sex

IRON Maiden rocker Bruce Dickinson says he took up fencing to help him fend off sex-hungry groupies. 

The heavy metal star, 67, turned to the sword-fighting sport to keep a clear mind — but ended up as one of Britain’s best competitors. 

Run to the Hills singer Bruce — worth about £100million – was at one point ranked No7 in the UK and an outside contender for the Olympics. 

He tried fencing as a teenager and then took it up as a hobby in 1983 to distract himself from the temptations of sex, booze and drugs after finding fame. 

He spent months training with Team GB and represented a semi-pro club.  

Asked why he picked up the blade, he told Classic Rock mag: “I was busy sh*****g everything that moved and none of it was healthy.  

concerts axed

Fans fear for huge Brit star as he pulls gigs over ‘extreme exhaustion’

LAST DANCE

Iconic rock band announce final ever gig in UK bringing six-decade career to end

“I remember something that (The Who guitarist) Pete Townshend once said about groupies — ‘The moment you realise you can click your finger and manipulate people into having sex with you, that’s the moment you’re going down the slippery slope’. 

“You can’t believe women are throwing themselves at you. You think, ‘Well this is nice’. And it is. It’s f*****g great. But there’s a dark side to this.  

“Where do you stop? When does it become a prop, like alcohol or cocaine?

“So that’s when I started doing extracurricular activities like fencing.  

“I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to do something to keep my brain clean’.”  

Bruce, also a qualified pilot who flies Iron Maiden’s private 747 on tour, still takes part in fencing competitions for his age group.  

The band has sold more than 130million albums since forming in London in 1975. 

British actor Pauline Collins, who earned an Oscar nomination for her turn as the stuck-in-a-rut housewife of “Shirley Valentine,” has died. She was 85.

Collins’ family said in a statement Thursday that the actor died peacefully this week at her care home in north London after living with Parkinson’s disease for several years. In the statement, her family said Collins “was so many things to so many people, playing a variety of roles in her life.”

“A bright, sparky, witty presence on stage and screen,” the family described the versatile actor, whose career began in the 1960s.

Collins was well into her 40s when she starred in “Shirley Valentine,” a witty but disgruntled homemaker who accepts a girlfriend’s offer to travel to Greece to bring much-needed spice back to her life. “Sex for breakfast, sex for dinner, sex for tea and sex for supper,” Shirley proudly declares in the 1989 film, directed by Lewis Gilbert.

For Collins, “Shirley Valentine” was more than just an ode to womanhood, self-love and self-discovery. It was also a chance to challenge the conventions of aging in entertainment, including by shooting a nude scene for the film.

“My only sorrow was that I wasn’t younger and thinner,” a 49-year-old Collins told The Times in 1989. “But if I were Jamie Lee Curtis, I wouldn’t have been right for the part.”

“Shirley Valentine,” which also starred Tom Conti as her on-screen Greek lover and Alison Steadman as her friend, led Collins to receive her sole Academy Award nomination, a nod in the leading actress category. The film also received an original song Oscar nomination for Patti Austin’s “The Girl Who Used to Be Me,” written by Marvin Hamlisch and husband-wife lyricist duo Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Two years before the film’s premiere, Collins originated the role of Shirley Valentine in London for Willy Russell’s one-woman play of the same name. That led to her Broadway debut in 1989 and a Tony Award for best actress in a play the same year. She also won accolades for the play at the Laurence Olivier Awards and a BAFTA for her work in the film adaptation.

Beyond “Shirley Valentine,” Collins was also known for appearing in dozens of TV series including “Upstairs, Downstairs,” “Forever Green,” “The Ambassador,” “Mount Pleasant” and “Dickensian.” She also appeared in films including “City of Joy,” “Paradise Road” and “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” counting Patrick Swayze, Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins among her co-stars.

Throughout her decades-long screen career, Collins also continued her work in theater, including productions of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “Woman in Mind” and “Cinderella.”

Collins, born in 1940, was raised near Liverpool by a schoolteacher mother and a headmaster father. She told The Times in 1989 that her dad “was one of the early feminists.”

“He had three daughters and always offered us everything that a boy would have — education and stuff,” she said. “[My parents] had a completely shared domestic situation, they both worked, cooked, did the washing. He even washed nappies [diapers] by hand.”

Her marriage to “Upstairs, Downstairs” co-star John Alderton — they married in 1969 — was not too different. “He just spent five months holding down the fort at home while I was on Broadway,” she recalled.

Alderton, 84, said Thursday that Collins’ “greatest performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children.”

While Collins was known for her scenic and romantic on-screen vacation to the Greek coast, she preferred a different kind of destination off-screen: St. Petersburg, Fla.

“It’s amazing, people think when you’re on your own you’re going off to have wonderful sexual adventures. Here I am, on my own, going off to Disney World,” she told The Times. “What does that say about me?”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Trump to remove transgender markers from new passports and to require applicants to designate they were male or female at birth.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices granted another emergency appeal from Trump’s lawyers and put on hold a Boston judge’s order that prevented the president’s new passport policy from taking effect.

“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth,” the court said in an unsigned order. “In both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

She said there was no emergency, and the change in the passport policy would pose a danger for transgender travelers.

“The current record demonstrates that transgender people who use gender-incongruent passports are exposed to increased violence, harassment, and discrimination,” she wrote. “Airport checkpoints are stressful and invasive for travelers under typical circumstances—even without the added friction of being forced to present government-issued identification documents that do not reflect one’s identity.

“Thus, by preventing transgender Americans from obtaining gender-congruent passports, the Government is doing more than just making a statement about its belief that transgender identity is ‘false.’ The Passport Policy also invites the probing, and at times humiliating, additional scrutiny these plaintiffs have experienced.”

Upon taking office in January, Trump ordered the military to remove transgender troops from its ranks and told agencies to remove references to “gender identity” or transgender persons from government documents, including passports.

The Supreme Court has put both policies into effect by setting aside orders from judges who temporarily blocked the changes as discriminatory and unconstitutional.

U.S. passports did not have sex markers until the 1970s. For most of time since then, passport holders have had two choices: “M” for male and “F” for female. Beginning in 1992, the State Department allowed applicants to designate a sex marker that differed from their sex at birth.

In 2021, the Biden administration added an “X” marker as an option for transgender and non-binary persons.

Trump sought a return to the earlier era. He issued an executive order on “gender ideology extremism” and said his administration would “recognize two sexes, male and female.” He required “government-issued identification documents, including passports” to “accurately reflect the holder’s sex” assigned at birth.

The ACLU sued on behalf of transgender individuals who would be affected by the new policy. They won a ruling in June from U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick who blocked the new policy from taking effect.

The transgender plaintiffs “seek the same thing millions of Americans take for granted: passports that allow them to travel without fear of misidentification, harassment, or violence,” the ACLU attorneys said in an appeal to Supreme Court last month.

They said the administration’s new policy would undercut the usefulness of passports for identification.

“By classifying people based on sex assigned at birth and exclusively issuing sex markers on passports based on that sex classification, the State Department deprives plaintiffs of a usable identification document and the ability to travel safely…{It} undermines the very purpose of passports as identity documents that officials check against the bearer’s appearance,” they wrote.

But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer argued the plaintiffs had no authority over official documents. He said the justices should set aside the judge’s order and allow the new policy to take effect.

“Private citizens cannot force the government to use inaccurate sex designations on identification documents that fail to reflect the person’s biological sex — especially not on identification documents that are government property and an exercise of the President’s constitutional and statutory power to communicate with foreign governments,” he wrote.

L.A. County supervisors want to bar “predatory” salespeople who they say prey on vulnerable residents seeking benefits from the region’s social services offices.

The supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to explore creating a “buffer zone” outside county offices, prohibiting certain types of “aggressive” solicitation toward people seeking food stamps and cash aid. County lawyers have two months to figure out what such a zone would look like.

The looming crackdown follows a Times investigation that found seven people who said recruiters outside a social services office in South Los Angeles paid them to sue the county over sex abuse. Two more later told The Times they, too, were solicited for sex abuse lawsuits outside a county social services office in Long Beach, though they initially believed they were being recruited to be extras in a movie.

“We are painfully aware of the ongoing allegations of fraud and the pay-to-sue tactics used to recruit clients and file lawsuits against the county,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn, who announced she would push for the buffer zone after the Times investigation. “There must be greater accountability both to protect survivors seeking justice and to ensure that fraudulent claims and predatory solicitation are stopped at their source.”

The county’s more than 40 social services offices act as one-stop shops for residents who need help applying for food, housing and cash assistance. Outside many of the larger offices in poorer areas, a bustling ecosystem thrives with vendors hawking goods and services to those in line.

The supervisors said Tuesday they were troubled by some of the offerings.

“Vendors asking for copies of people’s personal documents, trying to sell them products and even recruiting people into claims against the county — this behavior puts residents at real risk and undermines the trust in our public services,” said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she wanted to see reforms that would protect both taxpayers and “vulnerable individuals who are being used as pawns to line the pockets of many of these attorneys.”

The motion passed 3 to 0. Supervisors Hilda Solis and Holly Mitchell, whose district includes the social services office where some of the lawsuit recruitment took place, were absent.

The Times spent two weeks outside the South L.A. office this fall and watched vendors seek out dozens of people with Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance for low-income Californians. The vendors would pay them anywhere between $3 and $12 to undergo COVID and blood pressure tests, which they said would be billed to their state insurance. Some people said they routinely stopped by the location for quick cash.

Giveaways of free phones are also popular for those who are eligible through a government-subsidized program. Recipients have complained that the service on the phones was often short-lived, with some people returning to the kiosks within a few days after their number stopped working.

Leaders at the Department of Public Social Services, who oversee the offices, say they’re limited in what they can do outside their facilities. Many of the busiest locations are in Los Angeles or smaller cities, where the county has no authority. And regulating where vendors can go on public sidewalks has proved a reliable headache for local governments in the past.

Last year, the Los Angeles City Council eliminated the “no-vending zones” it had created in areas where it said street vendors would contribute to congestion. The ban was met with an outcry and a lawsuit from vendors who argued street vending had been decriminalized and the city could no longer outlaw the stands.

Eugene Volokh, a 1st Amendment professor and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said the county will have to be careful in defining what conduct is “predatory” and what is protected speech.

“The devil’s going to be in the details,” Volokh said. “Whenever you hear words like ‘predatory’ or ‘exploitative’ or ‘harassing’ or ‘bullying,’ you know you’re dealing with terms that are potentially very vague and often, by themselves, too vague to be legally usable terms.”

Nov. 3 (UPI) — The French government threatened to ban Chinese retailer Shein for selling a “childlike” sex doll online.

France’s consumer fraud agency got an anonymous tip about the dolls on the site. It said their “description and categorization on the site leave little doubt as to the child pornography nature of the content,” said a press release issued Saturday by the French Directorate General for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control.

One of the ads on Shein, first reported by Le Parisien newspaper, showed a life-size doll of a little girl wearing a white dress and holding a teddy bear. The description clearly states its intended use.

“This has crossed a line,” said France’s economy minister, Roland Lescure, said in an interview with French radio, adding that a formal investigation was underway, The New York Times reported. “These horrible objects are illegal.”

The company issued a statement saying it removed the items.

“We take this situation extremely seriously,” Quentin Ruffat, a spokesperson for Shein France, told BFMTV, a French TV channel. “This type of content is completely unacceptable and goes against all the values ​​we stand for. We are taking immediate corrective action and strengthening our internal mechanisms to prevent such a situation from happening again.”

Shein will soon open a store at BHV Marais, a department store in Paris. But in the wake of the doll discovery, employees have protested the move, and some French cosmetics and clothing brands have pulled their items from BHV Marais.

Société des Grands Magasins is the French company that is helping Shein move into the French market. It’s the parent company of BHV Marais. SGM President Frédéric Merlin said in an Instagram post that SGM “obviously condemns the recent events related to the doll controversy. Like everyone else, I expect clear answers from SHEIN.” But he said it hasn’t changed his plans. “I have decided not to reverse my decision, despite the controversy and the pressure because we’re doing things by the book, with ethics and transparency.”

The consumer fraud agency noted that the distribution, via an electronic communications network, of representations of a pedopornographic nature is punishable by sentences of up to seven years imprisonment and a fine of $115,000. The statement alleges that Shein doesn’t effectively filter out pornographic content to protect minors or vulnerable audiences.

For this, the law allows penalties of up to three years in prison and $86,000.

L.A. County supervisors have unanimously approved an $828-million settlement for alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse, finalizing the deal while questions mount over the legitimacy of some claims in a separate multibillion-dollar payout that they agreed to this spring.

The settlement approved Tuesday brings the county’s spending on sex abuse litigation this year to nearly $5 billion, with the bulk of that total coming from a $4-billion deal made in April to resolve thousands of claims filed by people who said they were abused decades ago in county-run juvenile detention centers and foster homes.

The latest settlement involves similar claims brought by 414 clients of three law firms who opted to negotiate separately from the rest. The $4-billion settlement initially covered roughly 6,800 claims, but has ballooned to more than 11,000.

The larger settlement has come under scrutiny after The Times found nine people who said they were paid to sue. Four said they were told to fabricate the claims. All had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, which represents more than 2,700 clients in the first settlement.

The firm has denied paying clients to sue and said it has “systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations.” The firm has asked the court to dismiss three claims on behalf of allegedly fraudulent plaintiffs this month.

Downtown LA Law Group will be required to detail any claims that came to it through recruiters, the county’s top attorney said Tuesday. The firm has denied any wrongdoing.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

The settlement approved Tuesday involves cases only from Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team, Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, and Panish Shea Ravipudi and has no cases from DTLA. But the firm nevertheless took center stage Tuesday as the supervisors pressed their top attorney on how the lawsuits were vetted.

“What were we doing prior to this article?” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, referencing The Times’ reporting from earlier this month.

The county was in a tough spot, county counsel Dawyn Harrison explained. Many plaintiff attorneys didn’t want the county interviewing their clients, she said. And a judge had temporarily paused the discovery process, providing the county little insight into the identities of the thousands of people suing.

Harrison said Tuesday that DTLA cases now will be required to go through a “completely new level of review” beyond the standard vetting that was already underway by retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Louis Meisinger. In addition to having a new retired Superior Court judge vet all their cases, DTLA must provide the county with information on plaintiffs acquired through “a recruiter or vendor,” she said.

“DTLA is required to identify every recruiter it used, a list of each plaintiff brought in per recruiter, information about any funds that changed hands, and a declaration under oath by each recruiter identifying what was done, what was said, and any monies paid,” Harrison said.

It’s an unusual request.

California law bans a practice known as capping, in which non-attorneys directly solicit or procure clients to sign up for lawsuits with a law firm.

DTLA has denied knowledge of any of its clients receiving payments to sue and said the firm wants “justice for real victims” of sexual abuse.

“If we ever became aware that anyone associated with us, in any capacity, did such a thing, we would end our relationship with them immediately,” the firm said.

The rush of lawsuits was kicked off by a now-controversial bill known as AB 218, which changed the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse and created a new window to sue. The county, which is responsible for the safety of children inside juvenile carceral facilities and foster care, has seen more than 12,000 claims and counting since the law took effect in 2020.

The allegations of fraud that now hover over these cases was the fault of “an unmanageable law,” not the county’s vetting process, Harrison said.

“AB 218 erased those guardrails and allowed decades-old claims that no one can meaningfully vet,” she said.

The county’s lawyers and politicians have become increasingly loud critics of the law, which they say has left them facing a deluge of decades-old claims with no records. Supervisor Hilda Solis said she felt the county had become the “guinea pig” for the bill.

Joe Nicchitta, the county’s acting chief executive officer, estimated that anywhere between $1 billion to $2 billion in county taxpayer money from the settlements will go to attorneys.

“The law had some very noble intentions but it has been … and I’m just going to say what I think, hijacked by the plaintiff’s bar,” he said. “They do all of the vetting, they do all of the intake, they advertise extensively. They’re incentivized to bring as many cases as possible.”

Nicchitta said he’d heard rumors that venture capitalists were poking around Sacramento to find out “whether or not we have enough cash to pay for another settlement, so that they can finance a law firm to bring another round of settlements against us.”

“It’s clear to me the system is ruptured,” he said.

Courtney Thom, who was the lead attorney on cases from Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, said she believed the county was blaming the new state law for the failures of its own lawyers.

“To blame AB 218 and say that’s what enabled the fraud is just a pathetic attempt to deflect responsibility,” Thom said. “Our firm has been saying for two years we’re concerned about fraud.”

Mike Arias, who represents clients in the latest settlement as a partner with Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team, said the three firms involved stopped adding clients more than a year ago.

“That’s a big distinction,” Arias said. “We said, at the time, the number of plaintiffs would not change. Ethically, my view was that’s who we represent and who we’re going to negotiate for.”

Arias said the allocation for the second settlement will be done by retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler, who specializes in overseeing sexual abuse litigation. Potential payouts will range between $750,000 and $3.25 million, he said.

Victims say the money represents a sliver of justice for the abuse they say they suffered while confined in county custody — little of which has been criminally prosecuted.

One man, who is part of the settlement and asked not to be identified, said he has no idea what happened to the probation official who he alleges raped him at around 16 while he was asleep in his cell at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, knocked out on sleep medication.

“I had no control in that place,” said the man, now 34. “My body hasn’t ever felt the same since.”

The county has launched an “AB 218 fraud hotline” where tipsters can report misconduct related to the flood of sex abuse claims.

(Rebecca Ellis / Los Angeles Times)

The county recently launched an “AB 218 fraud hotline” where tipsters can report misconduct related to the flood of claims. The county says it also plans to start a hotline for victims to safely report allegations of sex abuse in its facilities.

“It is illegal for anyone to file, pay for, or receive payments for making fake claims of childhood sexual abuse,” states a banner now running atop the county website with a hand doling out hundred-dollar bills.

The county also has launched a website that asks people to report if they were offered cash to sue, which law firms were involved, and whether they were coached, among other questions.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell, whose district includes the South Central social services office where seven people told The Times they were paid to sue, said she wanted to see the hotlines advertised as aggressively as the plaintiff attorneys advertised for their cases.

“You couldn’t turn on an urban radio station without hearing a commercial advertising these cases,” Mitchell said. “I certainly hope whatever we use, as we talk about our outreach, that we lean in as hard.”

AT the grand old age of 70 most men are settling down and enjoying retirement, not knee deep in nappies after welcoming their EIGHTH child. 

But nothing about Frasier actor Kelsey Grammer’s life has ever followed a normal playbook – even up to his fourth wife demanding five weddings. 

He weathered three failed marriages – one was physically abusive, another sexless and the other ended after just 12 months – prior to falling for Virgin Atlantic air stewardess Kayte Walsh. 

The daughter of Bristol City footballer Alan Walsh and 24 years his junior, she tamed the “wild man of American comedy”, who had long battled drug and alcohol addiction.

She gave him the one thing he was missing – cosy domesticity – after endless family heartache including his sister being raped and murdered, two half brothers dying in a freak accident and his estranged dad being gunned down when he was just 13.

The couple already had a brood of three – Faith, 13, Gabriel, 10, and Auden James, eight – prior to Kelsey announcing “we’ve just had our fourth” on yesterday’s episode of Pod Meets World.

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New arrival Christopher, born on Friday, takes the actor’s baby tally to eight with four different mums.

And a source told the Mail he’s “thrilled to finally have time to fully enjoy being a father all over again… [and] embracing the hands-on parenting he missed in the past”.

There’s no doubt Kayte put an end to Kelsey’s turbulent years in the wilderness, which were plagued with tragedy, heartache and more faux pas than his pompous, gaffe-prone character Dr Frasier Crane.  

Yet their romance got off to a bumpy start – as the actor was still married to ex-Playboy pin-up and future Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Camille Meyer. 

Kelsey would later claim his third-wife only “married me because I was Frasier”. At his peak, he raked in more than £1million per episode for the show, which ran for 11 seasons. 

He also described their marriage, which spanned 14 years until 2011, as being “so broken” that they “had not had sex in a decade” and claimed she asked for a divorce the day of his mother’s funeral in 2008.

For a long time Kelsey knew the relationship was on the rocks, admitting it was “over as soon as it began” yet he stayed with her as a “self-imposed sentence”, mainly out of stubbornness and for the sake of their two children, Mason, 24, and Jude, 21.

He met Kayte in 2009 as she showed him to his seat on a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class flight from Los Angeles to London, where he was due to appear in a play.

She claimed it was “love at first sight” – dismissing the much-joked about claim of cabin crew being on the “lookout” for wealthy suitors – and noticed “this golden glow around him”. 

They chatted about music, England and life at the plane’s bar before he slipped her his number and told her the hotel he was staying at. 

Kayte was “blown away by how lovely he was” but uncertain and “indecisive” about whether to call him. 

She told the Mail: “I said, ‘God, if I’m meant to call him, I want a sign.’ I looked out the bus window and saw a sign reading, ‘Frasier Suites’. I was like, ‘OK, that’s not enough.’ 

I was her big brother, I was supposed to protect her – I could not. I have never gotten over it… It very nearly destroyed me

Kelsey Grammer

“Four minutes later, we passed an art store called Crane and a few moments later, we drove past the hotel where he was staying.”  

Secret mistress

Two days later they went for a coffee, where he confided he was “in a situation he wasn’t happy in and I needed to be patient”. She claimed they spent months only kissing and holding hands.

It wasn’t long before Camille discovered Kelsey’s mistress. Allegedly when she arrived at the couple’s New York apartment to be told by the doorman ‘Mrs Grammer’ was already inside.

Fire and fury followed. The former Playboy bunny claimed she was dumped by text, sniped about his bedroom skill and made another lurid claim he liked to dress in women’s clothes.

At the time Kelsey responded: “Never been a cross-dresser but I have been very sexually adventurous. I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done in the bedroom.” 

He considered the slings to be “pathetic” attempts to remain famous – yet as a “parting gift” to give her a new direction, he helped to secure her a spot on Real Housewives and even appeared in a single episode.

The couple married just 15 days after Kelsey’s £30million divorce from Camille was finalised in February 2011. It followed a stern demand before Kayte accepted his proposal. 

She recalled: “Because he’s been married so many times before I said, ‘You have to marry me more times.’ I’m his fourth wife, so I said, ‘You have to marry me at least five times.’”

Lavish nuptials followed – the first was New York, followed by an Elvis officiated Viva Las Vegas do, another at their LA home and the final, an especially romantic service in Giverny, France.

The last was inspired by Kayte’s favourite artwork Monet’s Bridge Over a Pond of Lilies. He took her to the bridge the painter used, got down on one knee and proposed.  

She recalled: “It was a complete shock. Kelsey had arranged everything with the Mayor so we got to say our vows in French. It was lovely.”

Serial killer slayed sister

The romance with Kayte has undoubtedly given Kelsey the peace and stability he has lacked throughout his turbulent life.

He was born to parents Sally, a dancer, and Allen, a coffee shop owner, in Saint Thomas, US Virgin Islands, but raised in New Jersey by his mum after they divorced when he was two.

At the age of 12, his grandad died of cancer and the following year his estranged dad was murdered during a wave of racial violence after Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968. 

Seven years later, his younger sister Karen, 18, was kidnapped, raped and murdered by serial killer Freddie Glenn, who killed three women.

Glenn, now 68, who Kelsey remarkably forgave many later years, was sentenced to die in the gas chamber only for the death penalty to be scrapped.

“I was her big brother, I was supposed to protect her – I could not,” he said at the murderer’s 2009 parole hearing. “I have never gotten over it… It very nearly destroyed me.”

And just five years after losing Karen, two of his half-brothers were killed in a freak scuba diving accident. 

Unsurprisingly, that amount of trauma caused unbridled chaos in his personal life – with him stating they were “the catalyst that got me into a really big problem for at least the next 15 years”.

‘Chaos, insanity, mayhem’

He consistently battled cocaine and alcohol abuse – especially while filming Frasier and Cheers – and was known for being difficult to work with, one colleague described him as “one of the biggest jerks” he had ever met.

Kelsey was described as “oozing” onto set with “glazed over eyes, half asleep, going through whatever he was going through” yet when the director yelled ‘Action’, he was “pitch perfect”.

Because he’s been married so many times before I said, ‘You have to marry me more times’…You have to marry me at least five times

Kayte Grammer

He was regularly in trouble with the law too. Kelsey was charged at least four times for crimes including cocaine possession, drink driving and violating parole conditions.

The crimes, which spanned 1988 to 1996, resulted in 30 days jail time, more than 300 hours of community service, 90-day house arrest, fines in the thousands and a 30-day court mandated rehab stint. 

His relationships weren’t going well either. Kelsey’s first marriage to dance instructor Doreen Alderman lasted eight years until 1990, despite their relationship being over after less than 12 months. They share a daughter Spencer. 

Two years later Kelsey had a second child, Greer, who later appeared on MTV show Awkward, with make-up stylist Barrie Buckner.

He married former stripper Leigh-Anne Csuhany, who was three months pregnant, seven months after that. But their romance wouldn’t last. 

Kelsey filed for an annulment and evicted her from his home, alleging she was physically abusive to him. 

He claimed she once fired a gun at him and even on their wedding day, he was seen sporting a black eye from one of her violent attacks. 

In his autobiography, Kelsey claimed she convinced him he was “nothing, unattractive, untalented, undeserving of love and incapable of being loved by anyone but her” to ensure he would never leave. 

“She’d spit in my face, slap me, punch me, kick me, break glasses over my head, break windows, tear up pictures of my loved ones, threaten to kill me or herself,” he wrote. 

Shortly after the split, Leigh-Anne tried to kill herself. She suffered a miscarriage. 

Kelsey had a string of short-lived flings after, including with Playboy model Tammi Alexander, before his third marriage to fellow top-shelf mag pin-up Camille.  

Five weddings

Ultimately, it has been with Kayte where he has finally found happiness. But that contentment could have easily been derailed due to the tragedies they have faced as a couple.

Two of their pregnancies ended in miscarriage and Faith’s unborn sibling died in utero. Heartbreakingly, this often requires a mum to undergo labour to birth the deceased child.

Kayte admitted it was “devastating” for them but the blows further strengthened their relationship. Each baby has reminded them “life is a miracle” and to count their blessings.  

There was the other part of me that wanted to surrender to it and go, ‘Let it mess you up a little bit. Let it hurt.

Kelsey Grammer

His ever expanding brood has also given him a second chance at parenting, after admitting he took his eye off the ball with the older kids.

He said: “I have neglected a couple of the kids in my life, especially the first two,” he said. “I’m trying to make up for a little of it now. I’m still their dad, so you can always have [a] chance to show up.”

With a stable, loving home Kelsey’s addiction issues appear to have been kept at bay – despite in 2016 admitting he stopped attending AA because he likes to “enjoy a drink”. 

It’s known he was sober for years after his 1996 car crash while under the influence, which resulted in him being sent to rehab by the courts.  

Previously, Kelsey’s calling toward “chaos, insanity, mayhem” was spurred on by “running away from uncomfortable feelings” and being unable to “forgive myself” for his sister’s death.

He acknowledges having “a self-destructive part of me” that encouraged his addiction, which worsened his health and contributed to a near-fatal heart attack in 2008.

Kelsey added: “I always had something in the back of my head saying, ‘Okay. That’s enough now. Cut it out. You know why you’re doing this.’

“But there was the other part of me that wanted to surrender to it and go, ‘Let it mess you up a little bit. Let it hurt.’”

But now thanks to Kayte, he lives a calmer life – when not changing nappies at 5am – and previously she said their “favourite place is our sofa”.

There they snuggle up, eat popcorn while watching films and eventually fall asleep in each other’s arms. It’s a far cry from the decades of debauchery before. 

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Kayte says: “As a general rule I try to operate from love. I always wanted to find a family and the love of my life. That was my dream. I feel blessed.”

No doubt Kelsey feels it’s he who has been blessed, after finding the woman who saved his life and drastically changed his future for the better. 

DISCREET and “not blatant”, with a stranger and with mandatory payment – those were the strict rules set by Lily Allen that allegedly allowed her husband of four years to cheat.

Now the scorned songstress, 40, has ferociously lifted the lid on the ‘arrangement’ with Stranger Things actor David Harbour in a song titled ‘Madeline’.

It’s the moniker she gave to costume designer and single mum Natalie Tippett, 34, who allegedly cheated with the American, 50, despite suggesting she had given him a ‘hall pass’ to sleep with sex workers.

Fuming in lyrics, which she says are a “mixture of fact and fiction”, Lily says: “We had an arrangement; Be discreet and don’t be blatant; And there had to be payment; It had to be with strangers; But you’re not a stranger, Madeline, Madeline, Madeline, Madeline.”

The track on her comeback album West End Girl, which documents the unravelling of her relationship and his supposed infidelity, has earned critical acclaim and has three songs in the Top 40. 

Unsurprisingly, it’s Lily’s anti-monogamy stance that has raised the eyebrows of listeners but these types of ‘arrangements’ are far from unusual in the world of celebrity.  

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Behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings tells The Sun some are tempted due to working away for long periods of time and feeling unable to satisfy each other sexually or emotionally.

However, she cautions: “No matter how many boundaries or rules you put in place, what happens when it becomes more than just sex and your partner falls in love?” 

“There are so, so many obstacles with these types of relationships,” Jo tells us. “And it’s interesting that Lily had this very specific boundary.

“She set it because there would be very little danger of her husband falling in love with one of these girls or having an emotional relationship when it’s purely sexual and transactional.

“It sort of sounds modern, grown-up and pre-emptive, deciding you’re in an open relationship and acknowledging what’s going on rather than being ‘cheated on’ but it rarely works.

“There is nearly always one person who is secretly less comfortable with the idea than they say they are and there’s a big difference between ‘theoretical acceptance’ and actual acceptance.

“When the gossip starts and the press finds out, when it happens on repeat and the public starts to judge their relationship it can get really, really tough. 

“And some ‘open relationships’ are less genuine than one might think, some say they are in one to protect themselves. It can be deflective in a lot of cases.

“I think a lot of celebrities are pre-empting scrutiny and that way if their partner is seen snogging the face off someone at a bar, they are one step ahead of the game.”

As Jo highlights, Lily is far from the only celebrity to be stung after opening the sexual floodgates in her relationship – with many ending in divorce, as we reveal. 

Will & Jada Pinkett Smith

The aftermath of this ill-fated ‘arrangement’ resulted in the most explosive moment ever seen at the Oscars, which led to Will Smith being banned for 10 years and scrutinised across the globe. 

In 2022, the Fresh Prince star slapped Chris Rock after he made a joke about his wife of 28 years Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia, comparing her to a buzz-cut character from the film GI Jane.

Yet the origin of Will’s anger is said to have stemmed from the public ridicule and humiliation he suffered after Jada admitted to an affair two years previously. 

Describing it as an “entanglement”, she spoke of a fling with August Alsina, a rapper 21 years her junior, who was a friend of their son Jaden, during a separation from Will. 

Later Will apologised for his Oscars attack, stating: “I was gone. That was a rage that had been bottled [up] for a really long time… What I would say is that you just never know what somebody’s going through.” 

Rumours of the Smiths having an open marriage had circulated for more than a decade and even when Jada denied it in a 2013 Huffington Post interview, her cryptic response prompted more questions. 

She said: “I’ve always told Will, ‘You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay.’”

Later Jada posted a lengthy rant on Facebook questioning if loving someone meant “owning them” and if it should “operate as enslavement”.

She concluded: “Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship…this means we have a GROWN one.”

Jo says for some celebrities being part of a ‘power couple’ can lead to more sexually flexible relationships, as it appeared to be with the Smiths, but it rarely works. 

She tells us for some it can be a “way of protecting themselves” ahead of an affair being discovered or a way to have “a feeling of control, by agreeing on the terms” of what can and can’t be done.

“It can be hard to fulfil your partner’s emotional and physical needs when you’re half way across the world and flings may seem like a ‘harmless release’,” Jo says.

“And it’s easy for celebrities to go into these agreements with good intentions but you cannot predict how you or your partner will feel when it happens. 

“There are so many opportunities in the chaos of celebrity life for boundaries to be overstepped and so almost inevitably it will go wrong at some point.

“Even if both partners feel they are on the same page and in 100 per cent agreement, most couples aren’t. One partner always wants it more than the other and the other may not be able to accept what happened.”

Michelle Visage & David Case

Former Strictly star Michelle Visage set sparks flying away from the stage when she claimed cheating makes her marriage “stronger” – but she’s not exactly thrilled by his flings.

She told the Origins With Cush Jumbo podcast that her actor hubby David Case experiences ‘compersion’, which is considered to be ‘the opposite of jealousy’.

It’s a term often used in the polyamorous community to describe a partner feeling joy that their romantic partner had an exciting experience with another person. 

“We live openly, so he would get off knowing that I was so happy and no matter what it is that I do, and I’m not just talking sexually,” Michelle said last year.

“Whatever it is, I don’t know if I have compersion in me to be really excited if he’s doing something with another woman but I know that it exists and he is 100% that.”

While Michelle claimed it was something that “works for us” and “what makes us stronger”, Jo says it can still be problematic.

She warns it’s risky when meddling with “the intimacy of a relationship” despite the couple claiming to be “fully transparent and trusting one another”. 

Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher

When Ghost actress Demi Moore shacked up with Ashton Kutcher, 21 years her junior, she wanted to “show him how great and fun I could be” – especially when it came to sex.

“I put him first, so when he expressed his fantasy of bringing a third person into our bed, I didn’t say no,” she admitted in her 2019 memoir Inside Out.

But her two ménages à trois, left Demi feeling “flooded with shame” and realising it was a “mistake”. Worse still, Ashton later told her it encouraged him to have affairs.

She claimed the That 70s Show actor told her the threesomes “blurred the lines” of their romance and “to some extent, justified what he’d done”.

It referred to at least three flings, including one on a San Diego stag do and another with a pal of her eldest daughter, that doomed their six-year marriage by November 2011. 

Jo says she sees issues like what happened with Demi and Ashton “a lot” in counselling – where one partner is “willing to please” because their partner “wants it so badly” and fears losing them.

“But it can have devastating consequences for the relationship,” she says. “Maybe not immediately but some struggle because they can’t unseen what they have seen or what their partner has done.

“Some aren’t even able to recall seeing their husband having sex with another woman, because it’s so brutal for them. Many prefer to turn blind eye, not see or not join in. 

“Even if they think they want it at the time, sometimes threesomes can be the last straw for a couple or for any agreed infidelity.”

Ethan Hawke & Ryan Shawhughes

Ethan Hawke’s marriage to Uma Thurman was marked by rumours of cheating, which he strenuously denied, yet after their 2003 split he made it clear he strongly believes in polyamory. 

After getting together with their former nanny Ryan Shawhughes, he argued that most people have “a childish view of monogamy and fidelity”, suggesting it as an outdated concept.

“To act all indignant, that your world has been rocked because your lover wasn’t faithful to you, is a little bit like acting rocked that your hair went grey,” Ethan told HuffPost in 2013.

It’s unclear how open the relationship with Ryan is but he encouraged speculation by stating “neither she nor I know what shape the future will come in” and justified extramarital flings. 

“Sexual fidelity can’t be the whole thing you hang your relationship on,” he added. “If you really love somebody you want them to grow, but you don’t get to define how that happens. They do.”

Shirley MacLaine & Steve Parker

Hollywood legend Shirley MacLaine, who starred in Steel Magnolias and Terms of Endearment, had an open marriage for 28 years. 

It started back in 1954 due to her producer husband, Steve Parker, predominantly working in Japan while she was in America and she admitted “no one understood it” apart from them. 

She added: “I would say better to stay friends and we don’t have enough time to talk about the sexuality of all. I was very open about all of that and so was he.”

Despite declaring extra-marital flings “the basis for a long-lasting marriage”, the couple divorced in 1982 but remained friends.  

Jo says these types of arrangements can be more common among celebrities due to them maintaining long-distance relationships because of work projects, however it’s very risky. 

“While it may feel like a safety net, it can erode trust and intimacy and instead of enjoying the ‘freedom and liberation’ they anticipate, they can feel like they are being replaced.

“You can put in a world of boundaries and rules to but what happens when your partner falls in love with someone else? When it becomes more than just sex, you’re in trouble. Your relationship is effectively over.” 

Bella Thorne & Tana Mongeau

For just over a year, Dirty Sexy Money actress Bella Thorne celebrated her open relationship with musician Mod Sun and YouTuber Tana Mongeau in loving posts online .

In 2019, she told the Gay Times: “We joke around about poly[amorous], but we aren’t in the sense that we don’t put a word, a box or label too many things. It is what it is.”

Bella even claimed that she didn’t think anybody could “really understand the bonds” she shared with Mod and Tana, only for their three-way romance to end just months later.

It all came tumbling down after what Mod – real name Derek Smith – described as a “very, very public incident” that led him to end their “toxic” relationship.

Bella later slammed Tana on X – formerly Twitter – for breaking “girl code” after she was seen on a date with Mod. 

Tana later got engaged to boxer Jake Paul and had a legally non-binding wedding to the influencer-turned-fighter in late 2019.

They too had an open relationship but she revealed it heavily contributed to them splitting up because she felt compelled to “green-light everything” to make him happy, even though it was “killing” her.

Mo’Nique & Sidney Hicks

Precious actress Mo’Nique put an end to her open relationship with her husband and manager Sidney Hicks after fearing it would lead to them breaking up. 

She first spoke about them having hall passes to cheat back in 2010, claiming “I don’t want to be owned anymore… [or] have ownership over anyone”.

Declaring her “beautiful” open relationship “my idea”, Mo’Nique said: “If sex happens with another person, that’s not a deal breaker for us.

“That’s not something where we’ll have to say, ‘Oh God, we’ve got to go to divorce court because you cheated on me,’ because we don’t cheat.” 

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However by 2023, Mo’Nique, who had been with Sidney since she was 16, changed her tune saying she wanted monogamy. She said it was down to recognising the strength of their relationship and his love for her “at my worst”.

She added: “I didn’t want to sacrifice that just for a lay. So I grew out of that.”

L.A. County is bringing on a retired judge to tackle a $4-billion question: How can officials ensure that real victims are compensated from the biggest sex abuse payout in U.S. history — and not people who made up their claims?

The county has tapped Daniel Buckley, a former presiding judge of the county’s Superior Court, to vet cases brought by Downtown LA Law Group after The Times found nine people represented by the firm who said they were paid to sue the county by recruiters. Four of the plaintiffs said they were told to fabricate the claims.

Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, has denied paying any of its roughly 2,700 clients, but agreed to cover the cost of Buckley to examine their cases in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement.

In a letter sent to clients Monday, Andrew Morrow, the lead attorney in the firm’s sex abuse cases, noted there are “additional safeguards” and “vetting protocols” underway following recent reports of paid clients, but did not specifically mention the new judge.

“While we categorically deny this ever occurred, we take these matters seriously and welcome the implementation of additional review procedures to ensure false claims do not move forward in the process,” wrote Morrow, the chairman of the firm’s mass torts department.

On Oct. 17, Dawyn Harrison, the top attorney for the county, requested an investigation from the State Bar based on The Times’ reporting, saying she believed some of the settlement would flow to “the pockets of the plaintiffs’ bar” rather than victims.

“The actions described in the article, if true, are despicable and run afoul of ethical duties of attorneys and criminal law in California,” Harrison wrote in a letter to Erika Doherty, the bar’s interim executive director. “I request the State Bar investigate all of the potential fraudulent and illegal activities described in this letter.”

DTLA declined to comment last week. The firm has previously said it works “hard to present only meritorious claims and have systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations.”

The bulk of the claims will be reviewed by retired Superior Court Judge Louis Meisinger, who will decide awards between $100,000 and $3 million.

The amount will depend on the severity of the abuse, the impact on the victim’s life and the amount of evidence provided, according to the allocation protocol. The money will be paid out over five years unless the victim opts to get a one-time check for $150,000.

If the judges find cases they believe are fraudulent, the county can either resolve them through a $50,000 payment or get them removed from the settlement. The county saves money in that case, but runs the risk of the plaintiff continuing to litigate and landing a larger payout from a jury trial.

It’s unusual — but not unheard of — for a neutral arbiter to be appointed to investigate cases from a specific firm in a massive settlement.

Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara Houser, who is overseeing the $2.4-billion trust for victims of the Boy Scouts of Americas sex abuse cases, said last month that she had asked for an “independent third party” to vet the claims brought by Slater Slater Schulman after finding a pattern of “irregularities” and “procedural and factual problems” among its plaintiffs.

Slater Slater Schulman, headquartered in New York City, represents roughly 14,000 victims in the Boy Scouts case. It also represents roughly 3,700 people in the L.A. County settlement — the most of any firm, by far.

On Oct. 14, Lawrence Friedman, a former Department of Justice attorney who headed up the federal watchdog office for the bankruptcy system, spearheaded a blistering motion asking Houser to reduce Slater’s attorneys fees, which he estimated were at least $20 million. Friedman is seeking to push them out of the case, alleging the firm had “run amok” and “dangled the prospect of lottery sized payouts” in front of clients without vetting them.

“The SLATER law firm has little if any quality controls in place to validate the information in the 14,600 claims other than validating that they were real people who had filed the claim,” the motion stated. “…What SLATER has effectively created is simply a ‘Claims Machine’ designed to spit out huge wads of cash for itself!”

Clifford Robert, an outside attorney who is representing Slater Slater Schulman in its issues with the Boy Scouts cases, said the firm’s priority “has been and always will be securing justice on behalf of sexual abuse victims.”

Friedman, who has been outspoken about misconduct by mass tort attorneys in bankruptcy cases, said he now represents dozens of former Slater plaintiffs. The ex-clients alleged the firm waited more than a year before informing them their cases were undergoing additional vetting and their payments would be delayed. The firm told them this September about the outside investigation, which began in June 2024, according to an email attached to the Oct. 14 motion.

“We now agree that there are procedural and factual problems in some of our claim submissions to the Trust,” the three partners of Slater Slater Schulman wrote in a joint email to clients on Sept. 9. “Because of the problematic claims, we have agreed that all of our claim submissions to the Trust be vetted by an independent third party.”

Both judges who will vet the L.A. County sex abuse payouts work for Signature Resolution, a firm that specializes in resolving legal disputes outside the courtroom with a heavyweight roster of former judges and lawyers. Litigation management company BrownGreer will be the settlement administration arm, responsible for making sure the checks go out, liens are settled and the judges have the records they need from the 11,000 plaintiffs.

An additional 414 sex abuse claims that led to a separate $828-million settlement announced Oct. 17 will be reviewed by a different judge with the money distributed over the course of three years. That settlement, which involves claims from three firms that opted to litigate separately from the rest, is expected to receive final approval from the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The county will give the first tranche of money to the fund administered by BrownGreer in January, though it’s unclear when that money will trickle down to victims. The additional fraud review could slow the process as the judges will need to decide what all 11,000 of the claims are worth before any of the money goes out.

“They should have had their duck in the rows at the beginning,” said Tammy Rogers, 56, who sued over sex abuse at a county-run shelter for children in 2022.

Rogers said she has seen her bank account depleted recently following a shoulder surgery and her daughter’s funeral. She said she’s grown skeptical the settlement money will come her way anytime soon after reading the recent coverage of plaintiffs who say they were paid to sue.

“They should have known people were going to come out of the woodwork and do stuff like this,” she said. “They should have taken this time in the beginning, not in the end.”

Tammy Rogers, one of the plaintiffs who sued L.A. County over alleged abuse at MacLaren Hall, says she’s worried the extra vetting may delay payments to victims.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

The number of claims has fluctuated in recent months as some of the firms have dismissed cases from plaintiffs who died, lost interest in their lawsuit, or stopped responding. Since the Times initial investigation ran on Oct. 2, DTLA has asked for the dismissal of at least 14 plaintiffs, according to a Times analysis of court records.

On Oct. 17, the firm asked a judge to dismiss three people in a 63-plaintiff lawsuit filed April 29 who told The Times they’d been paid to sue the county for sex abuse.

Quantavia Smith, whose case DTLA asked to be dismissed without prejudice, previously told The Times a recruiter paid her to join the litigation, but said she had a legitimate sex abuse claim against the county. She said the recruiter drove her to the office of a downtown law firm and then gave her $200.

The firm also asked to dismiss the cases of Nevada Barker and Austin Beagle with prejudice, meaning the cases can’t be refilled. The Times reported this month that the Texan couple were told to make up allegations of abuse at a county-run juvenile hall and provided a script by someone inside the firm’s downtown office. Both said they left the firm with $100.

The Times could not reach the alleged recruiter for comment.

Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker say they were unwittingly ushered into a fraudulent lawsuit against L.A. County filed by Downtown LA Law Group.

(Joe Garcia/For The Times)

On the morning the story published Oct. 16, Beagle and Barker each received an automated email from Vinesign, a legal e-signature site, telling them Downtown LA Law was requesting their signature on a document.

“I wish to affirm my claim that I was sexually abused in a Los Angeles County juvenile facility, and I was never paid to bring this claim forward,” stated the DTLA declaration, which they were asked to sign under the penalty of perjury.

Both said they did not want to sign as it was not true — and the opposite of what had just been published that morning in The Times. Beagle said the firm called twice that morning to discuss.

“We told them just dismiss it,” said Beagle. “We ain’t talking about it.”

Times assistant data and graphics editor Sean Greene contributed to this report.

‘I previously said there was something we’re not seeing between Julia-Ruth and Divarni, and it turns out their secrets and sex are being held from the group, too’

I’m starting to feel like I should disregard everything I say about most of the couples in this experiment, because the twists and turns of Married at First Sight are never-ending! This week, we saw the drama unfolding between Julia-Ruth and Divarni, Maeve and Joe, and Grace and Ashley over a steamy spa day and a dinner party where the heat was SERVED, even though the actual food is cold.

Last week, I said there was something we’re not seeing between Julia-Ruth and Divarni, and it turns out the secrets and sex are being held from the group, too.

Julia-Ruth feels like, instead of owning up that she’s just not into Divarni, she’s using sex to stay in the experiment (or on TV) for longevity. This programme is about authenticity, real people, real highs and lows of relationships, so you can smell “the extra 15 minutes of screen time” that Keye voiced at the dinner party a mile off.

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I predict we’ll see a “stay” from this couple at the commitment ceremony to solidify that they just want another week on the telly.

A quick follower count shows the popularity of the cast plain as day – the audience likes Leah, Ashley, and Maeve the most. These are all relatable, day-to-day cast members who deserve the world for coming in and being true to themselves.

I think that was mine and Kristina’s story, too. I genuinely went into the experiment expecting a great story to tell in the pub for the rest of my life; anything and everything else that has come my way is a fabulous bonus. I genuinely think these three would say the same.

Haven’t we seen a turnaround for the girls?! I said on Saturday that Leigh and Leah have no chance, but I’ve completely changed my mind in two nights, and I’m proud of them.

I met Leigh a couple of weeks into the show and remember saying to her, “My gosh, you can smile in real life!” She was lovely, we had a laugh, and I’m glad we’re seeing her warm up on screen.

I’m also glad her resting bitch face hasn’t moved, the edit have obviously had a play with that at the beginning but remind me not to get on the wrong side of that stare!

So, onto the retreat, one of my favourite memories of the show, clambering onto the coach like a school trip.

With Leah’s dresses getting bigger by the week, let’s hope she’ll fit the next one through the sliding doors at the dinner party, and let’s hope the retreat serves drama, a wife swap and gives Leisha some more memes to make because they’re killing me on TikTok!

Catch up on Married at First UK on Channel 4*

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Strictly Come Dancing contestant Vicky Pattison has confessed to putting a halt on sex with her husband Ercan Ramadan

Strictly Come Dancing star Vicky Pattison has revealed she’s put a stop to bedroom antics with her husband while taking part in the BBC dance competition.

After achieving her best score of the series last weekend, bagging an impressive 29 points with professional partner Kai Widdrington for their spectacular Samba, Vicky and Kai have secured their place in Icons Week.

During a recent episode of the Get A Grip podcast, the 37-year-old confessed she’s steered clear of physical intimacy with her other half since starting on the show.

The frank admission came as Vicky outlined the demanding nature of the programme’s early weeks, explaining: “One minute you’re nervous, you’re messing up your dress rehearsal, you’re getting your period, you’re nearly throwing up behind the scenes because you’re so nervous.”

As Vicky shared her journey, the presenter quickly jumped in with: “Are you pregnant?”, reports Wales Online, reports Wales Online.

But Vicky cheekily responded that her husband hasn’t caught sight of her “lady bits in months”: “No, you’d have to s**g me to get pregnant, mate. Poor Ercan hasn’t seen the sight of my lady bits in months. He’s honestly sick of us.

“I’m like, ‘Well, you’re not getting any now, I’m doing Strictly, mate.'”.

Vicky has also confessed the pressure to start a family has been overwhelming.

Speaking on the Women’s Health Just as Well podcast with Gemma Atkinson and Claire Sanderson, she shared: “My mum told me ‘If not having children is your trajectory, that’s fine,’ which I thought was powerful. I think we’re coming around to the idea as a society that a woman doesn’t have to have children to be fulfilled – and, for me, there’s still a huge question mark over motherhood.

She further added: “I’ve worked to finally get to a place where I’m proud of who I’m becoming, and the thought of taking a break… it scares me.”

KRISTEN Bell fans have been left horrified after she shared a “weird” wedding anniversary post to husband Dax Shephard.

The Nobody Wants This actress, 45, was celebrating being wed to Dax, 50, for 12 years.

In the Instagram post Kristen can be seen with her legs wrapped around the Parenthood star, as he pulls her close to him.

However, it wasn’t the picture that caused a stir with fans – it was the caption.

Writing next to the post Kristen wrote: “Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who once said to me: ‘I would never kill you. A lot of men have killed their wives at a certain point. Even though I’m heavily incentivized to kill you, I never would.’❤️”

But some fans thought this was an “odd” thing to write to commerate such a milestone in their relationship.

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Taking to the comments, a follower wrote: “I don’t get it! That was weird.”

Another echoed this with: “That’s….a very weird thing to say.

This fan added: “What an odd thing to say.”

A fourth said: “May this type of relationship never find me.”

However other fans were loving the post, with one saying: “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve heard! Lol.”

Another added: “I get this, this them. It’s sweet.”

This one commented: “Love you guys!”

NSFW PHOTO

This isn’t the first time that the couple have caused a stir.

In July, Dax shared a NSFW picture of his wife doing a handstand in the nude.

In the snap, Kristen can be seen completely naked – except for a pair of knee-length compression socks – while doing a handstand.

In the caption, he penned, “People might not know everything that happens behind the scenes in order to create an Emmy nominated performance like Kristen’s.

“This may or may not have been a part of her training, but it felt right.

“CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!”

Fans in the comments were divided by the post, with some finding it hilarious, others in awe of Kristen’s toned body, and some other saying how Kristen would be mad.

“Hahaha she’s gonna kick your a**,” joked one person.

“She’s gonna kill you,” echoed another.

“Why the f**k would you post this?” said this fan.

However, this fan said: “I wouldn’t be mad at Dax for posting if I also looked this good! Go girl.”

Another echoed: “I’d love the confidence to cartwheel naked lmao.

BECOMING A COUPLE

Kristen and her husband Dax began dating back in 2007, with them announcing their engagement in 2010.

The couple then delayed their marriage until the state of California passed legislation on legalising same-sex marriage, and when this happened in 2013, Kristen then asked Dax to marry her on social media.

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The famous pair wed at the Beverly Hills County Clerk’s Office in the fall of 2013.

Kristen and Dax share two daughters: Lincoln (born March 2013) and Delta (born December 2014). 

LONDON — Prince Andrew said Friday he is giving up his royal title of the Duke of York and other honors after his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein returned to the headlines.

Andrew, the younger brother to King Charles III, said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace that “the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the royal family.”

“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me,” Andrew said in his statement Friday. “As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”

The news came in the wake of the release of excerpts of an upcoming posthumous memoir from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who has alleged she was trafficked by Epstein and had sex with Andrew when she was 17.

It’s the latest fall from grace for the 65-year-old prince, who had already stepped down from public life in 2019 over his links to Epstein despite his denials of any wrongdoing.

Giuffre died by suicide in April at the age of 41. In the memoir, she details alleged encounters with Prince Andrew, who she sued in 2021, claiming that they had sex when she was 17. Andrew denied her claims and said he didn’t recall having met her.

Andrew, once second in line to the British throne, has long been a source of tabloid fodder because of his links to Epstein, other questionable characters and money woes.

His attempt to refute Giuffre’s allegations backfired during a November 2019 BBC interview. Viewers saw a prince who proffered curious rebuttals — such as disputing Giuffre’s recollection of sweaty dancing by saying he was medically incapable of perspiring — and showed no empathy for the women who said Epstein abused them.

Within days of the interview, Andrew stepped down from his royal duties. Giuffre sued him and the case was settled in 2022 for an undisclosed sum. A statement filed in court said that the prince acknowledged Epstein was a sex trafficker and Giuffre was “an established victim of abuse.”

As well as no longer using the title of the Duke of York, a long-established title that was gifted to him by his mother Queen Elizabeth II at his wedding to Sarah Ferguson in 1986, Andrew will also give up other titles: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order and Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. He will remain a prince, which he has been entitled to since birth.

Andrew’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson will also no longer use the title of Duchess of York. Their children, Beatrice and Eugenie, will remain princesses.

Andrew’s chaotic marriage to Ferguson, widely known as Fergie, lasted a decade though the two remain close, living together at a 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle. He has long been criticized for his opulent, globe-trotting lifestyle.

Andrew had been the poster boy of the royal family for many years, and his romantic links to a number of models and starlets during his youth were widely chronicled in the British press.

His star status within the royal family was at its peak after he flew in multiple missions as a helicopter pilot in the Royal Navy during the 1982 Falklands War when British forces sailed to the south Atlantic to eject the Argentine military that had invaded the U.K. overseas territories.

Lawless and Pylas write for the Associated Press.

Los Angeles County is poised to pay out an additional $828 million to victims who say they were sexually abused in county facilities as children, months after agreeing to the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

The award, posted on the county claims board agenda Friday, would resolve an additional 414 cases that were not included in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement approved this spring. Both the supervisors and the county claims board will need to vote on the payout before it is finalized.

The record $4-billion settlement covered more than 11,000 people, who say they were abused inside county-run juvenile facilities and foster homes as children. The individual payouts will range from $100,000 to $3 million.

The newest payout would break down to an average of roughly $2 million per person. It involves cases from three prominent law firms: Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team, and Panish Shea Ravipudi.

The firms declined to comment on the potential settlement until the vote by the Board of Supervisors.

The announcement follows reporting by The Times that found nine plaintiffs who say they were paid by recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse. Four of them have said they were explicitly told to make up claims. All had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA.

The firm has denied any involvement with recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs to sue. DTLA said previously it would never “encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused” and is conducting new screenings to remove “false or exaggerated claims” from its caseload.

The county said any claims brought by DTLA will undergo an additional level of review before payments are made, citing reporting by The Times. The extra screening “may require plaintiff interviews and additional proof of allegations,” the county said.

DTLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The exterior of Downtown LA Law Group’s offices in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who recently launched an investigation into the $4-billion settlement following The Times’ reporting, said the vetting will ensure “money goes only to the true victims of abuse.”

“Our settlements balance our obligation to compensate victims and treat their experiences with compassion with the need to put strong protections in place to protect taxpayers from fraud,” she said.

County Counsel Dawyn Harrison says she wants to see the law changed so “unscrupulous lawyers don’t get windfalls at the expense of survivors of abuse.”

“The conduct alleged to have occurred by the DTLA firm is absolutely outrageous and must be investigated by the appropriate authorities,” said Harrison. “Not only does it undermine our justice system, it also deprives legitimate claimants of just compensation.”

All cases will be reviewed by retired judges before the money is allocated, the county said.

If a judge believes a claim is fraudulent, the plaintiff will not get any money, the county said Friday. The county’s original plan stated that if the county found a fraudulent claim, the plaintiff could be offered $50,000 to resolve it or remove the case from the settlement so that it could be litigated separately.

The flood of claims was unleashed with the passage of Assembly Bill 218 in 2020, which changed the statute of limitations and gave survivors a new window to sue their abusers. Since then, school districts and governments have faced many decades-old claims, for which they say there are no longer records kept on file to allow for vetting.

Dominique Anderson, pictured above around age 11, is among the plaintiffs who sued the county for alleged sexual abuse and would stand to receive payouts as part of a new settlement announced Friday.

(Courtesy of Dominique Anderson)

County supervisors have been increasingly critical of the law, which they argue has left them defenseless against claims dating back to the 1950s. If the supervisors approve the new settlement, the county will have paid out nearly $5 billion in child sex abuse lawsuits this year — with more to come.

The county is still facing an additional 2,500 cases, which they say will further strain the region’s social safety net. The county recently required most departments trim their budgets to pay for the $4-billion settlement.

“L.A. County and other local governments must balance their obligations to past victims with the need to avoid ruinous financial impacts,” said acting Chief Executive Joe Nicchitta.

It felt like the kind of thing that must happen in Hollywood all the time: a hundred bucks to be a movie extra.

Austin Beagle, 31, and Nevada Barker, 30, said they were trying to sign up for food stamps this spring when someone offered them a background role outside a county social services office in Long Beach. They thought the gig seemed intriguing, albeit a bit unusual.

The offer came not from a casting director, but a man hawking free cellphones. The filming location was, oddly enough, a law firm in downtown Los Angeles.

Like many DTLA clients, Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker signed a retainer agreement that entitles the firm to 45% of their payout.

(Joe Garcia / For The Times)

Maybe this was how actors were recruited here, they figured. The couple had recently moved from the remote ranching town of Stinnett in the Texas panhandle, and the recruiter seemed to appreciate their Southern drawl. They hopped on a bus, excited to make $200 between them.

“They said we’d be extras,” said Beagle, who was unemployed at the time. “But when we got to the office, that’s not what it was at all.”

The couple said they arrived at the lobby of Downtown LA Law Group. A Times investigation published earlier this month found seven plaintiffs represented by the firm who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse, which could violate state law. Two said they had never been abused and were told to manufacture their claims.

Downtown LA Law Group has denied any involvement with the recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs. The firm said in a statement it would never “encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused” and has been conducting additional screening to remove “false or exaggerated claims” from its caseload.

Four days after The Times’ investigation was published, the firm asked for a lawsuit on behalf of Carlshawn Stovall, one of the men who said he fabricated claims, to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled.

The firm requested a second case spurred by Juan Fajardo, who said he made up a claim using the name of a family member, to be dismissed with prejudice on Sept. 9 after Fajardo says he told lawyers he wanted to drop the lawsuit.

Now, with Beagle and Barker, two more have come forward to allege they were told to invent the stories that led to their lawsuits.

Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker said they’d been in Southern California only a few months when they were flagged down outside a social services office where they were hoping to enroll in food stamps. The couple have since moved back to Stinnett, Texas.

(Joe Garcia / For The Times)

The couple said that when they arrived at DTLA’s offices in April, a man came down to the lobby with a clipboard and gave them a piece of paper to memorize before going upstairs. They assumed this was the role they’d be playing — with room to go off script.

“They told us to say that we were sexually abused and harassed by the guards in … Las P? I can’t think of the institution’s name,” said Beagle, who added he was told to say the incidents occurred around 2005.

“The worse it was the better,” he recalled being told.

On April 29, Downtown LA Law Group filed a lawsuit against the county on behalf of 63 plaintiffs, including Beagle and Barker, who claimed they were abused at Los Padrinos, L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Downey. The couple are now part of the $4-billion settlement.

Allegations of potential fraud and pay-to-sue tactics have rocked both L.A. County government and powerhouse law firms, which are scrambling to figure out how to salvage the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

Perhaps no group has been shaken more than sex abuse victims themselves, who fear allegations of false claims could derail what they hoped would be a life-changing settlement.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Jimmy Vigil, 45, who sued the county in December 2022 for alleged sexual abuse by a probation officer at a detention camp in Lancaster.

Vigil said he was repeatedly molested as a 14-year-old and forced to masturbate in front of other teens while the guard watched.

“It makes me feel disgusted,” said Vigil, now a mental health case manager in Ventura County. “You have absolutely no clue what I went through. You have no clue how hard I have strived in life to make it to where I am at today.”

Jimmy Vigil, now a mental health case worker in Ventura, said he was repeatedly molested as a teenager and forced to masturbate in front of other teens.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Barker and Beagle said that after memorizing the card with the basics of their story, they were taken upstairs to a room at DTLA’s office where about 20 people were waiting. Everyone seemed confused, they said.

They “were asking us ‘Hey, did y’all promise to get paid? And we said ‘Yeah, somebody told us that we’d get paid $100 if we come in,” Beagle said. “Everybody was just concerned about getting paid whatever they were promised.”

DTLA said in a statement it has “never directed, nor do we have any knowledge that anyone was ever paid, hired, or brought to the DTLA office, or was asked to memorize a script of any kind under the guise of filmmaking,”

“We are not filmmakers,” the firm said. “No one authorized on behalf of the firm has ever promised or implied movie extra work as a means of retaining clients.”

Beagle and Barker said they were called in together to a glass cubicle where a woman spent 15-20 minutes asking them questions about their story of abuse. Barker said she struggled to come up with details because “it was all made-up stuff.”

Beagle said he thought maybe the staffers in the law firm were also acting, pretending not to know this was “a fake thing.”

“Like, they were testing us all out to see if we knew how to act — just play the part,” Beagle said. “Like, this was a trial thing.”

The couple said they were befuddled at the interaction but figured they’d done enough to get their money; the receptionist told them to come back in a few hours to collect.

The firm said, in some circumstances, it provides “interest free loans to clients once they have retained our services.”

Beagle and Barker said they frittered away two hours at Pershing Square a few blocks away until around 4 p.m. It was only when they came back to the firm, they said, that it became clear there was no movie.

A man named Kevin paid them $100 each, and told them they were part of a massive settlement involving juvenile halls they’d never heard about until that afternoon. The man told them they could get $100 for each additional person they referred to go through the same process, Beagle said.

“We walked out thinking I don’t know how legit this is and we might even get f— in trouble for it,” Beagle said.

Like most sexual abuse lawsuits, the suit was filed using only plaintiffs’ initials. The Times reviewed paperwork that DTLA provided to Beagle and Barker, which they signed in order to become clients on April 21 and to opt into the L.A. County settlement on May 29.

Under the settlement, each plaintiff could be eligible for anywhere from $100,000 to $3 million. Retainer agreements for Beagle and Barker reviewed by The Times show DTLA would get 45% of their payout.

Beagle and Barker said they aren’t banking on getting any money from L.A. County. After all, they said, they grew up in Texas, more than a thousand miles away from the abuse-plagued facilities.

“We need it, but it’s not ours. It’s like finding a wallet,” Barker said. “Return it.”

A Times investigation published earlier this month found plaintiffs represented by Downtown LA Law Group who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue L.A. County over sex abuse. Four now say they were told to make up the claims.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Among some survivors, there is a palpable fear that the fraud allegations will steamroll the settlement, overshadowing the fact that many county-run facilities were home to unchecked abuse and torpedoing their chance of receiving a life-changing sum.

The Times interviewed eight victims for this article represented by Slater Slater Schulman, ACTS LAW Firm, McNicholas & McNicholas, and Becker Law Group. Many said they were aghast at learning the worst years of their life may have become fodder for quick cash.

“It felt like a kick in the gut,” said Trinidad Pena, 52. “For somebody just to lie about it was just sickening.”

On Sept. 18, Pena said, she was eating a pancake breakfast at a homeless services center in Long Beach when she learned she had something in common with a woman sitting on the picnic bench next to her.

Both had filed lawsuits against L.A. County alleging sexual abuse at county-run facilities. Both of them were part of the county’s $4-billion settlement. But she was the only one, she believed, who had actually been abused.

The woman told her she’d been paid $20 to sue by a woman who hung around on the sidewalk outside the community center clutching a clipboard, she said.

The Times could not reach the recruiters allegedly responsible for paying plaintiffs for comment.

Trinidad Pena, who sued in 2022 over sex abuse, said she was jarred to find herself at breakfast with a woman who told her she’d been paid to sue the county.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Pena sued L.A. County in December 2022 over an alleged rape when she was 12 by a staff member at MacLaren Children’s Center, a shuttered youth shelter now infamous for predatory staff. No amount of cash is going to erase the scars from that, she says. But it would help.

Last month, Pena traded in her New Orleans shotgun apartment for the streets of Southern California, where she was raised. The move was, she said, a Hail Mary attempt to get medical treatment through the state’s public benefits for a cyst sprouting behind her right eye that made her vision wobble and her head crackle with pain.

She is currently living on $1,206 a month in and out of her van with a failing shunt in her head, which doctors implanted to treat her cyst. She eats mostly the nonperishable Trader Joe’s snacks she brought from Louisiana.

A six- or seven-figure settlement could help save her life, Pena said.

“I’m going to have myself a hell of a Charlie Sheen party and take a nosedive off a balcony at the Chateau Marmont if I do not get some sort of relief,” said Pena, who says she grew up in foster care near the legendary West Hollywood hotel.

Part of what has made the false claims so infuriating, victims say, is that L.A. County youth detention facilities were indeed home to horrific abuse decades ago.

Kizzie Jones, 47, said she’s on antidepressants as a result of a female probation officer who allegedly molested her twice a week and groomed her with bags of chips and bottles of conditioner.

Robert Williams, 41, says he has no friends — a near-total isolation he said traces back to repeated sexual assaults in the shower he suffered as a teen.

Mario Paz, 39, said a guard molested him under the guise of soothing his genitals with milk after he was pepper sprayed while naked. The abuse, he says, has left him traumatized to the point that he is unable to change his children’s Pampers.

All three of them filed lawsuits against the county alleging sexual abuse by county probation officers.

Mario Paz, 39, said his time at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall left him traumatized and damaged the relationship he has with his own children.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“For someone to capitalize on something that they never endured or never experienced, I think it’s a travesty,” said Cornelious Thompson, a 51-year-old community health worker, who sued the county in December 2022.

When he was around 13 at Los Padrinos, Thompson says he was put on psychiatric medication that knocked him out. He woke up in his unit sore with his pants hanging by his knees, bleeding. It took him years to tell anyone.

He said he recently lost his job with a contractor for the county’s health department due to budget cuts. The county had to slash spending, in part, to pay for the $4-billion settlement.

It was “bittersweet,” he says, losing his job because the county was finally paying for what he said he endured as a teenager.

Only now, a new fear has crept in as two more people say they made up claims: Will he still be believed?

Vicky Pattison has explained why her husband, Ercan Ramadan, is desperate for her to be booted from Strictly Come Dancing – and the impact the show is having on their married life

Vicky Pattison says husband Ercan Ramadan secretly hopes she gets the Strictly boot – so he can see more of his wife again. She says the couple have barely been together since she started on the BBC show as she trains for 14 hours a day – and it’s taken its toll on their sex life.

“After a full day doing the Charleston the last thing you feel like is going home to do the Mattress Mambo,” I’m A Celebrity winner Vicky laughed.

“He’s having to be a bit patient at the moment. I think he’s the only person in my inner circle who is secretly hoping I get booted out. He’s my number one supporter though. I am really lucky but he’s probably hoping he gets sex soon.”

READ MORE: Vicky Pattison suffers chipped tooth and cut face in chaotic Strictly Come Dancing weekREAD MORE: Strictly’s Dianne Buswell breaks silence as Stefan Dennis pulls out of live show

Vicky, 37, admits she’s been miffed with Ercan, 32, this week after he jetted off on holiday without her. “He’s actually in the dog house at the moment,” she admitted. “Obviously I love my husband but he’s been on holiday to see his family.

“We had this trip booked and then I got Strictly so I told him to go because all I’ve been doing is rehearsing, coming home knackered, whinging and going to bed. I told him to go away because he deserved a break putting up with me.

“So he went and I’ve been coming home to an empty house. He’s not there. The dogs are in day care because I’m working 14-hours a day. I’m coming home alone and it’s dark and cold.

“You need that normality coming home to your lovely partner or your dogs when you are out of your comfort zone, scared, lonely, working hard. It’s been really hard without him but he’s back now.”

Dancing the Charleston to A Little Party Never Killed Nobody from The Great Gatsby, Vicky and partner Kai Widd have been getting lots of good luck messages from their celeb pals.

Angela Rippon, who danced with Kai last year, sent her best wishes to the pair. “We did have a call from Angela,” said Kai, 30. “She gave Vicky some words of advice.”

“She’s wicked for an older bird,” said Vicky. Kai continued: “I made it to Blackpool with Angela and I hope to think Vicky and I can go further. Vicky is what Strictly is all about. No dance experience. Starting from scratch. We have such a great relationship.”

Vicky has been open about her struggles with anxiety but say Kai has been amazing at settling her nerves.

“He does say this really lovely thing to me each week, he says: ‘It’s just me and you dancing’, and that helps because I get in my head. Everything I’ve learnt in the week just goes out of me head. I’m thinking about the judges, the audience, the people at home, all the things that are out of my control. So he’s a really good egg like that.”

It’s been a tough week for the pair, as they battled illness. Vicky also suffered a chipped tooth and a cut to the face after having a fall in rehearsals practising a “spicy lift”.

Undeterred, Vicky ploughed on and is eyeing up her best score yet this weekend, with a cheeky plan to try and get it. “I’ve been flirting with Anton (Du Beke),” she revealed. “I just want a seven and I’ve been flirting with him but he’s not bothered.”

Watch the Strictly results tonight at 7.15pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Rebecca Ellis with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors met for hours in closed session with attorneys Tuesday to ponder a legal quandary about as thorny as they come.

What do you do with a $4-billion sex abuse settlement when some plaintiffs say they were paid to sue?

On one hand, the supervisors emphasized, they want victims to get the compensation they’re owed for abuse they suffered at the hands of county employees. That’s why they green-lighted the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history this April.

But the allegations of paid plaintiffs, surfaced by The Times last week, have also raised concerns about potential misconduct. The supervisors stated the obvious Tuesday: They do not want taxpayer money set aside for victims going to people who were never in county facilities.

“The entire process angers and sickens me,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who first called for the investigation into the payout, at the meeting Tuesday. “We must ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”

A Times investigation last week found seven people who said they were paid by recruiters to sue L.A. County for sex abuse. Two of them said they were explicitly told to fabricate claims. All the people who said they were paid had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, which has about 2,700 clients in the settlement.

DTLA has denied paying anyone to file a lawsuit and said no representative of the firm had been authorized to make payments. The Times could not reach any of the representatives who allegedly made the payments for comment.

“We have always worked hard to present only meritorious claims and have systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations,” the firm said in a statement.

The allegations dropped a bomb on the nearly finalized legal settlement, leaving county attorneys and plaintiffs lawyers scrambling to figure out the best path forward.

Some have called for the county to get out of the settlement half a year after announcing it. Technically, it can. The settlement agreement, reviewed by The Times, has a clause that allows the county to pull out unless all but 120 of the plaintiffs agree to the terms — a number attorneys could almost certainly surpass with more than 11,000 plaintiffs.

But the county does not appear to be relishing the thought of blowing up a settlement that took months of negotiations, countless hours in a courtroom and one can only guess how much in billable attorney hours. Many of these cases, attorneys for the county warn, could cost tens of millions in a trial. Clearing them all at once for $4 billion could, believe it or not, end up sounding like a bargain.

No decision was made Tuesday after hours in closed session. The only news out of it was the announcement that Fesia Davenport, the chief executive, would be going on medical leave for the next few months. She will be temporarily replaced by Joe Nicchitta, the office’s second-in-command.

Davenport emphasized the reasons for her absence were personal and had nothing to do with the settlement after rumors immediately swirled connecting the two.

“I am deeply disappointed that I have to address baseless allegations that my leave is somehow related to the County’s AB 218 settlement — which it is not,” she said in a statement. “I am on medical leave and expect to return to work in early 2026.”

Next Tuesday, the supervisors plan to meet again in closed session to grapple with the settlement, according to the board agenda.

In the aftermath of the investigation, some county watchdogs have called for the government to better screen the claims it’s poised to pay out.

“There was a lack of the basics,” said Eric Preven, a local government observer, who said he’s worried about the effect of unvetted lawsuits on the government. “What have we done?”

“We’re glad the supervisors are finally doing their jobs, but what took them so long?” said the Daily News editorial board.

County counsel says they’re working on it. They’ve demanded “evidentiary statements” for each victim and search for whatever documentation exists, the office said in a statement.

“But the simple truth is this: Los Angeles County is facing more than 11,000 claims, most of which are decades old, where evidence is scarce or nonexistent,” the statement read. “Survivors and taxpayers deserve a process with integrity, not one that rewards coercion, shortcuts, or abuse of the system.”

Some victims say they’re concerned the allegations of paid plaintiffs will taint the settlement and delay justice for legitimate survivors.

Tanina Evans, 47, said she spent her childhood bouncing around county-run juvenile halls and group homes. She sued the county after she said she was sexually abused multiple times, including once at Eastlake Juvenile Hall, where she says she was forced to give a staff member oral sex in the shower. When she refused, she said, the staff member had the teenagers she was incarcerated with beat her up.

She said she worries experiences like hers will now be looked at with new skepticism.

“People are so quick to justify not penalizing anyone. Are they looking for a loophole?” Evans said. “And it’s like, no, you guys know it’s real.”

State of play

— PALISADES ARREST AND FALLOUT: Federal prosecutors filed charges Wednesday in the Palisades fire, accusing Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, of starting the initial fire on New Year’s Day that rekindled to become the devastating blaze days later. This latest revelation is fueling debate over whether the city of L.A. or the state of California can be found civilly liable for its role in the fire, our colleague Jenny Jarvie reports.

—NEW FINDINGS: With the federal investigation tied up, Mayor Karen Bass’ office released a long-awaited after-action report finding that firefighters were hampered by an ineffective process for recalling them back to work, as well as poor communication, inexperienced leadership and a lack of resources.

—2022 NEVER ENDS, SCREENTIME EDITION: Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference Wednesday, Bass characterized her former mayoral opponent and frequent critic Rick Caruso as “sad and bitter.” Earlier in the day, Caruso had put out a statement in response to the charges filed against Rinderknecht that called the Palisades fire “a failure of government on an epic level, starting with Mayor Bass.” During a separate appearance at the Screentime conference, Caruso shot back at Bass, saying anger was an appropriate response to the contents of the report. Caruso still hasn’t said whether he plans to run for mayor or governor next year, or sit out the 2026 election.

—BUT THEY WEREN’T JUST FIGHTING! A day later, Bass called on the City Council to adopt an ordinance that would help establish a one-time exemption to Measure ULA, the city’s so-called “mansion tax,” for Palisades fire-affected properties, to speed up sales and spur rebuilding and rehabilitation of the area. Bass’ office said her letter to the council followed a meeting with Caruso, who had “proposed ideas to help address this issue.”

—FAREWELL, FORKISH: LAPD public information director Jennifer Forkish resigned Thursday at the request of Chief Jim McDonnell, amid accusations from the region’s top federal prosecutor that her office was leaking information. But Forkish vehemently denied the “baseless allegation” that she had leaked anything.

—GARBAGE MONEY: City Council voted Tuesday to finalize a dramatic fee increase for residential trash collection, after giving the fee hike preliminary approval back in April. This is the first time the fees have been raised in 17 years and the city was heavily subsidizing the program, at the cost of roughly $500,000 a day.

—PAYOUT IN SPOTLIGHT: The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to launch an investigation into possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in sex abuse litigation. The county auditor’s office also will set up a hotline dedicated to tips from the public related to the lawsuits.

— MUSICAL CHAIRS: Former FBI agent Erroll Southers plans to step down from the L.A. Police Commission, my colleague Libor Jany reported Friday. Southers has been a member of the panel since 2023, when Bass picked him to serve out the term of a departing commissioner. His appointment to a full five-year term was supposed to come before the City Council a few weeks ago, but instead the council continued the matter — setting off a bizarre bureaucratic chain of events that led to Southers essentially being confirmed by default due to city rules and the council’s inaction (too complicated to fully summarize here, but Libor explained it all in his story at the time).

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? Bass’ initiative addressed an encampment on Lincoln Boulevard in Westchester, in partnership with Councilmember Traci Park’s office.
• On the docket next week: The board will vote on a state of emergency over recent federal immigration actions to provide the supervisors with more power to assist those affected by the flood of deportations. And, over in City Hall, the council’s public safety committee will consider the mayor’s appointment of Jeffrey Skobin to the police commission on Wednesday.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

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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