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COURTING controversy is nothing new to supermodel Emily Ratajkowski.

The American beauty found global fame dancing in a nude-coloured thong in the video for US singer Robin Thicke’s 2013 song Blurred Lines.

But that seems tame compared to her latest stunt — posing topless, with a glass of sparkling wine in hand, while pretending to breastfeed a plastic baby doll.

In the same shock shoot, a “lover” in boxers is pictured at her window as she nurses the doll.

But that seems tame compared to her latest stunt — posing topless, with a glass of sparkling wine in hand, while pretending to breastfeed a plastic baby doll.

Emily, 35, who has previously been linked to Harry Styles, shared the controversial images with her army of 27.9million Instagram followers.

It was to promote an explict essay she wrote, titled MotherF***er, for lifestyle and culture website The Cut.

But is this bizarre shoot — in which she has been accused of sexualising breastfeeding — an act of genius from the Gen Z favourite rumoured to be worth £6million? Or a sign her star power is waning?

Many believe the backlash is what London-born Emily had hoped for.

A source says: “She has perfected the art of turning internet outrage into a multi-million pound brand.

“For every ‘disgusted’ comment, she gets another thanking her for her honesty. The business she has built around her body and brain is astonishing. Emily is incredibly intelligent, but most people don’t see that.”

The insider adds: “Women abhor and adore her in equal measure, and most men lust after her.

“She wants to empower women, she is open about her sexual expression.

“When people tear her down, it only goes to prove her point about how she is perceived by people.”

Emily’s Instagram post from her latest photoshoot drew more than 8,000 comments within hours.

Nude images The size 6 model pouts toward the camera while pressing the toy to her 32C chest.

She wears a black leather blazer and matching trousers, heavy eye make-up, and her brunette hair has been styled as dishevelled.

One Instagram user wrote: “That photo is genuinely disturbing.”

Another said of the shot: “When art becomes awkward, uncomfortable and unnecessary.”

Others called it a “desperate cry for attention” — which echoes criticism recently faced by Emily’s close pal Sydney Sweeney.

American actress Sydney shocked viewers of US coming-of-age TV drama Euphoria when the 28-year-old’s character Cassie Howard dressed as a baby while making content for her OnlyFans account.

It seems Emily and Sydney — both regulars on “hottest woman in the world” lists — will go to extreme lengths to make headlines.

Emily’s MotherF****er essay has also proved divisive, as she reveals she turned to casual dating after her marriage to Sebastian Bear-McClard failed in 2022 following the birth of their son Sylvester.

She writes about motherhood and marriage: “It was a violent transition into a new reality of screaming baby on my aching tit and ring on my swollen finger.

“And then, in a time period that felt both instant and excruciatingly slow, my marriage collapsed. Six months after my son was born, my husband and I stopped having sex. Less than a year later, we separated.”

The divorce was finalised last year and she reveals how it changed her as she began “compulsively dating”.

But Emily, who spent the first five years of her life in London before moving to the US with her family, writes of her time before that: “I knew that boys didn’t treat girls they thought of as sluts tenderly. Boys didn’t fall in love with, want forever with, raise babies with, or take care of sluts.

“I wanted to be taken care of — desperately. I tried to be a ‘good girl’.

“Keeping my body count low was insurance. I thought it meant no one would ever cheat on me, that I’d always be loved, happy and safe.” But she adds: “None of that had turned out to be true.”

In graphic detail, she recalls dates with a man she refers to as the “elder millennial” — and performing a sex act not long after they first met.

She writes: “I’d found everything I’d come there for — a praying mantis devouring her mate.”

Sparing the blushes of the men she has previously dated — including a whirlwind romance with Brad Pitt, and US comic Pete Davidson — Emily uses pseudonyms in the essay.

She adds: “I decided to f*** my way into a new kind of woman. I wanted to destroy the Madonna, the special girl I’d worked so hard to be before an eight-pound baby had torn my vagina in two, and replace her with the whore.”

She goes on to write that, “men are turned on by motherhood”, adding: “I’d been so scared that, as a single mother, I was unlovable, used up and discarded. I soon came to find out it was quite the opposite of ‘they don’t care’. In fact, they liked it. There were many men who experienced the loneliness that comes with years of selfishness. They were particularly attracted to the idea that being a parent meant self-sacrifice was a given in my life. Did they want me as their mummy? Maybe.”

Emily was first signed as a model at age 14 but got her big break in the controversial Blurred Lines video.

She was then named as one of the world’s “hottest sex symbols” by Rolling Stone mag, and soon after announced as FHM’s “fourth sexiest woman in the world”.

Emily, who was born to an English mum and American dad, moved into acting while also modelling for the likes of Dolce & Gabbana, DKNY, Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu.

But as her fame grew, she became vocal about protecting women.

In 2016, she went to war with US photographer Jonathan Leder, who used Polaroid images of her from a shoot four years earlier in a book she claimed was a “violation”.

Emily said she believed the photos were taken for a magazine — and that she did not give consent for the pictures, which included nudes, to be used in a book.

She wrote at the time: “Five out of the now hundreds of released photos were used for what they were intended: an artful magazine shoot back in 2012.

“These photos being used without my permission is an example of exactly the opposite of what I stand for — women choosing when and how they want to share their sexuality and bodies.”

She was supported by Kim Kardashian — who similarly has turned controversy into cash.

The pair posed topless together for a selfie taken in a bathroom after Kim was reviled for posting a naked photo online.

Emily captioned the shot: “We are more than just our bodies, but that doesn’t mean we have to be shamed for them or our sexuality.”

It led to uproar on social media, as Emily became embroiled in a row with broadcaster Piers Morgan — who claimed they were undermining feminism.

Emily later hit back, explaining: “Kim said to me, ‘You know, when Lena Dunham takes her clothes off, she gets flak, but it’s also considered brave. When Justin Bieber takes his shirt off, he’s a grown-up’.

“When a woman who is sexual takes off her top, it plays into something. The whole idea is that when Kim takes a nude selfie, she’s just seeking attention. That’s not the issue. A woman can be seeking attention and also make a statement. They don’t need to be mutually exclusive.”

Emily later started writing essays that she made into a book, My Body, which became a New York Times bestseller in 2021 — and she also launched her own swimwear business, Inamorata.

The book saw Emily discuss being sexualised and exploited during her career — and allege she was sexually assaulted by singer Robin on the set of Blurred Lines.

Of the video and how it changed her life, Emily writes: “I wasn’t just famous; I was famously sexy, which, in many ways, felt gratifying.”

She adds: “I am complicit. But I also think it’s a mistake to shame a young woman for wearing a tight dress because she wants to be noticed by someone powerful.

“I don’t think we should continue to criticise women for saying, ‘This is how I can succeed and capitalise off of my image or my body’. That is an extension of the same misogyny I’ve seen so much in my life. We are all complicit.”

Those close to Emily believe she will steadfastly continue baring her soul despite the pushbacks that come her way.

A friend says: “Emily’s honesty is uncomfortable for some, but provides validation and solidarity for others.

“People will always have something to say. There’s nothing she can do about that.

“Emily’s said it herself, she doesn’t care what people think. It’s white noise. She is doing what she wants and saying what she wants. It is her truth and it is her choice to say it.”

As Emily put it: “Like any art, there’s a million ways to interpret it. All I can say is that when a woman is naked, that’s not ­immediately anti-feminist.

“I have no apologies for it, and I’m not ashamed at all.”

Well, that didn’t take long.

A day after California’s primary election, President Trump took to social media with baseless claims of election fraud — predictable, but also dangerous.

“Look what’s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote,” Trump wrote in one post.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” he wrote in another, apparently enamored of his latest juvenile slur.

Never mind that his candidate, Steve Hilton, is in the lead — for now anyway.

California has once again become the main dish on Trump’s buffet of bull-hockey as he continues to undermine democracy and consolidate authoritarian power, using this disingenuous and patently untrue narrative that American elections are rigged by shadowy Democratic forces working in collusion with illegal immigrants.

That last part is called the Great Replacement Theory, the idea that “elites” are replacing white people — and white voters — with Black and brown immigrants in a bid to destroy white culture. It’s at the heart of Trump’s voter fraud allegations.

The twist this time is that Hilton, the man who wants to represent all Californians, seems to be jumping on the election fraud conspiracy train with the president. I get it, there’s the MAGA base to feed, and it’s a base that feasts on outrage and fakery. Serving up resentment glazed with lies and propaganda has been the MAGA playbook for years under Trump, a strategy that no one can deny has been heartbreakingly effective.

But Hilton is a smart man and must certainly know that voter fraud is rare, to the point of being inconsequential to election outcomes. Hilton by his own admission understands voting patterns, and that in this cycle, Republicans have voted early and often by mail, despite Trump’s claims that all vote-by-mail should be suspect. So Hilton understands that early votes have skewed his way, and that later vote tallies will likely favor Democrats.

And Hilton is definitely intelligent enough to expect that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly three to one, he will not keep the top spot in this primary, and a slim chance remains that he will not make it into the top two. That’s just simple math.

So if Hilton truly seeks to represent this state as its top elected executive, now is the time to renounce election fraud myths and stand up to Trump’s lies. If Hilton can’t say that he believes our recent election was free and fair, then he has no business being our governor.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the path he’s taking, even as it seems increasingly likely that he will advance to the general election.

This week, speaking with far-right podcaster and former Turning Point USA creative director Benny Johnson (who was allegedly duped into working for a Russian influence operation), Hilton said that while “so far we’re not seeing any signs” of cheating, “we’re going to be all over it. We’re not going to let them do that.”

Hilton was responding to a question from Johnson on whether Hilton will sue over “cheating.”

On a post-election appearance with Laura Ingraham, the conservative Fox News host who has repeatedly promoted the Great Replacement Theory, Hilton delved into more conspiracy.

“Just to really underline the point that you made about the corruption,” he told Ingraham an anecdote about supposed fraud in a previous election cycle when a “whistleblower” at the post office told him that they were instructed that a handwritten postmark was acceptable when sorting ballots to deliver to the county registrar.

“It’s just unbelievable, and of course, that’s why so many people don’t believe the results, but it just undermines confidence,” he told Ingraham, certainly knowing that the post office forwarding a ballot on to a county registrar in no way means it will be certified or counted. Would we really want the USPS deciding which ballots to deliver? Disingenuous on Hilton’s part at best.

“The whole thing is a joke,” Hilton went on to say of California elections, which of course, is absurd.

Thursday, when I asked Hilton’s team to speak with him about his views on voter fraud, they sent back a response that focused on the slowness of the California vote count; voter rolls Hilton has described as “wildly inaccurate,” which is a wildly inaccurate claim; and two instances of actual fraud with voter registration — not examples of votes that were counted.

To be sure, all those items are important. Any malfeasance should be punished, and the system should always strive to improve.

But how hard is it to simply be against fraud, while accurately acknowledging that it is rare and our current system provides accurate results?

I am against voter registration fraud. I am against vote fraud. I am absolutely pro-democracy, including policies such as mail-in voting that increase participation.

I do not believe that there is widespread fraud in the California primary, or in American elections in general, because the evidence does not support that conspiracy. I do not believe that Democrats are running a decades-long, nationwide conspiracy to replace white voters with votes from Black and brown undocumented immigrants, because that is both false and racist.

Pretty basic stuff, and statements in line with the values and common sense of the majority of Californians Hilton says he will represent.

If Hilton can’t come out and clearly say that Trump is wrong — about fraud and about the Great Replacement Theory — can he really be trusted to represent the values of the Golden State?

MIAMI — The Trump administration has quietly instructed federal prosecutors in Miami to avoid pursuing criminal investigations into Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a longtime target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to current and former U.S. law enforcement officials, in the latest sign of warming relations between the White House and the oil-rich nation.

It’s unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodríguez in any crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an email “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.”

But DEA records obtained by the Associated Press earlier this year show she consistently surfaced on the radar of federal law enforcement dating to at least 2018, though she has never been criminally charged in the U.S. like several other senior Venezuelan officials.

The directive to pause scrutiny into Rodríguez was meant to avoid upsetting the administration’s efforts to stabilize Venezuela after the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, among other reasons, a current official said. It was not clear whether the White House, which deferred comment to the Justice Department, was involved in the decision.

“Everybody has been told to stand down,” one of the former officials said.

The former officials, who had been briefed on the development, as well as the current official all spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations.

Rodríguez, a U.S. attorney representing her and the Venezuelan Communications Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The move eases pressure on Rodriguez

Removing the threat of potential indictment, even temporarily, eases pressure on Rodríguez as the Trump administration seeks to work with the acting leader to stabilize Venezuela after Maduro’s ouster and open the country to U.S. investment.

President Trump praised Rodríguez as a “terrific person” shortly after the U.S. military took Maduro and his wife to New York to face federal narcotics charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.

In recent months, the U.S. has lifted sanctions against Rodríguez and recognized her as Venezuela’s sole head of state, allowing her to re-establish ties with western banks and more freely work with U.S. investors seeking to tap into the world’s largest petroleum reserves. As ties between the two governments have deepened, some have held out the Venezuelan playbook — characterized by oil blockades, indictments of top leaders and threats of military intervention — as a model to drive regime change from within as the U.S. pressures other longtime adversaries in Iran and Cuba.

Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the National Assembly, were hit with U.S. sanctions during Trump’s first term for their role in undermining Venezuelan democracy and cementing Maduro’s authoritarian rule.

Rodríguez “is doing a great job,” Trump wrote on social media in early March. “The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see!”

In recent months, Rodríguez has hosted ceremonies with a steady stream of American oilmen, some of them partaking in high-profile delegations led by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

Election talk deferred amid Trump’s praise

Missing in all the mutual backslapping is any talk of elections, even as Rodríguez last month blew through a 90-day limit set by Venezuela’s high court to fill Maduro’s position on a temporary basis.

“I don’t know,” she responded in English when a visiting U.S. journalist earlier this month shouted out a question about her time frame for holding elections. “Some time.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has demanded the administration explain its favorable treatment of Rodríguez, calling her a “central figure in Nicolás Maduro’s repressive regime.”

“Sanctions have been lifted on Ms. Rodríguez without any indication that she has taken concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order,” Sheehan, joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent last week.

Rick de la Torre, a former CIA chief of station in Caracas, said that the decision to shield Rodríguez fits well with the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals in Venezuela.

“She’s a lifelong Marxist and was a senior leader of one of the world’s most corrupt regimes but the U.S. is providing her with breathing space and carrots to lay the foundation for democracy and U.S. investment,” said de la Torre, the CEO of Tower Strategy, which advises companies on Venezuela.

“There’s a shelf life to her utility, however. At some point she will face justice,” he added.

Rodríguez has been on DEA’s radar since 2018

The DEA had amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, and has received allegations about her ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling, the AP reported earlier this year. One confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita “as a front to launder money,” the records show.

Her name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations — several of which remained ongoing as recently as this year — involving field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York. She had even been linked to Maduro’s alleged bag man, Alex Saab, whom U.S. authorities first arrested in 2020 on money-laundering charges, the records show.

Rodríguez deported Saab this month as part of a purge of insider businessmen who are accused of having enriched themselves through corrupt dealings with Maduro.

It’s unclear in which Miami investigations Rodríguez’s name surfaced. Two of the former officials said Rodríguez has also come up in meetings with investigators in Tampa, Fla., tasked last year by former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi with looking into financial crimes in Venezuela.

At the time, Rodríguez was serving as Maduro’s vice president. Justice Department policy requires the attorney general to personally approve the charging of any foreign head of state, who are normally immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.

Halting high-profile criminal probes of foreign leaders

The pausing of the investigations into Rodríguez comes as the Trump administration has similarly tapped the brakes on ongoing federal investigations into another prominent Latin American leftist, Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

The DEA had also designated Petro a “priority target” over alleged ties to drug traffickers that had been probed for months by federal prosecutors. The New York Times reported in March that U.S. officials recently assured the Colombian government Petro does not face charges in those cases.

Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who worked for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, said it would be “deeply troubling” for law enforcement to be “told to stand down from a legitimate investigation for political or transactional reasons.”

“The White House cannot use criminal enforcement as a diplomatic light switch,” Levin told AP. “DOJ decisions are supposed to be based on law, evidence, policy and public safety — not on whether a foreign official is useful to the administration at a given moment.”

Goodman, Richer and Mustian write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Washington and Mustian from New York. AP Writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Look, up in the stands — it’s J.K. Simmons and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!

The Academy Award-winning actor, who portrayed Daily Bugle chief J. Jonah Jameson in director Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, was reunited with his onscreen nemesis at the New York Mets game Tuesday.

After a clip from “Spider-Man” was shown on the stadium screen at Citi Field during the Mets game against the Cincinnati Reds, the camera cut to Simmons in the stands. In the row behind him was Jameson’s favorite masked menace, reading a copy of the Daily Bugle.

The “Whiplash” actor played along with the bit, turning around to face Spider-Man and waving his arms to express his displeasure. Channeling his inner Jameson, a spirited Simmons then motioned for Spider-Man to get tossed from the game. Photos and videos of the moment have been shared across social media.

(A devoted Detroit Tigers fan, Simmons repped his favorite team under the Mets jersey he wore at the game.)

After playing Jameson in Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy that wrapped in 2007, Simmons returned to the role for a mid-credits cameo in the 2019 film “Spider-Man: Far From Home” when the vocal Spider-Man critic revealed the hero’s identity to the world. Simmons’ incarnation of the character has since appeared in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (2021), “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021) and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (2023).

The next installment of the webslinging superhero’s adventures is “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which hits theaters July 31. Simmons’ involvement has not officially been confirmed.

Theories abound, but one is fun: Mickey Mouse had hunger pangs and strayed from Disneyland to nearby Angel Stadium where he discreetly raided a forlorn concession stand in a nosebleed section adjacent to the right-field foul pole.

That concession stand — high up in View Level Section 42 — was the only one out of about 160 at Angel Stadium to be flagged by Orange County health inspectors Wednesday for “rodent infestation.”

Not a bad batting average, but with apologies to Mickey, no exceptions are allowed when it comes to rodent infestation and food.

The Angels have been on a road trip all week but a team spokesman said Tuesday that the stand has been cleaned and will be reinspected ahead of a homestand that begins Friday against the New York Mets.

“After receiving guidance from the health department, we acted promptly with our concession partner to resolve the issues at the single stand and expect it to pass inspection and reopen in time for the upcoming homestand,” the Angels said in a statement.

The Orange County Register publishes a weekly list of restaurants and other food vendors ordered to close and allowed to reopen by county health inspectors. Eleven establishments were closed from April 16 to 23, nine for rodent or cockroach infestations, one for insufficient hot water and one for unapproved remodeling. Angel Stadium concessions were on the list.

The team spokesman said rodent activity was not found in any food preparation areas, that it occurred underneath a storage rack and next to a water heater.

The county health services inspection report said that for the stand to reopen, rodent activity must be eliminated and equipment surfaces, food containers, shelves and floors must be cleaned and sanitized. Also, crevices larger than a quarter-inch must be sealed “to prevent vermin harborage.”

The offending stand had most recently passed inspection in June. Rodent issues at Angel Stadium had ceased since a 2007 report in The Times that the stadium had been cited 118 times for vermin violations in the previous two years. Major citations were issued in 33 instances in which rodents or other pests were detected where food was stored, prepared or served.

The Angels blamed the presence of vermin on the stadium’s open-air design and proximity to the Santa Ana River. They said that in 2005 heavy rains drove rats into the stadium and contributed to a high number of citations.

The Angels went to bat against the rats, announcing that cleaning crews would get to work an hour after each game instead of waiting until the next morning.

“The garbage had been sitting in the seating bowl area after games, and that problem is going to be eliminated as of tonight,” said Tim Mead, the Angels spokesman at the time.

By 2009, the team had eliminated the problem.

Until last week, that is.

“The Angels take great pride in delivering a high-quality fan experience at Angel Stadium,” the team said in the statement Tuesday, “including maintaining the cleanliness of our nearly 160 concession locations.”