sex

THE ex-wife of rugby star Danny Cipriani has revealed she was sexually assaulted by two men when she was just 12.

Victoria Rose has spoken out about her devastating experience and explained why she believes the justice system must be fair to everyone.

She said she believed Russell Brand’s sentence was too long, but insisted her comments are not about defending the comedian, but about the dangers of a potential miscarriage of justice.

In a passionate statement shared on her Instagram account, Victoria revealed that she knows first-hand what it feels like to be failed by the legal system, despite what she says was CCTV footage capturing the assault.

She said: “When I was 12 years old, I was assaulted by two men. There was actual CCTV footage of the assault.

“The case went to court, and both men were acquitted.

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“So believe me, I know firsthand what it’s like to be failed by the justice system, even when there is factual, recorded evidence of what happened.

“So please don’t mistake my opinion for a lack of understanding or compassion for victims. I’ve been one.”

Victoria went on to explain that her concerns about the Brand case centre on the difficulties of testing evidence many years after alleged incidents took place.

She questioned how investigators could expect to piece together events from nearly two decades ago, arguing that memories fade and defendants can face enormous difficulties defending themselves after so much time has passed.

In a strongly worded post, she pointed to the scale of the police investigation, claiming officers interviewed more than 100 witnesses, took over 400 statements and examined more than 1,400 documents.

She questioned why similar resources were not available to ordinary people reporting more recent crimes.

Victoria stressed: “I’m NOT saying he’s innocent. I’m NOT saying these women are lying.

“I’m saying someone’s freedom shouldn’t rest this heavily on what people remember from two decades ago.”

She also sparked debate by sharing a deeply personal reflection on sexual regret, admitting there were experiences in her own past that she now looks back on differently.

She said: “There are things I’ve done sexually that I look back on and think, FLIPPPPPP, I wish I hadn’t. I said yes, I went along with it, and I regret it now.

“That doesn’t give me the right to turn a consensual experience into a crime. I own my choices. REGRET ISN’T ASSAULT.”

Victoria argued that men who have had what she described as wild or questionable nights in their past could be left worrying about how they might defend themselves against allegations made many years later.

She even suggested the country should consider introducing a 12-month reporting limit for sexual offences – a controversial proposal likely to provoke fierce debate.

She said: “This isn’t about defending Russell Brand. It’s about wanting a system that works for everyone, where nobody loses their freedom without the evidence – REAL EVIDENCE – being properly tested.”

Returning to her own traumatic experience, Victoria insisted she had every right to question how the justice system assesses evidence.

She added: “I’m questioning how our justice system operates, how evidence is assessed and how it can arrive at such vastly different outcomes.

“Because I’ve personally experienced a system where even video evidence wasn’t enough to secure a conviction.

“I think I’ve earned the right to question that.”

Concluding her statement, Victoria said she hoped Brand would receive a fair appeal, adding: “What the f** is this world coming to?”

ANDREW Sachs’ granddaughter has branded Russell Brand a “a seriously unwell sex addict” after the fiend was found guilty of rape and sexual assault.

Brand and Jonathan Ross left vulgar voicemails on the Fawlty Towers legend’s phone after sleeping with his granddaughter Georgina Baillie, who was 21 at the time.

The jibes were made during a series of prank calls broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 2008.

In a series of three voicemails left on Sachs’ phone, Brand and Ross made repeated graphic claims about Brand’s sex life with Georgina.

Later in the show, Ross said if people were offended by the prank calls they were “crazy”.

The scandal, which became known as Sachsgate, saw Brand resign from the BBC and Ross suspended from his TV show for three months.

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On Thursday, Brand was found guilty of rape and sex attacks on a string of victims as part of a depraved campaign to sleep with 5,000 women.

Georgina, now 41, told the Daily Mail it’s now “obvious” to her that Brand is a sex addict, adding “that boy is seriously unwell”.

She said she’s “disappointed” with Brand and wants him to “own up and make the amends” after being found guilty.

“I want those victims to get some help. I really do. It’s possible to recover from this, it’s hard having experienced sexual assault myself- though not at the hands of Russell,” she continued.

The 41-year-old provided a statement to be used in mitigation for Brand’s trial, but it was never used.

Speaking about their fling, she said: “He was seeing loads of women, and I knew that. I was never in any doubt whatsoever that I was one of many but I didn’t really care at the time. He had his drug of choice on tap all day. I was just a piece of that, I was only one line out of many.”

Georgina said she was “completely dazzled by celebrity” when she first met Brand, now 51.

Their consensual fling came at a time when she was in the throes of addiction. He was 10 years older than her at the time.

Both Brand and Ross apologised for their actions later in 2008. The corporation was fined £150,000 by the regulator Ofcom over the lewd jokes.

Georgina said previously: “I was really lost back then. After Sachsgate, Russell made millions of pounds doing a stand-up routine about it and that was very hard and painful for me – I was the butt of the joke, I was young and didn’t know how to process it and I turned to drink and drugs.”

“It was a very unnerving time. Not only had my grandparents heard what I had been up to sexually, which anybody would recoil at, but then it was all the ‘boys will be boys’ attitude.

Brand went on to apologise to Georgina in person 11 years after the stunt, and paid for her rehab.

But she lost out on eight years with her granddad as the pair stopped speaking.

Former burlesque performer Georgina made up with her grandfather before he died aged 86 in November 2016.

In a 2015 interview, Georgina said her grandparents had a lot to forgive her for.

She told the Daily Mirror: “I love and miss them so much. I admit I was a nightmare in my early 20s. I’ve tried to repair my relationship with my grandparents. They were understandably angry.”

A BBC spokesman said at the time: “Russell Brand worked for a number of different organisations, of which the BBC was one. As is well known, Russell Brand left the BBC after a serious editorial breach in 2008 – as did the then-controller of Radio 2. 

“The circumstances of the breach were reviewed in detail at the time.

“We hope that demonstrates that the BBC takes issues seriously and is prepared to act. 

“Indeed, the BBC has, over successive years, evolved its approach to how it manages talent and how it deals with complaints or issues raised.

“We have clear expectations around conduct at work, these are set out in employment contracts, the BBC Values, the BBC Code of Conduct and the Anti-Bullying and Harassment Policy.

“We will always listen to people if they come forward with any concerns, on any issue related to any individual working at the BBC, past or present.”

Brand preyed on women between 1999 and 2009 and used his growing fame – from presenting Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Hollywood movies – to target the victims in a range of locations.

On Thursday,  a jury found Brand guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault after deliberating for eight and a half hours.

The 51-year-old is facing years in jail after the court heard he became a “ruthless, calculated and manipulative” predator as he sought to satisfy his “voracious” sexual appetite.

Brand has been accused of raping two more women and could now face further criminal charges, it was revealed after the verdicts.

The court heard that one of the complaints comes from a woman who dated Brand when he was 30 years old and another was a 16-year-old schoolgirl.

Brand, who told his wife Laura Gallacher “I love you” after entering the dock, displayed no emotion as the jury delivered its verdicts, at the end of a trial that lasted nearly four weeks.

He was remanded into custody and will be sentenced on Monday. The judge told Brand he should expect a “significant custodial term”.

Early in “Queen at Sea,” there’s a sex scene. It’s brief and shows little, but the fleeting moment will inform everything that happens in writer-director Lance Hammer’s crushing second feature. This movie about consent and dementia — and ultimately, far much more — hinges on a questionable act that provokes a hasty emotional reaction. In the process, a family tries to come to the aid of its ailing matriarch, presented with only a series of unappealing options, each more unbearable than the next.

Juliette Binoche is beautifully fragile as Amanda, the dutiful daughter of Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall), who herself has been married to second husband Martin (Tom Courtenay) for 18 years. Amanda and her teenage daughter Sarah (Florence Hunt) visit the older couple’s London home one morning, shocked to open their bedroom door to find Martin on top of Leslie, thrusting away. But embarrassment quickly gives way to anger for Amanda: Leslie has advanced dementia and her doctor has told Martin that he can no longer have sex with Leslie because she doesn’t possess the mental acuteness to give consent. Furious at her stepfather, Amanda phones the police, hoping the authorities can put a scare into him.

But Amanda’s call has unintended consequences. When the police arrive, they arrest Martin, advising Amanda that she take her mother for a “forensic medical examination” — or, as Amanda puts it bluntly, a rape exam — to ensure she has not been injured. Amanda’s rage quickly morphs into panic because she knows how dependent the childlike Leslie is on her husband, who functions as her primary caregiver. She just wanted to teach Martin a lesson, but soon, social services intervene to determine whether the elderly couple has to be separated for Leslie’s safety.

Even before the police becomes involved, Hammer hints at his film’s tense tenor. You can feel it in how he shoots the house’s severely winding stairs — dangerous for Leslie and Martin to navigate — from occasionally vertiginous angles. The camera rarely moves as we spy charged conversations from a distance, sometimes from another room or from a floor above the characters. We’re intruders, stealing glimpses of a private domestic drama not meant for our prying eyes.

Unlike previous terrific pictures about dementia (such as “The Father”), “Queen at Sea” is less about the crippling condition than it is the fulcrum for a troubling exploration of several topics: mortality, love, parenting and the grim futility of everything. Similarly, although Hammer takes seriously the question of consent, he widens his narrative’s lens to provide a thoughtful, complex view of the issue. Martin adores his wife, insisting that their doctor is wrong and that Leslie, in fact, does understand her sexual urges. To back up his argument, he informs Amanda that, frequently, it is her mother who initiates sex. But is that because dementia has robbed Leslie of the ability to modulate her urges? “Queen at Sea” offers no answers, leaving the viewer as uncertain as Amanda, who wants to protect her mother but cannot deny how drawn Leslie is to her kindly husband.

At the film’s heart is a terribly relatable family conflict in which each character assumes that they know best. Binoche plays Amanda with a surfeit of tenderness for her mother, who goes from being lucid to infantile without warning. (Calder-Marshall poignantly channels the silent helplessness that consumes those with dementia, making her an unstable chemical compound always on the verge of explosion.)

Just as fiercely loyal as Amanda, Martin vainly advocates for his beloved, knowing that Amanda has power of attorney and, therefore, the upper hand. Courtenay gives a marvelous performance suffused with simmering rage: To Martin’s way of thinking, it was Amanda’s foolish overreaction to seeing them have sex that led to all these problems. That feeling of betrayal resides on his face for the rest of “Queen at Sea,” even as he and his stepdaughter negotiate a wobbly truce concerning Leslie’s future, which includes an unexpectedly fraught trip to a care home.

Hammer has not made a film since 2008’s “Ballast,” another spare drama about brittle lives. Eighteen years later, his formal command remains formidable. Eventually, Hammer starts cutting away from the central narrative to focus on Sarah as she hangs out with friends and spends time with a cute boy, James (Cody Molko). At first, these carefree interludes seem to be a welcome respite from “Queen at Sea’s” choking anxiety. But as Leslie’s situation grows increasingly complicated, Sarah’s emerging love story proves to be a bittersweet, ironic counterpoint. Maybe Sarah will find love and great sex — like her parents and grandparents before her — but the shadow of despair that has descended on her family will someday come for her. She’s still too young to know how impossible aging can be.

RUSSELL Brand has been found guilty of sex attacks on a string of victims as part of a depraved campaign to sleep with 5,000 women.

The 51-year-old became a “ruthless, calculated and manipulative” predator as he sought to satisfy his “voracious” sexual appetite.

Brand preyed on women between 1999 and 2009 and used his growing fame – from presenting Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Hollywood movies – to target the victims in a range of locations.

The three counts he was found guilty of today include a sexual assault at a Soho bar, where Brand was accused of touching a woman’s breasts while they were talking about Big Brother in 2004.

Brand has also been found guilty of sexual assault at a radio station in a “violent, sloppy and frenzied” attack in 2005.

He raped a woman at his Hampstead townhouse in 2009, telling her to “clean up after herself” afterwards, it was found.

The jury also found him guilty of sexually assaulting a Channel 4 worker in 2009, who was forced to give him a massage.

He was found not guilty on three other counts – attempted indecent assault and two counts of rape.

The trial at Southwark Crown Court was told the offences took place when Brand’s “public profile was taking off”.

Instantly recognisable by his trademark skinny jeans, back-combed hair and heavy eye make up, Brand became known for falling out of nightclubs with female admirers draped from his arm.

Some of his victims were lulled into a false sense of security by Brand and believed the comedian was gay as part of his “strategy” to dupe women.

Once they were behind closed doors, the fiend’s mask would drop and he’d become a “monster” hell-bent on fulfilling his rapacious quest to bed 5,000 women.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC said the star was “childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met” and only cared about his “birth right to orgasm”.

She told jurors all the women were “wholly unconnected” but each “described a pattern that resonates with who Brand was in the period 1999 to 2009”.

Ms Karmy-Jones added: “Six women who have nothing to gain, who have not sought the limelight, who have not looked out for some form of publicity, who have not taken part in a documentary, not made claims for compensation.

“There is no benefit to them, apart from perhaps some closure by coming before you and telling you their accounts of what happened to them so long ago.”

One woman who Brand raped at his home told how the comedian made her feel like a “piece of meat”.

She told she had met the celeb after seeing his show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London with a friend in 2009.

He told her his age range was from “16 to death” before she was invited to a backstage bar where they kissed and had a threesome, it was said.

The woman said she went to his home the next day where Brand told her: “Your hair smells funny”.

He then made her take a shower and wash her hair while he watched through a glass shower cubicle.

Once in the bedroom, the woman said they had consensual sex after he told her: “This is the best decision you’ve ever made, well done”.

She told the court Brand raped her and looked “absolutely f***ing horrified” – making her think he would apologise.

But the woman added: “But actually what he said was ‘you need to clear up the mess that you’ve made’.”

Another woman was in her 20s working at a radio station in the mid-2000s when Brand sexually assaulted her.

She told the court Brand was a “perfect stranger” to her at the time and said his assault was “violent”, “sloppy” and “frenzied”.

The woman also said she had locked eyes” with one of his entourage and was “pleading with her” to stop what was happening.

One victim said Brand “lunged” at her and grabbed her breasts when they were talking about Big Brother in a Soho bar in July 2004.

At the time, he had a “big, weird grin” on his face and “quite strongly” pulled her into the toilet where he orally raped her, she told cops.

When she protested, Brand told her: “Oh come on don’t be a spoil sport, you want to.”

The sixth woman worked for Channel 4 when she met Brand while he was filming a project.

She said she was informed Brand was “unhappy” and the situation would not improve unless she gave him a massage.

The woman said he walked up to a chair she was sitting on and placed his head directly into her groin area.

During his evidence, Brand wore a crucifix and wrung his hands together as he claimed his “promiscuous” past had been twisted into the allegations made against him.

He had admitted having an “obsession” with sex when he was younger but claimed consent is “non-negotiable” and “more important than sex itself”.

Brand added: “I do recognise I have been a very determined and focused man and with regard to the latter, with women, of course, which is the subject of my trial.

“I’ve been persuasive, seductive, begging and flirting, and dedicated a lot of my life to what seems now beyond-reckless philandering and idiocy.”

He admitted it had been “wrong” of him to use his fame for sex but denied he had ever forced himself on a woman.

Brand also tried to paint himself as someone who had reformed but whose life had been “consumed” by the allegations.

He moaned about how he had lost friends and said he was unable to persuade anyone to give evidence on his behalf.

But Brand had one supporter in the public gallery – his wife Laura Gallacher – sister of sports presenter Kirsty – who took to the stand herself after weeks of walking into the court hand-in-hand with Brand each day.

The mum gushed over the star – calling him an “amazingly attentive husband” and a “kind and a wonderful father”.

She told jurors “I love him very much” and claimed they always have sex “at my pace”.

Discussing when they began dating in 2007, Laura added: “I was not experienced, I had only had one partner before Russell.

“I felt entirely cared for and looked after by Russell.”

She told jurors Brand “respected my view” if she said she did not want to do something.

Laura said she was 19 when she met Brand, who was 31 at the time, at Edinburgh Festival.

The mum, who shares three children with the comic, revealed they broke up in summer 2007 when she became “very aware” of Brand’s promiscuity.

She added: “When I met him I was aware that he liked women, and I was aware towards the latter half of that year that he was engaging with other women.

“I wasn’t interested in having a relationship with him if he was sleeping with other people.

“I was invested, we both had told each other we loved each other but it was clear it was difficult for him to be monogamous.”

She said they got back together again as a couple in 2015 and married in 2017.

Brand, who displayed little emotion during the trial, was seen in the dock beaming as his wife spoke on his behalf.

He even laughed when she told the court: “We do have many friends and there are colleagues, and we are grateful for those people.”

In recent years, Brand had re-invented himself into a born-again Christian influencer – an image he bolstered in court by clutching a bible each day.

But his new life in the US came crumbling down when the allegations came to light in a Channel 4 Dispatches and he was thrust back into the public eye.

Brand is now facing a lengthy prison term when he is sentenced.

THE UK’s best restaurants used to be ruled by cocky French chefs with big hats and even bigger bellies.

But that all changed thanks to a trio of rock ‘n’ roll Brits.

Kitchen mavericks Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal turned the stuffy industry on its head with their trendy establishments, where members of the Spice Girls, Oasis and Hollywood’s finest would compete with high-society folk for the most sought-after dinner reservations going.

New BBC documentary Rise Of The Rockstar Chefs explores the rise of the three men who were blazing a trial — when they weren’t barking at their sous chefs.

Gordon sums them up as “council house rebels with a f***ing cause”, while Marco says: “Chefs have always been naughty. They were naughty before me, and they’re naughty after me.

“But the likes of Gordon and Heston made it rock ’n’ roll.”

According to Gordon, it was his mentor Marco who exhibited the most rock-star behaviour.

The Leeds-born chef won legions of new admirers by posing semi-naked in black-and-white snaps taken by provocative photographer Bob Carlos Clarke for his cook book White Heat.

And some customers couldn’t get enough of Marco, including a female diner on a date in Harveys, his restaurant serving French cuisine in Wandsworth, South West London.

Gordon, 59, said: “Marco left service, ran through the restaurant, ran upstairs, jumped in the cubicle, did whatever in the bathroom, and then jumped through the window of that bathroom.

“He then dropped down the f***ing skylight, back on to my hot plate having done whatever.

“And then she then went back into the restaurant and continued eating her dessert with her boyfriend.”

Marco also had form for fighting with customers, according to Gordon.

During his time running Harveys — Gordon’s first-ever chef’s job — seeing scruffy-haired Marco brawling in the restaurant would be a common sight, especially if a diner had the nerve to point out something was wrong with their meal.

Gordon recalls: “I remember, I think it was my second week, this customer had complained the pigeon was overcooked and Marco said to him, ‘Do me a favour. Dinner’s on me, and what you didn’t spend in my restaurant, buy your wife some new clothes.’

“This guy said to him, ‘Say that again, what did you say to me?’, and then this guy started walking towards Marco, knocks into me, and then they start going at it.

“This customer, he’s like sprawling all over the floor and I’m boning out my pigeon.”

Nick Munier, who was Marco’s maitre d’ at Harveys, where actor Oliver Reed would often be found lying drunk on the floor, revealed what happened if a customer asked a waiter for salt and pepper.

He added: “What we used to say is ‘You’ve ruined your own meal, we won’t be serving you any more food.”

“We’d start to clear the table and everything will be clear and the guest would be left embarrassed with nothing in front of them, and the only thing they could do was leave.”

Munier also witnessed Marco chuck the entire contents of his cheeseboard trolley against a wall because he was unhappy with how it looked.

He recalled: “No one was to clean them and he wanted me to see these cheeses through service, so that next time I don’t make the same mistakes.”

Celebrities were not safe from Marco’s wrath either.

Actor Nigel Havers said he was booted out of The Canteen, which Marco set up with Sir Michael Caine in 1992 in Chelsea Harbour, for commenting about waiting time.

He revealed: “I went there in the first week and it took three hours to get the first course.

“Someone came over and said, ‘How was the meal?’ I said ‘I don’t really remember the food, it took three hours’. Marco looms up and says, ‘Get out of my restaurant’.

“It was scary, and you’re paying through the nose to be harangued by this chef, this mad fool.”

Despite their rock ’n’ roll personas, neither Gordon nor Marco claim to have dabbled in drugs, although other chefs in that era certainly did.

Gordon says: “Chefs were becoming heavy drinkers, drugs were getting involved in the industry.

“Heart attacks every other week.

“Everyone thought you could stay up all night and do drugs and cook.

“That was the opposite of where I came from.”

Marco, 64, added: “I’ve never taken drugs in my life and I didn’t drink until I was 41.”

Gordon and Marco’s tumultuous relationship and rivalry is very much at the core of this three-parter, which also celebrates 60-year-old Heston’s visionary role and how he quietly equalled their three Michelin star haul from his Fat Duck restaurant in Berkshire.

The trio meet in person for the first time in decades in the third episode, but it is the coming together of Gordon and Marco which is likely to provide the most drama, given the mighty fallout between them.

The pair came to blows inside Harveys during Gordon’s last service in October 1989.

Marco secretly did not want to lose his protégé, and the skirmish became famous as it was the first and only time Gordon cried in a kitchen.

The F-Word star explained: “I got absolutely pummelled.

“It was almost like, if I can’t have you and own you, I’m going to destroy you.

“There was an issue with the timing, I think it was something to do with the red mullet and I answered him back.

“He was angry, literally two fists, chef jacket buttons flying everywhere, and he’s shaking me on this coffee machine and then a glass bowl of coffee fell and smashed everywhere, and the kitchen went silent.”

When Marco was quizzed about the alleged ruckus, he said: “Not true.”

Gordon continued: “I bawled my eyes out. I was f***ing upset.

“I was in shock that I was leaving and this level of aggression — he knew I could run this restaurant without him and it was a relationship that was coming to an end and he wanted to finish me before I got to somebody else.

“I’ve never forgiven him for that.

“It still brings back incredible moments when you read ‘the chef who made Gordon Ramsay cry’ — why is that a headline?

“Did I f**k up massively and destroy his reputation? Nothing of the sort.

“Was it justified? No, it wasn’t.

“It was just another scenario where he wanted to prove he was better than me and he wanted to dine out on it. You sad c***.”

Marco responded again: “It’s not personal, it’s service.”

Gordon eventually got his revenge on Marco by not only equalling his Michelin stars total but by becoming a household name worldwide.

Both Gordon and Heston profited from the era where the chefs became the stars by landing big-money TV deals, with the former getting further exposure by fronting a cooking show across the pond.

Marco attempted to downplay their achievements, saying in the documentary: “I don’t do TV.

“They like to manipulate, they like manufactured drama — it’s called reality TV.

“Don’t blame me for that.

“Have it, Gordon — it’s all yours.”

But that didn’t stop Marco from hosting ITV’s Hell’s Kitchen for two series from 2007 to 2009 before the show was axed, much to Gordon’s delight given he hosted the debut series in 2003.

Gordon added: “I couldn’t believe my luck.

“I was so happy for Marco to pick up the slack and step into my shoes.

“All that s**t you have given me for doing TV, now you’re following in my footsteps.

“Boy, has the tide turned.

“That was the start of Marco’s demise on TV because Hell’s Kitchen tanked.

“Of all the f***ing people, how many times I’ve told him, do not take sloppy seconds.”

• Rise Of The Rockstar Chefs starts on BBC Two on Thursday at 9pm.

While growing up in Palo Alto, it was not uncommon for animator Lisa Hanawalt to pretend she was a horse. This game of make-believe was a way for Hanawalt to escape her “burdensome and awkward” body, as she writes in her candid new illustrated memoir, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses And Sex.” “But when I was a horse, I was powerful, graceful, and gorgeous.”

Although Hanawalt might be an unapologetic horse girl, she really hates a horse pun. So when it came time to choose a title for the book, she decided to keep it literal. “This is just the most true version of what this book actually is,” Hanawalt says about the utterly confessional nature of her book’s title, which groups two seemingly unrelated subjects that her mind wanders to when she’s bored. “They’re the two most mentally engaging things I can imagine,” she writes as a self-described “anixous lil freak.”

“I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex” by Lisa Hanawalt

(Drawn & Quarterly)

Sitting in her Los Angeles home, the designer of such adult animated touchstones as Netflix’s “BoJack Horseman,” “Long Story Short,” and her personal creation “Tuca & Bertie” is drinking from a mug of tea as we chat over Zoom. When I ask what people’s responses have been so far to her book’s cheeky title, she says, “They just laugh. A lot of them are just like, ‘Well, I have to read that.’”

In many ways, “I Can’t Stop” represents a culmination of Hanawalt’s shtick for truth-telling via colorful anthropomorphized characters. The 43-year-old’s sketches are famously loose, bright and unrefined. Topics like weird body stuff, sex and horniness are never off the table. A typical drawing might feature an animal-human hybrid (say, a bird head on a human body) doing something utterly mundane while Hanawalt’s inner monologue appears in thought bubbles to reveal an intensely personal thought most people would never say out loud, let alone publish in a book.

“They all have personal things in them, some more overtly than others,” Hanawalt says about her particular oeuvre, which includes 2013’s “My Dirty Dumb Eyes,” 2016’s “Hot Dog Taste Test,” 2018’s “Coyote Doggirl” and 2020’s archival collection “I Want You,” as well as countless contributions over the years to publications like the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Vanity Fair and the now-defunct women’s humor blog the Hairpin.

“I think [‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex’] fits in with ‘My Dirty Dumb Eyes’ and ‘Hot Dog Taste Test’ in that it’s another kind of mishmash book, and it all goes together in my mind,” Hanawalt adds of her nonlinear storytelling, which in this book intersperses memories of couples therapy and egg-freezing with drawings of a sloth dancing with a bear. Or a deep dive on the filmography of Kevin Costner.

Hanawalt has never shied away from getting personal, but there’s no question that “I Can’t Stop” takes her disarming and revelatory style to a new level. “I think it just needed that extra layer of me going through a midlife crisis and breaking up with my partner and going through all this weird stuff. It’s a weird combo with the horse stuff because my love of horses is so pure.”

An illustration from “I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex” by Lisa Hanawalt.

(Drawn & Quarterly)

If Hanawalt ever felt embarrassment at being a horse girl (and she certainly has — as she got older, Hanawalt eased off of the horse games out of fear of being bullied), that shame has since evaporated. About eight years ago, as she faced a combination of career burnout and gut-health issues, Hanawalt started taking riding lessons in an attempt at self-care. “There’s something about riding that clears my head and eases my physical pain, for a moment,” she writes in a comic titled “How I Got a Horse.” When her then-partner (comedian and podcaster Adam Conover) noted how relaxed Hanawalt seemed when she’d return home from riding, he urged her to consider buying a horse of her own.

So Hanawalt reactivated her dormant Facebook account and began scrolling through local horse sale groups. That’s where she discovered Juniper (“Juni” for short), a 2006 Norwegian Fjord Mare. “I bought her somewhat impulsively,” Hanawalt says. “It was a huge lifestyle shift. Having a horse is often very stressful because it’s like a pet you have to rent an apartment for. It’s expensive, and they injure themselves … But then, being with her, I’m present in a way that I never am in the rest of my life. It just feels nice to care for another creature, human or animal.”

Spending time with Juni and a cast of new friends at the stables was physically and emotionally therapeutic for Hanawalt, particularly as new issues began to sneak up on her. For instance, she began to wonder if she still wanted to remain child-free. Simultaneously, her long-term relationship of 14 years was beginning to come apart. She describes in the book how she and Conover made a Hail Mary attempt at ethical nonmonogamy — an experience she’s glad to have had, even if Hanawalt jokes today about how she’s “a true polyamory fail.” She adds, “I don’t think it’s for me at all, and I never did. But I was willing to give it a go [as a] last-ditch effort to save something I really cared about. I think that’s the case for a lot of people.”

An illustration from “I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex” by Lisa Hanawalt.

(Drawn & Quarterly)

Hanawalt admits how anxious she was to talk about her breakup in the book — so much so that she considered avoiding it altogether. “I was dancing around it, and then I was like, ‘I don’t need to explain every little part of it,’” she says. Hanawalt even solicited creative feedback from Conover, who responded by playing her bits of a new stand-up special, which showcased his perspective of their breakup (that special will be the forthcoming “Big Divorce Energy,” out Oct. 23 on YouTube).

“It’s really nice that we still have that kind of relationship,” Hanawalt says of her ongoing connection and friendship with Conover. “Because I really value his opinion and input. He’s just a really smart, creative person, and that was always a strong point in our relationship. I also just wanted him to be OK with how I was representing us. I’m still very protective of that.”

The latter half of “I Can’t Stop” finds Hanawalt processing the end of her relationship, dipping a toe back into the dating world, and exploring fertility options such as egg-freezing. Despite its heavy subject matter — one especially tough passage looks back at a sexual assault Hanawalt experienced when she was an adolescent — “I Can’t Stop” is packed with absurdist doodles that keep the mood light without seeming dismissive. For example, as she describes how Juni behaves when she’s in heat, Hanawalt considers her own overwhelming “livestock mode,” which once included a hyper-fixation on Kevin Costner. This is all laid out in a section titled “Costner Watch,” where Hanawalt decides to consume every film the actor ever made.

Artist and author Lisa Hanawalt with her beloved horse Juniper.

(Annie Noelker / For The Times)

“Yeah, I was losing my mind,” Hanawalt laughs at “Costner Watch.” “I don’t know. It was a cope, in hindsight.”

As she prepares to celebrate the release of “I Can’t Stop” with a six-date book tour, Hanawalt can’t say for sure if she’s answered any existential midlife questions. She jokes that her eggs are “still on ice.” She’s working on several new animation projects, though isn’t sure at this point which, if any, will move forward. (It probably also doesn’t help that the animation industry is currently experiencing a severe downturn, with record-high unemployment among even the most seasoned creators. “It’s a weird time,” she says.) To round things out, Hanawalt says she’s “selling hats” and even working with a perfume maker to eventually release a “horsey-themed” fragrance.

Hanawalt also has no clue what being a self-proclaimed horse girl even means in the year 2026. The other horse people she hangs out with at the barn, where Juni lives, come from “every possible income level and political belief, and they’re all kind of shoved together,” Hanawalt tells me. “It’s kind of like ‘Lord of the Flies.’

“It’s just so fun to have a community with people and be able to trust them,” Hanawalt says of the friendships she’s made through caring for Juni. “We help each other. Just to be able to go out on the trail and talk about blow jobs or whatever with women I truly connect to … They’re some of the coolest people I’ve ever met in my whole life.”

All that is to say, Hanawalt has grown more comfortable in not quite knowing what’s next. “You’re never fully happy or fulfilled,” she says. “And that’s part of being alive.”

Catch Lisa Hanawalt live Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. at Skylight Books in conversation with Priyanka Mattoo. 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.

Brodsky is an L.A. culture and music writer. Her biography of Stevie Nicks, “Lessons & Lace,” published by Penguin Random House, is out now.

KENDALL Jenner has denied ever dating fellow model Cara ­Delevingne — but says being a lesbian would be “amazing”.

The US beauty, 30, sees the Brit, who she has been pals with for around 12 years, as a “sister”.

She said: “There’s definitely a rumour that she and I dated or something in the past, which is not true.

“I love Cara.

“She’s my sister, and that never happened.”

Kendall, who is seeing Aussie actor Jacob Elordi, 29, spoke out in the latest episode of US reality show The Kardashians.

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She said: “She kind of like brought me under her wing in a way and made me feel really safe and welcome in the modelling world.”

She said that “people think I’m a lesbian to this day.

“I’m not”, but she has not ruled out the idea of same-sex love.

She went on: “For the record, I think being a lesbian would be fun and amazing and easier.

“I just have never had a desire to have sex with women.

“Never say never, right?”

COMEDY star Katherine Ryan has branded herself “lazy” when it comes to her sex life.

In a new interview with The Times, the comedian shed light on how often she and her high school sweetheart husband Bobby Kootstra sleep together, having previously announced that they have sex “exactly twice a month… just in case I get pregnant.”

“It’s still not loads. It’s probably once a week, sometimes twice a week, but still not loads,” she told the newspaper. “I just don’t try – I’m a lazy shag.

“I’m really vanilla and Bobby is quite vanilla. We’re well matched in that way.”

Katherine added: “But the things I’ve seen and heard on my travels, my God.

“I just want to have nice, brief, marital sex. That’s it!”

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Katherine and Bobby, both 43, married via civil partnership in 2019.

Despite dating as teens, they split and reconnected later in life.

Katherine has a daughter – Violet – from a previous relationship, but now also shares three children with Bobby – Fred, Fenna and Holland.

Previously talking about sex with The Telegraph, she said: ‘I do think it’s important.

“But in reality, working parents who have small children are so knackered by nighttime, intimacy is just off the table.

“We have to find stolen moments in the day like before heading to work or during a nap, which isn’t always very alluring.”

Last year she spoke to The Sun ahead of the second season of revamped fly-on-the-wall show At Home With Katherine Ryan.

“It’s a real in-depth, all-access, no-holds-barred look at our family, my life and my marriage,” explained the Canadian-born star.

In it, she and Bobby attend their first marriage coaching session where they also discussed their sex life.

“I was surprised to find that I am a lot more prudish about my sex life than I thought,” she admitted. “I think when you talk about sex as a greater theme on stage, you have the shield of humour to dance around.

“You go: ‘Oh, well, I was making a joke!’ But when your husband is sat opposite a marriage coach and he’s like: ‘We had intercourse in the bathroom,’ I was like: ‘Oh God. What’s the punchline?’

“There’s no punchline to hide behind!”

Katherine recently got into hot water with a comment she made about Victoria Beckham, having to explain herself and clear the air over it.

The BBC had upheld complaints after she made the offensive joke about Posh Spice while hosting an episode of Have I Got News For You last year.

Speaking in an episode that aired on November 7 in 2025, Katherine made reference to a 2013 private email sent by David Beckham, where he allegedly used the word ‘c***’.

She said on the show: “I don’t know that we are allowed to broadcast the C-word, but you did reference Victoria Beckham earlier and we’ll allow that.”

The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit said “there was no such justification” for the comment which two viewers had complained was “gratuitously offensive”.

They added that the word was justified in relation to David’s alleged use of it, but not in reference to his wife.

Now an edited version of the episode has replaced the original on the BBC’s streaming service.

Katherine publicly apologised to Victoria in an Instagram reel where she shared a screenshot of her message to the fashion designer, elaborating that the context around the slur had not been intended as offensive and that she “actually loves Victoria Beckham”.

A New Mexico judge on Friday ruled in favor of Emmy winner Timothy Busfield, tossing out multiple child sex abuse charges against the actor.

During a hearing, Judge Joseph A. Montano granted Busfield’s motion to dismiss his indictment, citing prosecutorial misconduct and errors that undermined the grand jury process. According to the order, “the prosecuting attorney failed to act in a fair and impartial manner” and proceedings thus far “were conducted in a manner that violated grand jury statutes designed to protect the structural integrity of our grand jury system.”

State prosecutors had indicted Busfield in February and charged him with four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child. The since-dismissed charges stemmed from his alleged behavior with two actors, who are brothers, on the set of the Fox crime drama “The Cleaning Lady.” The actor, known for “The West Wing” and “Thirtysomething,” has pleaded not guilty to those charges.

While a legal representative for Busfield did not immediately respond Friday to The Times’ request for comment, a spokesperson for the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office said prosecutors are “evaluating our options to determine how we will proceed.”

A New Mexico judge issued a warrant for Busfield’s arrest in January, citing two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and a single count of child abuse. Busfield was accused of inappropriately touching the child actors during his time as an actor, director and producer on “The Cleaning Lady,” according to an affidavit filed by New Mexico officials.

One child actor alleged Busfield first touched his “private areas” multiple times on set when he was 7 years old, according to the complaint. He said that Busfield touched him inappropriately again several times when he was 8. The affidavit also detailed a police interview with Busfield in which he suggested that the boys’ mother might have sought “revenge” on the director for “not bringing her kids back for the final season.”

Busfield filed his motion to quash the indictment in June, alleging the court refused to provide members of the grand jury with additional information and that prosecutors refused to allow jury members to hear from other witnesses, among other claims, according to court documents.

“The State treated the grand jury not as an independent body, but as the arm of the prosecution our courts have forbidden,” the motion says. “The resulting indictment must be dismissed.” Prosecutors rebutted Busfield’s allegations in a response to the dismissal and asked the court to deny his motion.

Before Friday’s order, a jury trial was scheduled to begin May 10, 2027.

Two women filed a lawsuit Thursday against former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, saying they were sexually exploited by him and other men in violation of a federal anti-trafficking law.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Orlando, Fla., comes nearly two years after the House Ethics Committee said the Florida Republican had regularly paid for sex, including once with a 17-year-old girl, purchased and used illicit drugs, and violated state laws while a member of Congress.

Gaetz had left office when the report was released and denied wrongdoing. But the report helped to tank his nomination to become attorney general in President Trump’s second administration.

Two women said they were in their early 20s in 2017 when they met Gaetz through Joel Greenberg, who was a tax official in Seminole County and is now in prison for a raft of crimes, including a sex crime.

Gaetz provided drugs and paid the women for sex, out-of-state travel, lodging and other expenses, according to the lawsuit.

“Much of the conduct alleged against me is false,” Gaetz said in response.

“The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance,” he said in a statement.

Gaetz also appeared to mock the women on the social platform X, sharing a 2018 social media photo of the backs of three women in bathing suits looking at the ocean in the Bahamas.

“I’m shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram,” he said Thursday.

The lawsuit also names Greenberg, another man and businesses tied to Greenberg’s family.

“Every part of this venture ran on an exploitative power imbalance,” the women’s attorney, Spencer Kuvin, said in the lawsuit. “On one side stood a sitting congressman, an elected tax collector, and a former state legislator, men with public office, private homes, and money to spend. On the other stood young financially vulnerable women in their early twenties.”

Gaetz hosts a political talk show on One America News Network. He was recently appointed to the board of Triumph Gulf Coast, which oversees how Florida spends money recovered for damage from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

White writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 14, 2026 10:13 AM PT

COLUMBIA, S.C. — U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s former fiance and two of his business associates were charged with sex crimes and voyeurism on Wednesday over an episode the South Carolina congresswoman described in detail during a speech last year on the House floor about how crimes against women are not investigated thoroughly.

John Douglas Osborne committed sex acts on a 23-year-old incapacitated and intoxicated woman while Mace’s ex-fiance Patrick Bryant and Eric Bernard Bowman watched, according to sworn statements by agents from the State Law Enforcement Division, which brought the charges.

The men talked about who would assault the woman beforehand, took photos and recorded the assault, which was also seen on a security system feed at the home in Sullivan’s Island, an affluent suburb of Charleston, state agents said. The woman had fallen into a pool and was passed out on a couch covering herself with a pillow, agents said.

Another woman who happened to be watching the feed saw the assault and took pictures and wrote about it in a journal, police said. Mace and Bryant were not yet engaged at the time of the October 2018 assault.

Osborne, 46, is charged with first-degree assault and battery and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Bryant, 53, and Bowman, 46, are each charged with voyeurism.

Along with the voyeurism charge, Bowman was also charged with obstruction of justice after agents said he did a factory reset on a cellphone he knew investigators were seeking in a search warrant, and with publishing the name of a victim of criminal sexual conduct after posting the victim’s name and a video of her on X.

Bryant didn’t return a message seeking comment on Wednesday, and attorneys who have been listed as representing Bowman and Osborne in other cases did not immediately return messages.

Mace, a Republican, described the assault at length in a nearly hourlong speech in February 2025 that named the men and described other photos and videos found when she looked at Bryant’s cellphone when they were still together.

Mace said she “accidentally uncovered some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable. We’re talking about rape, non-consensual photos, non-consensual videos of women and underage girls, and the premeditated, calculated exploitation of women and girls in my district.”

At the time, Bryant completely denied the allegations. “I take this matter seriously and will cooperate fully with any necessary legal processes to clear my name,” he told the Associated Press.

The State Law Enforcement Division didn’t say if their investigation into any of the men is continuing.

After the arrests, Mace released a statement detailing the 25 bills she says will protect victims of sexual assault, harassment or discrimination, including in retaliatory defamation and libel lawsuits that may result from allegations they bring to light.

The Republican, who is leaving the House this term after losing her bid to be South Carolina governor, introduced a proposal this week to require that anyone who brings such a case and loses must pay attorney fees for the defendant.

“Protecting women and holding predators accountable isn’t a slogan. It’s been one of my top priorities in Congress. For too long, survivors have faced broken systems while predators exploited loopholes and walked free,” Mace said in her statement.

Kinnard and Collins write for the Associated Press.