Simone

Northern Ireland captain and Birmingham City striker Simone Magill has announced she is pregnant.

The 31-year-old shared the news with her Birmingham team-mates on Wednesday and announced it on social media along with her husband, Mark.

“Something tells me next year is going to be the best one yet,” Magill posted on Instagram.

Magill will not feature for Birmingham for the rest of the season or for Northern Ireland in the 2027 World Cup qualifiers, which begin in March.

WSL2 club Birmingham City say Magill will continue “light training” with the team and that the club’s medical and performance staff will support her “throughout her pregnancy and beyond”.

Amy Merricks, Magill’s head coach at Birmingham, said she would “make an amazing parent”.

“We’re looking forward to supporting her on this journey through her pregnancy and as her baby comes into the world, we’re excited to have a Bluenose baby,” Merricks said.

“We want to keep Si in and around the environment as much as possible.

“She wants to remain sharp and play a critical part in this season and we’re looking forward to supporting her with her journey.”

Magill missed Northern Ireland’s Nations League play-off defeat by Iceland at the end of October and last played for Birmingham in September because of a hip issue.

She won the first of her 95 NI caps as a teenager in 2010 and was named captain by Tanya Oxtoby in October 2024.

Magill played a key role in Northern Ireland’s qualification for Euro 2022 – her country’s first major tournament – but sustained a knee injury in the first match against Norway.

BRIDGERTON’S Simone Ashley is in pole position to feature in the sequel to Brad Pitt’s movie F1.

The 30-year-old, who starred with Jonathan ­Bailey in the Netflix romance, was cast in this year’s flick but her scenes were cut.

A source said: “A script is already in the works with early plans to go into production next year.”

As well as appearing in Sex Education, Ashley has also lent her acting chops to suspense drama Thriller.

She shot to fame after starring in the hit Netflix show Sex Education.

The star developed her acting skills at the Arts Ed school in Chiswick, which specializes in Musical Theatre & Acting degrees.

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Simone has spoken about coming from a traditional Indian family, who finds her acting career “quite scary and unsettling”.

She told Veylex: “My parents are incredibly protective over me, and sometimes I found it quite stifling.

“It made me want to escape and do things my own way. I’ve always been a bit rebellious in that sense.”

“I am incredibly privileged to be apart of a generation where young women from all over the world have more opportunity than ever before, where we are being less stereotyped and walls and being broken down slowly.”

Coco Gauff was struggling for the second time in as many matches this week at the U.S. Open.

At one point during her second-round match against Donna Vekic on Thursday in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the world’s No. 3-ranked player became overwhelmed and couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.

Gauff played through it all, however, and advanced with a 7-6 (5), 6-2 victory. She became emotional again afterward as she thanked the crowd for its support.

“You really helped me a lot,” the two-time major championship winner said during her post-match interview.

Gauff indicated that one member of the crowd in particular provided extra inspiration during the match — U.S. gymnastics legend Simone Biles. The seven-time Olympic gold medalist has been open about her mental health struggles during a career in which she has also won 23 world titles.

“Honestly, I saw her and … she helped me pull it out,” said Gauff, who later told reporters that her “Mount Rushmore of athletes” consisted of Biles and tennis legend Serena Williams. “I was just thinking if she could go on a six-inch beam and do that, with all the pressures of the world, then I can hit the ball in this 75 — I don’t know how big this court is.

Coco Gauff reacts after defeating Donna Vekic during the second round of the U.S. Open on Thursday in New York.

(Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)

“So, yeah, I saw her late in the second getting interviewed by ESPN and, yeah, it brought me a little bit of calm, just knowing her story, with all the things she went through mentally. So, she’s an inspiration, surely, and her presence definitely did help me today.”

During her in-match interview with ESPN’s Katie George, Biles said she came to the U.S. Open specifically to watch Gauff.

“She’s incredible, amazing, and it’s like, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Biles said. “It’s just such a privilege to watch her on home soil and watch Black Girl Magic.”

Soon after the match, the two athletes had the opportunity to meet.

“Gymnastics is so different, so I just wanted to scream, ‘Go, Coco!’” Biles told Gauff. “But then they were like, ‘Maybe not right now.’ And I was like, ‘Got it.’ But congrats. I love watching you, everything you do.”

The winner of the 2023 U.S. Open and 2025 French Open told her idol: “You’re such an inspiration. Like, seriously. What I said in the [on-court] interview, I was thinking about that literally.

“My mom did gymnastics on a way lower level than you. And so, she was like, ‘If I can focus on that, then you can do that.’ So, I was like, ‘OK, I guess you’re right.’ … You’re an inspiration, seriously.”

Sex Education star Simone Ashley will return to screens in the fourth season of Bridgerton, and the actress has opened up about filming intimate scenes for the hit Netflix show

Bridgerton sensation Simone Ashley has opened up about feeling “very safe and comfortable” while shooting steamy scenes for the smash-hit series, Bridgerton. The star of Sex Education, who is also on the cusp of dropping her first album, labelled the Netflix sensation Bridgerton as pure “fantasy”.

Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar, she said: “It’s about, ‘What if?’ and how love conquers all. Bridgerton represents nudity with a sense of romance, and I felt very safe and comfortable in what I was choosing to show to the world.”

With the fourth instalment of the period drama set to hit screens next year, Ashley shared with the publication: “‘That show just gets bigger and bigger. Everyone has gone off to do incredible things, but we come back and it’s like time hasn’t moved.”

READ MORE: Bridgerton star facing ‘Hollywood erasure’ despite acting alongside Brad Pitt

Recounting her bold move to Los Angeles at the tender age of 18, she revealed: “I was really scrappy. Since I was little, if I wanted something, I would do anything I could to get it. So, I took some modelling jobs to pay the bills and got into acting through that.”

Gracing the digital cover of Harper’s Bazaar, Ashley divulged that her upcoming album was born out of a recent split. She explained: “It’s going to be somewhat confessional… and beautiful and messy.

“Good songs don’t come from times when my life is regimented and predictable. They come when I am feeling vitality, and usually you either feel that way when your heart’s broken, or you’re euphoric. This work has been an amazing channel to put all those feelings into.”

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This new career move comes after Ashley’s recent role in rom-com Picture This. Following the release of that movie, the Bridgerton star opened up about the importance of diversity in romantic-comedies.

The Sex Education icon, who was born to Tamil parents, stars as photographer Pia – who is juggling a failing business while dealing with the arrival of her ex and her parents’ concern for her love life. The feel-good movie was released on Amazon Prime Video on 6 March and also stars Hero Fiennes Tiffin.

She added: “I would say the younger me is kind of like, ‘Oh my gosh, we did a rom com and it’s an Indian girl leading it!'” Although she wishes she could have seen diverse characters when she was younger, she hopes Picture This helps with it. She said: “To put it simply… When it comes to this movie, I just want brown women to have it and to just win!”

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Superstar U.S. gymnast Simone Biles has apologized to Riley Gaines after calling the outspoken former NCAA swimmer “truly sick” and a “sore loser” in recent days during their public argument concerning transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.

“I’ve always believed competitive equity & inclusivity are both essential in sport,” Biles wrote Tuesday morning on X. “The current system doesn’t adequately balance these important principles, which often leads to frustration and heated exchanges, and it didn’t help for me to get personal with Riley, which I apologize for.”

Gaines was a two-time All-Southeastern Conference swimmer at Kentucky. At the 2022 NCAA national championships, Gaines and Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, tied for fifth place in the 200 freestyle finals, but only Thomas got to pose on the podium with the fifth-place trophy.

At the same meet, Thomas won the 500 freestyle to become the first out transgender woman to claim a Division I title. But in February and in response to an executive order by President Trump, the NCAA changed its policy to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes who were assigned female at birth.

Gaines has become a leading voice for preventing transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. She and more than a dozen other former college swimmers filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming that the organization had violated their Title IX rights by allowing Thomas to compete in the 2022 championships,

Last week, Gaines reposted an X post from the Minnesota State High School League that congratulated the Champlin Park High softball team — which made national news because its star pitcher is transgender — for winning the 4A state championship.

“Comments off lol,” Gaines wrote about the league’s post. “To be expected when your star player is a boy.”

Biles reposted Gaines’ post the same day and didn’t hold back in expressing her views on the matter.

“@Riley_Gaines_ You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race,” Biles wrote. “Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!!

“But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!”

Biles added in a separate post, “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”

Days later, the 11-time Olympic medalist returned to X, seemingly with a cooler head, to apologize for getting “personal” in her response to Gaines and attempt to explain her feelings again.

“These are sensitive, complicated issues that I truly don’t have the answers or solutions to, but I believe it starts with empathy and respect,” Biles wrote. “I was not advocating for policies that compromise fairness in women’s sports. My objection is to … singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel personal and harmful.

“Individual athletes — especially kids — should never be the focus of criticism of a flawed system they have no control over. I believe sports organizations have a responsibility to come up with rules supporting inclusion while maintaining fair competition. We all want a future for sport that is fair, inclusive, and respectful.”

Gaines responded on X with a post in which she accepted “Simone’s apology for the personal attacks including the ones where she body-shamed me” but stated that “you can’t have any empathy and compassion for the girls if you’re ignoring when young men are harming or abusing them.”

“I agree with you that the blame is on the lawmakers and leaders at the top,” Gaines added. “Precisely why I’m suing the NCAA and support candidates who vow to stand with women. … I welcome you to the fight to support fair sports and a future for female athletes. Little girls deserve the same shot to achieve that you had.”

“Sirens,” premiering Thursday on Netflix, is an odd sort of a series, an interesting mix of hifalutin ideas, family drama and what might be called dark farce.

Set over Labor Day weekend on a Cape Cod island peopled by rich folks whose taste runs to pastels and floral prints, it stars Julianne Moore as Michaela, formerly a high-powered attorney who has given that up for marriage to hedge-fund billionaire Peter (Kevin Bacon) and a life dedicated to rescuing birds of prey. The queen of all she surveys, she speaks in moony aphorisms, is posing for Vanity Fair and orchestrating a fundraising gala, among minor entertainments.

Meanwhile, in Buffalo, we meet Devon (Meghann Fahy) a working-class hot mess, making her entrance out a police station door, wearing a short black dress, looking the worse for wear. Struggling to care for her father Bruce (Bill Camp), diagnosed with dementia, she goes in search of her sister, Simone (Milly Alcock), who has been working as Michaela’s personal assistant. After traveling 17 hours — carting, for reasons of comedy, the giant edible arrangement Simone has sent in lieu of an actual response to her call for help, still wearing her night-in-jail clothes — Devon will discover that her sister has been transformed: She’s removed the matching tattoos they got together, had a nose job and presents as something like the Disney version of “Wonderland’s” Alice, minus the curiosity. (“You’re dressed like a doily,” says Devon.) Ingmar Bergman fans will note the meant-to-be-noted crib from “Persona,” underlining Devon’s observation that Simone loses herself in other people.

Simone, for her part, is delighted that she gets to call Michaela “Kiki,” “which is really a special honor,” and faithfully amplifies Michaela’s mercurial requests to the staff, personified by Felix Solis’ Jose, who hate her. (They maintain a text chain to joke about her.) For all that she’s loyal to Michaela, and considers her a best friend, she’s been hiding both her working-class roots and the fact that she’s been sleeping with Ethan (Glenn Howerton), Peter’s also-rich pal and neighbor.

Ethan (Glenn Howerton), Simone (Milly Alcock) and Devon (Meghann Fahy) during a gathering at Michaela’s home.

(Netflix)

Though Michaela worries he might be having an affair, Peter, for his part, comes across as an essentially good guy, for a hedge fund billionaire. He’s friendly with the help, who worked for him before his marriage to Michaela — there are a first wife and adult children offstage — can cook for himself and hides away from the pastel people in the mansion’s tower, where he strums a guitar and smokes a little pot. But room has been left for surprises.

“Sirens” is the sisters’ shared special code for “SOS,” which seems less practical than, you know, SOS, but ties into the vague Greek mythological references with which the series has been decorated — more suggestive than substantial, I’d say, though it’s possible that is my lack of classical education showing. The house Siri system is called Zeus. One episode is titled “Persephone,” after the goddess of the dead and queen of the underworld; Simone does indeed say to Michaela, “You are literally a goddess” — she does dress like one, in flimsy, flowing gowns — while Devon thinks that something’s gone dead behind Simone’s eyes, that she’s been zombified: “You’re in a cult.”

It was the sirens’ sweetly singing, of course, that drew sailors to their deaths in the old tales, and at one point Michaela looks out over the ocean and muses on the boats of whalers crashing bloodily on the rocks. (She is particular about the blood.) There is, in fact, a sailor in the series, Jordan (Trevor Salter), who captains Ethan’s yacht and whom Devon picks up in a hotel bar, but he is perhaps the least likely character in the show to crash into anything. And Michaela is attended by a trio of women (Jenn Lyon as Cloe, Erin Neufer as Lisa and Emily Borromeo as Astrid) who, suggesting the title creatures, speak in harmony and act as one, but they are more the embodiment of a notion, a throwaway joke, than active participants in the story. Michael Abels’ score features a choir of female voices, opts for something that one might well identify as ancient Greek music even with no notion of what ancient Greek music might have sounded like.

Kevin Bacon plays Peter, a hedge fund billionaire married to Michaela.

(Macall Polay / Netflix)

The core of the series is the struggle between Devon and Michaela for the soul of Simone, though there are ancillary battles that will help decide the fate of the war. For a viewer, it’s natural to side with Devon, who, after locking horns with Michaela, will go undercover at the mansion, dressing according to the house rules while she pokes around. (There is the suggestion of a murder mystery.) However hot a mess she may be, she isn’t pretentious; she has energy, boldness and consistency, and whatever she gets wrong, she lives in the world that most of us do. (I am assuming you are not a billionaire with a mansion on a cliff, a birdhouse full of raptors and a large staff to tend to your needs and whims, but if you are — thanks for reading!) That isn’t to say that Michaela doesn’t have her troubles — indeed, her neediness, which expresses itself as caretaking, resembles Devon’s. “I take care of everything in my orb,” says Michaela, “big and small, prey and predator.”

I hadn’t known when I watched “Sirens” that it was based on a play, the 2011 “Elemeno Pea,” by Molly Smith Metzler, who created the series as well, but I thought it might be. It had the scent of the stage in the way characters — including Bruce and Ray (Josh Segarra), Devon’s boss and adulterous occasional hookup — kept piling in, along with its farcical accelerations, its last-act revelations and reversals.

At “only” five episodes, it stays more focused than most limited series, though the tone shifts a bit; some characters come to seem deeper and more complex, which is good on the face of it, but also can feel a bit manufactured. Some bits of business are planted merely to bear practical fruit later. The ending I found half-satisfying, or half-frustrating, from character to character, but there are great, committed performances along the way, and I was far more than halfway entertained.