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KATIE Price has revealed son Harvey is getting his first tattoo aged 24 – leaving sister Sophie horrified. 

The former glamour model, 48, was discussing her plans for more ink during the latest episode of her podcast when she told how her eldest son has been asking for his own tattoo. 

Speaking on The Katie Price Show, she said: “Harvey keeps asking… he wants a little frog done [on his hand]. A tiny little frog.”

Sophie, 36, made her feelings on the subject instantly clear, saying: “No. Don’t let Harv have a tattoo.”

Mum-of-five Katie replied: “But he really wants one.” 

Shaking her head, Sophie said: “No. Don’t do that to him, Kate.”

bling back on

Katie Price puts her ring back ON and reads book about ‘lying to yourself’

TOO PRICEY

Katie Price hit by financial blow & says she won’t pay Lee Andrews’ prison fines

After a pause, Katie explained how she and children Junior, 21, and Princess, 19 – who she shares with ex-husband Peter Andre – were planning to also have frogs, famously Harvey’s favourite animal, inked on them. 

Harvey lives with ADHD, autism, genetic condition Prader-Willi Syndrome, and septo-optic dysplasia, which causes blindness.

Defending her decision to allow Harvey to have the tattoo, Katie said: “He is 24, he is a man. I know he’s got complex needs. 

“Harvey knows what a tattoo is because he sees them on me and has seen me get them done.

“Where do we stand on this? Because if he wants it, why can’t he?”

Sophie argued: “But Harv’s mental age isn’t 24, is it? It’s a lot younger. So I would think of it in that respect. He can’t make a decision without you or someone else there.”

Katie confessed that she is struggling with where to draw the line when it comes to Harvey’s capability to make certain decisions. 

She said: “This is a good conversation. If it was him signing a form, then no.”

Katie then explained how Harvey is very aware of his popularity on social media, where he has 348,000 followers, and revealed he asks for his artwork to be posted on the platform for his fans. 

Clearly wanting to allow Harvey to live as normal a life as possible, Katie also shared plans to take him to Ibiza after he expressed a desire to go to a nightclub. 

Harvey’s father is ex-footballer Dwight Yorke, who Katie has called out repeatedly through the years for lack of involvement in their son’s life.

Ted Lasso star Annette Badland played villain Babe Smith in EastEnders for three years, and her portrayal was so convincing that the BBC received serious death threats on her behalf

BBC bosses issued a rare “red alert” safety warning to former EastEnders actress Annette Badland after a crazed fan sent death threats that were deemed credible by security experts.

The individual behind the chilling threats was never definitively identified, Annette said. Speaking on Sally Lindsay’s podcast, Annette explained on Sally Lindsay’s podcast: “Because I was leaving, they racked up my villainy and I actually got thrown out of, literally, thrown out of the pub by Danny and cursed them.

“But I had death threats. I got the call from the BBC security saying, ‘We’re getting death threats. There are red alert code words in this, so we have to take it seriously’.”

She was warned that she should only leave her house if it was absolutely necessary, and that if she did go out, she shouldn’t tell anyone where she was going.

Annette says she was effectively under house arrest throughout the six-week investigation: “They eventually traced it to just outside Liverpool. It was in a school, but they didn’t think it was a child. But because it was a public computer they didn’t feel they could get much further.”

Despite that harrowing conclusion to her EastEnders tenure, Annette says she cherished her time on the BBC soap. She holds particularly warm memories of Danny Dyer, whom she describes as “bright, kind-hearted…and daft.”

She recalled Danny’s extraordinary generosity, revealing he taught her to “say the C-word,” which proved tremendously useful when she moved on to Ted Lasso and was handed a script riddled with crude language. She joked: “I said to myself, ‘I’ve worked with Danny Dyer, I can do this’.”

Ironically, however, that “very funny” scene ended up on the cutting-room floor and has never been seen by the public.

It was an unscripted moment, early in her EastEnders stint, that made the show’s writers recognise that in Babe Smith, they had the foundations of a truly iconic villain: “I had a scene with Tim [Timothy West, who played Stan Carter on the show] and he was watching the television.

“I’d been in love with him when I was young and he’d married my sister and I didn’t like that – that was the cause of all my pain and anguish.

“It wasn’t scripted,” Annette added, “but I picked up the remote control and turned the television off. I told him what I thought, put the telly back on, and left. And I think they thought, ‘Ooh, she can be nasty’.”

What followed was three years packed with drama, reaching its peak when Babe was locked inside a freezer and left for dead by an unknown attacker, who was ultimately unmasked as Lorna Fitzgerald’s Abi Branning.

In a dramatic farewell, Babe was caught red-handed stealing from the Queen Vic’s safe, but it was her savage outburst at Linda [Kellie Bright] – branding her a “stuck-up cow” – that saw Mick Carter finally remove her from the pub, and banish her from Walford for good.

As the threat of artificial intelligence continues to creep into the music industry, major record labels are proposing new guidelines for how music generated by artificial intelligence should be treated on the charts.

The coalition of labels, which includes the industry’s biggest players like Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, as well as some smaller independent labels like BMG and Concord, is trying to establish a new framework for official charts that better separates human creativity from purely synthetic and unauthorized AI creations.

The proposed guidelines unveiled Wednesday say that AI music would qualify for the charts if the AI service used to create it is “properly authorized and lawful” and if it doesn’t violate any copyright laws. The track also has to be “substantially human-made,” and it shouldn’t raise concerns about stream or chart manipulation.

“The principles are intended to provide a unified roadmap for the consideration of official chart compilers, industry bodies and affiliated stakeholders worldwide,” wrote the coalition. “Together, the organizations proposing these principles stand ready to work with charts and industry bodies around the world to discuss these principles and support implementation of these important safeguards for human creativity by charts and industry bodies.”

The labels are hoping that official charts can both “accommodate appropriate use of AI” and maintain “an authentic celebration of human artistry.”

AI-generated tracks are becoming increasingly prevalent on streaming platforms.

Recently, Spotify added a verification badge to distinguish human artists from AI, and Tidal banned AI-generated music from receiving royalties on its platform. Deezer, a French streaming platform, was the first to detect, tag and exclude AI-generated music from algorithmic recommendations.

The company recently disclosed that up to 90,000 AI tracks are being uploaded to the platform daily, representing more than 50% of its new music uploads.

Despite the coalition’s effort to introduce AI guardrails, some labels involved have already inked partnerships with AI companies such as Suno, Udio and Nvidia. Several music advocacy groups have previously raised concerns about artists facing “non-negotiable AI usage clauses.”

To know Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s work is to feel his love for danger.

Inexplicable malevolence, dread-filled moods and worrisome behavior haunt his genre-speckled oeuvre, from 1997’s unnerving serial-killer freak-out “Cure” through his vengeance-fueled internet cautionary tale “Cloud” from two years ago.

“What makes for good movies is a plot driven forward progressively through things that actively happen,” the 71-year-old director says recently over Zoom from his home in Tokyo, using a translator. “Audiences need to be drawn to this idea of: What will happen next?”

His fans don’t necessarily get an explanation for the unease Kurosawa sometimes generates, but it’s part of the draw. That mindset has made him a horror maestro for over three decades. Outside that genre, he enjoys a reputation for being an acutely psychological chronicler of contemporary anxieties, as in his award-winning 2008 drama of job loss and family secrets, “Tokyo Sonata.”

Now, though, Kurosawa has not only made his first film set prior to Japan’s modernizing Meiji era — a category of feudal period dramas known as jidaigeki — but an old-fashioned murder mystery to boot, complete with solutions to satisfy the most die-hard Agatha Christie reader.

Masahiro Motoki in the movie “The Samurai and the Prisoner.”

(Janus Films)

“The Samurai and the Prisoner,” which Kurosawa adapted from Honobu Yonezawa’s acclaimed 2021 novel (it recently premiered at Cannes), unfolds during the fractured Sengoku period in the 16th century, the same era as one of his favorite jidaigekis, “Throne of Blood,” directed by his unrelated namesake, Akira Kurosawa. In a besieged mountainside castle, rebellious Lord Murashige (Masahiro Motoki), trying to consolidate disparate clans of warriors, engages in a battle of wills with his nemesis’ emissary, Kanbei (Masaki Suda), whom he’s imprisoned. But when a succession of murders threatens to undermine his leadership, Murashige turns to his crafty hostage for help.

The result, broken up into seasons and marked by an impending sense of doom, is a multipart puzzle box as intricately folded and tucked as the traditional clothing on display. But it’s also a savvy, deliberative portrait of leadership in a fractured time, with a unique takeaway: Knowing oneself is as essential to the job as knowing who one’s friends and enemies are.

Kurosawa had always wanted to make a jidaigeki — the furthest he’d ever gone into the past was his World War II film “Wife of a Spy” — and yet creating one from scratch sounded too difficult and expensive. But the book’s scenario of a put-upon samurai leader compelled to unravel a series of puzzles to keep his castle’s unity appealed to his taste in a particular crime-solver: someone representing a wider system of responsibility and codes, rather than the classic American private eye.

“I’m drawn to police detectives, not private detectives,” he says, pointing to the duty-bound, badge-wearing protagonist in “Cure,” a Criterion-anointed classic now held in the same pantheon of serial killer tales as “Seven” and “Manhunter.”

“Police are part of an organization, with orders from above that make them responsible for figuring out the crime. If they could, they’d love to live their life peacefully without conflict, but they can’t because of their profession.” He considers his disinterest in gumshoes working on their own a quintessentially Japanese perspective. “Why try to solve a mystery and in the process end up in all these horrible situations, when you can just quit?” he asks with a wry smile.

Masaki Suda in the movie “The Samurai and the Prisoner.”

(Janus Films)

In “Samurai,” Murashige hews closer to someone overwhelmed by responsibility. Says Kurosawa, “Murashige is neither a police or private detective. It’s that he is in a minor position of power, but to maintain order, he must let go of that power to solve the mystery. It’s not curiosity leading him. The chain of mysteries is a trial he must go through.”

It’s a gauntlet made thornier whenever Murashige, who believes in mercy over violence, engages with Kanbei, chained in a dungeon but with a dangerous mind nonetheless. “In that era, hierarchy was incredibly important, very visible,” says Kurosawa. “If one person is standing, the rest must be kneeling. With Kanbei and Murashige, there is always a shifting of the power, and when they begin to see eye to eye, suddenly we don’t know who holds the power.”

To play the wily Kanbei, Kurosawa enlisted his young “Cloud” star Suda, whom he calls a genius. Directing Suda was its own destabilizing experience, he says.

“He had an almost demonic, devil-like quality and it was hard to tell if the lines he was saying as Kanbei were truths for the character or complete lies — or if he didn’t know,” recalls Kurosawa. “It was mesmerizing to me, his words becoming something that we increasingly can’t trust.”

His interest in Murashige, meanwhile, a real-life tactician fictionalized here as an under-the-gun leader presented with myriad problems, poses the question: Did Kurosawa make a film about directing films? “I never thought about that, but that might be,” he considers. “I’m constantly having to ask things of people, ordering people around, sometimes negotiating. But filmmaking is something I love. There are times when I wish I could escape those scenarios, but I can’t. I’m always held back by that sense of responsibility. That’s how I’ve been working for decades. It’s the first time I’m probably saying that out loud, but the various contradictions I hold within myself as director are reflected in Akira Murashige.”

Yuriko Yoshitaka, left, and Masahiro Motoki in the movie “The Samural and the Prisoner.”

(Janus Films)

Kurosawa is a late bloomer as an auteur. His breakthrough, “Cure,” hit Japanese theaters when he was 42. But he’d been directing features since 1983, first, Japan’s homeground adult movies called “pink films,” then, in the 1990s, direct-to-video yakuza gangster films known as “V-cinema.” (That’s “V” as in video.)

“It was a good training ground,” he remembers. “They had to be under 90 minutes, had limited shoot days, had to use certain actors, had to have scenes with yakuza. I learned that when you keep to the constraints you’re given, there’s also a kind of freedom. I had no personal interest in yakuza but I had to think: What’s the most unique yakuza I could come up with?”

With V-cinema behind him, Kurosawa came to exemplify the J-horror phenomenon with 2001’s “Pulse,” an ultra-disturbing, early tech apocalypse about online ghosts that was infamously bought by Harvey Weinstein and held from American release for years so it could be remade. Moving on from the trauma of his Hollywood flirtation, he’d distinguish himself with festival awards and a varied career.

But Kurosawa isn’t exactly precious about his filmography. “If possible, I’d love to forget all of my past works and go forward with new films with a completely fresh perspective,” he says. “However, I realize that often I’m repeating past themes. I think of this as something that’s very unfortunate.”

That doesn’t mean he won’t ever return to the horror genre, which he still likes and tries to keep up with. “I have a feeling viewers wouldn’t find scary what I find scary,” he worries, with a smile. “But it excites me that young directors are exploring the genre’s possibilities.”

Kurosawa can sound philosophical about the challenge each new film represents. Making one means coming from “a place of zero, from nothing.” As he puts it, “What one wants to do is a pretty unstable concept. You could want something today and not tomorrow. So instead of chasing that, I should be considering: What is correct?”

There is a professorial tone to Kurosawa. He taught for 18 years at Tokyo University of the Arts, including to future Oscar winner Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).

“I’ve probably said something similar to my students,” he acknowledges, adding that he and Hamaguchi were closer to likeminded friends than to student-teacher. “But in filmmaking, he never listened to a single thing I said. I would tell him to make adjustments and he was always concrete in what he wanted to do. And I thought that was very admirable.”

Now, they’re festival peers — both had films at Cannes this year — and Kurosawa’s cinematographer on “Samurai” was Sasaki Yasuyuki, who had previously worked with Hamaguchi. Kurosawa takes the opportunity for a friendly jab. “I thought, ‘I’m going to steal him away from Hamaguchi.’ And I was successful!”

Now, when he meets younger fans and budding filmmakers, their enthusiasm excites him, though it seems to cause him some consternation. Apparently, a lot of people pirate his films so they can be completists. “They tell me this happily,” he says. “I have mixed feelings about this, because they shouldn’t be doing that, but there’s a sparkle in their eye, and I have to accept they really wanted to see my films. So while carrying these complex feelings, I tell them, ‘Thank you.’”

Kurosawa is also of two minds regarding what he frequently hears from Japanese film students, that their goal is getting into top festivals, winning awards and securing global recognition.

“Maybe they need to interrogate what’s in front of them more closely,” he says. “I question it a bit.” He pauses. “I want to say, ‘Have you thought about making a 90-minute yakuza film first?’”

In a summer of Gen Z-driven blockbusters and ancient Greek juggernauts, the 38th entry in the Marvel universe can’t help smelling like your uncle’s sweaty Comic-Con ball cap. At least the core ensemble of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is still young, even after four “Spider-Man” movies together in nine years — unlike the mature super squad in last summer’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” who boasted an average age of 42.

“Brand New Day” stars buzzy A-listers Tom Holland and Zendaya as Peter Parker and MJ Jones-Watson, sweethearts estranged after he was forced to save the multiverse by wiping all memories of his existence at the end of 2021’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home”. Adding drama to the couple’s onscreen breakup, the actors recently got married in real life. So kudos to the extras who steal scenes from them in the background, flailing like avant-garde dancers when a vicious mental parasite leaps from grandmothers to joggers to security guards on a quest to find something awful. Choreographed by Nathan Kim, the practical effect looks fantastic.

Fittingly for a film with body-snatching, director Destin Daniel Cretton (“Short Term 12,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”) has made a story about letting people in. New York City’s brain-barging antagonist (“Stranger Things’” Sadie Sink in a fun character reveal) disrespects personal boundaries. Meanwhile, Peter, scarred by the murder of his dear Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) in 2021’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” keeps to himself in fear of revealing his secret identity. Forced to skip college while his former high school friends MJ and Ned (a lovable Jacob Batalon) attend MIT, this Spider-Man endures the rise-and-grind routine of an anonymous gig worker. His phone app pings; he puts on his protective mask and heads out wearily to fight crime. It’s a living. Barely.

Peter’s only physical connection to humanity is via webs and fists. Otherwise, he’s restricted to impersonal helpers — a detective (Liza Colón-Zayas) willing to take his phone calls, an AI assistant (ew) and a network of facial recognition cameras (double ew). He’s so isolated that his closest friend is a frenemy: Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, an equally lonely brute.

Screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers add too much padding with their need to include the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the new Black Widow (Florence Pugh) and the government’s increasingly radicalized Department of Damage Control before this December’s “Avengers: Doomsday.” Perversely for a film with a two-hour-and-25-minute running time, the climax still feels rushed.

Cretton must shoulder an overburdened franchise. His film is likable as heck but never quite achieves liftoff. The soundtrack’s needle drops of Tame Impala and Bad Bunny add swagger. Better, Cretton seizes small moments to put his stamp on this installment. Just as Zendaya’s aspirationally chill MJ insists she won’t work for some “soulless corporation,” he’s quietly made a humanist super-flick: A shot of agents in black SUVs separating a telekinetic family could come right from the news. Likewise, Cretton allows the Punisher his rage while silently noting that the vigilante’s gun-toting tactics usually make things worse.

Peter’s inner despair gets externalized when he invents a genetic inhibitor neck implant to tamp down his sensitivity. The arachnid hormones in his body are surging, causing his pupils to turn black and his temper to explode. His emotions — and that sticky goo in his wrists — are about to burst. On a related note, between this second spider-puberty and Holland’s supporting turn as a mother-henned Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” will Hollywood ever allow 30-year-old Holland to play a grown man? I suppose when he proves he can carry his own movie. For now, he keeps squandering his Marvel breaks on whiffs like “Cherry” and “Uncharted.”

At least he’s an earnest, open-faced hero — the best live-action Spider-Man of the bunch. Holland holds onto his buoyancy even as his character battles the blues. His Peter fends off despair by insisting that he’s fine. The bruises on his body disagree. So does the glowing inhibitor on his spine, which seems to ask if we’re too quick to prescribe medication for our problems.

Cretton is the rare former indie filmmaker who pushes himself to stage clever action sequences. The web-slinging scenes in “Brand New Day” are designed to let the audience ride Peter’s mood swings. When he’s up, we soar from girder to girder in a tight POV that allows us to barely make out the tips of his boots. When he’s unsteady, every leap is perilously close to a free fall.

During the best fight scene, Peter takes on a squadron of gravity-defying ninjas in a brawl that takes place as much in the air as on the ground. Brett Pawlak’s camera spins a cartwheel alongside a flying kick, then plunges into the eye of a tornado of bad guys trapped in a web. Overall, there’s too much use of hurled rubble. But I dug how Cretton gooses our spidey senses with dramatic sound effects. The thud of a hammering Hulksmash rattles our seats; later, a cocked rifle is so crisp we perk up like a dog hearing the mailman.

“Brand New Day” manages a few strong images: a dive-bombing pigeon, a cityscape at dusk, a close-up of headstrong MJ getting yanked through the sky, still determined not to let a stranger sweep her off her feet. And, of course, there’s that army of extras each making the most of their five seconds of fame. After order is restored just enough to prod us to a sequel, Cretton circles back to those civilians in an end credits montage of normal New Yorkers hanging out on stoops and playing chess in the park. These faces couldn’t matter less to the plot. But Cretton’s affection for people over pixels is his entire point.

Almost five years ago, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” swung into theaters in the teeth of a COVID-19 surge and did what almost nothing else could that winter: drove cooped-up moviegoers to cinemas and opened to one of the biggest domestic debuts on record, pulling in $260 million.

This weekend, Peter Parker is back — a little older, more world-weary and facing a far less forgiving market.

The genre’s floor has dropped out since then.

Annual box office revenue for superhero movies is down, on average, about $3.5 billion, about half of what it was during the pre-pandemic years of 2017 to 2019, according to data from the FranchiseRe industry newsletter. Sony Pictures is betting that more real-world stunts, a relatable narrative and Spidey’s lasting popularity are enough to put “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” on the other side of that trend.

Whatever the approach, the commercial appetite is there. Pre-sales for the film, which stars Tom Holland and Zendaya, have been robust, and industry tracking estimates an opening weekend haul of at least $195 million in the U.S. and Canada. If that holds, it would be the year’s biggest domestic debut, beating Walt Disney Co. and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” ($159.7 million). The movie cost about $225 million to produce and is produced by Sony’s Columbia Pictures, Marvel Studios and Pascal Pictures.

“This movie takes a grounded, emotional approach to the story, and I actually believe that’s what audiences are hungry for,” said Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony’s motion picture group. “It’s got all the whiz-bang wow visuals. But at its heart, it’s more a superperson movie, if you will, rather than a superhero movie.”

“Brand New Day” picks up where the last film left off. A spell has erased Peter Parker from the world’s memory — the price of undoing the public exposure of his identity — leaving him a stranger to his best friend, Ned, and to MJ. Without those friendships, he pours himself into his crime-fighting work to stave off his loneliness.

That feeling of being adrift without knowing where to turn is what the filmmakers built the movie around.

“We’re all really isolated from each other,” said Amy Pascal, one of the film’s producers who has overseen the entire franchise. “That kind of longing for connection between people and not knowing how to make it happen and living in a world where we become more and more remote, matched the moment that people are going through.”

The smaller scale was also a reaction to what came before it. “No Way Home” brought back Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in a time-bending multiverse crossover, and there was no topping it.

“That was a movie that was 20 years in the making,” Pascal said. “There was no way to be bigger than that. So we went smaller. We went internal instead of external, and we found the bigness in that.”

Peter Parker’s isolation is what drew director Destin Daniel Cretton, who made 2021’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and was an executive producer on the Marvel Television series “Wonder Man.” He said he related to the pain and tragedy the character goes through, and to the idea of a superhero story that felt like it was happening in a real place.

The production’s rule of thumb became trying to execute scenes practically, in front of a lens, wherever possible.

That included a tank chase shot largely on a street in Glasgow, Scotland, on the first day of filming, complete with a rig that let an actor swing with explosions going off behind him. Thousands of people showed up to watch, which was “a big adrenaline rush on day one,” Cretton said.

A later set piece — Spider-Man against a group of red-clad ninjas known as the Hand — was shot at a former prison outside London.

Cretton’s insistence on real locations has an argument behind it. At a moment when audiences want to know what goes into moviemaking and are increasingly unsure whether the myriad images they’re looking at were generated by artificial intelligence, the answer is visible labor.

“Right now, more than ever, I think it’s important for audiences to really feel that people made the thing that they’re watching, and people went through an experience to make the thing they’re watching,” said Cretton, who grew up watching behind-the-scenes segments on his favorite DVDs. “All of that, I think, is just as important as the thing that they’re watching.”

Effects alone don’t carry a superhero movie — or any movie, for that matter — anymore, Cretton said.

“The action can be great, the [visual effects] can be fantastic, the explosions can be huge, but if there isn’t some type of emotional spine that connects with people where they are and what they’re going through, it’s just another big, explosive movie,” he said.

The slump itself isn’t in dispute. Many of Marvel’s newer films haven’t come close to the heights its predecessors once cleared, and this year, movies like Amazon MGM Studios’ “Masters of the Universe” and Warner Bros. and DC Studios’ “Supergirl” underperformed in theaters.

What’s driving it is contested.

“I don’t think it’s fatigue of the genre,” Rothman said. “I think it’s the audience wanting new things and less predictability.”

For Marvel, long treated as the genre’s gold standard, part of the problem was volume; a dense web of interconnected films and TV shows that made casual viewers feel like they had too much homework to do before a new premiere.

The likeliest near-term explanation for that estimated $195-million opening, though, may have less to do with tone than with supply and brand. “Brand New Day” is the first Marvel superhero film since last year’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” and Spider-Man remains one of the most commercially durable characters in the genre.

The calendar is also less accommodating than it was. The latest “Spider-Man” installment opens against Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and holdovers including “Toy Story 5” — a considerably more crowded field than the thin, pandemic-era slate its predecessor benefited from on the way to $1.9 billion.

And the movie has a second job. With Disney and Marvel’s “Avengers: Doomsday” arriving at the end of the year, “Brand New Day” has to leave audiences wanting it.

“It’s got a lot riding on it,” said Steve Granelli, a teaching professor and division head of communication studies at Northeastern University. “Not just in terms of this being yet another ‘Spider-Man’ film, but also this being a huge storytelling device in the larger [Marvel franchise].”

Which is the tension at the center of the pitch. The filmmaking team went internal on purpose, and built a movie about a young man nobody remembers. It also has to set up the largest external event on Marvel’s calendar.

Gladiators star Cyclone, whose real name is Lystus Ebosele, has featured on the BBC show since January 2025 but is now said to have been axed along with two others

Another one bites the dust… Cyclone has become the third professional to be axed from BBC show Gladiators. The TV star, whose real name is Lystus Ebosele, joined Bradley and Barney Walsh’s BBC revival of the 1990s classic last year, and has so far filmed two series.

But just as production got underway at the Utilita Arena in Sheffield for the next series of the reboot, Lystus, 25, is said to have been cut from the line-up and is not impressed with bosses.

A source told The Sun: “Cyclone won’t be back and she’s not happy about it. She’s now cut all ties with the show – it’s a pity as fans absolutely loved her.” The powerlifting champion has also unfollowed the official Instagram account for the programme and deleted all pictures of herself on the show.

News of Lystus’ exit comes just days after it was reported that Matty Campbell, who stars as Bionic, and Karenjeet Kaur Bains, better know to fans as Athena, had also been axed from the show, having missed out on a considerable amount of the last series after both suffering injuries.

A source said: “They won’t film this year for the show but could be back for the tour, depending on how they recover from their injuries.”

Earlier this year, Giant, 40, whose real name is Jamie Bigg, departed Gladiators amid much controversy when he went public with then-girlfriend Taylor Ryan, 28, and it emerged that she worked as a model on OnlyFans.

Execs were quick to air their disapproval, and the athlete said that he was “shocked and disappointed” by the move, which he directly linked to his partner’s racy work. It was then reported that body builder and fitness instructor Ahmad Rabus, 37, would act as his replacement, and it became apparent that he would be one of several new faces on the show.

Team GB medallist Tabby Stoecker, along with fitness influencer Florence Wong and World’s Strongest Man champion Tom Stoltman are reportedly in the lineup, whilst The Sun also reported that former England rugby star Joe Marler would be making an appearance.

The new series will introduce a soon to be revealed event, as well as the other well known challenges such as Duel, Hang Tough and the Eliminator. Popular additions from the previous series — Everest, Destruction and Suspension Bridge — are also set to return after receiving a strong response from viewers.

Produced by Hungry Bear Media in partnership with MGM Alternative UK, part of Amazon MGM Studios, Gladiators remains one of the BBC’s flagship entertainment programmes.

The most recent series, which came to an end in March, attracted an average audience of 4.6 million viewers across BBC One and BBC iPlayer over a 28-day period, while continuing to perform particularly strongly among younger audiences.

Kalpna Patel-Knight, BBC’s Head of Entertainment, said: “Since Gladiators burst back onto screens in 2024, it’s been amazing to see families across the UK rally behind the contenders and champion our phenomenal Gladiators as the true stars of Saturday nights.

“With a brand‑new series confirmed and another celebrity special on the way, audiences can look forward to even more colossal clashes, even more edge of your seat excitement and plenty of opportunities to raise those foam fingers high once again.”

The Mirror has contacted representatives for comment.

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A 15-year campaign led by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to conserve Watts Towers has run out of budget at the same time that a $22-million renovation of the campus is poised to take flight. The situation highlights what community organizers and the site’s leadership say is a piecemeal approach to the protection and preservation of one of the city’s most important cultural landmarks.

For decades, the city of Los Angeles and private foundations have invested in preserving the towers, the 102-year-old masterpiece of folk art built by Italian immigrant Sabato “Simon” Rodia. But while the landmark itself underwent years of painstaking conservation, which was recently halted at 90% complete, the arts campus surrounding it evolved in fits and starts.

Now, after 14 years of planning, an equally ambitious investment is being made to transform the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus (WTACC), which has served as an essential cultural and educational center for more than 50 years. The work will mark the first major upgrade of the WTACC since it opened in 1970, and leaders hope the transformation continues uninterrupted until it reaches the finish line.

“This is about investing in the people of Watts and creating a space the community can be proud of,” Mayor Karen Bass wrote in an email. “Thanks to the dedication of our state, county and local partners, philanthropic supporters and community organizations, we’re one step closer to creating a greener, healthier and more vibrant campus that honors the legacy of Watts while serving generations of Angelenos to come.”

The campus renovation is slated to break ground in October, with completion targeted before the 2028 Summer Olympics. The project is funded through a patchwork of public and private sources, including a $10.1 million investment from the Bezos Earth Fund, the climate philanthropy organization founded by Amazon Executive Chair Jeff Bezos.

The redesign will reshape how visitors experience the campus. More than 30,000 square feet of park space will be added along E. 107th Street, while climate-resilient landscaping will reduce flooding, improve stormwater management and create cooler public spaces. More seating and shade will be added to its amphitheater, new public art will be commissioned, and additional walkways, gathering areas and 200 trees will make the towers the physical centerpiece of what will be a 5-acre campus.

“It’s been the right time for a long time,” said WTACC Director Rosie Lee Hooks of the project’s long gestation during a recent interview.

A girl plays near the Watts Towers at the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus, which is poised to undergo a $22-million renovation just as funding for the restoration on the towers themselves has run out.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The center offers free art, film and music classes for students and seniors, houses an art gallery and hosts two annual music festivals. Thousands of artists, filmmakers and musicians have passed through its doors as students and instructors.

Hooks, who has led the center since 2010, said the project’s long timeline reflects more than bureaucracy.

“It took so long because we’re in Watts,” she said, noting that the neighborhood has faced decades of disinvestment dating back to the 1965 Watts uprising. “People are still scared to come down here. However, our community is very, very rich in culture.”

That history of underinvestment is reflected in the campus itself, supporters say.

“This is the story of development in Watts and other communities of color in Los Angeles, where racist planning practices, combined with a lack of investment in the city’s arts and culture facilities, create a haphazard approach to management and design,” Tori Kjer, executive director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust (LANLT), wrote in an email. The organization has partnered with the city on the campus’ redesign since 2012, when planning began to incorporate a vacant lot adjoining the towers into the campus.

The landscape design echoes Rodia’s own artistic process. Over the course of 33 years beginning in 1921, he transformed thousands of disparate objects — including mosaic tiles, plates, glass, shells and pottery — into 17 interconnected structures, one of which rises more than 99 feet.

“Assemblage is the practice of creating something meaningful from many distinct parts,” Sara Zewde, founder and principal of Studio Zewde, the landscape architecture firm designing the campus, wrote in an email. “Rather than erase those histories and make the campus feel as though it had always been a singular space, we wanted the landscape to celebrate them.”

A model created by landscape design firm Studio Zewde of the proposed renovations to the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus. Groundbreaking is set to begin in October on the $22-million project.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The campus’ landscape has remained largely unchanged since WTACC opened. Since then, several buildings and public artworks have been added, but LANLT’s Kjer described the site as a “hodgepodge of concrete, worn-out planting areas and grass … with a disjointed flow and limited way-finding.”

Around the time that LANLT partnered with the city, a separate proposal to build a skate park on the adjoining lot drew community opposition and, according to Kjer, delayed the project by about four years. The skate park ultimately opened a few blocks away, allowing the parcel to become part of an expanded campus.

The WTACC project gained momentum in 2021 when California’s Proposition 68 Statewide Park Program awarded a $4.5 million grant. The following year, Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson) secured an additional $4 million in the state budget.

Once that funding was committed, “it was just a domino effect,” Gipson said, helping attract additional public and private investment.

“This will be a space that will be nourishing for the soul,” said Daniel Tarica, general manager of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, which manages the towers. “We’re finally going to be able to make the whole campus useful.”

A building at the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus, which will receive a $22-million renovation beginning in October. Community members and supporters say the work has been a long time coming.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Watts Towers attract about 40,000 visitors a year, according to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, and were designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1990. In June, the site was added to the World Monuments Fund’s “Irreplaceable America” list of 10 endangered historic sites in the United States.

While Gipson hopes the renovated campus will attract additional international visitors, he also wants more Angelenos to discover one of the city’s defining cultural landmarks.

“The towers tell a story about Los Angeles,” Gipson said. “We want people to know that the Watts Towers are part of who Los Angeles is.”

Tarica said the project is designed to serve neighborhood residents as much as tourists.

“It’s a huge resource, and we have fought as a department, and as a city, to make sure that we have the funding to continue teaching … and programming,” he said.

A statue of Watts Towers creator Sabato “Simon” Rodia stands at the entrance to the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus, which is getting a $22-million renovation beginning in October, with the goal of completion in time for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

For Hooks, however, the renovation’s success will ultimately be measured by its impact on the surrounding community.

She sees the campus as filling a void left by decades of cuts to arts education while providing a place where residents can gather and learn.

“Our community cannot afford art, especially now with all of the issues around health, around food, around jobs, around ICE separating families,” she said.

The project’s funding is restricted to renovating the campus and does not include the conservation of the Watts Towers themselves. LACMA Deputy Director Diana Magaloni said about $412,000 is needed to finish the project. The city has allocated $150,000 for ongoing maintenance and monitoring, and both Magaloni and Tarica said they remain optimistic the conservation campaign and campus transformation will be completed before Los Angeles welcomes the world for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

“It would be amazing to have this funding to be able to do the campus restoration and [the towers restoration] in preparation for us to be on the world stage,” Tarica said.

Kavinsky, the French electronic musician and DJ whose moody single “Nightcall” scored the hit film “Drive,” has died. He was 50.

French newspaper Le Figaro and TV station BFM reported that Kavinsky, born Vincent ‌Belorgey, died from a suspected stroke. Paris prosecutors investigated and found “no suspicious elements,” they said.

Kavinsky was a defining act of the Paris electronic scene of the 2000s and 2010s, whose neon-smeared synths and noirish atmospheres lent themselves to L.A. freeways and Montmartre nightclubs alike.

Adopting a droll persona — a red-eyed electronic producer who returned from the dead after a Ferrari crash — Kavinsky was a major figure in the second wave of the “French touch” dance scene.

His popular breakthrough came with “Nightcall,” a collaboration with CSS’ Lovefoxxx and Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. The song was a propulsive theme of Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 film “Drive,” a brutal and romantic revenge thriller beloved for its slinky, retro-futuristic soundtrack. Kavinsky performed the song to close out the 2024 Paris Olympics, performing with the French band Phoenix and the Belgian singer Angèle.

While he only released two studio LPs, including the 2013 singles collection “OutRun” and “Reborn” in 2022, he was influential to major acts that came after him. The Weeknd, who sang on an edit of Kavinsky’s “Odd Look,” wrote on X: “So heartbreaking to hear the news. An inspiration to so many, including myself. I will continue to honor your name and your music. Rest easy Kavinsky.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also wrote a tribute on Instagram, calling Kavinsky an artist France could be proud of forever.

BLACK Sabbath’s Tony Iommi last released a solo album more than two decades ago.

And now, as he finally announces a new record, From The Dark, he reckons it might take just as long to get presented with his MBE.

The legendary axeman was in the Actress & Bishop boozer in his native Birmingham to celebrate the album’s release when asked when he’d be going to Buckingham Palace.

Tony was made an MBE in the King’s birthday honours last month, for his services to music and charity. But he joked: “I’d forgotten about that. They have probably changed their minds now.”

From The Dark, out on October 23, is Tony’s first album since 2005’s Fused, when he teamed with former Deep Purple, Sabbath and Trapeze singer and bassist Glenn Hughes.

Queen’s Brian May plays a guest solo on Death Wake, and the blistering lead single, the upbeat but punchy World Alone, confirms why he earned the nickname The Master Of The Riffs.

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That moniker’s all the more impressive when Tony reminds us that he lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his fret hand as a teen, while working in a sheet metal factory in the city.

He recalled: “I went to different doctors and they said, ‘You might as well give up and find another profession’.”

So he made replacement fingertips. He said: “I got a Fairy Liquid bottle, melted it down into a ball and then got a soldering iron and made a hole in it, so it fit on my finger.

“I tried to play and it slipped off. I had to find a material that would grip the strings like skin, so I cut one of my old rocker leather jackets up, and it worked.”

Iommi fans are in for a treat with From The Dark — which has eight tracks, with two additional songs, Scent Of Dark and Deified on the deluxe version.

It was two years in the making, with Tony enlisting Jorn Lande on vocals, bassist Becky Baldwin and Robbie Williams’ longtime drummer Karl Brazil.

The process was slowed by the loss of Tony’s Black Sabbath bandmate Ozzy Osbourne last July, with Tony stepping back from recording for a while.

The pair exchanged text messages the night before Ozzy died. He said: “I didn’t expect him to go overnight. It was a hell of a shock.”

On returning to work on the record, Tony added: “We’ve done it casually really, because there was no pressure.

The album is steeped in his home city’s history. He said: “The whole record is designed around Birmingham. The T-shirts have been made in Birmingham, the merchandise has been made in Birmingham.”

In front of a small group of guests, with Frank Skinner taking on the interviewing duties, Tony unveiled the dystopian video for World Alone, which was filmed in Cornwall.

“I hate doing videos, I’ve never liked them,” he said.

“This one is more like a film and I am in it but not wanting to be.”

Despite his reticence at getting in front of the cameras, it sounds likely Tony will return to the stage.

Asked whether fans will hear him play the record live, he smiled and said: “You may do.

“Anything’s a possibility.”

Tate shapes up for comeback

TATE McRAE gets fighting fit for her comeback as she prepares to release new music.

The Canadian pulled on her skintight workout clobber and pumped iron for an Adidas Originals Sport campaign.

It comes ahead of a return to the stage this weekend, almost nine months after her last concert.

Tate will headline the Osheaga Festival in Montreal on Saturday, and Lollapalooza in Chicago the following night, as teasers on social media suggest she might debut new songs.

Previous album So Close To What became her most successful yet when it peaked at No2 in the charts last year.

But with her star power continuing to rise, I’m sure she’s got her sights set on turning the next record into a chart-topper.

It’s Olivia RodLego

OLIVIA RODRIGO has recreated her latest album cover in Lego form – and will hide versions of the record around the world.

She posed in this plaid mini-dress at a pop-up event in Los Angeles, where it was revealed 333 toy-brick vinyl versions of You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love will be available.

The album is in the UK Top Three for a sixth week.

Olivia and Lego will drop clues on social media, hinting at record shops where fans might be able to get the special versions.

I expect to see them popping up on eBay for astronomical sums any day now.

Ruben’s hol alone

RUBEN Dias has made sure everyone knows he’s one of football’s most eligible bachelors, following his split from Maya Jama.

The Manchester City defender broke up with the Love Island host at the end of April.

Three months on, and following his appearance at this summer’s World Cup with Portugal, he has jetted off on a lads’ holiday to Ibiza.

Judging by the photos of his rippling six-pack he shared on Instagram, Ruben got his mates to take thirst trap pictures for him while they were there.

But hinting that he’s still not totally over the split with Maya, he captioned the post: “Feelings on silent.”

With pictures like this, there will be plenty of people offering him a shoulder to cry on.

lMILEY CYRUS’ rocker fiancé Maxx Morando popped the question on holiday in Japan last autumn.

He told Wonderland mag it happened in “this little outer garden”.

Maxx added: “She was taking videos, and was turned away. I got on one knee and tapped her on the shoulder.”

DAWN French and Jason Manford have paid a heartbreaking tribute to the “quietly magnificent” publicist Neil Reading.

The entertainment industry heavyweight died aged 56 following a short illness.

Mr Reading, one of Britain’s best-known showbiz publicists, represented a glittering roll call of stars including French, John Cleese and the late Victoria Wood.

His sudden death has prompted an outpouring of grief from the celebrities and friends whose careers he helped champion.

The founder of Neil Reading PR was behind a string of West End hits, including High Society, Only Fools And Horses and Fawlty Towers – The Play.

But for French, Mr Reading was far more than the man handling her publicity.

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She said: “Neil Reading was a one-off, such a kind, decent, intelligent man, a proper gentleman in the old-fashioned way, quietly magnificent.

“Our work relationship became a very real and trusting friendship.

“He has been my ally and fierce protector through so much and for so long. I don’t quite know how I’ll manage without him. Sleep tight darlin’ heart.”

Comedian Jason Manford also revealed the devastating depth of their nearly two-decade friendship.

He said: “Describing Neil as my PR manager does not come close to describing what he meant to me.

“He was a trusted friend of almost 20 years, a confidant and one of the most loyal, noble and brilliant men I have ever known.”

Mr Reading’s star-studded client list also included John Bishop, Sir Lenny Henry and Paul McKenna.

Bishop said: “Neil was a true gentleman. He was too humble to realise how much he meant to people and I know he will be greatly missed.”

McKenna said: “Neil was one of the finest people I’ve ever known.”

Businessman Nick Candy, who was a close friend of Mr Reading, said the publicist’s impact stretched far beyond the spotlight.

He said: “Neil wasn’t just a brilliant publicist – he was a true friend and one of the kindest, most generous people I have ever known.”

Mr Reading launched his agency in 1992, building it into a formidable entertainment, consumer and lifestyle PR operation.

The company later expanded into business, property and fashion, while forging links with agencies across Europe and the United States.

Through decades at the heart of showbiz, Mr Reading became a trusted figure behind some of Britain’s biggest names and productions.

He is survived by his wife Claire and daughter Rosa.

Mr Reading’s career was built on a knack for turning famous names into headline-makers, long before social media transformed the publicity game.

He struck out on his own in 1992 at just 22, quickly building an agency around personal publicity and an increasingly glittering roster of household names.

By 1997, he was representing stars including Jonathan Ross, Michael Flatley, Jack Dee, Lee Evans and Ben Elton, while also working with clients outside showbiz.

His agency went on to become a formidable force behind some of Britain’s biggest entertainment launches.

In his 1997 Independent interview, he described personal PR as his “first love”.

Channel 5 aired a new episode of Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts on Wednesday evening

Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts aired emotional scenes on Wednesday’s episode.

The Channel 5 documentary series was back with a new instalment, following the work of medical emergency teams in the A&E department of Barnsley Hospital.

During the latest episode, hospital volunteer, Jane, was on the other side of the fence as she brought her 92-year-old mother Mary into A&E following a fall in her kitchen the other week.

Jane had been left concerned for her mother, explaining: “Since the fall, everything’s gone downhill a little bit”, adding that her mum hadn’t been eating or drinking as much as usual.

To which Mary, 92, insisted she lives by herself, adding: “I look after myself!” The patient continued: “I’m not senile. It’s my pain.”

It all got a bit too much for Jane seeing her mother in pain as she emotionally admitted to the camera: “It was very difficult seeing my mother in pain.

“You know, you’re used to the stiff upper lip and, come on, get on with your job. But it was very difficult seeing her in pain and knowing that there was nothing I could do about it. It’s very upsetting.”

Things then took a very emotional turn when Mary broke down in tears as the 92-year-old patient admitted: “I’m quite upset. I don’t rely on anybody, only Jane.”

Mary then emotionally added: “I want this pain to go away. This isn’t me, I’ve not wasted your time?” to which the nurse insisted: “No, not at all” as they planned to take Mary for an X-ray of her lower spine to check for no fractures.

The nurse then admitted to cameras: “I’m a bit worried that she’s got an injury to her lower back. If that’s all okay, then we can make sure her pain relief is properly sorted out so that she can sleep properly and actually recover before we get her home.”

Also on the episode, the team dealt with Enid, 71, who was rushed in for a second time after struggling to breathe.

Meanwhile, a three-year-old child was brought in after getting a conker stuck up his nose. Advanced clinical practitioner Gemma and ear nose and throat doctor Hamza Hussain were tasked with retrieving it.

Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts is available to watch on Channel 5

Days after a classicist who translated Homer’s “The Odyssey” in 2017 eviscerated the Christopher Nolan film based on the poem, Joyce Carol Oates has entered the debate.

She’s Team Nolan.

The National Book Award-winning author is known for her (sometimes controversial) hot takes on social media, and on Wednesday, she stepped up to the plate in opposition of translator Emily Wilson’s brutal takedown of Nolan’s big-screen adaptation of “The Odyssey.” Nolan had previously said Wilson’s translation inspired him in making the film. But Wilson wrote that she would be ashamed to have written any part of the script.

“Her tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note,” Oates said of Wilson’s review in a post on X. “Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers.”

Wilson’s biting missive, published in the London Review of Books this week, went so viral that it reportedly crashed the outlet’s website for a few hours Monday. The British American classicist’s take on the film was especially notable because, last fall, Nolan quoted Wilson’s translation when telling Empire magazine why he was drawn to the story. “I think it’s the Emily Wilson translation that begins, ‘Tell me about a complicated man,’” he said.

Wilson’s version of “The Odyssey” subsequently spiked in sales. A representative for Audible told The Times on Wednesday that, year over year, purchases of Wilson’s “Odyssey” translation were up by more than 600% across Audible’s U.S., U.K. and Canadian marketplaces. Daily global title sales rose nearly sixfold during the week the movie premiered. And in the nine days following wide release, daily global sales averaged around 20 times more than the rate before the premiere, showing sustained demand for Wilson’s translation.

Oates, who penned the Pulitzer Prize-nominated “Blonde,” said that, within the world of translators, Wilson’s review “seems all the more surprising since all translations are, presumably, subjective & not equivalent to the original text.”

“One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is,” Oates wrote.

In separate posts on the social platform, Oates said she highly recommended Nolan’s adaption and that she wasn’t a fan of Wilson’s translation. “What I’d read of Emily Wilson’s translation was not for me,” she wrote, adding that she assumes it was “deliberately written to appeal to an audience comfortable with YA (young adult) directness & spareness of vocabulary — that is, with the intention of being marketable, adopted by high school classes.

“With a more poetic, elevated speech, you are naturally limiting your audience,” continued the author, who further noted that there was nothing wrong with a direct, commercial approach. “Why not profit from a classic work not protected by copyright?”

In the viral review by Wilson, who also translated Seneca and Euripides, as well as Homer’s “Iliad,” she likened Nolan’s nearly three-hour epic to Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “Game of Thrones.”

Her sharpest critiques were aimed at Nolan’s rendering of Homer’s female characters, of which she said there were more than in his other films “thanks to the source material” but that, in contrast to the poem, none of them “had much to say.” Wilson said Nolan’s race-neutral casting was essentially a wash as “[m]ost of the non-white actors — Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott — play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.”

And don’t get her started on the whole point of the poem — the cost of war — of which Wilson quipped, “We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it — a very different point.”

On the heels of the trailer reveal for the big-screen adaption of “Children of Blood and Bone,” the book’s author is claiming in a new video that an on-set ordeal traumatized her — and fans have been left with more questions than answers.

On Wednesday, Tomi Adeyemi upped the ante when discussing the ongoing behind-the-scenes drama that’s overshadowed the new film. Although the author, in her latest video on the falling-out, hinted at a painful ordeal that unfolded on set, fans are still scratching their heads as to what exactly happened and who was involved.

“I’m gonna post this so ideally I won’t have to talk about this anymore,” she said in a five-minute, 40-second video posted to social media. “And what I’m about to share is not a secret to the people involved. It’s a reality that I’ve had to live with for about a year and a half, and everyone involved, at least at the highest level, has been made aware of this reality, and they haven’t done anything to make it better. If anything, they’ve only antagonized me, and I accept that, but I also accept if I don’t say something, I think it’s just going to be worse.

“I’m not gonna speak on what I endured to make it through the young adult trilogy, and I’m not going to speak about everything that I also suffered through to make the adaptation a reality,” she continued. “I’m actually only going to speak about what happened after I left that set of my own film adaptation, hyperventilating and sobbing, and there are many witnesses, so it’s not really a secret.”

The author continued that, when she returned to America from an overseas filming location, she suffered “such severe somatic pain and so many panic attacks” that she knew she would never be able to watch the film.

“But as it is being marketed, and as I am still being antagonized behind the scenes, which is where I hoped all of this would stay, it’s become apparent to me that reality needs to at least be made known so that you guys can understand how this film — which I worked on to make it a little better for us to be alive — is also the worst thing I have ever had to live through, and I don’t wish to speak on it anymore.”

Adeyemi concluded that she never wants to hear about the film adaption again, and then she seemingly threw shade at director Gina Prince-Bythewood, whom she co-wrote the screenplay with, saying, “I don’t have anything to say about the people who made it. I do not care anymore. I’m trying to move on. This video might make it worse, but I don’t know how it can be any worse.”

Representatives for Prince-Bythewood and Paramount Pictures did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Earlier this month, the Nigerian American author posted a since-deleted video on TikTok that also left her followers puzzled in which she said there was a reason she stopped promoting the forthcoming film. Although she didn’t spell out the reason, she posted a screen shot of a February 2025 text exchange with one of the film’s stars, Amandla Stenberg, in which she told the actor not to use her name in interviews and then blocked her.

Stenberg, who is African American and Danish, had been at the center of a casting controversy due to claims that colorism was at play when she landed the role of Princess Amari. (Read more about the controversy here.)

On Monday, Paramount held a “Children of Blood and Bone” trailer launch event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. In a discussion moderated by “Master of None” actor Lena Waithe, Prince-Bythewood and the A-list cast talked about the making and almost-not-making of the film, and Prince-Bythewood seemed to reveal her stance on the fallout over Stenberg’s casting.

The director said her big-screen adaptation was “beautifully inspired by Nigeria and also inclusive of the whole diaspora. We wanted all of us to be able to see ourselves within this, just our complete and utter humanity, all the beautiful hues.”

In the comments section under Adeyemi’s Wednesday video, frustrated fans asked the author to be more transparent while others suggested maybe a non-disclosure agreement was hindering her ability to offer any specifics on the incident.

“Children of Blood and Bone” is slated to hit theaters Jan. 15.

KATIE Price has suffered more financial woe – she’s closed down her horse-riding clobber brand and dissolved the firm, we can reveal.

Her KP Equestrian Ltd firm sold items including riding leggings, body warmers and a range of T-shirts and other tops for women, men and kids.

The outfit company was removed from the register at Companies House this week.

Katie had previously been spotted flogging the £34 hoodies on stalls set up at horse riding events.

But she’s now stopped selling the gear and shut the firm’s website – which until recently had ex-lover Carl Woods modelling clothes.

The brand’s Instagram page hasn’t been updated for two years and a link to the company website is now dead.

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She launched the venture – designed to “dazzle in the saddle” – after it was revealed she owed more than £3 million.

Latest books for KP Equestrian Ltd filed to Companies House show the outfit company had just £1,000 in its bank balance and was worth a total of £15,000.

In 2022, it was worth £26,269.

This comes as Katie’s husband, Lee Andrews faces mounting prison fines and financial demands exceeding £100,000 to £120,000 from his detentions in Dubai’s Al-Awir prison.

Katie made it clear in an interview with us that she would not cover the cost.

She stated to us in a chat with our very own Clemmie Moodie: “There’s nothing I can do. I’m not here to pay anything for anyone.

“I’ve got my own life. Even though he’s part of my life.”

Back to her clothing brand, Katie told would-be buyers on her website: “Horses have always been a big part of my life since I was a little girl. 

“I used to spend hours at the yard when I was a teenager grooming, mucking out, learning to ride, trimming, practising my plaiting, hanging out with friends, grooming again and just being around the horses.

“As my life got busier and more hectic, I always made time for the horses, as it’s the only place where I could fully switch off and just enjoy my hobby.

“Horses are my happy place and where I can take time out and calm my soul.  I love their company, feel, presence and even their smell. 

“There’s nothing quite like the feeling when you turn up to the yard.

“With horses having been such a large part of my life for so long I’ve focused on getting my KP Equestrian range ready for you all, as it means so much to me. 

“So you too can Dazzle in the Saddle and we can all share in our riding experiences.

“Our clothing has been developed with the comfort & style of riders in mind. 

“Kids, menswear & horsewear to follow soon.

“It’s a process I have really loved. Designing the products that I have always wanted with my own sparkle added.”

But the enterprise has failed to dazzle customers.

Karen Thomas, a detective constable investigating the murder of Joanna Yeates, has shared that she never thought Christopher Jefferies had a motive after he was wrongfully arrested, revealing the moment she knew the killer was Vincent Tabak instead.

One of the police officers investigating the murder of Joanna Yeates has said that she “never thought there was a motive” for Christopher Jefferies, who was wrongfully arrested for her death. Jefferies, who was then 65, was arrested on suspicion of murdering Yeates, 25, on December 30, 2010.

Over 15 years later, Karen Thomas, a detective constable involved in the investigation, has recalled what she thought at the time – of Jefferies, the real killer Tabak, and of how her bosses reacted when she brought her suspicions to them.

Speaking in Disney’s new docuseries, Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations, Thomas shared that she didn’t think Jefferies had a reason to kill Yeates, but could see why her colleagues were insistent that he had.

“I never thought there was a motive for Christopher Jefferies to kill Jo,” she said. “Having said that, we’ve sat with many people in custody who we thought maybe were the wrong people and were the right people, so as long as there was a reason to keep him in custody, it was justified.”

Jefferies was arrested just five days after Yeates’ body was discovered in Failand, Somerset, and 13 after she was first reported missing. The primary evidence against him was a speck of blood on one of his trainers, which police later discovered did not match Yeates’ DNA.

While he was in custody, Thomas was sent to Holland to take the witness statement of Vincent Tabak, Yeates’ neighbour, who claimed Jefferies had moved his car around the time that she went missing.

Thomas explained that Tabak’s statement troubled her. He claimed he had driven to an Asda in Bedminster for crisps and beer, even though there was a Tesco “down the road”. He asked questions about DNA and said he had knocked on Yeates’ door, despite having never offered that information before.

The detective said it seemed like Tabak was trying to “stitch up” the man they had in custody. “Inside, my heart was going ten to the dozen. I was sitting there thinking this could be our guy, this could be our killer.”

After flying back to the UK, Thomas took the statement straight to her bosses. She said: “In fairness, there was a lot coming from a lot of different angles and he’s trying to keep everything going, so I said ‘Boss, if you do nothing else, please prioritise his DNA’.”

But she later implied that she did think there was an issue with the investigation: “We took longer than we should have to catch Vincent Tabak. I think there’s always a danger that an officer can become fixated on a suspect and want the evidence to fit that.”

Tabak’s DNA was a match for the samples found on Yeates’ body. Jefferies was released two days after his arrest, and Tabak was taken into custody on 20 January.

He eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter, saying he strangled Yeates whilst trying to silence her when she screamed after he tried to kiss her. He was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

20/20: Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations is available on Disney+ now.

DETROIT — Two people who attended a prestigious Michigan fine arts school reported conduct of a sexual nature by Jeffrey Epstein, a major donor, according to an investigation that also uncovered dozens of allegations spanning decades against nearly 50 other people.

Interlochen Center for the Arts operates a summer camp and performing arts school that draws students from around the world. It hired a law firm in 2024 to investigate reports of sexual abuse by faculty and staff. Subsequently, it expanded the work to include information about Epstein, the 66-year-old financier who killed himself in jail in 2019.

Interlochen removed Epstein’s name from a lodge after he was convicted of sex offenses in Florida in 2008. The building, renamed the Green Lake Lodge, recently was demolished after the U.S. Justice Department released millions of pages about Epstein that had been compiled over the years.

Sanghavi Law Office says it collected 70 accounts from alumni alleging “physical conduct of a sexual nature” by 47 faculty and staff members affiliated with Interlochen from the 1950s through the 2010s, most before 2000.

“The information gathered during this investigation is, simply, devastating,” the 97-page report says, noting that alumni reported grooming, flirting, sexual touching and sex.

Interlochen said it provided names of people accused of misconduct to Grand Traverse County authorities in northern Michigan to determine what steps, if any, might be taken. None are employed at the school and more than a third are dead.

“We are deeply sorry for the harm experienced by members of our community and extend our apologies to those impacted by abuse at Interlochen,” president Trey Davey and board chair Barrett Rollins said in a letter to the community posted online.

“While the vast majority of the incidents described in the investigation took place decades ago, and reports of abuse at Interlochen have significantly decreased over the past 25 years, the passage of time does not diminish the experiences of our alumni,” they said. “Sexual abuse committed by an adult in a position of power or trust against a student is wrong, then and now.”

Interlochen today “is fundamentally different from the institution described in this report,” Davey and Rollins wrote, with comprehensive safety policies and a changed culture.

Epstein, who played the bassoon, was an Interlochen camper in 1967. He donated more than $400,000 to the school between 1990 and 2003.

Two women told investigators that Epstein engaged in conduct of a sexual nature with them, one of them at the Interlochen lodge that bore his name. He brushed against her body “over her clothes, in a manner in which he indicated was accidental,” according to the report.

Epstein also paid for her to visit him in New York while she was a student. She said “every time he was ‘handsy’ with her, she would freeze until he would stop,” the report states.

The other woman said she gave Epstein a massage at his home, according to the report, and he may have asked her to remove her top. She said she had no further contact with Epstein or his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Outside of the school investigation, at least two Interlochen alumnae made allegations of grooming and abuse against Epstein and Maxwell, according to federal records and media reports. Their identities were not made public.

One testified against Maxwell in 2021 when she was convicted of sex trafficking. It’s unclear whether those women spoke to the law firm hired for the Interlochen investigation.

White writes for the Associated Press.

A man was convicted Wednesday of federal terrorism charges in the 2022 stabbing of Salman Rushdie, the author who has faced a decades-old death threat over his novel “The Satanic Verses.”

A jury found Hadi Matar guilty of all the charges against him, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism.

A message seeking comment was sent to Matar’s attorneys.

Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on an attempted murder conviction in the August 2022 attack on an amphitheater stage. The federal conviction carries a potential life sentence.

Rushdie, who was about to speak on writers’ safety when he was attacked, was slashed 15 times in front of a stunned audience. He was gravely wounded and lost the sight in his right eye.

Matar’s defense: No evidence of his state of mind

Prosecutors asserted that Matar was motivated by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ’s 1989 call for Rushdie’s death because of “The Satanic Verses.” Defense lawyer Nathaniel Barone countered that the government had no proof of what was in Matar’s head.

Matar himself declined to testify. Rushdie did, telling jurors: “I can’t say what his ambitions or his aim was, but the wounds were dispersed across my body.”

Rushdie won Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize for his 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” about his native India. “The Satanic Verses,” a novel of magical realism about the lives and dreams of two actors who survive a plane explosion, followed in 1988.

It drew critical acclaim in the United Kingdom but engendered protests around the Muslim world over what some believers saw as blasphemous suggestions about Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, particularly in a dream sequence. In the ensuing years, at least 45 people have been killed in riots over the book, a Japanese translator was stabbed to death, an Italian translator was attacked and survived, and the book’s Norwegian publisher survived a shooting.

Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family, has said the dream sequence was just that. But he went into hiding for years, gradually emerging after Iran’s government distanced itself in 1998 from Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious edict.

“For two decades or more, I led a public life without a hint of trouble,” Rushdie testified at the trial in Buffalo, N.Y.

Yet the fatwa was never rescinded; indeed, Khomenei’s successor, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicated in 2017 that it remained in effect. An Iranian foundation has offered a bounty of more than $3 million for killing Rushdie.

Prosecutors: Matar’s messages showed him zeroing in on Rushdie

Matar repeatedly broached the fatwa with contacts in messaging apps in 2021 and 2022, according to exhibits shown in court. The messages showed Matar fuming that he felt Rushdie had attacked Islam and, by surviving, emboldened others to insult the faith. Matar alluded to a 2006 comment along those lines by the late Hezbollah militant group leader Hassan Nasrallah, the messages showed.

Born in the U.S., Matar also holds citizenship in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. Prosecutors said that photos in Matar’s New Jersey bedroom and on his computer indicated his support for Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

Matar aimed to fulfill the fatwa and “wanted everyone to know he was doing this for Hezbollah,” Asst. U.S. Atty. Timothy Lynch said in an opening statement July 22.

The messages showed Matar initially talked about wanting to “expose” Rushdie, then about killing him. In a private note to himself, he wrote: “We need to kill him ASAP,” according to Lynch. The prosecutor said Matar framed the planned killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war.

By spring 2022, the electronic chats showed, Matar wrote that he had discerned where Rushdie lived and was tracking his public appearances, eventually pointing out his scheduled August 2022 talk at the Chautauqua Institution, a western New York arts and intellectual center.

As Rushdie was being introduced, his attacker climbed on stage behind him, then stabbed him 15 times as the audience gasped. Spectators and another speaker, Henry Reese, scrambled to aid Rushdie. Law enforcement officers, assigned to the event, arrested the attacker — soon identified as Matar — after civilians restrained him.

Rushdie published a 2024 memoir about the attack, then returned to fiction with last year’s “The Eleventh Hour.” The author, who was knighted by Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II, received a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.

Peltz writes for the Associated Press.

Jared Leto faces allegations of criminal sexual conduct by several women who allege the sexual incidents with the musician and Oscar-winning actor occurred when he was in his 30s and 40s and they were teenagers.

In a BBC documentary titled “Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret,” multiple women spoke about their experiences with the “House of Gucci” star and Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman, detailing allegations of inappropriate text messages, sexual assault and statutory rape from 2002 to 2016. Among the allegations, one woman said she was 17 years old when Leto sexually assaulted her in a motel bathroom. Another woman alleges Leto continued to sexually pursue her in Los Angeles despite knowing she was 17 years old, younger than the age of consent in California.

Leto, in a statement shared with The Times on Wednesday, denied the allegations raised by the BBC documentary: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life,” he said. “These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”

Journalist and documentarian Jessica Sartenaer said in the segment published Wednesday that the BBC began its investigation into allegations against Leto after noting an Instagram story from a prominent DJ based in Los Angeles. In a since-expired Instagram story, DJ Allie Teilz, resurfaced a 2012 Facebook post in which she accused Leto of trying to “force himself” onto her backstage at a concert. Teilz captioned her repost: “Jared Leto was a creep then..still a creep now, going on 15+ years of being Hollywood’s most persistent predator,” according to the BBC documentary.

Numerous social media users reportedly responded to Teilz’s posts with their own claims about Leto’s alleged predatory behavior, many noting they were subject to Leto’s misconduct when they were teens. A woman identified as “Etta” told the BBC she was 14 when Leto approached her outside of a modeling agency and invited her to an Oscars party. Etta provided email correspondences to the outlet and said the “Morbius” actor encouraged her to stay in contact via text after the invite. Text messages turned into phone calls and conversations about her modeling career quickly turned sexual, according to the documentary. Leto allegedly asked Etta about her virginity, her kinks and sexual capabilities.

Etta said in the documentary that Leto’s legal team allegedly contacted her and urged her to sign a nondisclosure agreement about her relationship with the actor, though she never did.

The documentary portrays Leto as a celebrity who leveraged his fame to connect with young fans and control them. The woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by Leto at age 17 in a motel bathroom told the BBC she met Leto in 2002 at a mall in Las Vegas. Leto would have been in his early 30s at the time. He invited her to meet him at a nearby motel. She waited in the room while he stepped into the shower, but he eventually called her over and began kissing her, according to the BBC. The woman, identified as “Isabelle,” accused Leto of forcing her hand to his genitals and using her hand to masturbate. Isabelle pulled away and moved to leave the room, but Leto allegedly looked outside the motel room for any potential bystanders before letting her out, she recalled to the BBC.

The BBC also published allegations by “Clara,” the woman who said Leto knowingly had sex with her when she was 17 — he was 34 at the time — at his house in California. Clara said she connected with Leto after his associate requested her phone number. She and her friend were invited to spend time with the band at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, where the age of consent of California became a topic of conversation. Leto, who allegedly shrugged off the conversation, invited Clara and her friend back to his home and told the friend to wait in another room while he had sex with Clara. Clara visited Leto’s home a total of three or four times, according to the BBC. She also alleged that Leto often requested that she call him “daddy” and that she pretend to be a little girl.

Leto in 2013 allegedly invited another woman, named Alex, to his band’s concert at London’s O2 and to an after-party. She was 19 at the time but told Leto she was younger out of a need to protect herself, the BBC reported. Leto allegedly replied: “Age is just a number, and anyway, we’re in Europe.” Alex alleges Leto threatened to sexually assault her in a hotel room later that evening.

The BBC also spoke to men who who worked closely with Leto’s band, Thirty Seconds to Mars. One man said Leto was often texting girls to invite them to spend time with the band. Leto also allegedly asserted control by ignoring the girls he invited and speaking to them rudely. The man also recalled that Leto took one fan, who was dropped off by her parents, “off to the bedroom.” Afterward, she called her parents to pick her up.

Leto has long faced quiet scrutiny for his alleged behavior with women and girls. In 2005 the New York Post published a story accusing the actor of “aggressively pursuing many” teen models. Last year Air Mail published accusations against Leto of impropriety by nine women, though he denied those claims at the time.

Still, the actor-musician has moved on from those allegations seemingly unscathed. Leto, who won his Oscar in 2014 for “Dallas Buyers Club,” most recently appeared in “Masters of the Universe” and is set to tour with his band next year.

The K-pop megastars BTS will not submit music for next year’s Grammys. The news comes despite — or perhaps because of — a new category specifically designed to honor Asian pop.

The seven members of BTS — RM, Suga, Jin, J-Hope, Jungkook, V and Jimin — each shared the same message across their social media Wednesday, announcing the news and saying, “We hope our music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language. We thank Army and everyone who has always stood by us.”

The Grammys’ new Best Asian Pop Music Performance category “recognizes artistic excellence in Asian pop music performances originating from or widely recognized within Asian markets, including but not limited to K-pop, J-pop and C-pop, with meaningful use of one or more Asian languages. Awards are presented to the performing artist(s).”

BTS’ comeback album “Arirang,” its first after the band members’ mandatory South Korean military service, was widely expected to compete for the award. The new category came as part of a bevy of added or tweaked awards and nominating rules that will debut at next year’s ceremony on Feb. 7.

BTS has a mercurial relationship with the Grammys, having been nominated five times in various categories since becoming the first K-pop group nominated in 2019, and performing for the live telecast. They have never won.

The band joins the Weeknd and Drake as high-profile artists who, at least for some time, declined to submit their music to the Recording Academy in protest of its policies or nominating processes.

CELEBRITIES have turned out in their masses for the Spider-Man: Brand New Day premiere in the capital.

Among the stars in attendance was stunning actress from the movie franchise, Zendaya – who turned heads while looking like a total goddess in a figure-hugging gown.

Zendaya, who plays MJ in the new flick wore a stunning white gown from Tamara Ralph with a silver sequin web design.

The dress featured sparkling straps that mimicked webs, with the corset part of the gown cinching her in at the waist before flowing out into a train. 

She wore her hair in a wavy and voluminous style, and could be seen posing proudly next to leading actor and her husband Tom Holland.

Tom plays the leading role of Peter Parker in the hit movie.

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CLEO CARRY ON

Zendaya channels Cleopatra in web-inspired slit dress at Spider-Man premiere

In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Zendaya plays Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson, the brilliant and sarcastic girlfriend of Peter.

Zendaya and Tom are married in real life, after meeting on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016.

Also at the premiere were a whole host of British TV and radio stars.

Myleene Klass looked amazing as she posed on the red carpet while rocking a slinky black frock with a thigh-high split.

Former Love Island host Laura Whitmore was also in attendance.

She looked stunning in a black pant suit with a very thematic web-shaped handbag.

Other celebrities also leaned into the theming of the night and rocked web-inspired looks.

Clara Amfo wowed as she wore a rather sheer white dress with a huge web on the front.

Sarah New, a content creator known for her viral beauty transformations, also wore a stunning sheer dress with a huge web emblazoned on the front in diamante.

Nadiya Bychkova also attended the glitzy event and looked simply stunning and ever so classy in a black skirt and off-the-shoulder top.

Florence Pugh rocked a shimmering gown for the occasion, which was completely strapless and featured an ornate fringe detail.

Kate Moss‘ sister Lottie Moss rocked a red minidress and sky-high heels as she clutched a black bag.

The new Spider-Man movie serves as the 38th Marvel Cinematic Universe film and the fourth solo outing for Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker.

It explores his solitary adult life four years after the memory-wipe events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

LISA Snowdon has been seen without her ring on after sparking fears that she has split from her fiancé.

After 12 years with George Smart and plans to marry, Lisa, 54, has been seen without her engagement ring.

The TV presenter was spotted going to a Pilates class in Essex this week, with her ring was noticeably absent from her left hand.

She was chatting on the phone as she made her way home while rocking gym gear and carrying a tote.

Lisa said recently that she feels like she’s in a “new chapter of her life” at 54.

Lisa has been enjoying solo travelling recently, and has failed to share snaps of George on Instagram.

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Lisa Snowdon sparks fears she’s split from fiance after 12 years together

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She last shared a snap of George, 46, on her Instagram back in January.

Meanwhile, his own social media account is currently set to private.

Her fiancé featured regularly on Lisa’s social media before then, but he hasn’t been seen on her socials in more than six months.

When Lisa shared a gallery of pictures of herself with her friends hanging out at Wimbledon last month, George was absent again.

Some fans noticed this and one wrote: “Oh no, no George again.”

George might be taking a break from social media and there might be nothing in it – but it’s sparked concern about their relationship.

Lisa and entrepreneur George briefly dated 20 years ago and reconnected in 2014,  before getting engaged in 2016.

Last year, Lisa said she was in no rush to marry George. 

She told Hello!: ‘A lot of women imagine walking down the aisle.

“They imagine their flowers, their dresses, and I just have never had that vision. It’s just a contract at the end of the day.

“I don’t want everybody looking at me, which is weird because I do television and hosting.

“I’m just really relaxed and so is George. It will happen, but I just don’t know what that looks like.”

But now she seems to be moving on.

In a chat with Prima this week, Lisa said: “I’m 54 now and see this time in my life as a new chapter. It’s important to reframe ageing in a more positive way. 

“It takes time for that readjustment to happen, but now I’m in this powerful place where it’s about, ‘What do I want? What do I need?”

She went on: “I don’t have children, so it’s easier for me than mums juggling teenage children, but it’s a powerful time for us to reconnect with ourselves and make big life changes. It’s the second spring.”