show biz

PETER Andre has said ‘it hurts too much’ seeing his sick mother in Australia amid her declining health.

The singer’s mum Thea, 90, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s back in 2023.

Peter took to Instagram and shared a video marking his father Savvas’ 93rd birthday.

In its caption, the star explained his poignant reason for not including Thea in the clip.

He wrote: “This video touches my heart in every way. It’s my dad’s 93rd birthday today.

“I decided not to show mum in this video because it hurts too much.

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“But I want to thank my sis for sending this. Love you mum and dad so so so much. More than they will ever know.”

Continuing, Peter said that he speaks to his parents “every single day, sometimes twice.”

He added: “I tell them enough how much they mean to me ( if it’s ever enough ).

“Thank god for FaceTime. Going to see them and I cannot wait. Να ζήσεις dad.”

One person commented: “Sending so much love xxx.”

Another added: “Your mum and dad are such wonderful people. Watched them through all your shows. Your dad looks amazing for 93..lots of love to them.”

Last December, Peter shared a heartbreaking update on Thea’s condition, saying he worried Christmas 2025 would be her last.

He told OK! Magazine: “Of course I worry this could be Mum’s last Christmas.

“She’s very delicate. Her Parkinson’s has progressed quite a bit.

“Her speech is almost gone. She’ll say a word or two. It’s heartbreaking, because she’s our world, our pillar of strength.”

It may sometimes seem like people only go on Love Island to become influencers, but the show has consistently created long-lasting relationships and even resulted in some babies! Here’s every couple who are still together after Love Island…

Season 2

Cara de la Hoyde and Nathan Massey are now married with two children, but due to a brief break, their co-stars Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen take the crown as the couple to have been together the longest. They are also married with two children.

Season 3

The third season also saw two couples stay together. Jamie Jewitt and Camilla Thurlow are married with three children, while Jess Shears and Dom Lever are married with two.

Season 5

Perhaps Love Island’s most famous couple, Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae are still together. They recently welcomed their second child, Midas, who joins their toddler Bambi in the Fury dynasty.

Season 9

Winners Kai Fagan and Sanam Harrinanan went exclusive whilst in te villa nd have remained together, marrying in 2025. Their co-stars Jessie Wynter and Will Young are also engaged.

All Stars 1

The most recent Love Island newly weds are Molly Smith and Tom Clare, who met on All Stars and won the show. The pair married in July 2026. This marks Molly’s second serious Love Island romance, as she and co-star Callum Jones were together for four years.

Also meeting on All Stars, Sophie Piper and Josh Ritchie are still together as well.

Season 11

Uma Jammeh left the villa to be with Wil Anderson when he was dumped and this proved to be a good decision as she and Wil are now engaged!

All Stars 2

Luca Bish and Grace Jackson met on All Stars 2 and though they had a rough time on the show, they are still together.

Season 12

Three couples are still together from season 12 – Ty Isherwood and Angel Swift, Harry Cooksley and Shakira Khan and Megan Forte Clarke and Conor Phillips.

All Stars 3

Sean and Lucinda, despite being labelled fake on the show, are one of the only ones from All Stars 3 to still be together. Scott Van-Der-Sluis and Leanne Amaning are also still together, as are Whitney Adebayo and Yamen Sanders.

And of course, a special shout out to Lucie Donlan and Luke Mabbott, who were not on the same series but got together later and are now married!

Carly Simon on Monday shared a lengthy and candid letter regarding the state of her health, which she said led to her recent withdrawal from the public eye.

The 83-year-old “You’re so Vain” singer and two-time Grammy winner in a statement shared with The Times revealed she has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and has dedicated time away from the spotlight to understand and learn how to live with the illness. Simon said she decided to come forward about her health issues after “so many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence.” She did not specify when she was diagnosed.

Parkinson’s disease, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a nervous system movement disorder that worsens with time and cannot be cured. Tremors are a common symptom of Parkinson’s disease, which also notably afflicts “Back to the Future” star Michael J. Fox.

Simon explained in her statement that she experienced arthritis in both of her knees and one hip prior to receiving her diagnosis. She had those three joints replaced — “out with the old and in with delicate bouquets of metal and plastic” — but experienced worsening mobility after, including difficulty walking and standing from couches and low chairs.

“Eventually, there were periods when I could not walk without considerable help,” she continued. “My family and I knew that something more was going on.”

She said she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s after a trip to the Mayo Clinic and underwent treatment and started taking medication to aid with her symptoms.

“There is no tidy predictable schedule to the illness,” she said.

Simon also wrote that her experience with Parkinson’s wrought “anxiety, depression, exhaustion, an apathy.” Of the last, Simon recalled lying like a starfish “while nothing inside is telling you to get up, read, watch, sing, call someone, or do much of anything at all.”

Simon revealed that in the same period, she underwent surgery to treat skin cancer, specifically basal cell carcinoma on her face. The singer’s two sisters died of different cancers days apart in 2022. She said she felt self-conscious about her appearance post-surgery and retreated further from the public. “This gave my inner critic quite a lot of new material,” she wrote.

The singer, who likened herself to an “all-season” hibernating bear, said “I have not stopped living, and I have not stopped working” amid her health issues. She then promoted her upcoming album “Comes in Waves,” her first album of original music since 2008. “Comes in Waves” arrives Aug. 14. She is set to release the song “Peaches” from the album on Friday.

“Music has always known when to arrive,” she wrote. “It has rescued me more times that I can count.”

“Working on the music gave shape to days that did not always have much shape,” she said. “It gave me somewhere to go without having to leave the room. It reminded me that illness can change your life without becoming the whole of your life.”

For Simon, her Parkinson’s battle has proved “difficult, frustrating, and sometimes frightening,” but not a complete obstacle to her life. She expressed gratitude to her friends, family, caregivers and medical teams for their support.

“These days I move more slowly, I lean on others more than I once did, and I have learned to accept that every day will look a little different,” she concluded. “But I am still very much here.”

CARDI B is about to let everyone in on the story of her rollercoaster life — including working as a stripper.

I can reveal the rapper is the subject of a major new documentary from the same team behind programmes on Victoria Beckham, Pamela Anderson and Coleen Rooney.

Production company Dorothy Street Pictures is secretly working on the special, in which she will speak about her rags to riches story.

Cardi, who wore this eye-popping pink catsuit and matching hat for a performance in New York on Sunday, has quite a backstory, so I’m sure it will be riveting viewing.

She started off her working life as a stripper, and would entice men to hotel rooms and steal their money.

Her fortunes changed when she became a viral sensation a decade ago on apps such as Vine and Instagram, and eventually got signed to a label and scored hit songs including Wap and I Like It.

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Cardi has not been short of controversy during her time in the showbiz spotlight, famously throwing a shoe at rival Nicki Minanj during a spat in 2018.

She has also had a difficult love life, getting married to Migos rapper Offset in 2017, and having four kids with him before they separating in 2023.

A source said: “Cardi is one of the most in-demand rappers in the world and is also one of the most interesting.

“She has lived her life in the public eye to some degree. But there’s a lot that she’s never opened up about, and this is her chance.

“Next year will mark a decade since she released her major-label debut single Bodak Yellow and so there’s a documentary in the works which will mark that.

“There’s a lot to talk about and she wants the public to see who she really is, because she often feels misunderstood.

“It’s expected to air on a big streaming service like Netflix, but the deal is still being hatched out.”

Cardi released her long-awaited second album Am I The Drama? last year and then went on a tour across North America.

And I won’t be surprised if we see her back on stage at British festivals next summer.

KOJO: LADIES RULE

Kojo Funds has worked with acts ranging from Wizkid and Tion Wayne to Kano and Bugzy Malone since bursting on to the music scene a decade ago.

But the British singer has saluted the work ethic of top women in the industry and says they have inspired him.

His biggest chart hit to date is 2017 collaboration Finders Keepers with Mabel, and has also worked with Raye on a 2018 track called Check.

Kojo said in an exclusive interview: “Female artists who are operating at that level take their craft seriously. Put effort into what you’re doing, don’t do it anyhow.

“They’re very hard-working, I respect them for that. The work ethic… that’s the kind of thing I took from them.”

Kojo’s new single How Many will be on his EP Hello It’s Me Again, which is out on August 21.

And one person who’s bound to be giving it a spin is Cardi B.

Recalling how the US rapper discovered his music, he said: “Her first time in London, she went to a club and they were playing my music.

“Dun Talkin’ came on and she saw how people were hyping her up while she was moving to it.

“The next morning, she’s on Instagram singing it, with her hair messy, a little bit tipsy.”

They’ve since performed together and hung out, so I’m hoping a collaboration with her is on the cards next.

DANCING On Ice beauty Vanessa Bauer has been tipped for a career in Hollywood by Football Factory and The Business actor Tamer Hassan.

She has re-trained after the ITV show was axed, and plays Tamer’s girlfriend in new film Rise Of The Footsoldier: Retribution.

On how great she was playing Isabella Chaika opposite his character, Colonel Sullivan, he told me: “Vanessa has a future in films, 100 per cent.

She looks great, she carries herself well.

“She’s definitely got some chops to be an actress.”

Vanessa joined Dancing On Ice in 2018 when the show was revived.

She won with Jake Quickenden, and was a runner-up several times with celebs including Diversity’s Perri Kiely and Towie’s Joey Essex.

But the show ended again in 2025 and now she is exploring new paths, having also appeared in Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club.

THE race for No1 is hotting up.

Shakira’s Dai Dai now is just 118 copies ahead of Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In – closing the gap from 609 copies the previous day.

The World Cup anthem will be her third chart-topper if she can hang on to the lead until Friday.

But if Rein Me In can clinch it, it will become the longest-running No1 of all time, with 19 weeks at the top.

ROMCOM TOO TOUGH FOR CHRIS

OSCAR-winning director Christopher Nolan says there’s one genre that’s too hard for him to tackle – the romcom.

The man behind movies such as Oppenheimer, Interstellar and The Dark Knight would be “terrified” at the prospect of making one.

The Brit whose new epic The Odyssey is No1 at the box office, explained: “I think doing a romcom would be incredibly difficult.

I love watching those movies. But no, I think people who direct comedy, people who do comedy . . .  that’s one of the hardest things in the world, to make people laugh that way.

“If I show a film to people and maybe they don’t respond to bits of it, I’m like, ‘Ah, they don’t get it. Whatever’. There’s no hiding behind that when you do comedy, so I would be terrified.”

TYLA POPS TO UK ON TOUR

TYLA is hitting the road for a 34-date global tour following the release last week of her second album A*POP.

The Chanel singer has announced she will open the tour in Paris on October 12 before shows at London’s O2 Academy Brixton on October 15 the O2 Apollo Manchester on October 19 and O2 Academy Glasgow on October 18.

Tickets will go on sale at 10am this Friday through tylaworld.com.

Zara’s latest feet

THERE was no chance of Zara Larsson getting cold feet about her latest brand deal with these slippers.

She wore the funky footwear – designed as giant feet in flip flops – while reclining on a sofa as part of a campaign for re-sale site Depop.

Zara put 30 pieces of clothing from her own wardrobe up for sale, and they sold out almost straight away.

She said: “I’m not particularly sad about releasing anything of mine into the world because I know I’m gonna get many more beautiful things back. Fashion is fun in that way.”

Given all the designer brands desperate for her to wear their clothes, I am sure she has plenty of options.

LIFE OF RILEY FOR RAY AND DANNY

DANNY DYER and Ray Winstone are teaming up again, two decades after appearing in TV film All In The Game.

The hardmen, pictured together in 2006, have been cast in UK crime thriller Going Under, which is due to hit cinemas next spring.

Production on the film has just been completed, after being shot in secret.

It will follow Ray’s gangster character Riley and his right-hand man Don, played by Danny, trying to pull off one final deal.

Charli’s bra-t summer

CHARLI XCX is ready for our fourth heatwave of the summer – and has stripped off to prepare.

She shared this photo of her wearing a bra and sunglasses on Instagram, just as it was revealed there will be a picture of the singer going on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

A 2024 photo of Charli in a white crop top, which was taken by Harley Weir and used to promote her album Brat, has been added to the gallery’s collection and will be in its History Makers Now space.

Senior curator Brandei Estes said: “We are delighted to acquire this striking portrait of Charli XCX, which captures one of the defining cultural figures of her generation.”

WILD Child actress Emma Roberts has tied the knot to afellow screen star Cody John.

Emma, who appeared in American Horror Story and is the niece of Hollywood A-lister Julia Roberts, wore a Monique Lhuillier dress, and told Vogue: “I’ve been married in a movie before, and I tried out wedding dresses for that, which feels so weird. Now, it’s the real deal.

“I wanted it to feel very vintage-inspired.”

The couple started dating in 2022.

LIZ & BILLY LOVE BIRDWATCHING

LIZ HURLEY has revealed the secret to her romance with Billy Ray Cyrus is a shared love of birdwatching.

She said: “We’ve been together nearly 18 months, but we spend the vast majority of our time in the countryside, whether it’s in England or Tennessee.

“We like doing the same things, which some people would think is a little odd. We like bird watching. We’ve got binoculars, we’ve got long lenses.”

The relationship has been especially good for her son, filmmaker Damian, who has been able to meet Billy’s superstar daughter Miley.

Liz added on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live in the US: “When he was a young teen, he used to love all her music. I used to have to watch her music videos like Wrecking Ball a zillion times with him, so we were very familiar with who she was, and I knew I was going to like her, and I do like her.”

IT’S been more than two years since Samie Elishi last walked out of the Love Island villa – and as this year’s finalists prepare for tonight’s live final, she knows better than most what comes next.

Speaking exclusively to The Sun, the former Islander has backed this year’s cast to “smash it” after the villa and lifted the lid on life with boyfriend Tyrique Hyde – amid her latest career ventures.

The Essex beauty finished third alongside Tom Clare in 2023, winning over viewers with her no-nonsense approach to villa drama. Like many Islanders, she left Majorca with a world of opportunities suddenly opening up in front of her.

These days, her time is split between building businesses and enjoying a relationship with fellow Love Island star Tyrique Hyde that blossomed after both of them left the villa.

After working with W7 since leaving Love Island, Samie officially became one of its ambassadors earlier this year and is now preparing to launch her collaboration with the beauty giant.

And with this year’s Love Island final airing tonight, Samie admits she’ll be watching just like millions of other viewers – knowing exactly what’s about to hit the finalists when they leave the villa.

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She said, “I have been watching it. I watch it every year.”

Unlike some former contestants who distance themselves from the programme once it’s ends, Samie has “never missed a series”. And as tonight’s finalists prepare to discover whether they’ve won the public vote, she believes a few couples have the potential to make a success of life beyond the villa.

While millions of viewers have watched this year’s Islanders navigate recouplings, Casa Amor and Movie Night, Samie knows the real challenge only begins once the cameras stop rolling.

Asked what advice she would give the finalists before they step back into the real world, she doesn’t hesitate: “Soak up every moment before your phone comes back. As soon as you switch that phone on… wow.”

Rather than getting caught up in public opinion, she hopes this year’s cast focuses on making the most of the opportunities waiting for them.

“I feel like all of them are really strong this year,” she said.

“They’ve all got such good heads on them. I honestly think they’re all going to smash it, whatever they decide to do.”

Despite following every episode, Samie refuses to be drawn into choosing one favourite contestant.

The star admitted, “I feel like everyone has been really entertaining this year. You know what? 
I actually don’t have a favourite – I actually like everyone for different reasons.” 

Though she has connected with one person: “I spoke to Ellie on the phone because she was on Tyrique’s stream and she was lovely.”

She’s also been impressed by Finn and Ellie’s relationship, admitting she hopes they continue to go from strength to strength outside the villa.

When it comes to predicting the winners, though, Samie knows better than most that Love Island rarely follows the script.

She believes Jasmine and Kavan have every chance after winning viewers over with their journey, while Simba and Angie have also caught her eye.

“I feel like Jasmine and Kav have a good chance. They’re very much loved up. I really like Simba and Angie.”

But she suspects the biggest surprise could come elsewhere.

Samie explained: “I think Tommy and Yasmin could be the underdogs. It’s always the winners that nobody expects.”

Although, with the recent revelation that Tommy was in a relationship 2 weeks prior to entering the villa – this may have thrown a spanner in the works for their place in the final.

Having experienced the unpredictable public votes herself, she knows contestants inside the villa often have little idea how they’re being perceived.

“When you’re in there, you genuinely don’t know what’s being shown,” she explained.

“So when the public vote comes in, you’re just like, ‘Okay… that’s fine.’”

Watching this year’s romances unfold has also reminded Samie just how much life has changed since her own villa experience. Although she and Tyrique Hyde both found fame on Love Island, their relationship didn’t begin in the villa.

Asked how life together compares to the whirlwind romances viewers usually see on screen, which can often crash and burn off camera, she laughed: “Me and Ty were never actually on the cameras together. So we’ve just met properly in real life. It’s just been us from the start, which has been really nice.”

The pair now spend virtually every day together, with Samie admitting moving in together feels less like an “if” and more like a “when.”

She said: “In the future we’ll definitely live together. We’re inseparable anyway, so it won’t really change much.”

Friends and fans have watched the relationship flourish over the past year, and Samie says she’s happier than ever.

“We’re just really happy. I feel like everyone who knows me can see that.”

That happiness has spilled over into every other part of her life too.

Now she’s preparing to unveil what she describes as her “biggest beauty venture” yet, after spending months working behind the scenes on a collaboration with W7.

Unlike many celebrity collections that simply involve putting a famous face on an existing product, Samie insists this project has been far more hands-on.

Opening up on the project, she said: “We’ve been working on the products really closely. I’ve been using little testers for months because I wanted to make sure everything was perfect.”

Although she’s sworn to secrecy over exactly what fans can expect, she promises the finished collection is unmistakably her.

She laughed: “It’s really annoying because I can’t actually tell you what it is. But what I can say is it’s very me.”

Rather than simply lending her name to a range, Samie wanted the products to reflect the make-up look she’s become known for since first appearing on ITV2.

“I wanted products that people can use every day. That was what I based everything around,” she explained.

The collaboration is the culmination of a relationship that began shortly after she left Love Island.

“It’s been such a huge pinch-me moment,” she admitted.

One of the biggest milestones came when she spotted herself in Superdrug stores across the country.

She laughed: “Walking into Superdrug and seeing my face there is just mad. My friends keep sending me photos every time they see it. It’s one of those shops we all grew up going into, so it feels surreal.”

Alongside the W7 collaboration, Samie continues to develop her perfume brand while juggling a house move and several other ventures she’s not yet ready to reveal.

“This has definitely been my busiest year,” she said.

“There are so many exciting things coming later this year and into next year. I just feel like I keep ticking things off my bucket list.”

Rather than relying on the fleeting fame that comes with reality TV, Samie has spent the past two years building a career away from the villa.

“I feel like we’re conquering all aspects this year,” she said.

“There are so many exciting things coming towards the end of this year and the start of next year.”

NBCUniversal’s Peacock is stretching its wings by joining the subscription YouTube Premium service — a significant boost for the streaming platform that has struggled to find its niche in the increasingly crowded landscape.

NBCUniversal and YouTube on Monday announced the multi-year partnership. Beginning early next year, Peacock will be available as part of YouTube Premium’s U.S. subscription bundle, which also includes ad-free videos and music.

The pact represents Peacock’s largest wholesale distribution agreement to date, one that will introduce the service into millions of new homes.

On Friday, NBCUniversal owner Comcast disclosed the service had finally reached profitability in the second quarter after billions of dollars of investment.

The important benchmark comes as Comcast prepares to spin off NBCUniversal entertainment and news media businesses into a separate company. Peacock, which launched in 2020, grew its paid subscribers by 4% to 48 million in the second quarter, compared to the first quarter.

Comcast has long tried to make Peacock an asset for its Xfinity broadband and cable TV subscribers, but recently began to expand its partnerships in recognition that consumers were getting overloaded with pricey choices.

As part of the agreement, NBCUniversal’s linear television channels will remain on the YouTube TV service.

“This partnership brings NBCUniversal’s world-class content and iconic franchises to YouTube’s unmatched scale and global platforms,” Mike Cavanagh, NBCUniversal’s chief, said in a statement. “We’re excited to deepen our relationship with YouTube through a collaboration that reflects our strategy of partnering with industry leaders to drive sustained growth for NBCUniversal.”

The deal will give YouTube, owned by Google, a bevy of sports, including NFL football, NBA basketball, soccer and Major League Baseball.

“We’re incredibly excited to expand our partnership with NBCUniversal to redefine what a modern entertainment subscription can be for consumers,” YouTube Chief Executive Neal Mohan said in the statement. “YouTube Premium brings your favorite creators, artists and cultural moments together uninterrupted, and now, we’re pairing that ultimate viewing experience with Peacock’s expansive lineup of live sports.”

Ben Miller has opened up on being ‘cancelled’ and how it can often be a worry for him

Death In Paradise star Ben Miller has shared his honest take on being “cancelled”.

The 60-year-old, who previously played Detective Inspector Richard Poole in the popular BBC series, has expressed his thoughts and concerns about social media and how things can suddenly get out of hand. Talking to Radio Times about his show, Austin, which is now in its second series, the star spoke openly about his worries.

Ben was asked: “In Austin, which is back for a second series, you play a children’s author who has been ‘cancelled’ — is that something you worry about?”

The actor replied: “I think we all worry about it a bit, don’t we? Even somebody who’s not on TV who puts a post on their social media takes a very small risk that it’s going to cause a complete Twitter [X] storm.

“Social media is set up to produce that kind of situation, so whatever you put on social media is basically chum to the sharks that can’t stand your guts.”

As well as his cancellation fears, Ben was asked about his role in Death In Paradise and whether he would ever return for a prequel. DI Richard Poole was killed off at the beginning of Series 3 in 2014.

Sharing his thoughts on a potential return he said: “If I wasn’t so ruddy old, I could play him in a prequel! I loved the character and I loved the show.

“It just came at a slightly unfortunate time in my life. But I do really miss that character.

“And funnily enough, Rob Thorogood [the Paraverse creator and writer] has carried on writing stories for Richard Poole, which is quite fun, so that’s a nice way to live the character again.”

Ben’s time on Death in Paradise came to an end in the series three opener, Death of a Detective. The actor later explained that he decided to leave because filming in Guadeloupe meant spending long stretches away from his family, making it difficult to balance work and home life

Since then, there have been several other detectives that have taken on his role of uncovering truths behind the many murders on the fictional island of Saint Marie. In the most recent series, actor Don Gilet plays Detective Inspector Mervin Wilson.

Death In Paradise is available to watch on BBC iPlayer

A Welsh crime drama series has been hailed as ‘thrilling’ and ‘addictive’ is available to stream now

A crime drama with a big twist has been added to ITVX and it’s perfect for your next binge.

Welsh series 35 Diwrnod started in 2014 and has gone down a storm with viewers, who have posted messages on social media admitting they are racing through its first four series. Its eagerly anticipated fifth run is now available on the platform, and its writer has said it’s a “compelling” watch.

Titled 35 Diwrnod: Parti Plu, or 35 Days: Hen Party, the new series – which stars Gwenllian Higginson and Geraint Todd – follows a couple who are preparing for their nuptials and have everything arranged for their special day. It follows the same pattern as previous seasons, with a body being discovered on the 35th day, then the action tracking back so viewers get to piece together what went on.

The show opens with a young couple preparing for their wedding day, but things quickly take a dark turn as in the first few minutes viewers get an ominous glimpse of what appears to be a woman in a wedding dress and veil floating face down in the sea.

Meanwhile, the groom is in the church looking anxious as he waits for his bride to appear.

Teasing some details on her website, writer Fflur Dafydd said: “We know from the outset that there has been a murder and we work back from there – as we do with every other series of 35.

“But despite the whodunnit element – I think with this particular series that the characters and their secrets become far more compelling.”

The series has proved a hit with audiences, with many saying they have been bingeing the episodes.

“I just finished bingeing all four seasons,” one person posted on IMDb.com as another said: “Last couple miniseries I watched have left me cold. This did not!

“Once you get into that different stories being told simultaneously it is a great binge!”

Someone else remarked: “This noir series, at least in the first season, almost becomes a black comedy in its over-the-top willingness to leave death and destruction everywhere. But I liked it. I binge-watched.”

Critics have also been impressed, with one reviewer calling it “gripping” and another saying it keeps you “on the edge of your seat”.

35 Diwrnod: Parti Plu is available on ITVX.

CARLY Simon has announced her Parkinson’s disease and cancer diagnoses after her years-long absence from the public eye.

The 83-year-old singer opened up about her health battles in a statement on Monday.

“So many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence, asking how I am and what I have been doing. The truth is, I’ve been learning how to live with Parkinson’s disease,” the You’re So Vain hitmaker told People.

“It has taken me some time to understand the diagnosis, to adjust to it, and to decide how much I wanted to say about it publicly. Parkinson’s is different for everyone, and it can be unpredictable,” she continued.

“Some days I’m so tired I can’t get the day moving at all. On others, it gives me a little more room to move, think, work, and feel like myself.”

Parkinson’s disease is a movement disorder of the nervous system that worsens over time, with tremors, stiffness, and balance issues being common symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Carly recalled when she first began experiencing symptoms after undergoing multiple surgeries.

“The problems began with arthritis in both knees and one hip. I eventually had all three joints replaced, out with the old and in with delicate bouquets of metal and plastic.

“After three replacement surgeries, I assumed my difficulty walking was simply an unfortunate and rather ironic part of the recovery process,” she said.

“But my mobility continued to worsen. I had trouble standing up from low chairs and deep couches without someone offering me an arm. Overstuffed furniture became my enemy.

“Once seated, I could feel as though I had been swallowed by the chair and might remain there permanently, like a guest who had badly overstayed her welcome.”

Carly added, “Eventually, there were periods when I could not walk without considerable help. My family and I knew that something more was going on. After an extensive evaluation at the Mayo Clinic, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”

She said she began treatment shortly after and has been managing the symptoms with medication.

Carly went on to share that at the same time, she was also battling basal cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer, on her face.

“The cancer was removed, but the surgery affected my appearance and made me more self-conscious about being seen in public,” the music icon, who survived breast cancer after her diagnosis in 1997, admitted.

“I have always been more critical of my appearance than anyone else could possibly imagine (check out the irony of having written “You’re So Vain.”), and this gave my inner critic quite a lot of new material.

“Between my mobility issues, the Parkinson’s diagnosis, the surgery, and the emotional effects of it all, withdrawing from public view was the most palatable reaction.

“If a person is allowed to hibernate during both winter and summer, then I have become an all-season bear.”

Despite the everyday challenges of both illnesses, Carly vows to keep moving forward and focus on her music.

The Nobody Does It Better singer even has a new album on the way, which will be her first original full-length album since 2008.

“But I have not stopped living, and I have not stopped working.

“In the middle of all this, I began recording a new album, Comes in Waves. That still feels mysterious to me.”

She continued, “Music has always known when to arrive. It has rescued me more times that I can count. It is like a cat or dog that quietly appears beside you when it senses you are not quite yourself.”

“The album includes songs and fragments of songs that had been waiting for me, some for years.

“There were melodies, verses, and ideas written down and tucked away for some unknown future when I would have the time and attention to finish them.

“Apparently, that future is now,” Carly revealed.

She added that since her Parkinson’s diagnosis, she’s been “learning how to live with” the disease and is leaning on her family and friends for their support.

Carly also shared her gratitude for her fans, who influenced her decision to reveal her health issues after expressing concerns about her distance from the spotlight.

The musician has maintained her privacy in recent years, and hasn’t been seen in public since October 2019, when she visited SiriusXM Studios in New York City to promote her memoir, Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie.

She even skipped the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Los Angeles in November 2022 after receiving the exclusive honor.

Sara Bareilles and Olivia Rodrigo honored the legendary songwriter with performances of her hits Nobody Does It Better and You’re So Vain at the ceremony.

“More is more and less is a bore.” ― Iris Apfel

After spending decades collecting clean-lined Midcentury Modern furniture and accessories, stylist Wendi Weger felt it was time to give her Silver Lake apartment a playful update.

“Everything was brown,” Weger says as she sits on a plush sofa covered in pink and chartreuse striped Christian Lacroix fabric. “It looked like a UPS truck in here. I mean, look at me,” she adds, fluffing the ruffles of her Accidente Con Flores dress, her intricately manicured fingers decorated with colorful Zuni Toons rings. “That is not me.”

In this series, we spotlight L.A. rentals with style. From perfect gallery walls to temporary decor hacks, these renters get creative, even in small spaces. And Angelenos need the inspiration: Most are renters.

Indeed.

Weger, who grew up in Madison, Wis., studied cinema during graduate school at NYU and later moved to Los Angeles to work in Hollywood as a producer and stylist, is no minimalist. Always expressive, she describes her style as more akin to a “Victorian parlor meets hunting lodge.”

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So it’s no surprise that her one-bedroom apartment, in a Storybook-style fourplex built in 1922, is just as dramatic as she is.

Wendi Weger views her Silver Lake apartment as her creative studio. “I don’t mind a lot of frenetic activity,” she says.

A wall covered in hollyhock wallpaper from House of Hackney stands out in Weger’s bedroom, along with a handmade quilt signed by Grace Verburg that includes crochet, beadwork and hundreds of ribbon rosettes.

Weger thrives on “kinetic energy,” be it color, texture or a pair of bedazzled Italian loafers. In her bedroom, she mixes floral textiles and modern art with a quirky stepstool shaped like an ear of corn. In the dining room, vintage Doyle Lane ceramic beads dangle from a Mission-style wooden clock while designer handbags are draped over chairs and hat racks.

On her fireplace, an ornate gilded mirror from the 1940s she found at Sunbeam Vintage is flanked by porcelain figurines. A porcelain Capodimonte lamp nestled under vintage Japanese prints is described as “Rococo on acid.” Nearby, a handmade chandelier by artist Helen Stickler, decorated with vintage Swarovski crystals and beads, adds to what Weger describes as her “Candyland vibe.”

Weger twirls in a pink taffeta Batsheva dress. “My apartment is basically how I dress — like an Edwardian ghost in a prairie dress who wandered into a circus and decided to keep everything,” she says.

“That’s where I am right now,” she says about the apartment she has called home for 17 years. “I feel like I can finally play. I’m trying to bring in a candy theme without making it too grandma. At this point in my life, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me.”

Her friend, creative director Dana Sidell, says self-expression is central to how Weger lives her life. “Wendi has the unique ability to bring nostalgia, whimsy and individuality all together into maximalist style,” she says in an email.

In 2020, as the film industry slowed down because of COVID-19, Weger took a chance and opened the Curatorial Dept., a vintage and designer resale shop in Atwater Village. Popular with celebrities including Lake Bell, Nick Thune and politicians Nithya Raman and Laura Friedman, the store is known for Weger’s signature “clothing sculptures,” where she layers mannequins with dozens of pieces of clothing and accessories.

“Styling is my art,” she says. “To me, clothing is sculpture.”

A silk Gucci skirt hangs alongside artworks in Weger’s bedroom. “Whether it’s producing a film, building a boutique, styling a room or a mannequin, it’s about assemblage and synergy,” she says.

To demonstrate, Weger starts layering a mannequin in her bedroom, picking from racks of clothes, handbags, color-coordinated shoes and jewelry nearby. She layers an “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt over a dress shirt and Yohji Yamamoto linen pants, then keeps adding more. “It needs a ruffle,” she says, caught up in the process, before adding a frilly collar and glittering vintage brooch.

A bright blue first-place ribbon materializes and becomes the perfect accessory. “It’s not maximalist enough,” she says with a sigh.

Weger says her apartment reflects the way she dresses, with layers of art, vintage clothes and accessories, each with its own story. She jokes that it looks like one of her clothing sculptures has “exploded across a room.”

When asked if there’s such a thing as too much, she shakes her head with conviction.

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1. Weger holds a pair of sparkling JVB X Nomasei ‘Nono’ loafers. 2. The hollyhock pattern from House of Hackney appears throughout Weger’s apartment, even on this fabric lampshade.

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1. A Gucci cashmere bunny cape hangs like an artwork in the bedroom. 2. Doyle Lane ceramic beads hang on a wooden clock above a collection of $2 bills.

“I’ll wear a baby cup as jewelry,” she says, picking up a small silver cup from a cabinet to show her point. What’s one more charm on one of several necklaces already heavy with lockets and hearts?

Weger’s home decor follows the same idea. Some pieces, like a pink silk pleated Gucci skirt by Alessandro Michele, hang on her bedroom wall next to vintage artworks, including a framed cross stitch by a friend that reads “Live. Laugh. Toaster Bath.” Others are neatly arranged in her butler’s pantry. Clothing racks fill the hallway, living room and even her bedroom. “Clothing and handbags are art to me,” she says.

Then there’s the cashmere embroidered rabbit cape by Gucci, which she purchased secondhand.

“People chase me down on the street whenever I wear it and ask me where I got it,” she says. “To me, it’s art.”

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Humor is important to her too. In the living room, a blue resin coffee table shaped like a candy wrapper adds to the playful feel, along with vintage candy dishes.

“There’s a lot of absurdity and comedy here,” she says, pointing out the Spanish angels with guns, a series of artworks from the 1600s.

“There’s something about these Spanish archangels with weapons,” she says. “They look tough and unisex to me, with mild expressions, beautiful clothes, tights, ruffles and sleeves, plus a firearm. It’s a great symbol for being a warrior, especially as a small business owner.”

Nearly everything in her apartment is secondhand, from the vintage Audubon prints arranged salon-style in the living room to the Navajo rugs and David Shrigley print she found at a garage sale. Mixing old and new is important, she says, referring to the House of Hackney hollyhock pattern she recently added to the walls of the living room and bedrooms, as well as the dining room lampshade.

Handbags are draped over dining chairs.

Her place settings are also layered, including Weger’s grandmother’s Wedgwood china.

Her apartment is essentially her atelier, or as she calls it, “the creative engine behind” the Curatorial Dept. She often does intake for her store at her kitchen table, surrounded by needlepoint pillows made by her Great-Uncle Elliott, who was also an entrepreneur. “This is not cluttered to me,” she says. “This is just where everything gets sorted.”

“Wendi’s style has a touch of the harlequin to it — playful, theatrical and always ready for an occasion,” writer and former NYU classmate Josh Rothenberger says in an email. “Her world is a warm pastiche of vintage and bespoke, histories inherited and histories invented on the fly. Her furniture invites the kind of existential frolic that pairs best with Cuvée — only to remind us, hours later, that true beauty should never be too precious to dance on.”

Although Weger says she isn’t a “woo-woo person,” she believes her apartment and store came from asking the universe for what she wanted. “Tell people what you want,” she says. “Especially in L.A. People support you and help you reach your dreams. I said I wanted this apartment, and because of that, my friend thought of me when she was moving. The same thing happened with my shop. I was in a different industry when I told a shop owner friend I’d always wanted a shop, that I intended to have a shop, and she thought of me when hers became available.”

She’s already thinking about what she wants next: “I’ll be sure to tell everyone I know.”

KENDRA Wilkinson was reduced to tears recounting how she was fired by one of her clients at her ‘normal job’.

The star took to Instagram on Sunday to share the teary tale with her followers, where she was both upset and frustrated.

Chatting to the camera while crying, the 41-year-old Playboy star began: “We’re living in a world of struggle right now – I know that. But it’s just … it’s so hard – it’s so hard to know.

“I feel like I’m doing everything right in my life. I’m raising my kids and putting them first.

“I’m doing everything good – I’m a good person. It’s just such a struggle right now.”

Kendra then touched upon some of the issues she’s been facing at work lately, including “fighting people that work with me, getting fired [and] people being rude and mean.”

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Over the top of the video clip she posted, Kendra wrote: “When a client fires you… after all the work you put in. Ya, I’m struggling guys.”

Kendra rose to fame throughout the 2000s thanks to being the decade’s most famous Playboy Playmate.

Her fame led to her entering the world of reality TV, where she started her own reality show called Girls Next Door.

She also went on to star in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2014.

However, in the years that followed Kendra turned away from fame and instead began working in real estate.

In 2020 she passed the California real estate exam after taking several classes and qualified as a fully-fledged real estate agent.

She was soon taken on by luxury Los Angeles firm, The Agency, before moving to Carswell & Associates in 2021.

Kendra is still proudly working with the company to this day and sometimes posts about her 9-to-5 online.

In November last year she gushed about how happy she is in her role, sharing: “I’m so happy I’m evolving into myself and growing who I want to be. Everyday I’m pouring myself into this business.

“I just opened escrow on a property in Venice beach today and it just keeps growing. I’m so proud of myself.”

Last things first: Eve Babitz is a major minor L.A. writer who died five years ago at age 78. She spent nearly a quarter-century as a recluse, having suffered in 1997 a shocking and disfiguring accident while striking a match to light her Tiparillo. Her thin Indian skirt caught fire searing her panty hose into her flesh, leaving her with third-degree burns over more than half her body. She never published again, though many championed her gifts, including me. At the time of her misfortune, I was book editor of the Los Angeles Times. I had long admired her, especially the rollicking and indispensable “Slow Days, Fast Company,” first published in 1977, a charming and insightful series of stories bursting with pluck and sass. I recommended to John Carroll, the then-editor of the paper, that he make her a columnist and urged Babitz to write him directly. She did, and that letter from October 2000 is the last included in “Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were),” a book of letters expertly edited and chosen by Lili Anolik. Babitz tells Carroll that “what the paper needs is some writers that cause such an uproar, people will have to read it in order to stay abreast of the edge.” Babitz knew what she was talking about. She’d been living on that edge since she was a teenager at Hollywood High in the late 1950s.

The posthumous resurrection of Babitz’s writings is most welcome. Yet there is a risk of overpraising her merits. She was an unabashed booster of the glossy L.A. that became synonymous with a rising creative elite whose élan and narcissism she found irresistible.

Lili Anolik makes the case in her perfervid introduction: “The letters are everything you could want” and often “profound” and “frequently brilliant, invariably amusing.” She says they deserve to be put on the short shelf next to Virginia Woolf’s imperishable “A Room of One’s Own” for they are “every bit as candid, every bit as lucid, every bit as brutal, every bit as delicate as Virginia Woolf’s celebrated manifesto.”

If only.

“Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were)” by Eve Babitz

(New York Review Books)

Regrettably, Anolik, who is almost singlehandedly responsible for Babitz’s literary exhumation, has so fallen in love with her subject as to almost blind her to Babitz’s defects, both with respect to her writing and to the life. With two previous books — “Hollywood’s Eve” (2019) and “Didion and Babitz” (2024) — prompted by Anolik’s riveting March 2014 Vanity Fair profile, Anolik has become Babitz’s greatest champion. Now with “Too L.A.,” a title taken from Babitz’s own over-oxygenated writing, she has gathered and edited a trove of letters. They brilliantly reveal Babitz’s eye for the deep shallow as well as explore the porous boundary between the largely self-inflicted injuries of her private life and the glittering sheen of her public persona. Babitz herself, on the strength of these 197 letters, only 30 of which she ever mailed, understood in a way Anolik doesn’t the limitations of her talents, even as she strives to slip the shackles of a mansplaining culture which at almost every turn tried to blunt her ambitions, both artistic and writerly, even as her editors and admirers sought (often with her ardent encouragement) to slip between her sheets.

Eve Babitz was born in 1943 to Hollywood neo-royalty. Her Brooklyn-born father, Sol, was first violinist for both the Los Angeles Philharmonic Symphony and then the 20th Century Fox Studio Orchestra. Sol would ultimately marry Lily Mae Laviolette, a beautiful Cajun Catholic shiksa willing to convert to Judaism. Eve’s godfather was Sol’s good friend Igor Stravinsky. When puberty burst upon her at age 14, Babitz’s blossoming made her a prime candidate for induction by the fast-track girls at Hollywood High who called themselves the Thunderbird Girls and cruised the Sunset Strip in their cool cars, looking for the main chance.

From left, Sol Babitz, Mae Babitz, Mirandi Babitz and author Eve Babitz gather at a launch party for her book “Slow Days, Fast Company” in 1977.

(Photograph by Paul Ruscha; courtesy of Mirandi Babitz / The Huntington Library)

At 20, Babitz posed nude playing chess with the fully clothed Marcel Duchamp to promote Duchamp’s retrospective exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum. At the time, Babitz was having an affair with the museum’s 32-year-old married director, Walter Hopps, which perhaps explains Babitz’s reluctance to have her face photographed so as not to give the game away to Mrs. Hopps, who attended the opening. A month later, Babitz confides in an (unsent) letter: “Everything’s so fabulous for me now I can’t believe it. There’s nothing like two boyfriends to do it for you every time. There are such fabulous boys around and they take you out on dates and to movies and I feel just like a teenager. (I’m recapturing my lost youth.) I get to get dressed up and I flirt outrageously and put people on and I do things like look soulfully out the window and man it’s just too hoozie for words. … If only all of this could last forever — not that it will, but I can.”

She spent the rest of her life torn between the excitements of everyday life — cruising the hangouts du jour (Barney’s Beanery in the early 1960s where she met many of L.A.’s up-and-coming artists — Ed Kienholz, Billy Al Bengston, Laddie Dill, Peter Alexander, and the Ruscha brothers, Ed and Paul, both of whom she’d bed, Paul becoming an on-again, off-again boyfriend whose bisexuality made for a sometimes tenuous connection; and after seducing Jim Morrison before he became famous and later the Troubadour in the late 1960s which was a happy hunting ground — Steve Martin, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, J.D. Souther, Country Joe Mcdonald, Jackson Browne, to name only a few, and then Ports restaurant where she anchored a corner table) — and the seductions of drugs — uppers, acid (which she seemed to ingest with an alarming frequency), pot, of course, and then by the mid-1970s, tragically, an Everest of cocaine. She had entered what she aptly called the era of “squalid overboogie.”

Eve Babitz and her frequent companion Paul Ruscha celebrate the 1977 release of Babitz’s seminal “Slow Days, Fast Company.”

(Photograph courtesy of Mirandi Babitz / The Huntington Library)

The name-dropping is relentless and if, like me, you have an insatiable appetite for hoovering them up, this volume will not disappoint. Still, there are many pages of vapid jottings — “I cleaned the house, did the laundry, and vowed to quit smoking” — that suggest why Babitz was a failure as a novelist (see her dud “Sex and Rage”) and a superb writer of short stories and essays that stylishly plumbed the depths of her own sensibility precisely in the degree to which she was uninterested in other people.

Nearly 30 years after she stripped to please her married lover and startle the unsuspecting Duchamp, the father of Dada, and eight years after she joined AA in 1982 — the year her beloved father died of Huntington’s disease at age 70 which ultimately would also kill her — and gave up drugs and alcohol and (almost entirely) writing as well, which had always been seen by her as enabled by dope of one kind or another, she boasted that, looking back, “Everybody wanted to be me — they looked at me with yearning faces, and said, ‘Boy, you sure had fun.’ ” She was not entirely wrong. She had struck many admirers both then and now, as the quintessential California girl, a daughter of Dionysus, whose devotion to pleasure was free of misgiving or regret. She detested the East Coast avatars of apocalypse, like Nathanael West, who saw only doom and gloom in sunny L.A. Babitz, by contrast, saw things sunny side up. If Joan Didion was unsettled and made anxious by the hot Santa Anas that regularly kicked up, Babitz luxuriated in them, recalling how she and her sister would as young girls rush to embrace them, spinning madly round and round. In a 1977 unsent letter to Joseph Heller, who had championed her work when she had sent him an unsolicited fan letter after having read “Catch-22” when it was first published and she was barely 20, she declares proudly: “I’m a gossip storyteller who likes L.A. rather than hates it.” She refers to her “shallow nature,” writing that “I feel like an upstream salmon, determined to reach the shallow water, no matter how fast the river is running the other way.”

Eve Babitz, the ultimate Hollywood reveler, on Sunset Boulevard in 1980.

(Los Angeles Times)

On the evidence of these letters, she had two great loves: Ahmet Ertegun, a principal founder of Atlantic Records, and Tom Dowd, renown recording engineer and producer who worked for Ertegun. Of the two, Ertegun had the edge, if for no other reason than he came with buckets of dough, making possible assignations at his regular bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel with limo pickup and dropoff services, and the best champagne and other assorted stimulants. Ertegun was effortlessly elegant and erudite, and there was no one he didn’t know and who wouldn’t return his calls. He was married, age 45, 20 years older than Babitz, when they fell for each other in 1969. She began sleeping with him even as she agreed to profile him for Jann Wenner’s newly launched Rolling Stone. The writing didn’t go well. Wenner wanted a tougher piece than she was willing to write. Ultimately, she abandoned the assignment, claiming (not unreasonably) that she didn’t see how she could write objectively about a man she loved.

Babitz courted danger with heedless bravado and exemplary recklessness. She once had the moxie to rid herself of a would-be rapist: When told not to scream, she said with unimaginable sangfroid: “Why not?” The man bolted. It might be said of Babitz, as Oscar Wilde said of his life, that she spent her talent on her writing and reserved her genius for her life. Sculpting her natural gifts of wit and brazenness into a living artwork dazzled all who came within her orbit. Her lust for life was palpable. The letters are proof. She came at people without fear. She left them without apology. She was the boss of herself. She was the girl who seemed to have it all. The only thing she lacked was inexperience.

Wasserman, a former book editor of the Los Angeles Times, is publisher of Heyday Books, a nonprofit, independent publishing house founded in 1974 in Berkeley. He is the author of “Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even if It’s a Lie: A Memoir in Essays.”

Need to know

Elize: Shadows of a Woman tells the true story of Elize Matsunaga, who murdered and dismembered her husband.

Everything you need to know about what happened to Elize Matsunaga and her daughter

1. Netflix’s new crime drama Elize: Shadows of a Woman is a chilling retelling of a real-life Brazilian murder case. The series explores the true story of Elize Matsunaga, who shocked Brazil in 2012 when she shot and dismembered her husband, Marcos Kitano Matsunaga, after discovering his infidelity.
2. Netflix describes the drama as showing how “a former escort discovers her wealthy husband’s infidelity and struggles to cope as betrayal poisons their marriage.” The series, which is a fictionalised retelling of the true story, follows on from the 2021 documentary Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon a Crime, which featured her first interview after the crime.
3. Matsunaga, a trained nurse, had hired a private investigator to gather evidence of her husband’s cheating before confronting him about the affair. The confrontation had fatal consequences, and after the tragic event, she initially reported her husband missing but confessed to the murder weeks later.
4. Convicted in 2016, she was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison, later reduced to 16 years in 2019. Having served 10 years, Matsunaga has been on parole since 2022. The Netflix documentary reveals the Matsunaga family wishes to disassociate themselves by “removing Elize’s surname.”
5. Matsunaga had a daughter, who was only one year old when the murder occurred, and she was keen to keep in contact with her only child. However, her daughter remains in the care of Marcos’ parents with full custody. Tragically, Elize has had no contact with her daughter since the crime and has not even seen photographs of her.

READ THE FULL STORY: Where is Elize Matsunaga now?

GEMMA Atkinson has shown off her washboard abs in a thong bikini after her fiancé Gorka Marquez made a cheeky joke about her job.

The soap actress left fans’ jaws on the floor as she soaked up the sun on holiday.

She cut an incredibly toned figure as she posed up in a mismatched bikini.

In one snap posted to Instagram, Gemma smiled at the camera, flashing her bum in tiny, red, tie-side bottoms.

She went make-up-free in the pictures, looking happier than ever to be spending time with her family.

Gemma wore a plunging black bikini top and matching sunglasses as she threw up a peace sign.

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The former Hollyoaks star and model sizzled in the slew of photos, which showed off her light-hearted side.

She looked fresh out the water with her damp locks clinging to her back.

The mum-of-two captioned the post: “Vitamin D, time on a beach & family = Bliss!”

Fans could not get over Gemma’s sexy snaps and they took to the comments to share their thoughts.

“Looking incredible! Absolute body goals,” wrote one fan.

Another fan said: “Wow Gem looking absolutely gorgeous.”

Strictly pro Diane Buswell penned: “Stun,” followed by a red heart and fire emoji.

Meanwhile, another fan wrote: “Your figure is incredible! You look amazing and so happy.”

Gorka also commented the heart eyes emoji under Gemma’s post after he made a daring joke on their podcast Lost In Translation.

Gemma, 41, was asked by a fan: “What is Gemma Atkinson famous for?”

Ex-Strictly Come Dancing professional Gorka, 35, couldn’t resist jumping in with: “Flashing her t*ts. Actually no, sorry, actress…”

Laughing, Gemma replied: “I’ve done every soap you can imagine, my darling.

“I run a business and I was FHM’s Sexiest Woman back in the day. Your dad will know.”

JENNIFER Lopez’s marriage to Ben Affleck was a “publicity stunt” engineered to revive her star power, her first husband has claimed.

The Latina pop diva, 57, wed actor Ben in 2022 — exactly 20 years after the superstar couple infamously called off their first wedding.

But in an exclusive interview, Cuban-born personal trainer Ojani Noa, 52, said: “That marriage was a publicity stunt. She needed people to talk about her again.”

Jennifer married Ojani in February 1997, following a whirlwind romance.

Ojani, who lives in Florida, has said the seeds of her diva behaviour were sown long before she became a household name.

He said: “She was emotional when I did romantic things and insecure about her acting.”

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Ojani scoffs at the carefully manufactured working-class narrative, alleging that the Jennifer he met had lived a remarkably comfortable, middle-class life.

And he says the Jennifer he knew was a “sweet naive young woman”.

He said: “She was working on a TV show at 18. She had money and her mum was a teacher. She is a fake.”

The Sun on Sunday revealed yesterday how Jennifer’s marriage to Ojani ended after he accused her of cheating on him with her ex, disgraced rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Diddy was convicted last year of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

Coronation Street fans will see Cassie Plummer take extreme action to expose Ross Wilkes on Monday, while there’s good news for the Platts and Sam confides in Idris

After Sunday night’s drama-filled episode of Coronation Street, three spoilers for the next episode tease what happens next.

While the episode drops on ITVX on Monday morning, it’s not airing until 8:30pm on ITV1 that sam evening. But if you want a glimpse of what’s happening int he latest visit to Weatherfield, look no further.

Three key things happen tonight in the fallout to Sunday’s episode, where Cassie Plummer grew tired of people worshiping newcomer Ross Wilkes. We also saw Shona Platt fume at her sister Jodie Ramsay over her lies, kicking her out.

Then there was Sam settling in after returning home from hospital. The drama continues on Monday evening, with some good news for Shona and her husband David Platt.

Shona and David finally bring their baby daughter Harper home, after months in hospital. Before Harper was born, doctors warned Shona and David that there was a mass on the baby’s neck.

Amid discussions over whether to have surgery, Shona went into labour after a car crash during the Corriedale crossover. Harper was very poorly for a while, and has been gradually getting better in hospital over the past few months.

Monday will see Harper brought home, with her family ready to welcome her. But Sam is left upset when he’s not given the chance to hold his baby cousin, with David reluctant.

Jodie also makes a return, with a bombshell for Shona – but will all be forgiven? Speaking of Sam, he’s still getting back on track after he was recently hospitalised, after suffering with his mental health.

He had a breakdown, and after experiencing psychosis he’s been having treatment. On Monday, we see him opening up to Leanne Battersby’s new man Idris Nazir.

Idris shares his own experience with anxiety and how he overcame it as a teen. Sam appreciates the chat with Idris, feeling much better after sharing his worries with him.

The third big spoiler for Monday is Cassie’s plot against Ross. Cassie will drop a bombshell later in the week about Ross, the father of her son Tyrone.

Before that, we know she’s tried to set him up by exposing his past. Monday could be the moment this happens, after the mystery message she got on her phone on Sunday.

Monday’s spoilers reveal that Cassie takes a call from one of Ross’s exes, a woman named Alison. Ross overhears and recognises her name.

Cassie summons Steve, Tyrone, Tracy and Ross to the Rovers and introduces them to Alison Shave, Ross’s ex-girlfriend and reveals how Ross stole money from her and threatened her. How will Ross react, and is he finally exposed?

Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok, Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads.

Emmerdale viewers were quick to react when Gabby Thomas collapsed on Sunday night’s episode, signalling the start of yet another issue-based plot on the ITV soap

Gabby Thomas collapsed on Sunday night’s episode of Emmerdale, prompting the start of another issue-based storyline on the ITV soap.

The waitress, who has been played by Rosie Bentham since 2016, has become obsessed with the quality of food and been seen to be anti-medicine in recent weeks.

On the latest episode of the Yorkshire-based serial, Gabby was listening to social media videos claiming that certain healthy foods were the opposite, a horrified Dawn found her collapsed on the floor. A visit to the doctor ruled out a pregnancy, and she also explained to Manpreet just how little she was eating.

Later on, she told Dawn had stopped taking the pill, claiming that most medicines were ” packed full of chemicals” that she believes are harmful to the human body, so Dawn raised the alarm with her partner Billy. When Gabby found this out, she raged at Dawn: “How dare you! Billy’s told me you were practically wetting yourself to tell him that I’m not on the pill any more.

“You just can’t handle the fact that you’re not the centre of his world any more,” but Dawn ignored the insult and told Gabby that she was just very worried about her. Still furious, Gabby took it upon herself to visit Dawn’s fiance Joe and claim that his partner “still has a thing” for Billy.

She told him: “She’s having secret meetings with Billy behind my back.Trying to stir the pot, get in between us. And I have to say to myself, why on earth would she want to do that? So I really think you should probably ask yourself the same question.”

All of this is part of a brand new issue-based storyline exploring the topic of orthorexia, an eating disorder which embeds itself when an individual which becomes fixated on the quality of the food they consume rather than the quantity.

Reacting to the new episode, fans flooded social media and appeared to be divided on the latest storyline. One fan wrote on Reddit: “Orthorexia is a serious illness and while I do support them raising awareness about it, they’re again not doing an issue-based plot justice.

“They’re again making the central character in the storyline (in this case Gabby) come off as too unlikable and unsympathetic just like Cain in the prostate cancer storyline. I can guarantee you viewers came out of today’s episode siding with Dawn and not feeling bad for Gabby. I certainly did.”

Another said: “Gabby has ‘Orthorexia’….nope Id never heard of it either,” and a third said: “I’m loving this feud again build up between gabby and dawn.”

A fourth wrote: “I take issue with issue based stories that make characters deeply unlikeable. I ended up being Team Dawn today.

“I think Thomas will be the one who ends up seriously sick either not taking medicine for a sickness or the food will give him deficiencies. I can’t stand Gabby in this, she is being written to be deeply unlikeable when the story should be more effective.”

If you’re worried about your health or the health of somebody else, you can contact SEED eating disorder support service on 01482 718130 or on their website, here.

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.

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Samantha Morton didn’t mean to start humming during that scene in “The Odyssey,” the scene everyone is talking about, when, as the sorceress Circe, she turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, literally molding them into their true savage selves.

It wasn’t in the script. It just happened. And when Morton was done, she looked over to director Christopher Nolan, waiting for him to say something like, “Maybe try it without the humming, Samantha.”

But Nolan didn’t say anything, so Morton did it again and the music that was swirling inside her head, which she remembers now as a symphony of glass harmoniums and theremin, kept coming out as Circe went about her witchy business, altering her gluttonous guests, who are busy slurping and gulping down her stew.

“These are sounds that can make you go mad, apparently,” Morton, 49, tells me, reclining on her bed at the Hotel Chelsea in New York. “So to transform the men, the magic came not just from my hands but from my sounds.”

Samantha Morton as Circe in “The Odyssey,” directed by Christopher Nolan.

(Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures)

Morton unabashedly believes in magic. How else, she asks, can you explain how a girl who was shuttled between children’s homes and a dozen foster families, only to be living on the streets of Nottingham, England, at the age of 14 with a criminal record, be here talking with me now, sipping green tea at the Chelsea?

“That’s got to be guardian angels and love — and not that I suddenly became good at acting and got a job,” says Morton, a veteran who’s been at it for 35 years, dazzling audiences and stealing scenes for the likes of Steven Spielberg, Jim Sheridan and, now, Nolan. “I’ve always believed that anything is possible and there’s no doubt in here,” and she pats her heart, “because I’ve always felt this immense love for me from another entity.”

When Morton heard that Nolan wanted to meet her for “The Odyssey,” she says she wept. If that sounds dramatic, she makes no apologies. She likens it to being an athlete who qualifies to represent their country at the Olympics. She’d spent decades honing her craft for that phone call. When it came, she flew to Los Angeles in January 2025 during the wildfires, embarking on what would become the best job interview of her life.

I ask her what she remembers about that meeting.

“I think it went really well,” Morton answers, laughing.

Morton told Nolan she hadn’t read “The Odyssey,” which, when you quit school at the age of 12, makes sense. Flying back home to England — she and her husband live in East Sussex with their children, 18-year-old daughter Edie and 12-year-old son Teddy — she recalled that, yes, she knew a bit of “The Odyssey” from having seen it parodied on an episode of “The Simpsons.” (“We’re ‘Simpsons’ mad in our house,” she says. “Like, mad.”)

But Morton doesn’t believe in bogging herself down in research, not since starring in a British TV production of “Jane Eyre” when she was 19 and carried around a heavily highlighted copy of the Charlotte Brontë book, despairing whenever the adaptation deviated from the novel. From that point on, she stuck to the script and her own imagination.

“That’s got to be guardian angels and love — and not that I suddenly became good at acting and got a job,” says Morton of her career. “I’ve always believed that anything is possible.”

(Ebru Yildiz / For The Times)

Thinking about Circe, Morton recalled going to the library with her dad (“We had nothing and were beyond poor, but he always had a library card,” she says) and finding the Howard Pyle fairy-tale book “King Stork.” She remembers being mesmerized by the story’s wicked witch. She recalls other witches from folk tales like Baba Yaga, frightening characters but also, she says, “women possessing an innocence that had been eroded over the years by the harshness of life.”

Morton does a playful verbal evasion when discussing the nuts-and-bolts aspects of shooting the scene where Circe transforms Odysseus’ men, saying that back in the day when behind-the-scenes features were prevalent on DVDs, she routinely declined to participate.

“I didn’t mean to be tricky, but it was like: This is my private moment. This is for me,” she says. “I do like the idea of a little mystery.”

But then a beat later, she laughs it off and dives in, remembering that her husband showed her an Instagram post from Nolan’s set revealing how the movie’s Cyclops was, in fact, a puppet.

“Oh my gosh — I love puppets!” Morton raves, and off she goes, telling me how much she adores Jim Henson and how “The Dark Crystal” is one of her all-time favorite films.

What she will say about her “Odyssey” scene is that there were no digital effects. Everything was real and “in camera” and that she was so in the zone that she barely remembers any of it, only flashes.

“That’s not CGI,” Morton says. “That’s human brilliance and a connectivity of me as a performer, almost dancing and feeling one. And not to say that it was sexual, but I wanted it to be very sensual when she’s with the men and the animals, just like, you know, that she’s almost one with them.”

“What was lovely about that,” Morton begins and then stops, wondering if she should draw back the curtain on the creative process. She goes ahead. “There was a day on set when Chris was like, ‘OK,’ and he put his hand in because I was a little scared. It’s like that scene in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ where he puts his hand in the thing, and you’re like, ‘Oh no!’ I was a little nervous, but Chris did it first. I think he actually cut his finger.” She giggles. “You know, he’s going to go in first, like getting into the cold water in the sea. I felt protected and supported in that whole process.”

When Odysseus’ men arrive at Circe’s home, hungry, asking to be fed, Circe seems frightened — understandably so. She’s alone, and these soldiers have a history of pillaging and taking what they want. And yet, she’s a powerful sorceress. Is Circe really scared or tricking them to lure them in?

“I played that like she was genuinely frightened because she was caught off-guard,” Morton says. “I also wanted to play somebody that was all ages, so I played her like a 16-year-old girl in that scene. And then in other scenes, I’m playing her as a 90-year-old woman or a 49-year-old woman or a sister or a mother, a grandmother. I just wanted her to be ageless.”

Morton, looking out for Circe, stresses that transforming Odysseus’ men was not purely vengeful.

“It’s not just hate,” she says. “It’s not just harm. It’s not just anger. It’s almost like a Zen master within the goddess role of the teaching as well. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ gluttony, greed, all of these things.”

There’s a righteous feminist rage underneath the scene as well, a modernization that brings “The Odyssey” fiercely and disturbingly up to date. It’s another reason why people leave are leaving the theater talking about Morton.

“In some weird way, the film lived or died over that character,” says director Nolan of Morton’s Circe, a creation of pure acting and no digital sorcery. “She was the fulcrum.”

(Ebru Yildiz / For The Times)

Nolan thinks “The Odyssey,” in some weird way, “lived or died over that character — she was the fulcrum.” He told The Times that “after one of her takes, the crew gave her a great round of applause.” Emma Thomas, Nolan’s producing partner and wife, later recalled that the last time that had happened was with Heath Ledger on “The Dark Knight.”

Morton makes a point of telling me how much Ledger meant to her, having been cast opposite him (and Odysseus himself, Matt Damon) more than 20 years ago in Terry Gilliam‘s 2005 fantasy adventure “The Brothers Grimm.” Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein overruled Gilliam, dropping Morton from the film because, in his eyes, she wasn’t attractive enough.

“And Heath fought for me with such kindness and compassion,” Morton says. “He’s up there with Philip Seymour Hoffman for me. There’s something otherworldly personal about what they gave, such sincerity and vulnerability and an absolute dedication to craft. They leave a mark on your heart.”

It’s not the first time Morton has invoked the heart in our conversation. She brought her son, Teddy, to New York for the premiere of “The Odyssey” because she wanted to show him the place where her creative spirit was born. Morton first came to New York as a teen to do press for “Emma,” returned a year later to promote “Jane Eyre” and then couldn’t bring herself to leave, “sofa-surfing” at friends’ apartments so she could immerse herself in the city.

“New York stole my heart,” Morton says. It’s where she first got into literature, devouring Charles Bukowski, roaming the aisles at the St. Mark’s Bookshop, checking out movies from Kim’s Video and gobbling hash browns and eggs over easy at the Waverly Diner.

Not long after, Morton scored the role that would land her the first of two Oscar nominations (for now, at least), playing the mute laundress in Woody Allen’s “Sweet and Lowdown.” The production put her up in a Greenwich Village apartment and when it ended, she moved to the East Village.

Only the diner remains but Morton still plans on touring the Village with Teddy, showing off all of mom’s old haunts and, yes, having a cup of soup at the Waverly.

“Life is good right now,” Morton says, smiling. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll indulge in some hash browns.”

Coronation Street’s Jodie Ramsey has finally confessed to Shona that she attacked Sarah Platt on the night of Theo’s murder and now fans think this could finally spell the end for the controversial character

Jodie Ramsey confessed to her sister Shona that she attacked Sarah Platt on Sunday night’s episode of Coronation Street. Earlier this year, her long-lost sister, who had never been mentioned before, turned up in the programme’s crossover with Emmerdale, arriving tied up in the back of a van.

Ever since her arrival, Jodie (Olivia Frances Brown), who was first seen tied up in the back of a van, has been shrouded in mystery, although it is quite clear that there is something sinister about her. In the four months since she made her debut, Jodie has been stealing various items that belong to neighbours – the most recent of which was a gun – and also tried to pass herself off as Shona at the hospital.

Viewers have known for months that Jodie attacked Sarah on that fateful night in April, just moments after the factory supervisor, who has been played by Tina O’Brien since 1999, killed the abusive Theo Silverton by hitting him over the head with a pole.

Whilst David, Shona’s husband, was visiting his sister in prison, she told him that she believed Jodie had hit her over the head to stop her seeing what was in her box.

Back at number eight, Shona had dragged a confession out of Jodie and raged at her: “I’m starting to doubt whether or not you were even kidnapped. OK, all right, so you hit her.

“Then what? Well, I mean, you know, you see her lying on the ground, you realise you’ve just attacked David’s sister. Did you check her pulse? Did you do mouth-to-mouth?”

Jodie begged for forgiveness, and then twisted things around as she said: “You know, when you think about it… ..by not saying owt, well, I was actually protecting Sarah,” to which Shona laughed in disbelief. At her wits’ end, Shona told Jodie to get out of the house, telling her she didn’t care where she ended up.

Later on, Shona was clearly worried when her sister hadn’t turned back up and was constantly ringing her. As David’s daughter Lily looked around the house to try to find her confiscated gaming console, she stumbled upon Jodie’s trinket box and discovered the gun that her mysterious long-lost step aunty had stolen and stashed away some weeks ago.

Reacting to the explosive scenes, fans predicted this could finally spell the end of Jodie now that Shona is edging ever closer to realising something is clearly not right.

One fan wrote on X: “Really hope Jodie gets put away soon…not sure why she’s there, and what happened to her dad?”

Another said: “Hoping it’s the end of Jodie soon,” but a third remained unconvinced this was all leading to Jodie’s exit as theyd ranted: “Soap is unbelievable so Shona has found out Jodie has attacked Sarah and you watch in a few weeks they will be friends again and living together.

“Imagine that happening in real life would be completely different. Before people say it’s not real #Corrie was meant to portray life!”

Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X.

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Universal Studios has issued a stern warning after an unauthorized copy of its hit film “The Odyssey” was leaked over the weekend.

“We became aware of the unauthorized posting of the film and immediately initiated takedown protocols,” the studio said in a statement. “We take copyright infringement seriously and will pursue all appropriate remedies to protect our content and intellectual property rights.”

The studio was responding to a post on X that shared a high-quality copy of the Christopher Nolan film. The post was viewed more than 2.1 million times before a takedown notice replaced the copy of the film.

The post was shared Saturday on X at 2:25 p.m. Pacific, and the account was suspended within three hours, according to Variety.

“The Odyssey” continues to be a top attraction for filmgoers, drawing huge crowds on its second weekend. Demand for advance tickets caused AMC’s app to crash in June. At the time, users on social media said wait times had reached an hour.

The film in its second weekend pulled in $87 million, acccording to Rentrak, a data analytics company that tracks box office sales.

KATIE Price was left feeling stunned as she reunited with a club bouncer that she kissed on a night out 30 years ago.

Katie, 48, shared a clip reminiscing about her Wednesday nights at London’s China White back in the day.

Speaking with the hosts of The Rated Show, Katie explained: “I loved it there.”

One of them replied “Ask her how and why the day she came down is so memorable.”

“What did I f***ing do now? What didn’t I do?” laughed Katie.

“I’m the doorman that you kissed at China White’s,” he said.

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A shocked Katie exclaimed: “No!”

His friend added: “He’s been living off that for 30 years. You know he hasn’t washed his face for 30 years.”

“That shows how old I am,” joked Katie.

She then explained how she couldn’t wait to appear on their show.

Katie looked happy and relaxed in the video clip but it comes days after she shared a snap on her Instagram without her wedding ring.

Katie tied the knot with conman Lee in January, just 10 days after meeting him.

Ever since, stories of Lee’s lies, scams and imprisonments have filled the pages of newspapers and magazines.

However, The Sun’s explosive dossier of evidence against Lee – including a “gay affair rumour” – has, according to a source, left Katie with no choice but to consult a divorce lawyer.

Clemmie also confirmed in her in-depth article that Katie is refusing to return to Dubai – where Lee lives and is currently locked up in prison.

Meanwhile Katie has vowed to quiz her husband over his offer to sell a sex tape of them – as her sister Sophie branded him a “d***head”.

It comes after The Sun revealed Lee’s sickening plan of hawking an alleged “sex tape” with his wife.

Love Island fans have been rooting for one couple since day one of the 2026 summer season – but they got dumped on the eve of the final and were forced to take out another couple with them

Love Island viewers shocked by a brutal penultimate episode twist that cost two couples a place in the final. The 2026 season of ITV’s long-running reality romance show has been airing since the beginning of June.

But the thirteenth season of the ITV show has proved to be very unlucky for two loved up couples – who were brutally ditched from the villa the day before the live final meaning they lost all hope of scooping the £50,000 Love Island prize. For one couple, it was a real stinger – as they had made it all the way through the past two months of couplings, uncoulpings and dumpings – only to fall at the last hurdle.

Mica Harris, 21, from Barbados, and 25-year-old Samraj Toor, from Birmingham, coupled up on day one of the 2026 summer season but were told their Love Island dream was over in scenes that aired on Sunday night. But a cruel twist meant they weren’t the only pair to lose out on a place in the final.

At the beginning of the episode, the former couples from the season returned to the Villa to reveal which couple each of them thought didn’t deserve a place in the final. After the majority decided on Mica and Samraj, the deflated couple began to say their goodbyes and prepared to leave.

However, the crushed duo then received a text message while packing up their things that told them that only three couples could advance to the live final, and they had the terrible task of picking one other couple to get booted from the Island before the final.

And in an even more agonising twist for viewers, the episode ended before Mica and Samraj’s decision was aired. Fans of the show are now waiting in fear that their favourite couples might not make it to the final after all.

One commented on X: “If they choose Julia & Lorenzo I’m boycotting the final, this twist is dumb.” And another raged: “I hate this production move because Simba/Angelista or Julia/Lorenzo might be in jeopardy smh.”

Indeed, some viewers have accused Love Island bosses of trying to fix the finale by granting Mica and Smaraj a veto over who gets to make it to the end.

One wrote: “This plot twist was actually to help Jasmine and Kavan secure their spot in the finals over Julia and Lorenzo I don’t want to hear about who the producers favor anymore cause it’s clear.”

And another argued: “It makes zero sense to give Samraj and Mica a say in who reaches the final when the public has repeatedly voted them into the bottom. The logic just isn’t there…”

Love Island 2026 will reach a climax on Monday 27 July – airing on ITV2 and via ITVX from 9pm.

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