from 16/1 to 5/1.

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