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PLUCKED from obscurity and then dropped when fans lose interest, men in reality TV shows often fare worse than their female counterparts.

While women regularly earn a fortune from brand endorsements, the guys can find themselves struggling after they are no longer on our TV screens.

Now the untimely deaths of The Only Way Is Essex cast members Jake Hall and Jordan Wright within a few months of each other has raised fears that ITV is failing in its duty of care for former reality TV stars.

Jake, 35, died last week in a Spanish villa following a night of partying while Jordan, 33 was found dead in a ditch in Thailand in March.

A TV insider told The Sun: “The tragic deaths of Jake and Jordan have raised some serious red flags.

“No one is blaming ITV but there is definitely a pattern which emerges time and time again on all reality shows.

“Measures were put in place a number of years ago but it doesn’t seem to be enough.”

Artist and designer Jake, who joined Towie in 2015, had been living in Spain.

He was found dead in a pool of blood in a villa in Majorca last Wednesday morning after he seemingly crashed through a window.

A police source said witnesses described Jake as “agitated”, possibly from “alcohol and other substances he may have consumed”.

He had a number of struggles in recent years, from losing his fashion brand Prevu to being hit with a restraining order by ex-girlfriend Misse Beqiri, a model and the mother of his eight-year-old daughter River.

Yet right from the start of his telly career, Jake was open about being uncomfortable with fame.

Shortly after his debut on Towie, Jake said on This Morning: “The privacy part has been quite difficult because everyone knows your life within days of being on the show.”

Jordan, from Basildon, Essex, also admitted he struggled with life in the spotlight.

The former firefighter said: “I had an enjoyable career for six years before I resigned to pursue a life in the limelight of reality TV — a choice that left me hugely unfulfilled, stagnant and lost.

“People think it’s glitz and glamour but the truth is very far from public perception.

“I really struggled.

“When I left I lost a huge part of myself and my sense of purpose.”

Jordan returned to firefighting in 2023 but he struggled to settle and in December moved to Thailand where he was looking forward to a “very exciting year ahead”.

He shared his new life with his 21,500 Instagram followers, but in March was found dead face down in a drainage canal on the island of Phuket.

CCTV footage appeared to show Jordan pacing erratically outside a hotel before bolting out of the complex shortly before his body was found.

Unfortunately, the two deaths were not Towie’s first.

In January 2021, Mick Norcross took his own life, aged 57.

The Sugar Hut owner and businessman had joined the show with his son Kirk, who now runs a waste removal business.

Addiction has also taken hold of a number of cast members, including James Argent, who suffered two near-fatal overdoses at home.

Arg’s drug binges cost him his relationship with co-star Lydia Bright, his job on Towie and other high- profile TV work.

Last year he was in trouble after pushing his former Miss Sweden partner Nicoline Artursson down some steps on holiday in Spain.

He admitted an offence of gender violence and was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Jake and Jordan’s deaths sent shockwaves through fans of Towie and its stars.

Charlie King, who was on the show in 2012 and 2013, has faced his own demons since he left the programme but believes his fellow cast members must “take responsibility”.

He told The Sun: “Reality stars in general are seeking something — whether it’s fame, attention or validation.

“It’s a two-way street — stars want to appear on the shows for that lifestyle and experience, and shows need the participants.

“I can’t say Towie gave me the best support when I finished on the show.

“I remember feeling lost and redundant, trying to navigate a life post the show and still having eyes on me.

“It was hard.

“I missed the show deeply and all that came with it.

“I think access to a counsellor or therapy in those first months or years after appearing is always a good idea.

“But I also don’t think it’s fair to point the finger at these shows for how individuals live their lives after — we have to take responsibility.”

Charlie added that producers offer much better support for their on-screen talent these days and that ITV “isn’t afraid to pull out cast members if they think it’s getting too much or they need a breather, which is great to see”.

Following his stint on Towie, Charlie was diagnosed with body dysmorphia and had a botched nose job.

Other lads from the show have also gone under the knife in a quest for perfection.

Bobby Norris is now almost unrecognisable after having a full deep plane facelift, neck lift and lower eyelid surgery.

James Lock has also battled body dysmorphia and says he has spent around £100,000 on getting work done.

On rival ITV show Love Island, telly bosses brought in a revised set of welfare measures in 2021, including “comprehensive” psychological support, after former stars Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis took their own lives.

Their relatives blamed a lack of support from the show for contributing to their mental anguish.

Love Islanders are offered a minimum of eight therapy sessions when they return home.

They also get advice on coping with their finances.

But unlike Love Island, Towie cast members often appear on the show for years at a time.

A number of its former stars, including Yazmin Oukhellou and Tommy Mallet, have praised the support they have received while on the show — but what happens when the cameras stop rolling?

A telly insider revealed: “When women finish on a reality show, brand deals, an influencing career and other avenues are open to them — but it’s very different for men.

“They can get club PAs but that involves late nights and lots of booze.

“Some people like Jake or Tommy launch a career in fashion, but many struggle to achieve the dizzy heights they once enjoyed.”

Women, meanwhile, have made millions off the back of Towie, thanks to very successful business models.

Former glamour model Sam Faiers owns global collagen brand Revive and is worth £9million, and Gemma Collins is now a huge TV star with £7million in the bank.

Lucy Mecklenburgh — famed for throwing drinks on cheating Mario Falcone — now owns a thriving fitness brand and shows off her happy life on social media.

But there have also been a number of male Towie successes too.

Mark Wright landed I’m A Celebrity and Strictly at a time when Z-listers were reportedly banned, as well as enjoying a stint on US TV.

Now a radio DJ, he is married to actress Michelle Keegan, and the couple live in a £3.5million Essex mansion with one-year-old daughter Palma.

Joey Essex also became a huge breakout star.

These days he is worth at least £10millon thanks to a lucrative reality TV career, savvy personal branding and business ventures.

Another success story is Tommy Mallet, who launched luxury footwear and apparel brand Mallet London and more recently Ctrne trainers.

Tommy, Joey and Mark are living up to Towie’s theme tune The Only Way Is Up — and fans will hope there will be more men from the show who enjoy similar success.

ITV was approached for comment but declined.

On Mother’s Day, let’s salute two single mothers who became the No. 1 fans for their sports-playing sons and stayed by their side through good and bad times.

Sylmar pitcher Matthew Torres has tried to make it through life without a father after his parents’ separation when he was 12.

“He’s not been to any high school games,” Torres said.

Enter his mother, Roxanne, who has raised four boys and one girl by multitasking and embracing sports activities. She intervened to help Matthew make it through tough times.

“Her bringing me to church and getting to know God has made me the man I am today,” the 6-foot-3, 185-pound senior said.

Torres became the No. 1 pitcher in the Valley Mission League this season with an 8-0 record while also hitting .488. He helped Sylmar win the league title and become the No. 1 seed for the City Section Division I playoffs.

He has a secret plan scheduled for Sunday to salute his mother. Who doesn’t like surprises?

At Carson High, All-City quarterback Chris Fields has a mother, Shere Fletcher, who could play or coach football the way she has dived headfirst into learning the sport to be at the side of her son.

There were once tough times as a family. Fields said the family was “impoverished.” Mom worked multiple jobs while also studying but sacrificed everything to make sure her son and daughter could have a bright future. She became a paralegal and never misses a practice or game. She should be called “Coach Fletcher” but prefers mom.

“I’ve been through everything with my mom,” Fields said.

Her Mother’s Day gift since the 49ers are her favorite team is a vintage Jerry Rice jersey and a trip to Santa Anita.

There are plenty of moms who’ve spent countless hours driving, feeding and motivating their sports-playing sons and daughters through highs and lows.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have reached an agreement to resolve their legal dispute, bringing an abrupt end to a high-profile and increasingly contentious battle that had been set to go to trial in two weeks.

“The parties in the Blake Lively and Wayfarer Studios litigation have reached an agreement to resolve the matters,” lawyers for both sides said in a joint statement Monday in a case that has drawn outsized attention for more than a year.

“The end product — the movie ‘It Ends With Us’ — is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”

The statement did not disclose the terms of the agreement.

The bitter dispute, which grew out of the production of the 2024 romantic drama “It Ends With Us,” had sprawled over months into a series of lawsuits, countersuits and public claims, with both sides offering sharply different accounts of what took place during and after filming.

Lively sued Baldoni, his production company Wayfarer Studios and others in December 2024, alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and other claims tied to her experience on the film. Baldoni denied the allegations and pushed back in court filings, arguing that the dispute had been mischaracterized.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman dismissed most of Lively’s claims, including her sexual harassment allegations, significantly narrowing the case ahead of a trial that had been scheduled to begin May 18 in New York.

The remaining claims, centered largely on alleged retaliation, had been expected to be the focus of the trial, which was likely to last two to three weeks and risked reputational damage to both parties.

It was not immediately clear whether the court had formally vacated the trial date.

After the game, Murphy had hinted at frustration about comparisons to other Ulster teams who had come up short in previous semi-finals.

He went as far to say that “this team hasn’t been in a semi-final before”.

And, in truth, he was right.

Of the starting team that were pipped by the Stormers in a dramatic United Rugby Championship semi-finals in 2022, only five were in action on Saturday.

Along with Timoney, Iain Henderson, Tom O’Toole, Stuart McCloskey and Ethan McIlroy were the sole survivors from the starting team that day.

Even on the bench that day in Cape Town, only Nathan Doak and Eric O’Sullivan featured against Exeter.

“It’s such a different team since then,” Timoney said.

“There’s been a lot of change now to the group, so it’s about this current journey.

“Sometimes it’s good for individuals, and for me and the likes, to have those lessons built up over a number of years.

“But the beauty sometimes of newer lads who don’t have those experiences, they don’t have those scars and it doesn’t even factor into their minds.”

Social media is full of posts showing off photos and videos of fancy-looking cafes and restaurants in Gaza. Pro-Israeli accounts often use these images to claim that life is back to normal in Gaza, that people are not suffering and that no genocide ever took place.

These cafes and restaurants do exist. I have seen them myself.

In late March, I went on my first visit to Gaza City since the war started. I was shocked to see the destruction wrought on the city. There were piles of rubble at every corner. Unable to recognise the streets, I felt as if I were strolling through a maze. I soon arrived at an area nearby that shocked me even more. It was full of new cafes that did not exist before the war.

These were not makeshift or temporary places as one might expect; they were built with expensive materials, carefully painted, furnished with tables, sofas, and elegant chairs, with glass facades and shining lights. A luxury feel emanated from them. They looked so out of place amid the rubble and the half-collapsed buildings that it felt almost surreal to see them.

These new establishments do not prove that normality is coming back to Gaza. They are a testament to its continuing genocidal abnormality.

The war made some people in Gaza rich, especially those who engaged in illicit activities like smuggling, looting, and hoarding during acute shortages. This wealth is now coming out in various forms, including luxury cafes and restaurants.

In parallel, the vast majority of Gaza’s population has been thrown into abject poverty. While before the war, the average person was able to afford to sit at a cafe and have a drink and a bite to eat, today this is no longer the case.

Most people cannot even look at these new places, let alone enter them and order something. The vast majority of Gaza’s population lives in tents, has no electricity or potable water, and suffers from the loss of livelihoods. They are surviving on what little aid Israel is allowing through.

I am one of them. My family and I live in a tent pitched near the rubble of our home in the Nuseirat camp. We have lost our family livelihood. The comfortable life we used to have is now just a distant memory.

The expensive new establishments reflect the deeply unjust social order that has emerged in Gaza – one where war profiteering has elevated a new privileged class and collapsed the vast majority into misery with no access to proper education, healthcare and even food. The genocide did not just kill and maim people and destroy homes and schools; it eliminated the prospect of a normal life for most people in Gaza.

I could not afford the fancy cafes, so I continued down the street till I reached a more modest restaurant, which used to go to with friends before the war. Entering it felt like stepping back in time to the days before the war; the place was the same, with the same chairs and tables, and the familiar smells that filled the space.

I sat and observed, dwelling on fond memories of spending time there after university lectures. I ordered what I used to order: a chicken wrap, a soda and a small salad plate. The bill was 60 shekels ($20) – more than three times what I would pay before the war, when my family actually had a normal income.

The restaurant bill, together with the fare I paid for a shared ride to get to Gaza City (15 shekels or $5 one way), cost me a fortune. I felt guilty spending all this money to enjoy a glimpse of normalcy.

The few who are fortunate enough to be able to afford going to cafes and restaurants in Gaza may enjoy short moments of relief, a temporary escape from the horrors of reality. Yet these moments are limited, often accompanied by anxiety about returning to the destroyed streets, the bombed-out landscape and the trauma.

As I sat at Al-Taboon, I thought of the friends with whom I used to spend time: Rama, who was martyred and Ranan, who escaped to Belgium. I sat there alone, holding on to these memories amid the greyness of Gaza’s rubble and the lights of the generator-powered cafés.

The genocide has devasted everyone – even those who have profiteered from it. No amount of time spent in shiny cafes and restaurants will ever erase this reality.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Writer Octavia Lillywhite discovered the latest ‘moorcore’ trend with a wild and windswept escape in Bronte country, West Yorkshire

“Wuthering” is a Northern English term for a strong, roaring wind or a storm-lashed place, which is highly appropriate for Emily Brönte’s only novel – Cathy and Healthcliff’s tempestuous story of passion and revenge. It’s a harder sell for a holiday.

That hasn’t stopped ‘Moorcore’ from becoming the latest trend in UK breaks. And what is Moorcore? It’s a move-on from the cutesy cottagecore vibe (all roses round the windows, thatched roofs and cats curled by the fire). It’s wild and free. The feeling of standing atop a gritstone edge, a heathery moorland vista stretching to the horizon, tumbling waterfalls, fairy glens, fresh air in your lungs.

READ MORE: I found the perfect Tuscany Hotel for a week of incredible food and wine in Italy

There’s no better place to channel moorcore than on Haworth Moor – whose wild, heather-strews footpaths were well-traipsed by the Brontës. Two miles from their parsonage, Royds Hall Cottage is marked on maps from 1847, the very year Wuthering Heights published, and it’s likely it was a familiar sight for the sisters on their rambles. As we arrive, the breeze tusseling daffodils along the embankment and a buzzard hovering above, it feels magical.

Stay in the heart of the Yorkshire moors… near the pub

The kitchen is panelled on two sides with windows – a 180º view. There’s Ponden Reservoir shimmering, purple hills rising beyond and, in front, the owner’s horses tearing up the grass. The view changes moment to moment, as clouds scud across the sky, rolling shadows over the dale. You can watch the weather curl in from the east, like two days visible from the same window. I could marvel at it all day.

Just the right mix of old and new, the cottage sleeps four in two cosy rooms upstairs. Downstairs, the living room has the same vast view as the kitchen, exposed oak beams, a woodburner and sofas for cosying up in. And there’s a copy of Wuthering Heights if you forgot yours.

I’d had some concerns that wilderness could feel remote, but from the cottage’s kitchen window I could see the comforting sign of the nearest pub, and two more are a 10-minute walk away, in the village.

Walking in the footsteps of Wuthering Heights

On an energetic five-and-a-half mile loop from the cottage front door, we took in the waterfall at Lumb Beck (detailed in Charlotte’s letters to her friend, Ellen) and the desolate farmhouse at Top Withens – said to be the setting for Cathy and Healthcliff’s home. From there, across the moorland paths we discovered the Fairy Kirk at Ponden Clough (‘Penistone Crags’ in the novel), and beautiful Ponden Hall, which Emily Brontë used as Edgar Linton’s Thrushcross Grange and where her sister Anne set The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Around Top Withens and the waterfall, there were scores of walkers admiring the famous views but, only a crow-call beyond, we saw barely a soul – just swooping curlews with their strange warbling cries and a roe deer bouncing off into the distance. It’s easy to find both wild inspiration and, afterwards, scones and clotted cream at Ponden Mill.

In the other direction, Haworth village was less than an hour’s stroll. It’s the focal point of Brontë pilgrimage, so it was busy – yet still so beguiling, with a sense of the sisters at every turn. Visiting on foot meant we could skip the car park and enter the village – just as they would have – from the footpath at the end of Church Street.

Their house (now an unmissable museum) is the first you come to on the cobbled street. From the parlour table, the one Emily and her sisters worked at, you can still look out at the graveyard with its overcrowded, flat-lying gravestones.

The best places to eat and shop near Stanbury and Haworth

In Stanbury village, a 10-minute walk from the house, we found the Wuthering Heights Inn serves excellent pub food classics, is family and dog friendly and didn’t bat an eyelid at our muddy boots.

If you prefer to eat in, don’t miss Robertshaw’s Farm Shop at Thornton, 20 minutes by car. It’s packed to the rafters with local meats, dairy, vegetables and baked goods plus wine and Yorkshire ales. We loved it so much we stopped there again on the way home to pack the car with extras.

How to book this Yorkshire Moors cottage stay

Royds Hall Cottage sleeps four (a double room and a twin) and is available to book through booking.com or cottages.com, from £370 for 3 nights.

More ‘moorcore’ destinations to try in the UK, with great literary links

The wild places of Britain have been inspiring literary classics for generations, and Haworth is not the only place to find it.

Lorna Doone

Where to find it: Riverside Cottage overlooks dappling Badgeworthy Water, the river where John and Lorna meet, just at the ford in Malmesmead. In a seven-ish mile walk you can head up into their moorland valley among the rolling hills, or a 3-mile loop takes in the 13th-century church at Oare. Either way, you end back at your cottage, next door to The Buttery café. Further afield, don’t miss Tarr Steps (about 35 minutes by car) where a 1000-year old clapper bridge spans the river, and in summer families picnic on the grassy meadow before heading to Liscombe Dairy for the best ice creams.

How much? Riverside Cottage sleeps four from £699 for 7 nights, see nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays

The Secret Garden

Where to find it: Wood Cottage nestles in the rugged North York Moors, circled almost entirely by wild uplands with footpaths in any direction. One of the area’s most inspiring views, The Wainstones, is a 3-mile hike, and on the way back you can drop by The Buck Inn. The cottage is 200 years old but recently – and so prettily refurbished – with the living room upstairs for the best light and views. It’s set on a working sheep farm, so expect fluffy Herdwick lambs to visit at the back gate for your very own Dicken moment from the patio. Twenty minutes drive away, Hemsley Walled Garden could rival the garden Mary Lennox found, while right next door, Dunscombe Park served as Misselthwaite Manor in the 2020 Secret Garden film.

How much? Wood Cottage sleeps four from £697 for 7 nights, see sykescottages.co.uk

Manchester City face a fixture pile-up of four games in 11 days next month after the Premier League confirmed the rescheduled dates for two of their key matches in the race for the title.

Pep Guardiola’s side will host Crystal Palace on Wednesday, 13 May and travel to Bournemouth six days later, with the FA Cup final against Chelsea taking place in between on Saturday, 16 May.

The Palace game was originally scheduled for 22 March but had to be postponed because of City’s participation in the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal, while the Bournemouth match was pushed back because of a clash with the FA Cup final.

City, Palace and Bournemouth had been involved in dialogue with the Premier League over the dates for the games, which have now been resolved.

Should City and Arsenal win all their remaining five games they will both end on 85 points, meaning goal difference or goals scored could be the determining factor come May.

This is how tight it is – both teams have played the same number of games (33), have the same number of points (70) and their results are identical too – having won 21, drawn seven and lost five of their matches.

The only factor separating the two sides is the number of goals scored, with City netting 66 to Arsenal‘s 63.

Such is the topsy-turvy nature of this season’s race, City could find themselves trailing by six points by the time they next play in the league at Everton on Monday, 4 May – if Arsenal beat Newcastle and Fulham during that period.

City have previously scored five or more goals against Burnley in five different Premier League games – the most one side has done against another in the competition – and would have been eyeing up similar before this match.

Although City had 65% possession, a total of 28 shots with an expected goals (xG) of 3.54, they could only muster one goal through Haaland’s winner in the opening five minutes.

“Not many Arsenal players would have expected Burnley to get a result today, but if you are an Arsenal player or fan, you would take a 1-0 loss for Burnley,” former City defender Nedum Onuoha told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“Arsenal play Burnley in a few weeks and they will probably not be as wasteful with their chances as City, with so much on the line. Before you know it City are chasing Arsenal. I don’t think psychologically it matters that much.

“Now they have played each other, there is no longer this talk about the title decider in April. You have your five games, they have their five games. If you do well enough and win your games, the league title could very much be Arsenal‘s.

“They have to back themselves. The fact this only finished 1-0 to City when they had 28 shots, maybe this is the boost they need to turn their form around.”

Former Premier League goalkeeper Tim Krul added: “Arsenal have been so close the last few years, I think we all half want them to get it. But you can’t rule out Manchester City.

“My money would be on City, just with the experience. They are serial winners with the best manager in the world looking after them. You can’t not back them.”

There is anger directed at Rosenior, but many Chelsea supporters also point the finger at Eghbali, Boehly and the rest of the BlueCo ownership.

The latest protest saw supporters march from The Wolfpack Inn pub to Stamford Bridge before kick-off, having grown from a turnout of about 200 before the Brentford match to more than 500 before Saturday’s tie.

There were flares, banners and chants directed at the owners, as well as calls in support of former owner Abramovich.

Under the terms of the takeover agreement in 2022, the current ownership group cannot sell the club until at least 2032. However, there are signs they are willing to listen to some of the criticism, including calls to recruit more experienced players.

“We recognise we need balance. You tweak a model, you improve and you learn from mistakes,” Eghbali said. “We have a strong core, but we need to add experience to take the team to the next level and achieve consistency. That is not lost on us.”

However, failure to qualify for the Champions League would undermine any rebuild. Chelsea have already spent about £1.5bn on signings under the current ownership and, despite recouping approximately £750m in sales, they remain under financial scrutiny from Uefa, having faced fines for breaching their regulations.

The club has announced Premier League record pre-tax losses in its latest accounts and – without the additional revenue generated by Europe’s premier competition through broadcasting, sponsorship and ticket sales – questions remain over whether Chelsea can recruit effectively in the summer.

Before kick-off, Cole Palmer told TNT Sports: “If we’re not in the Champions League, everything changes.”

Asked about Palmer’s comments and the potential financial implications, Rosenior replied: “The honest answer is I don’t know. We’re still fighting and we’ll address that situation at the end of the season, whatever the situation is.”

Meanwhile, Enzo Fernandez’s agent, Javier Pastore, has said his client would view missing out on Champions League football as an issue, despite the midfielder’s two-match internal ban – imposed following comments linking him with a move to Real Madrid – coming to an end on Saturday.

While the protest movement has largely been driven by younger supporters, there are signs of apathy among older match-going fans. Boos were heard at full-time, with the atmosphere inside Stamford Bridge growing quieter with each game.

With its sunsoaked Californian desert setting, A-list celeb guests and top music acts, hip US festival Coachella might look like the dream destination when scrolling through the Instagram feed of one of the myriad of Love Island stars in attendance.

But while influencers are given the VIP experience, thanks to the brands who pay big bucks to take them there for free, the reality for normal punters can be a whole different story.

As the cult festival kicks off its second consecutive weekend in Palm Springs, social media has been awash with complaints from regular folk exposing the ‘truth’ about what it’s like to go there as a non VIP – and it makes for some pretty grim reading.

From nightmarish queues for cold showers, to hefty £3,000 price tags for three days at the event, various TikTok testimonials may make you think twice before booking for next year’s gig.

As someone who went as a normal person and not as an influencer, it was one of the worst concert experiences I’ve ever had,” TikTok user @lottiestars ranted in a recent social media video.

“Firstly, there’s no place for you to be dropped off. The festival is, like, really disorganised. So I remember we asked 20 different people: ‘Where do we go?’ and they they were like: ‘Oh, we don’t know’. And they actually worked for the event! So you’ll end up sitting in traffic for most of the time before you can find a spot and get dropped off.”

PARTIED HARD

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Sabrina Carpenter flashes bum in tiny denim hotpants ahead of Coachella

She added that when she then finally arrived, the event proved a nightmare for her pal who was disabled.

“You have another what feels like an hour long walk to actually get into the festival, you have to do is on this super dusty, bumpy, unpaved road, which was really hard for my friend because they were in a wheelchair… they kept getting knocked over and falling out of their wheelchair, so it was not like wheelchair accessible.”

Once inside the venue, Lottie alleged that the atmosphere was not enjoyable thanks to a myriad of influencers creating a stressful environment.

“Everyone’s vibe is really, really bad. A lot of people were pretty mean. They’re like, ‘No, you’re not coming this way and stuff, you can’t go through’ so it’s harder to work your way through the crowd or to reconnect through your friends.

“It’s not as easy to take cute pictures as you think. Literally, everyone’s taking pictures. It’s like a field of cow, but instead of cows, it’s people.”

To top it all, Lottie wrapped up her video by claiming she got sick from the notorious desert winds.

She said: “I was so sick because during the daytime, it’s burning hot, and then at nighttime, it’s freezing cold, and the dust is really, really intense. Like, you’ll blow your nose, and they’ll be black dirt coming out of your nose.

“The third night, I couldn’t even enjoy the festival, and I probably was only there for like 30 minutes and I had to leave.”

And it seems this is far from a one-off negative review.

The Strokes fan @emilyjadebispo says her experience watching her favourite band was ruined by influencers who were only there to watch Justin Bieber and had no idea about ‘festival etiquette’.

She claimed: “The people around me who were there for Justin Bieber were f***ing insufferable. Oh, my God. It’s like they have never been to a festival before. They have no idea what it’s like that other genres exist.

“They are just completely unaware of any sort of concert etiquette at all. The people to my left, during one of my favourite bands sets, were talking the entire time saying: ‘I don’t even know who this is. What even is this? This is really honestly killing my vibe for Bieber.’”

For those who camp and aren’t holed up in pricey villas like the influencer crowd, some describe the experience as “endurance training.”

@huioyg3 said in one TikTok video: “Basic shower access has turned into a survival challenge, people are waiting in line for hours just to get a quick rinse, often with freezing cold water.

“To avoid this nightmare, some festival goers are spending hundreds of dollars on portable shower setups, building their own tents just to maintain a sense of hygiene.

“Another issue is making things worse, extreme heat. Phones are overheating, energy levels are dropping, and what’s supposed to be a fun four day experience is starting to feel more like endurance training.”

Of course, the biggest issue for many is how the festival impacted their wallet.

General admission tickets cost around $799 [£590] for three days, while VIP – which allows you to get closer to the stage and gives you a shuttle pass into the venue – will mean you shell out even more, clocking in around $1299 [£959].

“Coachella started as a low price event to protest against high cost events,” one music fan vented online.

“How are people affording this?” fumed another.

Some, however, claimed it was worth the price of VIP.

“It was 100% worth it We do get closer viewing to some of the stages. And honestly, when the big performers do come out, it gets super packed,” said tiktok user @noesilva

If you shun camping though, hotels can be extortionate due to high demand, as Noa explains.

“Next thing I spent money on was a hotel, which was the most expensive part. It was $2,300 [£1698] for three nights, and I know it sounds like a lot of money, but for me personally, I was not going to go camping.

And finally, you got to think of all the extra expenses that are probably gonna be happening during the trip, which is food, drinks, merch, like all the extra stuff that you’re going to be paying for, and realistically, that’s going to cost me around $500 [£370]. So in total, this trip is costing me around $4,000 [£2950].”

Another furious former Coachella fan, Nick Holiday, summed it up in a top-rated TikTok video.

“They’re charging $100 [£74]for one bite of caviar, four chicken nuggets and seven french fries. That’s honestly a crime against humanity.”

The first stop on Sabine Phillips’ three-hour inspection of her neighborhood was at Fountain Avenue and St. Andrew’s Place, where detached pieces of a sofa had been plopped onto the sidewalk as if this were an outdoor living room.

Phillips slid off her yellow Huffy cruiser, grabbed a pen, and entered the finding into her spiral notebook.

“This stretch is a common dumping ground,” she told me, eyes hidden behind sunglasses under a floppy sun hat.

Her part-time assistant, Keith Johnson, was wearing a “Trash Club Hollyood” T-shirt. He squeezed the handle of his garbage-grabbing tool to snare cookie and chip wrappers that floated near some empty Pacifico beer bottles and a Big Gulp container the size of a drum. When they report neighborhood problems to the city, Johnson said, “sometimes they’re helpful and many times they’re not, so we end up doing things on our own.”

Sabine Phillips, 66, and Keith Johnson, 71, right, ride their bikes documenting debris left on sidewalks of their East Hollywood neighborhood on April 15.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Much of the discarded furniture and other goods left on the streets ends up being used to build homeless encampments, Phillips said. That often leads to more trash, fires, drug activity and other nuisances that threaten public safety and set residents on edge.

Phillips doesn’t just take notes. She reports her findings into the city’s MyLA311 system on Wednesdays, so city crews can make pickups on Thursdays and Fridays. And they usually do respond, Phillips said. But the cycle immediately repeats, and she has typically reported 50 or more additional items, week after week, month after month.

In a quarter of a century of writing about the many plundered patches of paradise, I’ve been repeatedly impressed by those who step up and make a difference out of some combination of pride, frustration and the spirit of volunteerism. But I also understand the rage of taxpayers who wonder why Los Angeles City Hall is so incapable of managing the basics.

In the race for leadership of the city, even Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman say things have got to change, which isn’t necessarily the best commentary on their stewardship.

“Unfortunately, it’s become fairly universal across all 99 neighborhoods in this city that L.A. government isn’t working,” mayoral candidate Adam Miller said at a recent West L.A. appearance I dropped in on, and he added that he’d use his business and nonprofit experience to tackle homelessness, housing and public safety challenges, among other issues. “We pay some of the highest taxes in the country, where people feel like we’re not getting our money’s worth anymore.”

Last week, after my column about the substantial inventory of blight around City Hall — including a graffiti-scarred fountain that’s been out of operation for most of the last 60 years (no lie) — I heard from readers with their own problems.

Richard Vasquez wrote to say the Plaza de Mexico in Lincoln Heights is still a cemetery of missing statues. Richard Zaldivar wrote to say the nearby AIDS memorial was vandalized and multiple calls for help fell on deaf ears. Estela Lopez of the downtown industrial improvement district, where trash is routinely dumped illegally, wrote to say a county report warned that typhus levels downtown had reached an all-time high.

Sabine Phillips documents abandoned furniture and debris found on sidewalks of her neighborhood on Wednesday in East Hollywood.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

I also heard from Stefanie Keenan, who had a clever idea a few years ago, born of exasperation with City Hall. She hired her own housekeeper — that would be Phillips — to help patrol and clean the neighborhood they both live in, and Phillips’ work was featured by NBCLA and substacker Sam Quinones.

“It’s not getting done otherwise, and our neighborhood would have burned down,” Keenan told me.

Keenan, who has been tending to her streets for several years, has been paying Phillips $100 for Wednesday scouting forays and another $100 to fill four or five huge bags on Saturday trash patrol. Keenan, a photographer, told me she has spent tens of thousands of dollars out of her own pocket.

But Keenan doesn’t have unlimited funds, and this was Phillips’ last week on the job. Lord knows what the neighborhood will look like without her on patrol. As she pedaled along her regular route Wednesday, Phillips found several more sofas, among other things.

A freezer. A refrigerator. Rugs. Chairs. Stools. Dressers. Drawers. Bed frames. Mattresses. Box springs. A printer. Electronics. Televisions.

And heaps of trash, some of which blocked sidewalks and some of which spilled off curbs and into streets.

On Lexington Avenue she stopped to make the following entry in her log:

“3 toilets.”

Nothing surprised her, and nothing slowed her down. At a house where a construction worker dumped lumber onto the sidewalk, Phillips strode up and asked what the thought would happen to the scrap pile. He said he had no idea; she made an entry in her log.

Phillips takes a break from documenting addresses of abandoned furniture and debris.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

I tried to recruit Phillips to run for mayor, but the native of Germany wasn’t interested. She did say, however, that she was “the first female bouncer in Berlin,” and that was “at a Hells Angel discotheque.”

The Berlin bouncer kept moving, and scribbling. She filled three pages in her notebook with more than 60 notations, including sidewalk graffiti.

“I’ve seen some weird stuff,” Phillips said. “Twice I found safes outside, just on the side of the curb.”

The studio-adjacent neighborhood she patrols has an eclectic mix of upscale houses and block-long stretches of apartment buildings, with people moving in and out and leaving possessions on the curb as they come and go.

That’s not the city’s fault. But the city could do a better job of educating residents on how to arrange for pickups, and a better job of cracking down when they don’t. I reached out to the office of Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, but we hadn’t yet connected when I hit my deadline.

At the Lexington Avenue pocket park, Phillips told me she had never seen kids on the grounds.

“I will show you why I would never have kids playing here,” she said, pointing into the sandbox. “There is glass … needles, and … you will see human waste there in the corner.”

A blue tarp covered a makeshift home next to the sandbox. Someone slept on a bench. The slide had a gang tag painted onto it, and two people hovered under the slide on the edge of the sandbox. Phillips said she has seen homeless people use the water fountain to bathe, and a 15-year-old from a nearby high school died in 2022 after buying drugs here.

Jenny Carpio and her dog, Sky, walk past debris along a sidewalk in East Hollywood.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

While Phillips and Johnson were in the park, a city rec and parks employee pulled up. He said he was there to check the condition of the park, which was slated for a new playground that would cost about $300,000. He said a body had been found in the park not long ago. He guessed about 30% to 50% of the city’s parks have similar iproblems.

I’m reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s refrain in “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

So it goes.

The insanity of investing in a new playground when a dozen festering issues make the park unsafe should be crystal clear to one and all. Surely there’s more to the plan, one would hope — something substantive and sustainable. But that’s a risky bet.

It might be better to admit defeat for now, close the park, and do something else with that $300,000.

Use it to put Phillips, and a team trained and supervised by her, on a fleet of yellow Huffys.

I guarantee it would be money well spent.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Praise be to Allah.

For the second time in two weeks, President Trump used that phrase in a post about the Israel-U.S. war against Iran.

Crowing about the alleged destruction of Iran’s planes, ships and bases in a Truth Social post Saturday, he emphasized his greatest victory in the monthlong campaign: “Most importantly, their longtime ‘Leaders’ are no longer with us, praise be to Allah!”

Making sense of anything Trump says in the heat of posting is a fool’s errand, but it’s also entirely necessary. Sane wash his words we must, because no matter how unhinged or infantile, the world’s safety, fortunes and future are inextricably tied to America’s next move, and therefore to his next move.

So what is Trump trying to communicate, or provoke, by using the Arabic word for God, as Muslims do? Let’s translate.

The first and most likely explanation: “Praise be to Allah” was meant to disparage his adversaries in the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are Muslim, they refer to God as “Allah,” therefore, he will turn their phrasing against them. Word bombs to accompany the deadly ones falling in Iran and Lebanon.

All leaders deploy tough talk in times of war, but Trump’s posts read more like the feverish ramblings of mad Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in “Apocalypse Now” — “You’re an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill” — than Winston Churchill’s galvanizing call to arms against the Nazis, “We shall fight on the beaches…”

Unlike the fictional Kurtz or the real Churchill, Trump has no military experience. He avoided the Vietnam War draft with four student deferments and one medical deferment for bone spurs. An area where he is experienced? Baiting foes. Antagonizing enemies, genuine or imagined, is a Trump specialty, be it from the Oval Office, on the campaign trail, or in the before times, as a reality TV personality.

Painting Muslims as the Other is nothing new for Trump, (unless they come bearing luxury airliners as gifts — then they’re friends). The same goes for others in his party. Since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) posted that Muslims don’t belong in American society. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) wrote, “We need more Islamophobia, not less. Fear of Islam is rational.” And Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) reposted an image of the Twin Towers burning side by side with an image of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with his own caption: “The enemy is inside the gates.”

The president’s first usage of “Praise be to Allah” as a middle finger to Iran landed on a Christian holy day, Easter Sunday. He posted a demand that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz: “Open the F— Strait, you crazy b—, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” Hardly messaging that brings to mind Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn.

If the idea was to humiliate Iran into submission, it’s not working. Iran doesn’t appear to be backing down, even after Trump’s week-ago threat that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if it failed to meet his deadline to reopen the strait. The critical global shipping route is still closed. Trump didn’t appear all that interested in the art of the deal, either, even as Vice President JD Vance tried and failed to negotiate with Iranian leaders in Pakistan on Saturday. The president told reporters that he didn’t “care” what happens with Iran negotiations because “regardless what happens, we win.” He also said, “Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me.” He was seen later in Miami at an Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Making the Allah references all the stranger were Trump’s other religious-themed posts this past weekend. One was a lengthy screed against Pope Leo XIV, whom Trump described as too liberal and “weak on crime.” It’s worth noting that more than half of American Catholics voted for Trump in the last election, and that his vice president is Catholic, as is the secretary of State and the first lady.

The other was a stand-alone, AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure. It showed the 79-year-old clad in a white robe and papal-red cape, a divine light emanating from the palm of one hand while the other hand was placed on an ailing man. The post was deleted Monday morning after a sizable backlash.

“I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support,” Trump said, responding to a reporter Monday during a presser at the White House as DoorDash delivered an order from McDonald’s to promote the president’s “no tax on tips” policy.

There was no mention of Allah during that particular event.

Alhamdulillah.